Trapped In Paradise
Volume 3 Chapter 34 / Chapter 539: A Message from the Ghost Girl
"Graduation photos, huh... Then Wen Yang and I will have to take a couple of days off. Mm-hmm."
"I'm at work right now, so I don't have time to chat... I'll let Wen Yang know too. Okay~ Bye?"
Tilting her head to hold the phone between her shoulder and ear, Ning Chu continued typing away on her keyboard, busy with work.
She finally set her phone down on the desk and muttered to herself,
"That ghost girl is pretty dedicated... calling everyone one by one. Couldn't she have just posted an announcement in the group chat?"
Had that ghost girl become addicted to being a counselor or something? She'd stayed in the same position for years now.
Were there really that many gullible young people falling for her? After all these years, no one had reported her for secretly feeding on them?
Ning Chu couldn't help picturing the ghost girl, An An—her voluptuous, mature figure and that enchantingly seductive face...
To be fair, those gullible young men might actually be happy to fall for her.
"Xiao Ning, it's time to get off work."
Someone lightly tapped the back of her chair twice. Ning Chu turned around to find a woman in her thirties wearing a professional office skirt suit.
It was her manager—a fox woman.
Compared to the one back at school, this fox lady had taken especially good care of her. Although she'd heard rumors that her manager's private life was rather... colorful, it fit the stereotypical image of a vixen perfectly.
"Got it, Sis~"
"Your little boyfriend seems to be waiting downstairs."
"Huh? But I still have a little work left..."
With her fiery red fluffy tail swaying behind her, the manager simply pushed Ning Chu's chair away from her desk.
"Sis~"
Ning Chu stood up helplessly, about to protest, but the manager's gentle, flirtatious fox eyes silenced her.
"It can wait a few minutes."
"Alright... Then I'll head out first?"
Making Wen Yang wait a few extra minutes really wouldn't hurt.
She grumbled inwardly, waved goodbye to her manager, grabbed her bag, and hurried toward the time clock.
"Ning Chu~ Want to go shopping tonight?"
"Nope. My boyfriend's here to pick me up."
"Ugh~ You forgot your besties the moment you got a man~"
"I did not!"
Ning Chu quickened her pace, clocked out, and squeezed into an elevator that was practically overloaded.
She was pretty, easygoing, and the youngest employee in the office. Everyone doted on her so much that she'd practically become the company's mascot.
With the office being mostly women, she sometimes had the strange illusion of presiding over her own harem.
When the elevator reached the ground floor and she stepped outside the office building, Ning Chu immediately spotted Wen Yang waiting near the entrance.
"Wen Yang! Why did you come again?"
"If I don't show up every few days, people will think you don't have a boyfriend."
Wen Yang glanced at the stream of employees pouring out of the building. His eyes vigilantly swept across every man in sight as he instinctively moved to shield Ning Chu behind him.
"Otherwise you'll run into another one of those self-important idiots trying to hit on you."
"It only happened once. Why are you still hung up on it..."
Ning Chu sighed helplessly as she wrapped her arm around his. Yet the smile never left her face, her lips curved in sweet contentment.
"Oh right. Our counselor said we're taking graduation photos next month. If everyone's free, she's thinking of organizing a class farewell dinner too."
"What do you think?"
"Obviously we're not going."
"We can just invite Lily, Shaoqing, and the others out for a meal."
The mention of her old friends from school caused her thoughts to drift.
She wondered whether meeting again would still feel as familiar as before...
Before she'd realized it, nearly a year had passed.
Lily was probably still that cold-on-the-outside, secretly-flirtatious ice-queen succubus.
After starting work, Yan Xinya had probably settled down a bit and wasn't as loud and excitable anymore.
And Xi Xi had likely outgrown much of her childishness.
Zhang Shaoqing's social media was filled with photos of him traveling everywhere with Sister Qian Qian.
As for Wang Jie, it seemed he still hadn't found a job, spending all day holed up in his dorm room playing games.
Ever since he was forced to break up with his rabbit-girl girlfriend, the shut-in had become almost alarmingly depressed.
He was practically the spitting image of Ning Chu in her previous life...
Who knew? Maybe one day Wang Jie would suddenly get transmigrated too and end up transformed into a girl.
"So, how many days are you planning to take off?"
Wen Yang's question interrupted Ning Chu's wandering thoughts.
She linked arms with Wen Yang and tilted her head thoughtfully.
"If I line it up with the weekend and use some annual leave, I could probably get almost a whole week off, right? We could even go home and look around while we're at it."
She hadn't even known paid annual leave existed until her manager reminded her. Only then did she realize she was entitled to five days of paid vacation every year.
At the time, she'd been pleasantly surprised.
"Perfect. I'll do the same," Wen Yang said. "Let's take six days off and save one day of annual leave just in case."
The two chatted as they strolled leisurely along the sidewalk toward the nearby subway station.
It was rush hour. The sidewalks were crowded with pedestrians, while the traffic on the road crawled forward inch by inch.
Ning Chu was no longer working in customer service. She had joined a mobile game company that specialized in games for women, where she worked as a scenario writer.
She had written novels before and achieved a modest amount of success. During her interview, she had timidly attached her best-performing novel to her application, despite feeling embarrassed about it. To her surprise, it had earned her the company's favor.
"Payday's almost here~"
She had already planned how to spend her salary and happily rambled on.
"Together we'll make almost thirty thousand. We'll save twenty thousand, use the remaining several thousand for rent, utilities, food, and everything else... Can I have three hundred yuan to top up a game? They just released a super sexy new skin!"
"I'd rather move into a one-bedroom apartment," Wen Yang said. "This place is too small. It's starting to feel cramped."
"But that's so expensive. With the security deposit, our combined salary for a month might not even be enough." Despite saying that, Ning Chu's eyes sparkled with anticipation. "Still, our company just launched a new game last month. Maybe we'll get a bonus this month~"
"Your company's games..."
Wen Yang twitched the corner of his mouth.
The character designs were beautiful, but everything else was a mess—including the over-the-top, melodramatic romance plot that Ning Chu had written.
The only way to describe it was... something else.
He genuinely couldn't understand why anyone would spend money on such low-quality mobile games, or how they company managed to stay profitable.
"What's that supposed to mean?!" Ning Chu puffed up indignantly. "Our games have a loyal fanbase, okay? People rave about the stories I write! Some players even cried reading them!"
"They're games made for women, alright? You're not even the target audience!"
"Yes, yes..."
Wen Yang hurriedly stroked the ruffled little succubus's head to calm her down before changing the subject.
"So, what should we have for dinner?"
"Noodles, I guess? I don't really crave anything anymore. I'm tired of eating the same stuff."
Ning Chu didn't take it seriously. After pretending to throw a little tantrum, she simply hugged Wen Yang's arm again.
Wen Yang still went to the gym twice a week. Although he didn't look much different on the outside, his stamina had definitely improved.
As a result, her complexion had gotten healthier, and she slept soundly every night.
The two passed through the security check and entered the bustling subway station.
In the packed crowd, Wen Yang wrapped an arm around Ning Chu's shoulders, pulling her protectively into his embrace, making her cheeks flush faintly.
"Want to go shopping after dinner? I haven't taken you shopping in a while."
"..."
When no reply came, Wen Yang looked down.
The little succubus was staring intently at her phone, chatting with Lily.
The conversations between those two succubi were always shamelessly dirty. Even when discussing serious matters, they'd slip in all kinds of risqué jokes, and before long the topic would inevitably drift into something naughty.
"When we go back for our graduation photos," Ning Chu said, "Lily wants us to visit her place again~"
"Has she found a boyfriend yet?"
"She did start dating someone... but I think they broke up after only a few days."
"They had a fight?"
Standing on tiptoe, Ning Chu leaned close to Wen Yang's ear and whispered mischievously,
"I think his spear's just too small~"
"Uh..."
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Link for character illustration:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1IxOucqi87ss3bmqfO9zI2gYiM1Gy8Hz2