CHAPTER 87

Tong Yao: "..."

Lu Sicheng: "..."

Tong Yao: "..."

Lu Sicheng: "..."

The air in the room seemed to have frozened. An indescribable awkwardness floated around them…...Tong Yao stared at Lu Sicheng with a tight face but didn't make a sound.

She even forgot to blink.

Her heart seemed to have stopped beating.

After staring at Lu Sicheng for a long time, she finally laughed strangely, like a crackle, and then suddenly screeched: "Cheng Ge, please, act like a normal person, Cheng Ge. I really can't take how you do this over and over again. How many times do you plan to play this trick before you get tired of it? I'm telling you, I'm not scared this time. I'm really not scared-- --"

As she was professing her lack of fear, she had used honorifics to address Lu Sicheng and was backing away from him at the same time…...until her back was against the door, her hand secretly touching the doorknob-- --The cool metal in her burning palm helped calm her somewhat…...Then she saw Lu Sicheng looked rather frustrated and raised his own hand to mess up his hair. He sighed deeply and sat back down onto the chair behind him.

-- --He looked like he didn't know what to do either.

But Tong Yao didn't care what he was thinking about right now, all she wanted to do was run out of this room and find a place where she could hit her head against a wall to clear her head. She wanted to wake up as quickly as possible from this nightmare or hallucination, which she couldn't distinguish what was reality in the moment-- --Tong Yao quietly turned the doorknob and opened the door. When her body was half way out of the door, she heard an imposing voice coming from inside the room: "Where are you going? Come back."

Tong Yao: "................"

Three minutes later, Tong Yao sat down at the chair right across from Lu Sicheng. She tilted her head and looked at her captain with a timid and confused expression. She kept looking at him until Lu Sicheng impatiently rubbed his ears and gave her a stern look. Tong Yao was shaken by the stare and shrank back into the chair. Her whole body was backed into the corner of the chair, as if she was a frightened meerkat.

Lu Sicheng: "What are you doing?"

Tong Yao: "..."

Lu Sicheng showed a mean expression: "What did I say to make you like this? Did I ask you to tie the knot right here-- --"

"Ahhhhhh!" Tong Yao blushed and screeched while putting her hands over her ears: "Don't, don't say it anymore. Lu Sicheng, let me just remind you. You can't confess to and ask someone to go out with you using this kind of tone and expression. Even peacocks know to fan their tails when they're looking for mates! How can you be like this-- --"

"Like what?"

"Snappy."

"You'll agree to it if I'm a little gentler?"

"..."

"See, you quieted down." Lu Sicheng frowned and displeasedly said: "Tsk. I'd really like to grab Jian Yang or Xu Tailun and beat them up."

"...What does this have anything to do with them."

Lu Sicheng said: "Find a mirror and take a look at yourself, then you'll see what a terrifying expression you just had on your face. I was planning to wait till at least after we win the summer competition championship to say this to you. But after seeing that expression of yours, I knew it wouldn't work. If I keep waiting till someone like Xu Tailun pops up in our circle again, then without waiting till the summer championship, you'll probably become a buddhist nun already. There are quite a lot of scumbags in this circle after all." Words came out fast from Lu Sicheng's mouth before he paused for a while, then as if he felt that he had said something wrong, he quickly added: "Not like me, I'm very good."

Tong Yao: "..."

She didn't know what to think of this man.

".........." Tong Yao still shrank in the corner of the chair and said without much expression on her face: "Then say it after the summer championship. It'll be perfect timing, I also think it's a good idea."

"..." Li Sicheng looked at her as if she had skipped her medication.

"You don't have any principles."

"That's why when you asked me early on whether I'm perfect with nothing to fear, I already told you that I wasn't." Lu Sicheng's lips curved up a bit, his expression was still a little mean but in a cynical smile, he looked even meaner than usual: "If the outcome of being a principled man is to have the woman he likes become a nun, then what's the use of having principles? Shoot myself in the foot?"

......The woman he likes.

Tong Yao widened her eyes, then once again she lifted both of her hands to cover her ears. Then on the second thought, she covered her eyes. Eventually, she put her hands down and stared at Lu Sicheng as if she was terrified.

Amid Tong Yao's stare, Lu Sicheng gave her a glance.

His facial expression suddenly started to change, though only slightly.

The change in his face was like a dried plum dropping into a glass of 7-Up to her.

"-- --So I've just been flattering myself and you've never liked me?"

Tong Yao thought it wasn't like that.

It certainly wasn't like that.

Tong Yao moved her lips, subconsciously wanting to deny it, but before she could say anything, she heard Lu Sicheng continued quickly: "Then why did you stand behind my chair and speak like a deserted puppy to stop me from going to see my blind date?"

"I didn't-- --What the hell, you heard that? !" Tong Yao covered her chest. After a while, she stared at him as if she had thought it through: "Damn, you didn't plug in your earphones again? !"

"It was in a break between songs. I heard it just by chance." Lu Sicheng leaned back into his chair: "Didn't that turn out to be a good thing?"

Tong Yao: "..."

..........It didn't feel like a good thing to her.

Lu Sicheng paused for a moment: "Then, are you going to turn me down?"

"...I wouldn't dare to."

"..." Lu Sicheng's eyelids twitched a bit and he sat up straight a little: "Then, you agree?"

"...Not exactly either."

"I know now." Lu Sicheng nodded: "You simply just need a beating."

"See!" Tong Yao stretched out one of her fingers pointing at the Lu Sicheng's nose tip across the chairs: "See, just like that tone of voice; the tone of the captain, of the bully of the team, of a dad-- --whatever it is, that just isn't the tone of a boyfriend. Ah, I didn't mean you when I said boyfriend, why are you curving your lips up for, put them down!"

Before Tong Yao finished, the man across from her suddenly sat up straight and stretched his long arm over to grab Tong Yao's fingers-- --Her cold fingers were surrounded by a rather warm big hand. Tong Yao didn't realize what had happened at first. When she finally came to her senses, her face was as red as a cooked shrimp!

Lu Sicheng said: "Whether I can be what a boyfriend is supposed to be, you have to at least give me the chance for you to try it before you'll know for sure, right, en?" Lu Sicheng lightly tugged her fingers.

"..."

Tong Yao looked at her own fingertips and thought: Why are you wiggling my fingers and don't say en, why is a grown man acting coquettish? That's a foul.

Releasing Tong Yao's fingers, Lu Sicheng stood up and rubbed her hair: "You think about it."

"..."

"I'll give you two hours to think it over, before nine o'clock tonight."

Even when he was confessing to a girl, he was still so cocky.

"...Why nine o'clock tonight."

"Because it'll decide whether I'll have the appetite for dinner or not."

Lu Sicheng turned and walked out of the room after he finished…...Leaving Tong Yao in the room, stunned. After a long while, she suddenly bent over and covered her face. Then she turned to throw herself onto the sofa and kept rubbing against it until the sofa began to shift from its original position. She then stopped, took a deep breath and told herself to calm down.

............….Though it was already impossible for her to calm down after facing such an earth splitting confession.

…...

Tong Yao remained in the break room by herself in a state of mental chaos.

The time for the interview soon approached. A few minutes before their interview, Tong Yao and Lu Sicheng filed into the interview room. Each of them occupied the end of a long couch-- --They didn't have any bodily contact. They didn't even exchange eye contact.

Lu Sicheng casually sat while leaning against the couch with one hand supporting his chin the whole time, looking to the left.

Tong Yao sat straight up the whole time like a kindergartener waiting for her award, eyes looking straight ahead.

The reporters looked at each other, if they didn't know better, they would've thought that ZGDX's players had trouble getting along with each other-- --If there was actually a problem between the players, then they didn't have to even do the interview today-- --That issue alone would be worth a report at least three pages long.

The reporters asked: [What are your thoughts about the issue on Korean help?]

Tong Yao: "We can't treat it in an undiscriminating manner. There are many good Korean help, such as Huawei's jungler…...hum, YQCB's ad and jungler, and some others."

Lu Sicheng: "It's a way to treat the symptoms but not the root cause, a way to see quick results. If we want to have a stronger professional league, we shouldn't rely on Korean help too much."

The reporters asked: [What are the solutions from your perspectives? Lately there's a call for boycotting Korean help.]

Tong Yao: "It depends on each club to discipline their players more."

Lu Sicheng: "It all depends on each player's self-discipline. If a player can't be responsible for himself, the club can't be in control in every aspect-- --I have to add that this isn't just a problem with any foreign help. This is also a problem for among some of our own players, "

The reporters asked: [What are your thoughts about the relationship between a player and the fans? We all know that the one who eventually exposed Xu Tailun is a fangirl who had an affair with him-- --]

Lu Sicheng: "The relationship is a delicate co-existence. We should keep a proper distance afterall."

Tong Yao: "Let's be clear about what happened here. Anyone who's involved in an affair, regardless of whether it's a man or a woman, has done something unforgivable. As a fan, they should make sure they're not fooling themselves through some beauty filter. When simple admiration and idolizing turns into twisted possessiveness, then it's become a very dangerous and undesirable thing to do."

The reporters: [Hahahahaha, it looks like Smiling, as a woman, has a different view on this matter. Then, what the two of you have suggested is that there are more or less lifestyle problems among the players in this circle.]

Tong Yao: "Since we're all young, our character and values haven't stabilized. Joining the workforce too early makes it easier for us to go the wrong direction. It's just like when we were students, we would always annoy the teachers…...There's not much we can do about it. Let's hope everyone can practice a bit more self-discipline?"

Lu Sicheng: "I don't know about that. I have a very good lifestyle as is. I'm a trustworthy good man."

When Tong Yao heard his steady voice, she suddenly glanced to the side-- --

The reporters didn't sense anything unusual about his answer but burst into laughter. Looking at the carefree reporters, Tong Yao was rather envious of them since she was currently in anguish.

The reporters followed up with a terrifying question, perhaps inspired by Lu Sicheng's answer-- --

[Then, with the full understanding of both the bright and dark sides of this circle, would you two still consider having a relationship with someone in the circle?]

The two people who were sitting at two ends of the couch spontaneously gave each other a look.

Lu Sicheng: "Why not?"

Tong Yao: "........."

Lu Sicheng turned to look at Tong Yao and asked directly: "You don't?"

Tong Yao clasped the corner of the slipcover on the couch: "I don't know."

...

Tong Yao lost track of how the interview ended. The only thing she could hear in her head in the end was "you don't, you don't, you don't, you don't, you don't" repeating endlessly...She was bothered by the voice so much that she couldn't recall what she had even said in the interview afterwards. She only remembered that, after the interview was over, she rushed out of the room as if she urgently needed to go to the bathroom-- --

She did go to the bathroom to wash her face to cool herself down.

She didn't go out of the bathroom until she checked herself in the mirror to make sure she had a proper expression on her face. Then she went to the parking lot to get in the club van. She was fully prepared, cleared her throat, and took a look around the van, then she discovered…...hrm, her captain wasn't in the van.

Tong Yao blinked: "...Where's the captain?"

A staff member: "He left."

Tong Yao was baffled: "Left…...where?"

The staff member: "Who knows. He hurried off right after the interview, probably has an appointment with someone? Besides, he drove over here in the first place."

Tong Yao looked at the time, it was already 8 o'clock at night. There was only one hour left. The ride from the arena back to base took about 45 minutes-- --if there was no traffic-- --In other words, though he said he needed her answer before nine, he was gone even before she had the chance to say anything.

.........…...He was gone.

Tong Yao thought to herself: Lu Sicheng, do you know what a bachelor for life looks like? You'll know tomorrow morning when you get up to look in the mirror.

Tong Yao threw her backpack onto the chair and grumpily sat down. She was fuming the entire forty plus minutes back to the base-- --

The van parked in front of the base at 8:40 pm.

Tong Yao jumped off the van and said goodbye to the staff member. She walked into the base, changed into her slippers, turned on her computer, and picked up Dabing. She glanced at the time at the lower right hand corner on the computer screen, 8:45 pm. The seat next to her was empty-- --Lu Sicheng hadn't come back yet.

Tong Yao took out her cell phone, there were no messages nor missed calls.

Tong Yao held the cat in her arms and sat down in her chair, quietly.

She was so restless that she felt like a little volcano just about to erupt.

"Tong Yao, have you eaten yet?"

"Not hungry."

"Smiling, play duo?"

"No duo."

"Have you fed your cat?"

"Let it go hungry, lose some weight."

At 8:50, there was the sound of a car's engine outside the base.

If Tong Yao could raise her ears up, they'd probably be high up on her head by now. Quietly, she lifted her chin up from Dabing's head and took a look at the door-- --Five minutes later, someone knocked on the door. It was 8:55pm. Little Fatty said: "Captain's back. Tong Yao, go open the door."

Everybody else was busy with something, except for Tong Yao who was spacing out.

She put Dabing on Lu Sicheng's chair, then stood up to go to the door.

It was raining cats and dogs outside. When Tong Yao opened the door, the man standing outside the door was soaking wet. He probably had run back from the parking lot. He had one hand in his pocket and his jacket was halfway zipped up…...When the door opened, he saw it was Tong Yao behind the ajar door. He was quiet for a moment then asked: "Why haven't you changed after coming back? The air conditioning is set low, you'll catch a cold."

Tong Yao annoyingly thought: What does that have anything to do with you, crying crocodile tears.

Tong Yao kept her silence and opened the door wider, then she moved to the side-- --To her surprise, the man at the door didn't come in. He simply lifted up his hand to check the watch on his wrist and reported: "It's now Beijing time 8:58:30."

Tong Yao: "..."

Tong Yao couldn't believe he would still mention the time.

Lu Sicheng: "And your answer is?"

Tong Yao: "I-- --"

Before Tong Yao continued, Lu Sicheng interrupted her. He used his deep voice to speak which was almost swallowed by the sound of the rain: "Think well before you answer." Tong Yao was confused and with a glance, she noticed that there was something bulging out rather unnaturally at his chest under his jacket...

As she took a closer look, the thing under the jacket moved a bit, then it moved again. Then a furry head of a little kitten came out from the half zipped jacket. The kitten meowed at Tong Yao.

Tong Yao stared at the kitten and stood stiffly at the door, her eyes widened: ".......This is-- --"

"En." Lu Sicheng said: "Though Qing Dynasty is a little far away, I still successfully brought the kitten back."

".............."

"Beijing time 8:59:30. If I'm still single 30 seconds later, you won't have a new kitten to-- --"

Before Lu Sicheng finished his sentence, the person who was standing still originally had opened her arms and thrown herself onto him. She tried with some difficulty to embrace the man who was much taller than herself. Lu Sicheng stopped talking in the middle of his sentence. He could feel the tiny warm nose tip that bumped into his chest.

He slightly squinted his eyes and curved his lips upwards.

Tong Yao: "..."

Tong Yao looked up at the man's chin: "Why haven't you hugged me back?"

Lu Sicheng answered with an oh, but before he could make a move, he felt something had been taken from inside his jacket. Tong Yao yanked the little kitten out and pushed him away at the same time-- --Tong Yao backed three steps away and turned around to take a look at everyone in the base as if she was a thief. Everyone was focusing on their own match. No one was looking this way.

Under the warm light of the porch, Tong Yao had a red face with a kitten in her arms.

Lu Sicheng leaned against the door frame, looking at her.

Tong Yao frowned: "What are you looking at."

He raised his eyebrow: "My kitten and my woman, I can look to my heart's content."

"...Who's your woman. Shut up. What kind of man uses a kitten to get what he wants."

"All is fair in love and war. Look at that ominous look on your face when you opened the door. Without the kitten, did you think I would get in the door tonight?"

"...."

An elaborately planned surprise seemed to always win the heart of the woman.