Yan Chi and Xi Chang stared at each other for a long time. His gaze involuntarily fell on Xi Chang's beautiful fishtail. Every scale on the tail was crystal clear, shimmering in the sunlight like a fine work of art.
Yan Chi's eyes flashed with amazement, unable to look away. "You..."
"Your tail is so beautiful."
Before Yan Chi could finish his compliment, Xi Chang frantically shook his head, denying, "I...I...I'm not a fish!"
The little ball in Xi Chang's arms had fallen into the water and floated to the side. Seeing Yan Chi staring at his tail, he quickly hugged it, on the verge of tears. "If I said this is a fake tail, would you believe me?"
Yan Chi said soothingly, "Actually, I..."
Xi Chang sobbed and plunged into the water, ignoring his words, clearly trying to solve the problem by running away.
Yan Chi slowly withdrew his hand, exchanging a glance with Shen Mingsu. The latter shrugged innocently, distancing himself, "This has nothing to do with me."
Yan Chi's gaze was suspicious. He had a strong premonition that Xi Chang's fear was related to Shen Mingsu, but Shen Mingsu refused to say anything, and he couldn't force him to speak.
The water was calm, and Xi Chang hadn't surfaced. Yan Chi couldn't help but worry, "Xi Chang is a mermaid, is he human or fish? Will he drown?"
Shen Mingsu rubbed his face, a little jealous of Yan Chi's concern for someone else, "...Have you ever seen a fish drown?"
"No." Yan Chi also found his question amusing, but the next second, his smile froze on his face.
"Cough cough cough cough..."
Xi Chang, his eyes red-rimmed, coughed while leaning on the pool's handrail, clearly having choked on water. After coughing, he jumped back into the water and hid.
Yan Chi: "..."
Even the well-informed Shen Mingsu was silent for a moment. "Fish don't drown, except for this stupid fish, of course."
"What stupid fish?"
A voice tinged with displeasure rang out behind Yan Chi and Shen Mingsu. Yan Chi turned around and saw Lin Heng, who seemed to have just returned from shopping, carrying fruits, vegetables, and a bag of fried chicken.
He still maintained his aloof and unaffected demeanor, standing quietly behind them, seemingly unmoved by external influences. It was unclear how long he had been there.
Lin Heng's calm eyes swept over Yan Chi and Shen Mingsu, then looked at Xi Chang, who was hiding underwater blowing bubbles. His tone held a hint of surprise, "You two started bullying him as soon as you got back?"
Shen Mingsu chuckled, "Old Lin, don't lie through your teeth. We're a hundred or two meters away from him, how could we bully him?"
Yan Chi tugged at his arm, explaining to Lin Heng, "Xi Chang probably thought I knew nothing. After I saw him wagging his tail and playing with a ball, he ran away in fright."
Lin Heng nodded, his expression softening slightly, and offered a touch of warmth, "Want to come here for lunch? I bought some groceries."
Yan Chi instinctively wanted to decline, but Shen Mingsu didn't give him a chance. "Sure, you cook."
Lin Heng: "Of course."
Lin Heng, carrying the groceries, led the two of them directly into Xi Chang's yard. Yan Chi followed behind him, puzzled. Why were they at Xi Chang's house? Shouldn't we go to Lin Heng's house?
After putting the groceries in the kitchen, Lin Heng invited Yan Chi and Shen Mingsu to sit on the sofa and poured them two glasses of water. "Please help yourselves."
Then he took out a small box and scooped up various colored balls floating on the pool surface. Xi Chang quietly poked his head out, holding a small orange ball in his hand.
Lin Heng put the orange ball into the box as well, leaned down and said something to Xi Chang. Xi Chang hesitated and glanced at Yan Chi.
Yan Chi smiled and waved at him, and Xi Chang finally agreed to come out of the pool.
Xi Chang's house was very clean and tidy. Yan Chi watched him run barefoot upstairs, leaving a trail of wet footprints. Lin Heng mopped the floor before he changed his clothes and came downstairs.
"Xiao Chi, do you really know everything?" Xi Chang plopped down next to Yan Chi, asking hesitantly, "How did you know? Did the principal tell you? That's so mean! He threatened us to keep it from you, not to tell you, but then he turned around and told you everything."
"Ahem!" Shen Mingsu coughed twice, giving Xi Chang a threatening look, signaling him to shut up. He'd spilled everything!
Xi Chang, struck by a deadly glare, obediently lowered his head.
Of course, Shen Mingsu's smugness didn't last long. Yan Chi had seen through his little threat to Xi Chang.
"You even threatened him in front of me?" Yan Chi angrily pinched Shen Mingsu's arm. "I knew it was you!"
Shen Mingsu immediately backed down, even pitifully crying out in pain.
Yan Chi quickly released his grip, anxiously asking, "Does it really hurt? I didn't use much force. Let me see if it's bruised?"
"No." Shen Mingsu pressed his shoulder, his eyes brimming with laughter. "I just wanted to play the victim so you'd let me go."
Yan Chi's worries were unfounded. He pursed his lips and pushed him away.
Shen Mingsu was overjoyed, teasing Yan Chi until he was angry and then comforting him. Xi Chang stared blankly, as if he were meeting him for the first time.
—The fish couldn't understand him.
Yan Chi was easy to appease, especially with Xi Chang watching nearby; he quickly calmed down. Lin Heng was cooking alone in the kitchen, and Yan Chi was getting restless. "Should I go help?" he said.
"I'll go," Shen Mingsu said, stopping him. "With his temper, you'd be incredibly awkward cooking with him."
He clearly knew Yan Chi's easily embarrassed and awkward nature perfectly well.
Yan Chi was indeed a little afraid of the stern-faced Lin Heng, so after thinking for a moment, he let Shen Mingsu go help.
When Lin Heng saw him come over, he didn't stand on ceremony and immediately told him to chop the meat. The two tall, adult men bustled around in the kitchen, making it feel somewhat crowded, and soon the aroma of food wafted out.
"I was accidentally sent to Feng Wang's house by an ancient tree, where I met a group of players..." Yan Chi told Xi Chang his story. Xi Chang seemed very interested, constantly asking, "And then? And then?"
Yan Chi recounted his experience from beginning to end, and Xi Chang listened as if it were a story. "So interesting! Little Chi, Little Chi, what does snow look like?"
"You've never seen snow?" Yan Chi was surprised. "Are you a tropical fish?"
"Huh?" Xi Chang was a geography illiterate fish. "Tropical...fish, what kind of fish is that?"
Yan Chi: "..."
He had no choice but to explain the temperature range again. Fortunately, he had taught geography to students when he was working as a tutor at a cram school, so he gave Xi Chang a brief explanation, and Xi Chang understood the general idea.
"I'm not a tropical fish," Xi Chang pondered for a moment. "I don't know where I'm from. I've been in school since I was little, I'm... a freshwater fish."
Yan Chi saw him frowning and earnestly saying he was a freshwater fish, and inexplicably wanted to laugh. No wonder Xi Chang was so innocent, like a child; he'd never left school.
Yan Chi remembered he liked milk tea and asked, "What would you like to drink for lunch? Milk tea or juice?"
"Milk tea!" Xi Chang answered without hesitation, his eyes sparkling.
Yan Chi took him back to his home. He bought a case of milk tea sticks and generously let Xi Chang choose. Xi Chang only took one strawberry flavor and also wanted to give Yan Chi a pearl bracelet.
"No need, it's cheap."
"How much is cheap?" Xi Chang asked Yan Chi expectantly, as if remembering something. "Can you buy it for me? I'll give you all my salary."
Yan Chi was both amused and exasperated. "Well, I'll buy it for you, but I don't need all your salary. How much do you want?"
Xi Chang naturally wanted as much as possible. He was always at school and had no need to spend money, so his money was useless. "Then buy me a milk tea worth 1,209,008 yuan."
Yan Chi: "...?"
Was he deaf?
"How much... do you want?"
"A milk tea worth 1,209,008 yuan." Xi Chang repeated, tilting his head sheepishly. "I only have this much money. Is it not enough?"
"...It's enough." Yan Chi only had 50,000 yuan in his bank account—that was all his assets. His colleague could come up with a million yuan to buy milk tea; Yan Chi almost laughed at his own poverty.
Yan Chi couldn't possibly buy him that much. "I'll buy you a hundred yuan's worth, that'll still be plenty. A million... you could drink it until it expires and still not finish it."
Xi Chang nodded repeatedly, "Mmm-hmm! Whatever you say, whatever you say!"
At noon, the lavish meal prepared by Shen Mingsu and Lin Heng was on the table. The four sat down to eat. Yan Chi had squeezed some juice beforehand and gave everyone a glass.
"You encountered people from [Termites] at Feng Wang's house?" Lin Heng suddenly asked midway through the meal.
Yan Chi hummed in agreement. "Are they famous? How do you know them?"
Lin Heng casually dropped a bombshell: "The leader of [Termites] is a new recruit I trained before."
Yan Chi's eyes widened in surprise, but looking around, he realized he was the only one shocked by this information.
Xi Chang wasn't interested in these things, focusing on his meal, or rather, he already knew, so it wasn't surprising.
Shen Mingsu placed a chicken leg on Yan Chi's plate. "Lin Heng used to be a player, then stayed at the school and became a teacher."
Yan Chi was shocked and couldn't help but glance at him a few more times. He had met many players, but none of them could compare to Lin Heng, whether in terms of his aura or the oppressive presence he exuded.
Yan Chi: "Excuse me, what's your rank among the players?"
"S-rank."
Yan Chi: "..."
No wonder he was different from Lu Yuanming and Song Qian; they weren't even on the same level.
Lin Heng, being a player himself, knew more. "Most players who enter the game are displaced because their original worlds collapsed. The system brings them to the player lobby, giving them a place to live, before they enter different small worlds to do quests."
"But the members of [Termites] are all self-important lunatics who believe the system's existence will grant them more abilities. They've done many things, but you should know the most famous one."
Yan Chi's hands and feet turned cold. "They killed Li Xian?"
"Hmm."
No wonder Feng Wang was so angry after hearing that Yu Qi was a member of the Termites. Yan Chi felt heavy-hearted. Sometimes he even wondered, since Shen Mingsu and his group were so powerful, why didn't they just kill all the Termites?
Shen Mingsu: "Roughly estimated, there are tens of thousands of them, and their numbers are constantly increasing. They're hidden among ordinary players. Currently, only Mingcai and her mother can accurately identify Termite players."
Yan Chi asked curiously, "What are their abilities?"
Xi Chang, who had been engrossed in his meal, looked up. "I told you on the first day, it's memory infection. If you make eye contact with them, they can control your mind, take over your body, and then use your memories to infect others who exist within your memories."
"That's why I told you not to make eye contact with Mingcai."
Yan Chi recalled that Xi Chang had indeed told him about this on his first day at school, but he had misunderstood, thinking Xi Chang had a problem with Mingcai, making a big blunder.
"I'm sorry," Yan Chi poured juice for Xi Chang. "I didn't think of it that way at the time."
Xi Chang didn't hold a grudge and happily drank the juice. "It's okay, it's okay."
That evening, after showering, Yan Chi sat by the window, lost in thought. He took out the plush bear he'd put in the closet, hugged it, and squeezed its soft paws.
"Why are you unhappy?" Shen Mingsu hugged him from behind. His hair was half-dry, and when he got close to Yan Chi, it carried a misty vapor. He gently pinched the plush bear's ear. "Is it something only it can know, something I can't know?"
Sometimes Shen Mingsu was so childish that Yan Chi wanted to laugh, but undeniably—he liked it.
Yan Chi pushed Shen Mingsu's face away, looking at the star-studded night sky outside the window. "It's nothing, just a little worried about Xie Tao. What if he also encounters the termite people? Although the possibility of him being used as a pawn is unlikely, I still can't help but worry..."
Worried about whether he had been bullied, whether he had been hurt.
“Let Ning Zhu go check,” Shen Mingsu said. “I can influence the system, but I can’t bypass it to directly transfer Xie Tao here. I can only wait until his mission is over and have him come to the school on his own.”
“Ning Zhu?” Yan Chi's influence on him was limited to his perpetual sleepiness. "Can he find Xie Tao?"
"If he can't, there's only one possibility: he's already dead."
Yan Chi quickly covered his mouth. "Don't say such unlucky things, spit it out!"
Shen Mingsu chuckled, spat three times, then carried Yan Chi to bed, covered him with a blanket, put the teddy bear back in the closet, got into bed, hugged Yan Chi, and patted his back. "Okay, go to sleep."
In the darkness, Yan Chi's eyes shone brightly, reminding him, "You haven't messaged Ning Zhu yet."
Shen Mingsu got up, picked up his phone as if to send a message, and crawled back into bed. "Okay, he said he understands."
Only then did Yan Chi close his eyes peacefully and slowly drift off to sleep.
Half-asleep, he vaguely heard someone ask him, "What does Xie Tao look like?"
Yan Chi described him: "Very handsome, 1.82 meters tall, medium-length hair, usually tied in a small bun at the back of his head, almond-shaped eyes. Oh, and he also has a small mole below the corner of his eye."
"I see."
At that moment, in another small world, Xie Tao also lay down to sleep. The five players shared a room, their noisy snoring mingling with the chirping of insects outside the window. Xie Tao tossed and turned for a long time before finally falling asleep.
In his dream, Xie Tao quit his job at the game company, bought a house, and invited Yan Chi to live with him. The wealthy young principal Yan Chi had been dating unexpectedly passed away, leaving him a large sum of money.
From then on, Xie Tao and Yan Chi finally lived a free life without worrying about money.
One day, there was a knock on the door.
Xie Tao felt irritated. He impatiently opened the door and saw a young man standing outside, a boy who, despite not being very old, was half a head taller than him.
The boy leaned listlessly against the wall. His eyes drooped slightly, making him look particularly listless. He looked Xie Tao up and down, his gaze sweeping over the small mole at the corner of his eye. "Are you Xie Tao?"
This was the exact same tone he used before those idiotic colleagues and bosses came to cause trouble. Xie Tao raised an eyebrow, his phoenix eyes filled with impatience as he quietly looked at Ning Zhu.
Ning Zhu: "Someone asked me to tell you..."
"Slap!" Xie Tao slapped Ning Zhu across the face. His slapping motion was practiced, swift, and powerful, clearly the work of an experienced slapper.
Ning Zhu's face was slapped to the side by Xie Tao, his tired expression vanishing instantly. With the slap mark on his face, his dark eyes glared at Xie Tao. "You…!"
"Get out! I'm not going to work!" Xie Tao slammed the door shut, nearly hitting Ning Zhu's prominent nose.
Ning Zhu was slapped for the first time and nearly exploded with anger. He paced back and forth at the door, silently repeating a hundred times, "For my teacher's sake," "This is my teacher's friend, I can't lay a hand on him."
"Xie Tao! You surnamed Xie! After you leave this instance, go to Yunzhou to find Teacher Xiao Chi. He's waiting for you in Yunzhou! Remember that! You surnamed Xie, did you hear me?!"
Ning Zhu pounded on the door, shouting at the top of his lungs until his throat was hoarse, but only Xie Tao's "Get out!" came from inside.
Ning Zhu almost laughed in anger, kicking the door hard.
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