Jiang Jingye did not return to the Rental Apartment.
Instead, he went back to work.
First, he swapped shifts with Liu Zhisheng and took the night shift.
Then he contacted the game companion group owner to ask if there were any available orders.
He planned to use gaming to distract himself from the unpleasant emotions that had been bothering him all evening.
But before throwing himself into the game, he thought it over several times.
In the end, he still sent Su Nuo a message:
Working the night shift today. I’ll be back at 6 a.m. tomorrow.
Seeing the message, Su Nuo let out a soft sigh and replied:
Okay.
She considered saying something comforting, but after thinking about it again and again, she decided to keep quiet.
Men valued their pride the most.
She could not make things worse.
Without Jiang Jingye at home for dinner,
the pot of rice Su Nuo had cooked was barely touched.
“The weather’s getting warmer. I wonder if this rice will last until tomorrow so I can make fried rice.”
After shaking milk tea all day, her arms were still sore.
With nothing else to do, she rolled around on the bed, trying to massage her aching arms.
Her mind was filled with the image of Xu Jiayi and Fu Sili standing together, looking like the perfect golden couple.
The love story between the male and female leads she had written seemed even sweeter than she had imagined.
She wanted to recreate the story that had once saved her during the most difficult period of her life.
As soon as the thought came to her, she acted on it.
Putting on her shoes, she left the apartment and found a cheap internet café nearby.
The café was crowded, noisy, and filled with cigarette smoke.
In that unpleasant environment, the only advantage was the relatively low internet fee.
Su Nuo topped up her account, turned on a computer, and painstakingly wrote five thousand words.
Afterward, she searched for the most popular novel website in this world.
She registered a pen name, entered the title, clicked publish, and successfully created a new novel.
“Love Beyond Control” was the title.
It was also the name of this novel world.
The protagonists were named Xu Jiayi and Fu Sili, using different characters but identical pronunciations to the originals.
Starting from their first meeting, she wrote about how they gradually came to know and understand each other.
The more she wrote, the more addicted she became.
By the time she reluctantly left for home, it was already close to eleven o’clock.
After a simple wash, she lay down on the bed.
Still holding her phone, she fiddled with it for quite a while.
If she did not have to go shake milk tea again tomorrow,
she would have happily stayed up all night writing.
Jiang Jingye accepted three individual orders.
Every customer happened to be a female player trying to rank up.
Once he entered the game, he devoted himself completely to it.
His fingers moved so quickly that they seemed to leave afterimages behind.
The mind that had once dominated the business world found it effortless to calculate map vision, skill cooldowns, and the enemy jungler’s route.
It was a complete mismatch in skill level.
Only eight minutes into the first match, he led his client to destroy the enemy crystal.
Zero deaths.
Eighteen kills.
The record was dazzling.
The soft spoken girl from the first order immediately exploded in the public chat.
“Holy crap! Brother Ye, are you a god? I want to extend the order! An all nighter! Name your price!”
Jiang Jingye was briefly curious how she knew his name.
Then he remembered he was playing a jungler hero and immediately understood.
He had just typed:
No. The next order is starting.
Before he could send it, the second scheduled player had already joined the team.
Without waiting for him to speak, the first girl immediately interrupted.
“Sis, let’s queue together! Brother Ye is insane! Three stack is guaranteed wins!”
The second player was also straightforward and cheerful.
The moment she saw the previous match record, she agreed on the spot.
“Sure! If Brother Ye carries me, I’ll pay extra too!”
Jiang Jingye did not object.
Another ten matches passed.
The third scheduled player logged in on time and joined the team.
The three girls chatted endlessly in voice chat.
Looking at the screen full of requests to be carried, Jiang Jingye hesitated for a moment.
Afraid his teammates would not be able to keep up, he finally turned on his microphone.
His voice was naturally low and clear.
Combined with the slight hoarseness from staying up all night, it sounded unbelievably attractive through the headset.
The moment he spoke, the three girls immediately became even more excited.
Perhaps because they were too excited, their early game performance was poor.
Jiang Jingye had no choice but to take command more actively.
“Mage, defend mid. Stop roaming around.”
“Support, follow me into their jungle.”
“Marksman, stay under tower. Wait until I finish ganking bot lane before pushing.”
Leading three girls whose mechanics were far from smooth, he forcibly turned a losing game into a crushing victory.
One incredible play after another left the enemy team trapped inside their own base, unable to step out.
When dawn finally broke and the first light appeared on the horizon, the game system announced:
[Congratulations! You have advanced to King Rank!]
The three girls were so excited they sounded close to tears.
Red packets flooded the chat.
Every other sentence was:
“Brother Ye, you’re amazing!”
Jiang Jingye exited the game and glanced at the payment notifications on WeChat.
He had originally planned to earn only six hundred yuan.
But after one night,
a full two thousand yuan had been deposited into his account.
His fingers rubbed lightly against the screen.
The tangled emotions weighing on his heart suddenly eased.
“Holy crap! Are you insane?!”
Liu Zhisheng arrived to take over the morning shift.
The moment he entered, he saw the faint bloodshot veins in Jiang Jingye’s eyes.
Then he glanced at the payment records and rank displayed on his phone.
His eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.
“You went from Star Glory to King Rank in one night? And made almost two thousand yuan?”
“Yeah.”
Jiang Jingye put away his phone, stood up, and tossed him the booth keys.
“I’m off work. Can’t hang out with you today.”
“That’s incredible! Carry me sometime too!”
Liu Zhisheng shouted after him.
Jiang Jingye simply waved a hand without stopping.
The morning breeze carried the lingering chill of early spring.
He stopped by a breakfast shop at the entrance of an alley and ordered two cups of hot soy milk, two freshly fried youtiao, a basket of soup dumplings, and two tea eggs.
All of them were things Su Nuo had mentioned wanting to eat while watching short videos on her phone the day before yesterday.
Carrying the warm breakfast, he took out his key and unlocked the door to the Rental Apartment.
The lights were off.
Only the pale morning sunlight streamed through the small window, casting a narrow beam across the floor.
Jiang Jingye had just placed the breakfast on the folding table.
The moment he looked up, his entire body froze.
Su Nuo was standing beside the bed, changing clothes.
She had just taken off her pajamas and had not yet put on a new outfit.
Her skin looked dazzlingly fair in the morning light.
The lines of her shoulders and neck were soft and graceful.
Her waist was slender.
Even the tips of her ears carried a faint blush.
Completely unprepared, she entered his line of sight without any covering.
Su Nuo had never expected him to come home at this hour either.
She froze in place.
Her mind went completely blank.
She even forgot how to breathe.
Their eyes met.
Time itself seemed to stop.
Jiang Jingye’s pupils contracted sharply.
His breathing halted.
Heat rushed from his neck to his face.
He quickly looked away, his fingers clenching so tightly that his knuckles turned pale.
Even his voice carried a trace of tension and hoarseness.
“I… I’m going to take a shower first.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, he turned around awkwardly and hurried into the bathroom.
A click sounded as he locked the door.
Only after the bathroom door cut off his view did Su Nuo suddenly regain her senses.
Instinctively, she crossed her arms over her chest.
Embarrassment, awkwardness, and an indescribable irritation flooded her.
It was true that they had once been in a kept relationship.
But no matter how proactive the original Su Nuo had been, the two of them had never shared such a completely unguarded moment.
This was probably the first time Jiang Jingye had seen her like this.
And it was also the first time a man had seen her completely naked.
Ahhh…