When Song Yi returned to the hotel room he shared with Dai Fanze, he was wearing loose shorts and slippers.
The blackout curtains were tightly drawn, making the room pitch-dark, with only the faint glow from Dai Fanze’s laptop screen illuminating the space.
Song Yi didn’t even notice Jing Sicun’s black jacket hanging on the coat rack by the entryway, nor did he glance over at the sofa.
He swaggered over to the computer desk and said, “Why did you close the curtains in broad daylight? What, did the Yuyin Zhushou glitch out again?”
Dai Fanze turned his head slowly.
Song Yi continued his mysterious monologue, “Old Dai, I just heard about a huge, earth-shattering event while I was out. Wanna hear it or not?”
It was obvious there’d be nothing good.
Dai Fanze opened his mouth, ready to refuse.
But Song Yi didn’t wait for Dai Fanze’s reply and started talking right away: “Just now, when I was eating downstairs in the restaurant, I ran into some other contestants. They said someone saw Jing Sicun last night, disheveled, wandering around the hotel.”
Dai Fanze kept his mouth shut and said nothing.
Song Yi picked up the half-empty bottle of cola on Dai Fanze’s desk, tossed the cap aside, drank it all in one go, and let out a burp.
His eyes sparkled with the glee of someone about to kick a man when he’s down.
“Disheveled, huh! His phone’s turned off, and when I knocked on his door earlier, nobody answered. Aren’t you even a little curious what Jing Sicun was up to behind our backs?”
“Not curious.”
“I’m definitely going to ask him later!”
Unless it was in a competition or exam setting, Dai Fanze was always in low-power mode—his speech and movements as slow as a sloth, a close relative of the anteater.
Dai Fanze raised his hand leisurely, then pointed slowly in the direction of the sofa.
“Then go ahead and ask.”
Song Yi whipped his head around so fast his neck cracked, craned his neck, squinted, and peered into the darkness of the sofa for a long time.
“When did you get here?”
Jing Sicun called out to the Yuyin Zhushou: “Open the curtains.”
The blackout curtains and the sheer drapes both slid open to the sides, letting sunlight spill into the room through the glass.
A tall figure lay sprawled on the sofa, arms crossed, legs folded, head tilted back, his face covered by a black baseball cap.
His voice was low.
“About ten minutes ago.”
Song Yi asked him, “What’s up with your throat, did you catch a cold?”
Jing Sicun said, “Maybe just a little chilled.”
Song Yi flopped onto the single bed, stretched out his skinny legs, and started pestering the person involved, “Since you heard it all, come on, spill—who did you meet last night, and what was up with the ‘disheveled’ situation?”
Jing Sicun took off his baseball cap.
“Didn’t meet anyone.”
Song Yi didn’t believe him.
“Come on, even if you wore a windbreaker out, you wouldn’t have caught a chill like that. You must’ve been dressed weird for people to say you were disheveled, right?”
Jing Sicun looked lazy, as if he couldn’t be bothered to answer.
Dai Fanze spoke to Song Yi in his usual slow drawl, “Stop bothering him. Let him rest a bit. He had a rough night again.”
Song Yi grinned mischievously.
“What kind of rough night, huh?”
Last night, Jing Sicun had gotten a call and rushed to the emergency room at the hospital.
He didn’t get home until the early morning, and only after calming his family did he hurry over here.
Since Dai Fanze had said that, Song Yi figured it must be Jing Sicun’s father’s health acting up again.
He immediately dropped his teasing smile.
“Jing Shu’s okay, right?”
Jing Sicun closed his eyes.
“Same as always. For now, he’s fine.”
Jing Sicun’s father had been seriously ill for the past two years and was constantly in and out of the hospital.
Life and death—these were burdens Jing Sicun had to carry himself.
There wasn’t much his friends could do to help.
Song Yi walked over and placed the baseball cap back on Jing Sicun’s face.
Still feeling it wasn’t enough, he raised his voice and called out the name of the Yuyin Zhushou toward the ceiling.
The room was quiet for a moment before the Yuyin Zhushou replied loudly: “I’m here!”
Last night, Song Yi had gone three hundred rounds with this dumb Yuyin Zhushou.
None of the songs he wanted to hear had the rights, and when he asked it to play anything, it just played random junk;
When he got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and told it to turn on the bathroom light, it turned on every single light in the room, making it as bright as an interrogation room, as if he and Dai Fanze were criminals being questioned…
Worried the Yuyin Zhushou was hard of hearing or just couldn’t understand people, Song Yi shouted even louder: “Close the curtains!”
Amid the rustling sound of the curtains closing, Jing Sicun called out helplessly, “Song Yi.”
Song Yi replied gently, “Hey, no need to get emotional. That’s what good brothers are for—looking out for each other. Go ahead and sleep.”
Jing Sicun said, “Sleep my ass.”
“Huh? Didn’t Old Dai say you barely slept last night?”
“I was wide awake after your yelling. Open the curtains.”
The curtains opened again.
Song Yi asked Jing Sicun why he didn’t go back to his own room to rest, but before Jing Sicun could answer, Song Yi figured it out himself, slapped his forehead, and concluded, “He Zhi is practicing again, right? You didn’t want to disturb him?”
Jing Sicun, Song Yi, Dai Fanze, and He Zhi had slowly become friends through various competitions over the years.
He Zhi was the youngest, just a freshman in college, with an outstanding memory and calculation skills.
The only problem was, he got too nervous before competitions and lacked confidence.
Song Yi solemnly critiqued his brothers: “At least our Ah Zhi respects the competition. He knows to practice hard, unlike the three of us.”
He pointed at Dai Fanze’s computer, “Playing games.”
Then pointed at Jing Sicun, “Drowsing off.”
Dai Fanze shut his laptop.
“You’re asking for it. Want to compete? Loser buys coffee, ha.”
Song Yi recalled the humiliation of carrying eleven cups of coffee, stepping into a puddle, and nearly falling.
“No, no, no competition.”
Jing Sicun went to the sink to wash his face with cold water.
This wasn’t Jing Sicun’s room, so there were no towels.
Droplets hung from his brow bone, the tip of his nose, lips, and chin.
He walked out with his head down, grabbed several tissues from the box, and pressed them to his face.
The wet tissues outlined the sharp contours of his brow and nose bridge; as his damp eyelashes lifted, a pair of calm eyes was revealed.
Song Yi said, “Since Ah Zhi is working hard, we shouldn’t just slack off either.”
Sensing what was coming, Jing Sicun looked up and balled up the wet tissues.
As the wad of tissues dropped into the trash can, he heard exactly what he expected from Song Yi’s mouth: “Let’s play a game—three-man squad.”
Dai Fanze raised his hand slowly. “I’m in.”
It was almost lunchtime when He Zhi finally appeared.
As soon as he walked in, he asked Song Yi if he’d found out any new information.
Last night, Song Yi had said he’d go check out the audition venue, but Jing Sicun and the others all said they wouldn’t go.
After breakfast, Song Yi did go by himself, but didn’t find out anything useful about the competition—only that Jing Sicun had apparently met someone while disheveled.
He Zhi’s eyes went wide.
“Jing-ge, who did you meet?”
Jing Sicun said, “No one.”
“So it’s just a rumor?”
“Don’t know.”
He Zhi was genuinely nervous, always worried he wouldn’t make it past the second round of auditions.
Jing Sicun watched He Zhi for a while and noticed that since entering, He Zhi had already changed sitting positions several times.
“He Zhi.”
“Jing-ge, what’s up?”
“Come over and play a round.”
“Play what…”
Jing Sicun opened his phone.
“What were you just practicing?”
He Zhi pursed his lips.
“Irregular Sudoku.”
“Then let’s play that.”
Jing Sicun and He Zhi opened the app and selected the 9×9 Sudoku format.
Song Yi acted as referee and called out, “Start!”
The app had a timer, and time ticked by rapidly.
He Zhi’s back was tense like a drawn bow, and he bit down hard on his lower lip.
Jing Sicun, as always, looked calmly at the irregular blocks on the grid, searching for an opening.
As Song Yi and Dai Fanze often joked, Jing Sicun was as steady as an old dog.
Time flew by.
At four minutes and forty-two seconds, He Zhi completed the challenge first.
Jing Sicun finished eleven seconds later, at four minutes and fifty-three seconds.
Of the four people present, only He Zhi himself didn’t know about his pre-competition nerves.
Song Yi and Dai Fanze also knew that Jing Sicun was only competing with He Zhi to help steady his nerves.
They even knew what Jing Sicun would do—
Usually, Jing Sicun could finish this kind of puzzle in just over three minutes.
But today, he definitely wouldn’t do that.
He’d slow down just enough to lag behind He Zhi by a second or two, giving He Zhi the feeling of a narrow victory—just the confidence boost he needed before the competition.
One or two seconds was believable.
Even three or four seconds was fine.
Even if he lagged by four, five, or six seconds, it would still seem real enough.
But Jing Sicun fell behind by a whole eleven seconds…
That was way too obvious!
Dai Fanze was so shocked he couldn’t say a word, his mouth hanging open, ready to congratulate He Zhi.
He Zhi stared at Jing Sicun, then looked at Song Yi and Dai Fanze.
“Jing-ge, you let me win, didn’t you?”
Song Yi also looked at Jing Sicun with a complicated expression that said, “Come on, you made it so obvious.”
Jing Sicun shook his head.
“No, I was playing seriously.”
He Zhi didn’t believe him.
“Impossible.”
Jing Sicun said, “I just remembered something and got distracted.”
He Zhi still didn’t believe him.
“No way!”
Jing Sicun leaned back in his chair and smiled.
“Really, I was just distracted.”
He Zhi immediately started to worry.
“Is it about Uncle Jing’s health…”
Jing Sicun said, “No, I was thinking about something else.”
He Zhi was stubborn.
“What else could it be? You definitely let me win.”
He had no choice but to admit it.
Jing Sicun confessed, “Actually, what Song Yi said earlier wasn’t just a rumor. I did meet someone last night.”
All three were surprised and pressed for details.
Jing Sicun only remembered because he saw the bathrobe draped over the chair.
Last night, after showering and opening the door to get his food delivery, he noticed someone in the room two doors down also picking up a delivery.
At the time, he was on the phone with He Zhi and didn’t look closely, only knowing that it was a girl.
Song Yi asked, “A contestant? What did she look like?”
Jing Sicun said, “Didn’t notice.”
Since there was nothing juicy between the main characters, Dai Fanze quickly changed the subject.
“Why didn’t you tell us you were ordering delivery?”
Jing Sicun had actually ordered quite a bit, and he’d even called He Zhi to have him bring Song Yi and Dai Fanze over to his room.
But then he had to rush to the hospital and didn’t get to eat any himself. The food was still in his room’s fridge.
Song Yi jumped up, saying, “Why didn’t you say so earlier?”
He grabbed Jing Sicun’s room card and rushed off to get the barbecue.
It was just about lunchtime.
The four discussed it and decided to heat up the barbecue in the shop and order some more skewers to eat together.
Song Yi and Dai Fanze’s room was on the second floor, and taking the stairs was faster than the elevator.
As they pushed open the stairwell door, Jing Sicun’s phone vibrated at the same time voices rose from below—
A sweet female voice said, “I’m not working out, I don’t want to climb to the seventh floor.”
Then a male voice: “Come on, taking the stairs is good for you. And while you’re at it, tell me again what you really think of him.”
“Didn’t I already say this morning?”
“Ke Ni, you really expect me to believe that nonsense answer?”
“Believe it or not, up to you.”
“You’re just making something up to brush me off.”
“Hmm, he’s got a nice figure.”
That answer seemed to fire the guy up, and he started babbling on about muscle gain and fat loss.
Song Yi was also getting antsy.
Both groups were talking as they drew closer, and the stairwell was almost as noisy as a marketplace.
Jing Sicun followed behind Song Yi and the other two, answering his call with some difficulty, trying to make out what was being said.
At the stairwell landing, as they brushed past the other two, Jing Sicun clearly felt that both the girl and Song Yi suddenly fell silent for a moment.
He had no curiosity about strangers and only glanced over briefly as he hung up on a pesky telemarketing call.
Song Yi was quiet for a few seconds, then turned his head and whispered excitedly to the others, “Jing Sicun, did you see her?”
“What?”
“That girl just now!”
What kind of question was that? Who’s blind here?
Jing Sicun put away his phone.
“What about her?”
Dai Fanze was also surprised by Song Yi’s excitement.
“What, is she your ex?”
Jing Sicun looked up the stairs and only caught a glimpse of a slender ankle stepping out of sight between the stairs and the railing.
Song Yi kept pressing him, “You really don’t know her?”
Jing Sicun glanced at Song Yi in confusion.
“Why would I have any reason to know her?”
Premium Chapter
Login to buy access to this Chapter.