“Where’s Chi Yao?”
In the hotel lobby, before departure, Old Liu counted the team members and only then discovered one was missing.
Just as he was about to shout, Chi Yao walked out from behind.
He took his place in the line and casually said, “Just took a phone call.”
Old Liu: “Oh, a phone call, that’s fine. I thought you’d disappeared, frightened me.”
But Xu Ting, standing next to him, felt something was off: “Who called?”
Chi Yao: “A friend.”
Xu Ting continued: “Why do I feel like your mood improved after taking that call?”
Chi Yao glanced at him, neither confirming nor denying: “Did it?”
Xu Ting, having interacted with him for over a year now, understood him fairly well: “Yes, under normal circumstances, when I just asked ‘who called,’ you wouldn’t have answered ‘a friend.’ When the hell did you ever answer my questions so directly?”
Xu Ting, as a long-term victim, spoke with heartbreaking proficiency: “Normally, you’d say ‘what does it have to do with you?'”
“Or ‘none of your business,’ or even ‘shut up.'”
“…”
Xu Ting: “Though your tone is still cold, you answered me just now, you said a friend—”
Chi Yao, annoyed beyond measure, cut him off at the source: “Then let me answer again.”
Xu Ting: “?”
Chi Yao: “None of your business.”
Xu Ting: “…”
Lin Zhexia returned to her hotel room.
She lay on the bed and took a nap. When she woke up, she found that the clothes she had hung out to dry last night were almost dry.
After tidying up, she sent a message to Lin He: Chi Yao has gone to the competition, I’m alone in the hotel now, don’t worry about me.
After receiving it, Lin He transferred some money with a note: Be very careful when you’re out.
She replied to Lin He: Thank you, Mom.
She felt quite embarrassed.
Sneaking out had caused so much trouble for so many people.
After doing these things, she started tuning into news channels, hoping to find something on TV about today’s physics competition.
She flipped through several channels and found a local station broadcasting competition-related content.
It was a program called “Local Fresh News,” with the host holding a microphone outside the venue: “Today, high school competition teams from various cities have gathered here… We can see that the scene is very lively. The competition has already begun, and to provide the students with a better competition environment, we won’t go in to film. We hope they all perform excellently today.”
The brief report ended there.
Lin Zhexia stared at the television, thinking absently: she was probably overthinking.
How could there be live TV coverage of the competition?
That kind of exam-like environment required quiet; they definitely wouldn’t allow media inside.
Just after Lin Zhexia turned off the TV, Chen Lin called her: “Deskmate, have you done that set of English papers? The printing on my copy has issues. Can you take a photo of yours for me?”
Lin Zhexia: “Ah, I’m not at home right now. Can I take photos for you when I get back tomorrow? Or if you’re in a hurry, you could ask Shuxuan.”
Chen Lin was a bit surprised: “You’re not at home?”
Since Chi Yao wasn’t around, Lin Zhexia blamed him: “Chi Yao was so nervous about his competition that he called me in the middle of the night, crying and begging me to come cheer him on. I wanted to see the sea anyway, so I came to Haicheng City.”
Chen Lin: “Chi Yao… middle of the night… crying…”
Chen Lin found the image quite terrifying, just thinking about it: “Never mind, let’s skip him.”
But once mentioned, it couldn’t be easily skipped.
Lin Zhexia: “I wonder how his competition is going now.”
Chen Lin: “It must have started already. Wait a bit, it’ll be over in a few hours, and the results will come out quickly. Keep an eye on your friend circle, I’m sure the teachers at our school will repost about this kind of competition first thing.”
Lin Zhexia made an affirmative sound.
Chen Lin continued: “By the way, their competition team has six people, right? I heard there’s an amazing girl.”
Lin Zhexia: “A girl?”
Chen Lin: “Called something like… Shen Shanshan?”
“Right, I checked Old Xu’s friend circle, that’s her name. You know our grade’s class system—all the competition participants are from Class 1, but she’s the only one from Class 2. They say she’s especially good at physics, so she’s famous.”
Chen Lin couldn’t help but marvel: “How hard must she have worked to squeeze in from Class 2? Those Class 1 people are all monsters with terrifying grades, especially that guy who refused to go to No.1 High School and came to our No.2 instead, that crying-in-the-middle-of-the-night Chi.”
“…”
She chatted with Chen Lin for a while until Chen Lin’s mother called her from outside, so she quickly hung up.
With nothing to do alone in the hotel, Lin Zhexia scrolled through videos for a while and fell asleep again.