“You didn’t manage to get time off?”
“Yeah, so I quit.”
“You quit?”
“I quit.”
“Okay, then I’m gonna go buy our plane tickets.”
“Could your reaction be any more impassive……”
“Xu Wang.”
“What?!”
“I want to raise you, but I don’t have enough money right now so I can’t suggest it so easily—”
“Go away.”
He ended the call, disgruntled. Xu Wang already regretted that the first thing he did after depositing the cash into his bank account was to call and notify the other man about the fact that he’d quit his job.
No, what he regretted most was that spontaneous clusterfuck of a confession he’d given right after entering Owl the first time. It was a good thing Wu Sheng didn’t believe it had been genuine, but just because he didn’t take it for a real confession didn’t mean that he wouldn’t use it someday to mock Xu Wang—he’d certainly given Wu Sheng enough to use against him for a lifetime!
By the time he got home, head down and sulking, it was 11 AM. To his surprise, the aroma of tea greeted him as he swung open the door.
Kuang Jinxin was seated in the centre of the living room across the coffee table from Wu Sheng, the two of them idly tasting teas, making for a very zen scene.
“Brother Xu, you’re back!” Kuang Jinxin called out when he saw Xu Wang. “Come and have some tea. No matter what troubles I come across, my heart is mollified as soon as I have tea. Come and try.”
Xu Wang knew Kuang Jinxin was a professional tea scholar and always heard him talking about tea, but this was his first time seeing him making and drinking tea. Curiousity peaked, he went over, accepted a tea cup, and took a light sip.
Kuang Jinxin sat waiting for Xu Wang’s review, eyes filled with anticipation.
The aromatic flavour of the tea seemed to wash away all the frustrations in Xu Wang’s heart. Without realising it, he smiled. “Delicious.” He was no tea expert and couldn’t spew any professional jargon, but he could still tell good tea from bad tea.
Kuang Jinxin let out a chuckle. Satisfaction gathered in his open, honest eyes.
Xu Wang was struck by a sudden envy of the boy. It was an incredible fortune to spend your life putting energy into something you loved.
“I bought all the plane tickets,” Wu Sheng put his tea cup down and updated Xu Wang on the latest. “The flight’s at 5 PM.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
We Qjcu vlvc’a fzqfma tlw ab tjnf wbnfv rb delmxis. “Kb Teilc?”
“Tfq,” rjlv Qe Vtfcu, “Tesjcu Clgqbga.”
Qlat j cbv, We Qjcu vbkcfv atf gfra bo atf afj lc tlr meq jcv kfca ab tlr yfvgbbw ab qjmx.
Wu Sheng had just a double-strapped laptop bag; he packed so lightly that he looked like he was just heading off to work in Zhongguancun. In contrast, Kuang Jinxin had a hiking bag that was as tall as half a person, and it was so heavy that it was like he was going on the run. Xu Wang was neither as minimal as Wu Sheng nor as maximalist as Kuang Jinxin; in the end, he packed a slightly large shoulder-strap duffel bag.
Lf kjr pera jybea olclrtfv qjmxlcu ktfc Qe Vtfcu jqqfjgfv ja tlr yfvgbbw vbbg. “Glv sbe ufa atf gfra bo sbeg rjijgs?” tf jrxfv jyrfca-wlcvfvis.
Xu Wang replied without thinking. “Yes, every cent.”
Wu Sheng nodded and left, just like that.
For a second Xu Wang was confused. After a few beats, however, he decided that only “Wu Sheng still has a conscience after all, to ask if he’d at least taken all the money he deserved for his hard work” sufficed as an explanation. But when Wu Sheng’s emotionless face resurfaced in his mind, Xu Wang thought he might be overthinking things.
***
After packing his bag, the three of them ate a simple lunch and headed off for Nanyuan Airport.
Just before evening fell, their flight took off.
Their new destination (109.7395,38.3437) was located right where Wu Sheng had said it would be—in the north of Xiabei, or more specifically, four kilometres north of Yulin City: Zhenbeitai.
Not a rural land that no one had ever heard of, but rather, one of the most glorious sites of the Great Wall, along with Jiayuguan and Shanhaiguan. Also known as the “First Tower of the Great Wall.”
If these were regular times, Xu Wang would have fantasised about such a trip for days, but after three consecutive nights of torturous adventuring, he only hoped that they could put an end to their nightly travels so he could clutch his pillow and sleep until the end of time.
Which was what he did as soon as he got on the plane. Kuang Jinxin joined him in dreamland as well.
Wu Sheng wanted to sleep, but a certain someone’s heavy head was pressed down on his shoulder and he didn’t want to disrupt his dreaming. He was still vacillating between whether to move his shoulder or to shake the person awake when the plane suddenly started shaking.
Turbulence during flight was normal; Wu Sheng was used to it. Not to mention, the plane quickly steadied after a while.
However, the shaking had jolted Xu Wang awake. He lifted his head up sleepily and asked, “What? Is it midnight?”
“Far from it, go back to sleep.”
Xu Wang was very noticeably only half-awake. As soon as he heard it wasn’t midnight yet, his head fell sideways onto Wu Sheng’s shoulder again and he continued snoozing.
He moved so intuitively that Wu Sheng was stunned. After a while, Wu Sheng shut his eyes as well, and as he pretended to be asleep, he let his head fall gently on Xu Wang’s head.
You squish my shoulder, I squish your head. With that thought, Wu Sheng, who finally felt he wasn’t getting the short end of the stick, drifted off into sleep.
The plane arrived at Youyang Airport at 6:30 PM sharp. Instead of going into Yulin’s city centre, the three of them took a taxi and headed straight to Beiyuemiao Village, which was closest to Zhenbeitai. As a national scenic site, Zhenbeitai doesn’t open at night. They really wanted to sneak in and wait right at the exact coordinates, but even if it was a nice thought, none of them possessed the courage. If they were to get caught by security guards before they even found the coordinates, it would become another problem on their hands.
It was already dusk by the time they got off from the taxi. Their phones displayed temperatures similar to that in Beijing, but the wind was significantly cooler, with a roughness characteristic of the Northwest.
This place was a typical northern village in the midst of development. On either side of the wide, paved cement road were clusters of buildings both uniform in height and not, in varying stages of antiquity. Cars zipped in and out the streets, and neighbourhood residents chatted in groups here and there.
—
“A double room and a single room?” The hotel’s clerk seemed to have trouble with their request. “We don’t have single rooms.”
Xu Wang, who had considered that this would happen, went to plan b: “Then two standard rooms.” He turned back towards Wu Sheng and Kuang Jinxin. “Is that okay with you?”
Wu Sheng had no complaints, and Kuang Jinxin nodded as well, although he asked, “So… who’s going to room with who?”
Xu Wang rubbed his nose, shifting his eyes unconsciously. “Er, whatever, I guess, I mean it’s all the same, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, whatever. It’s not as if we’re staying long.” Wu Sheng had his head lowered, eyes fixed on his phone screen as if the entire world was in it.
Kuang Jinxin sense that a peculiar mood had descended upon the hotel lobby, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He was still mulling it over when the clerk lady said, “Aiya, you kids. We have a three-bed room!”
Crisis averted, Kuang Jinxin let out a happy cheer: “Hurrah!”
Wu Sheng put his phone back in his pocket and stared silently off into the distance.
Xu Wang accepted the keys the clerk handed him and expressed his heartfelt thanks. “Miss, your hotel sure has all kinds of rooms.”
—
After they settled their bags into the room, they ate a casual dinner, all of them too concerned about the upcoming night to taste any of the food. It was only 8:40 PM when they’d filled their bellies and gone back to the hotel.
Since there was no choice but to wait a few more hours, they set their alarms and decided to catch a few extra hours of shut-eye. What they needed most after the last couple days was sleep. This time they had pillows and a bed, it was much more comfortable than the plane. Even Wu Sheng, who didn’t sleep as easily as either Xu Wang or Kuang Jinxin, fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
Very quickly, snores from all three filled the air as the exhausted teammates took advantage of this rare window of peace to slowly recover the energy they’d lost from the last couple days.
As time ticked by, their dreams got more savoury…..
“This is Mixed Heluo Noodle Soup; pure diced lamb and vegetables in a meat broth. I haven’t tasted it yet, but just the smell is delectable…”
“Holy cow, this soup is amazing!”
Slurp slurp—
“These noodles are impressive too! In Shaanxi dialect, we’d say, ‘liaozalie‘! When I was ordering the noodles, the owner told me their noodles are still made the traditional way, guaranteed!”
“Huh? ‘Too Late For Meat’ asks how I can tell the noodles are made traditionally for sure? How do I know, this is my first time trying them, haha…”
“Next is fried oil cakes, they’re fried a beautiful golden brown, now let’s taste—”
Crunch crunch—
“Shit! I’m losing my mind! Who the hell?!” Xu Wang slapped himself up in bed. In all his twenty-nine years, this was his first time getting “hungered” awake. He looked around and found Mr. Wu in the next bed over was already sitting up in bed, frowning at the sounds drifting through the walls from next door; he looked as if every cell in his body was pissed off.
On the other hand, there was Kuang Jinxin, who was still deep in slumber, completely unaffected by the outside world whatsoever.
“Xiao Kuang’s ability to sleep is like high technology,” Xu Wang remarked enviously. He shot a look at Wu Sheng and asked quietly, “Shall we go?”
Just a simple question, but Wu Sheng understood immediately. “Let’s go.”
For once, they were faced with a common enemy, which prompted the two of them to roll out of bed and out of their room methodically. After shutting the door quietly behind them, they stalked off to the room next door and knocked on the door without hesitation.
The noise within the room stopped all of a sudden, sending silence all the way down the hall. Soon, a cautious voice sounded from inside, asking, “Who is it?”
Xu Wang and Wu Sheng looked at each other, then replied at the same time: “Your neighbours.”
Their answer seemed to make the other party even more vigilant. The sound of a sliding chain lock came from the other side, and the door slowly opened a crack. Half a man’s face appeared in the space. “What is it?”
Even though only half his face was visible, it was easy to see that he was a well-built man with a round, heavy stature. Xu Wang decided to use his words first. “Hello, we’re from next door. We’re exhausted from traveling all day, and it’s now 10:30 PM. Would you mind quieting down with your eating and chatting?”
Xu Wang spoke in a warm tone, and the politeness of his words threw the man at the door off, having not expected such gentleness. After a momentary pause, the man came back to his senses and scratched his head bashfully. “I’m sorry, man, I was too careless earlier. I’ll be quieter from now on!”
Not expecting things to go over so smoothly, Xu Wang burst into a friendly smile. “It’s not easy being away from home, I totally get it, we understand.”
The man nodded vehemently. With the impending storm averted and everyone in all smiles, Wu Sheng, who had been silent up till now, suddenly piped up. “Qian Ai?”
The man at the door froze and scrutinised Wu Sheng for the first time. A second later, his eyes widened. “Class representative?!” he cried out in disbelief.
“Hold on, wait, what’s happening?” Xu Wang was completely lost. His gaze flipped back and forth between Wu Sheng and the man in the room a few times until it finally clicked. He fixed his stare on the man in the doorway. “You’re Money Lover?!”
Their eyes met and suddenly, a sea of memories flashed in the man’s mind, bringing him to shore. “Sports councilor?!”
“…..” Xu Wang realised that in the memory of this former classmate, they all went simply by the name of the roles they’d held on the school committee.
I’m guessing it is not a coincidence that Qian Ai happens to be at the same hotel at the same time. Now the only question is: Future teammate or rival?
thanks for the chapter! <3
Thank you for the chapter 🥰
I wonder, will that other married guy ever be able to leave the game? Do they need a 4 man team to finish?