Chapter 52: Favorability

Eight hours passed, and Xia Yu returned to his own body. It was already 11 PM.

He lay in bed and took a nap. At 8 AM the next morning, he logged into Xu Youxiang’s body for the first time in a long while.

Opening his eyes, he saw the ceiling of Xu Youxiang’s room.

“What, finally remembered you have a slave girl left unused?” Xu Youxiang’s tone, as usual, wasn’t very pleasant.

“I didn’t tell you to sell yourself,” Xia Yu retorted.

Xu Youxiang fell silent.

Sitting up, Xia Yu yawned, feeling a bit sleepy.

“Didn’t you sleep well last night?” Xia Yu asked.

“Hmm,” Xu Youxiang gave a brief response. Not only did she not bother to explain further, but she also changed the subject. “Continue learning programming?”

“No, it feels meaningless,” Xia Yu replied without mentioning his other recent commitments, aiming to prevent Xu Youxiang from deducing anything.

Although Xu Youxiang couldn’t deduce anything at the moment, she might be able to in the future when she had more information.

Picking up Xu Youxiang’s laptop, Xia Yu decided to spend this gaming session playing games.

Unfortunately, only free games were available on Xu Youxiang’s computer. It would have been great if there were paid games too.

With a sense of regret, Xia Yu opened the laptop and discovered a dozen or so game icons on the desktop.

“??? Did you stay up late playing games?” Xia Yu speculated.

“What, aren’t the disabled allowed to play games for fun?” Xu Youxiang replied with a hint of anger.

“Not really, but last time I came over, you didn’t even have a game platform on your computer. Now there are so many games, it just surprised me a bit.” Xia Yu selected one of the games and clicked to start it.

It was a tomb-raiding game, following a fierce female protagonist who fights and searches for treasures in a tomb occupied by terrorists.

The game started with a bow, taking out a group of enemies.

“There’s nothing good over there; going there is just a waste of time,” Xu Youxiang, setting aside her bad temper, began guiding Xia Yu.

Xia Yu followed Xu Youxiang’s advice and took a different route.

“Wait, there are a dozen people ahead. Time for an assassination!” Xu Youxiang commanded again.

Xia Yu responded: Assassination? Got it.

Then, controlling the character, he jumped right into the middle of the enemy squad. First, he wildly shot arrows, killing seven people. Then, wielding a climbing axe in both hands, he knocked out the remaining eight.

“Assassination done. Which way next?” Xia Yu asked Xu Youxiang.

“You call that an assassination?” Xu Youxiang said in disbelief.

“Isn’t assassination just completing a kill without witnesses?” Xia Yu replied.

“Fine, I didn’t expect your gameplay to be so good.”

In reality, Xia Yu’s gameplay wasn’t that great. If Xu Youxiang had been a professional player, she would have noticed many unnecessary moves in Xia Yu’s play. He was merely showing off, relying on the enhanced reflexes granted by his Lv2 Dexterity.

They continued assassinating their way through and successfully escaped the terrorist camp. Xia Yu then arrived at a tomb.

What followed was an exciting and thrilling tomb-raiding session.

The tomb-raiding process was essentially a puzzle-solving experience. Watching the character climb up and down, jump around, creating a path toward the treasure chest.

Xia Yu felt nothing special, but Xu Youxiang, watching the character move so nimbly up and down, suddenly felt a sense of despair.

She could never run and jump like that again.

She thought of her father and mother again. Since that car accident, her parents had been treating her with extreme caution. The couple, who used to argue frequently, hadn’t even raised their voices at each other lately.

The pain in their eyes whenever they looked at her was evident.

As she was thinking, a sudden knock on the door startled her.

“Xiangxiang, I’m coming in,” her mother’s voice sounded.

“Quickly minimize to the desktop!” Xu Youxiang anxiously urged Xia Yu.

However, Xia Yu ignored her and continued playing the game.

Three seconds later, her mother opened the door. She was carrying a bowl of cut-up apples, with a small plastic fork stuck into them.

Xu’s mother placed the apples beside the bed and glanced at the laptop screen.

Her eyes lit up: “Playing games?”

“Mm,” Xia Yu replied.

“Playing games is good. Play more when you’re free. Do you need money for it? We can spend one or two thousand a month.”

“No, it’s a single-player game,” Xia Yu said.

“Then keep playing. I’ll leave now.” Saying that, her mother happily exited the room.

Xu Youxiang was puzzled. She couldn’t understand why her mother, who had always disliked her playing games, seemed so happy seeing her play today.

As she was confused, Xia Yu paused the game, grabbed the bowl of apples from beside the bed, and started eating.

Three minutes later, another knock on the door sounded.

“I’m coming in,” this time it was her father’s voice.

Her father entered the bedroom carrying a bowl of cut-up pears. He placed the pears on the nightstand, glanced at the game on the laptop screen.

“It’s fine to relax by playing games, but remember to rest.”

Compared to her mother, her father was more composed, but from the smile on his face, Xu Youxiang could tell he was also happy.

“Tell him not to cut fruit for me. I can do it myself,” Xu Youxiang said to Xia Yu.

Xia Yu ignored her and instead asked, “Any peaches?”

“Peaches? Yes, yes, I’ll go buy some right away.” Her father couldn’t maintain his stern demeanor anymore. With a beaming smile, he quickly left the bedroom to buy peaches for Xu Youxiang downstairs.

Three minutes later, he returned with a bowl of peaches.

Xu Youxiang could clearly see the smile on her father’s face. This wasn’t a fake smile meant to comfort her—it was a genuine one. She had only seen such a sincere smile on his face before the car accident.

“Call your mom,” Xia Yu said again.

“Dad’s girl!” Her father immediately went out to call her mother.

Soon, her mother entered the room.

Xia Yu extended his hand toward her: “I want to go to the bathroom.”

Her mother was momentarily stunned. After the accident, her daughter had always been trying to be strong. Although she wanted to help, she had to watch helplessly from the sidelines to protect her daughter’s pride and share in her pain.

Now, her proud daughter was reaching out to her.

Once she realized what was happening, her mother felt immense joy, her eyes moistening.

Seeing her daughter painfully pretending to be strong had been painful for her too. She had felt so helpless.

But now, she finally could help her daughter and offer her a bit of strength.

She hurried forward almost joyfully, supporting Xia Yu as they went to the bathroom.

Back in bed, her father and mother exchanged a few words with Xia Yu with smiles on their faces before leaving the room so he could continue playing undisturbed.

“Why?” Xu Youxiang asked.

To spare her parents from pain, she had always tried to act just like before the accident, striving to be independent. But her efforts only made her parents suffer more. She had once thought she was the root of all their suffering.

“You’re injured. There’s no need to pretend to be strong. Just quietly enjoy your parents’ care. Don’t look so pained. Play games occasionally, and they’ll be happy,” Xia Yu said while eating a peach.

“Hmph, none of your business!” Xu Youxiang’s tone was unpleasant.

A line of small text appeared in front of Xia Yu: [Your bonus has reached Lv2].

Hmph, women.

Speaking of which, the condition for the bonus evolution was indeed gaining the other person’s favor.

The unusually easy acquisition of skill points was probably also due to this condition.