Chapter 87: Lu Zheng, You Deserve to Die!!!
Let us set aside the poor soul shut out by Yi Ning and push the time forward just a little.
After driving Lu Zheng away, Yi Ning held her sore little butt and looked at the chaotic mess inside her base, a faint sadness surfacing deep within her heart.
Shattered camera fragments, broken robot parts, trampled and mangled grass, scattered little stools she kicked over during her struggle, and puddles splashed across the floor from her evil invention’s dramatic entrance...
The scene inside the base was downright tragic.
And then there was the amount of work it would take to clean all this up…
Even more tragic.
Unlike the heroes who could pat their butts and walk away after wreaking havoc—
As the base’s owner, after fighting with heroes, she still had to clean up the aftermath herself to ensure the place could be used again next time.
So annoying.
Yi Ning sighed.
Her butt, which had started to feel better, flared up again with a fresh burning sensation.
She shouldn’t have let Lu Zheng leave so easily earlier.
She felt a surge of regret.
She was sure.
If she had just acted pitiful in front of that guy, he definitely would’ve softened up and stayed behind to help clean.
And yet, just because her butt hurt and she didn’t want to see his face, she had driven away such a high-quality laborer.
What a waste!
And most importantly.
That guy hadn’t just left—he’d also smashed her work robot!
She hadn’t considered this at the time and had just brushed it off.
Granted, she didn’t really like that abstract hunk of junk either, but it had at least helped share some of her workload!
Now thinking about how, after cleaning the place, she’d still have to write a report, set traps to catch Rigil tomorrow, and draft tomorrow’s evil plans…
Why was there so much work?!
Was this the fate of an evil scientist?
Death by overwork?
Yi Ning stood trembling on the spot.
Today, her hands shook; today, her heart ached.
Why was it like this?
Was she really doomed to sacrifice everything, living her whole life in toil?
Why had heaven cursed her with such pain?
What did she do wrong?
Thinking this.
Yi Ning collapsed face-first onto the floor in despair, pounding the ground in grief.
“Waaah! Lu Zheng! I really need you right now! Come back and help me clean up! Half this mess is yours—no, it’s all your fault!”
Too bad Lu Zheng was long gone and couldn’t hear Yi Ning’s mournful cries.
After the sorrow passed—
Yi Ning picked herself off the ground, straightened her clothes, and brushed off the dust.
As a mature evil scientist, she needed to be able to switch between sadness and calm at any moment.
Plus, her butt didn’t hurt as much anymore.
Though Lu Zheng had talked a big game before spanking her, when it came down to it, he’d gone soft and didn’t hit too hard.
It had only been ten minutes, and Yi Ning was already bouncing around again.
No injury ointment needed at all.
What a soft-hearted man.
Yi Ning sneered in contempt.
A guy like that—he was destined to end up like a used napkin, tossed in the trash after wiping her mouth clean.
But even if she was up and moving again, the dull numbness in her butt and the looming pain of having to clean everything by herself kept her grumbling about Lu Zheng in her heart.
She might’ve lost the battle physically, but she’d won the war verbally!
And she could win the mental war too!
Victory confirmed.
It was like Emperor Qin stepping on an electric wire—totally electrifying!
An overwhelming win!
“Hmph!”
After declaring her solo victory in her mind, Yi Ning lifted her chin and snorted proudly.
Then she went into the changing room, took off her lab coat, tied her long hair into a bun, grabbed her cleanup tools, and returned to the scene.
“CLANG!”
Yi Ning slammed her tool onto the floor like a spear, producing a crisp clang.
Lu Zheng had retreated. Next up—this heap of trash!
She raised her tool with both hands and charged at the garbage.
“Mere scattered debris—watch me wipe you out in one blow!”
“Ah-da!”
Yi Ning charged the mess.
Although it looked like a lot to clean, it wasn’t that bad once she got started.
The robot remains and camera shards were mostly in piles—four main heaps, give or take.
Yi Ning crouched beside the wreckage, picking out usable parts and sorting the broken ones together. Once done, she tossed all the junk into her lab’s interdimensional trash bin.
“Hmph!”
Squatting there collecting parts, Yi Ning imagined Lu Zheng tied to a cactus, furiously whipping him in her mind to vent her resentment.
“OK! All done!”
She clapped her hands and ran the salvaged parts into storage, categorizing them neatly.
Even during that, she mentally hung Lu Zheng on a punching bag and imagined herself, in boxing gloves, going to town on him.
“Breaking four of my cameras—one day, I’ll build a camera monster out of these parts and send it to clobber you.”
Yi Ning placed the last camera part into a box and mentally landed a final Shoryuken on Lu Zheng.
Now, only the water-soaked floor remained.
Yi Ning returned to the changing room, pulled a remote from her lab coat pocket, and pressed a button.
“BOOM!”
The massive hot spring at the center of her base made a loud noise, and the water level rapidly dropped.
Once the bottom was exposed, the rounded stone edges began to sink.
Soon, the hot spring’s border disappeared into the ground, and the bottom began to fold away, transforming back into the base’s original floor.
The surrounding courtyard decorations and flowers also retracted back underground.
Yi Ning, holding her mop, looked at the wide floor in front of her and mentally tied Lu Zheng to a flagpole, changing her internal mental backdrop to a cloudless 40℃ summer day.
“What the hell was I thinking back then? Why did I rent such a huge warehouse?”
A floating mop bucket hovered behind her.
But she knew—complaining wouldn’t make the water vanish.
So she just rolled her eyes and twirled the mop in her hand like a staff.
“With the mop in hand—surrender now, or face justice!”