Tong Yao was still in shock when she exited the Forum. She opened Xiao Rui's WeChat, preparing to type: "Did you actually stand up for justice? How rare—you finally did something a Club Manager should do." She had just finished typing the first half when, before she could even add a comma, her room door suddenly rattled with urgent knocking!
Her hand jerked, sending the half-finished message.
Putting her phone down, she called out, "Who is it?" Her voice came out hoarse, and only then did she seem to remember something. Guiltily flustered, she tossed her phone aside and scrambled off the bed, bare feet hitting the floor as she rushed to the mirror. Staring back at her were eyes red as a rabbit's and swollen like peaches—utterly beyond saving. She sighed and lightly patted her cheeks.
"...Just say I ate something weird and had an allergic reaction," she muttered to her reflection, forcing a calm expression. Clearing her throat, she called out again as the knocking persisted, "Coming!" She walked over and cracked the door open—only for the hallway light to be completely blocked by the tall figure standing outside. She froze for a second, internally cursing, realizing instantly that any excuse about "food allergies" would never fool this person—and without hesitation, she tried to slam the door shut!
But the motion was only half-complete.
The person outside had already wedged a hand against the door, stopping her. Remembering his hand injury, Tong Yao didn’t dare struggle too hard. She took a step back, squinting slightly, hoping the dim lighting in her room would obscure her face. Feigning nonchalance, she asked, "...What are you doing here?"
Lu Sicheng cut straight to the point: "Why were you crying?"
Tong Yao: "..."
Well, this was fucking awkward.
The words "I wasn't crying" had barely left her lips when the man stepped forward, tilting her chin up with one hand while pulling her under the only lit lamp in the room—
His thumb, warm and slightly rough, brushed over her swollen eyelids.
"Why were you crying?" he repeated.
He studied her face intently, expression unreadable. Tong Yao squirmed under his gaze, the earlier frustration bubbling up again. Frowning, she tried to twist away, reaching to pry his hand off. They wrestled briefly until Lu Sicheng muttered, "Easy. My hand hurts." Defeated, she stopped resisting.
"..." She exhaled, still tilted upward. "I wasn’t crying."
"Then was it a ghost wailing or a wolf howling I heard from the bathroom?" Lu Sicheng’s tone was flat. "Or did you think the walls here are soundproof? Next time you want to lie, don’t cry in the shower. Bury yourself under the blankets—you could sob until you pass out and I wouldn’t hear a thing."
Tong Yao: "..."
Lu Sicheng: "Don’t make me ask a third time."
Tong Yao nodded. "I didn’t wrap my wound properly before showering. Shampoo and water got in, and it hurt. So I cried."Hearing this, Lu Sicheng glanced at her—through that glance, Tong Yao knew that despite her earnest expression, he didn’t believe a word of her nonsense. Yet, he didn’t call her out. Instead, he released her head, lowered his gaze, and grabbed her hand to inspect it. The bandage was indeed soaked, and the wrapping above was likely clumsily done by her, bundled up like a mummy.
"Did you wrap this yourself?"
"Mm."
"Clumsy."
"..."
"Why didn’t you ask me for help?"
"...You were busy with matches, scrims, reviewing game footage..."
A whole list of examples, summarized in one word: "busy." Tong Yao’s soft reply might not have been an answer Lu Sicheng found acceptable, but fortunately, he didn’t press further. Instead, he held her hand and didn’t let go, asking where the medicine box was. Following her directions, he led her to fetch it, then brought her back to the bed, where they both sat down side by side.
Lu Sicheng lowered his head, quietly and meticulously unwrapping the bandage from Tong Yao’s hand. The wound had turned pale from soaking in water, and Tong Yao turned her face away, unwilling to look—only frowning slightly and gritting her teeth when he disinfected it again.
"Stop clenching your teeth."
"?" The sudden imperative made Tong Yao pause. She turned her head, giving him a puzzled look.
"Same hand injury, weren’t you crying happily just now?" The man holding her wrist remarked flatly. "Why turn into 'Tong the Strong' in front of me?"
"..." Tong Yao ground her molars, her face flushing and eyes reddening from his teasing—or was it mocking?—question. "I’ve cried enough, okay? Did you come here just to watch me cry? You barely spoke to me these past few days—I didn’t even know if you cared whether I lived or died. But the moment you heard me crying, you came running over. Here to watch a show? Did you even pay for the ticket—"
"I came because I was worried about you."
Tong Yao’s voice cut off abruptly.
"If you don’t want me here, either stop crying or poke my ears deaf." Lu Sicheng kept his eyes down. "Bandage."
Dazed, Tong Yao handed him the bandage.
She watched as he took it, his nimble fingers deftly winding the bandage around her hand. The room was so quiet she could hear the faint rustling of the gauze. Staring at his neatly trimmed, slender fingers, she found herself mesmerized—
Did Lu Sicheng even have any flaws?
Yes. He was proud, arrogant, sharp-tongued, habitually expressionless, and had too many schemes to count. When in a good mood, he’d tease his teammates; when in a bad mood, he was a nightmare. Occasionally sloppy—if he wasn’t competing or streaming, he wouldn’t shave or comb his hair, sitting around gaming all day in disarray. His wardrobe was full of expensive clothes, yet he loved borrowing Little Fatty’s cheap, 39-yuan Taobao shirts. Sometimes he forgot to eat; other times, he forgot he’d already eaten and would pick up his chopsticks to force down another meal...
But this Lu Sicheng was the King of LPL, a god in the eyes of his fans.
Three years as a pro player, from LCK to LPL, without a single scandal.
—So what did Tong Yao do at this moment?She embraced his pride, called out his arrogance, often danced around him just to bring a smile to his handsome face, willingly fell into his schemes without complaint. When he was in a good mood, she'd tell him to stop teasing their teammates; when he was in a bad mood, she'd charge into towers like eSports Huang Jiguang, blocking bullets for him. She watched him shave and comb his hair, told him not to steal Little Fatty's clothes, made sure he ate on time, and snatched his chopsticks when he ate too much...
She thought this was good for him.
But she didn’t know what happened.
Really didn’t know what happened—
Suddenly, all sorts of gossip and negative news about him began to surface. They called him a Team Tyrant, said he was too arrogant, mocked him for acting like a god when he hadn’t even won a World Championship yet, ridiculed his fans as if they were some cult, questioned his emotional instability during matches, accused him of disrespecting his fans, doubted his skills, his macro play—whether they were truly as great as people believed...
And every time, it seemed to start because of something she did.
The showgirl incident, the Xu Tailun incident, the apologies, the fan threat letters, the shift in team strategy that forced him to double his time reviewing matches just to sharpen his reaction speed and analytical skills...
—It was as if she had dragged him down from his pedestal.
"..."
When this thought pierced her heart like a thorn, Tong Yao shuddered involuntarily, as if stung. The man gently holding her hand seemed to notice. He raised a brow and glanced at her, murmuring softly, thinking he might have hurt her: "Bear with it, almost done. You can cry after I finish wrapping it."
"..."
She couldn’t bear it anymore.
She’d rather he yelled at her for meddling; she’d rather he scolded her for being a busybody; she’d even rather he punished her by benching her for a few matches to clear her head—why hadn’t he said a single word all this time?
Letting the doubts fester, letting the fans attack him, letting the live comments in his stream fill with merciless mockery... letting her stand behind him, staring helplessly while he ignored her, leaving her hanging there. Even when she got angry and hurled sharp questions at him, he just responded with that infuriating "Sure, sure, whatever you say" attitude—
She was a living, breathing person, not thin air.
Tong Yao’s mind was a mess, suddenly malfunctioning. She stared blankly at the man quietly bandaging her wound, a creeping unease and coldness—born from blurring too many fantasies with reality—taking hold of her. The icy, drowning sensation from the night before surged back.
Out of nowhere, Tong Yao blurted, "Cheng Ge, are we breaking up?"
The moment the words left her mouth, she saw the hands wrapping her bandages freeze.
She blinked, and three seconds later, realized what she had just said—her face instantly paled. She jerked her head up, meeting a pair of deep, unfathomable brown eyes.
Lu Sicheng just looked at her.
Tong Yao shifted uncomfortably.
Lu Sicheng let go of her hand.
Her heart plummeted.
"You want to break up with me?"
The man’s voice was low, magnetic, but devoid of any discernible emotion—Yet it was precisely this voice that sent a faint tremor through Tong Yao's heart... She lowered her head in confusion, not daring to meet his gaze—she was terrified that with just one look, her previous uneasy suspicions would become reality; terrified that with just one glance, he would curl his lips and say "Alright" in that characteristically nonchalant tone of his...
Tong Yao bowed her head deeply.
She decided she would never look up again in this lifetime.
Having secretly made this resolution, she heard the man's calm and composed voice break through the dead silence above her: "Just because I wasn't good enough and made you cry, you want to break up with me?"
"..."
Huh?
Tong Yao looked up in utter bewilderment, lips parting as she sniffled—those eyes that had been forcibly composed through countless mental preparations were now redder than a rabbit's, laying bare all her unease and fear on her face.
In the end, she still found herself gazing into those deep brown eyes she'd sworn just moments ago never to meet again. Surprisingly, what she saw in them wasn't what she'd imagined...
Nonchalance?
"I won't allow it."
"..."
"Don't even think about it."
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