Blood Neon

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Pre-meal Exercise

At six-thirty in the autumn evening, the sky had already darkened, and the shapes of things were fading into black.

Those fortunate enough to get off work at six drove their familiar vehicles and merged into the city’s traffic jam army.

Streetlights had already come on. After piercing through layers of tall phoenix tree leaves, they finally descended sluggishly to the ground, dispelling the darkness. One roadside tree after another was painted in warm orange light, glowing from within with a seemingly cozy hue.

Lin Ying sat upright on a bench in an alley, holding her hands close to her mouth, blowing warm air from her small lips again and again.

It was obvious that regardless of whether she now counted as a tentacle monster or a hairworm, the real body within the shadow wouldn’t provide any extra body heat for the human form on the outside.

The temperature wouldn’t drop further, but it also wouldn’t stay high as if she had a tiny sun inside her.

As a result, Lin Ying continuously felt the impolite chill of the autumn night wind against her body. In a certain sense, she thought it might be better to just let her body cool down to match the ambient temperature—at least that way, the body wouldn’t feel cold. It’s not like it made much difference anyway—she wasn’t going to freeze to death.

Probably.

Lin Ying gazed at the milk tea shop not far in front of her, watching the customers emerge one after another, holding steaming cups of milk tea with contented smiles.

The girl felt a little sour.

The kind of sour that came from the heart—after checking the remaining cash in her shadow.

Thinking of the previous life’s trend of “the first cup of milk tea in autumn,” she couldn’t help but feel a bit emotional about how times had changed. She hadn’t expected to become the exact target demographic for that marketing tag now.

However, she had always been a person with a strong sense of frugality and thrift. So, with her current income still unstable, every penny naturally had to be carefully budgeted. After all, even when playing various RPGs in the past, she was the kind of person who would reach the ending with a fortune that could rival a kingdom and an inventory full of rare treasures—leaving as lightly as she had arrived, waving her sleeve and taking away only a single CG.

So, although she really wanted to buy a cup of milk tea to warm her hands and drink, the iron rooster spirit etched into her soul stubbornly held her back.

No. She needed a reason.

“Hmm~ If sipping milk tea is a seasonal behavior for humans in autumn,” Lin Ying suddenly thought of something and, pinching her chin, began a logical deduction, “then for me, who needs to live like a human, drinking milk tea would count as a necessary step in the plan…”

“Oh, I’ve dayed it—this is essential funding.”

Completely ignoring whether wearing only a dress at this temperature could be considered normal human behavior, the girl decisively rose from the bench and briskly walked toward the milk tea shop.

...

"It seems that managing the speed of drinking and keeping it warm enough to heat your hands is quite a skill in itself."

After rapidly sucking down the already small amount of milk tea like a storm, Lin Ying couldn’t help but sigh at the experience—one that required finishing the drink while it was still warm, yet also demanded enough time to warm one’s palms.

Her hands were still cold. Maybe—just maybe—this body ought to have some kind of temperature regulation ability. But what did that have to do with Lin Ying, who had no clue where to even begin researching her body’s capabilities? She was just a naive, ignorant, pitiful little tentacle beauty who couldn’t even feed herself properly on a daily basis.

Cough cough. So then, seeing as it had come to this—she’d already eaten some crispy chicken, had her milk tea, and completed her human behavior observation.

Now it was time to decide what to do with the rest of the evening.

Lin Ying had two options in front of her: fishing or hunting.

Fishing meant putting herself in the open, becoming the bait, and waiting for prey to bite. That required heading out right away—after all, reaching sparsely populated areas like the urban villages before it got too late would take a fair bit of walking. She had scouted two or three suitable “fishing spots” recently.

Hunting, on the other hand, meant operating from the shadows—focusing on alleys and streets, looking for ongoing crimes and hoping to stumble upon some unlucky criminal in action. If the crime wasn’t serious enough, that was fine too—she could follow them and wait for a better moment, or even make her own entrance and “kindly” create that moment. With a bit of luck, this activity could turn into fishing as well.

Whether kidnapping or spring sales, all tactics eventually led back to fishing.

It had been less than two days since Lin Ying’s last proper meal, and she’d consumed enough substitutes in the meantime, so she had enough leeway to pick whichever activity she preferred.

The girl thought for a moment and flipped into the air a game token she had picked up by the roadside earlier.

As it spun rapidly and dropped, she turned her right hand over, palm up, ready to catch it with elegance and precision...

...and missed completely. The coin traced a perfect arc through the air, landed on the ground, and promptly rolled into a storm drain by the side of the road.

Without changing her expression, Lin Ying’s forehead popped a tic-tac-toe grid, and she turned directly toward the direction with more foot traffic.