Chapter 42: The Prize Pool Keeps Growing

Lin Xue’er, having finished the negotiation, turned around with a smile.

“Big brother, I… big brother?”

Lin Xue’er stared at the empty table.

Lin Lue and Ye Beiming were gone.

She tilted her head sharply, a faint cracking sound like bone echoed.

Her lively pink pupils began to lose their light again.

Her big brother had been taken away again…

—

The Witch Era.

The male-to-female ratio was severely imbalanced, and there was a strange sense of chastity reversal in the air.

So, if a man appeared in a women’s restroom, he’d likely attract a swarm of female perverts, potentially unlocking a restroom defeat CG.

And it’d be a group-use one.

Absolutely terrifying.

Lower District, a dilapidated public restroom.

Inside a cramped stall of the women’s side, the walls were peeling and stained.

The partition boards were covered in messy graffiti and contact info for pink advertisements.

Lin Lue’s expression was a bit melancholic.

The turn of events made him oddly want to light up a cigarette to calm down.

Even though he never smoked.

If he got caught here, tarnishing his reputation was the least of his worries.

Lin Lue was more afraid of getting “unlocked” by some bold female vagrants.

Just then, a few urgent knocks came from the wooden partition.

If it were any ordinary man, he’d probably be frozen stiff, face pale with fear.

After all, getting caught in the women’s restroom meant, for them, a group of women cackling as they closed in, lifting him up high for a day of relentless fun.

Lin Lue remained calm, speaking to the person next door.

“Are you done?”

Because he knew exactly who it was.

Ye Beiming.

“Lin Lue… Lin Lue…”

A soft, loli-like voice drifted over from the next stall, tinged with tears and panic.

“Help me…”

Lin Lue raised an eyebrow.

An accident?

Had the little girl fallen into the hole?

He pushed off the floor lightly, climbed the partition in a few moves, and flipped over into the next stall with a steady landing.

The moment Lin Lue looked, he saw a holy beast.

Startled by that fierce aura, Lin Lue nearly slid down the wall.

No teeth, but extremely fierce.

“Lin Lue, Lin Lue… help me.”

Ye Beiming looked at Lin Lue, her cheeks flushed bright red, utterly embarrassed.

She raised her wet little hands, with crystal-clear droplets clinging to her fingertips.

“My hands… they’re not convenient.”

“Can you pull them up for me… okay?”

Lin Lue understood.

But…

“Before we came in, didn’t I give you a lot of tissues? Couldn’t you just wipe your hands?”

Hearing this, Ye Beiming hung her head lower, her long lashes trembling softly.

She finally squeezed out two words after a long pause.

“They fell in.”

Lin Lue: “?”

After a moment’s thought, he figured out what happened.

This clumsy little girl had dumped the whole stack into the toilet pit.

Looking at Ye Beiming, whose head was nearly buried in her chest, Lin Lue couldn’t help but sigh inwardly.

Couldn’t even hold onto a stack of tissues—such pampered behavior could only come from the Upper District.

“So… Lin Lue, help me.”

“Help me pull them up.”

Ye Beiming said in a small voice, then added with a hint of threat: “Otherwise, I’ll just grab onto you directly.”

“Hey, no, no, no!” Lin Lue quickly stopped her.

“Don’t wipe your water on my clothes. Fine, I’ll help!”

Seeing her little wet paws reaching for his clothes, Lin Lue’s eyelids instinctively twitched.

Even though the liquid on her hands was clean, with no dirt or odor, Lin Lue still… didn’t want to be touched.

Pinching lightly with his fingertips, he picked up the loose string, lifted it to her waist, and in a flash, tied a pretty white bow at her hip.

“Lin Lue, why aren’t you opening your eyes?”

Ye Beiming muttered softly.

“And why aren’t you squatting down…”

He was too scared. Afraid of the tiger.

So he didn’t dare open his eyes, nor did he dare squat.

Expressionless, Lin Lue slid his palm up her soft waist, found the hem of her skirt, and quickly pulled it down.

Only then did Lin Lue open his eyes, tilting his head back to let out a long sigh at the ceiling, as if he’d just completed some grueling task.

“You’ve never helped another girl pull up her pants before, have you?”

Ye Beiming stood on tiptoe, muttering quietly.

“Looks like it from how you act.”

“Let me tell you something to make you happy. You’re the first man who’s ever helped me pull up my pants.”

“You hit the jackpot, you know that?”

With her clothes neat again, Ye Beiming felt like she was back in form, her mouth starting to run wild.

Lin Lue ignored the little girl’s chatter.

The most important thing was to leave this awkward place—a women’s restroom—as soon as possible.

He pulled out more tissues from his pocket, carefully wiped her little water-stained hands clean, and then took her wrist as they left the stall.

At the sink, the counter was covered in a thin layer of dust.

The faucet was old and rusty.

Ye Beiming stretched her little legs as high as she could, but still couldn’t reach the tap.

She had no choice but to tug pitifully at Lin Lue’s shirt.

“Lin Lue, this faucet is bullying me.”

Lin Lue: “…”

Deciding he was already in too deep, Lin Lue scooped her up with one hand, and with the other, held her delicate hand as he turned on the slightly murky water, washing her clean bit by bit.

“So, my little lady, what exactly is your background?”

Lin Lue asked casually as he washed.

“Upper City,” Ye Beiming replied obediently.

“Oh? So you really are from the Upper City.”

That figured.

From Ye Beiming’s actions and mannerisms, she had that spoiled temperament.

If she wasn’t from the Upper City, he’d eat his words!

“Why were those Purity Sect people after you?”

“Who knows?”

Ye Beiming pouted.

“Who can guess the thoughts of crazy cultists?”

“You really have no idea why?”

Ye Beiming’s gaze unconsciously drifted elsewhere.

“I don’t know… Fine, fine, stop staring at me like that.”

Lin Lue’s gaze made Ye Beiming uncomfortable.

“This involves a big secret of mine. Do you want to hear it?”

“Of course I do.”

“Are you sure you want to talk about it here?”

Lin Lue looked around at the dirty restroom.

True.

Not a good place.

Getting caught by someone else would be a disaster.

“Tell me when we get home.”

Home?

“Mm-hmm!”

Ye Beiming’s eyes flickered.

She looked at her now clean little hands and nodded obediently.

She refused to get down from Lin Lue’s arms, hooking her slender arms around his neck, grinning at him like she was determined to cling to him.

Figuring she wasn’t heavy, Lin Lue prepared to head out with her in his arms.

But just three steps before the exit, footsteps suddenly sounded from outside the door, approaching.

Lin Lue: “!”

He froze mid-motion, then looked down at Ye Beiming, whose eyes had gone wide.

“This is a bit bad.”

Ye Beiming whispered in a breathy voice, “If someone sees you coming out of the women’s restroom, you’ll be… mmph.”

Lin Lue clamped a hand over her mouth, lowering his voice.

“Don’t talk.”

He pressed himself against the back of the door, listening intently.

He thought the person would come in, and he could use the blind spot to slip out the moment they entered.

But the footsteps stopped at the door.

After a few seconds, they slowly faded away.

It seemed… they had left?

The footsteps grew distant until they vanished.

A thoughtful look crossed Lin Lue’s eyes.

“Just a passerby, it’s fine.”

Holding Ye Beiming, Lin Lue stepped out of the women’s restroom door.

The relieved smile on his face hadn’t even fully formed when Lin Lue suddenly froze.

Not far away, just a few meters off, Lin Xue’er stood there quietly.

A soft, sweet smile curved her lips, but those pretty pink pupils had lost their light again, an emptiness that made Lin Lue’s skin crawl.

She stared directly at Lin Lue and the Ye Beiming in his arms, not blinking once.

“So, my dear big brother.”

Lin Xue’er spoke, her voice soft and lovely, but every word seemed to contain shards of ice, cold and grating.

“Can you explain to me properly? Why were you walking out of the women’s restroom with this little girl?”

“Right now, I’m really curious. Extremely curious.”