Chapter 21
When Little Flower woke up the next day, he finally realized he had been played. Or rather, he had come to a profound understanding of himself.
—He was completely no match for the Abyss!
Lin Ling lay in bed, hands folded over his stomach, serenely reflecting on his life.
He had learned a valuable lesson: whether you were a person or a flower, you always had to pay the price for misjudgment.
He had never imagined that the Abyss’s learning ability would be so strong, even capable of figuring things out on his own based on Little Flower’s reactions! Little Flower readily admitted defeat.
Thinking of this, Lin Ling sat up abruptly, retrieved the book he had hidden, and decided to give it to the Abyss.
The Abyss was on the terrace tending to the rows of small white flowers. Lin Ling walked over and thrust the book into Shi Changyuan’s arms—
“This is the book Lu Jiajia gave me. Read it yourself! A-and don’t ask me those questions anymore!” Lin Ling stammered.
Recalling what had happened last night, how the Abyss kept asking him what to do and if it was right, made him flush all over again.
Hiding the book and claiming he could teach the Abyss was a grave mistake, so he needed to cut his losses.
Little Flower pondered and decided that his decision was correct. One shouldn’t, and couldn’t, make the same mistake twice, especially not on important decisions.
Shi Changyuan looked at the Little Flower standing before him, casually tossed the book aside, and pulled Little Flower into his arms instead.
“Ling Ling isn’t going to teach me anymore?” The Abyss asked frankly and directly. “I think Ling Ling taught me very well.”
Little Flower’s face flushed red. He covered Shi Changyuan’s mouth with his hand. “What did I teach you yesterday?”
Mentioning this made Little Flower angry. “You didn’t listen to anything I said about ‘don’t’ and ‘no’. You only listened to what you wanted to hear. What else is there to teach! You were just teasing me.”
“I wasn’t teasing Little Flower.”
Shi Changyuan kissed Lin Ling’s palm. “I like Little Flower.”
His lips still ached where they had been kissed, reminding Lin Ling of how he had taught the Abyss step by step yesterday, and he fumed.
“I-I’m not talking to you anymore. You continue watering! I missed a call from Sister Mo just now.”
Saying that, Little Flower wriggled out of Shi Changyuan’s arms and was about to return to his room, but as he was about to leave the terrace, he suddenly looked back and saw the Abyss still standing there, watching him leave.
…Why did he look so pitiful?
Little Flower paced back and forth a couple of times, then finally walked back to Shi Changyuan and poked his arm, “Then go get the communicator for me, and we can bask in the sun together.”
In the next second, Shi Changyuan vanished, then reappeared, the whole process taking less than a second. He handed the communicator to Lin Ling.
“Mm.”
Human communicators were rapidly improving. Unlike the mobile phones before the apocalypse, communicators only had communication functions, and the lighter and more portable, the better. After all, in the apocalypse, fancy features were useless when running for your life.
The research institute had developed a new type of communicator, and Mo Cheng gave two to Little Flower to play with.
Lin Ling nestled in the hanging basket chair, letting Shi Changyuan hold him in his arms as they studied the communicator, which had been transformed from a wristband to an earpiece.
“I know how to use it!” Lin Ling quickly found the redial button, and the call was connected almost instantly. Before he could speak, a deep male voice came from the communicator, praising him.
“Mm, clever Little Flower.”
The humans who were force-fed dog food: …
“Sister Mo, are you looking for me?” Little Flower asked directly.
“Yes,” Mo Cheng chuckled. “Everyone’s gossiping about whether you and the Abyss have made up, so they sent me to investigate.”
In front of Little Flower, Mo Cheng mostly obtained information through jokes.
“We’ve already made up.”
Little Flower’s voice from the communicator was very cheerful, then he hesitated, as if he wanted to say something more, but didn’t know where to start.
This was too easy to guess.
Mo Cheng laughed, “By the way, Little Flower, did you know that when a new couple gets together, they should invite their friends for a meal or a gathering at their home?”
Lin Ling paused and answered honestly, “I didn’t know. Why?”
“Because they want to introduce their partner to all their friends,” Mo Cheng explained.
“We call this an announcement, declaring that this person now belongs to them.”
“So that’s how it is,” Little Flower nodded, “I understand.”
Then the two chatted for a bit longer, discussing the new device’s usability and gathering some feedback before hanging up.
Little Flower took off the earpiece, turned to the Abyss, and asked, “Should we also invite our friends over?”
Shi Changyuan refused without thinking.
“The Abyss doesn’t welcome them.”
Little Flower’s eyes curved into crescents. He tugged at the corners of Shi Changyuan’s mouth and said coquettishly, “Not to the Abyss, just here, just to let everyone know we’re together.”
“Otherwise, every friend will call to gossip, and I’ll be too shy!”
The Abyss had never seen anyone so boldly declare their shyness, but whatever his Little Flower said was right.
This time, the Abyss didn’t refuse, but he made his own request, “Give me a kiss, Little Flower.”
Lin Ling blinked, assessing the terms of the exchange. It didn’t seem like a bad deal. So, Little Flower raised his head and tilted his neck, like a willing sacrifice to a god, waiting for the Abyss’s “kiss.”
The Abyss lowered his head and exchanged a wet kiss with Little Flower, then, while Little Flower wasn’t paying attention, the kiss trailed from his lips to his pale neck, leaving a mark.
“Y-you didn’t say…” Before Lin Ling could finish, his words turned into soft whimpers. The Abyss replied,
“A kiss for Little Flower, the whole Little Flower.”
…
Lin Ling felt cheated.
He didn’t understand why the Abyss, who couldn’t even speak human language before, was now playing word games. It was hard to believe it wasn’t intentional.
So, Lin Ling, determined to make the most of it, decided to turn the ordinary gathering into a party. He had sacrificed so much, what was wrong with having a party!
Little Flower had learned the word “party” from books. Since the apocalypse, humans had mostly lost such activities; everyone was busy surviving.
Except for a few privileged second-generation elites, of course.
But the Abyss was a resource tycoon, the kind that came with its own resources. He could just pull something out of the Abyss space and throw a huge party.
“Have you sent out all the invitations?” Little Flower stood on a stepladder, decorating the party venue according to the instructions in the book, and turned to ask the Abyss. “I didn’t invite many people, but they’ve all helped me a lot.”
Especially those who had made outstanding contributions to their relationship.
“Be careful.” Shi Changyuan reached out and steadied Lin Ling. “They’ve all been sent.”
“Are our cupcakes ready?” Little Flower asked again.
“They’re in the oven.”
“What about the drinks…?”
“Little Flower can’t drink alcohol, it will burn his roots,” the Abyss immediately rejected Little Flower’s curious probing. “I’ve prepared fruit juice.”
When it came to taking care of Little Flower, the Abyss was surprisingly well-prepared.
Then Little Flower and the Abyss waited for everyone to arrive.
Lin Ling’s friends took his invitation very seriously, and they all arrived at the villa gate one after another.
When the doorbell rang and the door opened, Mo Cheng was about to give Little Flower her gift when she saw a head of yellow hair standing opposite her.
They both froze.
Mo Cheng was speechless. How could she run into her most troublesome subordinate even on vacation?
The yellow-haired young man’s mind was screaming. Running into his boss on vacation, the party turning into a small group report.
“Why are you here?” Mo Cheng was genuinely confused.
As far as she knew, the yellow-haired young man wasn’t a native of the Seventh Base and hadn’t interacted with Little Flower before, but this was clearly a gathering of acquaintances.
For the first time, the yellow-haired young man dared to face his boss’s questioning, “I-I’m the chief planner! This party is half my credit!”
Upon hearing that Little Flower was throwing a party, the yellow-haired young man immediately volunteered his services, suggesting a bunch of party games, like Truth or Dare and King’s Game.
The yellow-haired young man loved a good time, thinking that these games were most fun with couples present, hehe.
And when Little Flower heard about the punishment mechanism, he immediately remembered his disastrous defeat in Little Flower vs. Abyss and began to plot his revenge.
The two exchanged a knowing smile, seemingly reaching a consensus, but each with their own agenda.
“You’re all here!”
Lin Ling ran out of the house and welcomed everyone in, “Come in, come in!”
Little Flower had invited Mo Cheng, Lu Jiajia, and the yellow-haired young man who had invited himself to the party.
The yellow-haired young man’s name was too difficult to pronounce, so Little Flower decided to call him Ah Huang.
Ah Huang chuckled and didn’t mind, just emphasizing that his yellow hair was natural, much more sophisticated than dyed hair.
“Wow, Lin Ling, did you prepare all of this?” Lu Jiajia was seeing this kind of party for the first time. She had only seen parties of this scale before the apocalypse.
Even Mo Cheng was surprised by the extravagance. It wasn’t about wasteful luxury, but simply that many of these things were rare or even unheard of in the apocalypse.
Like various sodas, fruit juices, and spicy strips, all of which had been discontinued for five or six years.
But then she thought, the space in the Abyss probably really did store such supplies, and the Abyss could also keep them safe.
“Don’t spread this around,” Mo Cheng said to Lu Jiajia and Ah Huang. Everyone nodded knowingly, zipping their lips.
Although Mo Cheng was older than everyone present and was also their leader, seemingly as composed as the Abyss, young people still made up three-fifths of the group, and once they became familiar with each other, the atmosphere quickly became lively.
Young people tended to get a bit wild when they got together, especially in this high-pressure era. From video games to various board games, the noise they made while playing was enough to raise the roof.
“Alright, alright, time for a change of pace, let’s play King’s Game!”
Ah Huang tossed the game console aside, chugged a soda he hadn’t seen in five years, and, feeling bold, even dared to direct the Abyss and his boss.
“Don’t just watch, join us! Hehe.”
Hearing Ah Huang’s bold suggestion, Little Flower pulled Shi Changyuan to sit beside him.
“Then I’ll briefly explain the rules. The person who draws the highest card is the King and can give a punishment to the person who draws the lowest card, either Truth or Dare. That’s it.”
Then, Ah Huang began to shuffle the cards, showing off some fancy shuffling techniques.
In the first round, Little Flower looked at the Abyss beside him, then leaned close to Shi Changyuan’s ear and whispered, “Just you wait, I’m going to get my revenge!”
The Abyss smiled. Before he could say anything, a chorus of “Ooooh~” came from beside them.
Lin Ling’s ears turned red, and he immediately reached for the first card.
[4 of Diamonds]
Lin Ling’s heart sank.
“Is the 4 of Diamonds the lowest card?” Little Flower tilted his head and whispered to Shi Changyuan.
Lin Ling’s voice was indeed soft, but everyone was holding their breath and drawing cards, sitting so close together, it was hard not to hear.
So everyone knew that Little Flower had drawn a 4 of Diamonds.
“It’s okay, Lin Ling, there’s still the 3 of Diamonds, 3 of Clubs, 3 of Spades, and 3 of Hearts, all lower than the 4 of Diamonds,” Lu Jiajia said, stifling a laugh.
Little Flower looked at the tall stack of cards in front of him, stunned. “How many cards are there?”
“54.”
Little Flower’s mind raced, “So, out of 54 cards, only four are lower than mine?”
Everyone nodded in unison.
Then, after everyone had drawn their cards, the King of the first round was Lu Jiajia.
“Little Flower, Truth or Dare!” Lu Jiajia urged, winking.
“Tr-truth,” Little Flower said, glancing at Shi Changyuan. He had wanted to get his revenge, but he never expected to be slapped in the face so quickly.
“Okay, Truth!”
Lu Jiajia drew out the word, her eyes darting around, then she asked loudly, “Which part of your boyfriend’s body do you like the most, and why?”
Instantly, the room erupted in cheers, filled with playful chaos.
Ah Huang even blew a toy trumpet.
Little Flower seemed stunned by the question. He had never played this game before and didn’t realize humans could be so devious!
How the times had changed! The hearts of men are no longer what they used to be!
Lin Ling looked at Shi Changyuan for help, but Shi Changyuan also looked at Lin Ling with a smile, showing interest in the party for the first time.
“Mm, I want to know too.”
Hearing the Abyss’s words, Little Flower’s face slowly turned red. He hesitated for a moment, then answered the question in a very soft voice, “…His lips.”
Honest Little Flower didn’t know that he only needed to answer one question. The “why” part was clearly bullying a newbie.
So, under Shi Changyuan’s gaze, he confessed in a daze,
“Be-because you kiss me, and you tell me you like me…”
Lin Ling’s answer set the room ablaze. Amidst the playful howls and suppressed giggles, the Abyss leaned close to Little Flower’s ear, his voice clear despite the noisy background. He said,
“I understand.”
“But every part of my body is telling Ling Ling that I like him.”
“Hasn’t Ling Ling felt it?”
(人*´∀｀)｡*ﾟ+ (人*´∀｀)｡*ﾟ+ (人*´∀｀)｡*ﾟ+ (人*´∀｀)｡*ﾟ+ (人*´∀｀)｡*ﾟ+ (人*´∀｀)｡*ﾟ+ (人*´∀｀)｡*ﾟ+ (人*´∀｀)｡*ﾟ+