PFC Chapter 56
Chapter 56
Chapter 56
A Perfect Fit
Faced with this inexplicable feeling of having “lost.”
Lin Ying could only let out a helpless sigh.
Forget it, forget it.
After all, it wasn't as if she had only learned a day or two ago that she was flat. After spending nearly two weeks in this city, she had basically grown accustomed to everything about this body.
It was just that perhaps she hadn't looked in the mirror very often all this time?
She hadn't expected that hearing someone say it outright would stir up so many emotions in her heart.
Lin Ying rubbed the messy hair at the back of her head.
“...So in other words, should I buy a 70A size?”
Giving up on her wandering thoughts, she decided to return to the main topic.
The landlady unhurriedly took a sip of tea from her cup and nodded.
“That's right. Anyway, I don't carry AA sizes in this shop. Those are generally Japanese styles.”
She pointed at the shelves with her chin and continued explaining.
“Actually, anything with less than a ten-centimeter difference between the upper and lower measurements can be considered an A cup. It's just that the Japanese thought that wasn't detailed enough, so they came up with an AA cup for anything under seven and a half centimeters.”
Hearing that, Lin Ying nodded. After all, with a size like that... there usually wasn't much demand for it.
“Mm, I understand. Thank you.”
Then she looked at the remarkably composed landlady and couldn't help feeling a little impressed.
“I really didn't expect you to know so much.”
The landlady raised an eyebrow.
“You think a middle-aged woman shouldn't know these things?”
Then she sighed helplessly.
“Ah, looks like I've really gotten old.”
“Actually, nowadays you young people love going online. A quick search and you can find all this information. Back in my day, more than twenty years ago, information wasn't so accessible. Most people around here didn't know much of anything.”
Shaking her head, she looked around the shop with a trace of nostalgia.
“Back then, among the people selling clothes around here, I was one of the few who knew even a little about this stuff. Maybe because I was good at talking. After several years of running around and building things up, I was actually considered a somewhat famous fashion expert in Pingyang City.”
She shook her head again.
“Sadly, in the end, time spares no one.”
.
Lin Ying didn't know what to say and could only nod along with a few “Mm”s.
After all, as someone uninvolved and completely ignorant of this world's history, it wasn't really her place to comment too much on another person's life.
After quietly waiting for a while, she finally asked,
“Then, if you were the one choosing, which style do you think I should buy?”
The landlady looked at her.
“If you ask me? I'd say you might as well just wear a camisole.”
Resting one side of her face on her hand, she looked at Lin Ying.
“Before you've fully grown up, a camisole is enough to keep things in place. You can always come back and buy a bra once you're a bit older.”
It sounded reasonable.
The logic was pretty solid too.
But...
The way she phrased it...
And besides, whenever she heard the words camisole, the image that appeared in Lin Ying's mind was the kind of transitional garment worn by girls who had just entered junior high school.
Or, to put it another way, something worn by children.
In other words, wearing it would feel very childish...
The feeling was somewhat like when, during the New Year, parents introduced someone to a relative's child by saying:
“Go play with uncle. Uncle's an anime fan, he knows all about that stuff.”
That kind of feeling...?
Emmmmmmmmm...
In short, she just didn't want to wear one.
As a former macho man, if she was going to buy a bra, she ought to do it properly in one step. What kind of nonsense was this halfway approach?
“Excuse me, don't you have any other recommendations?”
Lin Ying asked.
The landlady shook her head.
“I still think a camisole suits you best.”
Then she added,
“But if you really don't want to wear a camisole, those half-cup and three-quarter-cup styles are fine too. Or you could just buy a sports bra.”
She glanced at Lin Ying and asked curiously,
“You've never worn a camisole before?”
“No.”
Lin Ying answered honestly.
The landlady sighed after hearing that.
“Honestly, I don't know what your family has been doing. Doesn't the friction hurt during the day?”
The question made the girl somewhat embarrassed.
“I've been using adhesive bandages recently...”
The middle-aged woman shook her head.
“How can that work? Those aren't even proper nipple covers. Maybe you're still young and don't understand, but you can't ignore these things. Though fortunately, at your size, it's not like you absolutely have to wear one right now.”
Thanks. That felt insulting.
Lin Ying grumbled inwardly.
Forget it, forget it. She had already decided not to care.
The other party probably hadn't even realized there was anything wrong with what she said. She was simply treating Lin Ying as a little girl who had come alone to buy underwear.
The landlady didn't mean any harm, so there was no point taking it too seriously.
If she was treated like a child, then so be it...
...I guess.
.
Actually, Lin Ying really wanted to say:
“How about you just help me pick something suitable? It doesn't need to be fancy, something ordinary is fine.”
But not wanting to trouble someone else any further, she thought about it and decided to choose for herself.
Now that she knew her size, as a reliable adult, she could handle the rest on her own.
Her criteria were simple. She mainly considered three things:
Color, pattern, and whether it had unnecessary complicated designs.
After filtering through the options according to those priorities, Lin Ying quickly picked out two that looked pretty good.
——After carefully weighing everything, she ultimately chose two sports bra-style products.
She had previously only seen this type of bra on runners or women at the gym.
The plain solid colors had no patterns on them. The fabric felt smooth and soft to the touch, and both the front and back seemed highly breathable. They didn't have underwire structures, only some faint support inside the cups. There was also extra padding in the center area. Was this what they called padding?
She reached out and squeezed it, indicating that she didn't really understand.
In any case, one was black and one was white. They looked simple, elegant, and pleasing to the eye. There weren't any layers of lace piled on top of each other either. She liked the design very much.
Then it's decided—you two it is.
Carrying the two garments, she went back to the fitting room and tried them on.
As expected, now that she had chosen according to her size, they fit perfectly.
Standing before the mirror, she raised her arms level and twisted slightly, then moved her body back and forth and side to side. Her chest felt quite comfortable.
There wasn't any excessive tightness that made it hard to breathe. Instead, there was a strangely reassuring feeling.
She glanced at the price tag beside the display rack. It read 29.9 yuan each. She wondered whether buying two would let her bargain for a lower price.
So, one in her left hand and one in her right.
When Lin Ying carried the bras to the counter, the landlady had already returned to her throne-like seat. One hand rested on the corner of her phone as she idly rotated it while waiting for her.
The girl gently placed the garments on the counter.
“Hello, I've decided to buy these.”
“Tried them on? Do they fit?”
The landlady asked.
“Yes. Thank you for your help earlier. These fit very well.”
Lin Ying smiled and lowered her head slightly in thanks.
Sincerely, anyone willing to guide a newbie through the beginner tutorial was a good person.
“Mm, as long as it fits.”
The landlady smiled as well, though from her expression, it seemed like she still wanted to say something.
For some reason, she appeared conflicted, but in the end she didn't say anything else and simply confirmed once more:
“So you've decided on these two?”
Whatever. If someone didn't want to say something, Lin Ying wasn't going to pry.
“Mm, they look pretty nice, and they're very comfortable to wear.”
Lin Ying replied.
After hearing that, the middle-aged woman merely smiled and teased her.
“You're a young girl. Why buy such dull colors? Aren't you going to pick something a little brighter?”
“Uh, I actually think these look pretty good.”
“If it's just this style you like, there's a pink version too. Want to take a look?”
“No need, really, no need...”
Lin Ying hurriedly waved her hands.
...
...
Finally, after a round of bargaining,
the girl thanked her, happily carried her shopping bag, pushed open the shop door, and left.
The wind chimes rang again, just as they had when she arrived.
Because the middle-aged woman had helped her so much, Lin Ying felt too embarrassed to haggle too aggressively in the end. A token discount was enough.
Although she had only saved ten yuan, she still felt like she had made an incredible profit since she had bought exactly what she needed.
.
“Jingle~ Jingle~ Jingle...”
As the sound of the wind chimes gradually faded, a customer's footsteps also grew more distant.
Looking at the door that had swung open as the girl left, the landlady muttered to herself:
“In the end, you still bought a camisole...”
She gazed in the direction the girl had departed.
Well, forget it. This particular one really did suit a girl of her age and bust size, so after making one final confirmation, she hadn't said anything further.
She knew that some adolescent girls could be stubborn. Some resisted wearing bras or even camisoles altogether, so letting them adapt gradually was necessary.
The style Lin Ying had bought was specifically designed for young girls who weren't used to having their chests restricted. Functionally, for an AA-cup girl, it wasn't all that different from a sports bra.
Besides, it looked pretty nice, and the experience of wearing it was probably about the same for her.
So it didn't really matter, right?
All good things. All good things.
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Extra Notice
//
Regarding slowing down the update pace in the future.
Back in November, I tried claiming the full attendance reward once (though even now I still have no idea where I'm supposed to see that money).
It felt like writing 90,000 characters in a month was still a bit too much for me.
Not only did I lose all my personal time for doing things I enjoy, but many times I ended up staying up past midnight just to write chapters. If this keeps going, forget my brain—my body will give out first.
Constantly forcing myself to maintain one update every day not only made my hair fall out, but also made me extremely anxious.
I couldn't enjoy playing, and writing became a source of stress as well.
If this continued, it would definitely affect the quality of the novel.
—Though I know my writing is only so-so to begin with, and there probably isn't much quality left to lose.
Still, I feel that, even if it's only for the small number of readers who follow this story, and for the generous readers who have been willing to tip this novel despite it being free up to this point, I can't just completely give up on quality.
I don't want the story I write to become a future black mark on my own history simply because I was chasing daily updates.
Nor do I want to see a future long review titled:
“His Talent Exhausted, A Real Shame.”
—
So, in summary, future updates on weekdays may become once every other day, or once every two days.
If I happen to produce extra chapters during that time, I'll save them up and make use of them later.
(Once I've accumulated enough, I'll unleash them all at once!) fog
And I absolutely will not drop the novel midway, so you can rest assured about that.
Because the middle portion and ending of the story were decided from the very beginning, I will definitely finish it.
So even if the results remain neither hot nor cold, that's fine~
If I don't tell all of Lin Ying's story, I won't be able to eat or sleep in peace.
.
At the moment, my personal estimate is that the final word count of this book will be somewhere in the several hundred thousand range, probably around 500,000 to 600,000 words.
That said, I can't guarantee it completely. It might end up shorter, or it might exceed that estimate.
As for holidays, I'll probably continue daily updates and may even release extra chapters. We'll have to discuss that based on the circumstances when the time comes.
After all, if I want the book to go premium, I need a stockpile of drafts. Given my current writing speed, the only way to build one would probably be to stop updating and focus on accumulating chapters anyway, which wouldn't be much different from this.
So just think of it as me building up a chapter backlog.
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Lastly, let me complain about something.
I write for about two to three hours every day. If we calculate that as roughly seventy-five hours a month, then the 300-yuan attendance bonus works out to a wage of only ¥4 per hour.
Damn, that's ridiculously low.
Even being a teaching assistant pays several dozen yuan per hour, not to mention private tutoring.
A month's worth of writing rewards is only equivalent to about one hour of private tutoring...
And that's not even counting research time. If I include the time spent looking things up, I probably spent around one hundred hours writing over the course of the month, which makes the hourly rate even lower...
But then again, writing was never about making money in the first place...
It's just that the imbalance between effort and reward is pretty much the norm for lower- and middle-tier web novel authors, especially those who survive on guaranteed minimum payments.