My game, Orange Flavor, is great!

"When have you ever not lied?" Xia Zhifei raised an eyebrow and began to recount past grievances on her fingers, "Last time you were injured, didn't you pretend to be tough in front of me? And the time before that, if I hadn't asked, the whole team wouldn't have known you were going on a mission with a high fever, and the time before that..."

Ah... I never imagined the original owner of this body had such a reserved side.

She quickly cut the young lady off, saying, "Alright, alright, I promise, I'm definitely not lying to you this time!"

"You always make promises, but when have you ever actually followed through?" Xia Zhifei retorted relentlessly.

This is impossible to talk about!

Lu Zhao was speechless. He could only turn to look at the increasingly dim sky outside the window. Anyway, there were less than two hours left until nine o'clock, and Li Manqiu should be here on time... right?

She didn't really know this person, and it was purely coincidental that she had him on her payroll, so... she'd just leave it to fate.

After taking the medicine, Lu Zhao's eyelids began to droop. He stubbornly kept scrolling through his phone until almost nine o'clock, but finally had to put it down under Xia Zhifei's urging.

So Li Manqiu really isn't coming...?

Watching Xia Zhifei busy herself with his affairs on the hospital bed, Lu Zhao couldn't help but sigh softly in his heart. As his mind gradually relaxed, he soon drifted off to sleep.

What Lu Zhao, a frequent night owl, probably doesn't know is that if someone goes against their usual sleep schedule and falls asleep early, there's a high probability they'll suddenly wake up at some point in the middle of the night.

For example... right now.

She opened her eyes, feeling refreshed, and stared at the ceiling for a while. Just as she was about to get up and adjust her sleeping position, she heard a clear, cold voice from above her: "Awake?"

Lu Zhao was taken aback and turned his head in surprise, only to find that Li Manqiu had already sat down on the edge of his bed at some point. A small lamp was shining on the headboard so that she could see, and it did not affect him at all.

Before she could speak, the other person thoughtfully poured her a glass of warm water. "Would you like some?"

Hmm... she hadn't even realized she was a little thirsty until she mentioned it.

Before she could even nod, Li Manqiu stood up, bent down, carefully brushed aside her hair, and pressed her warm fingers gently against the back of her neck.

A cool fragrance emanated from her, just within Lu Zhao's range of smell.

Lu Zhao's eyes widened involuntarily, and his body instantly stiffened.

To be honest, she has never been comfortable with people suddenly getting close to her, let alone someone she doesn't know at all.

Completely unaware of what she was thinking, Li Manqiu was still focused on her work. With a slight effort of her forearm, she helped the person up. "I've seen your report. Your lumbar spine is also slightly injured, so you need to be careful when you get up."

She blinked, choosing to ignore her previous state, and calmly accepted the straw that Li Manqiu handed her and took a sip of water.

Great, the temperature is just right.

"Where's Xiao Fei?" She let out a satisfied sigh and looked up to ask.

Li Manqiu put down the cup, straightened the pillow behind her, and guided her to lie down halfway. While tucking her in, she said, "Miss Xia went back at nine o'clock. Don't worry, I sent someone to escort her all the way."

Given Xia Zhifei's personality, would he really go back so obediently?

Lu Zhao had a feeling that the other party had omitted a lot of things. As his eyes were still hesitantly scanning her body, he heard Li Manqiu calmly say, "When I helped you up just now, I seemed to hear your heartbeat. Did I hurt you somewhere?"

Does it really have to be said so bluntly?

Lu Zhao was internally screaming, but her face stiffened for a moment. She quickly recovered and forced a smile, saying, "It's nothing... I just smelled your perfume, it smells really nice."

"Is that so?" Li Manqiu lowered her eyes thoughtfully, as if she was pondering something.

He was probably wondering why her answer was so lewd.

Lu Zhao couldn't help but want to cover his face, but when he moved his fingers, he realized that both of his hands were in casts and he couldn't move them at all.

Ok……

She collapsed backward, silently offering countless apologies to the original owner of this body. Considering that she had at least protected Xia Zhifei, she hoped that the original owner could forgive her for some of her actions when she returned.

"Here, take this," Li Manqiu suddenly said, pulling out a note with a line of neat English letters on it. "This is the name of the perfume. If you like it, you can try it."

After staring at the string of letters for a long time, Lu Zhao finally looked up with a complicated expression. It seemed that this woman hadn't understood what she meant.

It's better if you didn't understand, at least you won't ruin your image.

She gave an awkward smile. "Thank you."

"No need to be so polite." Li Manqiu nodded slightly, glancing at her watch. "It's 5:40 in the morning. Would you like to sleep a little longer?"

Lu Zhao silently shrank into the blankets and nodded reluctantly.

The moment she closed her eyes, she thought she was seeing things and wanted to open them again to take a closer look, but when she thought about the embarrassment of tonight, she decided to give up the idea.

Come to think of it, how could Li Manqiu possibly show such a gentle look in her eyes?

It must be an illusion.

Chapter Twenty-Six: Waking Up to Find Multiple Daughters

When Lu Zhao woke up, it was already morning. He opened his eyes and found that the person next to him had changed to Xia Zhifei.

At that moment, Miss Xia had her back to her and was happily humming a song while eating the breakfast she had just bought.

The brief conversation that happened last night felt like a dream. If Lu Zhao hadn't seen the still-scented label on his pillow, he probably would have thought it was just a dream he had in the middle of the night.

"Xiao Fei," she called out, and saw the girl turn around with a smile, holding a bowl of steaming porridge in her hands. "Were you sent back by the second team yesterday?"

Xia Zhifei frowned in surprise. "No, Lin Yu took me home."

Eh?

After a moment of mental processing, Lu Zhao finally managed to sift through a pile of trivial matters and recall the somewhat familiar name. He paused for a moment, "She came to see me yesterday too?"

Would this person really be so kind as to come and see their "love rival"?

"Otherwise," Xia Zhifei rolled her eyes at her, "She's your high school classmate, and now you're working in the same place, so it's only natural that she'd come to see you!"

Oh, my high school classmate has become my love rival and is trying to steal my boyfriend while I'm seriously ill.

And just like that, a light novel title with a hint of NTR (Netorare, a Japanese term for incest) came about.

Lu Zhao stood up somewhat nervously, "Then what about yesterday..."

He didn't lay a hand on you, did he?

She didn't dare ask that question, because from Xia Zhifei's tone, she seemed to regard Lin Yu as just an ordinary acquaintance, not even a friend, and probably didn't know much about Lin Yu's little feelings for her.

“She dropped me off at the entrance of the community and left. She’s a nice person, why are you so worried?” Xia Zhifei completely ignored her unfinished thought, opened the takeout box and stirred it. “Here you go, freshly cooked porridge.”

Ha, at least that guy knows what's good for him.

Lu Zhao was relieved and accepted Xia Zhifei's feeding with peace of mind.

However, she did not expect that Lin Yu was actually the original owner's high school classmate. She did not realize this from the way she suddenly saw him that day.

At most, she could only sense that Lin Yu was somewhat hostile towards her, but it hadn't reached the point where she would scream for her life.

"Oh right," she finally managed to swallow a mouthful of porridge, "Lin Yu doesn't seem to have any psychic abilities, does he?"

Xia Zhifei gently reached out and wiped the corner of her mouth. "Yes, she's just an ordinary person, and a girl at that. Working in the technical department every day with piles of weapons, it's really not easy for her."

Oh, the technical department is actually divided into two parts. One is the weapons department located on the third basement level. Basically, there are all kinds of hammering and explosion sounds coming from there every day. That's why the Bureau of Spirits left the third basement level to them, so they can do whatever they want with it.

The fourth floor is another division. Employees in this type of department are essentially what the public is more familiar with as programmers, who stare at their computers all day writing code.

Although it can be a bit of a headache, compared to manufacturing weapons, which requires both technical and physical skills, sitting at a workstation in front of a computer is much more comfortable.

Unexpectedly, Lin Yu, who looks so thin and small, would choose to join the weapons division.

Speaking of which, my junior schoolmate mentioned before that one of the romanceable characters is an ordinary person... Could she be talking about Lin Yu?

Lu Zhao's lips twitched. He thought that if even Chi Ying could fall in love with the original owner of this body, then it wasn't impossible for another romanceable character like Lin Yu to have a crush on Xia Zhifei and for them to mutually reconcile.

In this way, including her current body, she met seven romanceable characters in just two days: Lu Zhao, Chi Ying, Messiah, Xia Zhifei, Lin Yu, Song Lingge, and Li Manqiu.

Two of them had some romantic entanglements.

Of the remaining two, I haven't met one yet, and the other should be a main character in the dark route. It's a pity that the junior student hasn't told me about the plot of that route before I was transported there.

For some reason, she suddenly felt sad for the upcoming female protagonist. A perfectly good harem had been destroyed by itself. This was more than just a tragedy.

Not to mention that now that Lu Zhao has been transmigrated into my body, I definitely won't fall for any of the characters in the game, which means there's one less potential romance option for the female lead.

She now guesses that it's because the game's plot cannot be changed that she was sent to temporarily fill in when the original body couldn't support the storyline.

So as long as she finds the female protagonist, completes all the storylines, and stabilizes her own side quest, she can travel back in time after the game's main storyline ends.

Looking at the almost empty bowl of porridge in front of her, Lu Zhao subconsciously touched her stomach with her plaster cast. The thought that she would only be able to eat this tasteless white porridge for the next two weeks made her feel like the whole world had turned gray.

"Captain! Look who I brought with me!"

A cheerful voice came from outside the door. Lu Zhao sighed; she knew who it was just by the voice.

A short while later, Messiah came running in with a mysterious look on his face. Just as he was about to approach her bedside, Xia Zhifei stopped him.

"Hey, hey, hey, you're so rough! Don't touch Ah Zhao's wound!" The young lady stepped in front of her, clearly annoyed.

Messiah scratched his head sheepishly and chuckled, "Well... I'll just stand here then. Captain, look who's here!"

As he spoke, he stepped aside, making way for the person outside the door.

Lu Zhao turned his head curiously, and panicked for a moment when he saw a small figure with unsteady steps struggling to move into the doorway.

"Duan Yue? When did you wake up?"

“She woke up before dawn this morning, making a fuss about wanting to see you,” Messiah answered for her.

She gave the still excited, overly excited child a disapproving look. "Why aren't you helping him up? What if he falls?"

Messiah then rushed over, trying to pull Duan Yue along, but was firmly refused by the other party.

“This…” She looked at Lu Zhao with difficulty.

Ugh.

With a sigh, Lu Zhao quickly sat up and said softly to Duan Yue, "Xiao Yue, when did you wake up? Is there something you need from your sister?"

Xiao Duan Yue walked with difficulty to Lu Zhao's bedside, her big eyes shining, staring motionlessly at the plaster cast on her hand.

"Sister is alright, she'll be fine soon," Lu Zhao quickly reassured her. "You should go back and lie down; I'll come see you in a while, okay?"

To everyone's surprise, Xiao Duan Yue simply tilted her head, her dark eyes filled with confusion: "Mom?"

The atmosphere froze for a moment.

Chapter Twenty-Seven: My Mother's Dear Son