Chapter 121: The Defeat of the Magical Girl

"I won't open it, I absolutely won't!" Magical Girl Tongtong leaned against the door, crying out loud. She was beginning to regret having walked into this trap of her own accord.

"Tongtong! Come on, let's try something else. I'll patch it up for you again!" Zhang Wuyong truly hadn't expected her to allow him to "dress her up" to that extent. If he had known it was just a matter of a patch, why had he been so picky?

"No way!" Tongtong, back turned to the bedroom door, called back.

"Tongtong, even if you don't let me fix the patch, just come out first!" Zhang Wuyong coaxed her. "It's fine, we don't have to do the patch, just come out first and we'll talk."

"Not coming out! I'm just not!" If she went out, she would be eaten.

Zhang Wuyong chuckled outside, "If you don't come out, that's a breach of our agreement. If you break the agreement, this time doesn't count at all, and we'll have to start over from scratch next time."

Zhao Yutong bit her lip... that seemed to be the case!

"I can come out, but let's make it clear: no changing to something else."

"I'll have to think about that. Even in the college entrance exams, you're allowed to correct your mistakes, right?"

"Not once the time is up!"

"But is the time up now? It isn't!"

"It is!"

"No cheating allowed. At most, we've just entered the exam hall and the teacher has only just handed out the papers."

"Exactly, the papers have been handed out, no changes allowed! Can a teacher who sets the exam papers suddenly say on the day of the exam that this version won't work and decide to rewrite the questions?"

Zhang Wuyong thought about it and felt she had a point. Then, with a shift in thought, he smiled and said, "But there are also Version A and Version B for exams. I want to switch to Version B now!"

Tongtong huffed: "Your paper has already been handed out! Is there any case where they switch to Version B after the papers are already out?"

Zhang Wuyong took out his phone and searched quickly: "Sorry! It actually happened, with the Jilin University postgraduate entrance exams a couple of years ago."

That actually happened? Tongtong hurriedly said, "That was for postgrad, not the college entrance exam!"

"But our college entrance exam is long over, the scores are out, so technically, we are taking the postgraduate exam now."

Tongtong was left speechless... that sounded logical.

"So, Tongtong, hurry up and come out, we're taking Version B!" Zhang Wuyong chuckled outside. "If you don't come out, that counts as forfeiting the exam. If you forfeit, this time doesn't count, and you'll have to repeat the year and retake it."

Tongtong bit her lip, her mind racing: "I can take Version B, but Version B is still an exam paper. It can't be blank, or lacking even the questions."

Zhang Wuyong said, "About that..." The patch he had applied really had left everything blank.

"Then what do you suggest?" He stopped teasing her and let her decide for herself.

What did he mean by "what do I suggest?" Zhao Yutong was a bit dazed. Wouldn't it be better to just keep taking Version A? Why, for no reason, was he kicking the ball back to her?

Is he just going to agree to whatever I say?

Zhao Yutong turned around, faced the door, leaned her arms against it, and rested her head on her hands. After a while, she whispered, "Wuyong..."

"Hmm?" Zhang Wuyong was leaning against the door outside.

"That time, what you really wanted me to have wasn't the ice cream, was it?" Zhao Yutong asked softly. "And the candied hawthorn?"

"Do you really want to know?"

"Yeah... can you tell me now?"

"Then I'll tell you!" Zhang Wuyong whispered to her through the door.

Inside the room, Zhao Yutong stood with her mouth slightly agape, stunned. She had thought about a lot of things, but she really hadn't expected it to be like that. Is this what a normal guy thinks about? It's too strange... it must be from playing *Genshin Impact*. She wouldn't let him play those weird games anymore!

That kind of thing... just thinking about it made her feel so ashamed. But looking back... he really seemed to like it. She wanted to do some things that he liked, too. However, the thought of watching him... no, it was too embarrassing.

"Wuyong!" she said, her voice from inside the room so soft it was like a mosquito's hum.

"What is it, Tongtong?" Zhang Wuyong's heartbeat suddenly accelerated.

"You, you go wait by the door first, and don't you dare turn around!" the girl inside whispered.

"Alright... I'm going over there then!" Zhang Wuyong walked toward the door.

After he left, the girl quietly opened the door and peeked toward the entrance. She slipped out and went into her mother's room, rummaging around until she found her eye mask. Because of the high pressure at the hospital, her mother sometimes didn't sleep well and was sensitive to light, so she wore one.

She took the mask, slipped back into her room, and poked her head out: "You can come in after two minutes."

"Okay!" Zhang Wuyong said in a deep voice.

He waited outside for two minutes, then turned and walked toward Tongtong's room. Pushing open the ajar door, he saw Tongtong wearing a black eye mask, dressed in her magical girl outfit, sitting on the floor in a seiza position, hands pressed against the ground.

He couldn't take his eyes off her, and... why the eye mask?

"There's ice cream in the freezer, you... you go get it!" the girl sitting on the floor said shyly.

Zhang Wuyong stepped forward, arrived in front of her, and looked down at her: "Can I only use the ice cream?"

"Only the ice cream!" the girl said firmly, leaving no room for refusal, then looked up. "But, but I can't see right now, so... so you aren't allowed to trick me with anything else."

She parted her lips slightly.

Outside, the rain was falling harder and harder. Every year at the end of June, this province was prone to flooding. The weather forecast said there would be continuous heavy rain for the next few days, and flood control work was being prepared in high tension. Meanwhile, other provinces were facing droughts at the same time.

The parched were dying of thirst, while the flooded were drowning. Such is the nature of different people and different fates.

Zhang Wuyong first obtained Tongtong's consent, then went to her wardrobe and fished out a pretty pair of panties. He used them to tie her hands together. With that, she became a defeated magical girl.

The pitter-patter of the rain covered the entire city. In the hospital, women in white coats were already busy at work. In this profession, when things got busy, there was no stopping for the whole day; one became like a machine in constant motion.

At a mahjong parlor nearby, dense tiles were pushed into the machine. After a clattering shuffle, they were stacked neatly on the table. Hands reached out rapidly toward the stacks. As they drew and discarded tiles, a woman spoke again about her son, saying she hadn't really managed him much, yet he had done so well on his middle school entrance exam that it had shocked the whole family.

"You really didn't manage him much," the woman opposite said. "I think that girl living across from you is the one who's truly worked herself to the bone."

"I suppose that's true." As the woman spoke, she drew a tile and tipped her hand over. "Self-drawn."

The other three sighed. As they played with interest, the torrential rain poured outside, and the flood, inevitable as it was, finally arrived.