Warning

Xue Wei himself didn’t know how he slept that night.

He dared not move a muscle and woke up in the morning with numb legs.

Outside, the morning light was dim, but there were faint human voices. Based on experience, it should be around six or seven in the morning.

Not far from their club window was a noodle breakfast stall; the owner usually set up shop around this time in winter.

The sounds were very soft, but lively and popular.

As soon as he opened his eyes, he knew Wen Man was still holding him.

Wen Man hadn’t moved all night, hadn’t changed position, and slept very soundly.

His gentle breath puffed on Xue Wei’s neck, warm and comfortable.

An arm lay across his waist, holding him tightly.

Xue Wei moved slightly, and immediately felt a mountain-like pressure, holding him securely.

The scent of lime, having settled overnight, had already blended with the fragrance of the quilt.

Xue Wei didn’t know what to do—get up?

Getting up would inevitably wake Wen Man, and the situation would be very awkward.

He couldn’t sleep now, but getting up this early was too early.

Xue Wei, while thinking about what to do, subtly squeezed closer into Wen Man’s embrace, clinging to that warmth.

This was the first time he had slept so warmly in all his days at the EGT club.

Before, he never woke up without icy cold hands and feet, needing to warm them by the fire for a long time.

As Xue Wei snuggled closer, he felt Wen Man stir.

He quickly closed his eyes, pretending to be asleep.

But Wen Man immediately became motionless again.

Wen Man opened his eyes, a slight watery glint in his peach blossom eyes, but very clear-headed.

He looked down at the person in his arms.

The soft, dark, scattered hair was tousled, gently pressed against his chest.

His pajamas were thick, a fluffy bundle, but the hood was bundled up and failed to completely cover his collar, revealing his slender, fair neck from behind.

Very slender, as if one hand could encircle it, but it wasn’t a bony feel; it was a smooth and delicate touch, with a golden hue under the warm light.

With every movement, he snuggled deeper into his embrace.

He whispered: “Don’t move.”

But Xue Wei didn’t hear, or perhaps Wen Man didn’t speak aloud in his hazy state.

Xue Wei moved again, burrowing into his arms, and fell asleep very soundly again.

He made no sound.

Xue Wei was very nervous.

His legs had just been numb, and he hadn’t found the best position, so he moved again as carefully as possible.

He could feel his bottom touching Wen Man’s leg, but he wasn’t sure exactly where, because of the thick layers of clothing, he couldn’t feel it.

Xue Wei closed his eyes, trying hard to fall asleep again, but before he tried for long, Wen Man stirred, then suddenly got up.

Wen Man propped himself up, stood up sideways, piled his side of the quilt onto Xue Wei, especially protecting his back and exposed neck, then left the bed.

His movements were very light, making almost no sound.

Only when he left the bed did Xue Wei’s small bed gently sway.

Xue Wei heard him push the door open and leave.

It was a cold winter morning; the chill filled the entire living room.

He heard Wen Man go to the bathroom next door.

The bathroom was very close to his room, right next door.

He heard Wen Man running water for a shower.

‘So early, a shower?’

Xue Wei thought, as he turned over and adjusted his posture, ‘Indeed, a germaphobe.’

After Wen Man finished showering, he didn’t enter the room again.

He left the door open for a while, and Xue Wei accidentally fell asleep again.

When he woke up again, it was nine o’clock.

Xue Wei quickly reached for his clothes and got out of bed.

He was back to having cold hands and feet.

After washing up, he rushed to warm himself by the heater.

Wen Man was sitting in the living room playing on his phone.

The heater was already on for him, and there was breakfast he had bought.

“Awake? Come sit and eat.”

Wen Man greeted him.

He bought him Guokui and Spicy Soup.

The windows in the living room were already installed.

Xue Wei reached out to take it.

Wen Man touched his fingertips and said in a low voice: “So cold.”

Xue Wei, as if remembering something, quickly pulled his hand back.

He said awkwardly: “Just woke up, it’s cold.”

“Then when you slept last night?” Wen Man asked, “Was it cold too?”

He asked very seriously, not mentioning anything else, like a doctor closely monitoring his patient’s condition.

“N-not cold.” Xue Wei lowered his head and bit into a Guokui, answering vaguely.

He tried his best to avert his gaze, looking in other directions.

Wen Man suddenly smiled, his lips curving.

“Good that it’s not cold.”

Xue Wei thought the conversation would end there, but when he lowered his head, Wen Man said again: “I held you last night while you slept. If you were still cold, I’d have to drag you to the hospital.”

Xue Wei:

‘His words halted abruptly.’

He almost choked on a mouthful of Guokui.

He looked up.

Wen Man was leaning back on the sofa, legs crossed, looking at him with a smile.

Xue Wei’s face flushed: “Is, is that so? I don’t remember.”

“You could find a boyfriend or girlfriend to hug at night, then you wouldn’t be so cold all the time,” Wen Man said.

Xue Wei didn’t dare to respond to that.

He said: “I have an electric blanket.”

Wen Man sighed softly, said nothing else, and continued to scroll on his phone.

His flight was tomorrow morning, meaning they could still spend New Year’s Day together.

Outside, the snow was falling heavily today.

Wen Man, after much persuasion, finally managed to get Xue Wei to go out to the mall.

They bought hotpot base and ingredients, and also bought flour to make dumplings.

The Spring Festival Gala was playing on TV.

When they returned to EGT, they placed the dumpling basin on the table.

They made dumplings while watching the gala, with a task for two-person queue in a bot camp running beside them.

The mission reward was nothing else; after playing twenty matches with a friend, they would receive a small avatar frame and a few free weapon crates.

Xue Wei liked that avatar frame.

“Do you watch the Spring Festival Gala?”

“Haven’t watched it much before.”

“What about you?”

“I was studying abroad in university before. My vacation time didn’t match up, couldn’t come back for New Year’s, so I watched the Spring Festival Gala over there.”

“Oh.” Xue Wei also remembered that when he was in the hospital, he basically had to watch the Spring Festival Gala, but he didn’t like it.

Once New Year came, the hospital only played the Spring Festival Gala, and he preferred to watch anime channels.

Neither of them knew how to make dumplings.

Wen Man made one, and it fell apart.

Xue Wei, on the other hand, made a bunch of oddly shaped dumplings.

Neither of them cared; they all boiled them in the pot, eating them with beef, lamb, and vegetables.

It was very quiet.

Neither of them said much, but it was surprisingly comfortable and peaceful.

Xue Wei liked this feeling.

He subtly leaned closer to Wen Man.

“You’re not going home for New Year’s; don’t your family scold you?”

“They’re too lazy to bother with me,” Wen Man said, pouring him a bottle of sparkling wine. “Every New Year, the elders play mahjong, eat reunion dinner, go back to worship ancestors… and besides that, it’s just urging me to go on blind dates and introducing potential partners.”

“Oh.” Xue Wei was even more subtle, “So, did you find anyone?”

Wen Man didn’t reply.

Xue Wei vaguely felt like he had stepped into a minefield.

He quickly tried to amend: “Um… that host sister last time, she was quite pretty. I didn’t mean to interrupt you two; I apologize.”

“Mm.” Wen Man’s response suddenly sounded somewhat casual and distracted, as if he didn’t want to discuss the topic with him, “Come over, eat more.”

“Oh.” Xue Wei didn’t say much else.

He continued eating, a bit lost in thought.

He had liked Wen Man for a long time.

He had forgotten the exact catalyst because it was very early.

He had no concept of sexual orientation, but after meeting Wen Man, he suddenly started noticing men’s hands.

If they were as large and slender as Wen Man’s, he liked them.

He noticed men’s eyes; he liked peach blossom eyes, sharp yet gentle, and could be indifferent and casual.

He started picking teammates; he despised others in the same position who weren’t as good as Wen Man.

Wen Man playing Desert Eagle, violent, precise.

Wen Man playing sniper, controlling the field, elegant.

Wen Man…

Everything about him seemed good, everything he liked.

He only liked that kind of person.

A very childish crush, so he also acted like a child, following him, becoming his teammate, and a permanent teammate.

That made him very happy.

He once planned that if Wen Man still didn’t have a girlfriend by the age of thirty, and he hadn’t changed his feelings, he would volunteer himself to be his boyfriend.

At that time, he was fourteen, and Wen Man was seventeen.

He thought that in another thirteen years, they would definitely still be together.

But that year, when he was fourteen, right after the European Championship, the four teammates suddenly disbanded.

There was a teammate named Poet, a free agent. His personality was also very poetic, a clean and beautiful young man with a delicate and clean melancholic temperament.

When he played, he would loudly recite poems on the mic.

Xue Wei’s strongest memory was him chasing God Knife and killing him three times.

The map was Azure Sky Town.

He smoked a cigarette and laughed on the mic: “Knife, the azure sky is as it was yesterday, clear as yesterday!”

After Knife left the stage, he stumbled over to pay his respects.

After that, God Knife’s Chinese improved by leaps and bounds—but that was later.

Teammate BlackWhite, an assaulter, a true assaulter who could play 1v3.

The second core of his and Wen Man’s ultimate sniper-observer system was this assaulter.

His personality was very cheerful; he was a ‘real life’ person.

The girl he had charmed in-game had been with him for four or five years.

He was also the oldest among them.

While waiting for the results of the European Championship, Xue Wei had to return to China for emergency treatment due to a sudden fever and did not attend the final awards ceremony.

When he woke up from the high fever, he learned that the match was over, Wen Man had won the trophy, and the other two had already gone home.

He knew they had many plans: how to distribute the prize money, how to use that qualification to talk to the game officials about introducing it to the Chinese region, and then Wen Man would take him to Europe again; for example, they wanted to form a real CHNC team in the Chinese region, open a 《Fire》 game league; for example, they still needed to further study the tactics that foreign teams were ahead of them in…

But the four of them never reunited.

Wen Man no longer contacted him.

Poet and BlackWhite completely lost contact.

He had also asked Wen Man.

Wen Man only said he was busy, that he was selecting youth trainees for the Chinese region.

He thought he would take him, but Wen Man only came to his hospital once after that, briefly, and in the end, didn’t take him.

At that time, he slowly understood that some things had changed.

And some crushes, some affections, also ended like this, vaguely and inexplicably, in brief moments of reunion.

He wasn’t small anymore; he gradually knew there were many things in this world that couldn’t be helped.

The first of these was that the person you liked might not necessarily like you back.

The day the doctor announced he could be discharged for observation, he lay on his hospital bed, quietly watching the Chinese team’s matches on the international stage.

Returning to the league, not for anyone, not for any other reason.

This time, he returned alone.

Xue Wei processed these thoughts in his mind, then suddenly felt full of fighting spirit, very invigorated.

He sped up his dumpling eating, then seriously told Wen Man: “When I join the national team, don’t interfere with me casually like this today! I want to win the world championship!!!!”

Wen Man: “? I’m not interfering with you.”

Xue Wei said righteously: “I’m warning you! You’re not interfering, but I’m warning you anyway.”

Wen Man:

‘His words halted abruptly.’

The wise and powerful Captain Wen, facing the child’s sudden outburst, held his bowl of dumplings and fell into contemplation.