Chapter 13: Said Everything

By the time Ji Xu snuggled into the sofa to play games, the night outside in Haicheng had settled completely into darkness.

Only a single floor lamp was on in the living room, casting a warm yellow light around the couch that made the glow of his phone screen stand out all the more brightly.

He was lounging sideways with his legs slung over the sofa armrest, the back of his head resting on the pink cushion Rong Du had bought, while his thumbs swiped rapidly across the screen.

In the game, his support character’s green health bar followed right behind the marksman, and the rhythm throughout the entire match had been smooth.

The enemy jungler’s vision had been blocked by him twice, and their marksman—who was, of course, Chu Siran—already had eight kills under his belt.

Ji Xu placed a ward in the enemy jungle, recalled on the spot to replenish his status, and casually said into the team voice chat, “Brother, I’m going back to heal up before coming back.”

Chu Siran replied with a low “Mm” through the headphones.

It was brief and short, but Ji Xu was already used to his laconic style.

By the time he topped off his health at base and rushed back to the bottom lane, the enemy’s first outer tower had already been pushed down.

Chu Siran was standing there alone clearing the minion wave, unhurried, as if he knew Ji Xu would definitely come back to find him.

When they shattered the enemy Nexus, Ji Xu subconsciously glanced at the time.

The numbers in the top right corner of the screen clearly displayed 20:03.

He froze for a moment, taking a few seconds to process—school started tomorrow.

The date reminder at the bottom left of his phone reminded him: August 31st, the very last day of summer break.

Tomorrow morning at eight o’clock, he had to report to school.

Yet right now, his open suitcase was still lying flat on his bedroom floor with clothes only half-hazardly stuffed inside, and his dorm checklist hadn’t been verified line by line.

He shuddered, nearly dropping his phone.

“I’m done for tonight, Brother,” Ji Xu brought the microphone closer.

“School starts tomorrow, and I still need to pack my luggage.”

After a silence of two or three seconds on the other side, Chu Siran’s voice sounded again, as succinct as ever: “Okay.”

As Ji Xu exited the game room, he casually glanced at the post-match settlement screen.

Just as he was about to tap exit, his fingertips suddenly paused—a gift notification popped up on the screen.

He opened it to take a look; it was a skin sent by Chu Siran, a collector’s edition model that had just come out today.

The special effects were exceptionally gorgeous, changing the character’s dress from gold into a flowing aura of radiance, trailing a string of stars whenever skills were cast.

This was Ji Xu’s main champion, whom he had played for over two years, and also his absolute favorite support character.

He stared at the skin showcase interface for a full ten seconds.

From the loading effects to the basic attack particle effects and then to the recall animation, every detail replayed repeatedly on the screen.

He had actually seen this skin earlier this afternoon.

When the official announcement was released, he clicked in to view it.

The special effects were truly beautiful, but the two-hundred-yuan price tag genuinely made him hesitate.

He had entered and exited the top-up interface three separate times before finally closing it, thinking he would wait until a discount came around.

Unexpectedly—Chu Siran had bought it directly for him.

Ji Xu sat straight up from the sofa, putting both feet down onto the floor, and lifted his phone in front of his face to double-check the skin’s owned status.

That golden icon shone brightly in his champion pool list, sitting right beside those old skins he had spent half a year saving fragments to exchange for, brand new to the point of reflecting light.

He retreated back to the chat app, his thumbs typing out a line of text at lightning speed: “Thank you, Brother! I really love this new skin.”

Followed by a string of bouncing stick figures and a cute sticker of a character spinning around while holding a heart.

Chu Siran’s reply came as fast as ever, as if his phone were glued to his palm: “As long as you like it.”

Right after that, a red pocket box popped up from the conversation frame again.

The moment Ji Xu saw it, his pupils lit up.

He clicked open the red envelope, and the numbers unfolded—888.

Happy start of the semester.

Chu Siran’s note read right after the red envelope.

Looking at those words and the combination of numbers, Ji Xu’s brain glitched for a second.

Happy start of the semester.

He covered his face with his hands, let go, and re-read it twice over.

What kind of divine gaming partner was this?

Plays steadily and accurately, speaks little without being clingy, drops coins at the drop of a hat, and spends money lavishly like he owned a gold mine.

He loved this guy way too much, so much that he wished he could send Chu Siran a whole row of kowtowing emojis to express his gratitude.

In the end, he sent a text reading “Waaaaah Brother you are so good to me,” added a GIF of a crying cat hugging someone’s leg, and then accepted the red envelope.

The numbers in his Alipay balance jumped up by a notch, looking particularly pleasing to the eye.

Having accepted the red envelope, Ji Xu’s mouth became exceptionally sweet.

Over the next dozen minutes, he actively initiated chat mode, crackling away with a whole bunch of random chatter.

He mentioned that he had to report tomorrow.

The school was in Haicheng, a comprehensive university called Shangnan University.

He had taken advantage of a gap during summer break to check out the school entrance.

The main gate was quite grand, and a row of camphor trees was planted along the neighboring green belt.

He said he was majoring in English.

Although he didn’t actually know what he liked, this major had good job prospects.

Being an orphan, he had no one to offer advice or opinions, so he just picked according to his exam score.

He mentioned that his dorm room was a two-person suite with a bed on top and a desk underneath.

He didn’t know if his roommate would be easy to get along with and hoped it wouldn’t be the type to play games late at night with the speaker on.

He admitted he was a bit nervous but also looking forward to it, since it was his first time legitimately attending college after all.

Chu Siran listened quietly throughout the entire conversation, occasionally replying with an “Mm” or “Pretty good.”

Those few words conveyed across the screen made him seem like a quiet, patient listener, taking in every single piece of Ji Xu’s rambling chatter without missing a beat.

As they kept chatting, Ji Xu suddenly sensed something off.

He glanced back at the chat log: from the time he received the red envelope until now, he had already sent out more than a dozen messages.

He had covered everything from his school to his major, his dorm, dining hall rumors, and even casually mentioning his two months of working as a barbecue cook in Haicheng during summer break.

Chu Siran had only replied with seven or eight single-word messages.

He promptly put on the brakes, reflecting internally that if he kept talking, he would probably end up declaring his entire family lineage going back eighteen generations.

Not that he had eighteen generations of ancestors to report anyway.

As an orphan, he didn’t even know who his birth parents were.

The orphanage records held only a piece of paper with his date of birth and an old blanket he had been wrapped in.

“I’ll stop chatting now, Brother. I’ve gotta go pack my bags first,” Ji Xu finally called a stop to himself.

“Mm,” Chu Siran replied with a single character.

But immediately after, he sent another line: “Hope your registration goes smoothly tomorrow.”

Looking at those words, Ji Xu smiled at the screen.

He exited the chat interface, placed his phone on the coffee table, stood up, and stretched lazily, his joints popping twice.

On the bedroom floor lay the deep blue suitcase with its wheels facing up and its lid open.

It was stuffed messily with a few T-shirts and two pairs of pants, weighted down by an unclosed book on top.

Ji Xu squatted down and began neatly folding his clothes.

He folded the T-shirt sleeves inward, aligned the hems, smoothed out the edges, and stacked them piece by piece onto one side of the suitcase.

Then he flipped through his checklist again.

He checked off and stuffed items into the compartments one by one: charger, notebook, a few pens, original documents and photocopies, passport photos, and the dorm bedding receipt.

Closing the suitcase at the end took some effort.

He had to kneel on it with his whole weight to pull the zipper all the way around.

The zipper teeth locked together with a crisp click, and the suitcase was finally neatly packed.

He pushed the suitcase into the corner to stand upright and checked the time on his phone—it was already past ten ten at night.

The living room was quiet.

The entryway light was off.

Rong Du’s slippers were still placed neatly beneath the shoe cabinet.

The gray sneakers he wore out today were absent from the doorway.

Ji Xu walked back into the living room, and right at that moment, his stomach let out a rumble—not loud, but remarkably clear in the quiet night.

He instinctively pressed his stomach, only then recalling that he had only hastily scarfed down two bites for dinner before nestling into the sofa to play games all the way until now.

His stomach was completely empty, those few bites having long been digested.

Patter-pattering in his slippers, Ji Xu walked to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door, and leaned in to look around.

Inside the cold storage compartment was a bundle of wilted green onions, half a box of eggs, and an unopened bag of frozen dumplings—though he had eaten dumplings so much over the past few days that he didn’t want to touch them again.

The rest consisted of seasonings and a few bottles of drinks, with nothing ready-made to eat.

He shut the fridge door, opened the cabinet beside the stove to rummage through, and spotted two buckets of instant noodles in the deepest corner.

They were red paper bowl packaging, with a photo of a piping hot bowl of braised beef noodles printed on the sealing film.

Ji Xu pulled out those two buckets of instant noodles, held them up to look, and then retrieved two ham sausages and two eggs from the fridge before pulling out a small milk pot.

He decided to splurge.

He filled the pot with water, placed it on the stove to boil, tore open the instant noodle covers, and poured in the noodle blocks and seasoning packets.

Then, using a small knife, he sliced the ham sausages into thick pieces and tossed them into the pot together, finally cracking two eggs inside.

The egg whites quickly set into white cloud-like shapes in the boiling water, wrapping around the yellow yolks.

The noodles unravelled in the rolling water, while the red broth bubbled and tumbled, sending steam rich with savory sauce and oil aromas wafting through the entire kitchen.

Ji Xu grabbed a pair of long chopsticks and stirred to keep the noodles from sticking to the bottom, crouching in front of the stove to watch the instant noodles in the small pot absorb more and more flavor as they cooked.

His shadow was cast onto the floor by the range hood light, swaying gently along with the rhythm of the boiling water.

Just then, the sound of a key inserting into the lock and turning came from outside.

Ji Xu poked half his body out of the kitchen and saw the entryway door being pushed open.

Rong Du walked in, still wearing a light blue short-sleeved shirt with the top two buttons undone and a slightly loose collar.

His face bore the fatigue of a full day’s work, with a subtle furrow between his brows.

His movement of bending down to change slippers was half a beat slower than usual, and when he straightened up, he rubbed the back of his neck.

“Ah Xu,” Rong Du looked over toward the kitchen light and scent, “you haven’t eaten yet?”

“It’s a late-night snack,” Ji Xu leaned on the kitchen doorframe, still holding the pair of long chopsticks in his hand.

Steam and aroma surged out from behind him, softening his silhouette.

His eyes were bright, filled with a hint of eager anticipation for food.

“Rong Du, do you want to eat?”

Looking at his appearance, the faint furrow of tiredness between Rong Du’s brows gradually relaxed.

He tossed his keys into the entryway shoe cabinet drawer and took two steps toward the kitchen: “Yes.”

After leaving behind that single word, he turned into the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and bent over to wash his face.

As cold water splashed against his face, he cupped a couple of handfuls onto the back of his neck and behind his ears.

A shudder ran through his body, washing away a bit of the day’s weariness.

He raised his head to look at himself in the mirror.

A few un-wiped water droplets at the corners of his eyes slid down along his cheekbones, and he wiped them away carelessly with the back of his hand.

In the kitchen, Ji Xu was already slicing sausage.

He had dug out the remaining half-piece of ham sausage from the fridge, sliced it into thin pieces, and tossed them into the second pot of boiling noodles.

He then took a few wilted green onion leaves from the basket, rinsed them under water, snipped them into chopped scallions with scissors, and scattered them vibrantly green atop the soup.

The noodles in the pot had already cooked soft.

The broth had been absorbed into the noodles a bit, growing thick and rich; every single strand was coated in a glistening red luster and oil sheen.

The egg yolks were soft-boiled, and a poke with a chopstick caused golden liquid yolk to flow out and mix into the soup base.

Ji Xu turned off the heat, grabbed two large bowls, and split the cooked noodles along with the soup and ingredients equally between them.

He then distributed the remaining ham slices evenly by count, ensuring each bowl had a complete soft-boiled egg and roughly the same amount of sausage slices.

By the time Rong Du emerged from the bathroom, two steaming bowls of cooked instant noodles had already been set onto the dining table.

Ji Xu was sitting by the table with chopsticks already in hand, waving at him: “Hurry over, it won’t taste good once it gets soggy.”

Rong Du walked over and sat down across from him.

He looked down at the noodles in his bowl; the broth glistened with a rich red glow, the noodles were cooked just right, the soft-boiled egg lay right in the center, ham slices covered half a circle, and bright green chopped scallions floated on the soup surface.

He picked up the bowl and took a sip of the broth—scalding, rich, with that simple, solid flavor unique to MSG and fried noodle blocks, warming him from his throat all the way to his stomach.

He lowered his head and took another sip, feeling a bit of the day’s fatigue dissolve into that warm broth.

“Is it good?” Ji Xu was already sitting across from him slurping up a huge mouthful of noodles, speaking unclearly with his mouth full, his cheeks puffed out and a spot of red oil clinging to the corner of his mouth.

Rong Du nodded, lifting another chopstick-ful of noodles into his mouth.

The two of them ate noodles quietly across the dining table.

Chopsticks clinked against the bowl rims with tiny sounds, and the sounds of slurping noodles rose and fell.

Outside the window, the Haicheng night was deep, with only a few distant household lights still shining like scattered stars.

Halfway through eating, Ji Xu paused, split the soft-boiled egg in his bowl into two halves, placed one half into Rong Du’s bowl, and then continued eating his own with his head down.

Rong Du looked at the half-egg in his bowl; the yolk had set just right, with the edges still slightly runny.

He picked it up and put it into his mouth.

He said nothing, but the corners of his mouth curved upward.