31: Chapter 31 Turning a Clumsy Act into a Clever Success
After V sent the message, it was like a stone sinking into the ocean; she hadn't received a reply even after five or six minutes.
She stared at her personal terminal screen. The irritation from her hangover mixed with an inexplicable urge from deep within to salvage something, making it impossible for her to stay in her apartment with any peace of mind.
"Forget it, it's just in the next building anyway. Pull yourself together, V, don't embarrass yourself."
She took a deep breath, as if heading into battle, grabbed a clean jacket to throw on, and headed straight out the door.
The two high-end apartment buildings were separated only by a well-maintained but deserted skybridge.
The morning air was crisp and cold, which helped her sober up a bit, but her cheeks were still burning slightly from the earlier memories.
Standing in front of Lin Yi's apartment, V nervously adjusted her collar, which wasn't even messy, took another deep breath, and raised her hand to knock on the door.
"Knock, knock, knock."
There was no movement inside.
V frowned and knocked harder.
"Bang, bang, bang!"
Still no response. Could he have gone out?
Impossible. His car was sent for cleaning last night, and given how late he was up last night, he must still be sleeping.
A stubborn thought of "I can't have come all this way for nothing" and "I must resolve the issue immediately" took over V's clever brain.
V began to pound on the seemingly sturdy smart door with a rhythm and force that felt like she was trying to tear it down.
"Rat-a-tat-tat—bang, bang, bang!"
...
Inside the apartment, Lin Yi was immersed in a deep, baby-like sleep. Last night's experience had been too "eventful," leaving him both mentally and physically exhausted, much like the days before a project launch in his past life; he was completely wiped out.
However, the continuous, increasingly loud knocking sounded like an electric drill, stubbornly piercing through his sleep barrier.
He frowned in his dream, turned over, and covered his ears with a pillow.
But the knocking seemed to have a piercing quality, striking precisely at his auditory nerves.
"Damn it..." he mumbled vaguely, his consciousness struggling to surface from the mire, "...Who's out there calling for souls at my door so early in the morning? I didn't order any door-to-door service... What kind of idiot..."
The knocking continued, with the momentum of someone ready to tear the door down if it wasn't opened.
Lin Yi finally couldn't take it anymore and bolted up from the bed, the dizziness from his low blood pressure making his vision go dark.
He haphazardly pulled on a pair of pants, shirtless, radiating a thick aura of morning grumpiness. He looked as if he were ready to send whoever was knocking back into a baby-like sleep if they didn't have a good reason.
He stumbled to the door and yanked it open.
"F*ck! Who is it! So early in the..." The words cut off halfway in his throat.
Standing outside the door was V.
She seemed to have washed up carefully and changed into a crisp casual outfit. Her misty blue mullet was styled in a casual yet sharp way, with a few stray hairs sweeping across her eyes. There wasn't much sign of a hangover on her face, but a trace of fatigue remained in her eyes, along with... a complex emotion he couldn't quite read, a mix of nervousness, embarrassment, and determination.
"Uh... V?" Lin Yi's morning grumpiness instantly dissipated, replaced by a sense of being caught off guard, "Why are you... up so early?"
V looked at Lin Yi, who was bleary-eyed, his hair a bird's nest, and shirtless, and her heart skipped a beat against her will.
She thought to herself: It's not like I haven't seen a male body before, but this guy Lin Yi, he looks lean but has clear muscle definition, especially his abs... Wait! What the hell am I doing!
V abruptly averted her gaze, her earlobes heating up slightly.
"I... I came to thank you." V tried to make her voice sound calm and natural, but the slight tremor in her tone betrayed her, "Last night... thank you. I caused you quite a bit of trouble."
Her gaze wandered, not daring to look directly into Lin Yi's eyes, especially with him looking like this.
"Oh... it's nothing, it was just a small favor." Lin Yi rubbed his eyes and stepped aside to let her in, "Come in first, it's cold outside."
He had finally fully woken up by now. Recalling everything from last night, especially that final "tragic" scene, he felt a bit unable to keep a straight face himself.
V hesitated for a moment, then walked inside.
The overall layout of the apartment was similar to hers, but it felt more... geeky.
A corner of the living room was filled with various terminal devices and tools, data cables tangled together, and several disassembled cybernetic parts were placed randomly on an anti-static mat, looking like they hadn't been tidied up yet.
The two stood in the living room, the atmosphere momentarily silent and subtle.
"Um... your car, I've already contacted a car wash to handle it, I'll cover the costs." V said, just to fill the silence.
"Yeah, it's fine, no big deal, I took care of it last night." Lin Yi scratched his messy hair.
"And... yesterday... was I very unseemly?" V finally mustered the courage to look up at Lin Yi, her eyes carrying a trace of imperceptible anxiety.
"Huh? It was alright, I guess..." Lin Yi subconsciously wanted to avoid the topic.
But he subconsciously scratched his face with his finger and said, "It was just... quite lively."
"I think I even... threw up all over you?" V's voice grew quieter, and her face turned red.
"..." Lin Yi's mouth twitched. The phrase "highly effective" almost slipped out, but he held it back, "Ahem... you were drunk at the time, it was an accident, all just an accident. As long as you're okay."
V looked at Lin Yi's expression—he wanted to comfort her but didn't know where to start, and even looked like he wanted to laugh but was forcing it back. For some reason, the embarrassment and nervousness in her heart dissipated a little.
She suddenly felt that the man in front of her didn't seem to be mocking her in his heart.
[Lin Yi: Kids, watch me hold back a big one for her.]
An impulse welled up in her heart; V took a small step forward, closing the distance to the point where they could clearly feel each other's breath.
She tilted her face up, looking at Lin Yi's still somewhat dazed eyes, her voice carrying a hint of coquettishness and probing that she herself didn't even notice:
"Then... you've seen me in such an unseemly state, and you still... helped me clean up so 'thoughtfully'... Lin Yi, tell me, do you... have any ideas about me?"
As soon as the words left her mouth, V was stunned herself.
This was completely beyond the script she had prepared in her head; it was more like a subconscious probe, mixed with a bit of coquettishness and provocation.
She had originally just wanted to know if her image could still be salvaged in this man's eyes, but now she'd played it too big—why did her mouth say something different from what her brain was thinking?
[Author: Kids, it's my turn to exert some effort.]
[V: Is this right? Oh, no, no. Author: Oh, yes, it's right.]
Lin Yi was stunned by her sudden direct question.
Looking at V's face up close—delicate yet heroic, flushed with shyness and nervousness, and her eyes, which were exceptionally bright at this moment—he couldn't help but recall some scenes from last night: the hazy look in her eyes when she leaned on him after getting drunk and said "You smell so good," and her rare, vulnerable posture when she was sprawled on the bed, stripping away all her defenses...
His heart skipped a few beats, and a strange emotion spread through his chest.
He opened his mouth, but for a moment, he didn't know how to answer.
Deny it? It seemed too insincere. Admit it? He felt the timing and occasion were too strange.
And this "blank" look of his, as if he were lost in thought or had been caught in his own secret feelings, was interpreted by V as another signal—he was tacitly admitting it! He really was interested in her!
A surge of triumph, shyness, and a reckless courage filled V's chest instantly.
She didn't wait for Lin Yi to answer, but pressed half a step closer, almost sticking to him, and said quickly in a tone that was both overbearing and implicitly expectant:
"Next Monday! I'm off! You... you have to make time! Accompany me somewhere!"
This was less of an invitation and more of an order, but the slight tremor in the tail of her voice exposed the speaker's lack of confidence.
Lin Yi's brain was still processing the philosophical question of "whether he had any ideas," when he was stunned by this sudden "order."
Next Monday? Accompany her somewhere? He subconsciously assumed that V had some official business that required his help, like acting as a bodyguard or handling technical issues.
After all, in his knowledge of V from his past life, she eventually became an independent and powerful mercenary. Although she was currently staying in the company, the sudden proposal of a "date" was a bit of a leap.
[Lin Yi: Is she messing with me?]
It was just like in a college dorm, when a guy you weren't very close to suddenly kicked the door open and asked, "Are we going or not?", and you subconsciously threw on your clothes and followed him out.
Lin Yi did have a good impression of V, and last night's experience had left him restless, but he hadn't even thought about a "date."
Therefore, almost reflexively, and with a bit of the bewilderment of not being fully awake, he nodded:
"Oh... sure. Monday, right? No problem."
He agreed so crisply and cleanly, without the slightest hesitation or evasion.
V's eyes lit up instantly, as if all the stars in the sky had poured into them at that moment.
All the previous embarrassment and anxiety transformed into immense joy and a sense of "just as I thought" triumph.
She forced herself to suppress the urge to jump up, trying hard to maintain her outward composure, but the corners of her mouth were already curling upward uncontrollably.
"Then... it's a deal! No backing out!" She finished saying this quickly, as if afraid Lin Yi would change his mind, turned around, and walked toward the door, "I... I'm going back first! You... you should sleep a bit more!"
When she reached the door, she suddenly stopped, looked back at Lin Yi with a complex expression—a mix of shyness and slyness—and then, like a startled rabbit, opened the door and scurried away quickly.
"Hum."
The door closed gently, and the apartment returned to silence.
Lin Yi stood alone, shirtless, with his bedhead, his mind still replaying the short but information-packed conversation just now.
"Accompany her somewhere... next Monday..." He muttered to himself, scratching his head, "What is it for? To wipe out some gang stronghold? Or to hack into some company server?"
He had no idea that he had just agreed to a date in the most "steel-straight man" way possible.
Only when V's figure disappeared at the end of the corridor did Lin Yi realize, with hindsight, that the faint fragrance V brought when she leaned in, and the light flickering in her eyes, didn't seem... entirely like she was going on a mission.
He looked down at his shirtless torso, then recalled V's blushing, composed-but-acting-composed appearance just now, and an absurd thought that made his heart race finally, dully, bubbled up:
"Wait... her look just now... could it be...?"
[Lin Yi: Damn, I see it now, the person across from me is a 3000-level player, and I'm being played in the palm of her hand.]
Mr. Lin Yi, who had been single for over 40 years across two lifetimes, stood in the morning apartment and, for the first time, deeply doubted his own ability to judge interpersonal relationships.
At the same time, he clearly realized that the V in front of him was no longer just a game character on a screen that could be controlled at will, but a living, breathing woman with complex emotions and thoughts, making him unable to stop himself from letting his imagination run wild.
[Lin Yi: I'm just kidding, I can let my imagination run wild even about a digital version, heh heh heh.]