The next day at noon, Little Fatty, who was crouched in front of his computer slurping instant noodles, heard the sound of someone clattering down the stairs. With a noodle dangling from his mouth, he looked up and first caught sight of the absolute territory between a fluttering short skirt and knee-high socks... The noodle snapped and fell back into his bowl as he asked, "What are you up to?"
Tong Yao, wearing slippers, squatted in front of the shoe cabinet, hugging her knees as she earnestly searched for the shoes she wanted to wear. After rummaging around, she pulled out a shoebox. Opening it, she saw a pair of shoes she'd never seen before, yet they were exactly her size. She glanced up—this was indeed her shoe cabinet... Blinking, she asked, "Since when did these shoes exist?"
"The shared owner of you and the Mid Laner from the neighboring team stuffed them in last time she was here. She said she had the same pair... Where are you going?"
Tong Yao opened the shoebox and pulled out a pair of black leather shoes with a slight heel, adorned with pearls, the brand's metal logo, and signature red-and-green striped fabric on the uppers... She set the box aside, slipped her feet into the shoes to try them on—they fit perfectly. Glancing at Little Fatty, she said, "Going out to buy some stuff."
Little Fatty, holding his noodle bowl, let out an "Oh," then added, "Your lipstick's a bit red."
Tong Yao muttered, "Really?" and frantically searched for a tissue to wipe her mouth... Just then, the sound of a door opening and closing came from upstairs. Little Fatty looked up again—this time, it was their AD. His outfit was simple, thanks to the summer heat limiting the fashion choices of these stylish men. But that didn’t stop Lu Sicheng from looking more handsome than 95% of the male population just by dressing slightly more carefully, shaving, and washing his hair...
The remaining 5% accounted for the possibility of running into Andy Lau, Takeshi Kaneshiro, or Masahiro Motoki on the street.
Little Fatty: "Captain, captain, where are you off to now?"
The man descending the stairs paused halfway, hands in his pockets, and glanced at the person already standing by the shoe cabinet changing shoes—Tong Yao hesitated for a moment before calmly saying, "I’m going shopping."
Lu Sicheng turned to Little Fatty: "I’m going with her to buy stuff."
Before Little Fatty could respond, Lu Yue walked out of the kitchen holding a bowl of noodles. Passing by them, his gaze swept over Tong Yao and then Lu Sicheng before he plopped down in Lu Sicheng’s seat next to Little Fatty. Opening the game and inviting Little Fatty to duo queue, he said with an air of someone who had just uncovered the truth: "Why do you two always dress like you’re heading to the civil affairs bureau every time you go out alone together?"
Lu Sicheng: "I always look like this."
Tong Yao: "Me too—"
Lu Yue: "Don’t even start with 'me too.' The last time I saw you in a skirt was when you went to the flower and fish market with my brother to buy a goldfish. There wasn’t even a time before that."
Tong Yao: "……………………So what if a country girl dresses up to go out?!"
Ignoring her, Lu Yue poked at his noodles: "So when did you two get together?"
The shoebox slipped from Tong Yao’s hands and hit the floor.
Lu Sicheng raised an eyebrow.
Little Fatty choked on a mouthful of hot noodle broth, coughing and turning red as he gasped, "I’ve been cuckolded?! After all the effort I put into raising my AD, he abandons me to TP (*Summoner spell: Teleport to any visible location on the map) to the Mid Laner?!"
Lu Yue looked up expressionlessly: "I was joking."Tong Yao: “……”
Lu Yue: “I refuse to witness the tragic fate of my brother’s future son being mocked his whole life for being as short as his mother at only 1.5 meters.”
Suppressing the urge to throw her shoe at that face slightly resembling Lu Sicheng’s, Tong Yao snapped, “Shut up.”
Ignoring Lu Yue, Lu Sicheng pulled her out the door. Tong Yao kept glancing back until they reached the parking garage. Even after he buckled her securely into the passenger seat, she indignantly slapped her thigh: “Lu Sicheng, why didn’t you refute him? Did you suddenly think he made sense? Ugh, so mad! Your perfect Lu family genes are about to be tainted by my inferior 1.5-meter genes—”
“Go ahead and taint them then.”
“……”
Starting the car and backing out, Lu Sicheng said, “He was teasing you. My mom—his mom—is about your height. Have you seen either of us brothers at 1.5 meters?”
Clutching the seatbelt with a dark expression, Tong Yao stayed silent.
The man patted her head with his large hand. “Our son will grow tall if he plays more basketball. Don’t worry.”
“……………………………………” It took Tong Yao three seconds to realize what was wrong with his statement. “Wh-who has a ‘our son’ with you?!”
“If it’s a daughter, being like you is fine. Then we can just trick some tall boy from another family—perfect.” Driving out of the complex, Lu Sicheng paused before adding seriously, “Honestly, I prefer daughters. Boys are too rowdy.”
Tong Yao covered her flushed face with both hands with a slap.
“……You shut up too.”
“Can’t I even fantasize?”
“No. Fantasize about normal things.”
“Hmm.”
“You sound like you’re laughing.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“Just reflecting.”
“Reflecting on what?” Tong Yao lowered her hands.
“Where did I pick up such an adorable little thing like you? If you were a pair of underwear, you’d be blue and white striped.”
“…………………………………………” Tong Yao’s face cycled from red to pale and back to red. Over a dozen seconds later, she stared dead ahead. “Captain, see that huge Maokai by the roadside up ahead?”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“Ram into it. I want us to perish together.”
“……”
……
For the rest of the ride, no matter how Lu Sicheng tried to make conversation, Tong Yao remained silent. Only after parking at the mall did she finally speak up: “Captain, your persona is crumbling badly.”
Lu Sicheng remained unruffled. “How so?”
“The Chessman in my memory is steady, composed, cool, sharp, and wise.” Unbuckling, Tong Yao turned and hopped out of the car—her legs too short to step down properly—then shut the door, popping up halfway from the other side. “Turns out you’re just a shameless old slickster, a total rogue. I’m devastated.”
Lu Sicheng also got out, slamming his door shut. “Too many delusions,” he stated succinctly.
Tong Yao: “……”
To avoid fan ganks, they chose a relatively remote mall rather than a downtown one. Walking shoulder-to-shoulder out of the parking lot, Lu Sicheng reached for Tong Yao’s hand, but she dodged as if anticipating it.
Lu Sicheng sighed. “Be reasonable.”Tong Yao: "...What are you talking about?"
Lu Sicheng: "When we first met, I thought you were some crazy fan trying to gank the team headquarters. I slammed the door in your face—what were you thinking at that moment?"
Tong Yao thought for a moment, glanced sideways at the person beside her, and seeing his genuinely inquisitive expression that didn’t seem like a setup, she answered: "'What a damn idiot.'"
Lu Sicheng nodded after hearing this: "At this point, I’m already far from the kind of person you imagined."
"An idiot isn’t the same as a jerk."
"I’m a gentleman in front of other girls."
"Huh?"
"Isn’t that good?" Seizing the moment when the person beside him was still staring at him blankly, Lu Sicheng grabbed her hand and pulled her close. "You alone can freely enjoy my inner persona."
"……………………"
When her hand was firmly enveloped in his larger one, unfortunately, her mind also became muddled—though she couldn’t quite grasp the joy of this "exclusive and unrestrained enjoyment," Tong Yao reluctantly accepted the explanation: about the captain who had once earnestly taught her the survival rules and principles of the professional gaming scene, and his blue-and-white striped underwear.
Tong Yao faintly felt she’d been tricked by sophistry again.
But by the time she wanted to continue debating the matter, they had already moved on to the next topic—the two stopped in front of a claw machine. Lu Sicheng glanced at it: "Remember this?"
Tong Yao looked at the lop-eared rabbit inside the machine. Though the carrot-holding version was no longer there, she’d recognize that same face even if it were turned to ashes, so she nodded.
At that moment, a group of girls crowded around the machine, hopping excitedly and pointing at it—this one’s so cute, that one’s adorable too—but their clumsy attempts yielded nothing.
"Ahhh, you’re so bad at this!"
"It fell again."
"I give up. I’m done. The money I’ve spent here could buy a bunch of the same ones on Taobao. I’ll buy ten and come back to pose in front of this machine just to mock it."
One of the girls, unable to take it anymore, pulled out her phone and started searching on Taobao. As the group dispersed slightly, Tong Yao was dragged forward by Lu Sicheng. When the grumbling girls looked up and saw the drop-dead handsome guy suddenly appear, they fell silent. Unfazed, he simply asked the person whose hand he was firmly holding, "Which one do you want?"
Instantly, she felt countless gazes glued to her face and the hand clasped in Lu Sicheng’s—
It was the kind of look that said, "She must’ve saved the galaxy in her past life."
Tong Yao sniffed, thinking, Damn right I saved the galaxy. Jealous? She reached out, grabbed the hem of Lu Sicheng’s shirt, and leaned in for a closer look: "...Don’t I already have one?"
"I know you have one. I was the one who got it for you. And I know you keep it by your bed. Why not get a few more so they can hold a meeting?" Lu Sicheng pointed inside the machine. "They’re not the same—this one has a little hat."
Tong Yao: "..."
She wasn’t sure if it was her imagination, but when Lu Sicheng said, "this one has a little hat," there was something both sleazy and adorable about it... The girls around them seemed to think so too—one of them couldn’t help but giggle."This rabbit is really hard to grab," the girl struck up a conversation. "We've been standing here for ages."
Lu Sicheng glanced at her but didn't respond, then pulled out a hundred-yuan bill to send Tong Yao off to exchange for coins. When Tong Yao returned with the change, she found two plush rabbits already sitting beside Lu Sicheng—one wearing a tiny Christmas hat, the other hugging a strawberry.
As she handed the coins to Lu Sicheng, she could feel the envious gazes of the surrounding girls and the nervous stare of the shop owner behind them. She picked up both rabbits to examine them, then turned to Lu Sicheng: "Which one's cuter?"
Lu Sicheng pressed the confirm button, and as the metal claw steadily grabbed a third rabbit, he turned his head to look at the girl holding up two rabbits with a serious expression. Deadpan, he replied, "You're the cute one."
Tong Yao: "..."
...
By lunchtime, the final haul was a large bag filled with various rabbit plushies, all under the envious eyes of girls around her age. Imagining them lined up on her bedside, it really looked like a rabbit convention was about to take place...
Tong Yao: "Whenever I get scammed by those rigged carnival games at amusement parks, I always think: just wait till I get myself a capable boyfriend, then I'll come back and bankrupt you all."
Lu Sicheng: "You've succeeded."
Tong Yao: "Huh?"
Lu Sicheng: "Got yourself a capable boyfriend."
Tong Yao: "..."
Lu Sicheng: "Which amusement park? Buy the tickets, let's go bankrupt them."
Tong Yao: "...Tokyo Disneyland?"
Lu Sicheng: "..."
It was now 1:30 PM.
A normal human date would typically involve lunch, a movie, afternoon tea, some arcade games, more food, then gracefully parting ways to head home. Given that the two were already in a state of quasi-illegal cohabitation, the last step could be skipped. The immediate problem to solve was lunch.
Carrying her large bag of rabbits and led by Lu Sicheng, Tong Yao wandered around the mall. Suffering from choice paralysis, she couldn't decide what to eat. Hesitating in front of a dessert shop, she bent over to examine the menu displayed outside—only to be yanked back by the collar. "Lunch. Why are you looking at ice cream?"
"Why can't ice cream be lunch?"
"Are you three years old?"
As Lu Sicheng dragged her away, Tong Yao clicked her tongue, about to retort, when something caught her eye. She froze, then did a double-take—across the way, in front of a row of shops, stood a group of girls who looked eerily familiar. Upon closer inspection, her soul nearly left her body: the four or five girls waiting outside the Korean BBQ place were none other than the same ones who had been handing out cheering slogans at the league venue!
The tallest among them even wore a support wristband with what was probably her name written on it.
—If any one of them happened to look up now...
They'd see their favorite team's Dual Carry, who should've been diligently ranking up at the team headquarters on such a fine day, instead strolling hand-in-hand through the mall.
Tong Yao sucked in a sharp breath, shook off Lu Sicheng's hand, and without giving him time to speak, blurted out something about a bathroom emergency and told him to wait for her at a Western restaurant on the first floor. Then she bolted. After calming down in the restroom for a long while, she emerged—only to find Lu Sicheng hadn't gone to the first floor as instructed. Instead, he was leaning against the stairwell's emergency exit, arms crossed, smoking a cigarette.Hearing footsteps, he looked up, glanced at Tong Yao, then lowered his head again without a word, extinguishing his cigarette in the nearby trash can.
"......"
At that moment, Tong Yao felt as if she had done something terribly wrong, and her captain now seemed extremely, extremely aggrieved.
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