novelraw Chapter 176
Chapter 176
Chapter 176: Don’t Worry, I’ll Cool Down
Zhou Anqi’s voice was deafening in the stillness of the night.
Diners at several nearby tables who were drinking and eating skewers all turned their attention to them. Seeing the situation was not right, Zhou Anqi grabbed Fu Yuan’s arm and left the place, plunging into a dark alley.
The alley connected to a park, making it a good place for a walk and a heart-to-heart talk.
At the barbecue table, the few remaining people looked at each other, but no one spoke.
Should we follow them?
Let’s not follow them, something might happen.
Let’s follow them… but I’m also afraid of disturbing them.
“Anqi was so assertive just now, like a different person.”
Chen Tao squeezed his head over and whispered to Xia Li. Even though everyone had already left, he still acted cautiously.
After all, she’s a girl born and raised in Sichuan Province. When she’s not talking, she’s a submissive little rabbit, but once she gets angry, she’s a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Xia Li raised his hand and rubbed the ‘Tyrannosaurus Rex’ beside him, nodding in agreement with Chen Tao’s statement.
“Anqi won’t do this or that to Yuanzi, right…” Chen Tao said uneasily.
Xia Li nodded again.
Judging from their personalities, Yuanzi must be the one being rubbed against the ground.
But Xia Li knew Zhou Anqi. She wouldn’t really do anything to Fu Yuan, but she wouldn’t let him off easily either.
“Someone has already paid for your table, and they asked if you need more food.”
The barbecue shop owner, wearing an apron, walked over, glanced at the table, and replied to the customer on his phone.
Chen Tao reacted quickly and shook his head.
“No need, we’ve almost finished eating. There are still six bottles of beer unopened, see if you can refund the money to him.”
“Okay.” The barbecue shop owner counted the beers and sent a voice message back to the customer.
At the same time, Xia Li received two messages from Zhou Anqi.
Qi: Xia Ge, it’s okay, you guys go back.
Qi: It was my fault for leaving the group. I wanted to calm down… but found I couldn’t. I acted impulsively, I’m sorry.
Summer Dawn: Talk it out properly.
After replying to the messages, they had almost finished eating the barbecue. They finished their drinks and headed home.
From the alley, the sound of arguments could still be heard intermittently.
“Why quit research? Isn’t this your dream… If you quit, what about all your hard work so far?”
“My dream has changed now, okay?!!”
“But…”
“There are no buts! I’m here in front of you now, this is my decision, so what’s your decision!!? Speak!!”
“…”
“Why are you crying! Don’t cry!!”
Chen Tao shrank his neck, vaguely hearing Fu Yuan’s muffled cries. He couldn’t decide, so he asked Xia Li.
“Should we intervene?”
“No, we can’t get involved in this.”
Xia Li shook his head. Chen Tao was still worried. Yuanzi had drunk a bit too much, so he decided to wait nearby and help Zhou Anqi carry Yuanzi back later.
“Anqi’s suitcase is still with me, I’ll keep an eye on it, you guys go back first.”
“Okay.”
Xia Li let him be, said goodbye, and pulled the dragon claw beside him to go home.
“Sigh, there’s no such thing as easy in the adult world. The older you get, the more you hesitate…
I really envy Boss Xia, he doesn’t have to worry about anything with Little Lu.”
Chen Tao looked at the backs of the two as they left, sighing from the bottom of his heart.
“Who says I don’t have worries.”
Xia Li didn’t look back, more like talking to himself.
He had no fewer things to worry about than Zhou Anqi and Fu Yuan.
Every family has its own problems.
Along the way, Lucia beside Xia Li kept rubbing her eyes.
She held back the two crystal-clear dragon tears that had welled up in her eyes under the light.
“Chili got in my eyes.”
Before Xia Li could speak, Lucia explained her ‘loss of composure’ first.
“Uh-huh.” Xia Li nodded perfunctorily.
“Really.” Lucia emphasized.
“I know, you definitely wouldn’t lie to me.” Xia Li nodded again.
“…”
Lucia felt guilty.
She didn’t feel she understood human emotions that deeply yet.
But today, when she saw her friend drop everything and appear in front of Watermelon Head, Lucia felt an inexplicable pang in her heart.
Putting herself in Zhou Anqi’s shoes, if Xia Li left her in Azure Continent, she would also rush back to him without hesitation and question him just like Zhou Anqi questioned Watermelon Head, asking why he left her behind.
“Anqi left the group at noon… She was in a very bad mood today, I kept comforting her.”
On the way back, Lucia began to explain her actions today.
After learning that Xia Li was going out for drinks with Watermelon Head tonight, Lucia told Zhou Anqi.
Zhou Anqi finally found her answer after struggling. She spent four hours traveling from Beijing back to Qingcheng City and appeared in front of everyone.
It was a gamble, and Zhou Anqi undoubtedly gambled everything she had.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say it was a foolish act done on impulse.
But as long as she thought it was worth it, no one had the right to criticize her actions.
“So you were the one who did it,” Xia Li took a breath, remembering something else, “Then why are there no chat records on your phone?”
“I deleted them beforehand.” The evil dragon confessed.
Xia Li stopped walking.
Lucia, who was following behind Xia Li, didn’t have time to brake and bumped into his back.
She took a step back, rubbed her forehead, and raised her watery eyes.
“Oh, you’re even guarding against me.” Xia Li reached out and pinched the dragon’s soft little face.
The evil dragon’s face was like a dough that had risen, deformed by Xia Li’s pinching, and soon became red.
The two of them, all lovey-dovey, stumbled back to the apartment building.
Xia Li felt his head swaying violently. As time passed, his brain’s control over his limbs became increasingly difficult.
“Very dizzy?”
Lucia hugged Xia Li’s arm and found that his body was swaying and he couldn’t stand straight.
She thought the brave hero was pretending to be drunk to trick her again, but when Lucia looked at his expression suspiciously, she found that his already somewhat blurred eyes were not faking it at all.
This time, the brave hero… seemed to be truly under the control of a dizziness spell.
“You made me drink so much, now look, you have to carry me up.”
Xia Li grabbed the handrail of the stairs, feeling the handrail shaking violently in his hand. Thinking of the aging infrastructure of this old apartment building, he was afraid of breaking the two iron bars, so he let go and leaned against the wall on the other side.
“Hey, hey…”
Lucia thought the brave hero was going to lie down, so she quickly used her thin and small body to support him.
“Didn’t you say that beer has a low… what’s it called, low alcohol content, not easy to get drunk…” Lucia put Xia Li’s arm over her shoulder.
Unfortunately, the height difference between her and the brave hero was too great, it was very difficult to carry him on her back.
“Low alcohol content doesn’t mean you can’t get drunk, and whether you get drunk depends largely on the situation… For example, today’s situation is quite easy to get drunk.”
Xia Li’s voice was slurred like chanting, the smell of alcohol mixed with the sound of his breath blowing on Lucia’s snow-white neck.
Lucia was in a flurry, feeling itchy on the back of her neck, and raised her hand to scratch it.
“Don’t mess around.”
Just as she took two steps carrying him, Lucia felt a tingling sensation on her neck again.
“You, don’t bite me!” The evil dragon turned back angrily.
“You said it yourself,” Xia Li said roguishly, “For dragons, a gentle bite is a way of expressing affection.”
“That’s dragon behavior, not human behavior. You’re a human, you can’t use dragon behavior!” Lucia stopped Xia Li. Seeing that it was ineffective, she slapped Xia Li’s old face.
Xia Li couldn’t understand such logical issues now. Lucia’s words were like going in one ear and out the other, without even going through his brain.
“I am a dragon now.” He said.
After saying that, he kept rubbing his face against Lucia’s snow-white jade neck. Lucia had to support him while stopping his little actions, she was almost too busy to cope at the stairwell.
This brave hero is drunk, so troublesome!
“If you bite me again, I’ll…”
She originally wanted to threaten the brave hero, but she found that she didn’t have any threatening content to use.
Xia Li raised his dazed face, squinting his eyes and waiting for her to continue.
It seemed that he was waiting for Lucia to give a threatening answer before he would weigh whether to carry it out.
He still has some sense!
Lucia pursed her lips and said, “I’ll leave you at the stairwell.”
◈◈◈
Xia Li: “Then I’ll be picked up by someone.”
“You’ll be picked up by bad people and then be made to work like a dog…”
Lucia hummed twice, thinking that this sentence was harsh enough and the brave hero would definitely be scared.
“I’m an adult male, the possibility of being picked up for labor in modern society is very small. The greater probability is that I will be picked up by a passing woman and dragged home to do bad things, you know, this is called ‘corpse picking’…”
Before Xia Li finished speaking, Lucia’s small fist had already landed on his chest.
She almost made him vomit out all the alcohol he had drunk.
“Hey, why are you hitting me? I’m already dizzy enough, if you hit me again, I’ll faint and you’ll see.”
“Shut up, you’re not allowed to talk!”
Lucia dragged Xia Li upstairs.
She originally wanted to threaten the brave hero, but now the brave hero was threatening her back.
Now it seemed that even a dizzy brave hero was difficult to defeat… How terrifying!
Lucia put Xia Li’s two arms over her shoulders and used her small body to drag him upstairs.
Although she had enough strength, her height was far from enough. Xia Li’s two legs were dragging on the ground like rags, bumping against the steps all the way home.
Lucia took out her key to open the door. Little Cotton had heard the commotion long ago and was squatting on the ground to greet them.
So Lucia left Xia Li at the door, went inside to pet Cotton first, and then came back to drag Xia Li into the house.
She first threw him on the sofa, then thought about it, and carried him into the room.
The brave hero’s clothes were worn neatly, and she took great effort to take off his jacket.
She peeled off his clothes layer by layer, and when she took off the last autumn shirt, the shirt got stuck on his neck. Lucia pulled until the shirt was deformed, and then she pulled it off the brave hero’s contorted head like pulling a radish.
“…”
“Can you leave me some privacy??”
Xia Li grabbed his last pair of pants, as if holding onto his last shred of dignity.
What are you doing, what are you doing?
In the middle of winter, are you going to strip him naked and stew him?!
“You’re hot, the internet says the best way to cool down is to take off your clothes.” Lucia said innocently.
Xia Li took a breath: “It’s winter!”
“Then how do you cool down in winter?”
Lucia blinked, suddenly thinking of a solution.
“I know, I’ll put you on the balcony to cool down naturally!”
“…”
The corner of Xia Li’s mouth twitched. After thinking about it carefully, he found that he really couldn’t keep up with the evil dragon’s train of thought, “Sure, tomorrow I’ll be a cold corpse.”
Lucia quickly became quiet. Xia Li lay flat on the bed, feeling like a small boat, his body swaying with the surging waves.
This was a symptom of drunkenness.
The last time he was this drunk was at his high school graduation.
In the past, when he was drunk, no one would take care of him. Basically, Xia Li would find his way home by himself, climb into bed, and wait for the dawn of the next day.
Drink some water, go to the bathroom a few times, wait for the alcohol in his body to be completely metabolized, and when he woke up, he would be a good man again.
But this time was different.
This time he had Lucia.
Xia Li was curious about how the dragon would handle him in this situation.
After waiting for a while, there was no sound at all.
Xia Li thought that the evil dragon had really moved him to the balcony to cool down. He opened his eyes and found that he was still lying on the bed.
The familiar ceiling, the dazzling incandescent light, the rustling sound.
Turning his head, Xia Li saw that Lucia had taken off her coat at some point.
She was wearing a close-fitting thermal underwear, the neckline of the clothes was low, revealing her small and delicate collarbone, her slender waistline was graceful with a sense of beauty, the curve of her chest might just fit one hand.
This was undoubtedly the most fatal temptation for Xia Li, who had no reason.
He couldn’t help but want to hug the evil dragon, but the evil dragon twisted her small waist and turned sideways.
“…What are you doing?”
Lucia turned her face away and said, “I’m cooling down.”
“You’re cooling down, I’m cooling down too.”
Xia Li felt his throat dry and waited quietly for a while before Lucia snuggled into his arms like a cat.
Now Xia Li understood why Lucia said ‘cooling down’.
She took off her clothes and waited for the heat from her body to dissipate.
The room without the air conditioner on was very cold, and her body temperature would drop after taking off her clothes.
When she was ‘cooled down’ enough, she snuggled into Xia Li’s arms and used her body to lower his temperature.
This was the evil dragon’s method of physical cooling.
Xia Li took a deep breath and calmed himself down.
“Just now, about Anqi and Yuanzi, what are your thoughts?”
Xia Li asked softly. The evil dragon in his arms moved twice, got out to cool down for two minutes, and then returned to Xia Li’s embrace.
Xia Li felt like he was experiencing both ice and fire.
What Lucia didn’t know was that she wasn’t cooling Xia Li down when she snuggled into his arms, but rather warming him up.
The girl’s slightly cool body was like a blazing fire to Xia Li, he felt his nerves constantly being teased.
“I don’t know, human emotions are too profound.” The evil dragon muttered in response.
“But I saw you almost drop a little pearl.” Xia Li said again.
“That’s because chili got in my eyes!”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Believe it or not!”
Lucia wouldn’t talk about these things with a drunk brave hero.
She tested Xia Li’s forehead temperature with the back of her hand and felt that it was even hotter.
Just as Lucia was about to go to the refrigerator to freeze herself for a while before coming back, Xia Li pulled her back and told her to stop messing around.
“Don’t bother, come here.”
“If a human’s body temperature exceeds forty degrees, it’s easy to have problems… they’ll die!”
Lucia’s face was serious. These were all things she had looked up online.
“This is a normal fever after drinking, the temperature is not high, I won’t die.” Xia Li said with his eyes closed.
“…” Lucia didn’t believe it and used her hand to measure Xia Li’s temperature again.
She couldn’t tell how high Xia Li’s temperature was, she just felt that his body was very hot, it looked abnormal.
“Then do you want to drink honey water, to sober up?”
“Do we have honey at home?”
“No…”
“Okay, okay, no problem, just stay in my arms for a while, I’ll sleep and I’ll be fine.”
Although Xia Li’s tone was helpless, he was still touched in his heart.
“Lucia…”
After hugging her for a while, the girl in his arms was so soft and tempting that Xia Li always wanted to bury his head and steal a bite.
He kissed the evil dragon’s face, his voice exceptionally gentle.
The evil dragon put her ear to Xia Li’s chest and listened.
“Huh? Is something wrong?”
“No…”
“Then sleep well.”
“Lucia, what if I want to marry you?” Xia Li suddenly said.
Lucia was stunned, her little head seemed to be thinking about the answer to this question.
“Then…”
She said seriously: “Then I’ll marry you too!”
Xia Li: “…”
Lucia knew about human marriage customs, but she couldn’t tell the difference between marrying and being married. She just answered like that to respond to Xia Li when he said that.
Xia Li was silent for a long time, and a smile suddenly appeared on the corner of his mouth.
“Then should I ask for a bride price from you?”
“Bride price? What’s that?” The evil dragon didn’t understand.
“It means if you want to marry me, you have to pay a sum of money, and then you can marry me.” Xia Li analyzed with his limited thinking ability.
As soon as Lucia heard that she had to spend money, her expression became serious.
“How… how much?”
“It might be a bit expensive.” Xia Li said seriously.
“Can you give me a discount… I still have to buy a house, I don’t have much money.”