Forced Me to Regress, Huh?

Outside the arcade, Shen Qingning imitated Little Youzi and clipped the Pikachu keychain onto her jeans.

As she walked with her strikingly long legs, the little yellow mouse swayed left and right in rhythm.

Sometimes, when Cheng Zhu looked at her, he couldn’t help but wonder if God had given her a special long-leg effect when she was born.

Just like that, Lin Lu would have a piglet plushie at home, and Shen Qingning would have a Pikachu keychain at hers.

The group took the elevator down to the parking lot and waved goodbye.

Cheng Zhu carried his sister and got into Jiang Wanzhou’s car. Jiang Wanzhou drove them home.

Not long after they got in, Little Youzi, exhausted from playing, fell asleep, hugging her plushies.

The little girl looked incredibly cute as she slept. Occasionally, she would pucker her lips like she was lost in some sweet dream.

At this moment, Cheng Zhu’s phone buzzed with a WeChat message. He quickly switched it to silent mode so as not to disturb Little Youzi.

Of course, children tended to sleep deeply and weren’t easily woken up—unlike many adults who suffered from insomnia, they had light sleep and would wake up at the slightest sound or movement.

He picked up his phone and saw that the artist Fox Talk had sent him another image.

She had gradually figured out the style her patron wanted. The image sent this time was quite mature, with hardly any areas that needed change. It was at the level where it could directly be used.

He’s got some serious talent for making things lewd! Cheng Zhu mentally gave this artist high praise.

Some artists were like this. Ask them to draw something normal, and they just couldn’t grasp what you wanted, no matter how you explained it.

But ask her to make it lewd, she’d innovate, add flair, and get wildly creative.

While waiting at a red light, Jiang Wanzhou glanced over at Cheng Zhu curiously. “What are you looking at? Your expression is so intense.”

“Intense?”

“Yeah. It’s like you’re full of curiosity.”

“Perfect, intense and curious. That’s the vibe!”

Jiang Wanzhou: “???”

He felt that Cheng Zhu was keeping more and more secrets lately. He was no longer the childhood friend who would share everything with him.

He felt this dog had been doing all sorts of things behind his back recently.

When the Mercedes-Benz G-Class pulled up at Cheng Zhu’s house, he carried Little Youzi out of the car.

The little girl, half-awake, half-asleep, murmured a drowsy goodbye to Jiang Wanzhou. “Goodbye, Big Brother Little Jiang.”

* * *

Meanwhile, Shen Qingning had already dropped Lin Lu off at the doorstep.

“Bye~” Lin Lu waved, unbuckled her seatbelt, and stepped out of the car.

With her bag in one hand and the piglet plushie in the other, she casually walked into the elevator.

Shen Qingning watched her figure, her eyes lingering on the plushie in her hand, but didn’t dwell on it.

The entire ride home, Lin Lu had been chattering about how rigged the arcade’s claw machines were.

Shen Qingning replied with a casual, “Oh, really?”

It was as if she had never experienced it herself.

But in truth, she was silently cursing alongside Lin Lu.

She had poured so much effort into catching a keychain and was now certain that merchants were indeed black-hearted.

Lin Lu’s family lived in a spacious luxury flat in Hangzhou, with one elevator dedicated to each unit. Her floor was known as the prestigious Phoenix Floor.

Once inside the elevator, she held up the piglet plushie and studied it.

Annoyingly, the piglet had an obnoxiously smug expression on its face.

The smug look instantly reminded the voice actress of Cheng Zhu’s infuriating face, prompting her to raise her small fist and give the plushie a few more punches.

Back in her room, Lin Lu went to the bathroom to wash up. After showering, she slipped into her pajamas.

She didn’t intentionally go for a cutesy look, but even the sexist pajamas, when paired with her face and demeanor, could at most evoke a blend of innocence and allure.

As mentioned before, Lin Lu enjoyed recording her life.

She took out her locked notebook from her drawer and picked up a flashy pen, the kind that screamed ‘stationery hoarder with questionable grades’.

The voice actress began scribbling away in her notebook. “I haven’t been to an arcade in years. I had so much fun and caught a few plushies for Little Youzi…”

After she finished, she glanced at the piglet plushie beside her. Then she added brackets beneath her writing and wrote inside: The pig Cheng Zhu caught is so ugly!

Right after, she poked her slightly chubby cheek with the end of her pen, and her eyes suddenly lit up!

Lin Lu wrote two big words on the piglet plushie’s clothes—Cheng Pig. (The Zhu in Cheng Zhu is a homophone of pig.)

“Hmph!” She held it up and inspected her handiwork, utterly pleased with herself.

—This behavior might seem childish, even to a kid, but it’s just right for me!

The voice actress said fiercely, “If Cheng Zhu annoys me in the future, I’ll beat you up!”

Under her desk, her delicate bare feet were in constant motion. Her heels pressed against the floor, and her big toes playfully collided.

At this moment, Lin Lu didn’t realize that the nickname she had given a boy had actually made its way into her bedroom and was now displayed in a very prominent spot.

* * *

Hangzhou, in a high-end villa community.

After Shen Qingning sent Lin Lu home, she returned home and had just finished showering. Now, she was sitting on her bed, applying lotion to her long, fair legs.

Her legs, coated in milky white lotion, glistened faintly under the light, soft and moisturized.

If someone had a girlfriend like her, they would probably give her oil massages every day.

Shen Qingning was a girl who lived a refined life. To be exact, most girls from well-off families were like this.

After finishing her skincare routine, she lay on her bed with her tablet and began watching Pokémon, a show she hadn’t seen in years.

She hadn’t seen it for so long, but within just a few minutes, she was completely absorbed.

I remember collecting cards with my brother when I was young. Shen Qingning smiled softly, lost in the memories.

After watching an episode, she picked up the glass of water from her bedside table and took a sip.

As she put the glass down, her gaze fell on the Range Rover keys and the Pikachu keychain on the table.

Deep down, she actually really liked this keychain.

Although such a cartoonish trinket clearly didn’t match her usual style or outfits, for some inexplicable reason, she had attached it to her car keys.

This cold and aloof girl held the Pikachu keychain and car keys. Earlier, at the arcade, she had been speechless at Lin Lu and Little Youzi imitating Pikachu’s voice. Now, sitting on her bed, she let out a soft sound, mimicking Pikachu’s angry noise when using Thunderbolt.

“Pika—chu!”

Thinking of the adorable Little Youzi, Shen Qingning picked up her phone and took a photo of the car keys and the Pikachu keychain.

She planned to share the photo in the group chat and ask Cheng Zhu to tell his sister she was using it.

But for some reason, her hands naturally tapped on Cheng Zhu’s profile picture in the group chat.

He was using a cartoon avatar because he had heard somewhere that scammers wouldn’t bother trying to deceive people with cartoon avatars.

When Shen Qingning’s slender finger tapped on the profile picture, a pop-up appeared, showing Moments along with the prompt: Add to Contacts.

Don’t forget. Cheng Zhu had never added her as a friend and insisted on only chatting with her in the group.

She knew this too. At this moment, this cold and aloof girl frowned slightly, as though she had just realized it. Then she quickly tapped to send a friend request.

After doing so, she tossed her phone aside and continued watching TV, as if she didn’t care when or if he would accept her request.

After a while, her phone vibrated. Shen Qingning picked it up and saw that Cheng Zhu had accepted her friend request and sent his first message.

“Huh? So we never added each other as friends?”