I'm living off a woman in Arknights.

Page 35

P.S.: I got punished by Shenhe, so I'll try putting it in the author's words.

Volume Two: Fireworks at Longmen: Chapter Fifty - The Reason for the Kiss is Simple and Unpretentious

Swire's uniform collar swayed with her movements, occasionally revealing glimpses of her pale, rosy nape through the gaps in her clothing.

Swire, however, seemed oblivious, covering her lips with the back of her hand, her eyes sparkling.

She smoothly retracted the tail that was wrapped around Yun Yi's wrist, and asked with great interest, "How many points?"

“…” Yun Yi stood there blankly.

After a brief moment of blankness, her mind was now filled with confusion.

All my thoughts were tangled up in my brain, each strand filled with incomprehension.

"Yun Yi? Check his points—"

"Why?" Yun Yi's ears turned red, his whole body felt hot, and his voice was a little hoarse as he interrupted Shi Huaiya's question.

She looked completely shocked, as if her soul had left her body: "Why did you suddenly kiss me?"

He kissed her so quickly, leaving her no lingering feeling at all.

—That was her first kiss!

It's gone... It's gone so abruptly!

Yun Yi gritted his teeth. No way! How could he let his first kiss, the culmination of two lifetimes, end without him feeling anything at all!

Yun Yi took a deep breath, as if drawing back his wandering soul. His golden-red eyes blazed with fire as he reluctantly leaned closer to Swire: "Even if it's a kiss, at least let me feel it a little more, okay?"

A hasty kiss, a hasty separation—what a waste of a first kiss!

"Again!"

"You actually paid attention to this first..." Swire raised her hand speechlessly to cover Yun Yi's frizzy head, which was covered by his messy hair.

Yun Yi turned his head close to Shi Huaiya's hand, his eyes peeking out from between her fingers, looking at her intently: "One more time!"

"At least ask me why I kissed you!"

Swire's resolute refusal.

Yun Yi knew that his own strength was insufficient to enforce the order.

She knew her first kiss experience was irreplaceable, and she immediately deflated: "Okay, why did you kiss me?"

"The answer is the same as the answer to your previous question about 'why you got so close'—" Swire gently pushed Yun Yi's head away, taking a few steps back and almost bumping into 002 and 001 who were watching the drama unfold.

Swire apologized softly before looking up and asking seriously, "What do you think our relationship is?"

Yun Yi tilted his head: "Not investors and investees?"

"You give me things, you make physical contact with me, and I'll give you some of the items from the system's store in return," Yun Yi listed them off on his fingers.

"If the benefits I gain from giving you gifts and from physical contact with you are roughly the same, and the items that the system can exchange for have limited effectiveness, that's certainly true..."

Poetry and Tiger Tail tapped Yun Yi's collarbone from a distance, then tapped the wild chick at his feet from a distance: "But, the truth is, the efficiency of gaining benefits through physical contact is dozens of times greater than that of giving gifts. The value of the system shop, such as the wild chick, is quite significant to me—you have become very important to me."

Do you still consider us an investor in my eyes?

Yun Yi felt as if he were a child hearing the headmaster rambling on and on, and his mind went blank for a moment.

—Is there any difference in the content being repeated over and over again?

"What you're saying is still an investment relationship, isn't it? It's just that this investment is more valuable to you now."

"Idiot." Swire sighed, rubbing her forehead. "No, I shouldn't have said that to you..."

—It needs to be explained in a more accessible and understandable way.

Swire rested her chin on her hand, her tiger ears twitching as she thought for a moment, then asked, "Yunyi, in your eyes, would physical contact to the point of kissing be considered an investment?"

"To be honest, no." Yun Yi shook his head decisively. "I thought our deal only included those events at levels 1 and 2... So why did you suddenly kiss me?"

Yunyi's question stemmed solely from a logical doubt.

This is what infuriated Swire: "What else could it be? Holding a mountain of gold and not digging it up, are you even human? Cough cough!"

Swire coughed halfway through his sentence, trying to cover up his slip of the tongue, and raised his voice: "—I mean, simply giving you things and engaging in low-level physical contact cannot satisfy my needs."

Yun Yi became increasingly puzzled: "But that's such a long time, we'll be together sooner or later... Oh, I see, you're not sure if you can live that long."

Yun Yi suddenly realized that only she herself had a long and clear time ahead of her; the ultimate lifespan of Swire was unknown to both of them at this moment.

“My time is precious.” Swire indirectly acknowledged her concerns about her lifespan: “I want to push Lungmen a step further before I leave this world, no, many steps.”

This requires a greater investment of time and effort.

Swire, who deeply understood the nature of rights and obligations, considered things very clearly: if you want something, you have to pay a price.

“But this doesn’t seem to concern me much. And things like kissing aren’t on our default trading platform,” Yun Yi stated calmly.

Swire was only talking about her own goals, and she was willing to sacrifice herself to achieve them, but why did she have to involve Yunyi?

The moment of kissing seemed very comfortable, but it couldn't change the fact that Yunyi's first kiss was not voluntary.

There was no room for negotiation; it was purely coercive.

And what's more, Swire wouldn't even allow her to make up for her first kiss!

Thinking of this, Yun Yi's temper flared up: "Besides, I don't dislike this kind of thing, I actually like it a little. Couldn't you have just told me you wanted to kiss and discussed it with me? Or when I asked to continue, you could have let me continue!"

"Wait, you like it?" Swire's ears froze. "But you've only ever been curious about hugs, my ears, eyes, and stuff. You've never had any desire for me in that way."

As Swire spoke, she carefully observed Yun Yi's expression, becoming even more certain of her judgment: "That's right, there isn't any."

"How could there not be?" Yun Yi frowned. "You're very beautiful, aren't you?"

Seeing good-looking people makes one want to get closer—this is a trait Yunyi discovered he had developed in himself, a tendency to be attracted to good-looking people, through Swire.

“So, it’s not the same thing.” Swire drooped her tail helplessly. “Yunyi, your desire is just appreciation, I’m talking about… a desire that will slide down to level 5.”

"Level 5?" Combination?

Wait a minute, isn't the combination of desire and lust the same as love?

Yun Yi's eyes widened: "Huh? Didn't we agree on a deal?"

Why mix in this desire? Once that desire is there, is the contract still a pure transaction?

Swire laughed: "You really didn't think about this at all, even though the system's name is clearly written."

Being a kept man, or a transaction of desires, can involve pure desires or lust.

Yun Yi knew all this, of course, but said, "According to my contract, it clearly didn't have to go that far..."

“Why wouldn’t I need it?” Swire put her hands on her hips, her tail swaying again. “You think my purpose is irrelevant to you? No, actually it’s not that different.”

"Your immortality and your system products are like juicy chunks of meat; someone will always want to take a bite, and these people won't wait for you to slowly grow up."

"That's true, but now that I'm by your side, I won't easily reveal my immortality, will I?"

Yun Yi glanced at Swire's chain hammer, which exuded a dangerous aura, and then at Manjuu, who hadn't left the coffee shop: "As for system items, I'll only reveal that Terra also has them, at most some rarer ones. With you here, will anyone come looking for trouble with me for this in a short time?"

Swire told Yunyi that she was too naive: "Do you remember what I said at the beginning here? I know you appeared out of thin air, but not because of your information, but because of someone else's intelligence."

"This person is a man of the Rat King, or more precisely, a man of Governor Wei, who is also the leader of the Dragon Gate."

Swire raised the tip of his tail: "If you weren't more important to me than Governor Wei right now, your accurate intelligence would already be on the desks of those in power, awaiting trial."

Yun Yi thought for a long time before he remembered that something like this had happened before he went to sleep. His lips twitched: "I remember there was no one and no surveillance cameras where I appeared. How did they find me?"

Volume 2: Fireworks at Dragon Gate, Chapter 51: The backup plan must be implemented in advance!

Swire flicked his tiger tail and said calmly, "Who knows? The Rat King has all sorts of people under his command. Maybe it's some kind of special Originium Arts."

"This is so blurry..."

Yun Yi was not entirely satisfied with Swire's answer, but he also knew that Swire was probably genuinely unaware.

After all, the Rat King sounded impressive in her words, and she wanted to figure out what tricks this all-powerful big shot had up his sleeve.

It's better to dream.

However, wouldn't this mean that the Rat King, or rather the Wei family ruler of Longmen, has spies all over this area?

Yun Yi glanced at the floor-to-ceiling window on his left, which was completely covered by curtains.

The curtains were lifted by the wind, giving Yun Yi the illusion that a gaze was trying to penetrate them and fall on her, staring at her in a dark light.

Yun Yi's body tensed instantly: "You mean I'm being watched now, and those people are even watching us from outside right now?"

"Relax, this area is already my territory. Before your value is clearly defined, the Rat King's people will recognize me as one of their own and then abide by the rules and not come in to disturb me."

Swire raised her hand and made a downward pressing gesture, comforting Yunyi from afar.

Can you trust regulations that your boss sets up himself?

Yun Yi looked serious.

She stated that most people in power tend to have their own internal conflicts, saying one thing and doing another, and they can't be trusted.

"So, this is before your value is clearly defined."

Swire remained unperturbed, his tail swaying leisurely: "Before that, my existence represented not only myself, but also a symbol."

"Even if I try to sever ties, I still temporarily represent the interests of my original family. As a giant multinational corporation, my family wields considerable influence in Lungmen."

A hint of self-mockery flashed across Swire's face as she affirmed, "Dragon Gate still needs the families; they won't break ties in front of me, their representative."

"Is it not a rule between superiors and subordinates, but between forces?" Yun Yi muttered, then shook his head. "It's even less credible."

It's more common for allied organizations to sabotage each other, especially when one of them is an official entity with more leverage.

The desire for official control is necessary if those in power want to be truly responsible.

With his superior desire for control, Yun Yi didn't think the Rat King's hands and his spies would behave themselves.

In addition, in Yun Yi's understanding, as long as a big shot makes a move, it is usually difficult to hide it from those opponents and sycophants who are always watching.

These people will most likely send someone to check what's going on.

Thinking of this, Yun Yi's expression became serious.

She had been calm and collected before because she felt she wouldn't be exposed.

But now, on the one hand, there are people watching her all the time, and there will be more and more of them; on the other hand, she may be so fragile that she could be killed on the spot with a single punch from someone else.

What if she happens to die or fall into a coma and is seen by those people who are watching her...?

—So we're going into the bad ending route?

Experiencing a bad ending in real life? That would be too tragic!

Yun Yi suddenly realized—he really couldn't stay leisurely any longer!

She immediately pulled out a pocket marker from her backpack and looked anxiously at Swire: "Swire, tell me where your house is, I need to make some arrangements for myself!"

"A backup plan?" Swire leaned forward, her tiger ears twitching. In her eyes, Yun Yi's hand was empty, but it looked like he was holding something. "What's in your hand?"

"Yes, this thing is called a pocket marker, and I have three now. Once I put it down and activate it, I won't faint on the spot when I die, but will appear next to it fully conscious."

Yun Yi tossed aside the palm-sized, unopened pocket marker and smiled: "This way, even if something unexpected happens, I won't lose control because I'm unconscious, and those spies won't realize that I can't actually die."

The danger in her situation will also be greatly reduced.

"If you had this, why didn't you bring it out sooner?" Swire immediately understood the strategic role of the Pocket Marker and couldn't help but complain to Yun Yi before asking him innocently, "You want to put the Pocket Marker in my house?"

“Yes, it seems your family has a stronger ability to suppress these informants, so it’s safer.” Yun Yi nodded, “At least for the time being.”

Shi Huaiya's tiger tail suddenly stiffened, and he turned his head away, saying, "You're overthinking it. Besides the Rat King's people, the family members won't be absent either. Letting my family go is no different from walking into a trap."

"Huh?" Yun Yi was dumbfounded: "Your relationship with your family is that bad?"

Even their residence is being monitored?

Chen mentioned earlier at the Guard Bureau that Swire's family, that Tai Group, had come to ask for people... Wait, could it be that they weren't there to help, but rather to kick someone when they're down?

That doesn't make sense either, clearly—

"Didn't you say you could represent the family's interests?"

“The Swire Group is a family business, and there are all sorts of voices within it. It’s just that right now, the voices supporting me are louder, which is why I’m being tacitly recognized as their representative.”