Honey Stewed Squid

She jumped out of bed and, barefoot, walked out the bedroom. The living room was empty. Bags of snack foods littered the entire tabletop. Computers and discarded papers were strewn all about. Still, no one could be found. The balcony door, however, was open.

Stepping outside, she saw him lying on the low lounge chair, his arms folded across his chest and his jacket covering him.

Sleeping?

Slowly, she treaded over, then crouched down and gazed happily upon him. She looked and looked, and then, she climbed up… He had slept for only ten minutes, and now, still in a half-asleep, half-awake state, he felt something soft snug itself on top of him. Too lazy to even open his eyes, he flipped over and reversed their positions. “Don’t do this type of thing in the morning.”

0.0

“Why?” And on top of that, it had something to do with morning versus night?

Gun rested his chin on her shoulder and offhandedly answered, “There will be a reaction.”

……

……

A single sentence successfully caused the kid to struggle out from beneath him and sprint away.

Succeeding in his plot, Gun maintained this prone position and within seconds, was asleep again.

Before he had fallen into a sound slumber, though, the kid jogged back again with light feet and poked him in his back. Groggily, he made a noise in response and heard her ask whether she could take one of his articles of clothing away with her. He could not be bothered to think at this moment and gave an arbitrary reply. It seemed he had said something to her along the lines of “Go find one in the suitcase yourself…”

On Monday, the competitions here had come to an end. That evening, they would be flying direct to Sanya to participate in a commercial event. The flight he had reserved for her took off roughly half an hour before theirs, so it worked out perfectly that they could go to the airport together.

Coincidentally, their two departure gates were adjacent to one another.

As a result, prior to boarding the plane, the K&K crew were able to amply satisfy their curiosity regarding what it looked like and how Leader actually dated someone and behaved in his romantic (?) relationship.

Gun was feeling somewhat fatigued and mentally drained. Throwing his jacket over his head, he openly and unconcernedly lay down on the chairs to catch up on some shut-eye. Since leaving the room this morning, Tong Nian had been holding her computer and engrossed with working on something. It was not known what she was working on, but it was apparent that she had reached the point of neglecting everything else, sleep and food included, and was completely ignoring the fact that her departure gate had long started to check boarding passes.

“Done!” She patted her keyboard cheerily.

The person beside her did not even twitch.

Quietly, she lifted up the jacket that was covering his face and slipped under it…

Everyone…

Dang! Why cover everything up?!

Just a normal dating relationship! Not even letting us watch! So not cool!

Gun yanked down his jacket and sat up straight, wearing a look that absolutely declared he had just been woken up. Her cheeks glowing rosily, Tong Nian held up her little pink computer and leaned in to let him see. “It’s this software program.”

“How do you use it?” He cast his eyes down at the screen.

Everybody’s ears pricked up.

“There’s fifty-two cards in total.” Softly, she explained, “When the first deal is done, after you subtract the two cards in your hand, there are still another fifty cards. So, the next round, the probability of each card is…”

Everyone was baffled. What was Little Sister-In-Law talking about?

Only Gun, Dt, and 97 could understand what she was saying. This was a calculation of odds for various hands and probability of a winning hand. But after five minutes, 97 was already starting to get lost with what he was hearing.

“When the opponent bets all-in at the flop, you continue to call bets…” At this point, Dt did not understand what he was hearing anymore. He did not play Texas Hold’em.

“The method the program uses to calculate… And you also need to include your own probability of a straight or a flush…” At this point, it was also completely over 97’s head.

In the end, there was only the little girlie talking absorbedly while Gun listened with increasing interest.

The end of the entire explanation was reached.

Tong Nian did not know at all that behind her, as she solemnly explained everything, everybody was already looking worshipfully at her backside, eyes filled with cries of “Holy crap! What in the world is Sister-In-Law talking about?!”

“Since when did you learn this game?” gun asked quizzically.

Red flushed Tong Nian’s cheeks as she shook her head. “I don’t know how to actually play, and I don’t play very well, even now. This is purely a theoretical calculation… It’s just, um, the second time we met, you were playing this, so that made me curious. When I went back, I bought a few books: No Limit Hold’em: Theory and Practice, The Laws Governing Poker Hands, and Those Years of Poker and Me—”

In reality, all I did is write a little probability calculation software program, hoping that it would make you happy. Covering my face shyly…

“Do you like it?” Her index fingers poking together against her chin, she put on a cute look that requested praise.

Gun raised his brows, then, in the nature of a reward, patted her little cheek.

Immediately, she began wagging her tail!

Even though the brains of true professional players of this game already possessed a probability calculator that had come about from years of accumulated practice and experience and was far more practical than these software programs, still… He threw a glance at the group behind him. To occasionally have everyone participate in some competitions or something during some spare time was not a bad idea. “We’ve gotten a little sick of rock-climbing lately. We’ll arrange to hold a few Texas Hold’em tournaments amongst ourselves.” With his arm resting on the seatback, he turned and instructed the several team captains and team leads, “If we can play well, K&K can also invest some money to organize an annual professional tournament.”

Everyone: What in the world is going on?!

He glanced at Tong Nian. “Right here, a little software program was just written, so that’s perfect. We can train and improve all of you in your ability to calculate probabilities.”

Everyone: … What in the world are probabilities? Never learned that in high school…

All of them abruptly twisted their heads around. Captain!!

Dt was silent.

This group really was not suitable for using their brains in such a way. Moreover, many amongst this bunch had entered the gaming circle direct from high school. If he truly were to make them try to understand probability… the person who would end up suffering was himself.

Hence, Dt finally took some action. Tilting his chin, he pointed with it at the departure gate. “Flight’s about to take off.”

Huh?

Tong Nian turned around.

The monitor was displaying that… there were only another five minutes?! In a flurry, she jammed her computer into her backpack, leapt to her feet, and began to dash toward the departure gate. But after taking only a few steps, she swiftly doubled-back.

Gun was still mulling over the idea of investing in a league tournament when he saw her run back and stand bashfully in front of him.

Right this moment, all the particulars in his mind about video games unexpectedly dispersed.

“I’m going back now…” she quietly reported.

He gave a faint sound in response.

Stretching out his arm, he touched her face, then slid his hand down to her tiny chin, giving it a little squeeze between his fingers.

“You still haven’t said… that you like it,” she reminded him in a small voice.

“Like it?” He purposely pretended that he did not understand. “Like what? Last night? Or this morning?”

……

She stood there self-consciously, both her hands clutching her backpack straps.

“Go now. Hurry.” Releasing his hold, he smiled and patted her head.

If she did not leave now, they were going to start announcing her name through the entire place.

He watched the kid reluctantly, with a backwards glance every three steps, hand over her boarding pass and step past the glass wall. Then, it was the long boarding corridor, where her diminutive figure gradually disappeared from view. Five minutes later, her plane started to move… Behind him, a long line was beginning to form at their departure gate. Amid the beep beep sounds of boarding passes being scanned, each team member picked up his own backpack and waited for Leader and Captain to go first.

Pulling back his gaze, Gun grabbed his jacket from the seat and, without saying a word, led everyone to board their flight.

* * * * *

That night, Tong Nian headed directly back to the school and had dinner with Soy Milk.

Once she returned to her double dorm room, she tossed her suitcase into a corner and flopped herself onto her bed.

As she rolled back and forth on it, her mind was filled completely with him, only him. She spent a long time in this way, missing him to the point that it was as if her soul had drifted off somewhere on the outer edges of heaven. Then, once again springing to her feet, from her suitcase, she pulled out a black, long-sleeved shirt with a silver K&K logo on it—his team shirt.

She rubbed her face against it. The soft texture of pure cotton, as well as his scent.

For some reason, she suddenly remembered the scene she saw in the webcam that day… She wondered whether, when he arrived in Sanya, would…

Somewhat worried, she sent him a WeChat message.

Her: At night… be very careful. Don’t let people that you again.

He did not reply.

Behind her, her dormmate, Du Yaya, who had just finished a shower, was looking at her while rubbing at her hair with a towel. “You’re back?” Tong Nian gave an “mm.” Her dormmate instantly detected that something was not right, and round-eyed, she pointed at the garment in Tong Nian’s hands. “Wait! That’s a man’s!”

“……” Embarrassed, Tong Nian folded it and placed it back into the suitcase, mumbling in a low voice, “It’s my boyfriend’s.”

Earthshaking, thunderclap type of shock.

Yaya gripped her towel in a state of numb astonishment… How did this kid, who forever had been the type who just didn’t “get it,” all of a sudden have a boyfriend? Hey, something wasn’t right. Wait! What was that behind her little neck— Holy crap! Who did it?!

“Come here, come here.” Yaya grabbed her by the arm and carefully inspected it. Immediately, her mind began filling in ten thousand words worth of details… How could this person, whom she had seen midway through the winter break and absolutely had not had a boyfriend then, all of a sudden be like this?

Yaya, this girl who loved StarCraft and all other similar games and who had never shown any interest in romance, went completely berserk.

She could not figure it out. Why was Yaya staring at her back?

Tong Nian even reached a hand to touch that spot. “What’s up?”

Coughing, Yaya skirted the issue and said instead, “Come, come. Give your big sister a report. Your boyfriend… how old is he?”

Tong Nian thought for a moment. “Twenty-nine. Nearly thirty.”

Holy crap!! “Where’d you guys meet?”

“A cybercafé.”

The gathering place of unemployed bums. The expression on Yaya’s face slowly began to change. “How long have you known each other? …”

Tong Nian had never felt before that Yaya was as nosy as she was now, but Tong Nian’s heart was also bursting with the desire to share her happiness. Like a good girl, she came clean. “Around the Lunar New Year, I saw him, but we didn’t get acquainted. Later, I ran into him again when I was out of town, and that’s when we really met… And then, somehow, in some kinda muddled, unclear way, we ended up being together. Oh, that’s not right, either. It wasn’t unclear. It was after I got drunk and a little incident happened that we ended up together. I just got back from Guangzhou. I was with him there.” Blushing, Tong Nian reached out and hugged Yaya around the neck. “Yaya, I especially, especially, especially like him. Honest…”

While Tong Nian shook and rocked her, Yaya’s heart felt as if it was about to shatter. “How long have you two been together? …”

“Three days. Today is the third day. After twelve o’clock, it’ll be four days.”

Three days and she was already like this? …

After getting drunk…

And immediately going to Guangzhou and staying together in the same room…

“What does he do?” Yaya shut her eyes in agony. “Anything will be fine. Just don’t tell me he plays video games…” They met in an Internet café. Oh man, do NOT be one of those men who don’t have a real job and only know to waste their life away by playing video games all the time…

“Exactly! He plays video games!” Releasing her embrace on Yaya, she stuck out her tongue impishly and made a face. “He games better than you.”

Saying that, she cheerily grabbed some clothes and slipped into the bathroom to take a shower.

Roiling in a mental state of turmoil, Yaya remained standing in that same spot, envisioning a thirty-year old, middle-aged man sitting in a cybercafé, a cigarette between his fingers and his teeth yellowed as he smirkingly pulled Tong Nian into his arms… Oh man, the sky was falling! Back then, the two of them had gone through all their studies together, from undergraduate to now, although technically, she had been part of the ordinary class in Computer Science while Tong Nian had been in Electronic and Electrical Engineering’s gifted juvenile class.

But Tong Nian had been the one who had singlehandedly rescued so many of her big assignments and allowed this homebody-couch-potato girl who was addicted to gaming to successfully get into postgraduate studies by recommendation and without even needing to take the exam…

No way, no way!

She could not just stand by and watch as some old uncle dude from a cybercafé took advantage of her.

Thirty seconds later, Yaya made a decision. Although she did not really like that so-called ACM team captain, he was still better than some old uncle dude. In any case, at least he was a physically and mentally healthy, young scholar. Tomorrow! She would arrange a date for the two of them for tomorrow. As for that old dude, just judging from Tong Nian’s face that was glowing with bliss, she could tell that Tong Nian had fallen hard for the guy and playing hardball would not work on her… She needed to use strategy, to use a normal type of romantic relationship to divert Tong Nian’s attention. Then, while she was at it, she would feel out all the details about the man’s background—and then break them up!

After decisively drawing up her battle plans, Yaya immediately left.

When Tong Nian had finished showering and discovered that Yaya was gone, she was somewhat puzzled.

Gn: Worried that I’m going to cheat on you?

Her: … No, not at all. *poking fingers together* …

Gn: Nine o’clock tonight, Tempest of the Sealed Chamber, District 13. Your ID is “Lolicat.” Password is “hanshangyan.”