Chapter 26 Part 1

Pei Ran was the first to look away, his right hand unconsciously clenching. He wasn't sure if it was an illusion, but he felt his palm was a bit hot.

Yan Zhun's phone on the table rang several times in a row, sounding urgent.

"I'll go down and check," Yan Zhun said.

Pei Ran nodded, not understanding why Yan Zhun had to report to him just to get out of bed.

He soon found out why.

Yan Zhun lifted the blanket, propped himself up, and climbed over him.

The school's flimsy bed creaked. Yan Zhun's arm was braced beside his face, almost touching him. He could even feel the heat radiating from Yan Zhun's arm.

Pei Ran lightened his breathing. He was completely awake now.

While Pei Ran was washing up, he found unread messages on his phone.

[Lin Kang: Pei Ran, who on earth did you get last night?]

[Lin Kang: ...Su Nian picked up Luo Qingshan.]

[Pei Ran: That's good.]

[Lin Kang: ???]

Yan Zhun had already gotten ready. He was sitting on Pei Ran's chair, playing on his phone with one hand, a weary look still on his face.

A call came in. Seeing the caller ID, Yan Zhun couldn't help but raise his eyes to check the time.

"Bro!" Lin Xuhuan's voice was particularly energetic.

Yan Zhun asked lazily, "You didn't sleep?"

Many pro players had their days and nights reversed, and Lin Xuhuan was one of them. He usually got up at two or three in the afternoon and wouldn't sleep until dawn.

The other end paused for a moment, then said slowly, "Playing in the tournament for two days straight was too tiring, so I slept early yesterday. I've been up for over an hour... Bro, what's wrong with your voice? It sounds like a broken gong."

Lin Xuhuan was exaggerating a bit, but Yan Zhun's voice was genuinely hoarse; you could tell just by listening.

"A cold," Yan Zhun said. "What's up?"

"Yeah," Lin Xuhuan said. "I'm the only one up at the Base, and the auntie took the day off again. It's boring eating breakfast by myself. How about I come find you, Bro? We can have breakfast together?"

Footsteps sounded from ahead. Yan Zhun's gaze followed Pei Ran as he moved, watching him reopen last night's medicine box and rummage around for a long time before finding a bag of throat lozenges.

Yan Zhun held the phone away from his mouth, then very lightly tugged on the corner of Pei Ran's shirt. "Breakfast out?"

Pei Ran paused. "Okay."

After hanging up, Lin Xuhuan quickly sent over the restaurant's address. It was a very famous Cantonese dim sum place nearby.

Pei Ran tore open the lozenge wrapper and pushed one out for Yan Zhun. "Are you feeling unwell?"

Yan Zhun leaned over and took it with his mouth, letting it settle in. It was cool.

"I'm fine." He got up from Pei Ran's chair and reached out to press down a bit of Pei Ran's hair that was sticking up. "I'm going out to make a call. Come out when you're ready."

Yan Zhun's palm was large and warm. Pei Ran was reminded of the temperature on his forehead from last night. He was dazed for a long time before coming back to his senses, then lowered his eyes and slowly folded the candy wrapper and put it in his pocket.

Yan Zhun didn't actually have a call to make. He leaned against the railing in the dormitory hallway, opened WeChat, and looked at the messages he had received last night.

They were all from Luo Qingshan. Over twenty messages, some questioning, some insulting, and several with incoherent sentences.

There were also a few voice messages, over ten seconds long each. Yan Zhun didn't even have the interest to convert them to text.

The earliest one was sent half an hour ago.

[Luo Qingshan: Where did you sleep last night]

Yan Zhun moved his fingers and blocked him.

When the two of them appeared in the private room together, Lin Xuhuan, holding his chopsticks, froze for a moment.

"You two slept together last night?"

Pei Ran nearly choked on his tea.

Lin Xuhuan had faintly heard someone else's voice on the phone just now. He had originally thought it was his brother's roommate.

Lin Xuhuan leaned in to sniff Yan Zhun. "You smell completely like Baby Ran. You didn't go back to the dorm last night?"

Pei Ran took off his mask and silently brought the back of his hand to his nose to sniff it.

What kind of scent did he have? Even he himself didn't know.

"A dog's nose?" Yan Zhun said concisely. "Got drunk, stayed over."

"Drunk? You drank alcohol? My god... Are you looking for another half-month tour of the hospital? And you drank yourself into a cold?" After speaking, Lin Xuhuan glanced at Pei Ran, who was also wearing a mask. "You went to stay over while having a cold, you've even infected Baby Ran."

"I gave it to him," Pei Ran said honestly.

Lin Xuhuan was silent for a moment. "Then should I stay a bit further away from you guys?"

After saying that, he even pretentiously leaned back a bit.

Yan Zhun poured tea for Pei Ran without even raising his eyes. "It can't be transmitted from this far away."

Pei Ran: "..."

The steel straight man, Lin Xuhuan, automatically ignored the strange atmosphere at the table and picked up a piece of shumai for himself. "This is far? He's practically on your face."

After breakfast, Lin Xuhuan casually wiped his mouth. He looked up, about to say something, when he saw Pei Ran take a box of medicine out of his pocket.

Pei Ran pushed out a pill and said in a low voice, "Hand."

Yan Zhun, sitting in a lazy posture, opened his palm toward him and received a cold pill.

Pei Ran pushed one out for himself as well, and the two of them took the pills with warm water.

Lin Xuhuan's open mouth slowly closed.

There was nothing wrong with taking medicine when you're sick, but for some reason, he felt...

It was just, weird.

"When's the next match?" Yan Zhun glanced at him and asked nonchalantly.

"Not until next week." Lin Xuhuan came back to his senses. "It was supposed to be the day after tomorrow, but something suddenly came up... A team accused the tournament organizers of rigging, so both sides are gathering evidence now."

Yan Zhun raised an eyebrow. "Rigging?"

"Weird, right?" Lin Xuhuan said. "Because one team got good guns and favorable circles right after landing for several consecutive games, they got reported, hahaha."

The topic immediately shifted. Lin Xuhuan got fired up whenever he started talking about interesting things that happened in tournaments.

After listening to him brag for a while, Yan Zhun finally couldn't take it anymore and raised his hand. "Excuse me, the bill."

Before leaving the restaurant, Yan Zhun and Pei Ran put on their masks together. Lin Xuhuan frowned in confusion, inexplicably feeling like he was a third wheel.

Lin Xuhuan didn't plan to go back to the Base so early. Those lazy pigs wouldn't wake up until the afternoon, and training alone was boring. Passing by an arcade, he couldn't help but stop.

"Bro, let's go in and play for a bit, huh?"

Yan Zhun ignored him. The pair of eyes visible above his mask were lowered, looking at Pei Ran questioningly.

Pei Ran said, "I'll go buy tokens."

Pei Ran had rarely been to places like this since he was a child. His parents loved art and would rather take him to see exhibitions in their free time.

He looked around. It seemed like only the basketball shooting machine and the claw machine were within his abilities.

Lin Xuhuan was different. As a kid who had grown up wild, the moment he entered, he dragged Yan Zhun to play racing games and two-player versus games with him.

Pei Ran stood behind Yan Zhun and watched silently.

He felt that Yan Zhun's talent for gaming was too strong. Lin Xuhuan hadn't won a single round against him in the versus games.

"Bro, can you fucking go easy on me!" Lin Xuhuan yelled.