You're Strong But Now You're Mine
Chapter 37: Ah

Chapter 37: Chapter 37: Ah

"Thanks to you, thanks to you," Le Yuxin said, clasping his fists, "Just thinking about having a little sister at home who needs me to kill and commit arson just to keep her fed—me, as the big brother, I shot upright from my deathbed in shock. How could I possibly die that easily?"

Ever since Qian Yuya found out her brother was a notorious villain, she’d totally dropped her tranquil, emotionless literary-girl persona and did everything she could to get under Le Yuxin’s skin. But she barely spent an hour a day with him, most of which was at mealtime, so even if she wanted to nitpick, she had no idea where to start; all she could do was pick on things like "not picking up your bowl to eat," "shaking your leg all the time," "bad sitting posture," just to insult Le Yuxin.

"Hearing his sister’s familiar greeting immediately put Le Yuxin in a good mood." "Not that Le Yuxin was some sort of freak, but compared to the hatred and disgust in all those eyes outside, Qian Yuya’s harmless swear words were practically as sweet, delightful, and cute as a kitten’s meow."

"Every day, all he looked forward to was bickering with Qian Yuya." "Especially after the people at the Statistical Department realized they couldn’t beat him at cards, Le Yuxin really didn’t have much else to enjoy in this world."

Qian Yuya huffed, carrying a basket in both hands as she walked in. She looked up at the chandelier on the ceiling, "This is way brighter than the lights in our room."

"Plenty of light is good for patients, and besides that, the Medical Bureau is part of the Imperial Court. Of course they use Luminous Stones with military-grade energy supplies, and staying a night in the Medical Bureau costs a whole gold crown. No way they’d try to pinch pennies on lighting," Le Yuxin said with a smile.

In Huyao there were only two kinds of currency: qian and gold crowns. Qian was the lowest-valued standard exchange currency. Qian Yuliu and Qian Yuya’s daily expenses came to about sixteen qian, and a thousand qian could be traded for one gold crown—or so they said, but in practice nobody actually did the conversion.

Normal folks really didn’t have any use for high-unit coins like the gold crown in their day-to-day lives. Only businesses or organizations conducting large-scale trade used gold crowns for big transactions. Le Yuxin had looked into it before—there seemed to be a real shortage of actual gold in this world, and the people of Huyao were obsessed with naturally stable ores like gold. Le Yuxin had a few gold crowns himself, and he couldn’t stop fiddling with them. He didn’t really know why.

Qian Yuya couldn’t help but click her tongue, "That’s ridiculously expensive."

Le Yuxin said modestly, "It’s not so bad. Don’t forget, I’m the team leader of the Statistical Department. I don’t need to pay."

Apparently, Qian Yuya’s head instantly filled with some dramatic plot where the Statistical Department exploited the Medical Bureau, because her face immediately soured. She slammed the basket down on the bedside table and pulled out a rice bowl covered with a lid. The savory aroma wafted out uncontrollably. Having just had surgery, and eaten nothing but an apple after several hours, Le Yuxin’s stomach started to scream.

Le Yuxin was delighted, "I didn’t expect you to bring me food. I’m honestly touched!"

Qian Yuya snapped, "I only brought you leftovers because someone told me you were dying right after I finished cooking. I made too much, and I didn’t want to waste it overnight."

"See, that’s the mark of a civilized person," Le Yuxin thought, "Back in the day, when I brought food for my roommates, I’d say, ’If you kids don’t call me Dad, you don’t get a bite.’ All Qian Yuya could manage was to call it ’leftovers,’ showing that Qian Yuliu really didn’t dote on his little sister enough. She couldn’t even swear properly. Guarantee, when she grows up and enters society, she’s gonna get roasted."

Le Yuxin sighed inwardly, then started eating with a huge grin on his face. After a couple mouthfuls, he noticed Qian Yuya hadn’t touched her food and asked, "Why aren’t you eating?"

"I already ate."

Le Yuxin pulled out his pocket watch and checked the time, "We usually eat about now, and factoring in you finishing school, grocery shopping, cooking, then coming all the way here to the Medical Bureau—you didn’t have time to eat at all."

"I swear, I already ate."

"Look, it’s not that I don’t believe you, but unless you were eating and walking at the same time, there’s no way you had time..."

"I scarfed everything down and ran straight over, is that not allowed!"

"Boohoo, I can’t believe my little sister cares about her big brother so much—risking a stomachache to rush over here just to bring me food! I swear, I’ll work extra hard to save up for a thick dowry for you..."

"You—!" Qian Yuya turned her head away, too mad to even look at Le Yuxin. "Hurry up and eat. I’m going home when you’re done!"

Le Yuxin just grinned and made a big show of chewing as noisily and slowly as possible, constantly throwing out things like, "Wow, this tastes so good," "This fish is so tender," "This veggie is so sweet," and pausing every once in a while to burp. Qian Yuya’s shoulders started shaking, and she could hardly keep her throat from twitching.

Qian Yuya snapped viciously, "Can you please eat quietly? Didn’t you listen in Mongolian Studies class when the teacher said classy people eat quietly so they don’t bother others?"

"Sorry, as you well know, the personnel at the Statistical Department are not what you’d call classy."

Qian Yuya was so mad she almost couldn’t catch her breath.

Just then, Le Yuxin patted his stomach, "Ah, I’m full, but there’s still a ton of food left. Why don’t you eat it, Yuya?"

"I already—"

"You can use this end of the chopsticks, I never touched it. It’s clean," Le Yuxin said, pulling out his handkerchief to wipe the oily end off and flipping them around so the clean tips faced Qian Yuya. "Did you know that Martial Artists with high Combat Technique can hear the tiny sounds in people’s bodies around them—like when a stomach growls?"

Qian Yuya stared at him in silence, then reluctantly took the chopsticks and asked, "Is that really true?"

"Nope! I can’t believe you actually fell for that. Sis, I’m deeply concerned you’re going to get conned by some scumbag in the future," Le Yuxin said.

Qian Yuya jabbed the thick end of the chopsticks violently into the fish, "I’m never going to believe a single word you say again."

"Actually, I’ve decided to resign from the Statistical Department."

"Seriously!?"

Qian Yuya’s face went from stormy to sunny in an instant, but when she saw the playful grin on Le Yuxin’s face, she immediately got mad, "You’re messing with me?"

"Whenever a man says sweet things and you just instantly believe him... Yuya, you’ve just met too few people." "Remember this: there is no such thing as love without reason in this world—only hatred without reason. If someone suddenly wants to give up everything for you, he’s either after your body or you share blood ties—like, say, I’m your dad—wait, no, I’m your big brother," Le Yuxin almost defaulted to calling himself ’Dad’ again.

"For me?" Qian Yuya snorted out a fake laugh, a trick she’d picked up from Le Yuxin, "Now you’re being hunted in the street and nearly died because of it, ending up in the Medical Bureau. Haven’t you realized it yet? Who would really benefit if you left the Statistical Department?"

Le Yuxin replied, "That’d obviously be Chen Fu. That guy’s been eyeing my team leader spot for ages—if I quit he’ll be lighting firecrackers to celebrate. But don’t worry, that ’Fu’ in his name says it all. My team leader position is as solid as Mount Tai."

Qian Yuya sighed and shook her head, "There’s really nothing to say to power-hungry people like you. Next time I visit the Medical Bureau, it’ll probably be to claim some dead family member’s remains."

"Even though every word out of Qian Yuya’s mouth was an insult, the subtext in every single one was that she hoped Qian Yuliu would get away from the Statistical Department sooner rather than later, so he wouldn’t keep getting tangled up in these revenge duels and vendettas." "Le Yuxin almost couldn’t stop himself from calling Qian Yuliu his big brother-in-law."

"Although he’d said so much, Le Yuxin’s real goal was just to get Qian Yuya to eat a little dinner."

He glanced at his system panel and saw the progress of "Qian Yuliu’s Tribulation" tick up by one. "Looks like this kind of counted as him having dinner with Qian Yuya."

"He was only a few steps away from Crossing the Tribulation." "Le Yuxin really was looking forward to it—after he survived this ’Have Dinner Twelve Times with Your Sister’ ordeal, how would his Spirit change? Would he turn into the shape of his little sister?"

"By the way, you took the graduation assessment today, right? How’d it go?" Le Yuxin asked with concern.

"None of your business."

"Fair enough. But I heard that if you do really well on the graduation exam, the school will write you a recommendation to go to Yanjing and take the Royal Academy entrance test," Le Yuxin said with an especially punchable tone, his last word drawn out for effect. "But of course, my darling little sister would never leave Star Engraving Prefecture, never leave her beloved big brother, riiight?"

Qian Yuya finished the last piece of fish, took a pink handkerchief and gently wiped her mouth, looked up at Le Yuxin’s expectant glance, and nodded hard,

"Right, I won’t leave Star Engraving Prefecture."

Le Yuxin blinked.

"Huh?"