Honey Stewed Squid

……

He could not be bothered to say any more. Feeling around in his pocket, he pulled out three mobile phones.

One at a time, he powered them on.

Countless message alert tones began ringing out.

Amid the frenzied noise of text message and voicemail alerts, Tong Nian added in a small voice, “If you like it, I’ll wear it again next time. Is white okay?”

……

grunt’s expression was already rather misshapen from laughing so hard, and he completely was not portraying the image that he, as a handsome young man, should have. Dt, on the other hand, voluntarily chose to shift back one seat, and then, after thinking briefly, he pulled out his earphones and plugged his ears with them.

Gun felt that the little girlie’s thought process was not even on the same channel as his. However, due to the fact that grunt and the driver were also inside the van, listening with their ears p.r.i.c.ked up, he finally crooked his finger at her.

Huh? Tong Nian obediently leaned in closer.

His voice slid into her ear. “Do you know that words like those can cause people to take them the wrong way?”

“Wrong way?” She failed to comprehend.

“Don’t get it?”

She shook her head. Take what the wrong way?

Those types of socks, basically all the girls who hung out in anime expos liked to wear them. What could you take the wrong way?

Gun fell into silence.

After three seconds: “From now on, don’t discuss this type of thing with people, especially men.”

“Oh, okay.” She nodded.

Couldn’t discuss this? Why? And… especially not with men?

Who would discuss this with men, ah… Wait!

She finally understood. Her eyes wide, she stared incredulously at him.

Oh G.o.d, it couldn’t be…

……

As a result, all of the various conversation topics she had planned out ahead of time were completely wrecked by this eared-socks incident. In the more than one hour that the van spent driving from the airport to the city centre, she did not dare take even a single glance at him. Her mind whirled crazily, like there were ten thousand galloping horses inside, with all sorts of silent cries of “What should I do, what should I do…?”

While over here, the little girl’s mental whirring was like the crashing waves of the heavy sea, Gun clearly had already tossed this incident to the back of his mind. His consciousness had already speedily blocked out the existence of this little girl and was beginning to sort out those few matters of late that were relatively thornier to deal with. Only after the vehicle had driven into the underground parking garage did he finally realize that he had forgotten to tell the driver to drop her off at her home first.

There was no other option now but to go upstairs first. He had a very urgent overseas call he needed to make, and it could not be delayed.

Dt was surprised by this. He had not expected that Gun would truly take her here to the team headquarters, and for the few seconds when the vehicle had driven into the garage, he had even had some speculations. Could it be that Gun really did have feelings and notions about the little girl? Later, though, when they were all upstairs and Gun instructed someone to bring Tong Nian to the small conference room, he realized that he had read too much into it.

The great demon overlord had a work call he needed to make and had no other choice.

……

Tong Nian was tossed alone into the small conference room. Through the gla.s.s wall, she watched Gun, who was in the large conference room on the other side of the wall, and saw him remove his outer jacket. And there, in the middle of winter, he sat in only a short-sleeved shirt, facing his computer and carrying out his phone conference. She could not hear any sound, but just simply watching him in this way made her heart feel warm and cozy…

So nice. She had waited a month…

So nice to be able to see the real, live person.

Setting her backpack on the table, she leaned a cheek on top of it and wordlessly watched him.

The man in her vision did not look at all like he was in this meeting with any seriousness. His right arm rested on the table, propping up his head, while his left hand continuously spun his black mobile phone.

Hmm…

Should she…?

Should be no big deal, right? …

He wouldn’t notice anyway…

Steathily, she slipped her mobile phone out from her pocket and, feeling guiltily nervous, opened up the camera app.

Just something to keep as a memento.

She raised her phone up in front of her eyes, making a pretense of texting but in reality, adjusting the camera lens.

If his face would just turn a bit more this way, that’d be so good.

Don’t spin your phone. It’s blocking your face, ah…

Eh? His face had turned this way?

Click. A successful snapshot!

So awesome! She chortled secretly as she tapped open the photo. But before she had the chance to have a good look at it, a WeChat message suddenly popped up.

Gn: Delete it.

Tong Nian gaped in astonishment.

With a ding, another WeChat message jumped out.

Gn: Be good and listen.

……

He. Actually. Knows… that this WeChat account is mine…

He. Actually. Didn’t… block it…

Separated from her by a layer of gla.s.s, Gun stood up in front of his computer, walked over to the gla.s.s wall, and knocked on it. Tong Nian at last started back to awareness, fl.u.s.teredly deleting that photograph. Dragging her feet, she shuffled over, her entire brain filled with thoughts of “Oh Lord, he actually guessed that it was me… So that means he must have received all those ads I had sent him in the very beginning. So dumb of me…”

He made a motion with his hands, indicating that she should go over.

She was still struggling with herself in her brain that felt like a gob of glue… and didn’t move.

He once again motioned to her.

She still had a look of “Oh Heaven, oh Earth!” over her entire face… and didn’t move.

The gla.s.s wall was well soundproofed, and anything he spoke would not be audible to her. But he could not leave the room, either. He had no choice but to grab an arbitrary dry-erase marker from the tray ledge of a whiteboard, and on the gla.s.s, he wrote two words: come here.

And then, he tossed the marker onto the table, sat back down in his previous spot, and pressed the mute b.u.t.ton on his phone.

One minute later, the door was gently pushed open.

With her head bowed low, Tong Nian stepped into the room.

The voices echoing out from the phone filled the entire room. “Over here in North American, it’s like RAP has simply gotten rich. Overnight, they bought three top-level players. They poached the solo mid players[1] from last year’s champion and second-place teams over to them…” The person’s words rattled out in a continuous flood as he spoke about business. “They’ve bought six out of the ten top-ranked players by solo MMR [matchmaking rating] on the Americas division’s leaderboard. That’s just infuriating! That’s purely the behavior of the new-rich! As well, Taiwan…”

Against this backdrop of sound, Gun extended his hand to her. Very clearly and simply, he said two words: “Mobile phone.”

She obediently handed it over. “… It’s deleted.”

He had just taken it into his hand and still had not checked the photo alb.u.m when he saw a WeChat message pop up.

Seeing the two words, “G.o.d Gun” he offhandedly tapped it open.

Blueberry: Your Highness, Your Highness, I can’t take it anymore. Have you and G.o.d Gun met up yet? Does he like your outfit today? Those long legs, oh yeah, loooooong legs. Did! He! Get! A! NOSEBLEED?!

……

A tinge of a smile seemed to touch Gun’s face. He glanced down at those bare legs below her skirt, not saying anything.

Nervously, Tong Nian stood perfectly straight.

Who sent the WeChat message? Oh, please don’t send some weird thing over…

Following closely was yet another message.

Blueberry: Oh right, oh right. When you were eating earlier, I thought of something. That suit dress of yours doesn’t show off your b.o.o.bs! It doesn’t highlight your shapely, voluptuous beauty! Our Highness is clearly a girlie with a Loli face and big b.o.o.bs!!!! How can you not show off your superior a.s.sets?!!!!

……

Gun snorted out a laugh and set the mobile phone on the table.

Tong Nian grew even more apprehensive.

But still, he did not speak.

In the midst of the brief quietness, only the chatterbox inside the phone carried on with his grumbling. “Leader, should we buy a few players, too? What joke are they trying to make? We—K&K—are the true wealthy big shots, alright?!” The person in the phone seemed to realize that it had been a long time since Gun had spoken. “Leader? Leader? Leader? Eh? Leader got disconnected? How come there’s no sound? Leader? …”

It was apparent the cry after cry calling out for him was being ignored.

His deep black eyes made a sweep towards her. “You talk to your friends often about us?”

Discomfited by her guilty conscience, she answered, “Not extremely often. Occasionally, I’ll say a little bit—just a teeny, tiny bit.”

“Oh? What do you talk about?”

“Just… I’ll have them tell me the things from your past when you were a pro gamer.”

“Oh? Is that so?” The final tone of his words rose up slightly.

“Mm.” Guilty conscience.

“Just those?”

“Mm.” Continue with guilty conscience.

The person on the other end of the phone had already successively called out “Leader” more than a dozen times.

He finally turned off the speakerphone function. “You’re the host. Dial into the conference call number first and chair the meeting.”

“Oh, oh. I forgot about that.”

When Gun finished saying this, he hung up this call. Opening up an email on his computer, he memorized that string of numbers that was a free, long distance calling number, dialed it, and switched straight into his English, phone-conference mode. “h.e.l.lo everyone, this is Gn.”

“Hi Gn!” There was a woman’s voice, and it sounded very happy.

In his peripheral vision, he saw Tong Nian constantly flicking her eyes over to glance at that mobile phone on the table but not daring to so much as twitch. Remembering her cruddy excuse for a fib just now, he could not hold back the corner of his lips from turning upwards.

Nudging the mobile phone over, he watched her rather interestedly, waiting for her reaction that was about to follow.

Tong Nian had not detected that she was being amusedly observed. Breathing in relief, she happily took her mobile phone back.

Thank goodness, thank goodness.

Huh?

Blueberry?

The WeChat messages were sent by her?

What was up?

……