CH 23

After finishing the noodles, Fang Huaining stood up and looked at the handkerchief on the ground. He considered taking it back and washing it, but before he could reach out to pick it up Li Ting moved faster than him, picking up the handkerchief and stuffing it back into his pocket.

Fang Huaning couldn’t help thinking: Is the handkerchief that is worth half of the taxi fare rented or given away? But looking at Li Ting’s nonchalant expression he only sighed secretly, this little money fan is too calculating.

It was absolutely impossible for Li Ting to call a taxi to go back, but fortunately the buses in this area were regular. The two of them stood there waiting together, remaining silent for a few moments.

Li Ting looked somewhere into the distance while Fang Huaining did the same and although the eyes of these two people did not meet, Fang Huaining could feel that the other party was not ignoring his existence. But even so, he did not expect that Li Ting would suddenly ask:

“Are you curious?”

“…?” Fang Huaining paused before turning his head.

Li Ting’s eyes were still facing the front, but his tone was soft and low, devoid of any special emotion. He asked again: “Aren’t you thinking about it now?”

“Thinking about what?”

Fang Huaining was startled.

Li Ting continued, “That…my family business.”

Before, when he was eating the noodles, Fang Huaining was worried about how they would get along after this embarrassing incident, and whether it was better to pretend nothing happened, or to offer a few words of comfort. In the end, after eating the noodles he thought that Li Ting had chosen the former, but didn’t expect him to bring it up on his own initiative.

“Aren’t you curious?” Li Ting asked again when Fang Huaining didn’t answer, as if talking to himself.

How could it be possible not to be curious? Even if there was a dispute on the street, the onlookers would not be able to help guessing the ins and outs of the matter, not to mention that he had already been interested in the person in front of him.

“You don’t…” Fang Huaining wanted to say, if you don’t want to reveal it, there was no need to force it, after all, they didn’t know each other very well.

But he was interrupted by Li Ting before he finished speaking.

“They are not my parents. I was an orphan and grew up in an orphanage.”

Li Ting said in a low tone, as if telling a story.

“My biological father ate, drank, whored and gambled, angering my mother to death. After that, he found several stepmothers for me, but they didn’t stay for long and ran away one by one. When I was ten years old, my own father was stabbed to death by his enemies when coming back from gambling, leaving a lot of debt.”

“The stepmother at that time couldn’t run away, once she was hit by a car and had been half disabled since. So she could only come to me. I thought she was pitiful, so I decided to help her pay off the debt, but in the end she couldn’t stay alive for very long and went to accompany my father, leaving me to work everywhere to make up for the big debt I owed at that time.”

Fang Huaining was stunned: “Then… just now…”

“Those two people from just now?” Li Ting waited for the bus to slow down as he slowly walked forward, “It’s just a pair of neighbors who like to meddle in other people’s business.”

Fang Huaining watched him get into the bus, take out his wallet and put in two coins, The moment the door closed, Li Ting turned his head again and glanced at him slowly.

At that moment, Fang Huaining clearly saw that the corner of the other party’s mouth was slightly raised.

Only then did he realize that he had been lied to!

But the thought that struck him even more was, just now…Li Ting seemed to be smiling?

A very shallow arc, as if gloating after a successful prank, but it was indeed a smile… It wasn’t a warm smile that could melt ice and snow, but Fang Huaining had always thought of Li Ting as fireworks, and at that moment when he was smiling, It was like watching the fireworks being lit up…

Not long after he left, the bus Fang Huaining was waiting for finally arrived. He sat by the edge, in the same position as Li Ting, and looked out the window, belatedly noticing that the streets today were full of Valentine’s Day decorations, and the red and pink ornaments were full of love and sweetness, with affectionate couples mixed in among them.

Fang Huaining looked at it for a while, then took out his mobile phone, opened the ‘Little Field’, and found that the detailed records on the account-keeping page had been updated.

Sumei Street Cold Noodles ×2: ￥18.0

Looking at the newly added content from just a few minutes ago and the ×2 at the end, Fang Huaining raised his eyebrows in satisfaction.

***********

Tian Dian had the day off, so when Li Ting returned to the rental house, he found him glued in front of the computer even forgetting to eat and sleep, as if he didn’t have the time to care about it in his busy schedule.

“You are back? The interview is over? When will you start working this time? Why don’t you take a few days off first?”

Li Ting didn’t answer, because he knew Tian Dian couldn’t hear him with his headphones on. He took out the cold rice and reheated it, then sat in front of a new wooden table and started eating, he had no choice but to listen to the wild broken sound of guns bombarding his ears while eating.

Li Ting looked up at the computer screen close to him, swallowed the food in his mouth, and suddenly asked: “What is this?”

Tian Dian thought he was asking about the new furniture in the room: “This thing, the pair of dogs next door had a fight last night, even made me sleepless ah, this place is really unbearable. Anyway, they threw out all the broken things in the house early this morning, so I picked this up and brought it back. Anyway, it’s actually not broken…”

“I was talking about this.” Li Ting interrupted him impatiently, pointing to the computer.

“Oh, that, a game.” Tian Dian said.

“Where did it come from?” Li Ting asked.

“It’s just the computer…it came with the computer.”

“Who’s account is this?”

Tian Dian didn’t turn his head, but his voice became lower: “It’s also…came with it.”

When Li Ting didn’t speak, Tian Dian quickly explained: “Hey, I just wanted to play this game at first, who knew that this account was saved on this computer, and as soon as I logged in, I was hacked to death, then I just continued to play because I wanted to get revenge ah.”

As a result, after continuing to play for several hours, the main homepage still didn’t show up, so Tian Dian simply didn’t bother to register and create a new account and just played with this account.

“…It won’t be discovered. Looking at the ranking, it should be one of his side accounts. There is no valuable equipment in it. I’m just playing around. If he tries to log in someday, he can take it back at any time.”

Since he was distracted from talking to Li Ting, Tian Dian’s game avatar ended up losing his life. Then as he stood up and continued to play again, Tian Dian started scolding his teammates.

“As for the members of my team, why didn’t they come to save me? Where did they all die this time! Quickly come and save me! Fuck, my stomach hurts.”

Li Ting didn’t care much about online games , but even he could see that Tian Dian was playing poorly, he couldn’t even get around the obstacles, let alone face the enemies.

Just as Tian Dian was about to visit the underworld again, suddenly several thunderbolts fell from the sky and several players appeared out of thin air, they wiped out the monsters and opponents surrounding Tian Dian in two or three strokes.

“Wow, what luck, the boss is here, the boss is finally here, this time seems to be better than last time.”

Tian Dian excitedly sat in front of the computer for a while, then threw the mouse and ran to the toilet.

“Wait for me to relieve myself first, and then I’ll come back and form a team with them to brush up dungeons.”

He wanted to fight side by side with them, but the master player in the computer actually scolded him. 

[Fat and Chubby]: “Wang Fuliang, what the hell is going on with you?*”

[TN: Wang Fuliang (sound familiar?) is the name of the guy who’s account Tian Dian is using, also the guy that sold the computer to Li Ting, his username is ‘Big snake King 009, keep in mind. And this ‘Fat and chubby’ must be a friend of original acc owner.]

When they pulled the player [Big Snake King 009] into the team, Li Ting saw that besides [Fat and Chubby], there was another person called [Qian Kun Tian Di] and one called [A Lemon]. Because he’d been pulled into their the private channel, they did not continue to fight monsters for the time being, but instead chatted among themselves:

[Fat and Chubby]: “Let me tell you, yesterday when I went to the dormitory, guess what I saw?”

[Qian Kun Tian Di]: “What?”     

[Fat and Chubby] : “The dormitory guard’s place was full of fucking chocolates collected on behalf of our dormitory. They were all delivered two days ago. On that terrible holiday!!!!”     

[Qian Kun Tian Di] swiped a row of laughing emojis: “Hahahahahahaha.”     

While the other one was speechless: “It’s like this every year, when on earth can they understand that the ace doesn’t live here?!!!”     

[Qian Kun Tian Di]: “Even if they knew, there is no other place to send their gifts other than here, as for the research institute, they can’t get in.”

[Fat and Chubby]]: @Ace either back off, or quickly settle down to let your brothers get rid of the bitter sea of ​​envy, jealousy and hatred as soon as possible.”

[Fat and Chubby]: @Ace, I say, why not have an online relationship, there are many beauties in our guild, how about the vice president? She seems like a beauty from the photo, or I can hook you up with a new player to have a master-disciple relationship, enjoy the feeling of going back in time.”

Once he began, the rest of the people babbled and talked for a long time, but [Fat and Chubby] found that Wang Fuliang, who had always cooperated with him, didn’t voice his agreement with him this time, so he couldn’t help getting excited.

[Fat and Chubby] : “@[Big Snake King 009】Where are you man? Let’s find a suitable person for the ace.”

[Fat and Chubby]: “@[Big Snake King 009】Where is this guy? Come and find a suitable partner for the ace.”

[Fat and Chubby] : “Where is @[Big Snake King 009]? Let’s find someone for the ace.” 

“…” Li Ting had been eating slowly and watching them talk nonsense, indifferent to being called or scolded, until Fatty finally started spamming the screen.

When he saw the words zooming by, he slowly put down his chopsticks.

Then moved the mouse, and directed the character inside to walk forward slowly.

Soon after, [Fat and Chubby] received a notification.

[You were attacked by a bomb from the player [Big Snake King 009], and you have died.] 

[Fat and Chubby]: “……..”

[Qian Kun Tian Di]: “………”

Fang Huaining, who’d gone to pour a glass of water on the other side, saw the mobile phone message flashing as soon as he came back.

Fatty Zhao: “Huaining, I think Wang Fuliang’s game account has probably been stolen. He didn’t answer my call just now, so hurry up and check.”

Fang Huaining casually entered Wang Fuliang’s log in informations while drinking water. This game account had been registered together by the others to make it easier for everyone to help with leveling when it was inconvenient otherwise.

Sure enough, it showed that there have been logins from a strange IP adress recently, as well as prompts to please pay attention to account security.

However, as Fang Huaining looked at that IP address, the longer he looked at it, the more familiar it seemed…

Fatty, Fatty Zhao and [Fat and Chubby] are all the same person. I don’t know if this was confusing, srry.