A Peculiar Relationship and a Surprise ‘Reward’

It was late night. Having finished his shower, Chen Ran returned to his room on the third floor, where he leisurely settled back onto his bed.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that a faint, milky fragrance and that soft, yielding touch still lingered on his fingertips.

This lingering sensation wasn’t due to a lack of experience on his part; Chen Ran, in truth, was quite seasoned. Duanmu Hui’s, for instance, were certainly not small, measuring at least a C-cup.

Yet, in comparison to Jiang Zilin’s, they were undeniably modest.

Duanmu Hui, his girlfriend and a national idol, possessed a figure that was decidedly well-proportioned.

Their shape was also exquisite, pointed and delicate, much like tender bamboo shoots emerging in early spring.

Nevertheless, Chen Ran found himself feeling profoundly strange; Jiang Zilin evoked an inexplicable sensation within him, perhaps…

Silently, Chen Ran retrieved his phone and navigated to his chat with Duanmu Hui.

In reality, while they were ostensibly boyfriend and girlfriend, their daily interactions were virtually nonexistent.

Their current chat history consisted solely of…

This past Saturday, at precisely 7:34 AM.

[Duanmu Hui: Be at the Prince Carl Hotel in Xijing City’s Ginza District before noon.]

And before that, last Saturday, at 8:01 AM.

[Duanmu Hui: Come to my place in Xijing before 11 AM. Do you still remember where it is?]

Further back still, the Saturday morning before that…

[Duanmu Hui: Be at the Kio Hotel in Xijing City’s Shinjuku District before 1 PM.]

Each time, he would simply reply with “Okay,” and that would be the extent of their exchange.

Reflecting on it, he and Duanmu Hui shared virtually no daily interactions, neither online nor, for the most part, offline. Each encounter consisted of her leading him back to her room, then pushing him down onto the bed.

After their intimacy, she would dress and depart, always leaving him with the instruction to wait a while before leaving himself, ensuring enough time passed between their exits to avoid any opportunistic paparazzi.

Truth be told, this relationship left Chen Ran with absolutely no sense of reality, prompting him to question whether Duanmu Hui was even truly his girlfriend.

Chen Ran found himself utterly bewildered.

Despite his confusion, he had little to truly complain about if things continued this way. A national idol willingly sleeping with him every week? Wasn’t this practically a “sci-fi” scenario ripped straight from an eroge or a doujinshi?!

The thought struck him as utterly preposterous.

Truly outrageous!

Shaking his head, he resolved to banish such thoughts from his mind.

After a moment of contemplation, Chen Ran still found himself sending a message to Duanmu Hui.

[What are you doing?]

Over ten minutes elapsed, and predictably, there was no reply.

Chen Ran pursed his lips, the disappointment in his heart undeniable. He then sent a message to Jiang Zilin.

[Xiao Lin-jie, are you asleep?]

[What do you want?!]

The reply was instantaneous.

Chen Ran quickly typed.

[Nothing, just go to sleep.]

But the woman’s reply was playfully persistent.

[Xiao Ran wants to sleep with big sister, huh?]

[……]

[Hee hee hee…]

The woman sent a triumphant dog emoji, paws on hips, and then fell silent.

Chen Ran had initially assumed Jiang Zilin was about to drift off to sleep.

Instead, he soon heard a light ‘tap-tap-tap’ of footsteps approaching from outside his door.

Then, his door was suddenly, quietly pushed ajar.

Jiang Zilin, adorned in a cute pink plaid nightgown, stealthily poked her head into the room.

“Xiao Ran~ Missing big sister so much you can’t sleep, huh?”

“No,” Chen Ran replied truthfully, yet on Jiang Zilin’s face, he clearly read the expression: ‘Stop being a tsundere; big sister understands, she truly does.’

Then, he watched as the woman let out a deliberately coy hum.

“But Xiao Ran has already received his reward tonight, so no more sleeping with big sister~”

“But!” Jiang Zilin’s tone shifted abruptly, and from behind her back, she suddenly produced a flesh-colored… bra?!

“Would Xiao Ran like big sister to lend you her underwear? I just took it off, it’s still warm, you know~”

‘…’

‘Use it? What for?’

Chen Ran was utterly speechless, lamenting that he shouldn’t have messaged this person in the first place.

Yet, Chen Ran knew precisely how to ‘defeat’ Jiang Zilin in this moment.

“Oh~” he murmured, a sound brimming with feigned contemplation.

With a faint smile, Chen Ran deliberately fixed his gaze on the woman’s proudly swelling chest, then spoke with calculated intent.

“So, Xiao Lin-jie, you’re going commando now?”

‘???’

As he made a move to get out of bed.

The woman, as expected, let out an immediate shriek, then swiftly slammed the door shut and scampered downstairs with a flurry of ‘tap-tap-tap-tap’ footsteps.

Heh. He settled back onto his bed.

Chen Ran shook his head, then glanced at his phone, noting that it was precisely midnight.

‘I’ll add my reward points, then go to sleep.’

As he thought this, Chen Ran suddenly recalled that he hadn’t actually done any ‘work’ today.

Even after returning home in the evening, he had merely assisted Jiang Zilin with dinner — which amounted to nothing more than handing her bowls and plates, effectively doing nothing substantial.

Afterward, he hadn’t even washed the dishes.

Surely, he wouldn’t receive zero reward points just because he hadn’t “worked” today!

A sudden realization struck Chen Ran: ‘Would it still count if I rushed to Jiang Lengleng’s room now to help the girl with her homework or something?’

But at that very moment, his phone’s display read [00:00], signifying that the day had already concluded.

Chen Ran pursed his lips, ultimately opening the ‘King’s Game’ app on his phone, only to find…

[Your busy day has come to an end!]

[You worked hard and diligently today!]

[Congratulations, you have gained Reward Points *1]

As the familiar notification screen popped up, Chen Ran mused, ‘So, I *did* have ‘work’ today, after all?’

After a moment of recollection, he realized the only thing he had done all day was visit Duanmu Hui to sleep with her.

‘So *that* counts as ‘work’!’

It felt utterly preposterous.

With a sigh, Chen Ran silently opened the app’s stat allocation interface, clicked the ‘+’ sign next to [Strength], and watched the value change to ’11’ points.

His intention was to boost his Strength to either 15 or 20 first, before gradually increasing his other attributes.

This was how Chen Ran had always allocated his points.

He reasoned that if he were to raise all five core attributes to ’11’ and then incrementally to ’12,’ any significant ‘qualitative’ improvement would be difficult to perceive in the short term.

Conversely, focusing on increasing one attribute to ’15’ or ’20’ first seemed far more beneficial.

Such was Chen Ran’s reasoning.

Having allocated his points, he promptly turned off his phone and closed his eyes, drifting off to sleep.

And so, the night slipped quietly by…

****

The following morning, upon waking, Chen Ran discovered that Jiang Zilin and Jiang Lengleng, the two sisters, had already left the house.

The elder sister, as usual, had to tend to the shop on the weekend, and though the younger sister didn’t have school, she had accompanied her sister to the shop as well.

Consequently, Chen Ran was once again the sole occupant of the house.

Ordinarily, Chen Ran would likely have spent the day lounging at home, watching television, browsing on his phone, and simply resting.

Alternatively, driven by sheer boredom, he might have gone to the convenience store to lend a hand, returning home with Jiang Zilin and the others in the evening.

However, he remembered he had an errand to run today.

Thus, after washing up and finishing breakfast, Chen Ran departed from the house.

Before long, he was knocking on the door of the mature and beautiful Rinzi-san next door.