CH 4

4 – Online friends meeting

Translator: Xena

Fang Mo’s little heart was pounding. He opened the dialog with Xu Xiran with anticipation and saw this line of words:

[“Please, can you help me like the post in my Moments?”]

Fang Mo’s smile instantly stiffened.

Before he could adjust his mood, a new message came again.

[“I beg you, the police officer said they’ll only let me go after 20 likes.”]

Fang Mo’s head was full of question marks. He opened Xu Xiran’s Moments out of curiosity,and the first message he saw was like this:

“It is honorable to obey traffic rules, and shameful to violate traffic rules. I ran a red light at the intersection of OO Road and XX Road at 7:30 pm on August 24th, which is very bad conduct. I have been criticized and educated by fellow police officers and have fully realized my own problems. From here on out, I promise to never do it again, and persevere on stopping at a red light, walking at a green light, walking on the sidewalk, and crossing the road on the crosswalk. I also hope that everyone can take this as a reminder and be a good citizen who abides by traffic rules.”

Below was a reply of his own.

“Stop laughing!!! Hurry up and give it a like!!!”

Fang Mo held back his smile, gave it a heart, and then switched back to their convo.

[“All done.”]

Xu Xiran replied quickly.

[“Thank you, thank you, thank you, I’ll invite you to milk tea next time!”]

Although he knew that the other party was just being polite, Fang Mo would never miss any opportunity to worm his way into being friends.

“You don’t need to spend money. Remember to pay attention to safety!”

Half a minute later, a spitting blood emoji was sent from the other side.

Ten minutes later, when he opened Xu Xiran’s Moments again, the text had already been deleted. It was estimated that after finally collecting 20 likes and being released, he quickly deleted it, destroyed the corpse and wiped out any evidence.

Fang Mo laughed for a long time before suddenly realizing something. The two road names mentioned in the text just now sounded a little familiar. After he opened a search engine and entered the keywords, he was surprised to find out that the two roads were not far from their school.

The university where Fang Mo was studying at has two campuses, one in the south and one in the north, located in two corners of the city which were very remote. He was a local, but lived in the city center. No matter which campus he went to, he had to travel across half the city, which was time-consuming and labor-intensive. After two years of schooling on the south campus, he had to move to the new campus on the north side this coming semester due to school planning adjustments. He was unfamiliar with the names of the nearby roads, and it was only because he had just been there a few days ago that he had a little impression of it.

The North Campus was located in a university town, and there were several colleges and universities around it. Xu Xiran looked about the same age as him, so he might also be attending school there.

Fang Mo started to get excited, thinking that this was a wonderful fate arranged by God for him.

Having thought about it for the rest of the day, he had a sweet dream that night.

In the dream, he carried a huge suitcase as he walked with difficulty towards the dormitory building. He wanted to rest for a while when suddenly, a hand reached out from the side and easily helped him lift up the luggage.

As soon as he turned his head, his Mr. Heavenly Dish was gazing at him with a smile on his face full of tender feelings. After the two looked at each other affectionately for a moment, they went upstairs to the door of the dormitory together while holding hands. There was also a petal-shaped sign hanging on the door: Xu Xiran & Fang Mo’s  little room

Xu Xiran stood in front of the door with a wicked smile, and then fiercely kicked the door open. The entire dorm room was empty, except for a king-size luxury bed in the center.

They flopped down on the soft mattress. With disheveled hair, they fought lustily and indulged in pleasure as much as they wanted until a burst of rock ‘n’ roll music broke the atmosphere.

“Do you know what you destroyed?!” Fang Mo held the phone with a sullen face and a murderous expression.

There was no sound on the other side.

“Zou Shun, are you crazy, disturbing people’s sweet dreams in the middle of the night then refusing to speak?” Fang Mo was a little angry having been woken up. “If you don’t talk, I’m hanging up, I’m very busy!”

The other side finally spoke up and softly called Fang Mo’s nickname, “MoMo…”

Fang Mo finally realized something was wrong. “What’s the matter?”

If in the previous call Zou Shun was considered to be in a downcast mood, then his voice right now sounded almost as if he was crying.

“What’s going on?” Fang Mo, who was very worried, immediately asked, “Who is it? What happened to you?”

“I might have lost my love,” Zou Shun said.

His words were extremely aggrieved and full of appeal. Fang Mo’s heart twitched when he heard it.

“You couldn’t help it and confessed to him?” he asked Zou Shun.

“No,” Zou Shun sniffed, “I asked him if he was free tomorrow and he said he was going to meet his blind date.”

“Huh……”

“And it’s not the first time they’ve met. They’ve met before, and this is already the second time they’ve made an appointment.” Zou Shun explained, “Last time, he told me that he was forced by relatives so there was nothing he could do. But he told me just now that he thinks he and the girl had a common language, so he planned to get in touch more.”

“…”

“Am I hopeless?” he asked.

“Did he tell you these?” Fang Mo asked.

“I asked him, and he told me.” Zou Shun muttered in a low voice, “Being nice to me one moment then going on a blind date the next, he really is toying with me.”

“Don’t think like that, maybe this kind of interaction pattern is normal for straight men?” Fang Mo reasoned. “Plus, they’re only in contact and not officially together. Telling you about these personal matters shows that he takes you very seriously as a friend!”

“Bullshit, am I not obvious enough?” Zou Shun suddenly shouted, “He must be a foolish × if he still can’t figure it out!”

When all was said and done, Fang Mo had no idea how Zou Shun behaved in front of his secret crush. But at times like this, it was always about appeasement.

“Is it possible that he’s testing your attitude?” he asked.

Zou Shun turned silent.

After a while, he spoke, his tone once again becoming lively. “Then how should I react better now? Was it wrong that I wished everything to go smoothly for him just now? Do I need him to know that I’m not happy?”

Fang Mo knew about this even less.

Even his assumption was made up by him in order to appease Zou Shun, so Fang Mo could only guess what a person he wasn’t acquainted with was thinking. Seeing Zou Shun holding onto this rice straw1 and not letting go, Fang Mo felt vaguely embarrassed and a little at a loss.

It was unclear how many people were after Zou Shun, but Fang Mo himself had been pursued many times by all kinds of men and women. However, what exactly was this so-called love, both of them could only touch the elephant blindly2. They have eaten pork and saw pigs run, but would swiftly show timidity when asked to show their skills in the kitchen.3

“Say something?” Zou Shun urged.

“How about you just… give it a try?” Fang Mo suggested, “In any case, the worst result would only be losing your love. It’s better to fight than not to fight at all, right?”

“Makes sense,” Zou Shun deeply agreed, “I’ll go make discreet inquiries after their date ends tomorrow!”

“I’m really curious,” Fang Mo said, “how good is this person to make you this captivated?”

Two days later, Fang Mo saw the mysterious man who made Zou Shun not have the time to drink tea and eat food.

He looked surprisingly ordinary.

Fang Mo was sitting in the back seat of the car, watching Zou Shun in the co-pilot seat, whose eyes were gleaming with stars as he chatted non-stop for some time. He finally understood that what Zou Shun was saying about his behavior being obvious was completely true.

The man in the driver’s seat simply smiled and nodded most of the time, occasionally responding at the right time, so Zou Shun could continue endlessly without feeling awkward.

The car drove all the way from the urban area to the suburban counties and then entered the university town, which lasted an hour and a half. Fang Mo felt like a glowing light bulb the entire journey.

After finally alighting the car, the man took the initiative to help them carry their luggage out from the trunk. When he was about to say goodbye, Fang Mo took the opportunity to express his gratitude to which the other party immediately smiled and waved his hand.

“It’s nothing. You and Zou Shun have a very good relationship. I often hear him mention you,” the other party said. “There’s no difference between carrying one person or two people along.”

“That’s right,” Zou Shun beside them added, “don’t worry about it!”

Fang Mo raised one eyebrow and stared at him for a while, wanting to roast him but held back in the end.

“More than three hours back and forth.” Fang Mo couldn’t help sighing as they dragged their suitcases to the dormitory building. “He even offered to send you off. What kind of spirit is this?”

“Hehe, hehehe.” Zou Shun giggled like a fool.

His smug expression was completely different from the listless look he had when he called in the middle of the night two days ago.

“What the hell is going on with you guys right now?”

“I don’t know,” Zou Shun replied.

“What about his date? Is it going well?”

“I don’t know,” Zou Shun said, “I haven’t asked about it for a long time now, and he also hadn’t mentioned it.”

“…That’s not good, right?”

Zou Shun, who was still grinning just now, pursed his lips and said nothing.

Their dormitories were not in the same building. The two fumbled along for their room numbers for some time, and first found Zou Shun’s dorm room. Just as he was about to say goodbye, Zou Shun, who was still somewhat dispirited moments ago, his eyes suddenly lit up as he whispered “fuck”.

Fang Mo didn’t have time to ask questions as his elbow was grabbed by the other.

“Omgomgomg, youyouyouyou look over there! Look over there!” Zou Shun was so excited, his speech was incoherent.

Fang Mo blankly turned his head, trying to find the focus of Zou Shun’s line of sight. Then, a “fuck” soon followed.

“Damn, so handsome!” Zou Shun was very excited. “Did you see? So handsome ah!”

Fang Mo was silent.

He blinked twice. Afterwards, the man he was staring at turned his head to look at them.

Zou Shun felt guilty as a thief, so he quickly looked away and pretended nothing happened. But Fang Mo remained staring stupidly in same direction without budging. After a few seconds, the man he was looking at trotted over and waved at him.

“If I’m not mistaken,” Xu Xiran ran all the way to him, eyes squinted as he smiled, “are you Fang Mo?”

Fang Mo nodded dumbly.

Subsequently, he heard Zou Shun’s “fuck” come from his side.

The rice straw represents his advice that gives hope to Zou Shun

Touching the elephant blindly means only experiencing one part of a whole.

The original idiom was I have not eaten pork but I have seen pigs run, meaning the person has heard of it, seen it, and has a little understanding of it but have not experienced it personally. Idk if ‘I have eaten pork’ was a typo or intentional because of the ‘showing skills in the kitchen’ part. From what I can conclude, this whole sentence means they have both seen, heard, understood and even experienced more extreme things but when it comes to love or the supposed process in between, they are unsure or completely at a loss as to how to deal with it.