22: Chapter 22 The Real Struggle for the "Host's Place"

The air in the living room seemed to solidify, with only the occasional sound of advertisements from the TV echoing awkwardly.

An Ran's words, "You must blow-dry my hair," still hung in the air, vibrating with a haughty declaration of sovereignty.

She lifted her chin provocatively, like a tiger cub that had just conquered a hill, her eyes locked directly onto Leng Qingxuan.

In her view, this was a finishing move. Blow-drying hair was an act full of intimacy and doting, a privilege accumulated over more than a decade of being Huang Mao's childhood sweetheart.

However, the scene of Leng Qingxuan being flustered or heartbroken, as she had imagined, did not appear.

Leng Qingxuan remained holding the pillow, not even changing her posture. She simply tilted her head slightly and swept a glance at An Ran with an expression one might use when looking at a "newbie in the starting village."

"Blow-drying hair, huh..." Leng Qingxuan repeated thoughtfully, her tone as flat as if she were discussing tomorrow's weather. "Indeed, his technique is very professional, and the temperature control is excellent; he won't burn the scalp."

The smugness on An Ran's face froze instantly: "What do you mean by that?"

"It means I've already cleared this dungeon." Leng Qingxuan extended a finger and gently twirled a strand of hair hanging by her ear, the corner of her mouth curling into a faint, mocking smile.

"Just last night, right here in this living room. He helped me blow-dry it for about ten minutes, very meticulously."

"Impossible!" An Ran reflexively retorted, turning her head to look at Huang Mao, her eyes screaming, "Tell me this is a lie."

Huang Mao rubbed his brow. Feeling two gazes focused on him simultaneously, he could only nod helplessly: "Her hair was soaked last night, and it's easy to catch a cold, so I just helped her out."

"Just helped her out?" An Ran's voice rose by an octave. "You haven't even 'just helped me out' that many times!"

"Don't be in such a rush; that was just a prerequisite quest." Leng Qingxuan interrupted An Ran's casting. She seemed to feel that the current firepower wasn't enough and decided to add more fuel to the fire.

She leaned forward slightly and lowered her voice, saying, "Compared to blow-drying hair, those... accidents that happened at the bathroom door might be more worth savoring, right, Master?"

Bathroom, accident, savoring.

Combined, these three words had the destructive power of a nuclear bomb.

Huang Mao's eyelids twitched. In his mind, the scene from last night—the fair skin and the perfect curves—flashed instantly.

He coughed and his gaze drifted: "That... that was force majeure."

"Force majeure?" An Ran keenly captured Huang Mao's abnormal reaction. She knew Huang Mao too well; although this guy usually looked calm, whenever he felt guilty, his eyes would drift to the bottom right.

"What... what did you two do?!" An Ran sprang up from the sofa, her finger trembling as she pointed at Leng Qingxuan. "You are shameless!"

"Shame is a fig leaf for the weak; the victor only needs to enjoy the spoils of war." Leng Qingxuan calmly threw out a line of chuunibyou dialogue, then glanced meaningfully at her own neckline.

"After all, some things, once seen, are seen. Visual memory is a save file that cannot be deleted."

At this moment, An Ran felt her worldview collapse. The "childhood sweetheart" bond she was so proud of seemed so pale and powerless in the face of the other party's vague yet suggestive "seen."

She lost? She lost right at the starting line?

No! Absolutely not!

An Ran gritted her teeth, her brain spinning rapidly amidst extreme jealousy and a sense of crisis. She had to counterattack; she had to bring out a trump card more explosive than "seen"!

"What's so great about seeing it!" An Ran took a deep breath and shouted, "Huang Mao and I used to take baths together when we were kids! The kind where we scrubbed each other's backs!"

"Have you seen it? Have you touched it? When we were baring it all to each other, you were still playing with mud!"

The living room fell into a deathly silence.

Even Leng Qingxuan's expressionless, icy face showed a crack.

Her brain, filled with 2D scrap, instantly began to run at high speed, automatically generating countless indescribable images.

"Take... take a bath together?" Leng Qingxuan's cheeks turned red at a visible speed, her originally cold aura instantly breaking.

However, she was projecting herself and Huang Mao into the scene.

"Ha! Scared, aren't you!" Seeing this, An Ran thought she had caught the other party's weak spot and immediately pressed the attack. "This is the gold content of a childhood sweetheart! Our relationship has long since..."

"How old were you then?" Leng Qingxuan suddenly interrupted her.

"Wha... what?" An Ran was stunned.

"I'm asking you, how old were you when you took baths together?" Leng Qingxuan quickly adjusted her state and returned to her rational analysis mode.

"If it was before the age of six, according to human behavioral science and legal definitions, that is an unconscious act by a person with no capacity for civil conduct and holds no reference value for any sexual relationship."

"Simply put, that was just two primate cubs cleaning each other's fur."

"You're the primate cub!" An Ran was furious.

"Isn't that so?" Leng Qingxuan pushed up her non-existent glasses. "Using kindergarten matters to benchmark heterosexual contact as adults—doesn't your logic judgment system need an upgrade?"

"The current Huang Mao is an adult male who will have impulses toward women, not that little brat who only knew how to play with a water gun."

This logical heavy punch hit An Ran squarely, leaving her dazed.

She opened her mouth but found she couldn't refute it. It was true; while childhood memories were beautiful, as they aged, that intimacy had instead become an insurmountable chasm of shame.

Looking at Leng Qingxuan's "you're so weak" expression, the blood rushed to An Ran's head. The string of reason snapped.

"Who says I only dared to bathe when I was a kid!" An Ran puffed out her chest, and although she wasn't as well-endowed as Leng Qingxuan, her momentum was astonishing. "I dare to do it now too! As long as Huang Mao nods, I dare to go into the bathroom with him right now! Do you dare?!"

The air solidified again.

This time, even the sound of the advertisements on TV seemed particularly harsh.

After shouting this, An Ran froze herself. She felt the temperature on her face climbing rapidly, and her heart was about to jump out of her throat.

What was she saying? What kind of madness was she spouting?

Huang Mao sat in the middle of the sofa, still holding the remote control that Leng Qingxuan had snatched away.

He looked at his childhood sweetheart in front of him—red-faced and neck-thick, clearly embarrassed to death yet still putting up a front—and couldn't help but raise the corners of his mouth slightly.

Still so easy to tease.

"Oh?" Huang Mao raised an eyebrow. Instead of smoothing things over as usual, he slowly stood up and turned to look directly into An Ran's eyes.

He approached step by step until the distance between them was less than ten centimeters.

An Ran could even smell the faint scent of body wash on him; it was a scent she was familiar with, but at this moment, it made her feel dizzy.

"Are you sure?" Huang Mao's voice was low and magnetic, carrying a hint of playfulness. "I happen to be sweaty and was about to take a shower. Since you're so sincere, then... together?"

As he spoke, he made a move to reach out and grab An Ran's wrist.

"Kyaaa—!"

An Ran let out a short scream and recoiled backward like a startled rabbit. She shielded her chest with both hands and curled into the corner of the sofa, her face red enough to bleed.

"You... you hooligan! Pervert! Who... who wants to be with you!"

Her original aggressive momentum vanished instantly, leaving only a feigned, weak scolding.

"Heh." Huang Mao chuckled and shook his head. "Still the same."

He knew An Ran too well. This person was a classic case of having the heart of a thief but not the courage—she could drive the conversation onto the highway with her mouth, but if it came to the real thing, she wouldn't even dare to release the handbrake.

Looking at An Ran, who looked like she wanted to find a hole in the ground to crawl into, Huang Mao didn't feel much sense of victory; instead, a faint warmth welled up in his heart.

This was the dynamic between him and An Ran—noisy, testing each other's bottom lines, yet incredibly safe.

However, to Leng Qingxuan, who was watching from the side, the flavor had completely changed.

Although An Ran's act of daring to talk but not do was quite funny...

But she looked at the undisguised doting in Huang Mao's eyes, and at An Ran's posture—ashamed and angry, yet not truly resisting.

That unspoken tacit understanding of each other's boundaries was like an invisible wall, isolating her.

Sour.

It felt like an unripe lemon being crushed in her heart.

Leng Qingxuan clutched the pillow in her arms tightly, her knuckles turning white from the force. She had clearly won the previous debate, so why did she feel like an outsider now?

Was this the so-called "childhood sweetheart"? Was that familiarity carved into the bones something that she, an "outsider," could never imitate?

Unwilling.

Truly unwilling.

If this was the threshold for the "Mistress of the House," if this was the resolve needed to stay in this home...

Leng Qingxuan took a deep breath, her eyes gradually becoming firm, even revealing a hint of madness. It was the determination that erupted after long-term suppression, in order to grab onto the only lifeline.

"If she doesn't dare..."

A cold voice suddenly rang out, interrupting the subtle atmosphere between Huang Mao and An Ran.

Huang Mao and An Ran turned their heads simultaneously.

Only to see Leng Qingxuan raise her head expressionlessly. Those eyes, which were usually lazy, were now frighteningly bright. She looked straight at Huang Mao and said, word for word:

"I can."

"Huh?" Huang Mao was stunned, thinking he had misheard.

"I said, if An Ran doesn't dare to satisfy your needs, I can." Leng Qingxuan stood up and tidied the oversized black T-shirt she was wearing, her tone as calm as if she were discussing what to eat for dinner.

"As a tenant, satisfying the landlord's reasonable... or not-so-reasonable demands is also part of the contract spirit. I have that resolve."

Boom—!

An Ran felt her scalp being blown off.

"You, you, you... what kind of nonsense are you talking about!" An Ran pointed at Leng Qingxuan, stuttering as she shouted. "Have you no shame! How can you even say such things!"

"This is called seizing the opportunity." Leng Qingxuan glanced at her indifferently. "On the battlefield, hesitation leads to defeat. The gun you don't dare to fire, I will fire; the high ground you don't dare to occupy, I will occupy."

"You're shifting the concept! You're taking advantage of the situation! You are..."

"Enough!"

Huang Mao felt his temples throbbing. If he let these two keep arguing, the house might be torn down tonight.

And this girl, Leng Qingxuan, why does she blurt out such aggressive words? And unlike An Ran, she doesn't just say it; she might actually do it.

But if it was just a moment of urgency, she might regret it later... so.

He stood up abruptly, his tall figure instantly enveloping the two girls.

"Shut up, both of you." Huang Mao put on a straight face, bringing out the authority of a guardian. "In that case, I'll go wash first."

"Before I come out, no one is allowed to go upstairs, and no one is allowed to get within half a step of the bathroom! Whoever dares to disobey the military order..."

Huang Mao narrowed his eyes, sweeping his gaze over the two of them, and said meaningfully: "Consequences at your own risk."

After saying this, he ignored these two troublemakers, turned, and strode toward the stairs.

Not until Huang Mao's figure disappeared around the corner of the stairs and the sound of the bathroom door closing was heard, did the tense atmosphere in the living room relax slightly.

An Ran, like a deflated ball, slumped on the sofa, burying her burning face into the pillow and letting out an annoyed whimpering sound.

So embarrassing, why did she chicken out just now? It was clearly an excellent counterattack opportunity...

As for Leng Qingxuan, she remained standing in place, her gaze fixed on the direction of the second floor.

She was ruminating on Huang Mao's words.

"Before I come out, no one is allowed to go upstairs, no one is allowed to get within half a step of the bathroom..."

"Consequences at your own risk..."

Leng Qingxuan frowned slightly, her brain beginning its signature "Dihua" analysis.

If it were a real rejection, why emphasize "consequences at your own risk"?

In the logic of 2D games, this kind of seemingly strict prohibition is often the trigger condition for a hidden quest.

"Do not disturb" = "Don't let others find out."

"Consequences at your own risk" = "If you dare to come, you must be prepared for something to happen."

This is a test.

Leng Qingxuan's eyes grew brighter and brighter.

That's right, this is definitely his final test for the "Mistress of the House" candidate! He is filtering to see who is the one with the courage, the initiative, and the ability to break the rules!

That coward An Ran will definitely be scared away by this prohibition, but this is exactly my chance!

As long as I dare to take this step, as long as I dare to defy his "order," I can prove that I am more suitable to stand by his side than An Ran!

This is not just a question of taking a bath; this is a trial of "resolve"!

Having figured this out, the smile at the corners of Leng Qingxuan's mouth gradually widened. She looked down at An Ran, who was still playing ostrich on the sofa, and a trace of pity flashed in her eyes.

"The reason a loser is a loser is that they only know how to follow the rules."

Leng Qingxuan murmured softly, then reached out to straighten her somewhat messy long hair, pulling the neckline of her T-shirt down a little.

"What are you doing?"

Hearing the movement, An Ran raised her head and looked at Leng Qingxuan vigilantly.

Leng Qingxuan didn't answer; she just turned around, back to An Ran, and walked toward the stairs leading to the second floor.

She was barefoot, stepping on the wooden floor without making a sound.

When she reached the stairs, she stopped, tilted her head slightly, leaving An Ran with a meaningful profile and those eyes flashing with strange light in the dim lamp light.

"Going to take... the position that belongs to the 'True Mistress'."

After saying that, she lifted her long legs and stepped onto the first step.

That was a step symbolizing courage and determination, just like Polnareff facing DIO.

That was the staircase leading to the "Forbidden Land," and also the entrance to the abyss of the Shuraba.