Su Ying looked at the message on the screen and replied with six dots.
As if I’d believe you!
He’s clearly no decent sort!
Su Ying paid no further attention to Fa Cai Cai and turned to join Su Jiayu’s mining group.
Mining was a three-person team activity. Apart from Su Ying and Su Jiayu, they were short of one member. To accommodate Su Ying’s gaming schedule, they didn’t have a fixed partner; they often had to recruit someone on the spot. As for the quality of the recruited teammates, it was like opening a blind box: sometimes you’d get a ‘Sharp Sister’, sometimes a ‘Stressed-Out Brother’—it all depended on luck.
This time, luck was on their side; the recruit turned out to be a young lady with sharp skills and a lovely voice.
Throughout the game, the young lady chatted constantly with Su Jiayu. Unlike Su Ying’s reserved nature, she was lively and chatty, discussing everything under the sun. In just an hour, she and Su Jiayu hit it off brilliantly, and the voice chat room was filled with their laughter and banter.
Even though Su Jiayu tried time and again to strike up a conversation with Su Ying during the session, she would only respond blankly with “Is that so?” or “I know”, only for the young lady to skilfully take over the conversation.
Su Ying seethed inwardly, yet at the same time felt she was a lost cause.
She could tell the young lady had her sights set on Su Jiayu; after all, there weren’t many male players like him—sharp-witted, with a pleasant voice and a steady temperament—so it was only natural that he’d be popular.
Besides, this young lady seemed to be a perfect match for her senior brother, unlike herself…
What a failure.
The only change Su Ying had made in the past six years was spending 50,000 on an account; apart from attracting a bunch of trash and handing out red packets worth a thousand yuan, she’d gained nothing. Nor had her senior brother looked at her any differently just because she’d suddenly become wealthy.
As the game drew to a close, the voice chat room suddenly fell silent, but she could hear the clacking of Su Jiayu’s mechanical keyboard.
She surmised that the two might be chatting privately.
Su Ying felt deflated. The young lady had a lovely voice, was a skilled player, and had a great personality—she was simply better in every way. With mutual attraction, it was only natural that the two might be considering taking things further.
It wasn’t as if this hadn’t happened before; it was just that Su Jiayu would always turn her down directly in the voice chat room, rather than chatting privately behind her back like this…
The more Su Ying thought about it, the more aggrieved she felt, and she logged off without a word.
Su Ying stared at her phone, waiting for Su Jiayu to come and comfort her. Usually, if she logged off without a word, her senior brother would immediately ask her what was wrong.
But today, she stared at the phone lying beside her for a full five minutes without a single notification sound.
Su Ying was finding it hard to cope. She knew that she and her senior brother were merely in-game acquaintances; she knew she had no right to interfere in his choice of friends or partners; she knew he had no obligation to comfort her. Yet, she couldn’t help but feel a sense of loss, even heartbreak.
If this had been in the past, she wouldn’t have known how many tears she would have shed in private, but today her mindset had shifted:
You’ve got your ‘Big Sister’, and I’ve got my ‘Fa Cai Cai’—it’s not as if I can only play with you!
She had a secondary account with 50,000 in-game currency. Although it only attracted ‘scum’, if she picked and chose carefully, perhaps there might be a decent one among them?
Perhaps Fa Cai Cai was the decent one?
With this petulant thought in mind, Su Ying logged in using Su Yingying’s account.
As soon as she came online, she sent a message to Fa Cai Cai:
[Su Yingying: Fa Cai Cai, can you take me on a dungeon run?]
A party invitation popped up immediately.
Su Ying looked at the party request on the screen, feeling somewhat uneasy. She knew that anyone approaching her just because she had money couldn’t be a decent person, but what could she do? She was useless herself. In this vast game, apart from Su Jiayu, she didn’t have a single friend or relative.
Su Ying clicked ‘Accept’.
No sooner had she joined the group than a cheerful, clearly female voice greeted her: “Honey! I’ve been waiting for you!”
For some reason, Su Ying felt an inexplicable sense of relief.
It was a girl. That was absolutely brilliant.
She’d intended to play the game with other boys to get under Su Jiayu’s skin, but the thought of actually playing with another boy made her feel a bit reluctant.
Still…
“Could you please not call me ‘honey’? It feels a bit odd…”
Fa Caicai was flexible: “Do you want me to call you ‘hubby’ instead? Of course I can—”
“Stop right there!” Su Ying’s face was already burning red. “Just call me Yingying…”
“Oh dear, that sounds so formal.”
Su Ying: …
It wasn’t formal at all; in real life, only a few of her particularly close university flatmates called her Yingying. Even her parents and family simply called her Su Ying.
Su Ying reiterated once more: “In any case, you’re not allowed to call me ‘wife’, and ‘husband’ is out of the question too!”
“Right, right, right~” Fa Caicai’s tone was full of indulgence, “Whatever you want me to call you is fine, sweetheart~”
Su Ying quickly put a stop to it: “You’re not allowed to call me ‘sweetheart’ either!”
Fa Caicai snorted: “You seem younger than me, yet you’re so old-fashioned. Oh dear, a young lady so prim and proper—how on earth are you going to find a partner in a game?”
Hearing this, Su Ying fell silent. Was it because she was too prim and proper that her relationship with her senior had stalled?
But… but she could never bring herself to speak like Fa Caicai.
“Are you and your senior brother a perfect match?” Fa Caicai really did have a knack for rubbing salt into the wound.
Su Ying’s tone was subdued: “No, he’s just my senior brother.”
“I see…” Fa Caicai mumbled, “Tsk,” she made a disapproving sound, “I reckon the title ‘senior brother’ is a bit too ordinary. Next time, try calling him ‘Master’—that’d really amp up the taboo factor, wouldn’t it?! It’d instantly make people think of those posts online—what with forced abductions, insubordination…”
“Shut up!” Su Ying felt her face was burning.
“Hahahahaha. ” Fa Caicai laughed until he was out of breath, “Yingying, you really, really… are just too cute!”
What Fa Caicai meant by ‘running dungeons’ wasn’t what Su Ying had imagined—joining in the fray to fight monsters—but rather acting as the party leader.
In other words, once inside the dungeon, he’d AFK, watch his teammates fight the monsters, and then join the bidding for the loot once the monsters were slain.
It was really just a way to spend money; there wasn’t much of a sense of participation.
Fa Cai Cai explained, “You don’t usually run dungeons, so if you just jumped in without warning, you might get told off. I thought I’d take you along as a ‘boss’ first to get you familiar with the dungeon mechanics. When you’ve got time, I can teach you how to run dungeons and hang out with the guild.”
Su Ying didn’t really mind; she spent most of her time gaming with Su Jiayu. If she had the chance to meet some other people and try out different ways of playing, that would be fine too.
She didn’t want to be tied to Su Jiayu anymore.
Once the dungeon run was over, Su Ying opened her phone and discovered she actually had a few messages from her senior brother on WeChat.
Strange, why hadn’t she heard the notification sound?
Su Ying hurriedly opened the chat window; the message bar at the top briefly displayed ‘Loading’ before the messages popped up in rapid succession.
[Senior Brother: Why did you log off, Junior Sister?]
[Senior Brother: Is the connection poor, or are you tired?]
[Senior Brother: Well then, get some rest early, Junior Sister. Goodnight.]
[Senior Brother: Goodnight.jpg]
She hated sudden silences. So it wasn’t that her senior brother hadn’t sent her messages; it was that this rubbish phone hadn’t received them?
Or was there a signal delay?
Su Ying had long heard rumours about poor signal on iPhones, but she couldn’t wrap her head around it. After all, hers was a phone costing nearly ten thousand yuan—her own cheap model, which cost just over a thousand, never suffered from signal delays, so how could a phone costing several thousand possibly have poor reception?
Hey!
It actually does!
Su Ying propped her elbows on the table, spread her hands out, and buried her face in her palms.
Outwardly she appeared calm, but inside she was screaming her head off: Aaaaaah, surely Senior Brother doesn’t think I’m angry and that’s why he’s not replying to my messages?!
This incident felt like a pebble dropped into the pond of Su Ying’s life; before she could even see the ripples it created, her attention had already been drawn elsewhere.
Su Ying’s life began to fill up with busyness.
Waking up at midday, she’d order takeaway first. Su Ying no longer ordered whatever was most expensive, as she had when she’d just won the lottery, nor was she as penny-pinching as before the win, unable to bring herself to order this or that. Instead, she ordered what she liked, what she fancied, and what she loved—though, of course, she didn’t forget to claim a voucher before placing her order.
She would eat whilst scrolling through her phone, mostly browsing social media, reading meaningless gossip and all sorts of messy relationship dramas, occasionally interspersed with posts about home renovations, interior design and furniture arrangements.
After finishing her meal, she hails a taxi to her new place. Her little electric scooter has been sitting unused in the carport for ages. It’s not that she’s fickle or has grown tired of it; it’s just that riding it in the dead of winter is genuinely freezing. Once spring arrives and the flowers bloom, she’ll certainly drag it out of its cold storage.
Sitting in the taxi, Su Ying had been pondering a question. Chun City isn’t that big; even though she currently takes a taxi across districts every day, the round-trip fare is less than 30 yuan. Not to mention that once she moves into her new home, she’ll need taxis even less. Is it really worth going to the trouble of getting a driving licence and buying a car just for that so-called ‘freedom’? Never mind the cost of the car itself, insurance, maintenance and petrol; the tuition fees for the driving test alone would cover her taxi fares for quite some time.
However, there was no rush on this matter, and Su Ying planned to put it off until after the New Year.
Upon arriving at her new home, she would first head to the parcel locker to collect her deliveries, then go home to unpack them, assemble the items, take photos and leave positive reviews, and decorate her new home according to the inspirational images she’d seen on social media.
Su Ying didn’t stop shopping just yet; she simply seemed to have reverted to her previous habits, enjoying comparing prices across multiple shopping platforms. If there was any difference, it was that whereas before she’d only looked at price, now she’d started prioritising quality—though it was only a slight shift.
In the evenings, back at her rented flat, she’d cook for herself if she felt like it, using up whatever was in the fridge; if not, she’d order takeaways. After dinner, she’d first join Su Jiayu in mining, then follow Fa Caicai into dungeons until the early hours.
Life was just that simple and unassuming.
Until one evening, after dinner, Su Ying sent a message to Su Jiayu:
[Senior, what time are you finishing tonight?]
Su Jiayu didn’t reply; instead, he simply sent a WeChat call.
It was so rare for Su Jiayu to call that Su Ying accepted the call almost instantly.
“Senior?”
Su Jiayu’s voice sounded unusually low: “I’ve got a blind date tonight, so I won’t be able to play. You carry on on your own.”
“Eh?” Su Ying was momentarily taken aback, then a hint of bewilderment crept in, before giving way to despondency. “Oh…”
“Um…” Su Jiayue on the other end of the line seemed at a loss for how to continue the conversation. After a brief pause, his tone softened. “It’s something my family arranged. It shouldn’t be too late. I’ll do the daily quests with you when I get back.”
Su Ying stared at her now-blackened phone screen, feeling rather dejected.
Her senior was the same age as her; he’d be 25 after the New Year. Given their background, wasn’t it perfectly normal for someone to be set up on a blind date? Wasn’t a blind date perfectly normal? It was playing games with her every single day that was the odd one out…
Although Su Ying had tried her best to console herself, she couldn’t help but sigh as soon as she logged into the game. Even Fa Cai Cai, who was usually all smiles, couldn’t resist asking her what was wrong.
Su Ying explained what had happened, and Fa Cai Cai let out a ‘Hmm’: ‘It’s no big deal. Forget about him. Come and run a dungeon with me! Dungeons are really fun; the girls are all brilliant, and they’re so pleasant to talk to. I guarantee you’ll lose track of time and forget all your troubles.”
Seeing that Su Ying still couldn’t muster any enthusiasm, Fa Cai Cai tried to cheer her up again: “It’s just a man, isn’t it? It’s no big deal. Tell your big sister what sort of guy you’re after, and I’ll sort you out nine ‘models’ to run dungeons with you straight away!”
Of course, Fa Cai Cai didn’t actually arrange for nine male characters to join her in the dungeon; the two of them hung out in the voice chat room, checking for a party while chatting.
Su Ying stared at her phone, replying to Fa Cai Cai’s messages half-heartedly. How she wished the blind date would fizzle out so her senior brother could play the game with her.
But it didn’t. An hour and a half later, after Su Ying had finished a dungeon run with Fa Cai Cai and was just about to switch characters to start another, her senior sent her a message:
[Senior: Junior, are you free right now? I’d like to treat you to a meal.]
Su Ying hadn’t quite processed it yet; she stared blankly at the message.
Before she could react, he sent several more:
[Senior Brother: I had a quick chat with her and then we parted ways.]
[Senior Brother: I’ve heard this restaurant serves really good food.]
[Senior Brother: So, Junior Sister, would you like to go for a meal?]
“Aaaaaaah!” Su Ying let out a shriek like a groundhog as she clutched her phone. In the voice chat room, Fa Cai Cai covered his ears and asked, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?”
“My senior brother’s taking me out for dinner! Taking me out for dinner! What should I do? What should I do?!”
Facaicai began to analyse the situation for her in earnest: “Tonight? That’s a last-minute invitation, isn’t it? My best guess is that a blind date fell through and they’ve asked you to step in as a replacement. That’s just a backup option, isn’t it…”
Facaicai’s voice sounded as though it were muffled behind a pane of glass; it was indistinct, and Su Ying couldn’t bear to listen to a word of it.
A huge wave of excitement exploded in her mind like fireworks. She snatched up her mobile, darted to the coat rack, grabbed her down jacket and threw it on haphazardly—not even bothering to zip it up—before striding purposefully towards the door.
She had to run there; she had to fly there.
She couldn’t bear to listen to a single word of Fa Cai Cai’s rational analysis.
The night is short; let the young girl charge ahead!