Middle-aged Love Patch

When Xu Youyuan arrived at Bo'ao Pavilion, the parking lot was completely full.

Self-driving smart vehicles could be set to automatically find parking spots, sending the location to the owner’s phone once parked. Unfortunately, Xu Youyuan’s dumb car lacked this feature, so she had to park it herself.

She told Shi Ye to go ahead and meet up with Gan and the others first—she’d join them once she parked.

“So, what are you thinking now?” Shi Ye asked before getting out of the car.

“Thinking about what?”

“About Shi Yue, of course,” Shi Ye said.

“…Stop playing matchmaker, will you? Since when did you develop this hobby?” Xu Youyuan replied. “Your sister is like my sister—would you date your own sister?”

“But before you knew who she really was, didn’t you like her? That means there’s something between you deep down. Weren’t you saying you wanted to rediscover the feeling of being in love?”

“Yeah, I want that, but not with a kid. You and I are the same age—you know how people our age think. Every second counts now; there’s no time to waste. Sure, I want to date someone, but not just anyone. The older we get, the more precious time becomes. The person I’m looking for isn’t just someone to fall in love with or to inspire my romance games—I want someone who’s right for the long haul, someone I can build a life with. If I can’t find that now, fine. I can wait.”

As the car drove off, Shi Ye felt a pang of melancholy. When she entered the private room at Bo'ao Pavilion, Gan and Jiang Yun had already started eating without them.

“Where’s Shi Yue?” Shi Ye noticed her sister wasn’t there.

“Huh? Wasn’t she with you guys?” Jiang Yun said. “She went to find you at the café earlier. We told her to come with us, but she was on a call outside and said she’d catch a ride with Birdie. You didn’t see her?”

“Wait, she came looking for us at the café?”

“Yeah, when you two took forever in the bathroom, she went to fish you out.” Jiang Yun smirked.

Shi Ye froze for a second before slowly sitting down, muttering to herself, “Holy shit… so she must’ve heard everything?”

“Heard what?”

Shi Ye didn’t answer, gulping down some water to steady herself.

“Don’t worry,” Gan reassured her. “We gave her the address. She’s an adult—she won’t get lost.”

Weekend traffic in the entertainment district was enough to drive any manual driver insane.

The 15-story-deep underground parking garages were packed solid, all entrances closed. Xu Youyuan had to hunt for street parking, driving nearly two kilometers before finally finding a spot in a hotel’s B6 level.

As she got out of the car, Shi Ye called. Xu Youyuan slung her bag over her shoulder and snapped, “Almost there, just wait. Go ahead and eat.” She hung up before Shi Ye could respond.

Leaving the parking garage, she checked her wrist map—Bo'ao Pavilion was 2.3 kilometers away. An awkward distance. At this hour, in this part of town, no ride-hailing driver would accept such a short trip. Walking would be exhausting, taking forever.

Xu Youyuan walked along the street, hoping to luck out and find an unmanned taxi.

After 300 meters, not a single taxi was in sight—every vehicle on the road was gridlocked, unmoving. The drivers inside stared at Xu Youyuan with envy.

Xu Youyuan, however, was miserable.

The sensory chip from Dark Box perfectly simulated all physical sensations—fine. Secretly boosting the intensity—whatever. But couldn’t they keep those sensations inside the app? Two days later, and she was still genuinely sore all over. She refused to admit it was because she was older and out of shape! It had to be a flaw in the sensory chip’s testing, pushing users beyond their limits.

At that thought, Xu Youyuan suddenly stopped walking.

Testing? Beyond limits…

She stood eerily still on the sidewalk, eyes fixed on the sea of cars, as if struck by a realization.

A yellow shared electric scooter puttered up beside her and stopped. She turned—and locked eyes with Shi Yue.

“Need a ride?” Shi Yue tilted her head toward the backseat.

Xu Youyuan ignored her, hitched her bag higher, and sped up.

“Still two kilometers to go,” Shi Yue said, leisurely following alongside her, the scooter puttering away.

Xu Youyuan stepped off the sidewalk, heading for the crosswalk.

The scooter circled her in figure-eights, puttering relentlessly…

A vein throbbed in Xu Youyuan’s temple. She grabbed Shi Yue by the back of her collar.

Shi Yue quickly braked, planting one foot on the ground to steady herself before looking back.

“I’ll drive.”

Shi Yue got off, surrendering the scooter to Xu Youyuan.

Xu Youyuan took off without another word. By the time Shi Yue processed what happened, she was already 10 meters away.

Shi Yue didn’t chase her. Calmly, she pulled out her phone.

Xu Youyuan was enjoying the ride when—suddenly—the scooter jerked to a stop, nearly throwing her off.

The electric scooter was dead, the screen blank.

Furious, she turned back. Shi Yue strolled over, waving her phone:

“I rented it. I can lock it anytime—handy for dealing with thieves.”

Xu Youyuan glared. Shi Yue didn’t care, flashing a grin full of perfect white teeth.

Somewhere in the gridlock, a car horn blared, triggering a wave of frustrated honking.

Everyone was desperate to reach their destination, yet trapped in place. With no progress in sight, venting was the only thing they could do—cost-free.

Xu Youyuan carefully weaved the scooter through the edge of traffic, half-expecting some enraged driver to come barreling out of nowhere.

Shi Yue sat quietly behind her—unnervingly so. The brat’s silence was almost worse than her usual mischief, as if she were plotting something.

“Whoa.”

Sure enough, less than 100 meters in, Shi Yue let out a sudden exclamation. Xu Youyuan startled, checking the rearview mirror—but no threat approached from behind. Instead, Shi Yue’s arms wrapped tightly around her waist.

“What the hell?!”

Shi Yue replied smoothly, “The road’s bumpy. Didn’t want to fall off.”

Xu Youyuan freed one hand, firmly peeling Shi Yue’s arms away.

Yes, they’d slept together. But that didn’t mean Xu Youyuan had to accept intimacy now. Those were two different things.

Maybe it was better to say that what happened was between *Nothing* and *Plasma Cream Cake*—virtual personas in a digital world. Just because their digital selves had a connection didn’t mean their real-world counterparts could act however they wanted.

Besides, it wasn’t like they were dating. Xu Youyuan could still accuse her of sexual haras—

Xu Youyuan was so busy mentally berating Shi Yue that she didn’t notice the construction mound ahead until it was too late to swerve.

**THUD.**

The scooter hit the mound without hesitation, launching into the air with far more force than a speed bump.

With a yelp, Xu Youyuan and Shi Yue’s butts nearly lifted off their seats, momentarily airborne.

Xu Youyuan couldn’t help but blurt out a muffled “Holy shit,” cutting the exclamation short to avoid biting her tongue from the jolt.

In sync, they bounced and landed back down, their rear ends screaming in protest.

Cold sweat broke out…

“Told you the road was rough. That *hurt*,” Shi Yue grumbled under her breath, pouting adorably despite having impressively kept her balance and avoided being flung off the bike.

Too embarrassed to complain alongside her, Xu Youyuan could only endure the pain in silence, discreetly wiping away a tear.

Slowing their pace, she focused on the road ahead, gripping the handlebars with extra caution.

Shi Yue sat quietly in the backseat, her previously unwelcome arms now obediently clutching the rear safety bar as she leaned back, shifting her entire weight backward. Xu Youyuan caught a glimpse of her posture in the rearview mirror—*looks pretty damn comfortable, huh?*

For a long stretch afterward, neither said a word. Xu Youyuan, relying on sheer thick-skinned audacity, pretended nothing had happened.

Still, every ten meters or so, a nagging suspicion crept into her mind.

She was now certain: the restaurant meetup had been a setup orchestrated by Shi Yue, a deliberate trap to mess with her for some inscrutable purpose.

Sometimes, there was no need to overanalyze the motives of these little brats. They didn’t need a meaningful reason—just the sheer thrill of amusement was enough to justify their baffling antics. Xu Youyuan hadn’t been born thirty-four years old; she’d been that age once too. She *got* it.

But for such a troublemaker to stay so docile after being called out, just clinging to the safety bar without a word?

Was it all just silent mockery?

Purely rational analysis, devoid of emotion, told her that seemed unlikely.

This reeked of conspiracy.

Convinced there was more to it, Xu Youyuan began turning it over in her head.

Her mind had always been quick, stubbornly so—she couldn’t rest until she’d pieced together a logic that satisfied her.

And then, like lightning, it struck her. The realization was so horrifying that the sweat on her back had barely cooled before a fresh wave of heat rushed to her face.

The way she was sitting now, driving at the front while that little demon lounged in the back, mirrored *exactly* the position they’d been in during that frantic, *indescribably* intimate escape in the apocalyptic storm of *Dark Box*!

*Holy… shit…*

Xu Youyuan, who had *insisted* on driving and *forced* Shi Yue into this arrangement, felt cold sweat bead down her spine.

She squirmed in her seat, flooded with regret.

No *wonder* Shi Yue hadn’t protested the whole ride!

This time, Xu Youyuan had dug her own grave. No one else to blame.

The silence was unbearable.

Every passing second thickened with mutual understanding, laced with unbearable awkwardness.

“Xu Youyuan.” Shi Yue suddenly spoke up.

“Shut up!” Xu Youyuan snapped, her face burning.

“Okay. But—”

“Don’t you *dare* say it!”

Shi Yue, miraculously, obeyed without another word.

Another five hundred meters passed before Xu Youyuan, finally regaining some composure, grew increasingly uneasy about their surroundings.

*Where the hell are we?!*

She braked sharply, stopping by the roadside. Propping one foot on the ground to steady the bike, she pulled up the map to check their location.

*Dammit. Wrong turn.*

They should’ve taken a left at the last intersection. Now they’d have to go another 1.2 kilometers before they could cross back—adding a detour of two extra kilometers.

Shi Yue: “I was gonna say we took a wrong turn earlier.”

Still draped lazily over the bike without the slightest effort to help balance, Shi Yue let Xu Youyuan struggle to right the electric bike, barely managing to stabilize their combined weight before resuming the ride.

That alone would’ve been fine, but the smug remark shattered Xu Youyuan’s mantra of *“Don’t sweat the small stuff, is it really worth getting mad over?”* repeated five hundred times in her head.

Xu Youyuan: “Why didn’t you say so sooner?!”

“I *did*,” Shi Yue blinked her big, innocent eyes, looking as pitiful as a puppy eagerly fetching slippers for its owner only to be scolded for no reason. “But you told me to shut up.”

“Still,” she leaned forward, mischief glinting, “what were *you* thinking about? Why wouldn’t you let me say it?”

Xu Youyuan’s right eye twitched violently as she shoved Shi Yue’s face away with one arm.

*This brat knew the whole damn time.*

Satisfied, Shi Yue leaned back, admiring Xu Youyuan’s barely contained irritation.

Her hair fluttered in the wind, her bag slung over one shoulder, her legs long and graceful. Her smile outshone the city lights, like any ordinary college girl playfully bickering with her girlfriend on a sweet, mundane date.

Even as Xu Youyuan’s expression darkened further, Shi Yue remained utterly unbothered, feigning sudden enlightenment:

“Ohhh—*I get it now*.”

“Shut. Up.”

“Fine, I’ll shut up. Just focus on the road, *jie-jie*.”