Childhood Sweethearts

"Sure enough, it had to be an old-school galgame. I came here chasing the hype, and it was worth it."

"This selfless, gentle death for the sake of saving the world really was a timeless classic trope."

After finishing Aiyoku no Eustia, Ye Qing's emotions refused to settle for a long while.

The end of a story was truly empty. He would have to be depressed for a while after receiving such feelings from something virtual.

Ding-dong...

The crisp sound of a completed Qiandu Cloud Drive download rang out. Ye Qing swept away his earlier sorrow and immediately began preparing to conquer the next little sister.

Sadness was inevitable, and it was hard to calm down, but there was no time to hesitate. More little sisters were waiting for him to save them!

The best way to wash away one sorrow was to embrace the next one.

Click, click.

With his headphones on, Ye Qing failed to hear the faint sound of a key turning. A figure quietly slipped into the room, carefully suppressing her footsteps.

"Good evening, Little Qing!"

"Wugh!?"

Startled, Ye Qing let out a strange cry and shuddered all over, gazing resentfully at the uninvited visitor.

"Ye Yuyan, could you let me know beforehand if you're coming over next time? And don't pick such a cursed hour!" Ye Qing said helplessly.

"Nope, hehe." The woman named Ye Yuyan shook the key in her hand.

"You gave me this key yourself, and you were the one who said I could come whenever I wanted."

Ye Yuyan casually placed the key beside the desk, then walked over to Ye Qing and pressed down on his shoulders, teasing him.

"Why aren't you welcoming me? You reacted so strongly. Don't tell me you were playing that kind of game again?"

Her gaze shifted to the computer screen, which displayed a decompression window. Ye Qing calmly switched screens with a keystroke and answered as if it were nothing unusual.

"None of your business. Don't be so curious."

He had just finished getting emotionally invested and was ready to move on to the physical part, only to be interrupted.

This was the most despairing kind of foreplay.

If he had been just a little faster and Ye Yuyan had come a little later, he would have been done for.

"I'm exhausted, I'm exhausted. Let me lie down for a bit." Ye Yuyan paid no attention to her image and flopped onto the bed.

"Hey, you've been working and you're covered in sweat. Did you even shower before getting on my bed?" Ye Qing complained lightly.

"I didn't sweat, I didn't sweat! Even if I did, I'd still smell nice. You should be grateful," Ye Yuyan retorted unhappily.

Ye Qing turned to glance at the woman lying on the bed. Qingmei wore fitted jeans and a loose short-sleeved shirt, and her disheveled clothes revealed the slender waist he could almost wrap one hand around.

With a helpless sigh, Ye Qing truly had no way of dealing with her.

Ye Yuyan was his adoptive parents' biological daughter, his adopted younger sister, and his childhood sweetheart. Their relationship was close enough that they had been completely open with each other since childhood.

Young and beautiful, talented and capable, she acted decisively. Right after graduation, she found a high-paying job and, in a short time, rose into upper management purely through her own ability.

Back in school, because she wanted to be in the same grade as Ye Qing, she easily skipped ahead into his year. Even now, she was only twenty-two.

At school, she had been the unattainable senior admired by countless students. After entering society, plenty of people wanted to pursue her too. She was a mature woman anyone could rely on.

She was worlds apart from an immature shut-in like him.

"So you came to my place this late because of that mysterious job you refuse to tell me about?" Ye Qing turned back around and continued using his computer, treating his visiting childhood sweetheart as though she were invisible.

"Mm..." Ye Yuyan replied weakly.

"What a strange job. Aren't you planning to quit?" Ye Qing asked in confusion.

His childhood sweetheart really had been upper management, but half a year ago, she had suddenly resigned from her high-paying position.

She found a job that no one knew anything about, with a monthly salary of only three thousand. She still had to pay rent, utilities, and other expenses in such a high-cost area.

Her quality of life had plummeted, and she was living entirely off the money she had saved before.

Low pay would have been one thing, but the job was busy too.

A job that required her to work late into the night made it difficult for Ye Qing not to let his imagination run wild.

But even if it was work catering to someone else's nightlife, there was no way it should pay so little.

It was a complete mystery, and Qingmei kept stammering whenever he asked.

"I don't want to quit." Ye Yuyan's voice lacked all confidence.

"Then at least tell me what you do," Ye Qing said.

"I can't say that either..." Ye Yuyan's voice was as soft as a mosquito's buzz, nearly impossible to hear.

"Do whatever you want." Ye Qing stopped asking.

He was not the kind of person who liked to get to the bottom of everything. If she had troubles she did not want to talk about, forcing her to explain would not be right.

After a moment of silence, Ye Qing casually said,

"If you really run out of money, you can come to me. It's not much, but supporting the two of us wouldn't be a problem."

He had once chased an unrealistic dream, burned through all his savings, and only faced reality after ending in miserable failure.

At the time, he had also refused to confide in anyone and could only vent to online friends he had known for years but never met.

For ordinary workers, money was something precious.

When someone was willing to keep spending money on another person, that person's importance in their heart spoke for itself.

Ye Yuyan silently stared at the ceiling in a daze. Warmth filled her heart, and then a smile rose at the corner of her lips.

She got up from the bed, casually patted Ye Qing's shoulder, and said happily,

"You immature guy, you stay cooped up at home every day and refuse to move around. I even have to clean for you. You're not dependable at all.

Relying on you definitely isn't a long-term plan. You should rely on me instead. This young lady can easily keep you!"

"You're not very convincing right now. Bring back the Yuyan from half a year ago." Ye Qing replied without turning around.

"Just wait, just wait!" Ye Yuyan said indignantly before changing the subject.

"I'm hungry. Want some late-night food too?"

"It's already two in the morning. Late-night food is unhealthy, and eating too much makes it harder to sleep."

"It's not good, but what young person doesn't stay up late these days? Two in the morning is nothing. It's just a late-night snack. One question: are you eating or not?"

"Eating!"

Ye Qing had only eaten a one-plus-one burger meal that evening. After all that magical girl business, he was indeed hungry.

"That's more like it, Little Qing." Ye Yuyan rubbed Ye Qing's yellow-haired head, leaned close beside his face, and let her soft breath brush his cheek as she gently said something terrifying.

"When we go out tomorrow—no, when we wake up and go out later—if you still haven't washed off that dragon tattoo sticker on your neck, I'll beat you to death."

"It should, probably, maybe disappear naturally by tomorrow?" Ye Qing said guiltily.

"You figure it out! I'm going to make food."

The dragon tattoo coiled around Ye Qing's neck was merely a tattoo sticker.

Before joining the organization, he had originally decided to grit his teeth and get a real tattoo for the job. Unfortunately, Ye Yuyan discovered it and strongly objected.

Under her threat of death, he had switched to an easily washable sticker instead.

"Sigh."

Listening to Ye Yuyan's footsteps gradually fade away, Ye Qing let out a helpless sigh.

Being pestered by his childhood sweetheart really was not a good thing.

Originally, the two of them had lived their own separate lives.

Then one day, Ye Yuyan came over uninvited and saw the house, which had not been cleaned at all and was filthy beyond belief.

He simply liked to pile up his trash and deal with it all in one day.

Unfortunately, Ye Yuyan had come the day before he planned to clean.

Because of that, Qingmei suspected that he had fallen into depravity through games and anime, so she often came over to look after him.

As a result, his flights were constantly forced to change course. Truly, disasters came without warning.