After taking off Bai Heng's trench coat, Ruan Mei used her method of opening her senses through touch.
From his cheeks to his chin, all the way down to the V-line of his abdomen, she lightly touched him with her soft, delicate hands.
If her expression had not remained as calm as ever, Bai Heng could reasonably have suspected that Ruan Mei was taking advantage of the physical examination to cop a feel.
But even if she was taking advantage of him, Bai Heng did not seem to be losing out.
Once the routine examination was complete, Bai Heng noticed a subtle change in Ruan Mei's expression.
"What's wrong?" Bai Heng asked.
Ruan Mei gently pressed her hand against Bai Heng's chest, her cool voice tinged with confusion.
"It seems there are many old injuries on your body that have yet to fully heal. In addition, your physique has improved somewhat."
"Well..." Although Bai Heng was surprised that Ruan Mei could completely discern the changes in his body through touch alone, he still answered naturally.
"During my time on the Xianzhou, I studied swordsmanship under the guidance of a master for a while. Those injuries were left behind during training."
"I see." Ruan Mei raised her exquisite face and said,
"Then would it be convenient for you to tell me about your experiences on the Xianzhou during this time? I'm very curious."
Upon hearing Ruan Mei's words and seeing the curiosity mixed into her calm gaze, Bai Heng's heart suddenly skipped a beat.
"...A Ruan, I'm a little tired right now. How about I tell you later?"
Before Bai Heng could fabricate an experience with absolutely no holes in it, he naturally would not take the initiative to mention the Xianzhou.
When Bai Heng said he was somewhat tired, Ruan Mei placed her soft little hand on his forehead, her tone gentle.
"You've been traveling all this way, so of course you must be tired. Let's have some tea and pastries first. Stay here tonight and tell me your story slowly, just like when we were children, all right?"
"..." Bai Heng looked into those almond-shaped eyes, clear as water, and ultimately gave up struggling.
He slowly nodded and said,
"All right."
For some reason, Bai Heng felt that
whenever he was with Ruan Mei, he always had the illusion of being effortlessly wrapped around the finger of a beautiful older sister—and willingly so.
He followed Ruan Mei to sit by the floor-to-ceiling window.
Bai Heng took out the pastries he had bought one by one and arranged them on a wooden table.
Outside the window, rain and mist shrouded the view. From a hundred meters in the air, they could easily overlook the dazzling lights of the neon city.
At that moment, Ruan Mei delicately pinched a chip-like card between her fingers.
Bai Heng recognized it and said,
"An Aetherium Chip?"
"Mm. The event organizers gave me this chip when I checked into the hotel, along with a code formula sheet," Ruan Mei said calmly.
On Punklorde, hackers used chips known as Aetherium Chips to perform Aether Editing and alter reality.
Even ordinary people could treat reality like a game and edit it freely through an Aetherium Chip, as long as they possessed a code formula sheet.
Just as she did now, Ruan Mei followed the heating code marked on the formula sheet and edited reality through the Aetherium Chip.
Once she had entered the entire string of code, the delicate little pastries were heated in an instant.
Of course, top-tier hackers possessed personal source codes of their own and had no need to use these formulas.
"Hibiscus, quince, maple sugar, egg yolk... The flavor is rather unique." Ruan Mei tasted a pastry and identified its ingredients with just her lips and teeth.
Bai Heng also picked up a hibiscus egg yolk pastry, took a bite, and said,
"This hibiscus egg yolk pastry came from a dessert shop called Maple Cake House. The owner planted a grove of maple trees in the backyard and makes maple syrup every year for use in the shop's pastries. That's why this shop's pastries are sweeter than those from other places."
Ruan Mei sampled the pastries before her while Bai Heng explained them to her one by one.
He was still Ruan Mei's assistant, just as he had been six hundred years ago.
The only difference was that the two of them had long since crossed that line.
Time quietly passed at the boundary between day and night on Punklorde, and before long, night had fallen.
Yet Punklorde's nighttime made the neon colors seem even more chaotic.
Bai Heng drew the gray curtains over the floor-to-ceiling window.
Ruan Mei sat at the edge of the snow-white goose-down bed. Having just finished bathing, she wore disposable white sleepwear. Her still-damp dark hair hung over her exquisite collarbones, her snowy skin flushed faintly pink, while her delicate and elegant face remained cool as ever.
Even beneath the sleepwear, her long, shapely legs still revealed graceful curves, while the slender, fair ankles beneath the hem held a strange allure.
After a long silence, Ruan Mei finally asked,
"Why... have you been staring at my feet?"
"Uh, just an illusion." Bai Heng calmly looked away.
The last time they had been at Herta's Space Station, Ruan Mei had learned that, to Bai Heng, having his feet stepped on was also a kind of "reward."
She had tried to analyze the nature of this emotion and understand what caused it, but had yet to reach a conclusion.
But the conclusion itself would not change.
Ruan Mei gently stroked her long hair with one hand and lightly pursed her thin lips, her voice soft.
"Let's begin."
"Mm."
With that said,
Bai Heng grabbed a thick quilt, wrapped himself up tightly, then leaped like a god of war and bounced onto one side of the goose-down bed.
Ruan Mei did not react at first. Looking at Bai Heng with only his head exposed, she said blankly,
"There's already a quilt on the bed."
"I'm afraid of the cold." Bai Heng casually made up an excuse.
Seeing this, a faint smile appeared on Ruan Mei's face.
"We're only telling stories. Are you really so afraid that I'll get handsy?"
Bai Heng's first reaction upon hearing that was:
Of course I'm afraid. With your ability to open your senses through touch, if we get handsy, the story I made up tonight will definitely be exposed.
Bai Heng was not Liu Xiahui, so naturally he could not remain unmoved with a woman in his lap. But at a matter of life and death, he could still make a clear judgment.
Then his second reaction was:
Wait... why does that sound so familiar?
Bread was like this all day now: Don't~ break~ apart~ again, don't~ wither~ away~
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