Sometimes, Duan Ye would think of it and help Jiang Yumo recharge these colorful diamonds.
Amidst the laughter of a few of his younger brothers, he calmly found an available computer, waited for it to boot up, and dialed Jiang Yumo’s phone number.
They had just chatted a while ago.
At this time, Jiang Yumo had already finished her evening routine and returned to her room, so she could answer the phone.
Jiang Yumo was still struggling internally, whether to eat or not to eat the late-night snacks. There was a cup of hot milk and a plate of fragrant pan-fried dumplings on her desk. An older sister who lived upstairs had complained to her before, saying that during her senior year of high school, she was pampered like a pet by her parents, constantly eating late-night snacks, and by the time she realized it after the college entrance exams, she had gained 15 pounds! So, her entire summer vacation after the exams was spent in tears trying to lose weight, and she still hadn’t completely lost it until now…
Jiang Yumo lowered her head, touched her own belly, patted it as if patting a watermelon, and then reluctantly picked up the plate and walked out of her room to call her dad to have some. Her father was enjoying the dumplings with vinegar, eating them especially deliciously. Jiang Yumo endured and endured, and then with great difficulty dragged her feet back to her room.
A few minutes of sadness later, she received a call from Duan Ye.
“Hello,” Jiang Yumo said weakly.
Duan Ye’s low laughter came through, like musical notes, tapping on her eardrums.
“What’s wrong?” He asked.
“My mom made dumplings for me, but I didn’t eat them, so my dad got lucky,” Jiang Yumo raised her head and sighed, “Dieting is really hard, huh…” She then quickly added with a note of caution, “Don’t say things like I don’t need to diet!”
Such words can really be demoralizing and will definitely shake her will if she hear them too often!
The computer that Duan Ye opened had fast internet speed. He clicked on a penguin icon1 and said, “Alright, I won’t say it.”
After hesitating for a few seconds, he didn’t log in and started to shut down the computer with his long and distinct fingers moving the mouse.
Jiang Yumo continued, “And don’t bring me late-night snacks either!!”
She knew Duan Ye well. If she didn’t emphasize it, he would definitely be prepared to buy her late-night snacks and deliver them to her.
Duan Ye sighed helplessly, “Aren’t you hungry?”
Jiang Yumo thought to herself, “As a woman, I need to be tough on myself,” but when this thought came to her mind, she was completely shocked!
What’s going on? How did she end up being influenced by the othera and actually used the word “woman”!?
“It’s okay, it’s okay~” she finally replied.
Duan Ye didn’t insist, “Alright then, if you get hungry, just send me a text message or call me.”
Jiang Yumo hummed in agreement.
She didn’t need to ask, sometimes Duan Ye would go home, but other times he would stay overnight at the internet cafe. She knew that Deep Blue was a shop owned by one of Duan Ye’s close friends, and there was even a bed upstairs where he could sleep.
“Do you need me to log in to your account?” Duan Ye asked.
He knew Jiang Yumo’s username and password and would occasionally log in for her.
Jiang Yumo replied, “No need.”
Then she suddenly remembered something and asked, “How late do you plan to stay up?”
Duan Ye glanced at the time in the bottom right corner of his computer, “At most another hour, I’ll rest once Zhao Zheng and the others leave.”
“Okay.” Jiang Yumo suddenly had an idea, “Do you know that a new social media app called Weibo was launched last month?”
Duan Ye replied, “No.”
Jiang Yumo was not surprised by his response.
She only found out that Weibo would become the hottest social media app in the future after seeing the future plot. However, Weibo had just been launched in the middle of last month, and people who were used to using Qzone and blogs were not very enthusiastic about it. None of her classmates knew about it.
“Why don’t you search for it?” Jiang Yumo suggested.
Duan Ye had already typed “Weibo” in the search box.
“Found it.” He replied.
Jiang Yumo felt a little excited, “Then help me register an account, I want to be an early player.”
She had been thinking about downloading it a couple of days ago, but her home computer didn’t have internet access, and using mobile data to download the app would be too extravagant. So she had planned to register an account online after her monthly exams. Today happened to be a coincidence, as Duan Ye was online, so she asked him to do it for her.
“Sure.” Duan Ye clicked on the link.
Registering a new account required filling in some information.
The first question stumped Jiang Yumo.
“Weibo username?”
Jiang Yumo really didn’t know what username to choose for her Weibo account. She hesitated for a long time, feeling that this matter needed to be handled carefully. She wasn’t particularly clever, so she could only rely on future she knew to take advantage of opportunities. In the original plot, many people made big money by monetizing Weibo’s traffic, so she thought she could give it a try.
“Well, forget it,” Jiang Yumo said, “I’ll think about these details carefully in the next few days after the monthly exams. You can go ahead and register your own account first, and I’ll follow you later.”
Duan Ye : “…”
He wasn’t really interested in these things.
But he wouldn’t refuse her request either. “Sure.”
Jiang Yumo became happy, as if she could see a bright future where she would become an internet celebrity and make a lot of money.
She had to rest early for tomorrow’s morning self-study session, so after a few more chats, they hung up the phone.
Following Duan Ye’s habit, he would definitely blind-type a few words for the Weibo nickname. As his hand was about to touch the keyboard, his phone vibrated on the side.
He took the chance to cast a quick glance.
He picked up his phone, pressed the mute button, and said to Zhao Zheng, who was playing go-kart boredly next to him, “Register an account for me for this thing, password can be anything. I need to go out for something.”
Zhao Zheng took off his earphones and leaned over to take a look. “What’s this?”
Duan Ye paused for a moment, “Weibo.”
Zhao Zheng understood, “Sister Mo asked you to register, right?”
Duan Ye didn’t answer, but his silence was taken as consent.
“Okay.” Zhao Zheng’s perfect vision really could make people jealous. Despite staying up all night playing games and reading martial arts novels under the covers, he still didn’t need glasses. He could see the content on the screen at a glance, “What should be the Weibo username? Shall I come up with one?”
Duan Ye thought of Zhao Zheng’s online handle and fell silent for a few seconds, “No need.”
“Just type a punctuation mark.”
Zhao Zheng: “?”
Duan Ye got up, patted Zhao Zheng’s shoulder, “It’s up to you now. Send me the account and password later. I have to deal with something.”
Zhao Zheng gave a thumbs-up, “No problem~”
When Duan Ye left the smoky lobby, Zhao Zheng immediately sat down. He didn’t understand why Duan Ye didn’t let a genius like him come up with a username. Just look at his own online handle, “Who_Undestands_Loneliness_Of_Smoke”, how good it was, with a domineering tone mixed with sadness.
Zhao Zheng followed Duan Ye’s idea and used a punctuation mark, but the result was unrecognized.
Unable to do anything, he turned his head and saw that Brother Duan was not around. He racked his brains and had a sudden inspiration, typing a very cool nickname : Jiang_Yumo’s_Dear_Husband.
Great!
Brother Duan would definitely love this Weibo username, as it was Brother Duan’s ultimate dream.
Deep Blue was on the second floor. The stairwell was quiet at this time, with no one coming or going, so Duan Ye called back the number.
After a few seconds, a hoarse and lazy woman’s voice answered, “Son, I’m letting you know, I’m going out tomorrow.”
Duan Ye leaned against the wall on the stairs, “How long are you going for?”
He didn’t ask where she was going.
Wu Meiyun seemed quite happy and smiled reminiscently, “I don’t know, I’m going to Shenzhen and Guangzhou. If things go well, I’ll be back in half a month, if not, I may not be back before Chinese New Year.” She suddenly remembered something and said softly, “Oh, I almost forgot. Your birthday is in November. How about this, I’ll definitely be back before your 18th birthday.”
When Duan Ye was very young, his parents divorced.
He almost forgot what his father looked like.
Over the years, no matter what his mother wanted to do or who she wanted to be with, Duan Ye never objected. The relationship between mother and son was also strange. If they say they were close, but they were not like ordinary mother and son. If they say they were not close, despite having many opportunities to leave Ningcheng over the years, Duan Ye never did.
He just wanted his mother to be a little happier.
Of course, his mother was already quite happy, as she indulged in various pleasures from time to time with the money she received from her ex-husband, and she occasionally had some long or short relationships when she met someone she was interested in.
His mother’s boyfriend this time, Duan Ye had met him before. He was a young man in his early thirties, twelve years younger than her.
“No need for that,” Duan Ye said calmly, “Have fun there and stay for as long as you like.”
“We’ll see when the time comes!” Wu Meiyun said casually, “There’s 3,000 yuan in cash in the bedside table, and a postal card2 with the password as your birthday. I’ve forgotten how much money is in the card, but it should be at least 20,000 yuan. If it’s not enough, let me know.”
Duan Ye hummed as acknowledgement.
But both mother and son knew in their hearts that he would not take the money.
After hanging up the phone, Duan Ye leaned against the wall, took out a lighter from his pocket, and lit a cigarette.
He didn’t actually smoke. However, when he was with other people, they would always offer him cigarettes, and it was impossible to refuse all the time.
It also depended on his mood at the moment, sometimes he would accept, sometimes he would refuse.
He stared at the sparks, lost in thought. It seemed like he was trying to wake himself up with the smell of the smoke.
Until an impatient male voice came from the other side of the stairs, mingled with the sound of rain hitting the rolling door, growing clearer and clearer—
“Having fun? What’s so great about this remote place?”
…
“It’s a small and poor village, no bigger than a palm. You can stroll through it in less than an hour by car.”
…
“F*ck off, don’t give me this crap.”
Duan Ye lazily lifted his eyelids, and the person had already come up the stairs.
Zhou Ji didn’t expect there would be someone here at the staircase.
When he saw it was Duan Ye, he hung up the phone.
There’s a saying about people having their own aura, and Zhou Ji and Duan Ye…gave off a feeling of two tigers in the mountains. Although they hadn’t spoken to each other since the start of the school year, gossipers believed that these two always gave off the impression that they were about to throw punches at each other in the next second.
There were even a few posts on the school forum that were constantly being pinned at the top :
—[Did Duan Ye and Zhou Ji have a showdown today?]
—[Come on! Bet big or small, who will be the kingpin of the school, Duan Ye or Zhou Ji?]
Duan Ye only glanced at Zhou Ji, then withdrew his gaze, extinguished the cigarette butt, threw it on the steps, and stomped on it forcefully.
Then he went back upstairs into the shop.
Zhou Ji’s expression was unclear, and he cursed under his breath.
- icon for QQ, the parent software of Qzone ↩︎
- like a bank card but issued by China Post, legally the China Post Group Corporation, the state-owned enterprise operating the official postal service of China ↩︎
I thought Duan ye doesn’t smoke? 🌝
He just lit up the cigarettes and hold it in his hands.