Chapter 43 - First change.
Thank you Teddy for the Ko-Fi~
“Ai, a long-distance relationship is very difficult.” The old lady seemed to have a deep understanding of it, and the moment she started talking, her words regarding the subject grew longer. Thankfully, he needed to make a transfer before he could reach the zoo, and You Liangxing immediately exited the carriage when he reached the platform.
Before he left, the old lady smiled and nodded her head at You Liangxing, and her smile seemed to contain blessings for You Liangxing’s romantic love as strangers who had met by chance. You Liangxing’s eyebrows narrowed slightly, and his mood was filled with complex feelings.
Long-distance relationship... You Liangxing felt that the word ‘relationship’ could be removed. The only relevant part about that statement was the ‘long-distance’ aspect.
Because of the misunderstanding, You Liangxing no longer looked down at his phone at the same frequency. After telling Ah Sheng that much, he kept his silence until he reached the zoo before he resumed talking to Ah Sheng on WeChat.
The Giant Panda House in the zoo had its own special enclosure and You Liangxing followed the road signs to get to it. Every time he came across another enclosure, he would stop to take a photo and send it to Ah Sheng, who would reply by the next second.
[Ah Sheng]: — Gifting Anchor Liang Liang a Midsummer Night’s Dream.
[Ah Sheng]: — Gifting Anchor Liang Liang a White Dragon’s Howl.
[Ah Sheng]: — Cheering for anchor Liang Liang like crazy.
Midsummer Night’s Dream and White Dragon’s Howl were one of the more expensive cosmetic items in King’s Glory. You Liangxing knew he was messing around, but when it was said out loud, his actions did possess the ambience of a live broadcast in the zoo.
He walked through the small bamboo forest and bought a ticket for the second time in front of the Giant Panda House. Before he entered the enclosure, he stopped to take a deep breath, feeling an inexplicable tension.
What was he being nervous for when he was just seeing pandas; he had clearly been led astray by Ah Sheng.
Milling behind the flow of visitors to walk down a short path, he reached the living space that was specially set up for the national treasures. The visitors and pandas were partitioned off by glass; and if the restriction that prevented the visitors from touching the pandas was ignored, it would visually feel like the pandas were merely a step away when they came close to the glass.
The visitors stopped in front of the wide glass partition in batches, and after one batch was done, another would go forward. When it was You Liangxing’s turn, he happened to stand in the best position for observation, and the black and white animals akin to spherical objects remained unmoving in their playing space. Their eyes were shut and they seemed like they were old monks sitting in meditation.
However, a panda was a panda; their charm was unparalleled. Even if they were not moving, it did not deter the surrounding visitors from constantly taking photos and praising it for being very cute.
You Liangxing looked at them with a serious gaze for a good while, and he constantly felt that the pandas’ sleeping appearance was a little strange. Just as he was thinking that, a giant panda opened its eyes, and took two befuddled steps forward before its body tilted, falling back asleep as it hit the ground.
An epiphany flashed in You Liangxing’s mind, and he could not help but remember where the familiar feeling came from. When he had been out on a morning run with Ah Sheng, the latter person had laid down on a bench before falling asleep—his appearance must have been similar to this.
Ah Sheng must have been a panda in his last life, You Liangxing’s lips curled and he could not suppress his smile.
The cheers of the visitors around him rang out. “Wah! It moved! It moved!”
You Liangxing returned back to his senses, and sure enough, he witnessed a fat and spherical animal open its eyes and walk over to the window while eating his bamboo shoot. The distance between its furry face and You Liangxing was extremely close, and its panda eyes were black and bright as it stared at him. You Liangxing swiftly took out his phone and snapped a high definition picture of its current face.
His luck stat was completely full.
Without pausing, You Liangxing immediately shared it with [Ah Sheng]. What surprised him was that [Ah Sheng], the person who had always replied in less than a second, actually took a few seconds before he responded.
[Ah Sheng]: — ..... This is bad.
You Liangxing could not help but hesitate: &#k2014; What happened?
[Ah Sheng]: — Um, yeah, I felt my heart moving. 〖Shameful Face〗
You Liangxing: &#k2026;..
The entirety of You Liangxing’s body suddenly felt discomforted, and he wanted to punch something.
[Ah Sheng] gently sighed: — Ah, the giant panda is so cute, after looking at it I feel...
[Ah Sheng]: — Really envious.
You Liangxing: &#k2026;..
You Liangxing was not surprised in the least, in fact, he even premeditated that response.
The Giant Panda House had more than one panda and You Liangxing headed further in and took a video of the second panda he saw. He continued to chat with Ah Sheng through every minute of the trip, and there was a certain illusion that they were travelling together and strolling through the zoo.
After they had seen everything, [Ah Sheng] said: — I’m a little hungry.
You Liangxing: — So early?
[Ah Sheng]: — En, tired from roaming around.
You Liangxing smiled out of agitation; the one who had been walking around was clearly him, so why was he the one who was tiring out quickly? You Liangxing could no longer resist the urge to send the expression he had borrowed from Liao Su: 〖Believe it or not, you might die from this one punch〗
[Ah Sheng]: — En?
— Why do you have such an expression pack?
You Liangxing felt strange: — Why not?
[Ah Sheng] was brutally honest: — In my heart, you are the type of person who doesn’t have any expression packs.
Yu Liangxing paused for a while because he knew he was right on target. Just then, Ah Sheng said: — I’ll take you to eat something delicious.
In the next instant, [Ah Sheng] sent an image over. The street that acted as the background came into view, and there were two lanes, each side with signs detailing the various foodstuffs being sold.
[Ah Sheng]: — What do you want to eat?
The question seemed like a deliberate joke; no matter what he wanted to eat, he could not eat what was in a photo.
You Liangxing furrowed his brows together. The terrifying part was that he was a little hungry, and the signs in the picture looked extremely familiar to the shops that You Liangxing typically liked frequenting.
You Liangxing: ......
Wait! You Liangxing halted in his steps and scrutinised the photo again before his entire body also stiffened.
He never expected that the picture would actually feature the small food street that was right in front of A University...
You Liangxing had been there a few times before, and it was no wonder that the photo looked incredibly familiar. But... Why was [Ah Sheng] at that street, was he a native of City A? Was he also a student from A University?
You Liangxing’s thoughts were in chaos for a moment and his fingers were inflexible as he typed: — Where is this?
[Ah Sheng]: — The best small food street in the city, and it’s very close to my home, and very close to a university.
You Liangxing: — University?
[Ah Sheng]: — En.
You Liangxing hesitated for a moment before he stopped pursuing the matter. If he continued asking, and they were to go deeper into the topic, the sense of distance between them would verge on collapse. Furthermore, while he obstructed the topic to stop it from developing and chose not to clarify the fact that he was a student from A University, his heart did sigh with emotion. The world actually had such a coincidence.
A WeChat notification sounded again. [Ah Sheng] sent him another picture over with a caption: — Delicious.
You Liangxing tapped on the picture and only saw a warm and nice, appetite rousing box of Takoyaki, and it looked very enticing.
Shutting off his WeChat, You Liangxing boarded the subway. When he was about to reach his hotel, Ah Sheng sent yet another picture, and this time, it was replaced with the most delicious hotplate octopus from A University.
You Liangxing’s hunger became more and more apparent, and he unexpectedly realised that he had just experienced what the popular term ‘late night poisoning’ alluded to.
You Liangxing thought: [Ah Sheng], this person, probably had an eighty percent chance of being poisonous.
* * *
A day passed like that, and the time he had in the evening was rather idle. You Liangxing and [Ah Sheng] had made a pact to play night, and when half past ten arrived, they continued to play a one-on-one solo.
Previously, they competed with heroes that had high mobility and adaptability. This time around, You Liangxing changed it up to someone beefier, but he did not expect that after he chose the hero East Emperor Taiyi, [Ah Sheng] would choose an extremely similar hero by the name of Liu Chan.
Since both heroes were higher in defences and base health, and neither of them could be killed instantaneously. Additionally, both of them had abilities that could restrain the other party’s movements for a few seconds.
When such heroes met on the battlefield, each fight was very time-consuming, and once they started playing, it went on for the entire night.
Although the duration was overlong, it did not lessen the joy derived from the game. Throughout the game, [Ah Sheng] would randomly spit out sentences that could shock people, and it either made You Liangxing want to smile, or it made him want to smile out of anger.
Time rushed by as if it was a flash; day and night seemed to overlap and another day would conclude. When a new dawn was ushered in, You Liangxing would bring the sleeping burrito Ah Sheng on his morning run, and when he went out to look at the scenery in the afternoon, he would take a few pictures for Ah Sheng when it was convenient.
Coming and going like this, a journey made by one suddenly became a travel for two; Liang Chulin had accompanied You Liangxing to see the first half of the Imperial City and Ah Sheng accompanied him to see the latter half.
Over the next few days, the chat history between You Liangxing and Ah Sheng increased endlessly, and without him realising it, the amount of time You Liangxing spent looking down at his phone was approaching that of an early youth with an internet addiction.
While he was resting, [Ah Sheng] came knocking with another message. You Liangxing opened the image and recognised that it was tin of candy in pink packaging.
[Ah Sheng]: — Liang Liang, look at this candy~
You Liangxing: — What about the candy?
[Ah Sheng]: — The candy is sweet.
You Liangxing: .....
[Ah Sheng]: — What I mean is, the sweetness it has is particularly strange, after eating it, your mood will improve.
You Liangxing had never heard of a candy that could improve someone’s mood. However, once Ah Sheng mentioned it, his gaze drifted towards the name of the candy, and it was called “Small Sweet Heart”, and it was his first time coming across it.
[Ah Sheng]: — The places that sell this sweet are few, and I haven’t seen it in a long time. I didn’t expect to buy it today. 〖Cat Smile〗
The fact that he even used that expression pack meant that he was very happy. Such a topic was just a small titbit from his daily life, and You Liangxing had pushed it aside after he read it. However, as he was passing by a convenience store on his way back, he suddenly recalled it for no apparent reason.
You Liangxing went in and walked through the aisles that had sweets. After searching for a few minutes, there really was no candy with that specific pink packaging in sight. Curious, You Liangxing went to a supermarket instead, and after walking through it once, he did not manage to find it either.
In the evening, You Liangxing replied to him on WeChat: –There’s none in the Imperial City.
At that time, Kang Shengzhe had a ‘Small Sweet Heart’ in his mouth, and the numerous pink wrapping papers were stacked neatly in a pile, like layers of small butterflies.
You Liangxing’s statement had neither a head nor a tail; others might not grasp what he saying, but Kang Shengzhe understood it with a glance. He typed back: — You went to buy it?
You Liangxing: — En.
[Ah Sheng]: — Didn’t find it?
You Liangxing: — En.
[Ah Sheng]: — Told you so.
[Ah Sheng]: — Do you want to eat it?
A chasm seemed to separate the first and second sentence, and You Liangxing was not provided time to react before Ah Sheng suddenly sent him a sentence instead of a picture of emptied out wrappers like he had expected him to.
— I’m going to Beijing tomorrow.
You Liangxing froze.
To explain the connection between Ah Sheng coming to Beijing and the question of whether he wanted to eat the candy, there was only one answer that You Liangxing could conjure...
The conversation was still ongoing but the time was already half past seven. Kang Shengzhe deleted the ‘Do you want to meet’ that he had pre-emptively typed and hurriedly said: — I have something to attend to, I’ll see you later.
You Liangxing: ..... Okay.
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