A Perilous Shopping Trip

“Wow, that little girl is so well-behaved!”

“Where? Where is she? Where’s the little girl?”

“There, there, right to your left.”

“Oh my, she’s truly, truly such a well-behaved little girl!”

“Right, right? She’s so adorable, could she be mixed-race?”

Having finished their shopping, they emerged onto the bustling street. With Chen Si Yi and Serena’s striking figures and captivating beauty, coupled with the adorable appearance of the little loli I possessed, it was only natural that pedestrians on both sides of the street couldn’t help but glance their way.

“Honey, look how cute that little girl is.”

Just then, a young couple pushing a stroller walked past them.

The infant in the stroller, likely only recently born and clad in a diaper, wiggled its tiny pink mouth, unable to utter a sound. Instead, it stretched out a finger, waving it incessantly as if greeting me.

Staring at the plump, pink baby, I was instantly captivated by its cuteness. I, too, extended my finger, mimicking its gesture and waving it back.

Then, the baby’s mother, positioned between me and the stroller, let out another sigh of admiration.

“Oh, mixed-race children truly are adorable,” the young, beautiful woman cooed, casting a doting glance my way before turning to her husband. “Honey, how about I give birth to a mixed-race child for you too?”

“Pfft! Cough, cough, cough—”

The young father immediately erupted into a fit of violent coughing, his face flushing crimson like a ripe tomato.

Realizing the situation was quickly spiraling into an awkward predicament, I chuckled nervously a few times, then hastily quickened my pace, catching up to Chen Si Yi and Serena who were walking ahead, frowning intently at me.

“What happened back there? Were that couple arguing?” Chen Si Yi asked, her brow furrowed with confusion as I drew near again.

Of course, I didn’t tell her the truth. For the first time, I felt that being cute was a sin.

“No argument,” I replied, scratching my head with a touch of embarrassment. “They were just debating some parenting knowledge.”

Chen Si Yi simply uttered a faint ‘Oh,’ then ignored me, continuing to walk slowly, her gaze fixed straight ahead.

This time, however, she subtly wiggled her fingers. After a moment’s hesitation, she reached out and grasped my wrist, resembling an elder sister worried about her younger sibling getting lost.

“What… what are you doing…”

With Chen Si Yi holding my wrist, I couldn’t move as freely as before. I initially considered struggling, but upon meeting her scorching gaze, which seemed capable of devouring me whole, I abandoned the thought.

‘Fine, fine. If you want to hold my hand, go ahead. It’s not like I’m losing anything.’

As Chen Si Yi’s slender fingers clasped my wrist, feeling their soft, delicate touch, my heartbeat couldn’t help but quicken for a moment.

‘However, I wasn’t actually swayed, you know.’

Chen Si Yi held onto me for two reasons: on one hand, she worried I might get lost or be abducted by unscrupulous individuals in my current state; on the other, she feared I might attempt to escape and seek help.

Indeed, from the moment we left the house, I had noticed something. While Chen Si Yi and Serena didn’t appear to be entirely focused on me, the instant I turned around, I would invariably meet the gaze of one of them.

This ‘coincidence’ was far from the first; the incident in the fitting room at the clothing store earlier was ample proof.

‘Why would Chen Si Yi and Serena peek at me changing clothes? Are they perverts? How could that be! There aren’t that many perverts in the world; that sales assistant was merely an anomaly.’

‘Therefore, the reason my sister, Chen Si Yi, and her lackey, Serena, were watching me so closely was, naturally, to prevent me from escaping or calling out to passersby for help.’

‘Ah, what can I say? It seems these two girls are simply overly worried.’

‘In my current loli-like body, how am I supposed to call for help?’

‘Am I supposed to point at Chen Si Yi and Serena, these two beautifully dressed girls, and complain to a police officer, saying, “Boo hoo, Officer, these two turned me into a loli and want to imprison me! You absolutely must save me!”‘

‘That’s impossible, right? Who would believe such a melodramatic story?’

‘I reckon, if I dared to do that, the outcome would surely be Chen Si Yi patting my head, laughing as she told the onlookers, “Haha, little sister, stop fooling around,” while simultaneously leaning close to my ear to threaten, “Lin Yan, you’re dead when we get home!”‘

‘Just thinking about Chen Si Yi’s unique foot-rubbing torture from this morning still makes me shiver involuntarily, cold sweat trickling down my forehead.’

‘Therefore, without absolute certainty, I absolutely wouldn’t make a move.’

‘At the very least, I’d need to encounter someone very familiar to me before initiating a self-rescue operation. Otherwise, failure would only plunge me into an abyss of no return…’

“Hey, stop daydreaming. Go inside and pick out some styles you like.”

Just as I was lost in these thoughts, Chen Si Yi’s voice suddenly reached my ears.

I looked up, only then realizing. After being silently led by Chen Si Yi for some distance, the three of us had already arrived at the entrance of a lingerie store.

Furthermore, Serena, who had been walking ahead of Chen Si Yi and me, was already inside the lingerie store, holding up various styles of underwear against her chest and trying them out.

“No way, they’re actually going to buy them…”

After glancing once more at the English sign above, which bore a string of meaningless words, my tightly furrowed brow instantly turned bitter.

While I could still tolerate buying dresses, purchasing lingerie was something any boy would vehemently resist.

Just standing at the entrance, the dazzling array of lingerie in various colors and styles inside the store was practically blinding me.

I had to admit, as a ‘single dog’ who had never had a girlfriend and been single for nearly seventeen years, I was genuinely feeling a little shy at this moment.

Although I had helped my sister wash her underwear before, the two situations were entirely incomparable. Aside from a fleeting, almost negligible thrill the first time I washed Chen Si Yi’s lingerie, at all other times, her underwear seemed like perfume-sprayed rags to me, devoid of any allure.

Moreover, in recent years, as Chen Si Yi grew up and our relationship gradually deteriorated, she never allowed me to touch her underwear again. Even if I occasionally passed the balcony and glimpsed the flimsy A-cup drying there, it would always earn me an unusually wary look from her.