Give Me Another Smile

Tang Yu helplessly stretched her hand to stop the hand that was making a mess of her hair and said, “Don’t be so mean.”

Yin Zhao-an pursed her lips and revealed a pitiful look upon getting lectured. For a moment, Tang Yu even thought she saw an illusory feline tail drooping behind Yin Zhao-an.

“I would never be mean to you,” Yin Zhao-an mumbled, deliberately misinterpreting Tang Yu’s words.

Tang Yu helplessly sighed and shook her head. However, she did not choose to continue on this topic. Instead, she helped the half-disabled person next to her downstairs.

…

The young nanny had never seen Yin Zhao-an showing such a cold expression before today. Originally, the young nanny thought that her charge was a person without a temper, as Yin Zhao-an rarely spoke and usually spent most of her time alone in her room. However, by the look of things, Yin Zhao-an wasn’t as expressionless as the young nanny thought. On the contrary, Yin Zhao-an was more than capable of making an expression that could send shivers down the young nanny’s spine.

After the little incident just now, the young nanny wisened up and quietly stood at a corner of the dining room, making herself one with the background. However, as she watched Yin Zhao-an and Tang Yu dine, she gradually noticed that she…had seemingly turned into the third wheel.

Using the excuse that her injuries made it inconvenient for her to eat, Yin Zhao-an righteously sat next to Tang Yu. However, it was obvious that she didn’t intend to act the part of a partially disabled person because as soon as she sat down and took a few bites, she quickly started filling Tang Yu’s bowl with food. Moreover, she would only serve non-spicy dishes to Tang Yu.

In reality, Tang Yu liked spicy food quite a lot. So, the corner of her eyes twitched a little when she saw anything but spicy food topping her rice bowl. When she could no longer see the rice in her rice bowl, she softly said, “Stop serving food for me and focus on your own meal.”

“Okay.” Yin Zhao-an swiftly moved the bok choy, which she was about to place on top of Tang Yu’s bowl, into her own bowl. Then, she beamed a bright smile at Tang Yu.

Why does it feel like she got dumber… Tang Yu softly sighed, resisting the urge to hold her forehead.

…

In a certain district in the city…

For the first time, Zhao Yu found a computer game very entertaining. Currently, the image of a swordsman hovered in the middle of the screen before Zhao Yu. The swordsman had a handsome face and a body with perfect proportions. There were even colorful streamers floating behind the game character.

Gao Rang sat next to Zhao Yu with a laptop in hand. The laptop’s screen showed a similar game interface, but the character displayed on the screen was slightly different from Zhao Yu’s character. Gao Rang’s character was a mage holding a crystal ball. The mage’s baggy and hooded robe hid most of his body, revealing only a chin and a pair of lips.

When Zhao Yu moved his mouse, the character on the screen also moved, his movements accompanied by special effects.

“Stay behind me, Big Bro. I’ll carry you through this dungeon,” Zhao Yu said, his eyes fixated on the transition scene displayed on the screen.

When the transition scene ended, both Zhao Yu’s character and Gao Rang’s character appeared together on a cliff surrounded by clouds and mists. A stone tablet was situated at the end of the cliff, and an elderly NPC stood next to this tablet.

Zhao Yu clicked on the NPC to trigger the NPC’s dialogue and start the dungeon mission.

Suddenly, a prompt for a duel request appeared at the bottom right of Zhao Yu’s screen. However, when Zhao Yu saw an unfamiliar ID in the prompt, he rejected the request without hesitation and proceeded to enter the dungeon.

This dungeon was designed with the intent that it could be cleared solo. However, Gao Rang was so terrible at the game that he would get KO-ed after a few minutes in the dungeon. After seeing Gao Rang getting stuck on this quest for a long time, Zhao Yu couldn’t bear to watch Gao Rang repeat his cycle of death any longer. So, as soon as the winter holidays began, he came to Gao Rang’s house to help him out.

“This dungeon is quite simple. We’ll clear it in no time,” Zhao Yu said as his hands swiftly manipulated the mouse and keyboard. And as he stated, he cleared three checkpoints in no time, and Gao Rang didn’t even have to use a single skill. “See?”

Gao Rang leaned back against the sofa, feeling frustrated and defeated. Then, trying to find an excuse for his past failures, he said, “This mob can stun.”

Zhao Yu snorted, finding Gao Rang’s excuse amusing: “Big Bro, your character can stun it as well.”

This novel is available on bit.ly/3Tfs4P4.

“It’s too fast,” Gao Rang argued.

“Wait a moment.” After saying so, Zhao Yu transferred the party leader position to Gao Rang and set his character to follow Gao Rang’s character. Then, he got up, went over to Gao Rang’s side, took over Gao Rang’s laptop, and said, “Watch.”

The mage character was now taking on the leading role of the party while the swordsman followed the mage’s every move. When the dungeon’s monsters approached the mage, Zhao Yu swiftly ran his fingers across the laptop’s keyboard, skillfully having the mage evade the two monsters’ attacks before retaliating with a skill. As soon as the mage’s skill activated, the attacking monsters became stunned. Then, the swordsman started to attack the monsters with his skills, ending the lives of the two monsters in only two moves.

At this time, Gao Rang boldly embraced the thin figure before him and rested his chin on the other party’s soft hair, the faint scent of shampoo flowing into his nose.

Gao Rang honestly couldn’t care less about the game. The game was nothing but an excuse to get Zhao Yu to spend more time at his house.

Originally, Gao Rang thought Zhao Yu was a serious kid who only liked reading and studying. He never thought that Zhao Yu would be good at playing games. From what he heard, Zhao Yu had never touched computer games during his childhood, as he spent most of his time attending cram school and interest classes.

However, Gao Rang didn’t mind Zhao Yu liking computer games. If Zhao Yu liked playing computer games, Gao Rang would watch him play. It was fine so long as Zhao Yu was happy.

“Do you know how late it is now?” Gao Rang whispered into the ear of the person in his embrace.

Zhao Yu’s ear immediately turned bright red when Gao Rang’s hot breath hit it. Of course, it was simply because his ears were sensitive.

Shifting his head a little, Zhao Yu kept his gaze fixated on the screen as he said, “It doesn’t matter. Even if I go home now, I’ll be the only one home. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen my parents.”

Gao Rang was momentarily stunned. Then, with a slightly choked look, he asked, “How long?”

“Almost two years, I guess,” Zhao Yu nonchalantly said.

“Does that mean you spent the last New Year by yourself?”

Zhao Yu nodded. The next second, he was suddenly pulled into a tight embrace, which caused the mage he controlled to take a direct hit from the dragon serving as the dungeon’s boss.

“What are you doing? You just failed the raid again,” Zhao Yu said, feeling somewhat annoyed when he saw the mage dying on the screen. However, when he turned around to glare at the cause of the mage’s death and met Gao Rang’s eyes, he suddenly forgot what he wanted to say.

“I’ll spend the New Year with you this year,” Gao Rang said.