Chapter 48: Chapter 47 - Not looking at the cat today

Edited by Divetus and Noks

Yu Yan looked at the black screen. For a while, he didn’t know whether to be shocked at Lu Xiuhe’s question or to be distressed about his computer.

After a while, he sighed. He picked up his cellphone and wiped off the Coke that had splattered onto its screen.

Yu Yan: Not dating online. Something happened over here, let’s talk later.

After sending that message, he grabbed some paper towels and crouched down. He unplugged his computer before wiping down the computer tower.

The more he rubbed, the sadder he felt.

Sure enough, when it rains it pours. He felt that no matter how much he wiped, he couldn’t get rid of all the Coke from his computer tower.

He took a picture of it and posted it on Weibo as he helplessly asked for leave.

It seemed that he really had become a vacationing anchor.

Because his screen had suddenly blacked out during his livestream, the number of comments below his Weibo post was simply frightening.

[Fuck man, it’s fine to watch horror movies, but then your screen went dark just as the ghost popped up. Did you want to scare me to death??]

[I quickly pulled out my safety charm!]

[Prosperity, democracy, civilization, harmony…]

Yu Yan put himself in their shoes and thought about it; it really must’ve been frightening to them. The pent up emotions in his heart finally relaxed a bit after reading these comments.

After completely wiping the computer tower dry, he changed his clothes and while carrying it, went outside.

After all, this was the tool he used to make a living with. It would not be good to not resolve this issue as early as possible.

“Liquid has gotten completely into the components.” The repairman looked over the parts and said, “This hardware was pretty good a few years ago, but it’s now considered a bit outdated as it’s used. It’ll cost a lot of money to repair. Once liquid enters a piece of hardware, it’s highly improbable for it to get restored to its original state. It’s better to just add a few thousand yuan and buy a new computer.”

This repairman wasn’t specifically trying to target Yu Yan; at least 998 out of 1000 computer repair shops tried to cheat people by bullying the amateurs who didn’t understand how computer hardware worked. However, Yu Yan wasn’t exactly an amateur. He had seen many technicians build computers in-store before, and they had occasionally explained the process to him. In his current situation, he would only need to switch out two or three computer components; this would add up to less than 3000 yuan. If it wasn’t for the fact that he didn’t have any practical experience with building computers, he would’ve fixed it himself.

“No need, just replace the broken parts.” He asked, “What’s the price and how long will it take to repair?”

Upon seeing that he couldn’t upsell to Yu Yan, the repairman quoted a price, “To just repair it… come and get it the morning after tomorrow ba.”

“Alright.”

By the time he exited the repair shop, it was 9:00 p.m.

It wasn’t until his stomach growled that he remembered his freshly ordered takeout, which had been left on the computer desk; it was probably cold by now.

Since the takeout was already cold, Yu Yan wasn’t in a hurry to return home. He entered a restaurant selling spicy hot pot on the way back, and ordered a set meal for a little over 30 yuan in a single breath.

At this time, even though there weren’t many people in the restaurant, Yu Yan still chose to sit in a corner. He had just taken two bites of his meal when a couple entered the restaurant and sat down right behind him.

He had chosen to sit in the corner for some peace and quiet, but unexpectedly, the couple seemed to be quarreling. As soon as the girl sat down, she stated, “We just needed to talk about the situation, so why are you dragging me here?”

The man said, “Just now, there were so many people out on the street; even if you didn’t find it disgraceful, I did.”

“Good ah. You think that I’m acting disgraceful now? Why didn’t you feel that you were disgraceful when you cheated?”

“Don’t talk nonsense ah, I didn’t cheat.”

“Didn’t cheat?” The girl sneered and threw her chopsticks down. “Then, what’s the meaning of you and that female anchor voice-chatting throughout the night? And playing games together every day? You’ve also given her several thousand yuan worth of gifts through your livestream account. Don’t think I don’t know, I’ve thoroughly investigated everything!”

The man’s complexion changed. “You actually went through my cellphone?”

“What? You did something, yet you’re actually afraid of being discovered ah?””

Yu Yan instantly felt that the taste of the fish tofu in his mouth had changed. No matter how he ate it, it wasn’t very appealing anymore.

It seemed very unlikely that the two people behind him were going to stop quarrelling soon. Yu Yan quickly slurped up two more mouthfuls of noodles and hurriedly got up to pay so he could leave.

When he returned home, he threw away the takeout, went to the bathroom to take a bath, and then lay in bed as he thought about life.

Lu Xiuhe was right. No one would get angry just because their friend treated other people well, or at least, he wasn’t the type of person to get angry at that.

But he couldn’t lie to himself.

Did 1 like other anchors now, had 1 gotten tired of watching his livestream, did 1 think that he was very annoying…?

He definitely cared a lot about the answer to these questions.

He took his cellphone out, logged into StarTV with his side account, and then went into Little Millet ya’s livestream.

The woman wearing heavy makeup and a short skirt sat at her computer desk playing a game. From the video camera’s downward slanted angle, you could see that her crossed legs were thin and white.

1’s name hung at the top right corner of the stream. It happened to be at the 10th rank on this stream’s gifter list.

Her voice was the same as her appearance, coy and charming. “Thank you Yong Ge for the little star, love you mua, giving you a kiss mua~”

“What la? The skirt can’t be any shorter or the platform will suspend me. You guys, don’t make trouble.”

The following lines in the barrage were also similarly R-rated. Yu Yan had never seen a female anchor be so ostentatiously coquettish. He was stunned and immediately left the stream.

1’s preferences had changed so much that he momentarily felt like he couldn’t keep up.

After a long time, he very slowly opened WeChat. His chat with Lu Xiuhe was still the second chat on his list. Just seeing the words “dating online” there made him nervous.

He had been browsing the Internet for so many years, so it was only natural for him to have run into everything. Many girls had wanted to get into an online relationship with him, but he hadn’t agreed to be in one with any of them.

Neitizens would say that being online but not dating online was a waste of electricity. He had to carefully calculate how many years of electricity he had wasted.

But he couldn’t do anything about that. He had never found anyone who had made him blush or feel nervous or even shy.

But now he had.

Yu Yan stared at the profile picture of the full moon in the dark night and thought that he truly wasn’t dating anyone online.

He was in an unrequited love.

Yu Yan had several favorite voices that he had used as sleeping pills or leisure entertainment. When the announcer or the CV had announced their new relationship or marriage, he had happily wished them well.

But for 1, he couldn’t do that. Just thinking about it made his chest feel tight.

He seemed to have really fallen for 1.

Yu Yan grabbed his cellphone, opened 1’s chat box, wanting to say something, but then he managed to stop himself.

He was a man who liked another man; this kind of situation would be strange to many people.

Moreover, he knew very little about 1.

For example, what did 1 do for a living, how old was he, and what did he look like?

And furthermore, did 1 have a girlfriend? Or even, had he already started a family?

Yu Yan didn’t dare to think about it any more. He quickly exited out of his chat with 1.

… They were just online friends.

This realization made him instantly wake up.

He stared at the other person’s profile picture for a long time. Then, he opened the chat settings, clenched his teeth, and unstickied 1’s chat from the top.

Simply cutting his losses was the method he used the most.

—

“Tch, too sexy.” Mo Nancheng reclined on the bench and said this to his friend next to him, “Tell me ah, why is Chen so sexy ah? With those beautiful swimming strokes and his figure, all the people in the swimming pool are watching him.”

The friend laughed, “You jealous ah?”

“Jealous my ass.” Mo Nancheng lightly coughed. “If I just put in a bit of effort, I could also get a body like that!”

As soon as he said that, the man in the swimming pool quickly swam to Mo Nancheng’s side. He propped his hand on the bricks and directly got out of the water, the outline of his muscles tightening from the effort. He didn’t have the intimidating bulk of a fitness trainer though, it was just a perfectly healthy body. His back muscles made the people behind him unable to look away.

“What did you say about me?” Yi Chen grabbed a towel and put it over his shoulder.

“What the fuck, even Shunfeng’er doesn’t have your hearing.” Mo Nancheng said, “Just praising your sexiness.”

Yi Chen sneered. “Scram.”

Mo Nancheng stretched his body. “I’ve been running around all day. Golf in the morning, gym in the afternoon, swimming in the evening—I feel like I’ve already aged ten years.”

Yi Chen replied, “I didn’t ask you to come.”

This was his regular schedule. He always dedicated a day during the weekend to exercise. There was a family dinner this weekend, so he had temporarily moved his exercise day to Wednesday.

Mo Nancheng said, “We were just trying something new. Next time, you definitely won’t see us here.”

Yi Chen ignored him. He picked up his cellphone and pressed on it, but it didn’t light up.

It had automatically turned itself off at some point.

“What’s the matter with you? You’ve been staring at your cellphone for forever. Do you have work?” Mo Nancheng asked.

“Nothing.” Yi Chen turned around and headed for the bathroom.

“Oh, wait for me.” Mo Nancheng hurriedly caught up with him. “By the way, I’m going to Manyang the day after tomorrow. Want to join me?”

Yi Chen glanced at him and asked, “What are you going for?”

“Hehe, the female DJ asked me out on a date to go look at the sea.”

“Not going.”

“Really not going?” Mo Nancheng lowered his voice and asked, “Don’t you want that young man from last time ah?”

Yi Chen’s steps paused, and he frowned.

“With our relationship, you’re still trying to hide it from me? Is it fun?” Mo Nancheng continued, “Yi Ran already told me everything, you’re a real beast.”

Yi Chen didn’t know what the fool Yi Ran had said to Mo Nancheng, but it couldn’t have been anything good.

“Not going. Don’t have time.” He said, “There’s a family party this weekend.”

Mo Nancheng let out an “oh” and laughed, “Okay, then let’s go again when you’re free.”

Yi Chen didn’t answer him again. After taking a shower, he drove home.

As soon as he walked past the door, he saw Yi Ran rubbing the cat in the living room.

“Ge… you’re back?” Yi Ran paused and weakly asked, “Why didn’t you reply to my messages?”

“Cellphone died.”

When the cat saw Yi Chen, he jumped off of Yi Ran’s feet, ran to him, and rubbed his tail against his calf.

Seeing Yi Ran’s guilty-looking face, Yi Chen asked, “What is it?”

“Ah… it’s like this.”

Today, Yi Ran’s school had told him to submit his papers. It had just so happened that he had left his computer at school, and he was too lazy to run back to get it, so he had wanted to simply borrow Yi Chen’s.

Yi Ran had sent Yi Chen a message, but he didn’t get a reply. The school was rushing him to submit his papers, so he went into Yi Chen’s study on his own accord.

Before Yi Chen had begun playing games, the desktop computer had basically been left to collect dust. All the important files were on his laptop and company computer, so his desktop in the study had no password; Yi Ran could easily access it.

After he finished submitting his papers, Yi Ran discovered that his WeChat friend group were all talking about a female anchor who was just too coquettish. He immediately grew curious and opened the webpage to join in on the fun.

“That female anchor said that if someone sent her a meteor shower, she would eat a condom. It was just too fucking weird and attention-seeking that I couldn’t help it, but I forgot that the webpage had automatically logged into your account——”

Yi Chen asked, “… She would eat what?”

Yi Ran repeated what he had said.

Yi Chen asked, “What was their name?”

“I forgot.” Yi Ran continued fearfully, “… You can go to your home page and see the sent gifts information there.”

Yi Chen nodded and said before entering his room, “Pack up your stuff and scram by tomorrow, or I’ll personally wrap you up and deliver you to your parents over the weekend.”

Yi Chen ignored the wailing outside and went back to his room. The first thing he did was connect his cellphone to the charging cable.

Two minutes later, the phone turned on.

Yi Chen was changing clothes. When he heard the WeChat notification from his cellphone, his mood turned good.

After changing into his regular clothes, he slowly walked to the bed and opened up WeChat.

Of the 22 WeChat messages he had received, three came from his assistant, and 19 were from his stupid cousin.

The corners of his mouth pulled into a frown, and he directly deleted Yi Ran’s messages. He refreshed the WeChat homepage again——

No matter how many times he swiped down to refresh, no messages from the little anchor appeared.

The little anchor usually sent him a message every day. Sometimes, it was just an emoticon, and sometimes it was a greeting. Up until now, this pattern had never been broken.

He turned on the computer and clicked into his favorited livestream.

The screen was completely dark, except for the remaining people who hung around the empty livestream.

Yi Chen frowned, picked up his cellphone, and sent a message first.

1: Not streaming today?

The other party may have been occupied with something, since he hadn’t replied after a long time. Yi Chen thought about it and clicked on Weibo, something that he only looked at once every hundred years.

Because he didn’t follow many people, the other party’s Weibo had already shown up when Yi Chen opened his home page.

[StarTV yanxyan: Computer got drenched, taking another break ba. Will make up the livestream time later, really really sorry [sobbing][picture]]

He clicked to open the picture. There was still some liquid on the computer tower. The young man’s hand was in the picture, holding a piece of paper towel. Because of the liquid stains on the paper towel, it was rather colorful.

The young man’s fingers were white and slender. They were very good-looking, not the kind fit for tapping a keyboard, but more like the kind fit for playing the piano.

1: Your computer broke?

After a while, he finally got a reply.

Little Anchor: En.

1: That’s perfect, more time for you to rest.

Little Anchor: … En.

Yi Chen stared at the “en” and kept feeling like the little anchor was in a bad mood.

1: Your computer broke, so you’re unhappy? n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Little Anchor: …

Little Anchor: Could count as that ba.

1: If you keep the old, you can’t get anything new.

Little Anchor: …

As expected. Everyone was happy with the new and tired of the old—in terms of things, people, and also anchors.

Yu Yan didn’t know how to reply and just dully tapped out a few periods.

1: Since you’re not streaming, what are you planning to do?

Yu Yan held his cellphone and looked at the beach wallpaper that he had set in the background, casually replying: I’ll go look at the sea.

Yi Chen remembered what Mo Nancheng had mentioned today. Manyang had a beach that was famous for its clear waters; it was said that even the depths of the ocean could be seen through the waves, but he was busy and so had never visited it.

1: Does it look nice?

Little Anchor: Looks nice.

Shouldn’t you clearly explain how nice it looks?

At this point, Yi Chen would be a fool if he couldn’t perceive the other party’s indifference.

He put his cellphone on the table and waited for nearly five minutes, but his cellphone didn’t vibrate at all.

As expected, if he didn’t continue the conversation, the other party wouldn’t keep messaging him.

This was the result he had originally expected—after alienating him, the little anchor would realize his indifference and would have no other thoughts about him.

He had only used this tactic for a week.

….

He only used it for a week yet the little anchor just gave up?

Did young people nowadays have no perseverance whatsoever??

Yi Chen frowned. He picked up his cellphone, scrolled through the chat history and discovered that each of the little anchor’s responses from today had at most three words; clearly showing just INDIFFERENCE.

That was perfect. Now Yi Chen could just be a stream follower who quietly watched the livestream in the future, without needing to worry about anything else.

He tossed his cellphone onto the desk and went out of the study to make a cup of coffee.

Three minutes later, he returned to his study with a dark expression on his face, holding a coffee in one hand and a cat in the other.

He then picked up his cellphone and directly initiated a video call with the other party.

Ding——

The screen flashed.

[The other party rejected your video call request]

Little Anchor: I’m really sleepy, so I’ll just not look at the cat today.

“…”

The cat in Yi Chen’s arms looked at his cellphone and then at his owner. “… Meow?”

—

The author has something to say:

It’s both their first times to like someone, let’s forgive them ba.

—

Juurensha: Omgggg, Boss Yi, you need to realize the mixed signals you’re sending. Just admit that you’re in love. Yanyan at least has acknowledged his own feelings.

Divi: You don’t know what you had until you lost it Yi Chen… Make yourself clear cause Yanyan already realized it.

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And there’s an audio drama for PUBG that came out! It’s more condensed than the novel, but it’s fun!