Honey Stewed Squid

After returning behind the counter, Tong Nian buried herself into her work, all the while grinding her teeth together in resentment. One by one, she recorded each food item she had brought over a moment ago, and then she began to add and subtract things up, making absolutely certain her BFF did not earn even one extra penny.

Her BFF, Soy Milk, hesitantly extended his hand toward that fifty-yuan bill, but intimidated by a single glare from her, he retracted it again. “I was worried that you were being tricked, so I was just trying to test if he is one of those broke old dudes who’s barely scraping by. My family runs a cybercafé, and I’m familiar with those types of guys who come here and just play games overnight. The vast majority of them have lives that are lousy. At most, you can say that this old uncle-dude’s looks are a little better than most.” After he said this, he even cast a glance from far at that backside, and speaking somewhat against his own conscience, he stated, “And they’re just a wee bit better… “

Tong Nian continued totaling up the bill.

“Hey, don’t ignore me, Squid ‘Chicory[3]‘ [O Great One, Squid]? Squid Juju[4] [O Stupendous One, Squid]? Sealed Chamber Dada[5] [O Great One, Sealed Chamber]? Squid Da[6]? Little Squidie Fish? Little Fishie Squid?” Her guy-BFF switched through all her various 2-D world[7] nicknames, but none of them could even bring about a glance from her. At last, begging for mercy, he declared, “I’ll help you, I’ll help you.”

“Really?” Tong Nian immediately lifted her head, a smile written from the corner of her eyes to the tips of her brows.

“We’ll give him an entire week worth of overnights? And say he won it from a draw? Wait, overnights won’t work. We need to give him an entire week of free access. That way, once he thinks about it, he can just come.” While Soy Milk spoke, he clutched at his heart that was so agonized it felt as if it was dripping blood.

An epiphany went off in Tong Nian’s head. “Great idea!” And then, she furtively motioned with her eyes in that direction. “You go.”

“Me again?” Her BFF gaped at her.

“And…” Tong Nian mulled for a moment, then dropped her voice and instructed him, “Go tell him it’s an instant prize draw. He just needs to scan the café’s QR code with his WeChat[8] QR scanner and then a prize will automatically be drawn for him. Pull out those skills you used in your two months as a sales rep after being brainwashed by one of those multi-level marketing companies.”

“… Our café doesn’t have a public WeChat account.”

Tong Nian bowed her head and stared at her mobile phone, struggling within herself for 2.5 seconds before resolutely making up her mind and changing her WeChat screen name. Handing over her phone, she told him, “Use my WeChat account.” There on the screen, her WeChat name had astonishingly been changed to “There is Serendipity Tonight.”

This was the Internet café’s sign that hung outside: “There is Serendipity Tonight Internet Café.”

Understanding her meaning, Soy Milk apprehensively clutched the mobile phone and went off to do some scamming.

……

The end result was… that night, in the wee hours, two major events occurred in her WeChat. The first was that a person with the handle, “Gn” was added to her contacts. The other was that her WeChat fan group completely exploded into an uproar. Her fans could not believe that their own normally cold, aloof, and outwardly-haughty-but-inwardly-adorable “Fish Playing in Sealed Chambers[9]” would actually change her screen name to “There is Serendipity Tonight”… Chicory’s [O Stupendous One’s] ID must have been hacked!

……

Her heart was noiselessly dripping blood, and she decided to simply treat this as if her account really had been hacked, not returning a single message and only staring with a silly grin at that user ID that had just been added to her contacts list.

It had been so easy it actually seemed unreal…

Admiring for a full half a minute that dark, indistinct profile picture that was a screenshot of some undeterminable thing, she finally tentatively opened up his “Moments” page[10] on his profile.

Huh?

Other than forwarded news on gaming, there was nothing in there? To this cover singer of Japanese songs who only played Lianliankan[11] [simple puzzle game to match pictures] and furthermore, would always lose when she played, these were simply gobbledygook to her, ah.

And what was even more depressing was… “Soy Milk, you suck at gaming, don’t you?”

“Yup!” Soy Milk grinned, not feeling even the slightest bit of shame. “I suck so bad, oh yeah, I suck so bad. I suck the most in all of history!”

……

Forget it. Tomorrow she’d find someone who actually knew the ins and outs T.T…

At two o’clock in the morning, Soy Milk was so tired he was dozing off.

Inside the Internet café, everyone was wearing headsets, and it was extremely quiet. Only a middle-aged man had opened up a video chat, laughing away happily while he had a cyberdate… And she, with her chin propped on her hand, was also feeling drowsy. The pencil in her hand was casually drawing away on the paper. As a songstress, her drawing skills were rudimentary and were unable to draw that backside so that it looked very attractive.

If she got the chance, she should practice up.

She mused this in her mind.

All of a sudden, the man stood.

Immediately, she straightened her back, secretly covering that piece of paper with her arm.

The man picked up his jacket and headed over to her. Her heart was beating rapidly. She could only lower her eyes and watch as his khaki-coloured pants and that black pair of skate shoes walked—one step, two steps, three steps—toward her…

Oh no, oh no. Hurry, breathe! Tong Nian, you be strong! You need to have a normal expression, and don’t let your eyes flicker away!

Huh? Why was he going straight for the door?

“You… you… didn’t you pay for overnight?” Seeing that he was heading out the door, she anxiously blurted, “It’s Just past two.” She glanced quickly at the clock. She was right. Two o’clock. Why was he leaving so early? … f𝓇𝘦e𝑤𝘦𝚋𝒏૦ѵℯ𝒍.c𝐨𝒎

Gun slowly halted his steps and turned around.

The hair on his forehead was slightly disheveled, likely because he had arbitrarily run his hand through it earlier on when he was sleepy. His eyes, though, were alert, seeming even to have a type of power that could penetrate into a person’s heart and mind. At this moment, it was not certain whether it was because he was tired or he simply could not be bothered to deal with her, but the expression on his face was somewhat detached so that a person could not tell what he might be feeling in the next second.

“It’s two?” He seemed to have just realized what time it was, and with a lift of his brows, he said to himself, “Two o’clock still isn’t considered late?”

“I-it’s okay, I guess.” Huh? What am I saying?… She immediately pulled back the pieces of her awareness that had been scattered in a confused mess and recited the words she had already rehearsed a countless number of times. “This is your change. Congratulations on your prize. Please come again next time.”

12.5 yuan was set in front of him. It was obvious he had been given another discount.

“Next time? You’re here every night?”

Huh?

He was…

A tiny flame of hope ignited in Tong Nian’s heart. Whoosh, whoosh! In an instant, her entire body burned bright red.

His eyes took in this young girl’s expression, which gave him no choice but to do some self-reflection. Had he somehow put pressure on her? He cast a glance at the girl’s “boyfriend,” who was sleeping, completely passed out in the corner.

His next sentence was originally going to be, “It’s not safe for a young girl to watch over an Internet café at night,” but judging from the look on the girl’s face now, she likely regarded him as an “unsafe,” bad person?

And so, Gun cleared his throat and tried as much as possible to make himself appear good and harmless. Towering tall over her, he put on a pleasant smile and told her, “Don’t be scared. I was just casually asking.” 𝒇𝚛e𝘦wℯ𝑏𝓃𝑜νℯ𝒍.co𝗺

Saying that, without even taking the money, he pushed open the door and left.

Wait… please…

I… don’t mind… you asking… aaaah.

She stared at that door that was still swinging and had not fully closed yet, flooded completely by tides of disheartenment.

* * * * *

Early in the morning, Gun was awakened by the sounds of conversation and footsteps outside the door and sat up from the couch. And then, he lowered his head, trying to allow it to completely clear. He had only slept for half an hour… Head really ached.

It seemed… this morning, there was a rock climbing activity? Hazily, he was able to grasp this piece of awareness. Then, still half a beat slow, he stood, felt for the door handle, pushed it down, opened the door, and walked out.

At the same time, he had pulled out a piece of candy from his pants pocket, unwrapped it, and held it between his teeth. Slowly he walked, and slowly he ate it.

There in front of him were a bunch of big boys running around, all wearing the team outdoor sportswear uniforms, which were a red and white, striped design. To be honest, they were quite ugly. But there was nothing that could be done about it. Those were the colours the sponsor had specified.

He was still only thirty percent awake while the remaining seventy percent of him was still asleep. Clearly written on his handsomely-contoured face were the words, “do not disturb.”

Unfortunately, someone just had to be unastute…

“Eh? Leader? Where’d you go last night?”

“You need something?” Those eyes managed to force themselves open and glanced in the direction of that voice.

“No…” The other party bit down on his lip and turned around, ready to flee.

“If you have something, say it.” He grabbed that person back. Languidly, he leaned in close, a faint dimple showing on his face. “It’s not like I’m going to eat you alive, hmm?”