Honey Stewed Squid

Chapter 20 – Breakup Not On Schedule ⊙▽⊙!

The next day, Dt left the hotel where his grandfather was staying and returned to the club’s gaming house[1]. There, he found a dozen or more boys, all of them dressed in the team’s short-sleeve uniforms, hopping and rubbing at their arms as they did some warm-up exercises on the spot where they stood. When demo caught sight of Dt, his eyes immediately reddened. “Captain!” Regardless of whether they were older or younger than him, all of them swarmed toward him, feeling like they had finally found someone who could be their refuge.

Needless to say, the person inside the room at the very end of the corridor must have been in an extremely bad mood the previous night.

Wordlessly, Dt nodded.

Walking directly to the end of the corridor, he pushed open the door.

There, he discovered the floor of the room littered with a variety of chocolate wrappers, fruit candy wrappers… Anyway, it was simply all sorts of candy… No lights were on. Right at this moment, in his computer, Gun was absolutely dominating over his opponents and torturing them to death. Without even turning his head, he said, “You’re back?”

Obviously, the only one who would dare push open his room door during this time was that person who had dared to sell him out.

Dt’s eyes once again made a scan around the room, and then, without saying anything, he turned and left.

A candy was hurled out, whizzing straight past Dt’s ear with a whoosh as it flew and smashed into the door directly across the hall. Outside the doorway, everyone who had followed along to eavesdrop shuddered, and instantly, the entire group jogged away to do their morning run. In contrast, the one who had nearly been smacked by the candy, Dt, showed no superfluous expressions. Even the look in his eyes had not shifted. Pulling Gun’s door shut behind him, he simply pulled out his own room card and, with a swipe, opened that door across the hallway.

Catch up on some Z’s.

The man inside the room sat on his chair, his body leaning backwards into the seatback. He once again flipped through the itinerary his assistant had brought him. The primary squad would be assembling on the fifth day of the new lunar year and heading to Sanya. One day after that, the entire K&K troop would also arrive in Sanya, and then he, Dt, and grunt would fly to the United States to participate in a StarCraft II offline tournament.

The arrangements were very apt.

After looking over that paper again and again for several times, he at last returned to that first question that had popped into his mind when he saw this itinerary.

Should he tell the little girl that he would be out of country?

……

In these past twenty-nine years, only two promises had ever been made from his lips: the first was, back then, to be Team Solo’s investor, and the second was to allow her to decide when would be the time of their breakup.

He had given in, perhaps, because she had unconditionally believed his explanation.

That absolute load of crap of an explanation—the one where it was only because of Dt’s request that he had told everyone she and he were a couple.

Apart from fatigue due to a night without sleep and bad mood, written on his gorgeous face were also some irritability and frustration over being unable to control the future. Since last night, he had felt a sense of foreboding, that this one instance of softheartedness and giving in would end up bringing him countless troubles.

And now… this was the first of those troubles.

* * * * *

Like every year, during the first couple of days of the new lunar year, her parents brought her around to pay New Year’s greetings.

Every now and then, as she took advantage of the times when the adults were all exchanging pleasantries and chatting idly to sit down, she would over and over ponder on what Gun had said. By the evening of the Lunar New Year’s second day, she finally could contain herself no longer and began a quiet discussion with Soy Milk, who had also been dragged out to pay New Year’s greetings.

Soy Milk listened to her recount her story from beginning to end. It had even more exciting ups and downs than those blockbuster movies that had been released in celebration of the Lunar New Year!

Terrified in Three Steps and The Taking of Yalong Bay [parodies of two actual movie titles][2], don’t even bother fighting it out to compete. You totally don’t even come close in being worth watching!

“It means he’s interested in you, of course!” By the time Soy Milk listened to the point in the story describing the previous night’s conversation between the two of them, he finally could not restrain himself and shot up onto his feet, drawing the gazes of all the elders in the home… Straightaway, he shirked back again, sitting down and leaning in close to sigh in her ear, “Let me tell you, you really don’t understand men. Really, you don’t understand them. Oh, you, let me, this man who has ‘watched the many sailboats a-comin’ and a-goin’[3]’[experienced many loves, but none of them was the real one], explain things to you.”

“All you’ve had are secret crushes on seven different girls, you know?” She could not help exposing the actual truth.

Where did he get his so-called “watched the many sailboats”?

“Seven! My blood and tear-stained history, eh! Each one, I used a different way to profess my love, and each one, I was rejected in a different way, ah.” Soy Milk looked at her with a pained expression. “Have you heard of the saying, ‘prolonged illness makes a doctor of a patient’? I’ve had secret crushes for so long that it’s brought about this result.”

Doubtful, she held on to her reservations.

“Anyway, this is what it is. Him telling you to decide when to break up is actually the exact opposite of what he wants. Men all want face. Here you are pursuing him, so of course he doesn’t want to set aside his pride to tell you, ‘I don’t want to break up,’ right? So he’s just using this roundabout way to hint it to you.”

……

She still was unwilling to completely believe Soy Milk.

When she returned home, she called Blueberry to consult this woman who had also done the pursuing of her techie guy.

“Turning the act into reality! He wants to turn this act you guys are doing into reality.”

… The person on the other end of the line was even more stoked than she was…

Was it true?

Hugging a gigantic Winnie the Pooh, Tong Nian sat in front of her computer and fell into deep thought.

If… he really was just too embarrassed to say it and did actually want to try being together, then, should she still do the breakup?

She rested her chin on the bear’s shoulder and pulled on its furry paw, feeling unsettled for a long time. Out of the blue, she remembered the song that he had diverted his attention away to listen to that night. The lyrics… were very similar to the rumours that she had found online regarding his retirement from gaming ten years ago. As her thoughts turned to this, she tossed her bear aside and immediately did a search. Following along with the lyrics, she listened to the song several times.

Several images seemed to be hovering before her eyes, ready to vividly emerge: how, amid the enthusiastic applause of the gamers, he had stood and addressed the crowd with his greetings; how, with his teammates, he had won championship after championship and taken spot after spot on world rankings…

Suddenly, overnight, Team Solo disbanded while still at the peak of its career.

And this man, who had been called “the one who has reached the pinnacle of individual performance as a professional gamer,” one day, simply disappeared and left China.

……

She blinked her eyes. Her nose tingled. She felt somewhat down.

Unconsciously, her fingers slid back and forth over the keyboard.

She imagined that if she had known him ten years ago, she probably would not have even dared try to get close to him. He had been too dazzling.

……

Eh, wait, no.

Ten years ago, she was only nine years old…

Primary school, third grade…

Still crying like a baby over her poor grades in her English class…

Third grade, huh? A picture of herself popped up in her mind, an enormous schoolbag on her back, crying as she folded her test paper into a tiny little square and hid it in a corner of her bag. And then, after she got home and her mom successfully found it and pulled it out, the first question that came up was “Why did you hide the test paper in your schoolbag? Isn’t that the easiest place to find it? …”

Back then, she did not even know how to hide her test paper away.

And he was already a world champion.

Tong Nian felt rather stirred with emotion. Opening up Weibo, for the first time ever, she posted some words that had nothing to do with covers of Japanese songs.

Ten years ago, what were you all doing? I’m suddenly feel really stirred emotionally. While I was still so silly that I only knew to hide my test paper in my schoolbag, someone was already a world champion.

Ten seconds later, thirty comments. Twenty seconds later, seventy comments…

She had nothing to do anyway, so one by one, she scrolled through them. The number of comments was increasingly rapidly since, after all, this was a rare, once-in-a-century moment where she was actually interacting with netizens… There were countless replies with all sorts of wonderful and wacky responses. Some fans even sniffed out the mood behind this Weibo post.

Random person: ^ω^ Ten years ago, huh? Meow. I was doing make-up exams!

Random person: Fiercely making a mark here first. While I’m at it, I’ll do a love profession. Your Highness, requesting to marry you!

Random person: Your Royal Highness! Who is “someone”?!!!!

Random person: Same as above poster! Who is “someone”? Who who who who whooooo?!

Random person: I was at the anime expo that took place before the Lunar New Year. Your Highness, Your Highness, I was the one who gave you that love letter, the one with the red envelope! Your Highness’s legs are crazy amazing!

Random person: Previous poster, give me a break. Are Our Highness’s legs the only things that are crazy amazing?

Random person: Dada’s so cute. To actually hide a test paper in your schoolbag… Was it because you were trying to give a demonstration on how to be caught on the spot?

……

Mobile phone user no. 30230333: I will be out of country the next few days. Mobile no. is 1840090 + your house number. Gn

……

Random person: I’ve hidden mine before, too! In the corner of my drawer! It turns out I’m not the dumbest one HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…

Random person: Wait! What’s up with the previous post????

……

Huh?

Huh?!

!!!!

Tong Nian suddenly stopped breathing, and both her hands pressed against her chest.

It’s him, it’s him!!!!