Chapter 8
When I got home, I checked the time and opened the pinned chat box, then typed: "What time will you be working overtime? Let me know when you get off work, and we can go out for something nice to eat together?"
Xiao Ming immediately replied, "I don't know yet. I'll probably eat dinner at the company cafeteria, so I won't eat out. Thank you."
He then asked, "What about tomorrow? Do you have any plans for the weekend? Would you like to go to the movies?"
A quick reply: "I'm still unsure if I'll have to work overtime tomorrow."
Jiang Lan finally understood that Xiao Ming was using overtime as an excuse, and she couldn't help but feel a little frustrated.
This situation left him helpless, so he had no choice but to call Liu Zhen for help.
After listening, Liu Zhen scratched his head: "This girl is so stubborn. That shouldn't be the case. With your looks, even if she's deliberately being coy, she wouldn't last long, afraid you'd run away. This doesn't seem like she's being coy at all; it's more like she's tolerating you. Tell me the truth, when you added her as a friend, you didn't force her to add you because you had something on her, did you?"
Jiang Lan was speechless: "Are you even speaking human language?"
"Top-tier looks? Your face isn't even worth hers?"
"Stop guessing. It's that girl you told me to stop from adding as a friend when you saw her at the stadium last time."
"Hmm... I'm telling you, men are just so shameless. They look down on the ones who are eager to date you, but they shamelessly fawn over the ones who are indifferent to them. That girl seems aloof. You need to get to know her first and gather more information before I can give you advice. I feel like you're being targeted. If you really like her, find out why you're being targeted before taking the next step. If you don't like her that much, then back off."
After hanging up the phone, Jiang Lan walked to the French windows to look at the scenery in the distance. Retreat? That was impossible.
Xiao Ming left work on time. Sister Wu was busy today, so he had nothing to do after work.
She didn't have much personal interaction with her colleagues at the company, and her close classmates from back then lived in different cities. Oh well, she decided to go home and play games.
After dinner, I turned on my computer, and another red dot appeared in the friend request section. I clicked on it and laughed in exasperation: "You really are persistent. Fine, three strikes and you're done."
I just accepted their friend request, and they immediately sent me a duo queue invitation.
She didn't turn on voice chat, jumped to the same spot as her teammates, and then started playing by herself.
She was knocked down by a grenade a few times after the circle shrank a few times. Her teammates saw her fall, used smoke grenades to revive her, and they were both shot down together.
She returned to the preparation page, and her teammate messaged her, asking her to turn on the team voice chat and promising to carry her to victory.
Xiao Ming had never won a chicken dinner in this game, so he hesitated, thought for a moment, and then opened the language.
The game started, and a teammate spoke up: "Can you hear me? We're not going to jump into the building area later, you follow me."
Upon hearing that familiar voice, Xiao Ming exclaimed, "Wow, it's the top spender on the PUBG streamer's leaderboard!" Looking at the teammate's nickname, he realized it was the top spender's smurf account.
What luck! I've actually hooked up with a big shot. I might win PUBG now!
She was truly blind to his greatness, rejecting him so many times. Fortunately, he was magnanimous and respected her, never giving up on her, otherwise she would have missed her chance.
Taking a few deep breaths, Xiaoming calmed his excited emotions: "I can hear you. You do the punctuation, and I'll dance with you."
Jiang Lan, who was on the other end of the line, was stunned when she heard the voice. How could it sound so much like Xiao Ming's? She said she also loved playing shooting games. What a coincidence!
He wanted to confirm again, so he said, "Can we jump down and find a car first?"
The other person replied, "Sure."
Jiang Lan was certain; the person opposite her was Xiao Ming. She had been thinking about her every day lately, and she couldn't mistake her voice.
He was still a bit traumatized by being rejected by Xiaoming recently, and he didn't expect to be rejected again when trying to add him as a friend in PUBG. So, he was unwilling to give up and tried to add the person who rejected him several times. When he finally got the friend, he found out that it was the same person who had rejected him all along. Jiang Lan was both amused and exasperated. Was this some kind of twist of fate?
A pang of sadness welled up inside her. It seemed that Xiaoming hadn't recognized her voice at all. Well, they'd barely exchanged ten words face-to-face, and she didn't seem to care much about her. How could she possibly remember her voice?
Fortunately, she didn't recognize her own voice, otherwise she might not have teamed up with him for duo queue, since the person who told her he was working overtime was now surfing the internet.
Suppressing his myriad thoughts, he began to seriously guide Xiaoming in playing the game, afraid that if he didn't play well, Xiaoming would kick him out again.
Xiao Ming played several rounds of PUBG in one night and was very satisfied.
The pro player invited her to team up for another PUBG game the next day, and Xiaoming readily agreed. She added the pro player as a friend on his main account, then logged off and turned off her computer.
Seeing Jiang Lan's daily unwavering "Goodnight" in the chat window, Xiao Ming also replied with "Goodnight," then turned off the lights and went to sleep.
That night's dream was unusually vibrant, filled with a vast, endless jungle. The tall trees in the jungle were covered with flowers of all colors. She swung between the branches like a gibbon, or climbed up the trunks to pick the bright flowers that she could see but could not reach.
After spending the night as a flower thief, Xiaoming woke up in a good mood in the morning.
At the same time, I was a little confused. They say that what you think about during the day, you dream about at night. I was in a fierce battle with a gun for several hours last night, and my cerebral cortex was so excited, so why didn't I dream about PUBG Mobile last night?
Never mind, I need to finish what I need to do quickly. I still need to team up with the pros to play PUBG on time.
After playing all day, I said goodbye to the pro player in the evening and logged off to go for a run.
For two months, he would occasionally play PUBG online with the pro player, and offline, he would casually say good morning and good night to Jiang Lan, like a bot doing daily tasks. One morning, Xiaoming's short video app was flooded with trending news: a vicious incident had occurred in a neighboring city where an antisocial assailant had stormed into a group of elementary school students leaving school and viciously attacked them.
Fortunately, the school has recently strengthened its training in campus safety, and the school's security personnel are also very well-equipped. The perpetrator was quickly subdued by the crowd.
Apart from one autistic boy who was seriously injured in a knife attack while waiting for his parents and is currently in intensive care, the other children who were in danger suffered minor injuries from bumps and bruises while running away, or escaped safely.
As soon as Yingjie arrived at work, she came over to talk to her about this matter. The safety of children is a sensitive issue that touches a nerve with parents.
"I hope he is sentenced to death immediately; that scumbag."
Xiao Ming chimed in, "People with mental problems like this shouldn't be allowed to roam freely in society. You could call them vicious, but they only pick on the weak. They don't dare to chase adults, but they relentlessly prey on children. To put it bluntly, they're just cowards."
"Do you pick up and drop off your child every day?" Sister Ying asked her.
"Yes, I pick him up and drop him off every day. You see, I come to work early every day, but I have to get up early to drop off my child. In the afternoon, I have to rush to pick him up from school, so I have to leave right on time." Xiaoming's character is logically sound and there is no way anyone can find any flaws in his story.
Yingjie nodded: "My job doesn't allow me to be as punctual as you. Luckily, my mother-in-law helps me take care of the children, so I feel at ease. Otherwise, what would I do?"
Xiaoming had worked at Dehua for several years, so she knew exactly how to take care of children. She could answer any question from anyone in the company.
It's Friday again, and Jiang Lan messaged her like it's a daily routine: "[Want to grab a bite? There's a really good seafood restaurant that just opened near the supermarket.]"
Xiao Ming typed expressionlessly: "Working overtime, no time. Maybe next time."
She genuinely wanted to ask him, "Hey bro, what's wrong with you? Do you think rejection is harmless? I've been practically working overtime in the chat box for 24/7, and you're still so persistent, neither questioning nor being sarcastic. Your mentality is absolutely amazing!"
She longed for him to openly express his intentions to pursue her, instead of sending him "good morning" and "good night" greetings every day. This made it impossible for her to even have an excuse to delete him from her contacts. You might think that his daily greetings meant he was pursuing her, but he would just say he was bored and had nothing better to do. In the end, she would just become a self-deluded clown.
Just as he was about to leave work, Xiaoming walked into the badminton hall. Sister Wu had been so busy for months that they hadn't played badminton together in a long time. When she wanted to exercise, she could only go for a run in the park.
After playing for more than two hours, Xiaoming took a shower, changed his clothes, and said goodbye to Sister Wu at the entrance of the venue. He had only taken a few steps when his phone rang. He took out his phone and saw that it was his old classmate Wen Hui. He walked to the green belt by the roadside to answer the phone.
"Hey beautiful, shouldn't you be with your boyfriend at this hour? What brings you to me?"
A sobbing sound came from the other end of the line. Xiao Ming quickly asked, "Why are you crying? Who bullied you?"
"Waaaaah~, Xiaoming, I'm heartbroken. That bastard Tang Jindong cheated on me and found another girl behind my back."
Xiaoming was a little surprised. She knew Tang Jindong too; they were classmates. As far as she knew, this guy was a good person, and it didn't seem like he would do something as tasteless as cheating. "Where are you now?"
"At home. My heart feels heavy and my head hurts too," Wen Hui said in a muffled voice, sniffling.
"Go drink some water, calm down, and then tell me what happened," Xiaoming patiently comforted her.
Xiao Ming waited a while and heard the person on the other end of the line choke up as they spoke: "I was on a field job today and finished a little early, so I bought some of his favorite foods and went to wait for him downstairs at his company to surprise him. But I saw a girl with her arm around his, and the two of them came out together, chatting and laughing. My head was spinning, and I couldn't react at all. He didn't see me, and I just watched them walk away."
Xiao Ming was a little disappointed in her. Her classmate was gentle and mild-mannered, and everyone in the dormitory liked to be around her. Now it seemed that her mild-mannered nature was almost pathetic.
"Didn't you call and confront him? He hasn't contacted you for so long?"
"No, I'm feeling really confused. I hate him so much, so I deleted him from my contacts. He just called, but I didn't answer. Xiaoming, what should I do?"
"Sister, you need to get to the bottom of this. Even if you're breaking up, you should at least make it clear. What kind of person are you, not answering the phone, deleting my phone, and hiding in your room crying? Sigh, whatever, you just wait!"
Xiaoming is someone who particularly dislikes meddling in other people's business, let alone such private matters between husband and wife or boyfriend and girlfriend. She is happy to listen to gossip, but she will politely decline to get involved.
Therefore, she doesn't like making friends, and she doesn't have any so-called best friends, just because she's afraid of getting bothered by all those complicated love and romance issues.
When these things happen to people she's not close to, she just listens to it as a bit of fun. But when people close to her tell her these kinds of troubles, it's even more upsetting than that, and sometimes she has no choice but to get involved.
For example, right now, if she doesn't take care of Wen Hui's cowardly behavior, she won't be able to sleep tonight; she'll be driven crazy with anger.
A call was made to Tang Jindong, who answered quickly, followed by a hearty laugh: "The sun must have risen in the west! Xiaoming is calling me."
Xiao Ming didn't waste any words: "Tang Jindong, what's with that woman who was holding your arm when you got off work today?"
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