Chapter 39: Leng Qing Qiu Feels a Bit Off
“Mhm.”
Disregarding Lu Zhiyin’s reaction, Leng Qing Qiu stuffed the phone into Lu Zhiyin’s arms.
The gray box felt heavy, making Lu Zhiyin feel a bit breathless.
She had originally planned to save up money and buy a phone for a few hundred yuan, just enough to get by. After all, in this terrible world, she had no desire to play games; as long as it worked, that was fine.
Besides, writing novels probably didn’t require high specs, right?
Pressing her lips together, Lu Zhiyin looked at Leng Qing Qiu beside her.
“Um… this, can it be returned…”
She wanted to hand the box back to Leng Qing Qiu, but Leng Qing Qiu pushed it back.
“No, the shop owner said that once sold, there are no returns or exchanges.”
This statement was, of course, false. As long as it wasn’t opened, it could be returned.
“Then what do I do… Three thousand yuan, I really can’t afford it…”
With a pained expression, Lu Zhiyin felt that Leng Qing Qiu was deceiving her. What reason was there for it not to be returnable?
However, it was also possible it was a game setting issue? When she played games before, she hadn’t paid much attention to such settings, as she didn’t shop much and focused on romancing the female leads to reach the ending.
On the other hand, did Leng Qing Qiu have any reason to lie to her now?
“Didn’t I say, you can just pay me back when you have money? Just owe it for now.”
As soon as she finished speaking, Leng Qing Qiu took the phone box from Lu Zhiyin’s hand, opened it, and took out a white-cased phone.
After turning it on, the screen flashed the logo of the Vegetable brand phone.
Catching a glimpse of the cut-off vegetable logo from the corner of her eye, Lu Zhiyin felt a bit dazed.
This was probably the equivalent of the Fruit brand phones from her previous life?
In reality, it was pretty much as Lu Zhiyin thought. This was a renowned brand in this butter world, and its price was indeed substantial, with no inflated costs.
Although Leng Qing Qiu wanted to leverage money to bind Lu Zhiyin, she wouldn’t stoop to deceiving her in something like this.
After all, falsely reporting prices was too easy to discover.
After turning on the phone, Leng Qing Qiu checked its basic specifications and then handed it to Lu Zhiyin.
“Oh right, do you have a SIM card? Was it also snatched away by Qin An?”
Leng Qing Qiu’s question jolted Lu Zhiyin out of her daze.
Clutching the phone in her hand, she knew there was no point in struggling any further. She had inexplicably incurred a debt of three thousand yuan just like that.
Unable to resist, she could only passively accept.
“Mhm…”
Forcing a smile, Lu Zhiyin briefly answered Leng Qing Qiu’s question.
At the same time, she realized even more problems.
Without a SIM card, she couldn’t even log into the original protagonist’s social accounts, let alone continue writing the original story.
If she wanted to earn money through novels, she would likely have to come up with a new concept herself. For Lu Zhiyin, who had never written a book before, this was undoubtedly difficult.
Thus, Lu Zhiyin felt even more despair…
Leng Qing Qiu, beside her, seemed not to have noticed Lu Zhiyin’s unusual state and continued to chatter on about her own affairs.
“I have a secondary SIM card, you use it for now. I’ll help you get a new one later.”
Finding a small SIM card, she inserted it for Lu Zhiyin and patted Lu Zhiyin’s shoulder.
“Th… thank you…”
She forced another smile and quietly thanked her.
Lu Zhiyin had no interest in checking out the phone for the time being. She put the item in her pocket.
“Um, my keys? Did you bring them back for me?”
She wanted to go home and didn’t want to stay in Leng Qing Qiu’s house anymore.
Once she got back, there were many things to do.
She needed to find a way to earn money as soon as possible, wrap her wounds with bandages, prepare dinner, and wash the clothes she had changed out of.
“…Ah…”
Hearing Lu Zhiyin’s words, Leng Qing Qiu showed a blank expression, her face stiffening for a moment before turning awkward and embarrassed.
“It seems I forgot. Sorry, Zhiyin, you’ll have to stay here another night.”
With a hint of apology, Leng Qing Qiu rubbed her nose.
Her apology was sincere, but the micro-expressions she displayed were fake.
Her words gave Lu Zhiyin a bigger headache, and her breathing grew rapid.
“…Sigh… It’s fine… Just please make sure to bring my keys back tomorrow.”
She took a deep breath, wanting to say something accusatory, but before it left her lips, it turned into forgiveness.
A wave of inexpressible grievance washed over her, and Lu Zhiyin almost felt like biting her teeth to pieces.
“Mhm, I definitely won’t forget tomorrow.”
“As if.”
Distractedly, Leng Qing Qiu stood up and returned to the kitchen to start preparing dinner, leaving Lu Zhiyin alone in the living room.
“…”
Taking the phone out of her pocket and placing it on the coffee table, Lu Zhiyin picked up the bandages.
Although the series of events had made her extremely upset, she still had to use the bandages to tend to her wounds.
After bandaging the wounds on the back of her hands and her palms, Lu Zhiyin took off her clothes and pants, and used bandages to cover the other injured parts of her body as quickly as possible. She didn’t want Leng Qing Qiu to see her body anymore.
She vaguely felt that Leng Qing Qiu was becoming more and more overbearing, and interacting with her was becoming increasingly difficult, though she hadn’t been easy to get along with from the start.
The last ending she had achieved in her previous life flashed through her mind.
Being killed by Leng Qing Qiu in a wedding dress, thinking of Leng Qing Qiu’s crazed appearance in the ending, Lu Zhiyin felt a shiver run down her spine.
She seemed to feel the pain of a sharp blade piercing her body, and she began to doubt her decision to prioritize romancing Leng Qing Qiu.
Was this the right choice or not? Thinking that Leng Qing Qiu’s affection level wasn’t high yet, and she shouldn’t become that deranged for now, Lu Zhiyin felt slightly better.
Before Leng Qing Qiu came out of the kitchen, Lu Zhiyin had already put on her clothes. At that very next moment, Leng Qing Qiu walked out of the kitchen carrying two plates of food.
One plate was shredded pork with potato, and the other was simple stir-fried small bok choy.
“The dishes are ready. The rice isn’t cooked yet; I just put it on, so it’ll be a while before we can eat.”
Sitting beside Lu Zhiyin, Leng Qing Qiu noticed the bandages wrapped around Lu Zhiyin’s palms and her somewhat disheveled clothes.
She could tell at a glance that Lu Zhiyin had already bandaged herself, but Leng Qing Qiu didn’t think she had done a very good job.
Feeling inexplicably dissatisfied, why couldn’t she have waited for her to help?
Leng Qing Qiu reached out a hand, grabbed Lu Zhiyin’s wrist, and stroked Lu Zhiyin’s bandaged palm with her fingers.
The stinging sensation made Lu Zhiyin look up and meet Leng Qing Qiu’s eyes.
“Why the rush? You could have waited for me to help you after your bath.”
Leng Qing Qiu’s tone was pleasant, but her grip was not as calm as her words.
Unknowingly, the hand holding Lu Zhiyin’s wrist began to tighten.
“…It hurts…”
After a cry of pain, Leng Qing Qiu released her hand.
She looked at her own palm, somewhat bewildered.
Once the desire to control someone’s mind arose, it seemed to start extending infinitely. She felt she was becoming a bit strange.
And she wasn’t the only one who felt something was strange.
“I feel… you seem a bit off…”
Rubbing her wrist, Lu Zhiyin looked at Leng Qing Qiu.
There were physiological tears welling up in her eyes. Leng Qing Qiu’s grip was outrageously strong, giving Lu Zhiyin the illusion that her wrist was about to be crushed.
