The Princess Is Above - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Once Yuan Xi got comfortable around me, she became even clingier.

July brought frequent thunderstorms. At night, lightning ripped through the dim sky, followed by a deep rumble of thunder that exploded overhead.

Yuan Xi slipped into my room hugging a pillow.

“Big Sister, I’m scared of thunder… Can I sleep with you?”

We were both girls, so of course I had no reservations.

I shifted to the side, made some space on the bed, and lifted the blanket. “Come on. Sleep.”

Before long, another massive clap of thunder crashed above us.

The lump under the blanket beside me trembled a few times.

I turned on the light and patted the blanket lump.

She burrowed out from under it, her lips trembling. Her fair, delicate, snow-white skin was beaded with a thin sheen of sweat.

She really had been badly frightened.

She asked carefully, “Big Sister, can you hold me…?”

“Okay.” I reached out.

She wriggled into my arms, and a sweet, creamy fragrance filled my nose.

“I’m scared of thunder.”

Yuan Xi lowered her eyes, her thick lashes casting shadows beneath them. Her voice was muffled.

“My mother died on a stormy night just like this. I’m scared, and I don’t know… if I’ll end up with the same fate.”

I stroked her back, smoothing her down again and again like I was petting a kitten.

“You won’t. You won’t.”

She looked up at me.

“Then can I sleep with you every night from now on?”

I was still immersed in the sorrowful mood. “…What?”

First she acted pitiful, then she used it to make demands, so I’d be too embarrassed to refuse.

She understood human nature far too well.

All in all, after spending a month with Yuan Xi, things had been pretty good.

Until… I received this month’s utility bill.

“What the hell did you do this month?!”

After she honestly confessed and I pieced things together, I finally understood.

It turned out that every day, while I was at work, this woman would turn the air conditioner down to sixteen degrees and let it blast all day-without closing the windows or the balcony door.

And…

She filled the bathtub with hot water and played with bubbles in it.

Also…

She took my prepaid card and went to the dessert shop to buy little cakes and milk tea.

My vision went black.

“My money! My money!!”

I wailed at the heavens.

I couldn’t let her keep squandering money like this. Tomorrow, I was contacting an electronics factory and sending her in to tighten screws on the assembly line!

I was going to teach her what it meant when people said, “Modern society doesn’t support freeloaders”!

Beside me, Yuan Xi looked a little embarrassed as she poked the tips of her index fingers together.

“Don’t worry, I’ll definitely pay you back! I am the Eldest Princess, sitting on mountains of gold and silver, with ten thousand households as my fief!”

“Where is it, then? Hand it over so I can pay the mortgage and utilities.”

“Uh…”

A troubled look crossed her face. She bit her lip, then spoke with difficulty.

“There are quite a few valuable things in my father’s tomb. How about I take you there and we dig some up?”

I choked.

“Wow. What a dutiful daughter you are.”