Li Shuoxing’s heart softened.
Although the game was very deceitful, this cub could really cry, and it was the kind of crying under the blanket.
Forget it, cursing the game was cursing the game, raising the cub was raising the cub. Those two weren’t the same thing. At the worst, if the problem wasn’t solved, he would put no more money in and be a happy free-to-play player… Anyway, the favourability points were gone, but there were still some contribution points, which could ensure the basic life of the cub for the time being.
Li Shuoxing made a decision inwardly.
The room was quiet and the game was quiet.
A solitary moon was hanging gently outside the window, equally silent.
Li Shuoxing was in a daze for a couple of minutes and hadn’t thought of what to do, so he simply opened the seven-day check-in to check in for today’s share in advance.
After the last seven-day check-in food week, the game had refreshed with a new check-in cycle, still a week’s worth, with a lottery ticket for checking in for seven days. It was just that this week was no longer food week, but sports week, with a more outlandish style. For example, in the first several days, Li Shuoxing’s check-in rewards were—
[Tennis]
[Tennis Racket – A]
[Tennis Racket – B]
Looking at the check-in rewards for the next three days, the style was similar.
[Table Tennis]
[Table Tennis Racket – Red]
[Table Tennis Racket – Black]
The two sets were split and watered down for six days. On the seventh day, it finally made a big move, giving an indoor golf range with a rather bossy style in addition to a plane ticket. It was just…
Emm…
Li Shuoxing swept the house.
With more stuff, it felt like the room was getting smaller and smaller.
He didn’t know if this house could be upgraded and expanded.
When his thoughts turned to here, Li Shuoxing couldn’t help reaching out and tapping at the doors, windows and four corners of the house to see if it could trigger some upgrade system. But before his finger could poke twice, the blanket on the bed lifted and the little person sat up abruptly!
I’ve been discovered?
Li Shuoxing was shocked.
Before he could do anything, the little person who’d lifted the blanket had gotten out of bed and arrived at the table in the room.
He took the kettle, poured himself a glass of water and drank a mouthful.
Then he did nothing, just held the cup and stood there motionless.
Li Shuoxing subconsciously looked at the system narration.
Today, 00:45am
[Su Mingqian gets up.]
[Su Mingqian drinks water.]
Su Mingqian: “…”
[Su Mingqian is in a daze.]
I wasn’t discovered.
Li Shuoxing let out a sigh of relief. He felt a faint and inexplicable peeping guilt.
Forget it.
There’s nothing to do anyway.
I’d better go offline.
Li Shuoxing’s finger on the screen had moved to the phone’s function key.
But when he was about to click it, the little person suddenly put down the glass of water in his hand.
The glass touched the table and made a moderate collision sound, breaking the silence of the game and temporarily interrupting Li Shuoxing’s move to go offline.
Li Shuoxing looked at the game again and noticed that the little person had arrived at the bookshelf. He took a book from the bookshelf and returned to the bed, but instead of sleeping, he leaned against the head of the bed to read.
At a glance, Li Shuoxing noticed that Su Mingqian was reading the travel journal with the leather cover.
The system narration was refreshed again. Without even looking at the sentences in front describing the actions, Li Shuoxing stared at the last sentence.
[Su Mingqian gazes at the scribbles in the travel journal.]
There were only two pages of content in the journal.
One page was a record of the past, which shouldn’t be called scribbles.
Then the only thing that could be called scribbles was…
Li Shuoxing hesitantly turned the screen to adjust the view to behind Su Mingqian, and then looked over from Su Mingqian’s position. He found that what Su Mingqian was gazing at was indeed not the content of the past, but the newly written conversation between them that day.
Li Shuoxing was a little surprised.
He’d thought that since the favourability had become -999, the little person’s attitude would also change accordingly. Maybe he would come back online to see a messy escape scene or the little person’s cold hateful eyes.
But why did it now feel…
So much like the scene where a pure boy got his tooth knocked out and swallowed it with the blood <sup>1</sup> 打落牙齿和血吞 is a metaphor for forbearance and patience in extreme helplessness. after being coldly played with and abandoned?
At that moment, a very, very low voice sounded, like the wind hidden outside the window, a quiet sigh.
Su Mingqian: “Ximu…”
Li Shuoxing suddenly felt that he couldn’t stand by.
A little impulsively, he tapped on the chat box and sent a word.
“Cub.”
The silvery-white light screen suddenly appeared in the room.
The little person leaning against the bed reading shook abruptly, and the leather journal in his hand snapped shut.
Frightened again.
Li Shuoxing was a little helpless, yet also a little amused.
This cub is really a little timid…
The air was a little quiet. After a brief silence, Su Mingqian spoke.
“You’re here.”
The night wind became night clouds, and the voice was more solid than the hazy one just now.
As he spoke, the little person stood up from the bed and put his hands behind his back, grabbing the journal.
Li Shuoxing found this posture quite meaningful.
So he took a deliberate look at the spoiler master system narration.
Sure enough.
[Su Mingqian grasps the travel journal.]
[Su Mingqian is a little nervous and at a loss.]
Alas…
The last bit of entanglement in Li Shuoxing’s mind disappeared.
Ah, this cub of mine.
What else can I do?
Of course, choose to forgive him.
Li Shuoxing kept smiling, but his heart chilled a little. He always felt like he had experienced the heartache of taking care of his own naughty son ten years in advance.
He typed, “What happened to you this morning? Reacting that much.”
Su Mingqian paused for a moment before replying, “Nothing. I’m the one who overreacted, sorry.”
The favourability didn’t move, showing that the apology was very superficial.
But Li Shuoxing was now at peace and had become indifferent to this.
In fact, when he thought about it, the difference between 999 and -999 wasn’t very big, just an extra – sign, a small tail.
He continued, “If you don’t want to talk about it, forget it. It’s past twelve now. Why haven’t you gone to sleep yet?”
Su Mingqian: “I kind of can’t sleep…”
Li Shuoxing: “If you can’t sleep, just exercise.”
Su Mingqian: “…”
Li Shuoxing: “We happen to have tennis rackets. Let’s go play tennis in the courtyard.”
Su Mingqian: “???”
He subconsciously glanced out the window.
Cold moon and dark night.
Quiet.
He was about to refuse when he saw the light screen flash. Another sentence had been refreshed.
“When you’re depressed and stressed, you’ll feel much better if you exercise.”
Outside the screen, Li Shuoxing had prepared.
Although this game didn’t have a stress level prompt, he really felt that the little person’s stress level was quite high now. According to the general idea, the stress level could be reduced through exercise.
So it was only fitting to go and play tennis in the courtyard now.
The only problem was that there wasn’t a tennis court yet.
But in sports, the rich played the rich way and the poor played the poor way.
Li Shuoxing entered the production workshop, made two wooden poles about half a person high, and knocked them into the courtyard. Then he found a long strip of cloth from the garment room and tied it to the two poles, and out came a crude tennis net frame.
He then called over the little person. “Cub, come and play.”
A moment later, the door of the room opened and the little person came out with a tennis racket. With a serious face, he came to a stop on one side of the net. First, he put down the racket in his hand. Next, he took the other racket and a tennis ball and walked to the other side of the net. Then he stopped, threw the ball, and served.
A bright white light suddenly flew over on the screen.
Li Shuoxing tapped on the racket to take it in his hand, then tapped the tennis ball, easily hitting the flying spirit back.
At this point, the system popped up a guide.
Nothing unusual.
Long press to increase power and short press to reduce power. The operation was very simple.
After adapting for a while, Li Shuoxing had completely mastered this little game. He tapped the screen with unparalleled ease, the strength sometimes big and sometimes small, and served the ball at all sorts of tricky angles. Watching the little person running back and forth across the courtyard, sweating profusely, he suddenly found the thrill of playing handheld games as a child.
Yeah—
Exercise really does reduce stress.
Li Shuoxing, who just moved a finger while lying in bed, thought happily.
“Bang—”
“Bang—”
The collision sound of tennis ball and racket was so loud in the night that it almost occupied Su Mingqian’s ears.
Similarly, the mischievous white spirit that repeatedly flew over also completely occupied Su Mingqian’s eyes.
He played hard, but refused to give up and concentrated almost his entire mind on the game, not knowing how many balls he had received. When another ball flew over, Su Mingqian was a step too slow and the tennis ball glanced off the edge of his racket.
But he failed to control his strength and collapsed to the ground. He felt his sweat wet the ground at that instant.
Very tired.
And very relaxed.
He lay on the ground and had just taken a deep breath when he saw the light screen appear again.
“Cub, are you tired? Go to sleep if you’re tired, just in time for me to go to sleep too.”
Still typing.
No voice.
Since he had overreacted in the morning, Ximu no longer spoke and had been typing the entire time.
Was it to… take care of his mood?
Su Mingqian had mixed feelings for a moment.
Li Shuoxing yawned, a little sleepy.
He suggested playing tennis originally to release some of the little person’s stress, but didn’t expect it’d be so refreshing watching the little person running around. He didn’t know about the little person’s stress level, but his own stress level was really released.
He was in a cheerful mood, and the sentences he typed became fluent and flying. “Okay, okay, don’t dwell on it after exercise. Take a shower and go to bed. Since tomorrow will always come, let’s put aside any thoughts for tomorrow. You can only grow taller by sleeping well—”
Su Mingqian’s voice suddenly sounded. “I thought you were a girl.”
Li Shuoxing, who was about to go offline, was shocked on the spot.
He dryly typed a word: “…Huh?”
He finally remembered the situation when he first entered the game.
The little person’s name was set by default…
And it didn’t give the player the opportunity to choose the gender…
So was this game played by female players by default?
Wasn’t that sexism?
There was actually such a retarded game plan that wasted half of its force before it made any money?!
Li Shuoxing was super speechless and listened to the little person on the screen continue talking.
Su Mingqian continued, “All the actions you did before made me misunderstand and think you were a girl. That was why I lost myself when I heard your voice… Of course, I never asked you for confirmation on your gender but only made assumptions. That was my fault. I was too lax.”
“But”—Su Mingqian had more to say—”why’d you buy and show me dresses?”
Li Shuoxing: “…”
Of course, for you to wear…
It was okay when the little person didn’t say anything, but once he did, reality hit him in the face.
Li Shuoxing re-examined his own behaviour and suddenly realised that he seemed to be a little perverted.
But so what if I’m perverted.
If I’m a person I should be a little perverted. How beautiful dresses are.
Su Mingqian: “So Ximu…”
His voice lowered.
He was silently healing a crack and illusion in his heart.
It’s already clear that this is the situation…
Ximu likes me.
Ximu is male.
Ximu is a transvestite.
Of these three situations, Su Mingqian could accept even a random combination of any two.
However, with all three situations combined together, Su Mingqian had thought carefully about it for a whole day but could still only reject it. “So Ximu, no matter what, we’re good friends.”
Li Shuoxing abruptly came back to his senses.
Why does this sentence sound so familiar?
So familiar that I can’t help but associate it with a certain well-known prop.
Wait.
Li Shuoxing turned his brain and finally figured it out.
This is a love game.
The little person thinks I’m a girl.
But today he learns that I’m a man.
So -999 × 2.
So tonight he says, “We’re good friends.”
What sentence pattern is familiar…
This is a frickin’ good guy card!!!
Li Shuoxing was dumbfounded.
He subconsciously typed, “I’m not a good guy…”
Su Mingqian was confused. “Ximu?”
Li Shuoxing stiffly took back the last half of the sentence of “I don’t need your good guy card”.
He thought about it and felt that he didn’t really play the game as a love game, so there seemed to be no need to get upset about being handed a good guy card.
Besides, compared with a good guy card, it was a little more explosive to be seen as a gay guy.
What made it even more subtle was that the one who had thought of him as a gay guy was his cub in the game…
But he couldn’t blame him for that.
After all, it was a love game…
Li Shuoxing circled back. He was even more subtle and could only lightly type down a sentence: “Cub, don’t think too much. Things aren’t really like that…”
Su Mingqian didn’t speak.
But a tiny -1 appeared above his head.
Li Shuoxing: “…”
He stared at that -1.
This number was silently revealing a message…
Su Mingqian doesn’t believe you.
And smiles at you.
The tiny -1 floated to the favourability pool above.
-999 became -1000.
Without warning, there was a sudden sound effect from the game.
On the screen, the system text flashed.
[System: Su Mingqian’s favourability with you has dropped to -1000, completing the hidden task [Increasing Distance].]
[System: You receive the following reward: Title [Old Dreams Are Hard to Find] × 1]
[System: Please enter the title interface to receive the title.]
The sudden flash of the system prompt was unexpected, but the misunderstanding of the little person standing in the courtyard was also important.
Li Shuoxing held back and didn’t immediately go to open the title system, but finished typing his words first to clear up the misunderstanding between the two.
Li Shuoxing was simple and straightforward, a hit to the heart with a sentence: “…We’re friends.”
Once the words came out.
Suddenly, other numbers popped up on Su Mingqian’s head.
+50+50+50!
Three +50’s appeared above the little person’s head and directly changed the favourability in the favourability pool to -850, expressing his inner joy with a quick and resolute gesture.
For a moment, Li Shuoxing also had mixed feelings.
This is clearly the result I wanted.
But why, do I always feel something strange…
With this oddity in mind, he moved his finger and opened the title system to see his newly acquired title.
Title: Old Dreams Are Hard to Find
Condition: -1000 favourability points
Bonus: Dreaming (5/5)
Dreaming: Every time your lover falls asleep and dreams, there is a certain probability that he will dream of scenes from the past. The dream scenes will become clues and be recorded in the “Travel Log”. After five clues are obtained, the dreaming effect will disappear.
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打落牙齿和血吞 is a metaphor for forbearance and patience in extreme helplessness.