NOVEL NEXT 023. Completely Drunk
Qin Yu recorded his broadcast video for about two hours, and by the time he finished, it was nearly one o’clock in the morning. As he was preparing to close the game and go to sleep, his friend column suddenly began flashing.
These days, because of the “Xiao Xian-Jin” thing, he had once again become the source of gossip for many people in the game, including the members from his expert group. The group chat had been so noisy lately, filled with people talking about topics centered around Fire Ruthless and Xiao Xian-Jin’s relationship.
Qin Yu would peep at their chat log once in a while. However, except for Nine Hall His Highness who had come directly to him a few days ago, none of them had tried to do the same. They seemed to be satisfied with just gossiping, so Qin Yu also did not feel the need to respond to them.
In this heated discussion, only one person was missing from the scene, and it was Flower Yiyi.
Qin Yu had not seen her since that day she came to introduce herself to Ah Jin, so he was quite surprised to receive a message from her this time-
Flower Yiyi: “It’s really late already, and you are still here?”
Fire Ruthless: “Yes, why are you here?”
Flower Yiyi: “Can’t sleep, so I come here to stroll around… It’s been a long time since I played with you. ”
For Flower Yiyi to suddenly disappear these days, Qin Yu could actually guess the reason behind that. Her reaction made it clear though, that he should not give any false hope to her. Qin Yu thought he had maintained an appropriate distance between them before, but apparently, the lack of another half by his side had caused the girl to form her own illusion about them.
Fire Ruthless: “I want to go to bed early, so I’m going first.”
Flower Yiyi: “…”
Flower Yiyi: “Can’t you accompany me to chat for a while?”
Fire Ruthless: “I’m a little sleepy… [Yawn]”
Flower Yiyi: “Master, I miss you.”
Fire Ruthless: “…”
Qin Yu looked at her last message and sighed. He had thought that she would be “smart” in her approach, and would not give him the opportunity to “reject” her. If she had done that, then, at least, they might still be able to continue to be friends, but now… It looked like she finally could not hold back her feelings.
Flower Yiyi: “I like you, Ruthless, I have always liked you …”
The feelings that she had suppressed for three years, finally broke free at this moment.
Qin Yu paused, then raised his hands to type: “Flower Yiyi, I have taken you as my disciple for two years, all the things that I can teach you, have all been taught. At your present level, you can even take an apprentice yourself, so I think our mentor relationship is no longer necessary. And I have a favorite person, so you don’t need to continue to waste your time on me. Just think about it and calm down. Good night. ”
After sending this sentence, Qin Yu went offline directly. He was not interested in playing ambiguous games with someone he did not have feelings for, in his opinion, a cold and direct answer was the greatest kindness he could give to the other player.
***
On Tuesday’s evening, He Jin received a message from Tong Xuan just as he was going to the South Gate with Hou Dongyan.
Tong Xuan: “I heard you fainted? What’s going on? ”
He Jin: “Just a fever, it’s nothing serious.”
Tong Xuan: “Is Qin Yu the one who carried you to the school’s hospital?”
He Jin: “Where did you hear it from?”
Tong Xun: “It’s all the students have been talking about ah! At first, I only heard that the night before Qin Yu carried a boy in a princess hold running across the school. I had no special reaction then, but just now Guo You actually told me that the one he held was unexpectedly you!”
Public, Princess hold … and running across the school … This… The spreading power of gossip is simply horrible!
He Jin was dumbfounded and immediately tried to explain, “It’s nothing as exaggerated as that ah. I was a little unconscious because of a fever that day, and monkey took me to the hospital. He was too small though, so Qin Yu and Shang Bai Jian offered to help when they saw him.”
Tong Xuan: “Oh… so how is it now?”
He Jin: “I’m fine now, don’t worry.”
Tong Xuan: “And how is the preparation for the lecture going?”
He Jin: “It’s almost finished, but I only printed 50 copies of my notes …”
Tong Xuan: “So few!? There will be 200 seats in the lecture hall!”
He Jin: “No one will be willing to buy it anyway. Because the cost of reproduction is very low, so as long as someone buys a book, they can always reproduce it by themselves. Your proposal of selling this thing is simply not reasonable.”
Hearing this, Tong Xuan was helpless: “All right, I’ll listen to you this time…”
After hanging up the phone, He Jin turned to Hou Dongyan and asked, “Monkey, that day… did Qin Yu princess carry me to the school’s hospital?”
Hou Dongyan: “Yes.”
…… He Jin had always thought that Hou Dongyan would answer no, but he actually confirmed it!
He Jin’s face turned black: “Why is it princess-carry ah…”
Hou Dongyan explained to him: “At the beginning, I was the one who carried you, but after he came, he just took you straight from my arms.”
He Jin imagined himself being “princess-carried” by Qin Yu, and suddenly felt like he had no face left to face the other guy. (=_=)
When they arrived at the “Lala Fish Cantonese Restaurant”, Shang and Qin Yu had occupied a table and were waiting for them. Hou Dongyan immediately rushed and called out to them familiarly, “Yo, bros!”
Shang Bai Jian looked up and fixed his eyes on He Jin: “You look much better now… Honestly, I did not really help with anything, I feel like I’m just here to sponge a free meal out of Qin Yu’s hard work.”
Qin Yu did not look at He Jin and continued to aim his gaze at the menu. He said to Shang at his side: “If you know you are only robbing free meal here, then please remember to pay it back next time.”
He Jin was amused by their words, making his mood relax a lot. After sitting, he said to them, “It doesn’t matter, I have also delayed you all night that day, so today you can just eat anything you want, no need to be polite.”
The prices in this restaurant were not too expensive. The four of them ordered a table of vegetable dishes, along with some fish and meats.
“Such a good dish, shall we have some beer as well?”, Shang proposed.
He Jin: “OK.”
He Jin had never tried to drink beer before, but since that day when he had lamented about his life at the lake tour, he no longer wanted to hold himself back. So, now that he had the opportunity to try, he might as well just take it.
However, Hou Dongyan who knew about He Jin’s usual behavior, looked at him strangely, “Jin Ge, I thought you don’t like to drink?”
Shang turned to him: “You don’t like to drink? Then you don’t have to force yourself. ”
He Jin: “No, it’s not that I don’t like it, I just didn’t want to before. But my mood is good today, so I want to try drinking a glass too.”
After saying this, He Jin then ordered two bottles of Tsingtao beer. Each of them poured a cup, toasted, and went on drinking while chatting.
[T/N: Tsingtao is a beer brand in china]
Shang asked curiously, “Both of you are law students, right? What are you learning there, our law?”
He Jin: “No, we study administration.”
Shang thoughtfully nodded: “What are the main options for your future’s job?”
Hou Dongyan answered concisely, “Personnel logistics, teaching Director, or being in management.”
Shang: “Pufff… So classy!”
He Jin: “What about you?”
Shang: “I’m studying automation, and Qin Yu is a mechanical system, our fields are quite connected.”
Hearing these terms, the two outsiders were confused, “What are those?” Hou Dongyan asked.
Shang then proceeded to explain a bunch of math electronics, software technology, and computer control things to them… which made He Jin and Hou Dongyan even more confused.
Qin Yu cut him off, and explained simply: “He is engaged in aircraft’s remote control, while I do auto parts.”
Everyone was enlightened, they immediately gave praises for Qin Yu’s generalized explanation. Qin Yu continued, “There are actually more things to learn about it, but I’m just giving you a simple explanation so that both of you will at least understand a little better.”
When he said the word “explain”, He Jin suddenly thought of Fire. Yes, there were many people who sounded alike in this world, but usually it was just because their accent, or tone were quite similar,- however, Qin Yu’s voice, tone, and accent, were exactly the same as Fire!
He Jin knew though, that Qin Yu wasn’t Fire, because Qin Yu did not play games, and at this time, Fire should be getting ready for his live broadcast. It wasn’t likely for them to turn out to be the same person, but they might be coming from the same region, and that was why they had the same accent and tone…
He Jin asked Qin Yu subconsciously, “Where are you from?”
Qin Yu: “I am not originally from this city, my hometown is in the South S city. Ten years ago, my family relocated here because of my father’s business.”
He Jin: “No wonder I can hear North-South’s accent…”
“What about you?”, Qin Yu asked him back.
He Jin: “My hometown is quite close, it’s at Q City in the next province, about a four-hour train ride away from here.”
Q City was neither a capital city or a municipality directly under the Central Government. At most, it could be considered as a fairly good second-tier city. Although the development level of some second-tier cities in recent years had made them quite comparable to the first-tier cities, it was still lacking fairness in competition.
Qin Yu didn’t know the reason He Jin did not want to go back and work in his hometown after graduation… And although he was curious, he still held himself back from asking. After listening to Ah Jin’s talk in the game, he could guess just how strict his parents were, so he had a feeling that it was a forbidden topic for the smaller guy. Unless they had a more familiar relationship, He Jin would only feel suspicious if he asked him about it.
Qin Yu said instead, “I haven’t been to Q City before, I’ll come to see it if I have the opportunity later.”
He Jin: “Oh, you are welcome to come anytime.”
After that, their topic moved to talks about the tennis club. Qin Yu suddenly remembered He Jin who was trying to follow Shang’s movement at the lake tour before, and once again invited him to play together. He Jin also would like to do this, however he wasn’t quite sure about his available time, so he did not give an affirmative answer to him.
With the help of the beers, their meal passed very comfortably, even though their personalities were a bit different from each other.
He Jin used to attend a lot of dinners in the student union, but the deliberately created social atmosphere back then was quite different from what it was now– there was no false friendship and no sweet-talk flattery in here, just a simple meal and conversations, without cynicism, or envy.
Two bottles of beer were not enough, and they soon ordered one more bottle. When He Jin tasted the beer before, he could only taste its bitterness, and frankly, he couldn’t understand why some people would like to drink this. Now though, he felt like he couldn’t stop, kept on gulping one cup after another, and the more he drank, the more he felt as if his limbs were becoming lighter.
They ended their dinner at eight o’clock, and soon, they were sloshing back to the dormitory building. On the road, Shang accidentally glanced at He Jin, and was surprised to see there was no change in his complexion. He quickly praised him, “You are such a good drinker ah!”
He Jin smiled, but did not speak. At that moment he felt as if he was walking on wind, like Poor Flame, with a little push he might even be able to fly to heaven!
When they arrived at the dormitory building, the four of them immediately said goodbye to each other, and went their own ways.
Back in his room, He Jin stopped at his bedside and looked at his bed thoughtfully. His mind floated back to the time he was watching clouds from the islands in the Celestial Domain. Fire had said before, that he would die if he fell down from Celestial, but it was only a game though, why would he be afraid of dying? He could always just revive himself!
Thinking of this, he threw himself straight down to the bed– lying down on it!
“Oh, Jin Ge! What’s wrong with you? Don’t scare me ah!” Hou Dongyan turned to look at him, only to find out that He Jin was completely drunk!
Hou Dongyan was dumbfounded, “You are really amazing ah, no one could tell from the outside that you are thoroughly wasted right now…”
A few seconds later, He Jin’s smart bracelet began flashing, but it was left unanswered. Soon after, it was Hou Dongyan’s smart bracelet’s turn to flash. Hou Dongyan took a look at it and saw an SMS from Qin Yu-“Is He Jin okay? I think he didn’t seem quite all right before.”
Hou Dongyan was startled: “How did you find out? He’s drunk and is lying dead on his bed right now.”
Qin Yu: “His eyes just seemed dreamy before.”
Hou Dongyan: “Yes, maybe it means he will have a good sleep tonight.”
Qin Yu: “Well, look after him. If he suddenly feels an urge to vomit or something like that at midnight, I have a solution for hangovers here in my room, the room number is 417b.”
Hou Dongyan sighed, this Qin brother really treated others so nicely ah, so intimate like it was with his own wife! Such a man, if he wanted to chase after a girl, even the Heavenly Mother would also become overwhelmed ah!
Meanwhile, Qin Yu looked at the message on his smart bracelet, and could not help but laugh- So this was what Ah Jin’s appearance looks like when he is drunk… if he was by his side now, Qin Yu would surely want to tease him about it, he wondered what kind of interesting reactions would he show then…
T/N: I have no knowledge whatsoever about mechanical things, so the terms and explanations used in this chapter might be wrong. Feel free to correct me if it is!
Proof-read by: EileenKH123