Free Web NovelChapter 12: Chapter 12: The Fear of Being Dominated by a Bath
For the Mischievous Elf, this room was the only familiar place in this world. freēwēbηovel.c૦m
And Qin Xiaoxia, despite being somewhat detestable, was also the only human he knew.
But a voice immediately interrupted his gratitude.
"Alright, since I’m letting you stay, let’s talk about rent and food expenses."
The Mischievous Elf instinctively felt that something was wrong.
...
Just ten minutes later, the Mischievous Elf already felt like he was breaking out in a sweat. ƒгeewёbnovel.com
It was just a feeling, though, because normal seasonal temperature changes didn’t affect him, so his skin had no sweat glands.
"Now you understand that in our world, you have to pay money to rent someone else’s house."
"This place of mine is a newly furnished luxury apartment. A normal family would never rent it out, but since you have nowhere else to go, you have no other choice. The price will be a bit higher, though."
Qin Xiaoxia said shamelessly, gesturing at his own old house, which hadn’t been renovated in at least ten years.
"You can go ask around. It’s not easy to rent a place these days, especially since you don’t even have an ID card. Plus, I have to cover your food, so I’ll have to charge a little more."
With that, Qin Xiaoxia listed a whole slew of other reasons and difficulties of taking in the Little Elf, going on and on at length from the perspectives of financial cost and personal safety.
He even looked up a lot of rental information online to prove he wasn’t exaggerating.
Another ten-plus minutes passed.
"Alright, I’ve beaten around the bush and explained enough. I’ll tell you straight: the rent will be 1 Gold Coin a month. You can consider the time you’ve stayed so far a freebie, on the house."
The Little Elf quietly sighed in relief. ’Good, I can afford one Gold Coin.’
"Oh, right. The rule for renting here is one month’s rent as a deposit and three months’ rent upfront, or you pay for the whole year. I can waive the deposit, but you have to pay for three months. Add in the Gold Coin you need to compensate me for the one I lost on the Wish, so you owe me a total of four Gold Coins, hehe!"
Rubbing his hands together, Qin Xiaoxia snatched the three Gold Coins that the Mischievous Elf had taken out from his stiff little hand.
"You can owe me the last one for now. I’ll help you figure out a way to get it."
Once the Mischievous Elf’s depleted Wish Magic Power recovered, he could have him make a Wish for him.
’How delightful!’
The Mischievous Elf, meanwhile, stared blankly at his empty little hands, feeling a profound lack of security.
Qin Xiaoxia toyed with the Gold Coins. After gloating to himself for a bit, he didn’t ignore the Little Elf.
"Let me give you a new name. What I’ve been calling you is too weird and might attract the attention of scientists. Hmm, let’s call you Doudou. It suits a little guy like you."
The Little Elf, who instinctively wanted to protest, shut his mouth when he heard it was to avoid attracting scientists’ attention.
But his cheeks kept puffing out and receding like two little buns.
After being mentally bombarded in such a short time, he was already a bit numb. Doudou slowly started to realize what was happening. ’This detestable guy was so well-prepared. Was I just scammed?’
But even though he was angry, he couldn’t deny that he currently lacked the courage to face the outside world. Besides, he’d already paid the rent...
~~~
「And so, after a chaotic, busy, and terrifying day, the Otherworld visitor Doudou officially moved into Qin Xiaoxia’s home.」
~~~
They bickered every day, with intermittent quarrels. This was especially true after Doudou started exploring the internet and discovered that this Qin Xiaoxia guy was, in some ways—no, in many ways—completely tricking him.
And Qin Xiaoxia’s reply was always filled with righteous indignation: "Tricking you? At most, I was exaggerating!"
People, or rather, humanoid creatures, easily grow dependent on familiar places, especially when those places provide shelter from the elements and a comfortable life.
This is even truer for the more timid ones.
Qin Xiaoxia had grasped this point quite accurately.
So, despite all the arguing, Doudou didn’t run away. In fact, the two of them started to get along better and better.
...
From wary hostility to mutual familiarity, and then to growing intimacy, more than ten days passed in a bumpy, knockabout fashion.
Qin Xiaoxia finally couldn’t stand Doudou’s filthy appearance any longer.
In the morning, Doudou, his eyelids heavy with sleep, was woken up by Qin Xiaoxia in the spare bedroom.
Ever since he started sleeping in such a comfortable bed, the child-like Doudou had fallen in love with sleeping in.
Today, as the newest member of the household, Doudou had to face a trial that threw him into a complete panic.
An event he had rarely experienced since birth—a bath.
Although Doudou didn’t leave any dust behind when he moved around and didn’t have much of a body odor, he still gave Qin Xiaoxia the overall impression of being grimy.
Half an hour after getting up.
Doudou stood outside the bathroom, trembling as he stared at the bathtub filled with water.
The steam from the warm water, combined with the light from the bath heater, gave the entire bathroom a warm feeling.
Qin Xiaoxia was squeezing body wash onto a loofah. After working it a bit, his hands were full of foam. He had never used one of these things before but tried it and felt the effect was pretty good.
"Come on in~"
Inside the bathroom, Qin Xiaoxia started urging Doudou to enter.
Doudou shook his head, refusing to go into the bathroom. Helpless, Qin Xiaoxia ended up dragging him in. Even turning invisible to escape didn’t work.
It was worth mentioning that Qin Xiaoxia had discovered that ever since their Spirits connected, his Visual Sense had become so freakishly sharp that he could see through Doudou’s invisibility. A transparent outline would appear, rendering Doudou’s invisibility completely useless against him.
Qin Xiaoxia hoisted his body and carried him toward the bathtub.
The bubbles inside kept popping, making it look like a tub of poisonous water. Not to mention, the brushes and other things on the side looked exceptionally terrifying.
Doudou screamed his head off.
"WATER WATER WATER!!! I’M GOING TO DROWN~~~~~~~~~~~~ AHHHH~~~~~~"
PLOP~
Doudou struggled but was forcefully pushed under the water. He swallowed several mouthfuls of soapy water, and the taste was absolutely awful.
SPLASH SPLASH...
The water was churned relentlessly.
Half of Qin Xiaoxia’s body was soaked.
"Don’t move! Don’t move! A bath isn’t going to kill you!"
While rubbing Doudou with the loofah, he scrubbed him fiercely with a soft-bristled brush.
"Water got in my eyes! It hurts!!"
"Endure it!"
"I can’t take it anymore, I can’t! This water is poison! You’re trying to kill me!"
SPLASH SPLASH...
"If it’s poison, it’s the poison that’s being washed off you!"
Qin Xiaoxia was now genuinely furious. He bit down on the shower head to keep it spraying while working Doudou over with both hands.
He absolutely would not let Doudou escape the bathtub.
Doudou had already lost count of how many mouthfuls of soapy water he’d swallowed, especially since the water had now turned a grayish-black.
One gulp nearly choked him to death.
Fortunately, although Doudou was just a "weakling" in Qin Xiaoxia’s eyes, he was still an Elf at his core, with extremely tenacious Life Force.
If it had been anyone else, one mouthful would have probably been enough to kill them.
Even under these circumstances, Doudou didn’t stop struggling. He managed to knock the soft-bristled brush away a few times, but overall, he was continually suppressed.
BANG~
The flying brush shattered one of the bath heater’s light bulbs, startling Qin Xiaoxia into quickly running over to turn the heater off.
’What if it causes an electrical short?’
Doudou, realizing he had done something wrong, was now like a puppy caught by its owner after chewing up a shoe. He stayed in the tub, too scared to move.
Qin Xiaoxia turned off the bath heater, then turned around with a dark expression on his face.
"You’d better behave and let me wash you, starting now. I don’t want to say it again."
Doudou, who wasn’t afraid of the cold, suddenly felt a chill and nodded hastily.
...
The bath took nearly an hour. They went through two and a half tubs of water, swapping between cold and hot, completely emptying the water heater.
Qin Xiaoxia himself was thoroughly exhausted.
"Doudou, let’s set a rule. From now on, you have to take a bath at least once a week—uh, a month. No objections allowed!"
Doudou, wearing a set of children’s clothes that Qin Xiaoxia had just fished out of the community’s used clothing donation bin, kept sniffing himself with a look of disgust.
Then he sat down dejectedly on the sofa, feeling as if he hadn’t lost years of accumulated grime, but a precious treasure.
He sat with his head hanging low, completely unresponsive to Qin Xiaoxia’s words.
Seeing Doudou like this, he looked exactly like a cat that had gotten depressed after being shaved.
"Alright, I’m going to start cooking. We’re having a big lunch today! After we eat, I’ll take you out this afternoon to see the world!"
Qin Xiaoxia said with a grin, trying to console Doudou.
The power of food was as formidable as ever. The moment Doudou heard about eating, his spirits immediately lifted.
While Qin Xiaoxia was cooking, Doudou stood on a stool he had moved, watching with a curious expression, as if every flip of the spatula was an exceptionally pleasing sound.
He would even swallow a mouthful of saliva from time to time.
And every time Qin Xiaoxia used the spatula to taste the food to check if it was seasoned or cooked through, he had to give a little to Doudou. Otherwise, the little guy would pester him for a long time afterward.
