After the landlady left with a knowing smile, Luo Li leaned against the door, his cheeks still burning.
He scratched the tip of his nose awkwardly and looked toward Castorice, who was cautiously peeking out of the bathroom.
"Um... it's all right now. She's gone." He tried to keep his tone light and natural.
Only then did Castorice step out completely, a hint of apology and confusion in her purple eyes. "Your Excellency, just now... did I do something wrong? That lady seemed to have developed a strange misunderstanding."
"No, no, no, you didn't do anything wrong. She just... has a pretty active imagination."
Luo Li hurriedly waved his hands, adding inwardly, Anyone would get the wrong idea if they saw an outrageously gorgeous member of the opposite sex hiding in a guy's apartment, freshly showered and wearing his clothes!
He cleared his throat and decided to change the subject, while also addressing a small issue that had been bothering him.
"Um, Castorice..."
He chose his words carefully. "You keep calling me 'Your Excellency.' It sounds a little too formal, and... a little too polite.
"Here, people who are fairly close generally just call each other by their names."
He pointed at himself. "My name is Luo Li.
"Luo as in the Luo River, and Li as in dawn. You can just call me Luo Li."
"Luo... Li..."
Castorice softly repeated the name, its syllables seeming to take on a strange rhythm on her tongue.
She tilted her head slightly, as though carefully savoring it. "Would addressing Your Excellency by name be... somewhat disrespectful?"
"Not at all! It actually makes us seem closer!"
Luo Li hurried to emphasize this. Though being respectfully addressed as "Your Excellency" by a beautiful woman admittedly gave him a secret thrill, he wanted even more to close the distance between them.
"Closer..."
Castorice repeated the word quietly, looked up at the anticipation in Luo Li's eyes, and nodded gently. "I understand-then... Luo Li."
Her voice was as ethereal as ever, but without the honorific, it felt a little less distant, with an indescribable touch of... intimacy? Just hearing her say his name in that tone made Luo Li's heart skip a beat.
"Right! Just like that!" Luo Li struggled to keep the corners of his mouth from rising, inwardly delighted.
This was the goddess from the game saying his name! It felt even better than ten straight wins in ranked summit matches.
Just then, an abrupt ringtone shattered the delicate atmosphere-Luo Li's phone was ringing on the table. The caller ID prominently read "Her Majesty, Mother."
Luo Li's expression changed instantly, as though he had spotted some terrifying beast.
"Shh-!"
He immediately gestured for Castorice to stay quiet, lowering his voice to explain quickly, "It's my mom. Don't make a sound-please!"
Though Castorice did not understand why, she obediently nodded and even instinctively softened her breathing, watching Luo Li with wide eyes. She looked just like a little animal carrying out an undercover mission.
Luo Li took a deep breath, composed his expression, and answered, switching on speakerphone as he did-his mother insisted on it, saying it let her "monitor whether her son's surroundings were safe in real time."
"Hello? Mom?"
Luo Li tried hard to sound normal and energetic.
"Xiao Li-!"
A woman's strong voice came from the phone, carrying unmistakable concern.
"What are you doing? Have you eaten? The weather's bad today, and the Blood-Erosion Clouds are frighteningly red. You haven't gone wandering around outside, have you?"
The classic opening barrage of three questions from Her Majesty.
"I ate, I ate. Just finished. I'm at home. Why would I go wandering around for no reason? It's so dangerous outside," Luo Li answered with practiced ease.
"Good, stay home! Honestly, you spend all day holed up at home staring at that whatever-brain... computer! What future is there in that? I told you to come back and take the exam for a government position, but you wouldn't listen. You just had to stay in Jiangcheng doing that... game streaming? Is that even a proper job? You never know where your next meal is coming from!"
Luo Li rolled his eyes helplessly. He had known the conversation would head this way.
"Mom, this is work too. I make money..."
"What can that little bit of money get you? Can it buy you a home or get you a wife?"
His mother's voice suddenly rose. "Look at Auntie Wang's son next door. He's your age, and he works at a factory under the Security Bureau. Sure, it's only a clerical position, but it's an iron rice bowl! Five social insurances and a housing fund! Now look at you!"
Luo Li: "..."
Here we go again.
"Honestly, there are two important things you should be doing, and you're doing neither! Your job isn't stable, and there's not even a sign of a girlfriend!
"When your dad and I were your age, you were already old enough to run errands-but you? There isn't even a girl in sight!
"Son, tell me, are you... hmm? Do you have some problem you can't talk about? Or do you not like girls? Tell Mom the truth. I'm not that old-fashioned..."
"Mom!!!"
Luo Li nearly choked on his own spit. His face reddened to the tips of his ears, and he wished he could crawl down the phone line and clamp a hand over his mother's mouth.
He shot a horrified glance at Castorice beside him and found her listening with innocent curiosity. She did not seem to quite understand what "a problem you can't talk about" or "not like girls" specifically meant, but that did nothing to stop Luo Li from dying of embarrassment.
"I'm perfectly normal! I like girls! I really like them!"
Luo Li practically shouted, trying to cut off his mother's dangerous remarks.
"If you like them, then find one!"
His mother pressed her advantage.
"Look at you. You're not bad-looking-you take after me!
"How come you can't find a girlfriend? Are you too much of a shut-in? Should I ask Auntie Li to introduce you to someone? She knows plenty of girls..."
"No! Really, no! Mom, the signal's bad here! Hello? Hello? I can't hear you..."
Luo Li deftly deployed his "bad signal" technique.
"Don't give me that! Every time this comes up, your signal goes bad!"
His mother clearly was not buying it.
"I'm telling you, Luo Li, if you come home alone again this New Year, just see if I let you through the door.
"Come back with either a stable job or a girlfriend. You figure it out! Do you hear me?"
Amid his mother's string of "final ultimatums," Luo Li hung up in utter disarray and let out a long breath, feeling more exhausted than if he had fought a vampire single-handedly.
When he looked up, he met Castorice's purple eyes, which were full of questions.
"Luo Li... what is a... 'girlfriend'?"
"Ahem, ahem, ahem!" Luo Li coughed violently, his face flushing crimson as he scrambled to explain. "N-nothing! Just a kind of... fairly close friend! Right, a very close friend! My mom... she just cares about me too much and worries over nothing! Don't mind her! Haha, hahaha..."
He laughed hollowly, trying to cover his embarrassment with laughter.
Castorice nodded with only a vague understanding. Though she found Luo Li's reaction a little strange, she politely refrained from pressing further and only said softly, "I see."
Luo Li sighed with relief and hurried to change the subject again, pointing out the layout. "Right, let me show you around while we're at it. This place I'm renting has three bedrooms and a living room. This is my bedroom, and this is the living room and my streaming workspace."
He led Castorice to the other two closed doors and pushed them open.
Inside were dusty cardboard boxes, old furniture, and miscellaneous objects whose purposes were hard to make out, leaving the rooms rather cluttered.
"These two rooms have been empty all this time, so I've been using them for storage, keeping things I don't use but can't bear to throw away."
Luo Li smiled a little sheepishly. "But since you're staying here, you obviously can't keep sleeping on the couch or squeezing in with me... uh, I mean, I need to clear out a room for you."
He surveyed the slightly emptier room, starting to work out what he needed to buy.
A bed, a wardrobe, a desk and chair... another expense. Luckily, the system had just chipped in ten thousand yuan.
"Taking temporary shelter here has already caused you a great deal of trouble, Luo Li."
Castorice looked at the cluttered room, gratitude in her voice.
"No trouble, no trouble at all!"
Luo Li waved his hand. "You've only just arrived in this world. You don't know anyone or anything here. If I don't look after you, who will? From now on, this is your temporary base. Just take your time adjusting."
Watching Castorice stand at the storage room doorway, her purple hair and eyes in stark contrast to the dusty surroundings, he felt a strange surge of protectiveness and responsibility.
The Battlefield Saintess from the game now had to begin learning how to live in an unfamiliar apocalyptic world in the cluttered storeroom of a slacker streamer like him.