Chapter 22: Help, I''m Being Conscripted by the Blind Date Market

Restricted Fantasy Invasion

"Xiao Huan, there are basically no customers left... Where is Sister Tong?"

Clearing away the glasses and plates, Yan Huan turned to look at where Tong Yingying had been sitting. Her wine bottle and glass were still there, but she was nowhere to be seen.

"I''ll go look for her."

Yan Huan wiped his hands and walked over.

The bar had a second floor, but it wasn''t open to customers. Sister Tong usually lived up there.

Between the main area and the stairs leading to the second floor was a long corridor, with the restroom located right in the middle.

Yan Huan thought she had gone upstairs to rest, but standing at the bottom of the stairs, he saw the iron gate was locked. He knocked and called out a couple of times, but there was no response.

"How strange..."

With Tong Yingying''s careless attitude toward managing the bar, if she hired the wrong employees, they could empty the place out one day and she wouldn''t even notice.

He sent her a message on Plane, but got no reply. Yan Huan curled his lips, checked the time, and called out to the front,

"Sister Guan, Brother Tian, why don''t you guys head out first! She probably fell asleep upstairs. I''ll lock up the bar later!"

"Alright, we''ll help you bring in the tables and chairs outside!"

"OK!"

Standing in the corridor, Yan Huan called her on Plane again. The call rang out with a series of "beep-beep" sounds on his end, but a ringtone echoed from inside the restroom.

Yan Huan raised an eyebrow, tentatively knocked on the restroom door, and called out,

"Sister Tong?"

A folk tune from Dragon Country continued to ring inside.

Helpless, Yan Huan had no choice but to push the door open.

Inside the cramped single restroom, the cubicle door was wide open, revealing a dizzy and disoriented Tong Yingying sitting on the toilet lid.

Thankfully, her pants were still on.

Yan Huan breathed a sigh of relief. He glanced at the mobile phone dropped on the floor, picked it up, and hung up his own call.

Just as the call ended, the lock screen lit up, displaying over 99+ unread message notifications—all from her mother.

Yan Huan did not even look at the contents of the messages, simply locking the screen again.

He then leaned closer to Tong Yingying and called out,

"Sister Tong?"

"Mnn..."

Hearing Yan Huan''s voice, she reached up to massage her slightly furrowed brow and brushed her bangs aside.

On her beautiful, flushed face, those eyes of hers looked as perpetually listless as ever.

At the same time, her left hand quietly slipped inside her jacket, seemingly gripping something.

However, the guarded look in her eyes slowly melted away upon recognizing the young man in front of her, dissolving into a breath heavy with alcohol as her red lips parted slightly.

"Yan Huan..."

As she lowered her guard, the hand clutching whatever was inside her jacket relaxed, and a stun gun slid out, dropping onto her thigh.

"..."

Seeing this, Yan Huan found it rather amusing. Pointing at the stun gun on her lap, he asked,

"Seriously, Sister Tong, why are you carrying a stun gun around? If you hadn''t looked closely, would you have just zapped me?"

"Children should not inquire about adult affairs..."

"You''re probably the only one who treats me like a kid every day, Sister Tong."

Oh, wait, no. There was also Auntie Ye Lan. She was even more exaggerated with her words.

Tong Yingying struggled to sit up straight, tucked the stun gun back into her jacket, and asked softly,

"Did they get off work?"

"Yeah, there are no customers left at this hour."

"Mhm..."

Her head drooped slightly again, prompting Yan Huan to ask,

"Shall I help you upstairs to rest?"

"Mhm..."

Yan Huan sighed, slipped her mobile phone into her jacket pocket, helped her to her feet, and guided her out.

She fumbled in her pocket for the keys and handed them to Yan Huan, who used them to open the door, revealing the room upstairs.

The room was quite messy. Various types of clothes and underwear were piled up like mountains on the sofa. As Yan Huan helped her inside, he nearly tripped over a pile of clothes tangled with pantyhose on the floor...

It was obvious she had tossed both items into the washing machine together, and this was how they came out after being dried.

"Sister Tong, every time I come up to your room, I''m genuinely shocked all over again..."

Turning on the light, he could see a black electric guitar hanging on the wall.

Yan Huan didn''t know much about such things, but he felt the guitar was exceptionally well-made. It even had a gold-plated signature on it, making it look quite expensive.

"Mhm..."

With her head lowered and her red hair slightly obscuring her face, she gave a very casual reply.

However, the hand resting on Yan Huan for support started wandering restlessly, groping his shoulder and then moving toward his chest...

Yan Huan quickly reached out to pin her wandering hand down, then promptly dumped her onto the bed.

In that split second, he even suspected whether Tong Yingying had also been chosen by a Modifier.

If the Host chosen by a Modifier was a stranger like Ye Shiyu or Spencer, Yan Huan felt it was manageable. But if an acquaintance was selected, it would leave him truly speechless.

Facing a stranger, he could put on an act without any hesitation, treating it as a battle of wits against the Modifier.

But if an acquaintance suddenly used a Modifier on him, the distortion and shattering of a familiar interpersonal relationship would be the hardest thing to endure...

Especially when he was the very target the Modifier was being used on.

Fortunately, Tong Yingying just looked drunk. Once she was tossed onto the bed, she settled down and behaved.

Yan Huan sighed and chuckled at her.

"I see you''re truly starving, Sister Tong. I''m ten years younger than you, and you still have the heart to make a move on me?!"

Tong Yingying grunted. Her hazy consciousness seemed to be jolted awake a little by Yan Huan''s sudden remark.

She opened her eyes, then narrowed them at the young man standing by her bed.

She saw him wearing the bar''s bartender uniform, the brown vest tracing his slender, tall figure in a way that gave off a sense of taboo allure.

She had just squeezed him a moment ago; his muscles were quite firm, too.

Most importantly, it was that charming face of his.

Hiss...

"..."

Tong Yingying''s up-and-down gaze made Yan Huan a little uncomfortable.

"Sister Tong?"

After a moment of silence, she sat up.

Then she turned her head and grabbed a bulging wallet from the nightstand,

"Sit."

Yan Huan pulled a chair over and sat down beside the bed.

He watched as she opened the wallet and pulled out the banknotes inside one by one.

Then, she handed the small stack of cash to Yan Huan.

Yan Huan didn''t dare to take it, merely blinking at her.

Seeing that he wouldn''t accept it, Tong Yingying tossed the money onto the bed.

Her fingertips had somehow already grasped that metal flip lighter. Pulling out her cigarette case with downcast eyes, she suddenly asked,

"How does your Sister Tong usually treat you?"

"..."

''Why does this feel exactly like a movie scene where the mob boss is about to send his underling on a suicide mission?''

"S-So-so?"

Tong Yingying''s movement of taking out a cigarette paused, and she lifted her eyes to look at Yan Huan.

Yan Huan smiled and quickly changed his tune.

"My mistake, just making a joke, Sister Tong..."

Tong Yingying lowered her head again, only to hear him continue,

"Actually, you treat me pretty terribly."

"?"

Tong Yingying looked up at him again, her usually lethargic eyes widening a fraction.

Yan Huan reached out and gently closed her open cigarette case. He then started counting on his fingers as he explained,

"Look, you dump all the bar''s work on me every day, which is whatever, but you also constantly threaten to deduct my wages... You''re a terrible drunk, you have a venomous tongue, and you curse all day long..."

"And what else?"

Tong Yingying nodded, casually asking this as she reached for her stun gun.

Yan Huan immediately flashed a bright smile,

"Nothing else! Everything else is great, Sister Tong."

Too lazy to keep bickering and joking with him, she pursed her lips toward the stack of cash on the bed and said,

"Take the money. I need you to do me a favor."

"Tell me what it is first."

"My family is rushing me to get married. They know I don''t have a boyfriend, so they call me every other day telling me to go on a blind date. If I ignore them, they use all sorts of relatives to drop hints, saying how my parents'' health is deteriorating from the anger..."

"Hmm, so it''s all an act?"

"Who knows? Besides, I''m abroad. If I have to fly all the way back home just for this trivial crap, I really..."

Tong Yingying sighed. Cupping her pretty face in her hands, she looked at Yan Huan,

"So, I have an idea, Yan Huan."

"..."

"Cooperate with me and put on an act. When they make video calls, just show your face, act intimate, and help me stall them..."

As Yan Huan listened, he looked at the completely serious Tong Yingying, seemingly hesitating to speak.

Seeing his expression, Tong Yingying paused slightly and asked,

"What? What do you want to say?"

"Sister Tong, you really only come up with terrible ideas all day..."

"What do you mean?"

"Before, when the bar''s business was bad, you had a sudden whim to bring in a band, but didn''t notice they played heavy metal rock. As a result, we got reported for noise disturbance, and the neighbors pelted the shop with eggs and cabbage leaves..."

Tong Yingying blinked, seemingly recalling that incident. It was Yan Huan who had to persuade that mob of furious grandpas and grandmas to go home.

"And then there was the time you tried to promote our drinks by offering online discount coupons. You ended up putting the decimal point in the wrong place. Someone discovered it, bought a massive batch, and mercilessly exploited us for a whole month..."

"..."

Hearing this, Tong Yingying opened her mouth but found herself utterly speechless for a moment.

In reality, when Tong Yingying wasn''t drinking, she was very level-headed and remarkably sharp.

But the moment she had alcohol in her system, she instantly transformed into a genius idea generator, her head filled with nothing but these dreadful schemes that harmed others without benefiting herself.

"Hey, Yan Huan, I have an idea!"

It was like a passive skill triggered by alcohol. The moment he heard her say those words, Yan Huan knew disaster was imminent.

The main issue was that Yan Huan discovered Tong Yingying had this bizarre quirk.

Normally, if you come up with a terrible idea while drunk, you''d realize how stupid it was once you sobered up and regained your wits, right?

Well, Tong Yingying was truly magical in that regard. The crazy ideas she concocted while drunk acted like absolute rules in a rule-based horror story—her brain fundamentally refused to violate them. So even when she sobered up, she absolutely would not realize anything was wrong with the plan.

"..."

"..."

Inside the room, Tong Yingying and Yan Huan stared at each other in silence for a while.

A second later, Tong Yingying rubbed her red hair in frustration.

With a gentle tug, she undid the hair tie at the back of her head, letting her shoulder-length locks cascade down.

"Then what should I do? They call every single day, endlessly nagging me. My head is about to explode..."

Yan Huan rested his chin on his hands, thought for a moment, and asked with the profound wisdom of a master strategist,

"I have three plans: top, middle, and bottom. Which one do you want to hear first, Sister Tong?"

"...Let''s hear the bottom plan first."

As expected of drunk Sister Tong, her thought process was entirely different from normal people!

Yan Huan refrained from making a sarcastic remark. He simply offered a faint smile and continued,

"The bottom plan is what you suggested—I act alongside you to stall them. But fire cannot be wrapped in paper; the truth will eventually come out. They expect you to get married, not just date. So even if we deal with this round of blind dates, you still won''t be able to dodge the endless barrage of follow-up questions, right?"

Tong Yingying frowned, spinning the flip lighter in her hand faster and faster,

"And the middle plan?"

"The middle plan is to harden your heart. No matter what they say or how much they push, ignore it all. Block their numbers if you have to."

"..."

"At the end of the day, Sister Tong, the reason you feel so stressed is that you still care about your parents'' feelings, don''t you? If you truly had a heart of stone and didn''t care what they did, refusing to date even if it killed you, what could they possibly do about it?"

Looking at Yan Huan, Tong Yingying sighed and said,

"I wish I could be that heartless. But they''re my parents after all. I came here to study in high school, and they farmed back in our hometown to support me. No matter what..."

Yet as she spoke, she couldn''t help but get a little angry,

"But with them acting like this every day, I get incredibly annoyed. Forcing me to make such an extreme either-or choice—either breaking my heart or breaking theirs. What''s the point?"

"Don''t worry, there''s still the top plan, Sister Tong."

"Uh-huh, let''s hear it..."

Yan Huan raised his index finger and countered with a question,

"Sister Tong, have you ever stopped to think about why they are constantly rushing you to get married?"

"What else could it be? Just outdated, antique mindsets at work..."

"Well, that might be part of it... but I think there''s another reason. Isn''t it because you make them worry too much? They just want someone to take care of you."

"Hold on, did you simpleton get brainwashed by them?"

Tong Yingying looked at Yan Huan with extreme suspicion, almost as if she believed his body had been possessed by her mother.

"...Sister Tong, use your brain. Your brain."

If it weren''t for the fact that she was holding a stun gun, Yan Huan really would have loved to crack open her drunk head to see how her brain was wired,

"Look at yourself. You stay up all night, binge-drink, and chain-smoke every single day. If anyone calls or messages you during the day, you never answer or reply. Anyone with eyes can tell your daily routine is a total mess..."

"..."

"Even when you finally answer a video call at night, your aura makes you look like a mummified corpse from the Qing Dynasty, like all your life force has been sucked dry. People who don''t know any better would think Linmen''s Feng Shui is terrible and specializes in producing zombies."

"..."

"Long before they started nagging you to get married, I heard them bring this up countless times... So, I honestly believe your parents just can''t think of any other solution, and figure that getting married might fix these terrible habits of yours."

Looking at the frozen Tong Yingying, Yan Huan finally concluded,

"Therefore, the top plan is to quit smoking and drinking, fix your sleep schedule, and go outside for walks more often. Stop staying holed up in this coffin-shop of a room every day. If you let your parents see a positive change, maybe they won''t push you so hard anymore."

Tong Yingying blinked. She was just about to say something when she suddenly realized that Yan Huan had been doing exactly this all along.

Every time he saw her about to light a cigarette, he would immediately interrupt her casting animation.

Every time he saw her reaching for alcohol, he would try to persuade her against it.

Come to think of it, during the year Yan Huan had been working here, she really had smoked and drank much less. Her condition was significantly better than it had been a year ago... though it was still far worse than a normal person''s.

No wonder her parents thought that way.

''But wait, why has Yan Huan been so proactive about getting me to quit smoking and drinking for the past year?''

''Could it be that this kid... likes me?''

At this thought, Tong Yingying stared blankly for a moment. A slight glimmer crossed her eyes as she asked,

"Then why have you spent the last year constantly urging me to quit smoking and drinking? Is it... why?"

She started the question directly but faltered halfway through.

"Oh, that..."

However, Yan Huan completely missed the underlying implication. He merely flashed a bright, sunny smile and declared,

"Because I hate the smell of smoke! After all, whenever you smoke in front of me, Sister Tong, it absolutely reeks."

"..."

"Furthermore, Sister Tong, the moment you drink, alcohol takes over your brain and you completely devolve into a stupid pig. I was afraid you''d be so dumb you''d blow all your money, the bar would go bankrupt, and I wouldn''t get my paycheck, so..."

"..."

Tong Yingying''s originally lethargic gaze slowly shifted into a death glare.

Seeing that she had fully drawn the stun gun, Yan Huan instantly shot to his feet.

Checking the time on his phone, he said,

"Alright, that''s that. It''s time for me to get off work. The downstairs area is pretty much cleaned up. Enjoy your nightlife, Sister Tong."

"..."

As she watched him turn to leave, Tong Yingying suddenly called out to him again,

"Hey, wait."

"Now what? No way, you''re not actually going to tase me, are you, Sister Tong?"

"Crazy..."

Tong Yingying picked up the cash from the bed, counted out a portion, and handed it to him,

"Here, this month''s salary. Take it now, it was going to be paid in a few days anyway."

Yan Huan raised his eyebrows. After taking it, he counted the bills and asked,

"There''s extra?"

"I''m not counting your weekend absence as skipping work, plus today''s pay, so it''s 600 extra."

"Love you, Sister Tong."

"Get lost, believe it or not, I''ll tase you to death!"

Tong Yingying brandished her stun gun threateningly, but her eyes weren''t looking at Yan Huan.

"Alrighty, I''m heading out, Sister Tong."

Yan Huan pocketed the cash, turned around, and left Tong Yingying''s room.

Watching him leave, Tong Yingying lay back down on the bed, calling out to him downstairs as an afterthought,

"Lock the door for me!"

"OK!"

Following that came the sound of the iron gate closing and locking, and Yan Huan''s footsteps gradually fading into the distance.

Lying on her bed, Tong Yingying put down the stun gun, her gaze staring blankly into space once again.

''Change my lifestyle habits, huh...''

Tong Yingying couldn''t make up her mind right away, unable to break out of her comfortable bubble of slacking off and letting everything rot.

After all, bad habits are hard to break, and she had grown completely accustomed to living like this.

However, maybe quitting smoking and drinking really was necessary.

She seemed to have drank herself into hallucinations just now. In her drunken haze, she could have sworn she saw a talking...

''A white snake?''

Linmen, Luoqiao District.

In a residential complex within the residential area, inside a room in a three-story building, a black-haired girl wearing pajamas was fiddling with a box in her room.

Inside the box was a leopard gecko staring back at her with wide eyes.

"Xiao Yun, come out and play for a bit..."

The black-haired girl''s pajamas were loose, yet they were still pushed taut by her ample chest.

Having just finished her shower, she swept the wet hair from her forehead back, revealing her incredibly cute, rosy face.

She was An Le, a student of Class 1-C at Far Moon Academy.

Practically invisible in her class, she finally showed her lively personality here in the privacy of her own room, free to pursue her hobbies without any reservations.

An Le loved keeping reptile pets.

She was fascinated by geckos, lizards, various insects, and other bizarre little animals, often scrolling through their videos online in her free time.

However, the leopard gecko called "Xiao Yun" just tilted its head to look at her, showing no signs of moving.

"Don''t want to come out?"

An Le smiled faintly. Not wanting to force her pet, she gently placed the box back onto the shelf.

''Well then, let''s check out the resources online...''

''Are there any new games?''

''The recent ones have been way too tame. They aren''t really satisfying my tastes anymore.''

An Le put on her blue-light blocking glasses and sat down at her computer.

She opened a certain resource forum and browsed through the "Adult Games" section.

The search bar still showed her previous search history, filled with some rather questionable keywords.

Yes, in private, An Le was actually a hardcore otaku.

It was just that, unlike normal otakus, the things she liked to look at were a bit...

Unspeakable.

"Hmm, this gameplay is a bit outdated... Just invasion and whipping..."

"What about this one? Ugh, the male lead is so ugly. He''ll look even worse when he''s broken... Oh, wait, he has a monster form!"

"This one looks okay, it has tentacles..."

Just as An Le was browsing through the web pages on her computer, a faint, almost illusory sound drifted in from the windowsill.

"Hiss... Gurgle..."

An Le froze for a moment, then turned to look at the windowsill.

"Huh, what was that sound?"

She stood up and walked over, intending to close the window.

However, as she drew near, she suddenly noticed a slender white snake lying completely motionless on the windowsill.

The white snake appeared injured, with several of its scales missing...

''Eh, a snake? Why would it suddenly appear here?''

An Le blinked, wondering this in her heart.

The little snake weakly opened its eyes, casting an extremely pitiful glance at the girl before closing them again.

"..."

An Le''s mouth parted slightly, seemingly hesitating.

A moment later, she returned to her room.

When she came back, she had put on a pair of bite-resistant gloves. She scooped the snake up into the palms of her hands and brought it inside.