Yukinoshita's Correction Method

That meant Yukino Yukinoshita had thought up some other unknown order, which meant the situation had slipped out of his control.

But how was Dong Yunshan supposed to make Yukino Yukinoshita order him to put on a headband and meow?

The previous request had given Dong Yunshan inspiration.

After guessing that Sasaki's girlfriend was fake, Dong Yunshan had focused his thoughts on how to cover for Sasaki.

Because of that, he had missed the crucial clue and failed to discover the truth.

The same thing could happen to Yukino Yukinoshita.

As long as he made Yui Yuigahama and Komachi Hikigaya stay, with onlookers present, and added a smug smile, Yukino Yukinoshita would assume Dong Yunshan was scheming against her.

Based on Dong Yunshan's understanding of Yukino Yukinoshita, she would absolutely choose to face her own failure head-on.

Then Dong Yunshan's objective would be achieved.

No... he still couldn't laugh. He had to hold it in.

Dong Yunshan pretended to avoid Yui Yuigahama and Komachi Hikigaya's gazes and covered his face.

Next, as long as he waited for Yukino Yukinoshita to give the order to meow, he would have won.

The law of victory's Linglong relay had already been 964 confirmed 460.

Forty seconds... no, as long as he pretended for another thirty-five seconds, that would be enough.

8117 three.

One, two, three, four, five...

Yukino Yukinoshita clenched her fists.

She had fallen for it!

To think there would come a time when she, too, would be carried away by victory... no, by past failure and the victory before her eyes.

Perhaps because she had spent too much time with Dong Yunshan, she had actually made the same mistake as him.

Form.

She had focused too much on form and neglected the inner essence.

A tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye.

What she needed to return to Dong Yunshan was not the act of putting on cat-ear headband and meowing.

It was the embarrassment and vexation she had experienced in the process.

No matter what she ordered Dong Yunshan to do, as long as she made Dong Yunshan experience what she had felt back then, the goal of a tooth for a tooth would be achieved.

Even if Dong Yunshan put on cat ears and meowed, as long as he did not experience what she had felt at the time, it could not count as an eye for an eye.

Dong Yunshan had realized precisely this point, which was why he had deliberately guided her attention toward the onlookers and provoked her into overcoming herself.

Letting her win was for the sake of making her lose.

This was retreating in order to advance within retreating in order to advance!

From the very beginning, she should never have put that cat-ear headband away.

And just now, she should have even less taken that cat-ear headband out.

Yukino Yukinoshita narrowed her cold eyes slightly, her gaze seeming to pierce through Dong Yunshan's palm and see the snickering face behind it.

That guy... should be silently counting the time right now.

Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen...

That was about enough. Dong Yunshan slowly lowered the hand covering his face.

If he kept pretending, it would seem a little fake.

At a time like this, he had to show a little of the spirit of accepting the outcome of a bet.

He would let Yukino Yukinoshita take a good look at how he looked now and gain some satisfaction in her heart.

Based on Yukino Yukinoshita's personality, this appreciation period would not be too long, probably about ten seconds.

Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five...

There was not much time left for her. Yukino Yukinoshita clearly realized that.

She had to use the brief time while Dong Yunshan was immersed in the joy of victory to think up an order that would be enough to make Dong Yunshan feel embarrassed and vexed.

She had already wasted one order. She could not waste a second order.

Calm down. She could not let past failure, the success just now, and the failure before her eyes go to her head. She must not care about meaningless form. She had to think more deeply about the essence...

That was it!

Winning the request was not the final goal.

Yukino Yukinoshita was just about to speak, but then pressed her lips together again.

Wait a little longer...

She wanted the long-term victory, and she wanted the victory before her eyes too.

She had to take the command she had just wasted, put it to use again, and then seize the final victory in her hands.

To do that, she had to wait a little longer—until the instant Dong Yunshan thought he was about to win, when his nerves were stretched the tightest.

Thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four... thirty-five!

Yukino Yukinoshita and Dong Yunshan finished counting almost at the same time.

The instant joy showed on Dong Yunshan's face, Yukino Yukinoshita calmly spoke. "My second command is the same as your second command..."

This was exactly the moment Dong Yunshan had been waiting for. He crooked both hands into claws and swiped fiercely through the air, sinking his breath into his core. "Meow—!"

It carried a joy like a fierce tiger bursting from its cage.

Yui Yuigahama, who had been about to take a photo, stared in stunned disbelief, hardly trusting her own ears.

That one cry nearly made her hallucinate.

In a daze, she actually seemed to see the wild arrogance of a tiger roaring through the mountains and forests.

Dong Yunshan didn't look like he was putting on cat ears to accept a punishment. He looked more like he had peeled off his human skin, broken free of his restraints, and returned to the mountains.

It was practically the cat version of The Call of the Wild.

Komachi Hikigaya jolted in fright. If her family's cat heard that cry, it might go into stress shock.

After finishing that meow, Dong Yunshan still looked unsatisfied and changed poses. His mouth had only just opened when he heard a voice tinged with laughter.

Yukino Yukinoshita covered her mouth with one fair little hand, her eyes curved in a smile, brimming with amusement. "...would be far too boring."

Dong Yunshan: "???"

Since when did she get to pause dramatically like that?

Damn it. He had fallen into Yukino Yukinoshita's trap.

"My second command is..." Meeting Dong Yunshan's startled, suspicious gaze, Yukino Yukinoshita spoke with complete satisfaction. "I want to help you complete a request."

Dong Yunshan vaguely sensed something was wrong. "That's all?"

"That's all." Yukino Yukinoshita leisurely folded her arms in front of her. "I want you to make a request of me and have me help you accomplish something you can't accomplish yourself."

In other words, Dong Yunshan couldn't just find some random matter and use it to brush off this command.

Things he could do himself, he had to do himself. Only things he couldn't do could be entrusted to Yukino Yukinoshita.

Yukino Yukinoshita had always believed that teaching a man to fish was better than giving him a fish, so it was only natural that she would set a premise like that.

Natural, but by no means simple.

Having just been tricked once, Dong Yunshan naturally wouldn't let down his guard.

After only a brief thought, he saw through the trap inside it.

On the surface, Dong Yunshan didn't need to do anything. Instead, Yukino Yukinoshita was going to help Dong Yunshan with something.

But in reality, handing something he couldn't solve over to Yukino Yukinoshita was equivalent to losing again.

Yukino Yukinoshita had just used one command in exchange for making Dong Yunshan do what he had previously needed two commands to accomplish.

And now she wanted to use her second command in exchange for a third command plus one admission of defeat from Dong Yunshan.

In her dreams!

"I refuse," Dong Yunshan said flatly. "That's basically me losing again, and then I'd have to agree to another demand from you."

"Of course there won't be a new demand. Once I complete your request, this command will be over." Yukino Yukinoshita averted her gaze. "What, are you scared?"

"You seem awfully guilty..." Dong Yunshan narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Entrust you with completing something I can't complete myself? Something I can't do, you can?"

Yukino Yukinoshita was hardly feeling guilty.

It was just that Dong Yunshan looking all serious while wearing cat ears was far too strange.

She couldn't bear to look at him too much.

"If you want to request that I bring the dead back to life," Yukino Yukinoshita said, looking at Dong Yunshan in his cat-ear headband and feeling that the longer she looked, the more acceptable it became, "I have no objections."

"I can do that myself. No need to entrust you with it." Dong Yunshan shook his head. "What could there possibly be that I can't do, but you can?"

"Give..." Yui Yuigahama suddenly began. When Dong Yunshan and Yukino Yukinoshita both looked over, and Komachi Hikigaya prepared to cover her mouth, she coughed lightly. "Given how much life changes, I mean. There isn't anything now, but there might be later."

"That's true, but what if there still isn't anything later?" Dong Yunshan raised one eyebrow. "One sentence and I owe you for the rest of my life?"

"One month. This command must be completed within one month." Yukino Yukinoshita added another condition. "If you still haven't encountered a problem that meets the conditions by then, I'll change it to a command that can be completed immediately."

So this is where she was waiting for me... Dong Yunshan discovered Yukino Yukinoshita's true purpose.

If Dong Yunshan agreed to this command, then Yukino Yukinoshita would have a full month to slowly think about how to deal with him.

By comparison, the difficulty of Dong Yunshan completing this command would be much higher.

First, asking for help between two people in a contest represented a loss in itself.

Even without a punishment, Dong Yunshan would still be one step below Yukino Yukinoshita.

Second, although Yukino Yukinoshita hadn't required that the request be reasonable, Dong Yunshan wouldn't entrust her with an overly ridiculous task either.

If he couldn't afford to play and started acting shameless, he might as well just admit defeat outright.

In the end, even if Dong Yunshan found a suitable request, he would expose his own weakness in front of Yukino Yukinoshita and fall into a disadvantage in future contests.

"Let me sum this up for you." Dong Yunshan tapped his temple lightly. "You can't think of a way to deal with me right now, so you want to buy a month to mull it over properly. During that time, I can also come to you on my own, admit defeat first, then blow up my own weakness. And if you complete the request, I have to lose to you one more time—do I look stupid to you?"

But the way you tap your head while wearing cat ears really does look a little silly... Yukino Yukinoshita pressed her lips together. "Then how about this? If I fail to complete your request, it counts as my loss to you once, and you can give me one order."

By the numbers, Dong Yunshan was still taking a loss, but considering this had been the winner's order to begin with, it was barely reasonable.

"You won either way." Dong Yunshan had gotten the better end of the first order, so it wasn't good to nitpick too much now. "Let's do that."

"It's a promise. No taking it back." Yukino Yukinoshita raised her hand, her fair, delicate pinky slightly curled as she stared at Dong Yunshan and enunciated every word. "Lord Dong Yun."

"We still have to do it this way..." Dong Yunshan hooked his finger around Yukino Yukinoshita's soft pinky and shook it gently. "No problem, little Yukinoshita."

"Referee," Yukino Yukinoshita said, turning her head aside, "please help take a photo as evidence."

"In case some little kid refuses to admit it later," Dong Yunshan added, turning to look in Yui Yuigahama's direction.

"Ah... okay." Yui Yuigahama raised her phone.

The instant the shutter clicked, Dong Yunshan suddenly realized something.

He raised his hand and touched his head.

His fingers met a fluffy cat-ear headband.

"Yukinoshita!" Dong Yunshan yanked the headband off in one motion. "You schemed against me!"

"Huh?" Yukino Yukinoshita blinked. "I was wondering why you looked so pleasing to the eye just now. So it turns out you were wearing cat ears the whole time."

Covering her little mouth with her small hand, Yukino Yukinoshita smiled with narrowed eyes like a cat that had stolen a dried little fish. "Looks like you really do like them, Lord Dong Yun."

"I didn't expect Yukinoshita to use little tricks like this too." Dong Yunshan took a deep breath to calm himself. "Looks like if I indulge you a few more times, you'll truly have the adorable look of a little kid."

Yukino Yukinoshita's expression went cold in an instant. "Oh? You were careless yourself, yet you say someone else was playing tricks?"

"Of course not." Dong Yunshan waved the cat-ear headband in his hand. "I'm perfectly willing to accept defeat. Even if I'm tricked into meowing, I have no complaints."