[ Bonus Chapter - 100PS ]
Qingyi had originally believed that. Yet, unexpected events had a habit of arriving without warning.
A few days later, during one of her routine patrols, her power reserves dropped to a critical level.
With low-power mode imminent, she staggered toward the video store, where Wise happened to notice her.
"Qingyi?"
He called out, but she didn't open her eyes. Instead, she answered in a voice so faint that it was barely audible.
"Low power mode. Please tap my shoulder to wake me."
"Low power mode? Did Qingyi forget to charge?" he muttered.
Seeing her completely unresponsive, Wise followed the prompt and gently tapped her shoulder. Her slender body trembled slightly before she slowly opened her eyes.
"Backup power activated... low power alert."
She blinked, her unfocused gaze drifting until it settled on him.
"Hmm? It's Wise. Should I say it's fortunate, or... never mind. Please take me to charge immediately. Otherwise, something very bad will happen," she said, her expression tinged with complexity.
It hadn't been long since that last "incident," and now she had run into Wise again while in the middle of a complete crisis.
"Something bad? What exactly will happen?" he asked, concern evident in his voice.
"I will run out of power. Non-essential modules will begin shutting down, and eventually, I will be forced to power off completely."
A forced shutdown would leave her entirely defenseless. That alone was enough to explain the unease lingering in her eyes.
Wise listened in silence before nodding.
"Understood. Then, Qingyi, could you wrap your arms around my neck first?"
"Huh? That's fine, but are you going to... Eeeh!"
Before she could finish, she had already wrapped her arms around his neck. In the next instant, she felt herself lifted off the ground, one of his hands supporting her legs while the other steadied her back.
Being carried like this would conserve what little power she had left, and she knew it. Still, that didn't make her current position any less embarrassing.
"Alright, Wise. Please hurry and take me to charge."
She kept her voice low and kept her eyes moving, quietly hoping no one she knew would walk past and see her like this.
Wise, meanwhile, caught a glimpse of her rare flustered expression and found it oddly amusing.
The thought even crossed his mind: 'Why not carry Qingyi through the streets for a bit?'
She was so light that holding her required almost no effort, and that delicate, panicked look on her face was, honestly, far too endearing.
The thought passed as quickly as it came. Wise carried her into the video store, and fortunately, there wasn't a single customer inside.
If anyone had seen him walk in carrying Qingyi like that, the rumors alone would have been disastrous.
"Eh? Brother! Wait, don't tell me... Qingyi wouldn't cooperate, so you lost it, knocked her out, and dragged her back here?!" Belle covered her mouth, her eyes wide with exaggerated shock.
The twin sisters behind her immediately huddled together, trembling at her words.
"Please. If you three aren't going to help, could you at least stop making things worse?"
"Hehe~"
Belle flashed a playful grin, but once the situation was explained and she understood Qingyi's condition, she dropped the act.
Wise gently set Qingyi down on the sofa and reached out, carefully checking different parts of her body.
"Wise... I don't have any particular objection to this kind of thing between us, but please, consider the circumstances," Qingyi murmured weakly.
Her system showed 1% battery remaining, though even that number felt unreliable. She had no way of knowing how much longer she could hold on.
What she did know, without question, was that it wouldn't be enough to endure anything involving Wise. She would almost certainly shut down midway.
'Wait... Could it be that Wise had planned this from the very beginning, deliberately waiting for a moment when I was completely defenseless to make his move?'
The thought surfaced before she could stop it, and Qingyi shot him a narrow, suspicious glare.
"That's not it. I'm just trying to find your charging port so I can actually help you," Wise explained calmly.
Which, speaking of it, was proving to be quite the challenge. He was no stranger to Qingyi's body at this point, familiar with it in ways he probably shouldn't think too deeply about, yet the port was nowhere to be found.
'Could it be that she runs on biological power? Some kind of liquid fuel, maybe...'
"Stop whatever you're imagining right now. Just take me back to the Public Security office. If I shut down on the way, Zhu Yuan and the others will handle it—just pass me off to them."
Qingyi had assumed Wise had brought her back to the store because he intended to drive her there himself. It turned out he planned to charge her on the spot.
Did he genuinely believe that plugging something into a wall socket would do anything for her?
A short while later, at Six Street Metro Station.
"Thank you. But please, put me down here..."
Having been carried the entire way without a break, Qingyi was far beyond simple embarrassment. The crowd around them kept growing, and she had already reached her limit.
"But ever since we left the video store, you've been holding on pretty tightly. You're quite dependent for someone trying to act tough, you know."
'Dependent?! I was hiding my face so no one would recognize me, that's all!' Qingyi clenched her teeth.
She was starting to feel more and more certain that he was doing this on purpose.
And seriously, why did his car have to break down today of all days?
To be fair, though, that part really wasn't his fault. The car genuinely wasn't working at the moment.
Ever since he'd seen Fairy manipulate her liquid metal form and merge with the HDD system, an idea had taken root in his mind.
What if she could possess his car instead?
The test was still ongoing, and he didn't want to interrupt it, which left him with no choice but to take the subway.
Even so, it took Qingyi's firm insistence, along with a steady rhythm of small fists tapping against his chest, before Wise finally set her down.
They boarded the subway together, and the moment Qingyi spotted an empty seat, she took it without hesitation.
"Sitting conserves approximately three seconds of power."
Now that he was paying attention, Wise could clearly see the strain in her system. Even her voice carried a faint hint of static, a clear sign she was close to her limit.
"So if I kept carrying you, wouldn't that save even more?"
"No need."
She rejected the idea instantly.
Yes, it would save power, a lot of it, but her reputation mattered more than a few extra seconds of battery.
Just then, a frail, white-haired old man stepped into the carriage, looking around with a tired, uneasy expression.
"Oh dear... not a single seat left..."
Qingyi heard him immediately.
'If I stand, I lose around 8 seconds of power... what should I do?'
She was still stuck on that thought when a sharp voice suddenly cut through the air nearby.
"Excuse me, do you not see the elderly man standing right next to you? Are you seriously just going to sit there? Yes—you, the green-haired girl with the pigtails!"
"She's... not doing well, even if it doesn't show," Wise tried to explain, stepping in to cover for her, but even he knew it wouldn't work.
Qingyi's body looked completely fine on the outside, and no explanation would change that.
With no better option, Qingyi let out a quiet breath and stood up, giving up her seat.
The moment she stood, the girl beside her gave her shoulder a light, apologetic pat.
Qingyi dropped instantly, like a switch had been flipped.
If Wise hadn't already been moving, she would have hit the floor hard enough to draw everyone's attention. He caught her just in time, pulling her into his arms before she could collapse completely.
The girl turned pale on the spot, stumbling over her words as she apologized, her voice rising in panic as she tried to understand what she had just done.
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Novels Available:
-> Zenless Zone Zero: The Almighty Incubus of Sixth Street. (Translation)
-> Azur Lane: Don't Fight! You're All My Wives! (Translation)
-> Zenless Zone Zero: Death in White. (Original - P@treon Only Until It Reaches 30 Chapters)
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