19: Chapter 19: Massaging Shen Wanxing's feet, a bronze-level tactical silenced pistol!

The hotpot was finished, and the remnants were cleaned up.

Shen Wanxing sat cross-legged on the mattress, barefoot, rubbing her left ankle.

She had squatted down over a dozen times searching boxes during the day, and that pair of high heels had worn her feet into a mess.

A small patch of skin on the inside of her arch was scraped raw, and the red marks on her heels had turned into pale purple bruises.

She hissed in pain, but was too embarrassed to make a sound.

Chen Chen finished putting things away and returned to the back row, spotting her grimacing expression at a glance.

He sat on the edge of the bed and patted his thigh.

"Put your feet up."

Shen Wanxing was stunned: "...Huh?"

"Feet."

She hesitated for a few seconds before slowly resting her left foot on his knee.

Her movements were cautious, her toes curled up, not daring to stretch out.

Those feet were excessively pale.

Her toes were slender and rounded, painted with light nude-pink polish, revealing a lustrous sheen under the dim light.

The arch of her foot had a beautiful curve, but the bruises from the rubbing ruined this delicacy.

Chen Chen held her ankle, pressed his thumb onto the most painful bruise on her arch, and slowly rubbed it in circles.

The pressure was neither too light nor too heavy.

His precise control was very useful at times like this—knowing where to press deeply and where to just glide over.

Shen Wanxing sucked in a sharp breath, her toes instinctively splaying, the nude-pink polished tips kicking wildly in his palm.

"It hurts... lighter..."

"Bear with it. If I don't rub out the pooled blood, it'll hurt even more to walk tomorrow."

She bit her lower lip and turned her face away. Her ears were red up to her hairline.

A man's hands were holding her feet, his thumb grinding from the sole across the arch, then sliding up the Achilles tendon to above the ankle bone.

This level of intimacy was even harder for her to handle than last night.

Over in the passenger seat, Shen Wanbing was sorting through transaction records on a virtual panel.

Her peripheral vision caught the scene in the rearview mirror—her sister's foot resting on that man's lap, the man bowing his head to rub her foot.

Shen Wanbing swiped the panel up, blocking her view.

Chen Chen finished rubbing the left foot and patted Shen Wanxing's calf:

"Switch to the other one."

When Shen Wanxing handed over her right foot, she wasn't really pulling away anymore.

She leaned halfway against the carriage wall, the collar of her windbreaker loose, most of her face buried in the collar, revealing only a pair of eyes misted over from the rubbing.

From this angle, paired with the collarbone line revealed beneath the collar of that silver evening gown—

Chen Chen didn't stop his movements, his lips curling slightly.

"Alright, I'll find you a pair of flats tomorrow." He let go,

"Go to sleep."

Shen Wanbing voluntarily reclined the passenger seat and pulled a blanket over herself.

There was a climate control system tonight, so the front row wouldn't freeze into an icicle, but it wasn't as comfortable as the back.

She didn't argue, nor did she ask who was sleeping with whom.

The partition was pulled shut.

The lights in the back row went out.

The mattress was 1.8 meters wide, so the two of them lying down were no longer as crowded as last night.

This time, Shen Wanxing didn't curl up against the carriage wall.

She lay on her side with her back to Chen Chen, the windbreaker still covering her, her breathing deliberately kept steady.

Chen Chen pressed up from behind, draping an arm over her waist.

He tightened his arm, pulling her into his embrace.

Shen Wanxing didn't struggle.

Her body stiffened slightly before softening, her back pressed against his chest.

It was quiet for about an hour.

Outside, the occasional sound of monster claws scraping against the wall was filtered by the mental shielding device into distant background noise.

Chen Chen's hands weren't idle.

His fingers reached in from the hem of her windbreaker, pressing against the smooth fabric of her evening gown, slowly moving upward.

Shen Wanxing's breathing lost its rhythm.

"...Don't..." She lowered her voice to the extreme,

"My sister isn't asleep yet..."

Chen Chen's lips pressed against the stray hairs on the back of her neck.

"Then you be quiet."

His palm crossed her waistline.

"You—"

Her mouth was blocked.

She struggled a few times, but her strength was completely insufficient.

The heat from their lips and teeth made her resistance increasingly perfunctory, her fingers gripping his wrists slowly loosening, turning instead to clutch the mattress beneath her.

Chen Chen rolled over to pin her underneath, his movements much more practiced than last night.

On the other side of the partition.

Shen Wanbing faced the car window, wrapped in a blanket, motionless.

The sounds coming from the back row were extremely light and fragmented.

The mattress occasionally let out a muffled sound or two, mixed with uncontrollable, faint gasps.

She pulled the blanket up to cover her ears.

But the climate control system ran too quietly.

Everything she was supposed to hear, not a single syllable was missed.

Shen Wanbing's fingers gripping the edge of the blanket tightened and then relaxed.

Relaxed and then tightened.

She couldn't tell what emotion was churning. Anger? Not entirely.

Jealousy? Even less so.

She just felt that some hidden place had been gently poked by something.

It didn't hurt, but it was itchy.

[Ding! Hongyan System causal relationship change detected.]

[Shen Wanbing: Lv.2 (Progress 38%).]

[Shen Wanxing: Lv.3!]

[Congratulations Host, Shen Wanxing's exclusive entry has been upgraded!]

[Entry Effect: [Charm Protection / Monster Ignore (Lv.3)] — Monster blind spot range reduced to 2 meters. "Absolute Stealth" daily usage increased to 2 times, single duration extended to 6 minutes, attack limit increased to 6 times.]

After the system prompt in his mind finished ringing, Chen Chen pulled the exhausted Shen Wanxing tighter into his arms.

She was curled up in the crook of his arm, her forehead against his collarbone, her whole body still trembling slightly.

"...You liar."

"You promised to be quiet... that was impossible..."

Chen Chen rubbed his chin against the top of her head without a word. Midnight.

The mechanical system voice chimed on time.

The changes within Chen Chen's body were even more violent than the previous two nights.

Muscle fibers tore and reorganized under his skin at an extremely high frequency, and a fine popping sound came from his bone joints.

In the bottom right corner of his retina, the attribute panel refreshed.

[Physique: 50 (5 times the human baseline value)]

[Agility: 26 (Neural reflex arc shortened, dynamic vision enhanced)]

Fifty points of Physique.

Chen Chen clenched his fist, the air in his palm compressed and made a crisp sound.

The RV Hongyan System operated simultaneously.

[Bronze-grade supply blind box issued.]

A dark cyan metal square box appeared out of thin air at the foot of the bed.

Chen Chen flipped open the latch with one hand.

Two pieces of gear with a cold gleam lay quietly in the shock-absorbing foam.

[Black Iron-grade Shadow Tactical Boots: Made of polymer sound-absorbing material, with a micro-air cushion structure on the sole. Completely eliminates footsteps after wearing, base movement speed increased by 10%.]

[Bronze-grade tactical silenced pistol (Infinite Ammo Version)]

[Caliber: 9mm]

[Special Effect: Built-in rule-grade silencing module, firing noise is lower than 20 decibels. Magazine capacity is infinite, but limited by barrel heat dissipation, continuous firing of more than 15 rounds requires a 5-second cooldown, otherwise the barrel will be ruined.]

[Armor Penetration: Causes fatal penetration to low-level Aberrants; for elite-level targets, must hit weak points.]

Two top-tier individual combat equipment pieces customized for night infiltration.

Chen Chen threw off the quilt and rolled out of bed.

His movements were agile; he put on his tactical vest and strapped the armor-piercing military dagger to the tactical belt on the outside of his right leg.

He slung the 36-slot storage backpack over his left shoulder.

He kicked into the Shadow Tactical Boots and tightened the paracord laces.

He holstered the tactical silenced pistol into the quick-draw holster at his waist.

Finally, he hung the multi-functional tactical goggles around his neck.

The movements of putting this on were extremely light, but the two women on the mattress still woke up.

Shen Wanxing rubbed her eyes and sat up.

The silver evening gown was long gone; she was only wrapped haphazardly in that oversized windbreaker, the collar wide open, exposing her charms.

Seeing Chen Chen fully armed, her sleepiness vanished completely.

"You're going out?"

Shen Wanxing didn't care about the exposure, leaning forward to grab his wrist, her voice trembling:

"The system broadcast said it very clearly: at night, monsters have all attributes increased by 50%, and bloodlust is doubled. If you go out now, it's all crazy monsters outside!"

The sliding partition in the front row was pulled open halfway.

Shen Wanbing, draped in a blanket, had a cold expression and laid out her analysis clearly:

"Night vision is limited, temperatures are extremely low, and monster activity reaches its peak. According to probability models, your lethality rate for single-soldier combat exceeds eighty percent. To risk so much for materials from a military factory, the cost-benefit ratio is unreasonable."

Chen Chen held Shen Wanxing's hand in return.

The girl's fingertips were ice-cold, but her palms were sweating from nervousness.

He tucked that hand back into the warm quilt, taking the opportunity to tuck in the corner of the blanket.

"My strength cannot be defined by that rigid system broadcast."

Chen Chen adjusted the strap of his goggles, his voice steady and firm,

"As long as I'm not surrounded by swarms of elite monsters, no one on this wasteland can keep me here."

He looked at Shen Wanbing, responding to her cost-benefit analysis:

"The night is dangerous. But precisely because it is dangerous, the defenses in the military factory are also the most rigid. Monsters have no tactics, only instinct. The darkness of night is protective coloration for them, and it is for me as well."

Chen Chen said no more.

"Lock the door tight; unless you hear my voice, don't open it for anyone who knocks."

He turned and walked toward the car door.

The heavy iron armored door was pushed open a crack, and biting cold wind mixed with a thick, fishy stench poured into the carriage.

Chen Chen stepped out in one stride and pulled the door shut behind him with a heavy thud.

Completely isolating the remaining warmth and ambiguity inside the vehicle.