Chapter 31 - Little Giant.
Thank you Noelle for your Ko-Fis
Despite having quit the game, Liao Su was still chattering away on WeChat. He was at the critical juncture in his path to promote KK’s broadcast when You Liangxing came flying over with a leg to kick him out. His facial expression immediately went through great changes like the rippling of water.
[It’s Liao Su Not Plastic]: — You’re really too excessive! Can you not be so excessive ah!
[It’s Liao Su Not Plastic]: — I wasn’t done speaking!
You Liangxing replied: — Sleep.
Cold and indifferent, without a redundant word, that has always been You Liangxing’s style. Liao Su spammed him in a hurry, proficient.
[It’s Liao Su Not Plastic]: — Wait wait wait wait wait wait, Brother Liang, this hasn’t concluded yet! Ai ai ai ai ai, have you constantly been playing games with the guy just now?
[It’s Liao Su Not Plastic]: — So this is the type that you like?
You Liangxing: .....
You Liangxing paused, and almost blacklisted Liao Su.
Fortunately, Liao Su came to his own rescue: — I’m kidding hahahaha, it’s not possible for that person to be a female, he’s definitely male.
You Liangxing: — How do you know?
[It’s Liao Su Not Plastic]: — How could someone who has such a domineering playstyle be a girl!
Although You Liangxing did not admit it, he actually felt that Liao Su’s words were very reasonable at that moment.
After a short pause, You Liangxing: — Sleep.
Once he finished typing the sentence, You Liangxing shut off his screen and put it aside. Just as he closed his eyes, a WeChat notification sounded.
[It’s Liao Su Not Plastic]: — Since everyone is a guy, why did you only heal him and not me just now??
[It’s Liao Su Not Plastic]: — Aren’t you being biased!!! Is it because you love him and you don’t love me!
You Liangxing was at the end of his forbearance, and he replied: — Get out!
Truly, his anger had peaked, such that even the exclamation point came out. Liao Su remembered the thousands of li apart with deep gratitude, because the best part about it was that he no longer had to suffer a beating. Laughing, he replied: — It doesn’t matter, it’s enough that I love you, you’ll forever be my first love!
[It’s Liao Su Not Plastic]: — Brother Liang?
[It’s Liao Su Not Plastic]: — Brother Liang!!
* * *
In the blink of an eye, it was yet another day. They had a lot of free time. Hence, You Liangxing and Liang Chulin travelled together to look at the former residences of famous Emperors. At noon, as Liang Chulin was biting on a popsicle, he held onto his phone and said: “Brother Liang Liang, I need to find a network, I have something that I have to do.”
Up until now, this was the first time Liang Chulin took the initiative to dictate what was on their agenda. You Liangxing nodded, and the pair went to look for an Internet café near the hotel.
“Gaming?”
It was rare for You Liangxing to ask a question on his own accord. Liang Chulin shook his head furiously, “No no no, not to game, I just have something, en, something really important.”
Something really important... You Liangxing had a sudden realisation. “Reporting your examination results?”
Liang Chulin revealed a smile, and his two dimples held a deep satisfaction, “Yup.”
For the college entrance examination candidates, there was nothing more important than applying for college. You Liangxing’s eyebrows wrinkled slightly, finding it incomprehensible as to why Liang Chulin only started searching for an internet café at the eleventh hour for something as important as this.
Liang Chulin gave his explanation: “There is nothing to prepare for, I’m only reporting to A University, there is no other option.”
The score requirement for A University was very high; it required a lot of self-confidence to not even prepare an alternative. Since You Liangxing had attended university for two years, he was no longer clear about the details regarding the application process. Vaguely, he remembered that the application for the examination was divided into different periods in accordance to the score percentiles.
Liang Chulin was in the first batch.
After entering the application page and keying in his account number and password, Liang Chulin quickly filled ‘A University’ as the institution he wished to enter. After completing this step, most candidates would constantly refresh the page to check their rankings in various colleges and universities. If their rank fell below the institution’s maximum new student enrolment capacity, it meant that they had been squeezed out and their choice had to be changed to another college or university.
However, Liang Chulin was not the same. His entire body fell backwards and he leaned against the sofa, leisurely chewing on the old popsicle in his mouth to finish it. He was not at all worried that some other variable could appear to threaten his place.
You Liangxing was sitting next to him in the private room and he found his score on the screen with one sweeping glance. Liang Chulin’s college entrance examination score was... 660 points, which was higher than highest score in City A last year. No wonder he was so confident that he had the winning ticket in the palm of his hand.
You Liangxing said: “Your grades are excellent; you really have nothing to worry about.”
Not only did he not need to worry, it was highly probable that he was the highest scorer in the liberal arts this year.
Liang Chulin smiled, eyes glimmering from the pride his achievements brought him. Suddenly, he straightened his posture as he seemed to have remembered something interesting. Gleefully, he said: “Brother Liang Liang, do you know where this year’s top liberal arts scholar in City A came from?”
You Liangxing’s line of sight moved towards Liang Chulin, and the boy nodded happily. “That’s right, it’s from my school!”
“Is it you?”
Liang Chulin shook his head. “No, it’s not me, it’s a student who repeated in my school. He... Um, there’s a lot to say about him, and he’s considered an eccentric person in my school. Right, Brother Liang Liang, can you guess how many points he attained in the examinations?”
You Liangxing was a science student; while he didn’t quite understand the world of liberal arts students, he still knew the rough statistics regarding liberal art scores. Liang Chulin, with his score of 660, was already considered high.
Liang Chulin laughed and said: “Six hundred and sixty-six, 666, isn’t it particularly meaningful?”
After finishing his first popsicle, Liang Chulin ran to get another one from the counter before he continued to talk: “In fact, everyone has been saying that the top scholar this year should have been me. But what can be done; who happened to let him repeat? The teachers at school said that he should have graduated last year, but no one expected that he would...”
Speaking half-way, Liang Chulin interrupted his sentence again: “Brother Liang Liang, you’ll definitely never guess why he had to repeat.”
Other than failing the college entrance examinations, having a poor mentality, physical factors and family issues, You Liangxing could think of no other possible reason as to why a person would have to repeat. You Liangxing shook his head, and Liang Chulin snorted out a laugh.
“The reason why he had to repeat last year was because he overslept on the day of the college entrance examinations. Hahaha, isn’t he overpowered, to the extent where he could oversleep? At the time, the schoolteachers were all waiting for him to win the top scholar position in one fell swoop, but in the end, he even missed an exam. And that’s not all. Towards this matter, his parents were especially lenient; after discussing about it with the school, they said that nothing could be done about it, not when their child just loves to sleep. Ahahahaha, it’s really very funny.”
“Others are a Buddha by nature, and students are enlightened by stimulating each other but when it comes to him, he became the enlightenment found in the college entrance examinations. Our teachers would frequently use his incident to educate us and tell us to take it as a cautionary tale.”
Liang Chulin was happily recounting the story before he suddenly muttered to himself: “I don’t know where he’s reporting to this year, perhaps he might be reporting to A University as well. If he were to enter, wouldn’t we be classmates?? Wah, it’s better if that doesn’t happen, it can’t be that coincidental, right?”
This was the first time You Liangxing had witnessed a look of distress on Liang Chulin’s baby face, “You don’t like him?”
Liang Chulin frowned slightly, and there was some delay in his reply, “It’s not that I don’t like him, in fact, I’ve never even met him. The repeating students don’t share a floor with us, and I’ve only seen him from afar. This person, he’s really tall, if he’s that tall and we were to stand together, then I... eh.”
You Liangxing stilled, feeling somewhat strange. “Don’t you like tall people very much?”
When they first met on the train, Liang Chulin frequently mentioned that he was the most envious of tall and handsome people.
Liang Chulin said: “I do like them ah, I like tall people, and the ones around Brother Liang Liang’s height are the best. But he... He’s way too tall, like really too tall, such that his nickname in school was little giant.”
Little giant... Just how tall was he?
Liang Chulin seemed to have seen through You Liangxing’s thoughts. Even though there was no one around, he still whispered as if he was telling a secret and spoke in a lower voice: “He’s two meter something, and if we had to be more precise, I’m afraid he’s 2.03 metres.”
Once the words “two meter something” entered his ears, You Liangxing suddenly recalled an image: at the entrance of the Liberal Arts College in A University, there was a tall and large figure looking at him as he stood under the sunlight.
Liberal Arts College, little giant; it was indeed that much of a coincidence. It should be him. The conjecture he made that day had not been wrong, and that person was indeed a freshman who was enrolling into the university in September.
Clasping his hands together, Liang Chulin prayed: “Anyway, may God bless and protect us, let him not report to A University, the distance between us is forty centimetres, and if we get sorted into the same class, I’ll be laughed to death. God bless, God bless.”
After seeing Liang Chulin’s pitiable appearance, You Liangxing chose not to shatter his beautiful dream into pieces for the time being.
There was still a period of time before the registration deadline for the first batch ended. Since there was nothing to do in the meantime, You Liangxing opened King’s Glory.
King’s Glory had a new system update reminder, and it took a few minutes to complete the update. After You Liangxing logged in successfully, he clicked on the matchmaking queue, before he realised that [don’t want to leave] was actually online.
He left the queue and tapped to enter their chat. Last night’s conversation history was still on the chat interface, and You Liangxing suddenly felt that it was too abrupt to ask him if he was up for a game.
Afterall, the other party had brought up that they would be busy in the afternoon. Even if their status declared that he was online, it did not necessarily mean that he could be disturbed. In the short span of time where You Liangxing was hesitating, [don’t want to move] ended up sending a message first.
[don’t want to move]: — You’re online.
You Liangxing replied: — En.
[don’t want to move]: — You’re not looking at the scenery this afternoon?
You Liangxing: — Currently idle, aren’t you busy?
[don’t want to move] sent him a smiling expression: — What needs to be done has been done, waiting for the results now.
You Liangxing paused, and unconsciously looked over at Liang Chulin. After filling in the information for the application process, he was already on his third popsicle. In terms of the situation where they had to wait for the results, the two of them seemed similar.
You Liangxing typed in the dialog box: Are you reporting to a university?
After he finished typing, he wavered, and then decided to delete it.
Since they were only friends in game, You Liangxing refrained himself from knowing the other party’s private information as much as possible. The two parties were separated by the internet, and if they were to become too close, it could be detrimental.
You Liangxing replied: May your wishes become reality.
Kang Shengzhe could not help but quirk the corner of his lips after reading the five words. His interaction with You Liangxing was only limited to their brief exchanges in King’s Glory, but every time they interacted, he would always have new thoughts and feelings.
[don’t want to move]: — You must have a good temper.
You Liangxing stiffened briefly before he tilted his head, suddenly revealing a small smile.
He thought in his heart: You’re wrong on that count.