October in the south was like an oven, the blowing wind carrying a wave of stifling heat.
After taking a shower, Xie Ran casually washed his clothes and hung them out on the balcony to dry.
Impatiently, he pushed open the door and stepped into the dorm, the greeting blast of air conditioning causing him to let out a slow breath of relief.
The moment his backside hit the stool, Jiang Xu, who was sitting nearby playing with his mobile phone, turned his head and said, “Sorry, I accidentally moved your phone just now.”
“There was a sales call, so I swiped it away for you.”
Xie Ran had an easygoing personality and wasn’t one to sweat the small stuff. Besides, hanging up a telemarketing call was just a tiny favor. He glanced indifferently at the phone on the desk and replied unconcernedly, “No worries, minor issue.”
Anyway, there weren’t any private secrets in his phone anyway; even his wallpaper was just the default system image.
He stood upright and walked straight.
Not right.
Xie Ran suddenly remembered that he actually did have a secret, for instance: using a female alt account to flirt with He Ruizhe.
However, judging by Jiang Xu’s cold and aloof personality, he probably wouldn’t proactively pry into other people’s privacy.
Helping to hang up a telemarketing call shouldn’t have involved seeing the chat history inside QQ.
Thinking of this, the tight knot in Xie Ran’s chest loosened inch by inch. Being carefree by nature, he immediately tossed the matter to the back of his mind, picked up his phone, tapped into QQ, and casually sent his daily harassment messages to He Ruizhe.
Sitting nearby and checking stocks, Jiang Xu suddenly received a pop-up message on the alt account he had switched to not long ago.
[Big Brother, I just finished showering QAQ What are you doing duck?]
It was written in a soft, spoiled, girly style.
The moment he realized this message had been sent by Xie Ran, his expression turned subtle. His peripheral vision drifted toward the person in the next bed.
Xie Ran was wearing a simple white T-shirt. Perhaps because he was a bit too thin, the collar slumped open to reveal a large expanse of his collarbone and chest. Since he probably didn’t like exercising, his skin was even fairer than that of an average guy.
His appearance also belonged to that pretty and delicate category. The only reason for using those two words was simply because Xie Ran’s looks were quite outstanding; other vocabulary tended to be overly exaggerated and imprecise, leaving only these to describe him most intuitively.
The other person had a rather casual and cheerful personality, gladly smiling with everyone and rarely bickering over things. In the dorm, the classroom, and across campus, he was exceptionally popular, giving everyone who came into contact with him the feeling of being easy to get along with and very comfortable to be around.
It was easy to develop a favorable impression of him.
It was just that Jiang Xu couldn’t figure out why Xie Ran would disguise himself as a girl to trick people.
Not many people knew about this alt account of his; most of them were close gaming friends. Where on earth had the other person gotten his username?
Jiang Xu’s account didn’t require approval for friend requests, meaning everyone who added him was added as a one-way friend.
The last time he switched to this alt account, a string of messages had popped up. Tan Hao had grabbed the phone upon seeing them, checked the history, and even replied.
He had assumed the person on the other end was one of the young girls who had asked for contact info last time, but because he rarely used his alt account, he had never seen the messages. He originally intended to delete the friend, but forgot about it because he got too busy in the lab.
Remembering how He Ruizhe had bragged not long ago about making a bet with Tan Hao on how long it would take Jiang Xu to win over a little girl, Jiang Xu couldn’t help raising an eyebrow and letting out a short, soft chuckle.
Where was there any little girl? The person on the other end was clearly a little internet scammer.
And a roommate from the very same bed next to him, at that.
When the National Day holiday ended, the other four roommates chose to delay their return to school by a day because they didn’t have classes the next morning.
The only ones who returned to the dorm were Xie Ran and Jiang Xu.
Accustomed to a lively environment, with only the two of them left now, Xie Ran always felt the atmosphere was inexplicably awkward and bizarre.
Whether it was his imagination or reality, he always felt that Jiang Xu, sitting nearby, kept casting glances in his direction.
Yet every time he looked over, he found nothing of the sort happening.
Xie Ran used a towel to dry his hair. The messages sent to He Ruizhe still received no reply, as per usual. He was long used to the other person’s cold attitude, feeling zero ripples inside and failing to stir up even half an emotion.
Finding himself utterly bored, he simply decided to play a tense and thrilling match of Honor of Kings.
He didn’t like overly intense physical sports. Compared to playing basketball or badminton, he much preferred traveling outside to take photos or playing video games. When it came to entertainment, he seemed to possess a stacked luck buff, making his skills top-tier whether in video games or card games.
As soon as he started a Peak Match and locked in his role, his teammates began acting abnormal less than two minutes into the match.
Xie Ran had filled the support role, playing a national-ranked Doria.
Alas, no matter how great his skills were, they couldn’t compete with the marksman’s single-minded determination to rush in and feed the enemy.
When the marksman gave away three kills within the first six minutes, Xie Ran couldn’t help frowning, though he didn’t voice any comments.
Instead, because the marksman sucked at the game, he started looking for someone to blame for his failures, shifting the blame frantically onto the support.
[Support, do you even know how to play? Why didn’t you pop your ultimate when I died the first time?]
Xie Ran ignored him and continued playing.
Finally, when the marksman made another blunder and died, he threw the blame onto the support with a string of relatives-involved greetings. Even a person with the best temper couldn’t help wanting to snap back.
Xie Ran used voice-to-text to reply:
“I’m a support, not the King of Hell; I can’t rewrite your destiny.”
“Planting a pea shooter in the development lane would be more useful than you.”
“When you have free time, go to the training camp and learn positioning from the river crabs.”
“Is the enemy MVP your mother-in-law? Handing out gifts like this.”
Following this flurry of operations, he scolded the marksman into utter silence.
The match reversed into a comeback win, and Xie Ran’s support earned the winning MVP title with a score of 3-0-12.
He took a screenshot, turned around to report the noob marksman, and switched back to QQ to message He Ruizhe, directly sending over the Peak Match national ranking and his match stats screenshot.
Hearing Xie Ran finish cursing someone out, Jiang Xu received the message next to him. He tapped open the chat interface and saw what the other person had sent.
[[Screenshot]]
[Big Brother, is the jungle big? Are you scared of jungling by yourself~ Bring the little mermaid along to climb ranks together QvQ]
Jiang Xu fell silent.
Without batting an eye, he raised his head to look at the person next to him.
Xie Ran, who was in the middle of editing a message, sensed something. With a lazy movement, he raised his head and locked eyes with Jiang Xu.
“…”
Xie Ran had completely forgotten there was someone else in the dorm.
Knowing that Jiang Xu was a man of few words, cold, and a campus-god-level figure, he probably thought his cursing was loud and annoying.
Wearing an apologetic expression, Xie Ran asked politely, “Sorry, did I disturb you while you were playing on your phone?”
Jiang Xu dropped his gaze to the chat content on his phone, then raised his head again to meet Xie Ran’s clear, black-and-white eyes.
After a good while, he shook his head and said, “No.”
Then, calmly and steadily, he replied to the message on QQ: [I don’t play Honor of Kings.]
Just as Xie Ran wanted to say something else, his phone vibrated once. Lowering his head, he saw that He Ruizhe, whom he had been flirting with for so long, had finally replied to him. For a moment, he felt incomparably excited and instantly sent a rapid-fire reply.
[It doesn’t matter if you don’t play Honor of Kings, duck. I’m also really good at PUBG.]
Jiang Xu’s expression suddenly darkened, and he fell deep into thought as he stared at the text.
PUBG.
Was this a sexual hint directed at him?
Was Xie Ran’s online persona really this wild?