“Don’t get me wrong. I was just planning to buy black stockings, and while I’m at it, I can get your underwear too. You probably don’t want to wear the same set every day, right? Even if no one sees it, no girl would like wearing the same underwear every single day.”

“A qualified girl buys herself several sets to rotate and wash. That’s what a proper lady should do,” Zhong Cheng said seriously.

The Ghost Emperor’s narrowed eyes relaxed. She suddenly fell into thought, looking like she found that pretty reasonable.

She’d never thought about that before, but after Zhong Cheng said it, she immediately started caring.

Her clothes might not get dirty, but that didn’t mean she liked wearing the same thing every day.

Changing into different styles of underwear actually sounded pretty nice. She even felt a little expectant.

The Ghost Emperor told Zhong Cheng her bust size and panty size.

Important intel acquired!

A little unexpected. Bigger on top than he’d imagined, smaller on the bottom than he’d imagined. Tsk tsk. What a devil.

Zhong Cheng thought to himself, a little lewdly.

Buying underwear for the Ghost Emperor was genuinely the plan, but that didn’t stop him from stealing some vital information.

His wallet was definitely going to bleed, and the heartache was unavoidable. Still, when he thought about how all of the Ghost Emperor’s underwear would pass through his hands, he couldn’t help feeling ambitious.

That settled it.

Amid car horns and human chatter, the shop signs glowed like sunset clouds.

Deep in the street, dogs could still be seen. At noon by the stream, no bell could be heard.

The front suddenly became crowded, drawing Zhong Cheng’s attention.

A group of people was lining up. At the source was a milk tea shop.

Quite a few people, after buying their drinks, took out their phones to snap photos and post them on their Moments.

If he guessed right, this was probably one of those viral milk tea shops. The customers were here to check in.

Zhong Cheng wasn’t really into these internet-famous stores that rode a wave of temporary hype. Still, if they could blow up, there had to be some reason.

People liked following the crowd, sure, but they weren’t stupid.

If the milk tea had nothing special about it and tasted bad, there was no way it would get popular.

And just so happened, Zhong Cheng was a little thirsty.

“Are you thirsty? I’ll go buy two cups of milk tea,” Zhong Cheng said.

“Do you think ghosts get thirsty?” the Ghost Emperor asked back.

Apparently not.

He’d wanted to show off a bit of gentlemanly charm, but it seemed completely useless. Disappointing.

Then Zhong Cheng noticed the way the Ghost Emperor was looking at the milk tea shop. Focused like a husky.

She might not be thirsty, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t drink it.

She’d already eaten plenty of human food and hadn’t rejected any of it. Milk tea should be fine too.

“Wait here. I’ll go buy a few oranges.”

“Buying oranges again?”

Ignoring the Ghost Emperor’s question, Zhong Cheng strode toward the line without hesitation. There were still over twenty people ahead of him, so it’d be a while.

Since he was too bored, he took out his phone and started playing Genshin.

A little while later.

He had just finished a boss fight, and the last person in front of him left. Finally, it was Zhong Cheng’s turn.

Two cups of iced milk tea were packed separately in plastic bags, now hanging from Zhong Cheng’s hand.

He remembered that the Ghost Emperor didn’t seem to like eating things that were too hot. That was something Zhong Cheng had noticed through careful observation.

For example, this morning’s preserved egg and lean pork congee. When she ate it, she blew on the spoon many times. She’d done the same yesterday at mealtime too. Aside from taste, she always picked foods that weren’t very hot.

Unexpectedly, she had a cat tongue.

So he’d specifically ordered the milk tea iced.

He started walking back toward where the Ghost Emperor was.

A thought suddenly came to Zhong Cheng. If he could make the Ghost Emperor completely fall in love with human food, and keep her full every day, would she stop absorbing his yang energy?

That might actually work. It was definitely worth trying.

And even if it didn’t, no big deal. There was no loss anyway.

If he really got the Ghost Emperor hooked on human food and turned her into a massive foodie, he could even start livestreaming.

Big eater streams had been pretty popular lately, hadn’t they?

He didn’t know how much the Ghost Emperor could eat, but it definitely wouldn’t be a small amount.

He could make a fortune livestreaming with the Ghost Emperor as his foodie ace. Just thinking about it made him a little excited.

If even Tie Niu could build a streaming career, become an internet celebrity, and make big money, then there was no reason Zhong Cheng, a college student, couldn’t do it too.

“This is...?”

While Zhong Cheng was letting his thoughts run wild, he suddenly noticed three unfamiliar men standing beside the Ghost Emperor.

What was going on?

The Ghost Emperor was still in the same spot. The only difference was that there were now three guys beside her.

The three were dressed fashionably, with long hair and earrings. They were somewhat handsome, but they didn’t look like decent people. The kind who might litter casually.

Were they... hitting on the Ghost Emperor?

Probably.

There didn’t seem to be any other reason.

It took Zhong Cheng a few seconds to process the situation, and then his expression turned subtle.

It made sense that the Ghost Emperor would get approached. Based on looks alone, she was stunning enough to wipe out whole swaths of internet beauties. Getting hit on was perfectly normal.

It was just that this was the first time Zhong Cheng had ever run into something like this!

He’d thought this kind of frivolous pickup behavior only existed in stories, and was rare in real life, or maybe didn’t happen at all.

Who knew it wouldn’t just happen, but happen right in front of him.

They definitely didn’t know what kind of ghost they were trying to pick up. That was the only reason they had the courage.

If they knew, they’d probably already be pissing themselves and running.

This was an extremely suicidal move.

Carrying the milk tea, Zhong Cheng walked toward them.

At that moment, the three guys were still hard at work trying to flirt. They hadn’t noticed Zhong Cheng coming up beside them at all.

Zhong Cheng didn’t interrupt right away either. Since it was his first time seeing real-life pickup behavior, he was inevitably a little curious, so he decided to observe and learn.

Lay some groundwork for hitting on cute girls himself in the future.

“Miss, you really don’t want to come hang out with us? We know this street really well. We know a lot of fun places.”

“Don’t worry about the cost. You think we’d make you pay? We’ll cover everything.”

“Yeah, come on, do us the honor.”

“Scram.”

“Miss, that’s not right. We invited you out of kindness. Fine if you don’t accept, but now you’re cursing at us and telling us to scram?”

“If you do that, we’ll lose face. We’ll be heartbroken. We might even get depression.”

“Exactly. Anyway, no one’s with you, so what’s wrong with us keeping you company?”

The Ghost Emperor crossed her arms, her posture cold and aloof. Looking at the three still shamelessly pestering her, refusing to give up, she narrowed her eyes, and a faint bloody light seeped out.

The air suddenly turned chilly.

Whoosh, whoosh.

The three noticed the change in temperature, but didn’t pay it much mind. They were still making one last push, trying to break through this icy beauty’s defenses and get her to agree.

Even though this beauty’s defense was sky-high, immune to both soft and hard tactics, the three still had confidence they could take her down.

After all, they’d paid plenty of tuition for this. They’d learned the highest-level girl-chasing techniques from advanced mentors.

[Top-tier technique: as long as your skin is thick enough and your mouth is slick enough, even a wall of bronze and iron can be licked through.]

If you run into someone you just can’t conquer no matter what, it’s not because your skills are bad, or you can’t chat, or you can’t create atmosphere, and it’s definitely not because you’re not handsome enough.

It just means your skin still isn’t thick enough.

“Hey, you three, why aren’t you scramming already?!”

Hearing the shout from behind them, all three turned around at the same time and saw a guy carrying milk tea.

The three frowned in displeasure. At this critical moment, when they were just about to break through with the beauty, someone actually came out to interrupt. Didn’t he know how annoying that was?

“What, you got a problem?”

“Scram. Right now.”

Zhong Cheng wasn’t polite in the slightest. His tone was sharp.

Originally, Zhong Cheng had wanted to keep observing a little longer and build up some experience. But when he saw the killing intent in the Ghost Emperor’s eyes, good lord, she was clearly about to silence them for good.

If Zhong Cheng didn’t hurry up and step in to drive the three away, their ending was easy to imagine.

Trying to pick up girls and ending up on the Ghost Emperor? They were courting death in style!