Blood Neon

Chapter 38

Chapter 38

Cutting Back

This wasn’t a matter of whether she could eat—it was a matter of whether she could eat happily.

If she went in and could only afford to pitifully order a single bowl of spaghetti or a plate of fried rice, that would just be too miserable. Just imagining staring at a dazzling menu but being unable to order freely—it felt suffocating.

But if she let herself go and ate to her heart’s content… Lin Ying did a quick calculation of how much it would cost to eat happily inside, then touched her wallet, which still sadly held only a three-digit amount.

She shook her head. To avoid making her already difficult financial situation worse, she decided to give up on Pizza Hut.

Eating something nice was important, but the key right now was "portioning." A poor kid spending one or two hundred in a single meal—what would that look like...

From a cost-efficiency perspective, it would be better to go for Kentucky Fried Chicken or Golden Arches or something—they were right next door anyway.

Comforting herself with this logic, she raised her head and looked at the massive building in front of her.

Standing at close range in front of this enormous mall, the ten-plus stories gave off quite an imposing presence.

The enormous curved LED screen was playing all kinds of advertisements in a loop. Although it didn’t seem like any pedestrians were stopping to watch, the atmosphere was grand, and the electricity used to power it probably wasn’t cheap either.

Lin Ying let out a long sigh, feeling a bit bitter.

If only there were canteens everywhere—so that all the girls under heaven could smile in peace.

Honestly, if the iPhone she picked up this time was genuine, then after resetting it, she could probably sell it for over a thousand yuan. If that were the case, she might’ve considered a small indulgence today… But the thought that it was most likely a knockoff made her sigh again, a little more dejected than before.

After all, between the two magic tools of saving money—“increasing income” and “cutting expenses”—all she could do right now was the latter. As a jobless girl with no stable income, how much she could earn each day all came down to luck.

Maybe she should just go get a roast , and call it a small celebration. Civilization starts with you and me.

Lin Ying tried to recall the approximate location of that shop in her memory. She wasn’t far from it now.

.

However, just as she had taken only a few more steps forward and was passing by a somewhat familiar residential complex, the girl suddenly stopped in her tracks as something came to mind.

Turning her head to look at the vaguely familiar entrance of the complex, she realized—wasn’t this the one where Zhang Qiming lived?

After thinking back for a moment, she realized that because she hadn’t paid much attention when coming and going before, she had almost forgotten about this. Who would’ve thought she’d end up near Zhang Qiming’s place just by wandering around?

Still, Lin Ying didn’t dwell on it. She nodded to herself and continued walking.

The delicious smells by the roadside were enticing, and she was starting to feel a bit hungry too.

She glanced at the time on the side of the road—maybe he hadn’t started lunch yet?

She wondered whether he had gone back to school today.

Lin Ying looked at the passing students nearby.

Maybe he was still slacking off at home.

She also remembered him saying that no one would be home for the next couple of days. If it were up to her, she’d definitely stay at home and slack off to her heart’s content.

For a brief moment, some memories surfaced, and Lin Ying stopped in her tracks.

She turned to look back at the entrance of that old residential complex that was now behind her.

Suddenly, Lin Ying felt that maybe she should go visit this newly acquainted friend of hers today.

After all, he was the local she had spent the most time with since coming to this world. Besides, she had nothing else to do right now, and even the students who had gone to school would probably be back home around this hour.

It absolutely wasn’t because she was thinking of getting a free meal or anything.

After hesitating for a few seconds, the girl decisively turned around.

.

“Outmatched. I concede.”

“That was a pretty impressive match.”

“Ceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeb!”

“Sigh, where are my teammates? Teammates, team~mates~helloooo~?”

Following a flurry of polite yet frantically spammed in-game phrases exchanged between the winners and losers, Zhang Qiming finally removed the headphones from his head and let out a long breath.

“Finally… we won.”

He sighed weakly.

That was the nature of gaming—after an intense and exhilarating match, it felt like he had just returned from a battlefield, totally drained.

Whether it was an FPS, RTS, MOBA, or ARPG—when things got critical, the brain would go into combat mode, directing the adrenal glands to release adrenaline in order to sharpen focus and boost reaction time.

And when a match like that ended and the body gradually came down from that adrenaline high, all the fatigue that had been building up would come crashing down at once.

Now, having just pulled off a miraculous comeback, he still needed a bit more time to calm his still-thumping heart.

He reached out to grab his water cup and took a sip, only to remember that it had been empty since early in the match, and he hadn’t had a chance to refill it.

Swallowing a mouthful of saliva, he couldn’t help but feel his throat going dry.

He took the headphones off from around his neck and hung them aside, then pushed away the decade-old computer chair beneath him and stood up, rubbing his head.

“Ugh~”

When he stood up, he happened to bump into a few bruised spots on his body, making him wince in pain.

The bandage on his head had already been removed. Fortunately, the original injury had only been a superficial scrape on his temple and not some deep wound that required stitches.

After all, unless someone was seriously messed up in the head, no one in a fight that wasn’t meant to kill would target the opponent’s head as a priority.

Though, since they were teenagers, anything was possible.

All he could say was that he’d been lucky—and his body tough enough—that nothing too serious had happened in the end.

Unlike yesterday, when his mind still felt a bit fuzzy, his head was now completely clear. It was just that large parts of his body were bruised black and blue, still aching whenever touched.

But honestly, he wasn’t sure how much of that dazed feeling in his head earlier had come from the actual beating—and how much had come from being scared by Lin Ying.

The moment he thought of the day before yesterday, an unbelievable figure surfaced in Zhang Qiming’s mind.

In a moment of crisis, he had been rescued by a mysterious girl who appeared out of nowhere. She had even followed him home, and after a series of surreal events, openly declared that she came from another world.

If it hadn’t been a real supernatural experience, this story would’ve sounded exactly like a typical chuunibyou girl falling into his lap—followed, of course, by an epic and heart-pounding youth romance drama.

But who could’ve guessed that this girl, who appeared to be harmless and sweet, turned out to be some kind of indescribable and terrifying being.

Having just escaped death by the skin of his teeth, he immediately ran into something even more dangerous.

Yet, after some unexpected communication, before he even had time to react, the crisis was already resolved—and the two of them somehow ended up getting along quite well?

After all, they’d chatted for a good while afterward.

If what she said was true, and he really was the first person she had talked with at such length since coming to this world, then it made sense that she had talked a bit more.

Although Lin Ying came off as quite lonely at first, once they started talking, he found—unexpectedly—that this girl was actually cheerful and sociable. It didn’t really match the aloof, sharp-tongued image she gave at the start, but honestly, he liked this version too.

Cute is justice—or rather, just looking cute was enough.

And her staying over that night had come as a big surprise to him.

To be honest, as a proper teenage boy, his heart had been racing a little at the beginning.

But in the end… nothing happened, just as expected. After wrapping herself in a blanket, the girl laid straight down on the sofa. He didn’t even get the chance to invite her to take the bed while he slept on the couch or something.

That had just been a host’s basic sense of responsibility—definitely not because he wanted to be able to say he’d once shared a bed with a cute girl.

Definitely not.

And when he woke up the next morning, she was already up—and even went to the kitchen to make breakfast for the two of them.

That girlfriend energy… how should he put it… she was definitely very capable and domestic…

But honestly, the maturity and speech that didn’t quite match her youthful appearance gave Zhang Qiming a strange feeling—like he was chatting with a reliable older sister from next door.

According to what Lin Ying had said, she was definitely older than him.

But since she looked so petite and delicate, he still subconsciously thought of her as someone his own age.