Only then did Aponia calm down a little. Meanwhile, Zhu Bajie Li Ming and Tathagata Buddha Adam led the children in throwing out things that didn't belong in the orphanage.
As for those plum-blossom posts and the like, Aponia didn't even want to spare them a glance, afraid that if she looked one second longer, she wouldn't be able to stop herself from making the two of them explode.
No, hold it in. I have to hold it in. I raised these kids myself. It wasn't easy raising them this big. The kindness of raising them is greater than water. The kindness of raising them is greater than whose water? The kindness of raising them is as light as water.
As she thought about it, Aponia's heart abruptly settled. She had already seen the Goddess of Fate's choice. The star of death was shining above your head, Li Ming.
Aponia then smiled sweetly at Li Ming. Hearing the commotion, Hua also came out of the kitchen.
"Aponia." Aponia nodded at Hua. Seeing a Zhu Bajie and a Tathagata Buddha hard at work, Hua immediately understood what had happened.
After finally clearing everything away and finishing dinner, Li Ming had just wanted to slip off when Aponia approached with a smile. She cupped Li Ming's face in both hands and sighed. "I should not bind you as I did in the past, but you need it. Thus, the threads of fate connect at this moment."
Feeling the softness of the hands holding his face, Li Ming could only feel Aponia's eyes brimming with warmth and tenderness—killing intent.
Then Aponia tossed him out while holding his head like that. As for Adam, thankfully Aponia hadn't gone in for the kill. Otherwise, Li Ming figured he would have gotten to witness Yang Yuhuan uprooting a weeping willow.
Rubbing his neck and butt, Li Ming had to admit that Aponia was incredibly strong. All that flesh on her body definitely hadn't grown there for nothing.
Hua hadn't come out with him, perhaps because she was helping the children. After returning to his room in Golden Courtyard, Li Ming lay on his bed. Although he had turned into Zhu Bajie, Aponia hadn't hit him too hard. At the very least, his face was only red and swollen, without panda eyes or bruises.
Rubbing his face, Li Ming began another day of lying around like a corpse. Still, he wasn't completely giving up. He began preparing the doll costume he planned to give Pardo.
Li Ming had started preparing his strategy for Pardo long ago. First, he found a way to order fabric through Aponia, then he began working on the design. He couldn't remember many of the details, but Canned Food's most distinctive feature was being round and chubby, wasn't it?
Li Ming had prepared everything needed to make the doll costume. What puzzled him, though, was that ever since arriving in the Elysian Realm, he seemed never to have spent money. He mooched meals everywhere, and though he claimed he had ordered fabric through Aponia, he was really mooching that too.
"Looks like I need to find time to ask how to make money. It doesn't seem right to keep mooching like this."
After sewing a cat head, Li Ming's back and waist were aching.
He stretched, then entered the system and discovered that the earlier task had been completed.
Help Aponia care for the orphanage children. Aponia's favorability increased by 10—Completed.
Obtained Engraving: Discipline, Second—Do Not Deceive. Gain 5 Discipline stacks per second in battle, up to 200 stacks. Increase the character's total damage reduction by 0.3% per Discipline stack. When using a summon, deduct 50% of current Discipline stacks.
Li Ming read through it carefully and felt that something seemed off. It increased damage reduction, and calculated out, it could eventually provide up to sixty percent damage reduction.
But using a summon reduced the stacks by fifty percent. To Li Ming, that was—simply wonderful!
Honestly, Li Ming still didn't have a single summon, and he didn't even know what counted as one.
Maybe he would have to wait until the system unlocked Doll Supply. Forget Supply, he had barely obtained any crystals so far. He wanted to save his gift coins too, so he could only wait and see. Maybe the shop would refresh with doll fragments someday.
Still, Mobius seemed to know something about Armed Doll technology, so he could ask her later. Perhaps Professor Mobius would know.
In any case, this Engraving had no downside. As long as he had no summon, it was a pure buff and had no impact on Li Ming whatsoever.
But where was this Engraving? Li Ming checked his hands, his body, and even his butt, but found nothing. Only after going to the bathroom and looking in the mirror did he discover it was on his neck, just beneath his jaw and above his throat. Its intricate pattern gave off a faint glow.
Looking at the Engraving on his hands and the one on his face, Li Ming felt—he looked cool as hell!
He admired himself in the bathroom for quite a while, only going downstairs when his stomach began growling.
When he came down, he happened to see Chrono sprawled on the sofa watching TV, wearing a face mask with two cucumber slices over his eyes. What? You're asking how Chrono could see with cucumbers over his eyes? How would I know?
Brother Chrono was an alien. Would aliens be unable to see?
The moment Li Ming saw Chrono, his eyes lit up, because he knew dinner was taken care of tonight.
Whenever Chrono was home, Golden Courtyard would have a feast. Whenever he wasn't, Hua or Sakura generally cooked. As for Su, sometimes it was hard to say whether what he made was edible.
Sakura, meanwhile, only knew how to make sushi and tempura. Last time, Li Ming suggested he wanted to try the Kuchikamizake Sakura had made herself. Sakura shouted "hentai," then gave him a personally tailored seven-day swordsmanship training plan.
For the seven days afterward, Sakura's first response whenever she heard anything related to alcohol was to beat Li Ming up.
Later, after meeting Ling, Ling told him, "Not every shrine maiden makes Kuchikamizake. Our family shrine doesn't have that tradition."
Li Ming looked at Chrono and, as expected, there was a cursor above Chrono's head. It was so obvious that it even covered Chrono's face.
But Li Ming's most urgent task right now wasn't completing a commission. It was solving his dinner problem.
Chrono had already been irritated from watching TV. He was wondering what to do about the upcoming banquet. Everyone in Golden Courtyard was quite busy, and he had no other friends. After searching for a long time, he had finally found Hua to help, and had even tricked two little brats who didn't want to do their summer homework into helping.
But he still needed someone more mature to help. When he saw Li Ming come over, it was like someone had brought him a pillow just as he was getting sleepy.
"Brother Chrono, what are we having tonight?" Li Ming sidled over with a grin and sat beside Chrono.
Chrono suddenly started laughing, and even his face mask visibly warped. "Hehehehe, tonight's meal really is pretty good!"
He was clearly laughing, but Li Ming somehow felt that Chrono had bad intentions.
Li Ming swallowed and gathered his courage. "Brother Chrono, just say what you want to say. Don't be like this, okay? You're kind of scaring me!"
"Hahaha! Kid, you want to mooch dinner, and you still dare ask me? You've got guts!"
Li Ming felt something was off, but hunger overcame reason. His already muddled brain grew even hazier, and he felt a little floaty. "Please, I'm super brave, okay!"
"Oh? You're that brave?" Chrono removed the cucumber slices from his eyes, revealing a pair of hard-boiled eggs split neatly in half.
Those hard-boiled eggs even twitched flexibly twice. What the hell? Were you Ultraman?
But contrary to Li Ming's expectations, as Chrono spoke, he kept moving closer to Li Ming. Li Ming could already clearly feel the heat radiating from Chrono's body.
"Brother Chrono, Brother Chrono, what are you doing? Brother Chrono, don't!"
Then Hua had just returned from the orphanage when she saw Li Ming and Chrono, two grown men, pressed close together in the living room.
Hua folded her arms and looked at the two of them in confusion. "What are you doing?"
"Hua, save me! Brother Chrono is trying something inappropriate!" Seeing a savior, Li Ming hurriedly cried for help.
Seeing Hua approach, Chrono quickly adjusted his attitude. Hua was someone he had gone to great trouble to recruit, after all. He couldn't let her get scared away.
Li Ming: Wow. So it was fine if I got scared, huh?
Hua walked over helplessly. "All right. Chrono just wanted you to help out. Everyone will be on vacation in a few days, so Chrono wants to prepare a banquet. But there are too many people, and he can't handle it alone, so he wanted to ask you to help."
Li Ming let out a breath. "So it was a banquet. Brother Chrono, you could've just told me directly. Why make such a big production out of it? I thought you were going to do something to me. I mooch meals every day anyway, so it's only right that I help out."
"Hmph!" Chrono folded his arms and turned away from Li Ming. Clearly, Brother Chrono was being tsundere.
Your friend Chrono sent you an eye-roll.jpg.
Li Ming could guess that Brother Chrono was probably embarrassed. After all, he had always maintained the image of a refined, aloof, cool male god.
"All right, let's eat!"
Hua interrupted the emotional exchange between the two and took the prepared dinner from the microwave. "Ming, go call Cosmo and Griseo."
"Okay!" Li Ming went upstairs and first stopped outside Griseo's room. "Little Griseo, dinner's ready. Stop playing!"
He knocked twice, but didn't hear any response from the girl inside.
"Griseo?" He knocked twice more, but there was still no response. Then he heard movement coming from Cosmo's room.
Some strange sounds came from behind the half-open door. Li Ming knocked on it. "Cosmo, Griseo, it's time to eat!"
"I shall drive away your sins, I swear it by magic!"
"Cosmo, dinner's ready."
The moment Li Ming pushed open the door, he saw Cosmo holding a magic wand and wearing a purple wizard hat with cat ears, posing with his back to the door.
Griseo, who was using Cosmo as a model, noticed Li Ming instead. She clapped her little hands, and some paint from her brush had gotten onto her face.
Wearing a pale blue dress, she twisted her little hands together, clearly a bit nervous. "Big Brother Ming, Cosmo said he bought a Super Magical Girl costume."
"Then why is he the one wearing it?"
"Um, Cosmo said he wanted to try it on first."
"No, I didn't!"
Cosmo snapped back to his senses and hurriedly removed the hat and everything else from his head.
But when he saw the way Li Ming was looking at him, he knew his image had been completely ruined. Cosmo felt his life instantly grow bleak.
"All right, eat first."
"Okay, Big Brother Li Ming!" Griseo went downstairs on tiptoe, hopping as she went. Cosmo drifted down after her like a lonely ghost.
Before you continue