Schicksal Tech, office area.
The white-haired girl was hugging her phone, grinning stupidly at the screen as her fingers tapped away at lightning speed.
“Old Li!
Mei made double portions of sweet-pepper curry again today, plus fried chicken legs.
We absolutely have to devour them!”
“Get over here!
We’ll eat together!
(expectant-cat.jpg)”
The moment she sent the messages, the status at the top immediately changed to Typing…
Kiana swung her legs back and forth as she waited.
Then the reply popped up, and she froze.
Li Yedao: “Kiana, I quit my job and went home.
I won’t be coming to work anymore.”
Li Yedao: “Eat it yourself.
I left some snacks in my drawer, and the whole case of Coke under the desk is yours too.
Just don’t let your sister see it.
She doesn’t like you having that stuff.”
Li Yedao: “Goodbye, you paramecium.
(stoic-old-man.jpg)”
A few seconds later…
Li Yedao: “Oh, right.
Actually…
I’ve never really liked curry, you idiot.”
The smile froze on Kiana’s face.
She slowly pulled open the drawer.
Potato chips, chocolate, and jelly were stuffed inside to the brim.
Even the plastic wrapping around the case of Coke underneath the desk had never been opened.
Li Yedao used to call all of it his “slacking-off strategic reserve.”
The reserve was still here.
But the person was gone.
“Now there’s no one to slack off with me anymore…”
A strange heaviness clogged her chest.
She opened a short-video app, hoping to distract herself.
The very first video had melancholy background music and a caption that read:
“Life is filled with roads that lead us apart.”
She swiped.
The next video was another quote about farewells.
Expressionlessly, Kiana deleted the app.
Then she opened her lunchbox and viciously shoveled a huge mouthful of rice into her mouth.
“…Ugh.
Mei made it really salty this time…”
Whether it was the curry that was salty or something else, even Kiana didn’t know.
She chewed while scrolling through her chat history.
Hundreds upon hundreds of pages since the day they started working together.
Every day, they exchanged dozens of messages—complaining about the clock-in machine, covering for each other when one of them slept on the job…
She scrolled all the way back to an early conversation.
Back then, she had excitedly insisted on trying the newly opened curry restaurant downstairs.
Li Yedao had replied:
“Fine.
I’m not really used to curry, but I’ll go with you.”
She hadn’t paid any attention to that part at the time.
Only now did she finally understand what he had meant.
Kiana stuffed the last piece of chicken into her mouth, cheeks puffed up as she muttered sulkily,
“Idiot.
If you didn’t like it, you should’ve just said so!”
“I’m not a picky eater…”
…
…
At the same time, elsewhere—
A handsome young man with black hair and golden eyes lay sprawled across his bed, staring at the contract from the Stellaron Hunter Network on his phone.
His grin was practically stretching from ear to ear.
“Don’t blame me, Kiana.
Your Old Li has officially escaped the wage-slave class~”
Li Yedao, nineteen years old.
A top author on the Stellaron Hunter Network.
Two years ago, he had casually uploaded a novel called Battle Through the Heavens.
The website exploded in popularity along with it, and he went from an ordinary corporate drone who had to clock in every day to a superstar web novelist.
Today, he had finally finished all the paperwork for his resignation.
From now on, he was a full-time writer.
He could wake up whenever the hell he wanted!
He signed the contract and filled in two characters under the pen-name field:
Luolan.
There was no particular meaning behind it.
It was just simple and hard to misspell.
“Freedom at last.
First thing I’m doing is spending three straight days rotting in bed.”
Li Yedao saved a screenshot of the signed contract.
He was just about to roll over and continue his glorious life of doing absolutely nothing when someone knocked on his bedroom door.
“Yedao, come out and eat.”
A woman with long purple hair pushed the door open and leaned against the frame, smiling at him.
Kafka.
One of his housemates.
She was also the person who had introduced him to the Stellaron Hunter Network in the first place.
Apparently, she was even one of the website’s shareholders.
There was always an unhurried, almost lazy composure about her.
It made it impossible to tell what she was thinking.
“I’m not hungry.
You go ahead.”
Li Yedao pulled his pillow over his face.
Kafka didn’t waste any words on him.
She walked over and yanked away his blanket.
“Listen to me.”
Her voice was neither loud nor forceful.
“You can sleep whenever you want.
Right now, be good and go eat.”
A disdainful chuckle came from beneath Li Yedao’s pillow.
Heh.
Who do you think you are, the real Kafka from the Stellaron Hunters?
You actually think—
Huh?!
Wait!!
You can really do that?!
Li Yedao’s body sat up on its own.
Then it slipped into his slippers and started walking straight toward the door.
He twisted his head around in horror.
“Wait, what the hell is this?!”
“I have no idea~”
Kafka followed behind him, her tone as soothing as if she were coaxing a child.
Several dishes were already laid out on the dining table—chicken legs, stir-fried pork, and a bowl of hot soup.
To be fair, it all tasted pretty good.
Li Yedao had no idea how Kafka managed it.
Kafka sat down and casually placed a chicken leg into his bowl.
“You officially resigned today?”
“Mm.”
Li Yedao took a huge bite of meat.
Kiana’s smiling face flashed through his mind, leaving him with a faint twinge of guilt.
But damn, freedom tasted way too good.
Kafka asked leisurely,
“So, what are you planning to do next?
I remember you said you wanted to start a new book.”
“Already signed the contract.
I’m just waiting to launch it.”
His answer came out muffled around his food.
“That’s good.”
Kafka nodded, then abruptly changed the subject.
“What about your personal life?
Have you thought about getting a girlfriend?”
Li Yedao nearly inhaled a mouthful of rice.
“Why are you suddenly asking me that?”
“No particular reason.
I’m asking on someone else’s behalf.”
Kafka gently stirred the grains of rice in her bowl with her chopsticks.
“Firefly’s been asking me about you a lot lately.
What you usually like, when you’re free to play games with her…
Judging from the way she acts, I’d say she probably likes you.”
The image of a silver-haired girl surfaced in Li Yedao’s mind.
Firefly.
She was absurdly good at games.
Whenever they played together, she would quietly support him from the backline.
Her voice was soft, and the slightest compliment would leave her blushing for ages.
Completely different from Silver Wolf.
Gentle, cute, and capable of carrying him through games…
Actually, she did sound pretty great.
“I guess I like her a bit too,” Li Yedao admitted openly.
“But I’d rather spend more time together first.
You can’t rush something like a relationship.”
He didn’t reject the idea…
Kafka narrowed her eyes.
The smile at the corners of her lips became subtly more meaningful.
“I respect your choice.”
“But Yedao, relationships are a major life decision.
You can’t make up your mind just because you got carried away in the moment.
You need to think carefully.”
She watched Li Yedao bury his head in his food and sighed softly to herself.
The boy genuinely had no idea.
Within this villa, Firefly was far from the only one watching him.
Jingliu left early and returned late every day.
She appeared cold and taciturn, yet every time she passed his bedroom door, her footsteps would imperceptibly slow for half a beat.
Acheron was even more blatant.
Those unfathomably deep eyes of hers would settle on him from time to time without the slightest attempt to conceal it.
As for Kafka herself…
Tonight’s dinner hadn’t been solely about dragging him out of bed either.
If Yedao really did end up together with Firefly, the delicate balance inside this house would probably shatter overnight.
And wouldn’t that be interesting?
Kafka lifted her bowl of soup and took an elegant sip, swallowing the hidden meaning in her eyes along with it.