◎ Players must explore the upgrade method on their own ◎

After lighting the fire, I ran without looking back. Whatever happened afterward was out of my hands. The next morning, I woke up on time and saw a message from X sent at around 4 AM.

“Teacher Seagull, you must have slept soundly. That’s nice. Unlike me, I couldn’t sleep.”

Whether or not X truly lost sleep because of me, I didn’t know. But his words filled me with a childish sense of triumph. Even my reply carried a smug rhythm:

“Thank you for your patience. Customer Service No. 1, Seagull, is here to assist you. My apologies, dear customer, but the package you purchased only includes ‘kill’ and not ‘bury.’ Our recommendation is that you get used to it.”

By the time I reached the office, X had woken up and responded:

“How do I upgrade my package?”

I switched to my cold and heartless in-game customer service mode:

“Players must explore the upgrade method on their own.”

X sent a voice message. I was too busy to listen until my lunch break.

“Teacher Seagull, you really know how to play. I’ve never—” He paused, chuckled, then changed his mind. “Forget it. I don’t want to scare you away again.”

Wearing my in-ear headphones, I felt his soft nasal tone linger against my ear, making every hair on my body stand on end.

The next message carried a helpless smile:

“Focus on work.”

I had long understood that whenever a man starts a sentence with “I’ve never…”, it’s best to just listen and not take it seriously. Once you start questioning whether it’s true, you’re bound to fall into an endless cycle of overthinking.

Even if I didn’t fully believe him, I was still happy. His words put me in such a great mood that my colleagues who are unaware of the reason, kept asking if I had remembered a funny story.

That above-average joy lasted until the end of the workday. While checking my schedule, I unexpectedly discovered a last-minute change to next week’s business trip.

Confused, I went to ask the project manager. She stared at me for a moment before exclaiming, “Oh my god, I’ve been so busy that I forgot to tell you!”

She turned away from her computer to face me. “I checked and you are the one who goes there every year. I just took over this project, so you’re more familiar with it than I am. Having you there makes me feel at ease.”

This client had a small team, simple business operations, and was highly cooperative—everyone wanted to handle this project, myself included. However…

When I thought of the trip’s location, I fell silent for a moment.

My hesitation didn’t go unnoticed. The manager asked curiously, “Is there a problem?”

“Oh, no.” I quickly shook my head. Work is work, after all. “No problem.”

And just like that, on Monday morning, I boarded a high-speed train with four colleagues, heading toward the city where X lived.

X and I resided in neighboring cities—not far apart, yet it always seemed as though meeting was out of the question.

It wasn’t my first time visiting this city, but never before had I been so acutely aware of how close it was. Only twenty-three minutes by train.

The moment we arrived, we rushed straight to the client’s office. The entire day was chaotic, filled with back-to-back tasks. We barely had time to grab a quick bite for lunch, let alone check our phones. It wasn’t until dinner that I finally had a moment to breathe.

The moment I lit up my phone screen, I saw three consecutive messages from X:

“Teacher Seagull???”

I had expected this. I unlocked my phone and replied:

“Teacher X, I’m here. What’s up?”

X responded instantly:

“Your IP?”

After a full day to cool down, he had at least reduced his use of punctuation. However, this message didn’t feel like it popped up. It felt like it exploded onto my screen.

The diligent Xiaofanshu wasted no time in displaying our matching IP addresses.

A tumbleweed of anxiety rolled wildly through my heart. Still, I maintained my composed and collected image as I replied:

“Ah, yeah, right. I’m here on a business trip.”

X: “Can you take a voice call?”

The client’s cafeteria was a separate two-story building with a small garden outside where employees could relax and smoke. It was the evening rush hour, and I searched for a quiet place while holding my phone. Eventually, I claimed this peaceful little garden for myself.

As soon as the call connected, the first thing I heard was his long, drawn-out breath on the other end.

I said nothing.

X took a sharp breath before speaking. He sounded calm:

“You’re staying for a week?”

I corrected him truthfully:

“Two weeks.”

X: “Which district?”

Me: “The industrial park area.”

X: “Oh, that area has a lot of factories.”

Me: “Yeah, quite a few.”

Our conversation was painfully awkward—nothing like our usual effortless banter. We both knew the reason why, yet we silently chose to ignore it.

After a moment of listening to each other breathe, X casually asked, “Which hotel are you staying at?”

“Oh, the client booked it for us. Let me check.”

I found the confirmation email and reported the name—a global four-star hotel chain.

X said he knew it. “I stayed there once when I was a groomsman for a friend. Their breakfast is pretty good.”

“Oh? Any recommendations?”

He recalled a few local dishes, and I promised to try them in the morning.

The gentle spring breeze brushed against my face. Something unspoken swelled within the formulaic small talk, restrained and unacknowledged. X held back; I pretended not to notice.

Finally, we ran out of things to say. After a brief pause, he asked softly:

“Should I hang up?”

His voice carried a faint nasal tone, his breathing thick and lingering. Through the receiver, an invisible thread seemed to stretch out, looping around my ear and heart—pulling, waiting.

I nodded. “Okay.”

The call didn’t end as he said it would. He remained silent, and the silence stretched on. I wanted to ask, but my throat felt like it was clogged with syrup. My mind was hazy, yet I forced myself to stay calm and asked, “What’s wrong?”

Time seemed to slow, as if a century had passed. X let out a slow breath and finally said, “Nothing. Goodbye.”

The sense of relief was slightly stronger than the lingering loss. I responded with a soft “Goodbye.”

After the call, I remained trapped in an inexplicable daze. I took a taxi with my colleagues to the hotel and checked in.

“Lexin!”

“Huh?”

I turned around. My roommate stood at the bathroom door with a few clean clothes in her hands. “Do you need to use the restroom? I’m going to use the shower first.”

I waved my hand while holding my laptop. “Go ahead, I’ll organize the materials I got today first.”

Once she closed the bathroom door, I didn’t start working immediately. Instead, I opened the map. Based on bits and pieces of our conversation, I could roughly figure out his usual activity area. It wasn’t too far from my hotel, but even in this traffic-free late night, driving would still take nearly twenty minutes.

When I realized what I was doing, a shiver ran down my spine. Extracting clues to track someone’s movements—this was terrifying. It felt like something a creepy stalker would do.

Feeling defeated, I decisively abandoned my stalking attempt. Just as I exited the map, X sent me a message.

X: “Teacher Seagull.”

Just a name, as if he had more to say but hesitated.

I played it cool and replied as usual. “You’re still up?”

X: “How could I possibly sleep?”

I had a bit of a smug streak and replied with a hint of mischief. “I didn’t cause any trouble tonight. I didn’t even look for you.”

The typing indicator flashed for a long time. X was still the same X—straightforward as always.

“When I called you this afternoon, I wanted to play host, but I was afraid you wouldn’t want that and it would make things awkward.”

The conflicted smile on my face froze for a moment.

Yes, he was right. I really didn’t want that.

This business trip had been planned for days, and I hadn’t mentioned a word to him because I wasn’t eager to meet up.

Seeing my silence, X also fell quiet. After a while, he casually changed the topic. “Which side is your hotel room on? Can you see the lake? They’ve developed night tours in the past few years. The night view is beautiful.”

I walked to the window and lifted the curtain slightly with my finger. The colorful underwater lights painted a mesmerizing, dreamlike world. Who could resist being amazed? My exhausted mind found a moment of peace in the beauty, and I couldn’t help but let out a heartfelt sigh.

“It’s gorgeous!”

X asked another question. “Can you see the east side of the lake? There’s a lakeside park. It’s beautiful during the day too.”

I mentally calculated the direction, grateful that I had just looked at the map. The hotel windows couldn’t be opened, so I pressed myself against the glass, stretching on my tiptoes to get a better view of the park across the road.

“I can only see a corner. It looks like a flower bed? Ugh, it’s too dark. I can’t see anything clearly.”

X: “But you can see the road between the hotel and the park, right?”

Me: “Yeah.”

X: “Then I think…”

I had a feeling he was pausing here on purpose.

X: “You can also see the black SUV parked by the road.”

The moment he mentioned the road, I already had a hunch about what he was going to say next. My heart pounded—yes, in a good way.

Gripping my fists and then releasing them, again and again, I looked out into the night. Sure enough, a black Jeep Wrangler sat quietly under the streetlights.

The reason my heartbeat was in chaos was still sending me messages.

X: “I’m in the car.”

Me: “Uninvited guests aren’t exactly polite, you know.”

X: “I know,” he said. “But I still had to come. Knowing you’re here, I couldn’t stay away.”

I stared at my phone, stunned. A mix of flustered frustration and unexpected delight filled me.

I truly enjoyed my interactions with X, but I had never once considered taking things from online to real life. I had assumed I’d be upset if he crossed that boundary unilaterally, but who would have thought—he was so smooth with words that I couldn’t even get mad.

Even so, I was still hesitating about whether to meet him. There were also safety concerns to consider. “I never said I’d see you.”

X: “You don’t have to. Just take a look at me.”

As his message arrived, the driver’s side door of the Jeep opened, and a man stepped out. The night was too dark, and the distance was too far—I couldn’t make out his face, but my breath still hitched.

From the videos, I had already figured he was tall. But I hadn’t expected him to be this tall.

I practically plastered myself against the floor-to-ceiling window, squinting hard to make out the details. I regretted my slight nearsightedness. All I could see was that he was wearing a dark, thick denim jacket over a simple yet stylish white T-shirt, paired with black cargo pants and combat boots. With his towering height and long legs, he stood under the streetlight like a scene straight out of a movie.

The lake shimmered with gentle ripples, lights reflected in the water, and there he was—a man with an incredible physique and stamina, who had driven all this way late at night just to stand below my window and look up at me.

Everything—the time, the setting, the person—was so overwhelmingly romantic. Whether it was logic or emotions, they were both shaking wildly. I didn’t feel offended by his sudden arrival. Even if I had been a little annoyed at first, that feeling had long since disappeared. Now, all that remained was the determination not to lose the upper hand and the urge to strike first.

I curled my lips into a smile and deliberately typed out a message that would make things difficult for him.

“What should I do? I’m sharing a room with my colleague. It’s not exactly convenient for me to sneak out for a midnight kiss.”