When Merlin agreed, not only Gwen but also the flamboyantly dressed woman across from them was stunned.
She had been standing by the street and had only meant to casually tease the young couple passing by. She had never expected the boy to actually agree.
"Here's the money. My place is upstairs. Come with me." Merlin took out thirty dollars and handed it to the still-dazed woman before heading toward Walden Apartments.
"Hey, hey, Merlin, do you know what you're doing?" Seeing Merlin hand over the money, Gwen finally snapped out of it and hurried after him.
Her mind was still struggling to process it. She simply could not understand why Merlin had agreed to something like this.
"I know. Thirty dollars a time isn't that expensive." Merlin looked at the anxious Gwen, amusement flashing through his eyes, but offered no explanation.
Looking at the thirty dollars in her hand and thinking of Merlin's handsome, youthful face, the woman excitedly licked her lips and hurried after him.
The young couple must have had a fight, and she had lucked into an opening.
With a boy like that, she would not be losing out even if she had to pay him herself. Who would have thought she would get such an unexpected windfall today...
"You know, and yet...!" Gwen was immediately furious. Looking at Merlin's calm expression, she did not know what to say for a moment.
Once they got home, Gwen watched Merlin bring the woman into his room. She returned to her own place in a huff and slammed the door hard behind her.
"Gwen, what's wrong? Why are you so angry?" Mrs. Stacy, who had been sitting in the living room, looked surprised when she saw her daughter storm in and slam the door.
"I think you'd better go take a look at Merlin's place." Gwen crossed her arms and pouted.
"Merlin? What happened to him?" Mrs. Stacy froze. Merlin might have been somewhat withdrawn in her eyes, but he was also a strong and sensible child.
"He... he brought a woman home from the street."
"What? Oh my God, really?" Mrs. Stacy shot to her feet in shock.
"You'll know if you go look."
"Come on, handsome. I'll definitely make you feel good." The moment they entered, the woman crouched down and approached Merlin with watery eyes.
Her hands had already reached out impatiently.
"I know boys your age are full of pent-up heat. Let me help cool you down first."
"Compared to your little girlfriend, I can handle any position. I'll definitely make you feel like you're in heaven."
"Wait, wait. Can you really do anything?" Merlin quickly raised a hand to stop the woman, who looked as though she wanted to devour him whole.
"Of course. As long as it isn't too perverted, I can take it." The woman gave him a seductive look. She had not expected this handsome boy to be so adventurous.
"Good!"
But when the woman saw what Merlin wanted her to do, she went completely numb.
Was that even something a person could think of?
"Oh, shit, there are way too many!"
"Didn't you say you could do anything?"
"I said I could do anything, but what you're making me do..." The woman's voice from inside the room seemed too embarrassed to continue.
Outside the door, Mrs. Stacy and Gwen immediately widened their eyes at what they heard.
BANG BANG BANG!!!
"Merlin, open the door!" Mrs. Stacy hurriedly knocked on the door. She did not oppose Merlin having those kinds of relationships, but he should date normally, not casually pick someone up off the street.
What if he caught something?
"Coming!"
Merlin soon opened the door and looked at Mrs. Stacy's dark expression in confusion.
"Gwen told me all about it!" Mrs. Stacy took a deep breath, keeping her tone as calm as possible.
"Listen, child, I understand puberty, but you absolutely must not touch this kind of thing."
"What are you talking about?" Merlin opened the door wider, revealing the situation in the room.
"The three of us had barbecue on the balcony yesterday. We left a lot of dishes in the sink and didn't have time to wash them. She said she could do anything for thirty dollars."
Inside the room, the woman wore an apron with a disgruntled expression, grumbling nonstop as she worked.
"My God, couldn't you at least put some dish soap in the water and let them soak? The stuff stuck around the edges of these bowls has hardened. They're really hard to clean."
"I'm seriously having terrible luck today, running into something like this."
"I'm so stupid. This guy already has a girlfriend. How could he possibly be interested in someone like me?"
"This is a scam!"
Gwen: "..."
Mrs. Stacy: "..."
Watching the woman angrily scrub dishes in the kitchen, Mrs. Stacy and her daughter were both dumbfounded.
"So you hired her just to wash your dishes?" Mrs. Stacy could not understand Merlin's way of thinking.
"Yes. Hiring a cleaning service would take too much time, and I have things to do myself."
"She said she could do anything for thirty dollars, so I handed it over to her."
Mrs. Stacy and Gwen: "..."
That actually made a lot of sense...
Seeing the amusement in Merlin's eyes, how could Gwen not realize she had been played?
It had not gone the way she expected, but... her fists were itching!
If she were not afraid of accidentally beating Merlin to death, she would definitely let him have a taste of her fists.
Seeing her daughter's embarrassed and furious expression, Mrs. Stacy seemed to understand what had happened.
"All right, be more careful next time. You can just let me handle something like this." She shook her head with a laugh and left.
Meanwhile, Gwen stayed behind and began denouncing Merlin.
The woman: "Is no one going to speak up for me?"
If she had come over for regular housekeeping, thirty dollars would definitely not have been enough. But if she was only washing dishes, the pay was perfectly acceptable.
Watching the two high school students bicker and roughhouse on the couch, she grumbled to herself before continuing to scrub the dishes with a steel wool pad.
There was definitely not enough time to soak the hardened grime loose at this point.
It was different from what she had expected, but as long as she got paid, it was fine.
"Take a look at this. Peter sent me an experimental algorithm." After the two argued for a while, Merlin pulled Gwen over to look at the email Peter had sent on the Notebook.
Merlin had not lied. He really did have things to do.
Compared to him, Gwen was much better at biological research, and she was also Professor Connors's intern.
As for why Peter had come to him, it was because Merlin had previously thought Peter would become Spider-Man. During one of their conversations, he had mentioned calculations related to the decay rate of cross-species gene experiments.
"Peter sent this to you?" Gwen was somewhat surprised, then focused on examining the data on the Notebook.
But soon, her brows furrowed.
"Lizard Regeneration Gene? Isn't this Professor Connors's research project?"
For some reason, she suddenly thought of the Lizardman who had appeared at the convention center last night.
"Yes. Peter seems to be involved in the project too. This was what we were discussing this morning."
"Because the decay rate was too fast during testing, the experiment's success rate kept dropping rapidly, which triggered a series of unknown complications."
"There should be a problem with the algorithm."
Gwen moved the mouse, enlarged the experimental data, and carefully examined it.
For some reason, ever since gaining spider abilities, biological genetics research had become increasingly intuitive for her.
Thus, after seeing this experimental data, she quickly found the problem.
After confirming the issue, she skillfully found some paper and a pen in Merlin's room and began writing.
"Scratch, scratch, scratch..." The pen tip scraped continuously across the blank Notebook, and a concise formula soon appeared on the page.
After making several revisions, she quickly went over to Merlin, took the Notebook, and began entering it.
"Find time to test it. This Decay Rate Algorithm should work."
Before you continue