Grown Up a Lot

"Bomb, a three."

In Bai Yuyou's room, three girls were sitting together playing a game. The short-haired girl sitting on the little shark plushie, after playing her last card, casually stuck a paper note on Bai Yuyou's cheek and another on Tang Keke's schoolbag.

"Why don't I get one on my face?!" Tang Keke immediately complained.

Soon there'll be enough on me to dance a hula!

An Shiyu lazily waved her hand. "Well, that area has more surface area, can fit more notes, that's all."

Tang Keke glanced at Bai Yuyou, now sporting a full "beard," then at her own schoolbag—finally, her gaze landed on An Shiyu's completely clean appearance. She couldn't help but grow suspicious.

"You're not cheating, are you? How come you're the landlord every round, and your cards are always so good?"

"Card games are just games of luck," An Shiyu said innocently, spreading her hands.

"If you're bad, just practice more."

"If you can't handle losing, don't play."

As she spoke, she subtly slipped the cards she had been pressing under her calf back into the deck. No one noticed; her hand was too fast, almost a blur, and she did it from Tang Keke's blind spot.

As for Bai Yuyou.

She probably didn't even have the concept of cheating, so naturally she didn't pay attention to what An Shiyu was doing, instead focusing on how to properly arrange the cards in her hand.

"Hmph, I don't believe it. This time, I'll shuffle!" Tang Keke said, gathering the cards, stacking them neatly, and then giving them a thorough shuffle, seemingly afraid An Shiyu might tamper with them.

After a new round was dealt, An Shiyu watched as the two girls organized their hands. She, however, unhurriedly tucked her own hand under her skirt and smoothly pulled out a brand new set of cards.

"Alright, I'm the landlord. I'll go first."

Tang Keke played a card: "A three."

"Bomb." An Shiyu threw down four cards.

"Huh?" Tang Keke was dumbfounded.

"I guess you can't beat it? Then it's a spring for me." After playing the bomb, An Shiyu's remaining cards were all like 777, 888, 999, 101010...

Tang Keke stared blankly at these cards, beginning to question her very existence.

"What is a spring?" Bai Yuyou asked curiously from the side.

"It's probably something like playing all your sevens, eights, and nines in one go like this," Tang Keke said, somewhat speechless. Who plays like that? Using up their life span?

"Is mine like this?" Bai Yuyou then showed Tang Keke her hand.

It was also 777888999...

Tang Keke: "You have to play all your cards for it to be a spring. This is called a plane... huh?"

Wait, why are there six of the same card?

Tang Keke immediately caught on and turned to look at An Shiyu: "Aha! I caught you cheating!!!!"

Bai Yuyou would never cheat, so the truth could only be one thing!

But by then, An Shiyu was already lying on the bed, having even tucked herself under the covers, her expression serene. "Goodnight, I'm sleepy."

"Don't you dare sleep!"

"Yuyou, bring the notes! I'm going to strip An Shiyu's clothes and cover her with them!"

"Oh."

The room descended into chaos, with thumping and banging. Luckily, it was the top floor of a duplex, or the neighbors would probably have complained.

"Time to settle down now, don't get so excited." After a little while, Ye Shuang's knocking came from outside the door.

Hearing the continued racket inside, he gently pushed the door open, only to find all three girls on the bed, with An Shiyu and Tang Keke in particular tugging at each other's clothes, slimes bouncing around without restraint.

Ye Shuang: "..."

What kind of scene is this?

"Ouch, my eyes suddenly hurt a bit, can't see a thing clearly," Ye Shuang muttered, rubbing the space between his eyebrows before closing the door behind him and leaving.

Following the girls' shrieks, the room became even more chaotic.

After Tang Keke and An Shiyu horsed around like this for a while, they finally settled down.

"Ding—"

Right then, Tang Keke, lying on the bed breathing heavily, heard a phone notification. "Yuyou, was that your phone?"

"Mm." Bai Yuyou reached out to get her phone.

She looked and saw it was indeed her phone.

Yuyue: Comics.Zip

Yuyue: Didn't you say last time you wanted to learn about comics? These are beginner materials, you can take a look.

Yuyue: Study hard.

"Is it a message from your brother? Oh, from that Teacher Yuyue?" Tang Keke peeked at the message on Bai Yuyou's phone and saw it was a file sent by that Japanese person called Teacher Yuyue, a compressed file at that.

"Yuyou, you want to learn how to draw comics?"

Hearing this, Bai Yuyou simply explained, "Ye Shuang said I can learn anything I'm interested in... Comics seem like they can record life."

"You can't make money learning comics, don't bother," An Shiyu said casually from the side. "You might even starve."

"It's fine if it's just a hobby. Besides, Yuyou has enough savings to live on," Tang Keke actually supported Bai Yuyou learning to draw comics. After all, she herself loved reading all kinds of shoujo manga and even started fantasizing about Bai Yuyou becoming a famous mangaka. She could personally pressure her for manuscripts then.

The thought made her a little excited.

"Yuyou, Yuyou, open the zip file and take a look."

"Okay."

Bai Yuyou clicked to extract the folder—

Inside were neatly categorized files, seemingly all comics.

1. Pure Love

2. NTR

3. Hypnosis

"Huh? What's this? The category names are weird." Tang Keke poked the screen with her finger and randomly opened the "Pure Love" folder.

The comic images loaded.

"Ooh, such a pretty art style! Shoujo manga?" Tang Keke and Bai Yuyou started looking at it together. "Teacher Yuyue is amazing."

A boy and a girl were childhood friends.

"I get it, I get it. The girl must have a crush on the main character," Tang Keke said with an air of experience, not forgetting to advise Bai Yuyou beside her. "You should study the content inside carefully, learn a lot from it!"

Bai Yuyou seemed to understand, yet not quite. "Understood."

"See, I told you. This girl likes her childhood friend," Tang Keke continued scrolling. When she saw the female lead confess, she said triumphantly,

"Hmph, the next part is probably where they don't end up together because of some misunderstanding, or maybe a second female lead appears or something."

"Scroll down."

Bai Yuyou flipped to the next page, which showed the two of them going at it intensely at home.

Tang Keke: "..."

"This... this is a doujinshi?!" Tang Keke was stunned.

"What, there's doujinshi to look at?" An Shiyu, who had been lying down, seemed to perk up a bit. She sat up next to Bai Yuyou and took a look. "Oh, seen it. Not interesting without any NTR elements."

Bai Yuyou, however, looked at the content inside as if learning some never-before-mastered knowledge.

That night, she grew up a lot.