Not long after Sun Jiang withdrew, the four of them received a new notification.
The three who were still in the team received: <Roster>–<Team is not filled (3/4), would you like to add a member?>
Sun Jiang received: <Roster>–<A lone boat can never reach shore.>
A poetic message, followed up with a cursed outcome. Sun Jiang disappeared.
Xu Wang, Wu Sheng, and Kuang Jinxin witnessed him fading away before their very own eyes, until he was gone completely. The place where he was just sitting was empty, as if he had never existed in the first place.
The air in the cave stiffened, as if suddenly frozen over, sending a chill through everything.
“Is he back in reality or is he…” Kuang Jinxin began, but couldn’t finish his sentence.
Going back to reality was an exoneration, but disappearing completely… that was another kind of vanishing. There were two possibilities, one akin to heaven, the other akin to hell.
A lone boat can never reach shore.
Xu Wang repeated the message that appeared on Sun Jiang’s arm to himself, his heart falling. Nothing about it sounded like a congratulatory message sending a person home.
“He didn’t go back to reality, but he didn’t disappear either,” Wu Sheng said suddenly.
Xu Wang shot him a dubious look. “How do you know?”
“Unlike you, I don’t make wild guesses, I use logic and deductive reasoning.” Wu Sheng shrugged, the composure in his face a sharp contrast to his teammates’ worry.
“Might I ask what you’ve deduced?” Xu Wang rolled his eyes, but nevertheless, he strangely felt some of the anxieties in his chest disperse.
Wu Sheng stopped messing around and answered straight away. “Click on ‘Add Member’.”
Xu Wang was to reluctant to follow his order and moved slowly, but Kuang Jinxin, who’d been listening, did as he suggested immediately. Soon, the same list of names appeared on both of their arms.
1/23 Sun Jiang [Invite]
1/23 An Peng [Invite]
1/23 Bai Haichuan [Invite]
1/23 …..
There were about twenty to thirty names on the list who all seemed to be at the same stage as them with 1/23 tasks submitted. With the exception of Sun Jiang who’d been on their team before, everyone else was listed in alphabetical order according to the letter of their surname.
“All these people are in Owl?” Kuang Jinxin asked in disbelief. “How come we’ve never run into them? And why are they all solo, with no team?”
Relieved upon obtaining confirmation that Sun Jiang was safe, Xu Wang tapped Kuang Jinxin on the head in amusement. “They’re on the backup roster, so it’s expected that they’re all on their own. If people already in teams were listed here, it wouldn’t be called ‘inviting a team member,’ but ‘stealing someone else’s team member.'”
“But whether it’s those with teams or those without, we’ve not run into a single person.”
“Well, the ones who withdrew from teams have probably temporarily vanished like Sun Jiang. As for the other teams…” Xu Wang cocked his head to the side, thinking. A flash of realisation gleamed in his eyes. “It’s probably fate or something, we’ve been just missing each other all this time.”
Kuang Jinxin furrowed his brows, struggling between wanting to believe Xu Wang and not being at all convinced by his explanation. “That’s a pretty big coincidence…”
Wu Sheng couldn’t help slanting his eyes at Xu Wang. “If you don’t know, just say you don’t know. Don’t lead the kid astray with your crazy ideas.”
In the end, the three of them decided not to invite a new team member. Never mind that it was hard to determine how a new teammate would feel about having to travel to Xiabei; even among them, they hadn’t all agreed to go yet.
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.
At five a.m. sharp, the ominous tone that popped up now and again sounded within their ears——
[Owl: Darling~ The sun is up, time to go home.]
***
Ktfs kfgf atgff ktfc atfs ybecmfv yjmx lc gfjilas, yea bcmf atfs uba atfgf, atfs gfjilrfv atfs kfgf obeg.
Vec Aljcu kjr atfgf, ojmf oeii bo defralbcr.
Coafg fzmtjculcu lcobgwjalbc, atf batfg atgff ifjgcfv atja joafg Vec Aljcu vlrjqqfjgfv, tf wjafgljilrfv rbwfktfgf rlwlijg. Ktf rjwf mjnf, atf rjwf lmfojii, fzmfqa tf kjr jibcf. Lf’v ubcf yjmx lcab atf mjnf jcv rja kjlalcu ecali 5.
It was as if a mahjong table with four players had split to two tables, each with the same mahjong tiles, except one table had three players and the other had one. And the two tables were in separate rooms, so none of the players could see each other.
Kuang Jinxin’s earlier question of why they never met any other people in Owl could easily be explained with this mahjong analogy. Everyone probably faced the same bears, the same idiom-guessing game, but separately, in different rooms.
***
What welcomed them upon their return this time was Liuyin Park, which was located less than 400 to 500 metres from Qingnianhu Park. The distance was pretty much equivalent to that between the icefall and the cave in Owl, further proving Wu Sheng’s hunch about the geography of the place.
Sun Jiang waved down a cab and got in without much of a farewell. After he settled into his seat, he simply smiled at them through the window. It looked like he meant to wave at them, but in the end he just gave them a nod. The cab made its way down the road, disappearing into the darkness of the not-yet lit dawn at the end of the street.
The other three stood beneath a lamp in the park, temporarily at a loss for words. Cold wind swirled around them.
A large leaf traveled in the gusts of wind and landed on the back of Xu Wang’s head. Without knowing what it was, Xu Wang raised a hand instinctively and swatted it away. The dry, brittle leaf shattered with a crunch.
Xu Wang picked the leaf bits out of his hair in frustration. “Never mind, let’s stop standing around like idiots and go home.”
By “home”, he meant his home. He hadn’t intended his words to sound so intimate or familiar, but that was what the other two men gleamed from them, and it was strange how that little bit of casual intimacy felt like a warm breeze in the chilly dawn morning.
The same old living room, the same old couch, the same old chair.
The second Kuang Jinxin plopped down, he shouted out of the blue, “Xu, I’ve decided, I’m going to Xiabei with you!”
His sudden exclamation nearly made Xu Wang fall out of the chair. He shot a look at Wu Sheng, and found that the way Wu Sheng glared at Kuang Jinxin wasn’t any less startled than himself.
“Are you sure?” Wu Sheng asked him, as methodical as ever.
Kuang Jinxin looked at him with steady eyes and nodded without hesitation. “I’m sure. I can’t focus on my internship without figuring out what’s going on first. No wait, I should say that with something like this hanging in the air, I don’t have the mind to focus on anything else at all.”
Wu Sheng was unmoved. “What about your internship evaluation?”
Silently, Xu Wang agreed with him. Young people have a tendency to be hot-blooded but the two of them were adults and even if they couldn’t be a positive influence, they could at least make sure not to lead the kid down the wrong path. No matter whose kid it was, it was still committing a sin.
Kuang Jinxin clearly hadn’t anticipated that Wu Sheng would consider things so meticulously so he was speechless for a moment. Eventually, he scratched his head in embarrassment. “You don’t have to worry about that. Actually…erm…oh, I’ll just tell you guys the truth. The proprietor of the tea house is a distance relative of mine. If we’re to be specific, he has to call me Little Uncle.”
This unexpected character relation development left both Wu Sheng and Xu Wang stunned.
“The truth is, after I graduate, I’ll be going home to manage the family business so I don’t need to look for work. And our school doesn’t require an internship to graduate. But I have no classes left for my last year of college, and all my classmates are either off working or taking exams for grad school. Everyone is working hard. I didn’t want to have nothing to do all day long so I called home and asked if they could find me a job that I could burn my time with and get a feel for real society, and so my Second Uncle and Aunt found this internship position for me…”
Mr. “Beneficent of Nepotism” Kuang Jinxin’s voice and head dropped lower and lower as he spoke.
In actuality, what surprised Xu Wang more was that when Kuang Jinxin said he’d called “home,” it was his Second Uncle and Aunt that picked up the phone.
“Xu!” Kuang Jinxin’s sharp, clear voice interrupted Xu Wang’s train of thought. The boy was looking up again with the resolve and naivety of someone young. “I’m going with you!” He repeated.
“Okay.” This time Wu Sheng didn’t hesitate. With Kuang Jinxin’s addition to the troop, he then turned to Xu Wang. “You?”
Xu Wang looked away, turning towards the window, where the stars were still visible outside.
Wu Sheng side-stepped the coffee table and stood in the direction of Xu Wang’s gaze, blocking his sight. “Why aren’t you saying anything?”
Left with no other choice but to stare the handsome face in front of him head-on, Xu Wang replied slowly, biting his words like someone with difficulty speaking, “I’m thinking.”
“What is there to think about?” Wu Sheng practically spat out. “You don’t need an internship, you don’t have a family to raise.”
“Oh, so single people don’t need respect?”
“What does this have to do with respect?” Wu Sheng had no idea what Xu Wang was getting at. “Being single means you have less burdens, we’re the same. This is what you call, ‘singles with no house or car can leave at the drop of a hat.'”
“…Do they all speak Chinese in America?”
“What?”
“Because you’re just full of witty remarks, aren’t you?!”
Acting presumptuous was the second shitty thing about Wu Sheng, besides his proclivity for pretentiousness; back in the day, many a fellow classmate of theirs had been tormented by him. If one were to speak kindly of this type of character, they would say it was someone who would suggest, “I think we should all think like this,” but in essence, that was the same as, “How can you possibly think differently from me, you’re weird.”
Even thought most of the time, Wu Sheng’s thinking was proven right and his solutions always best, his overly simplistic and logistical thinking made people want to beat him up. If one could just view things from a *slightly different perspective, they would possess the skill of circumvention when speaking.
Outside the window, the moon disappeared and the sun slipped over the horizon, gradually brightening the sky.
Kuang Jinxin looked at the “inevitably right” Wu Sheng, and then at the “deeply thinking” Xu Wang, and at last concluded that it was a lot better to just be a spectator on the sidelines.
Xu Wang, however, had stopped paying attention to him. His decision would be made depending on a number of factors, and he was in the process of calculating them.
To go or not to go?
Work: 5 points.
Safety: 3 points.
Expenses (Financial): 1 point.
Wu Sheng… He shot the bastard a swift glance.
91 points. Shit!
And so he came to a decision in his heart, but he still spoke reluctantly: “I’ll try and ask for leave.” He raised an eyebrow at Wu Sheng and added, “Don’t get your hopes up.”
Wu Sheng had an “I, the sovereign, am not satisfied” look on his face: “You’re just not determined enough, if you can’t get leave, just quit— Oi, watch it!”
A swift kick to the “sovereign” drew the conversation to a momentary halt.
***
In the end, the vanished fruit knife was discovered on the floor next to Xu Wang’s bed.
Kuang Jinxin had already left by then. Wu Sheng sat in the living room, laptop in hand, checking on the exact location of their new coordinates, while Xu Wang went into his bedroom to change into his office suit. As he was putting on his tie, he lowered his head and there the knife was, front and centre in his view.
Wu Sheng, finally permitted into the bedroom, took the knife from Xu Wang and fiddled with it for a while. “Maybe it didn’t fall out,” he deduced. “If you’re sure you put it in your pocket, maybe Owl doesn’t let us bring deadly weapons inside.”
Xu Wang said nothing, although his silence was agreement. With the issue of the knife resolved, he got back to his tie, then looked back up at Wu Sheng, and swung his door wide open. His meaning was clear.
Wu Sheng regarded him quietly for a moment and then miraculously turned around and walked out.
He was just starting to wonder what brought on this sudden bout of obedience when the other man suddenly poked his head back into the room. “You look nice in a suit.”
He stood still for a long time. Until finally, like a fool, he said, “Oh.”
It wasn’t until Xu Wang had gotten on the metro that he came back to his senses. He sighed. What was the point of Wu Sheng’s flirtation if he wasn’t even going to marry him?
When Xu Wang go to work, it was time to approach the matter of the “Trip to Xiabei”——
“Leave? Again?” His manager’s face clouded. “You’re quite busy, aren’t you?”
Xu Wang lowered his gaze, acting as demurely as possible.
The manager managed to suppress his anger until he saw the number of days listed on the leave request slip. His face darkened until it resembled the bottom of a cooking pan and he hollered so loudly that his voice echoed throughout the sales lobby. “One week?! You might as well just quit—”
Xu Wang glanced up and gave a little nod. “Okay, I quit. Please pay out the rest of my month’s salary.”
The manager froze. This was definitely not what he’d expected at all.
Without another word, Xu Wang swirled around and went straight to Accounting to get his money. But after speaking with them, what was on his payment slip was only 1,900 yuan.
“Employees are required to give one month’s notice before resigning, and those who don’t do not receive sales bonuses in their payout. Your base pay is 3,000. After deducting your days off and the insurance that the company already paid on your behalf, this is what remains.” The accountant’s voice was amicable and pleasant, evidently trained to deal with such interactions.
Xu Wang stared at her and then burst into a smile. “I change my mind, I’m not quitting,” he said in an exceedingly warm tone.
The office was filled with employees who’d caught scent of something out of the ordinary and were talking amongst themselves when they saw Xu Wang exit the Accounting room with empty hands. But he didn’t leave. Instead, he stationed himself back in the main lobby as usual, ignoring the questioning looks sent his way.
A few minutes later, the manager’s door flew open and a frantic employee came bursting through. “Manager, you should go take a look!”
In the main lobby, the primly-dressed Xu Wang was currently in the process of introducing a client to a listing—
“This is really an amazing choice. Its structure is a three room one living room, but we remodeled it into a four room two living room floor plan. The rooms are pretty tiny and there’s not a lot of room to walk around, but you can just squeeze yourself in there. Most importantly, it’s practical. Look at this living room, there’s no way for the sun to shine in, whether it’s summertime sun or sunset sun, no need to fear. It’s guaranteed shade…”
All charming smiles and with a voice that run out brightly, his entire being emitted a magnetic vibe that made it so even the nearby sales representatives and their clients couldn’t help being drawn by him, turning an ear towards his speech.
“Greenery? Oh, don’t worry about that, this community is only filled with dead grass. The nearest bus stop is a half hour walk away. You can plant anything you want and reap the benefits. Extracurricular facilities? They’ll definitely be added in the future, I guarantee you, at least 3, 5, 7, 8 years from now or so…”
“Xu Wang,” bit the manager under his breath, “get. over. here. right. now.”
The floor-to-ceiling door shut and the blinds rolled down.
The manager cut straight to the chase: “You’re fired.”
Xu Wang nodded amicably. “I won’t take a cent that I’m not warranted, but I’ll take what I’m owed down to the last cent.”
The manager smiled coolly. “Either you get out, or I have security escort you out.”
“Okay.” Xu Wang returned the smile, warm and welcoming. “You toss me out, and I’ll report you to the labour department for unjustified dismissal, which is in violation of the Labour Law. And let me remind you, when it comes to employees reporting their companies, it’s not about who has the upper hand, but who causes more drama. I’ll report you tomorrow and the very next day, I’ll be standing outside the building with a protest sign. What would you like it to say? ‘Pay me back for my blood, sweat, and tears’ or ‘Corrupt real estate developer uses inferior building materials, leaving suffering homeowners with no protective rights?'”
The manager was so livid that he was shaking, his face red and bloated like a pig’s liver, and not a word came out of him.
Vibrant sunlight shone down from up above in the crisp autumn air. Xu Wang walked off to the nearest ATM, 29k cash in hand, and put the money in his savings.
As he walked out of the self-service bank, he spread his arms out wide and stretched languidly like a cat, as if to say goodbye to the fatigue of the past and to welcome the ambiguity of the future.
COME ONNNN JUST KISS
THERE WAS CONFESSION NO WAY HAD ANYONE BELIEVED IT WAS AN EXTRAORDINARY GREETING WHERE’S MY DOG FOOD WOOF WOOF
thanks for the chapter <3
Thank you for the chapter!
Thanks for the chapter<3
Damn! What a way to quit XD
Amazing 😅
Thank you for the chapter 💛💛💛
I guess the game doesn’t care, but really, how are these guys supposed to live IRL? If Xu Wang didn’t have his commission but was forced to quit his job…
You really do have to be that outspoken and speak up for yourself or else the world would walk all over you.