Chapter 268 - 265: What to Do When You’re Stuck in the Rain?

Chapter 268: Chapter 265: What to Do When You’re Stuck in the Rain?

At noon, a light rain began to fall from the overcast sky.

The construction noise that had been going all morning finally quieted down during the lunch break.

Lin Yanwan ordered takeout: three dishes and a soup—two meat, one vegetable—plus four bowls of rice. It wasn’t even expensive, costing less than eighty yuan.

Although she had set a daily meal budget of fifteen yuan per person, with any excess to be paid out-of-pocket, when it came time to order, her only thought was to make sure everyone ate well.

She had even thoughtfully prepared folding cots and blankets for everyone. The animation industry was a tough and tiring business, after all, and overtime was a regular occurrence. With the cots, they could lie down for a proper rest instead of always napping on their desks, which was neither comfortable nor restful.

After napping for nearly an hour, Jiang Xia took off his eye mask just after two o’clock and got back to work.

In the afternoon, his main task was explaining issues with the storyboards to Wang Ming, breaking things down to help him get his ideas straight. Frankly, the quality of the draft Wang Ming drew today was hardly any different from yesterday’s.

After all, everyone visualizes something different when they read a script. Training Wang Ming to a level Jiang Xia was satisfied with would be a long, gradual process.

But he could afford to wait.

Amidst the incessant construction noise, the day slowly passed. Under Jiang Xia’s "guidance"—which felt more like a constant berating—Wang Ming successfully completed the storyboards for that day’s script.

And Jiang Xia, for his part, had revised and perfected the main character designs for *Slam Dunk*.

Wang Ming glanced at the character profiles Jiang Xia had set aside. The descriptions for each character were incredibly detailed, and Jiang Xia had even sketched out their designs in the margins.

It was just that this art style was worlds away from *Cat and Mouse*. No matter how you looked at it, the two didn’t seem like they were drawn by the same person.

He focused on the character named Duanmu Huadao, who had a uniquely styled shock of red hair. His tags read: [PROTAGONIST], [BASKETBALL GENIUS], [INTROVERT], [PROBLEM STUDENT], [SUPERHUMAN STAMINA & BURST SPEED], [ASTONISHING JUMPING POWER & STRENGTH].

"Are you even human?"

Wang Ming set the character profiles down and stared at Jiang Xia. Perfecting all the main characters for an animation in just one day... not even novels would dare to write a character this ridiculous. ’You’re the real anime protagonist, aren’t you?’

Jiang Xia simply shrugged. "You just think I’m fast. The truth is, I’ve been mulling over this animation for a long time. I’m just now putting the ideas in my head down on paper."

The corner of Wang Ming’s eye twitched. ’Still, that’s monstrous!’

However, his focus for now was on *Cat and Mouse*. No matter how brilliant Jiang Xia’s new show was, he wouldn’t be a part of it.

By seven in the evening, the sky outside had completely darkened.

The construction crew had clocked out half an hour ago, and Li Weiya was packing her things, ready to head home.

"Ah Xia, you’re not leaving yet?" Li Weiya glanced at him.

"Godmother, you and Ah Ming can go ahead. We’ll leave when the rain eases up a little."

Jiang Xia looked away from the curtain of rain outside the window, a resigned expression on his face. The downpour had let up for a bit in the morning but started drizzling again around noon. Now that night had fallen, it was coming down even harder.

If they rode their bikes back to campus now, they’d get completely soaked. They’d probably catch a fever or a cold.

Li Weiya tilted her head up at the thick, low-hanging dark clouds. She figured the rain wasn’t going to stop anytime soon; it might even go on for a few days.

"You two don’t have an umbrella, do you? Here, take mine. My place is nearby, so it’s not a big deal if I get a little wet on the way home."

Jiang Xia glanced over at Lin Yanwan. He wouldn’t have minded, but riding a bike while holding an umbrella was too dangerous. The wind was blowing hard outside; it would be easy to lose balance and crash.

Walking back to the dorms from here usually took an hour. In a downpour like this, it would take even longer.

He shook his head. "No, it’s okay, Godmother. You two should go. The temperature drops fast here in the north, and you’ll catch a cold if you get wet. If the rain gets worse, we can just find a hotel nearby and crash for the night."

Hearing this, Lin Yanwan, who had been quietly packing her things off to the side, felt her face flush red.

’So, getting a hotel room! That was his real plan all along!’

Li Weiya froze for a second, but then her expression quickly shifted to one of understanding. An amused, teasing glint appeared in her eyes as she looked at Jiang Xia.

’So the young lovebirds want to get a room together, do they?’

’In that case, my well-intentioned offer is just getting in their way.’

She snuck a sideways glance at her goddaughter. Lin Yanwan’s head was lowered, the side of her face bright red. ’Well, well,’ Li Weiya thought. ’Looks like the feeling is mutual. Or maybe things have just reached the point of no return.’

’Although I don’t approve of them sharing a room so soon—they’re only eighteen, after all—Jiang Xia isn’t a typical guy. He’s mature in many ways. As long as they don’t go and make a baby, it will probably be fine.’

"Alright then. Ah Ming and I will get going. Give me a call if you need anything," she said.

"Mmm, okay."

And so, Li Weiya left with Wang Ming, giving Jiang Xia a meaningful smile before she went.

’Young people these days,’ she mused. ’So full of fire. Ready to get a room at the drop of a hat. Much more liberated than my generation was.’

The office fell quiet. With just the two of them left, Lin Yanwan turned to face Jiang Xia, warily backing away a few steps. "Don’t even think about it!" she snapped. "I am not getting a room with you!"

Jiang Xia blinked, exasperated. "Honey, aren’t you overthinking this?"

She huffed. "Oh, I know exactly what you’re like!"

’Lin Yanwan knew Jiang Xia all too well. He was probably already picturing it: getting the room, ripping her clothes off in record time, and then figuring out what position he’d use to ’punish’ her in.’

’Most importantly, she had made all sorts of lewd promises to him last night, and now she was afraid he was going to make her follow through on every single one.’

"You’re really overthinking this. Hotels are full of hidden cameras. The last thing I want is to stumble upon a blurry video of us ’wrestling’ on some shady website."

Jiang Xia had a point. In this era, with information technology just taking off, regulations were nowhere near as robust as they would become. Voyeurism and covert filming were rampant, and there was little oversight.

"Bah! You’re disgusting!"

Lin Yanwan couldn’t even hear the term ’wrestling’ without blushing anymore. Any perfectly normal word sounded dirty coming out of his mouth.

"Say one more shameless thing and I’ll hit you, believe it or not."

"How about you step on me instead? Right here."

Lin Yanwan: "?"

Jiang Xia snickered. In response, Lin Yanwan kicked off her shoe and, without a moment’s hesitation, gave him a swift kick.

"There, feel better now?" Seeing the pained look on his face, Lin Yanwan gloated internally. "Want some more? I can do this all day."

"...Nope, I’m good, I’m good."

"Hahahaha."

Lin Yanwan burst out laughing. That’s what he got for having his mind in the gutter all day, every day.

Just then, a brilliant fork of lightning flashed outside the window, illuminating the entire oppressive, dark sky.