150. Lily’s Return
It was the weekend, and Lin Nan was planning to work his part-time job as usual.
Too bad he didn’t have Li Na’s magic for tutoring; otherwise, teaching would pay more and be way easier than handing out flyers.
Plus, his school wasn’t exactly a prestigious university. Even if he hadn’t yet returned his knowledge of senior year to his teachers, he knew he had little competition in the tutoring market.
He also wondered how things were going on Li Na’s side.
If something went wrong with Li Na, more people from the other world might come looking for her, and not everyone would be able to distinguish right from wrong. Wouldn’t that put his life in danger?
She had promised to come back within a week, but it had been exactly a week since she left last Saturday, and he hadn’t received a single message.
Worried as he was, life went on. His living expenses now depended entirely on the money he earned from his part-time job each week, and what little was left usually went towards buying cat food for Cola or occasionally treating himself to a drink.
His savings were relatively healthy, but he had no idea when he would receive his living expenses again.
Wearing the shoes his Uncle bought him last time, Lin Nan stretched and got ready to leave the dorm.
“Off to work?” Chen Yao, busy with his gaming practice orders, glanced at him and sighed, “If you sat all day in front of the computer doing practice orders, you might earn as much as you do handing out flyers, right?”
“Everyone says gaming practice is too unstable!”
He outright refused and explained that he’d looked into practice gaming. It was unstable, involved long hours of sitting, and didn’t pay that well—much less than handing out flyers.
Lately, he and Li Sisi had monopolized the supermarket part-time jobs. Handing out flyers didn’t require many people, so two regulars were more than enough.
After a bus ride to the supermarket, Lin Nan still had time to k*ll, so he strolled through the aisles, trying to find Chen Jiang, who was supposed to be doing promotions there, but after searching around, he found out Chen Jiang hadn’t shown up for some reason this week.
“Hey, what happened to my friend? Why is he not at work?” he asked Liu Yi, who was working in the office.
Liu Yi looked up, ignoring the rudeness, and said, “He found a pretty decent job and quit a couple of days ago.”
“Really?”
Lin Nan was surprised; he hadn’t heard a thing.
“Here’s today’s flyers; take half.” Liu Yi pointed at a stack of flyers in the corner. “The weather isn’t too hot today, so it should be less tiring than before, right?”
Lin Nan’s expression tightened: “Who said that? It’s just as tiring, okay? You aren’t planning to deduct my wages, are you?”
“???”
“I’m nearly broke and you want to cut my pay?”
“When did I say I was going to cut your pay?” Liu Yi replied, exasperated. He hadn’t known Lin Nan very long, but he quickly realized this guy was ridiculously greedy.
When Lin Nan left Liu Yi’s office, he still hadn’t seen Li Sisi—probably running late for some reason.
Leaving his jacket behind, he donned his mascot costume and headed over to the traffic cop, just like he always did when handing out flyers.
This cop seemed to have a son and a daughter. He already knew the son, Chen Jiang, who was a typical homebody. The daughter, according to the cop, was a rabid fangirl, but he hadn’t met her during his last visit, probably off at university or working somewhere.
“Nannan!”
He had barely handed out two flyers and hadn’t even started chatting with the cop when a familiar voice came from behind him.
Turning around, he was shocked to see Li Na standing there, and beside her was… Lilith?!
Lin Nan nearly jumped out of his skin. Wasn’t Lilith’s soul supposed to be inside him? How was there another Lilith here?!
Li Na snatched a flyer from him and handed it to Lilith before dragging Lin Nan away from the crowd.
“Wait, who’s that person…” Lin Nan was completely bewildered, but when he glanced back, he saw Lilith obediently handing out flyers.
The mascot costume was heavy, and he couldn’t resist Li Na’s pull, so he found himself dragged into a familiar alley.
This alley looked oddly familiar.
Lin Nan took off his headpiece, bombarding Li Na with questions: “How did you get here? What’s up with that Lilith? How are things on your side?”
“One at a time, don’t rush me,” Li Na said nonchalantly, leaning against a wall. “Traveling between worlds requires a coordinate—my coordinate on Earth is you.”
So it could be understood as a sort of instant transmission, like Goku’s from Dragon Ball?
“That’s just a casual body I picked, gave it a little maintenance and a makeover to look like that,” Lilith chimed in for the next wave of questions. “No soul—just my magic controlling her.”
So, the one he just saw was a corpse?!
Lin Nan felt a chill go down his spine.
“Things over there are going smoothly. My report went well; they said to give me another six months, so there shouldn’t be any weirdos showing up for at least that long. And it won’t even take half a year! Lilith could fully revive and return with me,” Li Na said, satisfied and a little smug.
“Good to hear that means I don’t have to worry for a while?” Lin Nan replied, somewhat relieved.
“Pretty much,” Li Na said as she looked Lin Nan up and down, nodding. “You seem to be in good shape, but since Lilith’s soul has awakened, once you become a girl, she’s likely to come back fully.”
“Yeah, I know.”
After all, he dreamt of Lilith’s memories every night.
Lin Nan sighed. Even though Li Na kept assuring him she would help, he couldn’t shake off the feeling that this girl was unreliable.
His life was in her hands…
“Okay, how about this…” Li Na suddenly recalled something and pulled out a bottle of cola from her oversized pocket, handing it to Lin Nan, “Drink up!”
“???”
Lin Nan was confused but started drinking. While he usually liked cola, he’d never downed a whole bottle in one go before.
With his stomach bloated and burping uncontrollably, he finally handed the empty bottle back to Li Na and looked at her, eager to see what she was planning next.
“Even though I don’t know much about souls…” Li Na muttered, “Lilith has just barely revived, hmm…”
She suddenly looked up, her golden pupils taking over Lin Nan’s entire field of vision, completely adding to his confusion.
Is she finally going to lay hands on me?!
Without resistance, Lin Nan felt his body go limp and lost consciousness in a daze.
“Heh heh heh…” Li Na caught him as he fell, taking a deep breath by his neck.
“Smells delicious, so soft…”
