Stepping on the Demoness to become the strongest

Chapter 316: Chapter 13 Rational Explanation
 

Yan Yu passed through the first combat hall and returned to the initial corridor entrance, where he saw Lin Ning squatting alone on the teleportation altar, her back to him as she silently wiped away tears while hugging her knees.

Unfortunately, these altars required a group of five to teleport back, so no matter how long you squatted there, there was no escaping.

Yan Yu walked up behind her and tentatively called out,

“Lin Ning?”

Lin Ning’s body trembled slightly, and she stopped wiping her tears.

“Cough cough.” Yan Yu coughed a few times and spoke in a clear voice, “I came to check on you.”

“What… what’s there to see,” though Lin Ning’s voice still carried a hint of sobbing, her tone remained as stubborn as ever, “Are you here to laugh at me?”

“Laughing at you?” Yan Yu pretended to be clueless. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

“You must be disgusted by how useless I am,” Lin Ning sniffed hard and sobbed, “to think that just a few words from that clone would cause me to collapse mentally.”

“Not at all,” Yan Yu said calmly, “Psychological warfare is a tactic just like any other, and it isn’t any easier to deal with than conventional strategies. Look at the Huofeng Team, they also got flustered by all those fabricated scandals. It shows that being good or bad at handling psychological warfare has little to do with ‘being useful or not’, everyone has their own weaknesses and flaws.”

Lin Ning pulled out a napkin from her pocket, wiped away all the tears on her face, then stood up and said with a sense of grievance,

“I don’t like you.”

“Right, right,” Yan Yu laughed, “The clone was talking nonsense. Don’t worry, I won’t take it seriously.”

Lin Ning suddenly turned around, glaring at Yan Yu fiercely and said seriously,

“But you can’t dismiss it totally either. What if I really did end up liking you, what would you do? Even though it hasn’t happened, and it might not ever happen in the future, you still need to be prepared and know how to handle it properly. You can’t just brush it off with a ‘you’re not good enough’ when the time comes. That would be really hurtful, you know?”

Yan Yu: ………

Why is this Minnan girl so nagging? Lucky she’s not my girlfriend right now, otherwise…

“I get it, I get it,” he nodded repeatedly in a perfunctory manner, after all, as long as he could brush it off.

“Do you really get it?” Lin Ning crossed her arms, skeptical, “Then repeat what I just said.”

“Are you crazy,” Yan Yu laughed and scolded, “Are you coming back or not?”

“I’m coming,” Lin Ning said.

The two of them resumed their walk. Yan Yu walked ahead alone, with Lin Ning trailing two to three steps behind, following his every move.

“Also,” only to hear Lin Ning add, “you can’t talk about this incident to anyone. Even though the clone was spreading rumors, if you repeat it to someone else, it’s like you’re helping to spread the rumors, and you’re responsible too, you know?”

“Can’t even tell Yun Jin?” Yan Yu was surprised.

“Of course not!” Lin Ning exclaimed, then frowned and asked, “Why did you suddenly start calling her Yun Jin?”@@novelbin@@

“Eh?” Yan Yu was taken aback for a moment, his thoughts racing through his mind, he laughed and said, “We’ve all been in a team for so long, calling her that seems warmer.”

“Hmph.” Lin Ning was clearly not convinced by this reasoning and proceeded to say seriously, “As the team leader, you must set an example and be fair to everyone, you can’t show favoritism or neglect someone, otherwise how can you maintain unity in the team? Names might seem trivial, but they also reflect the attitude of the leader, whether you’re biased or not. Otherwise, if conflicts arise in the team, you won’t even have time to regret and cry, let me tell you…”

“Mm-hmm, fair treatment for all,” Yan Yu interrupted her, “So, shall I call you little Ningning from now on?”

“Drop the ‘Little’.” Lin Ning corrected his form of address, and then as if feeling a bit embarrassed, added in a soft voice, “If you use a more affectionate term for them, you can also call me ‘Ningning’. But this is just to maintain uniformity in how we address each other within the team, and it doesn’t mean I like you calling me that.”

“You don’t like it?” Yan Yu asked, feigning surprise.

“…It’s not that I don’t like it.” Lin Ning awkwardly argued, “But it’s not that I like it either. It’s just that it doesn’t matter to me what you call me. I don’t care about that. But as a member of the team, I need to keep things consistent with everyone else. So if you want to call me ‘Ningning’, I can accept it, but that doesn’t mean I like you calling me by that.”

“Oh, I get it,” Yan Yu thought to himself, this tsundere is seriously a disaster-level horror—she’s only said, “It’s not that I don’t like it”, yet she still felt the need to say “But it’s not that I like it” twice to neutralize it.

If one day we became a couple and I initiated a breakup, this tsundere girl would definitely reveal that kind of sorrowful expression, as if her heart had died. Even though she couldn’t stop tears from flowing, she would still stubbornly say, “I’m not sad, you’re not worth my sadness. It’s just that I’ve got something in my eye, really, I’m not sad. We’re broken up now, so don’t worry about whether I’m sad or not. I’ll just live on my own from now on, it’s not a big deal to be alone.”

Haha, I want to see that.

But no, I’m not some kind of demon. Who am I to find pleasure in others’ pain?

Walking ahead silently, Yan Yu harbored unspoken, dark thoughts when he suddenly heard Lin Ning say:

“There’s one more thing.”

“More?!” Yan Yu exclaimed in shock.

“Don’t tell them I cried just now,” Lin Ning said.

“Oh.” Yan Yu quietly breathed a sigh of relief, his wicked sense of humor suddenly welling up. He asked deliberately, “So why were you crying just now?”

Then he was kicked by Lin Ning.

“None of your business!” she said angrily as she passed by Yan Yu and walked ahead.

The kick wasn’t strong; she had used the back of her shoe rather than the sole.

Yan Yu stopped and bent over to dust off the spot on his pants where he had been kicked. Just then, Lin Ning, who was ahead, also stopped and turned around. She looked back at him as he tended to his leg and asked with concern:

“Did I hurt you with that kick just now?”

“Not really.”

“Then why did you stop?”

“To brush off the dust.”

“Hmph,” (getting angry again).

Lin Ning turned and continued walking, with Yan Yu hurriedly catching up from behind.

After a few steps, perhaps having thought of a good explanation, Lin Ning spoke up:

“The reason I shed tears earlier was because the clone deliberately twisted my image in your minds. I felt utterly defenseless, worried you would misunderstand me, so I lost control of my emotions—for later, if they ask, you have to help explain this to them.”

“Sure, sure,” Yan Yu said cheerfully, “It was just a loss of control over your emotions.”

“It was because I was worried about being misunderstood by everyone, that’s why I lost control of my emotions,” Lin Ning emphasized, adding, “Did you get that?”

“Got it,” Yan Yu thought to himself, of course, I can say that.

But whether they believe your explanation or continue to think it’s “embarrassment from having a crush on the captain forcefully exposed, unable to save face”, that’s beyond my control.