Chapter 14
“It’s me.”
The stairwell door was pushed open from the inside by Shang Che. Lu Zeming took an emergency step backward, watching his friend emerge from an unexpected place.
“…Why didn’t you go inside once you arrived? What are you hiding out here for?” Lu Zeming glanced behind him, somewhat perplexed: “Who were you talking to just now?”
Shang Che shook the phone in his palm, a barely noticeable trace of surprise and fluster mixed into his seemingly casual expression: “Taking a call.”
“Uncle Shang called? I heard he went on another business trip.” Lu Zeming nodded in understanding, habitually trying to smooth over the relationship between this father and son. “Even while being so busy, he still calls you across time zones. A-Che, you…”
“Hold on, I don’t want to hear it,” Shang Che cut off his words, his lip twitching silently. “Say one more word and I’m leaving.”
Lu Zeming raised his hands in surrender, then leaned his arm on the handrail just like him, chatting casually.
“Why did you run out? Losing to them and trying to make a run for it?” Shang Che asked him.
Lu Zeming shook his head, reaching out to push up his glasses as he explained: “They couldn’t wait any longer, so they sent me out to welcome you.”
“Who else is here?” Shang Che asked.
Lu Zeming: “Classmates from our class.”
Fine. Not sleeping, not studying—a whole group of people running to a board game room for team building. They really had the art of lounging down to a science.
“What’s the stake?” Shang Che accepted this behavior with total compliance as he looked at Lu Zeming. “Worth you calling me out for.”
“Oh, cake.”
Shang Che froze, looking over with an incredulous expression: “…Say that again.”
“Cake.” Lu Zeming’s face was completely calm, not feeling there was anything wrong with this stake in the slightest.
“A slice of cake is worth calling me out here…” Shang Che looked at this friend who refreshed his horizons every single day.
“Why not agree to a match you’re guaranteed to win?” Lu Zeming said candidly, immediately holding up a finger and wagging it. “You guessed one thing wrong—not one slice, but one year.”
“Yours, and mine. Someone’s covering our desserts for the coming year.”
Shang Che said helplessly: “…I don’t even like desserts.”
Lu Zeming knew his friend’s preferences inside out, hitting the bullseye in one shot: “But you love their store’s limited-edition palmiers.”
“…” Shang Che gave him a thumb-up: “…Impressive.”
When palmiers fall from the sky, it would be a waste not to eat them.
In the midst of the panic earlier, the cotton doll had been stuffed into the crossbody bag by Shang Che, sitting alongside tissues and an earphone case. Then, due to Shang Che’s swift motion of slinging it on, it rolled over and pressed against the side near the zipper’s slit.
So fun!
Not only was the cotton doll not frightened by these sudden movements, but it actually found them exciting and fun. It still remembered Shang Che’s hurried, low-voiced instruction.
“Be good, someone’s coming.”
Immediately after, it heard the sound of Shang Che talking with someone else. It was all hazy and confusing; the cotton doll couldn’t quite understand it, and the only thing it managed to catch was a brand-new word it had never heard before—”cake.”
What was cake? Was it human food too?
Cake… cake… cake…
It slowly repeated the word in its mind several times, attempting to memorize it firmly with its cotton head.
Because the zipper hadn’t been pulled all the way, a small slit was exposed. The cotton doll only needed to raise its head slightly to get close to it. To avoid making any sound, it pressed against it with utmost caution.
It grew brighter and brighter before its eyes. The cotton doll couldn’t help blinking, its vision shifting from blurry to crystal clear.
In the suddenly wide-open field of view, everything consisted of scenes the cotton doll had never laid eyes on before.
Cotton could secretly look at the outside world now!
Human was still talking; Cotton could take this chance to look around more!
Sitting in the crossbody bag on Shang Che’s back, its line of sight was countless times higher than on its usual rocking chair.
Its golden eyes raised upward. The cotton doll felt that the ceiling, which used to be so far away, seemed quite a bit closer now. Furthermore, it was very different from the one at home—the humans here didn’t hang long, square, or round things on it, nor did they write or draw all over it.
Even though it didn’t understand what those things meant, it didn’t stop the cotton doll from looking with immense novelty.
It watched for a while before its gaze slowly lowered to look straight ahead.
An entire white wall was covered in exaggerated colors. On it were many things that looked like… yet didn’t look like… humans? Colorful hair, a chaotic mix of bizarre outfits—it made the doll dizzy just looking at it.
Cotton Doll: ??O 0 O? ?!
Suddenly, its gaze fixed on one spot. A feeling akin to… envy… welled up inside its golden eyes.
Why was it that, despite both not being human, that yellow rectangle holding up its hands got to possess a pair of extraordinarily long legs?
And its eyes were even bigger than Cotton’s! So unfair!
If Shang Che could see the cotton doll’s expression right now, it would definitely be pouting, puffing up in a total huff.
Before it could stay mad for more than a few seconds, the ceiling and floor began to wobble slightly. The things in the cotton doll’s line of sight began to constantly recede and transform.
Crossing through the glass doors and passing down the hallway, with the closing of a white room door, Shang Che was finally brought into the private room by Lu Zeming.
“Brother Shang! Brother Lu!” The person closest to the door greeted them excitedly the moment he saw the two of them. “It had to be my Brother Lu! Ordinary people really can’t get him to budge.”
Shang Che gave an awkward smile.
Lu Zeming nodded with an air of ‘I brought you the person you wanted,’ then looked at the initiator of this game of Truth or Dare, declaring with complete composure: “I won.”
“Fine, fine, fine, Brother Lu is awesome.” The classmate sitting on the sofa accepted with a laugh, then picked up the stake on the table and handed it over. “An annual card to my family’s dessert shop. Don’t stand on ceremony, you two.”
Lu Zeming reached out to take it, stuffed one of the cards into the pocket on Shang Che’s chest, and patted his shoulder: “Keep it safe. It’ll be your turn next.”
The sentence left Shang Che completely confused. He looked somewhat bewildered: “What do you mean my turn?”
“Find a place to sit first,” Lu Zeming said, tugging on his arm.
Shang Che followed him to an open seat on the side. When he pulled out a chair to sit down, he didn’t forget to shift the crossbody bag around to his chest, resting it on his thighs while cleverly shielding it with his arms and the tabletop.
“Watch.” Lu Zeming raised his chin, gesturing for Shang Che to look over.
The person in the middle of the sofa had changed. He placed a box onto the tabletop and said, “My stake is the latest phone model. Who wants to take on my dare?”
The vein on Shang Che’s temple throbbed. He raised his eyelids to look at Lu Zeming impassively.
“Why are you looking at me? Those are the rules.” Lu Zeming spread his hands to him. “They call it Truth or Dare, but it’s actually just a disguised gift exchange. Don’t you think it’s very interesting?”
Shang Che let out two dry laughs: “…So interesting, I can barely stop myself from clapping.”
“By the way, what did you bring?” Lu Zeming reached a hand toward the bag on his chest. “Let me see first.”
Shang Che dodged, his palm instinctively shielding the bag: “…Didn’t bring anything. You didn’t tell me.”
“Is that so?” Lu Zeming withdrew his hand nonchalantly.
Shang Che gave an emotionless smile, calling out his friend’s trickery: “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”
Lu Zeming smiled politely.
Needless to say, being friends who grew up together after all, Shang Che understood instantly that this guy had long since thought up a “stake” on his behalf.
“Spill it. What do you need my help with?”
“Lin Zhi wants another cotton doll—a custom one.”
No sooner had Lu Zeming’s words landed than Shang Che began sizing him up with a strange look.
“Don’t look at me like that.” Speaking of this gave Lu Zeming a bit of a headache too. “My older brother is trying to court Lin Zhi’s older sister lately. As you know, Lin Zhi’s sister is a total sister-con. If Lin Zhi doesn’t give the nod, my brother won’t win her over in eight lifetimes, so he could only beg me to help him infiltrate the enemy lines.”
“To tell the truth, I don’t know what to do either. After much thought, you’re the only one who can help with this.”
Lu Zeming’s tone was exceptionally sincere, yet his face showed not a single shred of a pleading look—carrying quite a firm certainty that ‘you’ll definitely help me anyway.’
“…” Truly his good friend. Shang Che rubbed his temples, terrified to think about what he had just heard. He agreed through gritted teeth: “…Fine.”
A cotton doll?
What cotton doll?
The human was going to have another cotton doll?
Abandoning a cotton doll was a capital offense!
The cotton doll inside the bag had only vaguely caught the phrase “…wants another cotton doll.” It didn’t care whether Shang Che was the one who said it; either way, it was placing the blame square on Shang Che’s head.
Vicious human! Having one cotton doll wasn’t enough, and now he actually wanted a new one!
It had been so well-behaved, staying quiet when told to stay quiet, staying still when told to stay still. This human still wasn’t satisfied—he was simply far too vicious!
The cotton doll was both sorrowful and enraged. It wasn’t going to listen to this mean human anymore!
Shang Che picked up the water glass on the table and took a sip. The icy water glided down his throat, easing a fraction of the absurdity he felt upon hearing such gossip. Relaxing his body, he leaned back into the soft chair, having nearly forgotten about the crossbody bag on his lap.
Suddenly, he felt a small friction against his thigh. It didn’t make a sound, feeling as though something inside had restlessly… moved?
Shang Che grew nervous for a second. Did the cotton doll want to shift positions?
This guess caused a stir in Shang Che’s mind. He subtly shifted the crossbody bag toward the inner side of his body, pressing it closer to the side of his leg, while simultaneously turning the unzipped slit toward himself.
Forget it. As long as it didn’t make any noise, with the tabletop and his arms blocking it, no one should notice.
He lowered his eyes imperceptibly, only to abruptly lock eyes with that pair of golden eyes peeking out from the slit of the zipper.
Cotton Doll: !!!
What was with this expression—so enraged and so resentful?
And when did this zipper come open?!
Shang Che furrowed his brow ever so slightly, signalling with his eyes for it to behave and stop moving around recklessly.
Reading his expression made the cotton doll even angrier. Its movement—which had originally been a minor sway left and right—turned into a full-on rolling motion.
Mean human! He was about to get another Cotton! And he still dared to command it!
Startled by the cotton doll’s sudden movement, Shang Che’s hand holding the glass trembled, spilling water onto the tabletop.
Before he could even stop the cotton doll’s antics, Lu Zeming, who was sitting opposite him, took his water glass, thoughtfully handed over a tissue, and asked in an inquiring tone:
“What on earth do you have in your bag?”
