She must think he was utterly ridiculous.
So even though he had been so meticulously cautious in his disguise, she still refused to let him hold even a glimmer of hope, cruelly and naively tearing off his hypocritical mask.
He knew roses were covered in sharp thorns, ready to pierce a predator's heart without mercy, yet he still foolishly attempted to pull the entire rose into his very flesh, fitting it so seamlessly that not even its fragrance could escape.
Xu Lingjing stood up abruptly, swaying slightly because he had knelt for too long.
Thinking he wanted to wipe his hands, Xingyu handed him a wet wipe.
"Here, mmm—"
Before she knew what was happening, the world turned upside down, and Xingyu was plunged into a firm, blazing-hot embrace. A pair of large, rough, scorching hands pinned her soft nape.
The embrace was so tight that Xingyu could barely breathe. Though robbed of her sight, she could vividly feel Xu Lingjing’s tall frame trembling.
A tremor laced Xingyu’s voice as she demanded, "What are you doing? Let me go."
Xu Lingjing turned a deaf ear. The moment he touched Xingyu’s warm, soft skin, his breathing grew heavier, and the palms pressed against her slender waist tightened further.
It was like a stray dog, on the verge of being abandoned, sinking its teeth into its master's ankle—an act of venting frustration and a desperate plea all at once, as if biting on meant he would not be shaken off.
Rescued dogs always started out afraid of dirtying their masters, but in the end, they invariably returned kindness with malice, dreaming of using sharp teeth and filthy claws to leave their own mark on their master's body.
He thought, let Xingyu feel even a tiny bit of pain for him; even if it were one in a million, he would be content.
"Let me go! Xu Lingjing! Have you lost your mind?!"
He seemed intent on crushing her bones, fusing their shells into one.
In a madman's world, death was the ultimate way to express every extreme emotion.
The crushing pressure left Xingyu with a sore waist and a wave of dizziness, a faint red tint gradually blooming at the corners of her eyes.
Yet those eye corners, stained red by a mist of tears, seemed like splashes of blood on a beast's eyelids; far from serving as a full stop, they only fueled his violent impulses further.
Until, patter, patter...
A single teardrop fell and splashed against Xu Lingjing’s neck. It was ice-cold, yet it burned all the way to his heart.
Xu Lingjing’s fingertips curled slightly. Defeated, he released Xingyu, lowering his head as he blinked rapidly, fighting back the strange, stinging ache threatening to spill from the depths of his eyes.
He still couldn't bear to see her cry. In his heart, she deserved to remain high above, arrogant and noble, never tasting a shred of hardship.
"I'm sorry," his voice rasped, trembling.
Xu Lingjing had compromised once more, but the bizarre emotions churning inside him did not subside in the least. The feeling had no shape, yet it rapidly occupied his chest, wrapping around his heart like threads until he could barely breathe.
How he longed, desperately longed, to swallow her whole into his belly.
How he longed for it.
It seemed Xingyu was right: he was even more repulsive than she imagined, like a monster crawling from the depths of a swamp—boneless and slimy, filthy and ugly, yet still pretending to be calm and self-contained.
Xingyu was too furious to bother with him. Her eyes were wet and glistening, her pale eyelids soaked with a fragile, reddish flush, yet she paid it no mind, casually rubbing them with the back of her hand, only making them redder.
Xu Lingjing pulled out a clean handkerchief, carefully wiping the tears from her cheeks.
Xingyu snatched his handkerchief away and threw it to the ground. She blinked her reddened eyes rapidly to banish the moisture, then gave her cheeks another casual swipe with the back of her hand, lifting her chin to glare at him. "Get lost!"
Xu Lingjing fell silent. He pulled two sheets from the wet wipe box on the tabletop, folded them neatly, and still reached out to wipe her face, his voice husky and alluring, "Your face is covered in tears. Let me help you wipe them, alright?"
Xingyu's face went cold. "What kind of good guy are you trying to play? Didn't you cause this in the first place?!"
"I'm sorry."
"Were you sick of looking at me and planning to bite me to death? Do you have any idea how hard your body is? Pouncing out of nowhere like that—you nearly cracked my ribs. Are you deliberately retaliating?"
"I'm sorry."
Despite saying sorry, he still had the sheer audacity to use the tissue to wipe away the tear tracks on her cheeks a little at a time.
Even when Xingyu slapped him across the face.
Enduring the obvious handprint on his face, he went right on wiping her face, then pulled out a fresh tissue to meticulously clean her hands, just like a father caring for a daughter.
He was throwing another inexplicable fit. He had been like this back in Heaven too—whenever something ticked him off, he would grab her in a death grip, and on several occasions, she had nearly suffocated.
Xingyu gnashed her teeth with a crunch, glaring darkly at Xu Lingjing before she finally couldn't help kicking him. "Once you're done wiping, get lost."
"Alright."
Xu Lingjing returned to his seat to read, while Xingyu reopened her tablet and resumed the cartoon.
Xingyu let out a quiet sigh of relief. For the first time, she found him this difficult to brush off.
Like a mad dog that latched on and refused to let go, utterly infuriating.
"From now on, you are not allowed to touch me without my permission."
Xu Lingjing’s movement—rubbing the edge of the book page with his fingertip—paused slightly. The sharp edge sliced a scratch into his pad, and a clear drop of blood welled up. He stared as the blood gathered into a bead, his gaze mottled and unreadable.
"Mmm."
"You can talk now! Playing deaf and dumb just a moment ago! Do you just pretend not to hear whenever you don't want to listen?"
"I'm sorry."
"Good thing you're still clean for now. If you touched anyone else and then touched me, that would be so disgusting..." Xingyu furrowed her delicate brows, her eyes fixed on the cartoon as she added the remark without looking up.
"I'm very clean. I'm not dirty," Xu Lingjing slowly raised his head, looking in Xingyu's direction.
Yet his voice was too soft; it was scattered by the wind before it could even drift to Xingyu's ear.
Though Xingyu was watching the cartoon, her mind had drifted long ago. After a moment, she called out to the System in her head.
[How is the mission progress going now? I see progress bars on all the other Systems; don't you have one?]
This was a direct challenge to the System's professional competence.
The System instantly switched to professional mode. Its rapidly flapping wings turned transparent, its facial features became pixel blocks, and its chest displayed flowing binary code.
The code scrolled quickly as the mission progress bar appeared: Xu Lingjing's emotional fluctuation value: 50%.
[Change back. I just wanted to see the progress bar...] Xingyu said after a brief silence.
The System awkwardly shifted back, acting a bit shy: [I knew Lord Demon liked me too.]
[I just think it's less satisfying to scold a machine.]
[...]
[Only 50%? So how do we get it to 100%?] Xingyu huffed with childish petulance, puffing out her cheeks as she fell into thought.
The System hoped the "love" the Demon spoke of referred to love in the sense of passions and desires, rather than anything else.
[It's already very fast. How long has Lord Demon even been in the micro-world? Not even a month yet. A normal mission timeline lasts a whole lifetime.]
[A lifetime? That's too long. I don't have the patience to spend a hundred years with him in every micro-world.]
[...] But the Lord God wouldn't extract her right away.
She was doomed. Not only did the Demon dislike the Lord God, but she also had no intention of staying in the micro-world.
[Keep the mission progress bar displayed all the time. Whenever I ask, you have to tell me immediately so I can figure out how to provoke him better.]
[Understood, Lord Demon.] The System figured that if the Demon were to tell the Lord God right now that she was going to leave, the Lord God's emotional fluctuation value would instantly shoot up to 100%.
And then he would go crazy, hehe.
The System felt it was about ready to crawl in the dark too. Sob, sobbing—it had no idea how many things it had done behind the Lord God's back just to appease the Demon over these past few days.
It hoped the Lord God would forgive its sins once he resumed his throne, since it had been forced into this against its will, after all.