Chapter 25 Internet Cafe Has he really quit his internet addiction?

Zhu Yingning stepped forward to help the row of bicycles that he had kicked over. Xu Sirui was not thick-skinned enough to sit there and watch a girl clean up his mess without doing anything, so he stepped forward to help.

After helping her, the tears on his face were almost dried by the wind. He turned his eyes away and said awkwardly, "...No need to go to the internet cafe."

"It's okay. I'm just curious about what an Internet cafe is like." She smiled at him.

The only Internet cafe in town is located at No. 21 Yangchang Street.

Yangchang Street, as the name suggests, is a winding street. The Internet cafe called Wangle is located at the end of the street. The outside is not as colorful as other Internet cafes Xu Sirui has seen. Instead, it is gray. The signboard is covered with dust. There are several dusty motorcycles parked in front of the door, giving people the feeling that it will close down in two days.

"Are you sure you really want to go in?"

Xu Sirui had advised Zhu Yingning several times. Firstly, he felt embarrassed to spend her money to entertain himself, and secondly, in Zhu Yingning's opinion, Internet cafes were places that only uneducated and bad students would go. She was very nervous about stepping into the Internet cafe, walking with her hands and feet trembling all the way, looking anxious and uneasy, as if she was going to blow up a bunker.

"Certainly, definitely, and definitely," she insisted.

She was so stubborn that even ten cows couldn't pull her back. Xu Sirui had no choice but to follow her in.

Behind the counter sat a man of unknown age, his eyes heavy with dark circles. He was playing Tetris with his legs crossed, a cigarette in his mouth. When he heard Zhu Yingning calling him, he opened his eyelids, glanced at the two of them, and said as if reciting a line: "Two dollars an hour, six dollars for four hours, ten dollars all night."

This price was cheaper than Zhu Yingning had imagined. She breathed a sigh of relief and took out two dollars from the three dollars and handed it over: "One hour."

The man looked at her, then at Xu Sirui, and said impatiently, "Four pieces for two people."

"No, we just need a computer. Just turn it on for us." Zhu Yingning quickly waved her hands to explain. After explaining, she was afraid that she might say something wrong, so she leaned over to Xu Sirui and asked him softly, "Is this okay?"

Xu Sirui nodded, and she felt relieved.

The man took the money and pointed to a corner casually: "You go over there."

Although the configuration of this Internet cafe was not as good as those he often went to, the procedures and environment were basically the same. Xu Sirui thought he would feel like home. However, when he actually sat on the chair, turned on the power button, watched the computer screen turn from black to blue, and his most familiar Windows logo appeared, he found that he was not as excited as he imagined.

...Has he really gotten over his internet addiction?

He was a bit skeptical. Unconvinced, he picked up his mouse and browsed around for a while before opening DOTA, a game he was comfortable with. The games in this internet cafe were all very old; even DOTA was version 6.67, released in 2008. He had no motivation, so he simply chose entertainment mode.

The hero randomly picked was Poison Dragon, which was okay. Xu Sirui started the game and suppressed the opponent without a doubt.

The great victory still did not bring him much pleasure. He stared at the settlement interface and glanced at Zhu Yingning next to him. He found that she was sitting on a chair two seats away from him, playing with the handle of a red plastic bag out of boredom, tying it into a bow and then loosening it.

He closed the DOTA interface and wanted to switch to another game, but he saw the QQ icon on the computer desktop. Xu Sirui's mind moved slightly and he waved to Zhu Yingning: "Come here."

Zhu Yingning looked at him suspiciously: "Are you calling me?"

"Nonsense, who else is here besides you?" he said unhappily.

She then slowly moved to the seat next to him and looked at him to see what was wrong.

He touched his neck, feeling a little uncomfortable with the situation where he wanted to show kindness to someone, and explained awkwardly: "Didn't your friend give you a string of QQ numbers? Look here, this penguin is QQ." As he spoke, he moved the mouse over the icon.

Her listless eyes suddenly lit up like fireworks, sparkling. Her finger followed the mouse and clicked on the QQ icon on the desktop. She looked at him excitedly, and her tone unconsciously rose a few degrees: "Really? This penguin with a red scarf is it?"

Seeing her so happy about such a small thing, Xu Sirui felt even more uncomfortable. He hummed softly, moved his chair to the left, and said, "Come closer. I'll teach you how to register a QQ account."

"Okay, okay!" She hurriedly moved a chair over. After a while, she remembered something and asked again, "You don't want to play games anymore? Why don't you play games first..."

"There are plenty of opportunities to play the game."

He raised his chin, clicked on the icon, and introduced the registration process to her.

In 2010, QQ registration did not require binding a mobile phone number or ID card, so they easily got a QQ number.

Zhu Yingning slowly typed Zhu Juan's number into the "Add a friend" field. Excited, she made numerous mistakes, taking two minutes to finish the nine-digit number she'd memorized. Normally, Xu Sirui would have walked away long ago, but he didn't know where he found the patience today; he watched her repeatedly enter and delete numbers, struggling with the numeric keypad and the Delete key.

When the friend request message was successfully sent, Zhu Yingning's fingers were shaking.

"Is it really that exaggerated?"

She giggled apologetically and couldn't wait to ask, "So she's my friend now? Can I chat with her?"

"Not so fast, we still have to wait for her consent."

"When will she agree?"

"How should I know? I'll have to see when she's free to go online."

"oh……"

She instantly sank down like an eggplant hit by frost.

Xu Sirui glanced at her for a few seconds, then opened his QQ space and said, "I'll apply for a pet for you."

"Pet? What's that?"

Zhu Yingning didn't understand anything, so he explained everything to her in detail, from Q|Q Pets to Q|Q Farm to Q|Q Speed. He talked so hard that he almost suffocated himself. Only then did she nod, half understanding, and asked him, "Can you show me everything again?"

If someone had told Xu Sirui a month ago, "You go to the internet cafe to play QQ Penguins and QQ Farm," he would have definitely thought they were crazy. But now, a month later, he's sitting in an internet cafe, demonstrating step-by-step how to feed the QQ Penguins and how to manage and plan your own farm. He even acts like a kind and gentle teacher. After Zhu Yingning clumsily moves the mouse and successfully catches a ball thrown by a penguin, he happily encourages her, "Right, right, right! That's it!"

He also taught her how to play with the space drift bottle.

Zhu Yingning was very interested in this game of randomly receiving strangers' drifting bottles, but Xu Sirui soon discovered her problem -

She can't type.

When answering the questions in the message in the bottle, she would use her right index finger to poke at the keyboard slowly, spending half a day looking for each letter, her speed so slow that it seemed even more poignant.

Xu Sirui was mad at her. He took her index finger away and sighed, "Let me teach you how to type first."

There actually was a Kingsoft Typing App on the computer desktop. When he clicked on it, Xu Sirui doubted himself deeply. He actually spent two dollars to come to the Internet cafe to play typing games. Was he really not crazy?

But Zhu Yingning next to him seemed very happy, like a child who had never eaten sweets and got his first candy in his life. He thought about it and slapped away his hesitation.

There are several typing games to choose from in Kingsoft Typing Master, including Save the Apple, White Water Brave, and Speed... Xu Sirui chose the simplest one, Save the Apple, and first taught her the most basic typing posture - put the left index finger on the F key and the right index finger on the J key.

"Ohhh! I totally get it," she said, striking a pose excitedly.

Xu Sirui set the lowest speed for her to play, and told her to press the corresponding letter on the apple when she saw it was about to fall to the ground.

She nodded vigorously.

"Take your time playing. I'm going outside to get some fresh air." He went out after giving the instructions.

In fact, there was nothing fun to do outside. Xu Sirui walked around outside and breathed in the fresh air for a while, then felt bored, so he went back and saw how she was doing.

This sight almost shocked him to death.

He had already adjusted the difficulty to the lowest level for her, but Zhu Yingning was still like an old lady with presbyopia, sometimes pressing the tip of her nose against the screen, sometimes against the keyboard, squinting her eyes and muttering to herself: "g...g...g..."

The key "g" was clearly right next to her left index finger, but she just didn't see it. Seeing that the apple was about to fall, she became anxious and instantly forgot the posture he taught her. She went back to pointing at the keyboard with her index finger, slowly searching down from the punctuation and number column in the upper left corner.

"Why are you looking at numbers? Look for letters." Xu Sirui couldn't help but speak out.

She said "oh" and hurriedly counted the small keyboard on the right.

"...Those are numbers too!" His eyes twitched, and he bent her fingers back to the center of the keyboard. "The letters are on these three lines. Look carefully, don't look around randomly. And remember the posture I taught you. Don't count with one finger here and there. Are you planning on counting until next year?"

Zhu Yingning became increasingly flustered by his nagging, and casually replied, "I know, please don't rush me. The more you rush me, the more confused I'll become."

Xu Sirui had no choice but to suppress his anxiety and withdraw his hand.

The apple containing g had fallen to the ground during all this trouble. She found another apple and started the long search again, muttering "j...j...j..."

Xu Sirui was watching from the side, feeling both angry and amused. Seeing that the apple was about to fall to the ground again and she still hadn't found it, she subconsciously reminded him, "It's under your right index finger."

She then managed to press the letter J before the apple fell to the ground.

"Ggg and jjj again, are you a hen, Zhu Yingning?" He really couldn't help but complain.

Zhu Yingning turned around and glared at him angrily.

"Stop glaring at me, or your apple will fall again." He reminded her with a chuckle.

She quickly turned back and continued her old-lady search.

Xu Sirui stood behind her and watched. Seeing the apples falling one by one, he became more and more anxious. He had never seen anyone play a typing game of the lowest difficulty like this. At the end, he couldn't help but sigh, leaned forward, and with his fingers flying, he helped her press down three apples that were about to fall to the ground.

Who knew that this person would be so ungrateful and actually screamed, his cheeks flushed red, and he angrily scolded him: "Xu Sirui, how could you do this?! How can I continue to exercise after you helped me press it off?"

"Fuck." He was also angry. "I'm helping you! You're such a bad player and you don't allow anyone to help you?"

"Who wants your help? What's wrong with me? I don't believe you're any better than me when you first start playing—Hey! What are you doing, Xu Sirui!!"

As she spoke, Xu Sirui's childish behavior took over, rapidly deleting all the apples on the screen, making Zhu Yingning so angry that she almost vomited blood. She opened his hand and pushed him back hard.

Xu Sirui stumbled at her shove. It was the first time in his life that someone had pushed him away like that. He was stunned for a moment, feeling as though his kindness had been misused. The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. He simply reached out and, with a swift movement, quickly switched the Save Apple mode to its most challenging setting. Zhu Yingning was stunned by his childishness. She tried to grab the mouse, but he snatched it away. Not only that, he slumped over her chair, grabbed the keyboard, and slammed down a bunch of apples with a show of skill, nearly knocking her to the ground.

"you……!"

Zhu Yingning pulled his arm with one hand and reached for the keyboard with the other, and unwillingly destroyed a few apples.

The two of them were like kindergarteners, wrestling and scrambling to get to the keyboard first. They turned a typing game into a World War II, complete with swearing, shouting, and screaming.

It's amazing how effective this is. Zhu Yingning felt like her Ren and Du meridians had been opened. Her vision cleared, her mind cleared, and her memory suddenly became sharper than ever. Letters that had previously been difficult to distinguish suddenly became clear. To squeeze Xu Sirui out of the way, her reaction speed and precision increased. Several times, she pressed the same button as him, her fingertips digging into his nails and crushing them hard, causing him to howl in pain.

The Internet cafe owner behind the counter was not surprised by this. After all, it was normal to get emotional when playing games, and it was also normal to fight. Before, a few young men lost control of their emotions while playing games and almost stabbed each other with knives.

He didn't even raise his head and continued to play Tetris calmly.

Amidst the chaotic background noise, the boss persevered and finally achieved his target score. He put down his phone, stretched his muscles, and looked up. Seeing that the two people were about to exceed the time limit, he slowly walked over to chase them away.

When he stood behind them, he subconsciously glanced at the screen, wanting to see what they were playing so excitedly that even their cheeks were flushed.

StarCraft? World of Warcraft? CrossFire?

Neither.

The interface of Kingsoft Typing Master was clearly displayed on the screen.

“…”

“…”

“…”

Zhu Yingning and Xu Sirui also saw the boss behind them through the reflection of the computer screen, and they both became obedient instantly.

After a strange silence, Zhu Yingning picked up the red plastic bag beside her, and Xu Sirui lowered his head. The two of them escaped from the Internet cafe in disgrace, one in front and the other behind.

The author has something to say:

----------------------