Chapter 1313 - 581: How Steel Pellets Are Tempered (Part 2)

Chapter 1313: Chapter 581: How Steel Pellets Are Tempered (Part 2)

Not only that, after shouting, Lin Li began sucking his thumb.

After sucking, he continued to shout.

"Mommy~"

Chen Yu Ying: "???"

Wait a minute?!

Isn’t this supposed to be a time to look at photos?

How did it turn into a live-action performance with my boyfriend?!!

No way am I watching this!!

"Are you trying to get yourself killed!"

Slightly bending over and arching her back so her chest didn’t block her view, Chen Yu Ying grabbed Lin Li’s neck and playfully shook him back and forth while laughing and scolding.

"Baby, did you know, when I’m alone at home and order takeout, I write my name as Chen Yu Ying, so when the delivery person knocks and asks if Chen Yu Ying is there, I can say Mommy’s not home." Lin Li, though struggling to breathe, managed to say intermittently.

Chen Yu Ying: "?"

She couldn’t help but burst into laughter, then immediately felt she shouldn’t laugh, so she quickly stifled it.

She huffed, giving up on grabbing Lin Li’s neck, and switched to pushing from his chin upward, making his teeth click together with a clattering sound.

She then puffed out her cheeks slightly, as if sulking, and spoke with distinct pauses:

"I want to see your childhood photos!"

"Alrighty, the photos in my room are mostly my elementary and middle school graduation photos, the rest are on my mom’s bedside table. I’ll go get them for you."

Lin Li didn’t continue savoring the warmth of her thighs, as he got up with a straight posture, which gave him a fleeting sense of exhilaration, pairing the feeling with his winter sweater, soft and comfortable.

Chen Yu Ying didn’t shy away and coyly call him a pervert.

After all, Lin Li wasn’t intentional—at least he didn’t appear to be.

It wasn’t long before Lin Li returned.

He was holding several parcels wrapped in brown paper, and a mobile phone.

He sat on the edge of the bed, patting the space beside him, indicating for Chen Yu Ying to sit next to him.

"These are the printed, formal photos, and in the phone are previous random snapshots of me."

The phone was still working well; after connecting it with a USB cable, the trapezoidal charging line, it could still be powered on and used as normal.

Chen Yu Ying came over, took the brown paper package and phone from Lin Li, and began to look through them.

"You were quite the big boy as a child."

"I think I was almost seven pounds at birth. My parents thought I’d be a chubby kid, but ended up being a stick."

Lin Li chuckled, thinking that if it weren’t for external help, he’d probably still be a stick now.

"But very cute."

"Am I not cute now?"

"Now you’re handsome."

"Hehe~ Handsome~ Hehehehe~ Handsome hehe handsome..."

"My dear handsome guy, can’t you stop laughing like a fool?"

"That’s too difficult, ma’am."

Though she complained verbally, Chen Yu Ying was actually pleased inwardly, so after a feigned sigh of resignation, she stopped responding and continued looking at Lin Li’s childhood photos.

"Why are you crying in this one?"

"Oh, if I remember correctly, I asked my mom if girls couldn’t sit at the table to eat and only boys could. She told me not to say things like that, that both boys and girls could sit at the table to eat."

"Then I climbed onto the table to eat, but she went back on her word faster than flipping pages, treating as if she never said it, and dragged me down, saying neither boys nor girls were allowed to sit at the table!"

Chen Yu Ying blinked.

An inkling surfaced.

And after that inkling, it began Lin Li’s long storytelling session.

"This time was also a rough beating, even though I was only six at the time. But this kid next to me, by our family hierarchy, was already my nephew.

While playing with him, I noticed he got his clothes dirty while eating. Considering I was an elder, I thought I should take good care of him, so I decided to wash his clothes. As soon as I put the clothes in the washing machine with detergent, my mom heard the noise and came flying in with a feather duster to hit me. Sigh."

"Why was it this time, did you not use detergent?" Chen Yu Ying laughed and speculated.

Lin Li sighed: "No, it’s because I forgot to take my nephew out of the clothes."

Chen Yu Ying: "?"

She carefully examined Lin Li’s "miserable" appearance in the photo, nodded, thinking he got off easy.

"My dear, that look you’re giving me is unsettling, I think it’s not that bad. I had a classmate in elementary school, I forget his name, but once, he put his six-month-old brother in his schoolbag to show us at school."

Lin Li immediately attempted to salvage his image, shaking his head in disapproval:

"Then he went home with his parents after the first class, and took a week off. When he came back, every time he sat down, he’d have to gasp."

Chen Yu Ying: "..."

"Starting from these photos, I guess I grew up and became more sensible, and the beatings and lectures I got were quite different compared to before—it was probably two times more."

"...? Wait a minute, why would you ’get beat up more’ after you grew up and became sensible."

"Because I started revealing my true nature," Lin Li said matter-of-factly.

Chen Yu Ying was momentarily stunned, but she wasn’t stunned by Lin Li’s nature getting him more beatings; after a moment of silence, she said, "So all this time, this wasn’t your true nature?"

"How should I put this, it was mainly that I was unconscious then, and when I got beaten, I felt kind of wronged, but from this period onward... I guess it became my ’How dare you hit me? Hmm, I deserved it’ period, where I started actively misbehaving."

Lin Li analyzed seriously.

"For example, this photo of me being punished to stand in the office was because I was teaching a classmate a trick to read English. He learned very quickly.

So that in class, when asked to recite, he smoothly began with one, two, three... nine, ten, in the form of puns, and after getting hauled to the office, he ratted me out without loyalty..."

"...I think I kind of understand now."

Suppressing the corners of her lips from smiling, her brow didn’t really furrow, but Chen Yu Ying rubbed at her brow, expressing her ’’trouble,’’

"So, is there a story for this one, have you made it up yet?"

"Made up? How dare you doubt me!? I’m not a braggart king!"

...

As time quietly and slowly slipped by with the shuffle of photos rubbing against each other.

Chen Yu Ying always admired them as Lin Li explained.

Lin Li could always recount many many reasons for his discipline.

Though a good part of them, in Chen Yu Ying’s perception, seemed to be stories conjured by Lin Li, the storytelling king, like ’playing table tennis with ancestral spirit tablets,’ ’taking friends to a temple, asking for divine permission to use the donation box money to buy Kamen Rider, and going into action when granted,’ ’hiding in a wardrobe sulking for a day causing Wu Min to mobilize friends and family to search all day and hear Lin Li’s snores when in despair returning home’...

So on and so forth.

But, in truth, whether true or false wasn’t important, because Chen Yu Ying was genuinely delighted listening to them.

Lin Li’s entertaining nature was a hugely important factor in why she liked him.

"...and that’s that. This is my cousin, she’s quite interesting, we should meet sometime."

Feeling Lin Li’s whispers next to her ear, Chen Yu Ying’s heart fluttered, she no longer continued to flip to the next photo, but instead turned her head to look at Lin Li.

"What’s up?"

Meeting the direct gaze of the girl with clear eyes who said nothing but looked at him, Lin Li leaned in to give a peck on the cheek, asking.

There was no big reaction from Chen Yu Ying to that kiss, she merely kept looking at Lin Li.

Then, she scanned Lin Li’s arm, her shoulder, her arm, and her legs in order without saying a word, before looking back at Lin Li once more.

Uh-huh.

—When they came to their senses, Chen Yu Ying found that their posture had unknowingly shifted.

Initially, they were sitting side by side on the bed.

But now, Lin Li’s upper body was no longer upright but half-jacketed on the headboard, comfortably lying down, one arm naturally wrapped around a waist that wasn’t his, loosely crossing over a belly that wasn’t his, snugly encircling a pillow, occasionally tapping light fingers on it.

His chin had also cozily settled with some weight on a shoulder that wasn’t his, with his nose almost rubbing against a neck that wasn’t his, tickling the person hugging the pillow. ℴ

Hmm...

When had he brought her to lie down together?

Could it be—

"Your hands are so small" "Why are they so much whiter than mine?" "They say girls’ hands are soft" "Your hands are so cold" "Your bone structure is so small too" "Let’s compare hand sizes" "Let me just hug" "Just this once, okay" "You have one, too" "Aaaaaah"...