OVTTGTBE Chapter 15

Cold War

Cold War

Peach Milk: What are you doing now?

Peach Milk: Are you still willing to play games with me tonight?

Bai Yao, carrying snacks he bought from the school supermarket, walked towards the dorm with Li Jinyang and the other two roommates, while looking at his phone.

When he arrived at the foot of the male dormitory building, he saw Liu Yucheng standing there all alone. His hair and shoulders were covered with snow, like a statue of a wife waiting for her husband.

“Why didn’t you go back to the dorm?”

Bai Yao pretended not to know anything and asked with a surprised expression.

“I just arrived at the dormitory building too. I didn’t see you on the way back.”

Seeing him, Liu Yucheng felt relieved that Bai Yao didn’t seem to have any new injuries. “So you went to the supermarket.”

Peach Milk bought you so much food, is it not enough to eat, or don’t you like it…

“It’s freezing outside, hurry back.”

Bai Yao raised his chin and said, “Don’t act tough out here when you just got over a fever.”

“…”

After entering the dormitory building, Liu Yucheng cautiously tugged at the corner of Bai Yao’s clothes.

Bai Yao, holding the handrail, was gathering strength to climb the stairs. When Liu Yucheng tugged at his clothes like this, it usually meant he had something to say. Bai Yao turned around and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Let me carry that for you.” Liu Yucheng pointed to the plastic bag in his hand.

“…”

Bai Yao thought he wanted to talk about his cousin.

On the way up to the Third Floor, as they were about to part, Bai Yao specifically mentioned, “That person today was your cousin, huh? Doesn’t look much like you.”

Liu Yucheng just hummed in response.

He was providing him with a topic, but he still wouldn’t talk. Bai Yao suddenly felt incredibly stupid—he had messed up countless times in this kind of situation when they were dating before. Liu Yucheng just wouldn’t take the bait.

This once again reminded Bai Yao why they broke up in the first place.

Wasn’t it because of Liu Yucheng’s read-and-reply-perfunctorily attitude?

He angrily snatched his bag of snacks back from Liu Yucheng and walked towards the dormitory without looking back.

“If…”

Seeing that Bai Yao was about to enter the dormitory, Liu Yucheng stood in the corridor and raised his voice slightly, saying to him: “If he looks for you, no matter what he wants to do, don’t pay attention to him. Let him come find me.”

Bai Yao heard it, but really didn’t want to bother with him. He opened the door, entered the dormitory, and closed the door.

“Alright, judging by Yao-ge’s expression, they didn’t make up.”

Li Jinyang slapped his thigh and said, “And I bet they didn’t talk about that idiot from earlier.”

“Yeah.”

Bai Yao opened his computer with a dark face. After hesitating for a long time, he replied to Peach Milk: I don’t really feel like playing tonight.

Peach Milk replied instantly: Okay.

Bai Yao: Aren’t you even going to ask why?

After waiting for a long time, Peach Milk didn’t reply to him again. It was what he expected, and Bai Yao didn’t chase after him to explain.

If Liu Yucheng’s introversion and inferiority were due to his unpleasant past experiences, Bai Yao wouldn’t be completely surprised if he chose to retreat at this time, back into his original isolated world.

In the evening, after washing up, Bai Yao lay in bed, scrolling through his WeChat Moments out of boredom.

After one o’clock in the morning, Li Jinyang and Zhang Yifang’s snoring rose and fell, one after the other. It was noisy, but Bai Yao felt very at ease. Because besides him, there were others around.

He especially disliked the feeling of quiet all around, especially at night.

On weekends in the past, when the three roommates weren’t home, he could at least hear the noise from the neighboring dorm, knowing that there were people next door. And spending the night out with Liu Yucheng was even better, with his furnace-like warm embrace.

But if he went home for the holidays, the house was always quiet and deserted, with only the sound of the clock ticking.

“Yao-ge, are you still not asleep?” Tao Lin, from the bed opposite him, asked softly.

“Not yet.” Bai Yao responded, “Why aren’t you asleep either? You have early classes tomorrow.”

“I’m about to sleep.” Tao Lin was silent for a few seconds, and continued: “Are you still thinking about Liu Yucheng?”

“Yeah.”

“I think, you seem to like him more than we imagined. The way you look at him, it’s very different.”

Bai Yao: “…”

Really? Was it that obvious?

Tao Lin couldn’t help but say what he thought: “But onlookers see more clearly. I feel like he’s hiding a lot of things from you, like what that idiot said to him today… People like him, once they start feeling inferior, they might just keep hiding from you in the future, and it will be very difficult for you two to reconcile. Of course, this is just my personal opinion.”

After hearing this, Bai Yao shrunk further into his blanket and said softly, “I didn’t plan on reconciling with him either. Whatever.”

Tao Lin chuckled lightly and said, “Go to sleep early, Yao-ge. Good night.”

“Good night.”

He thought that after not sleeping well the night before, he would be able to sleep like a log tonight; but Bai Yao still woke up every once in a while. The first thing he did when he woke up was to open his phone and check WeChat. This had become one of Bai Yao’s unconscious physical actions.

The chat history between the two of them was still stuck on the last message he sent.

Peach Milk hadn’t given him any further replies.

The following week was like this.

Bai Yao would also see Liu Yucheng during large lectures and lab classes.

Liu Yucheng no longer secretly stared at Bai Yao like before. When Bai Yao looked at him out of the corner of his eye, he was always looking down. He wasn’t playing with his phone, he was always spinning the pen in his hand quickly, not knowing what he was thinking about.

Maybe he really gave up, wanting to quickly cool down the online relationship between the two of them, and then let it go completely.

Although it was the final exam review week, Bai Yao would still sneak into the game in the evenings to take a look and see if he was online.

Peach Milk’s last login time was still on the previous Friday, the last time they ran dungeons together. He hadn’t logged into the game in the past few days.

On Thursday night, Bai Yao finally couldn’t help it and sent a message to Peach Milk:

What are you doing?

No reply.

That night, Bai Yao even had a dream. He didn’t dream about Peach Milk, but about the black profile picture that he had already deleted.

That black profile picture, which had been pinned to the top of his WeChat for two months, took the initiative to send him a message in the middle of the night: I’m not doing anything, I miss you too.

When Bai Yao unlocked his phone in a half-dreaming state and opened WeChat, the message list was still the same as it was before he went to bed, without any new messages… Bai Yao then realized how sad it was when a beautiful dream was shattered upon waking up.

It was Friday again. The snow outside stopped and started again. The school seemed to be covered with a layer of snow-white cotton, and everywhere you looked, there were energetic college students having snowball fights anytime, anywhere.

Bai Yao’s leg injury had recovered pretty well. He could run and jump, and the bandage on his leg had also been removed. When he came out of the classroom after finishing his elective course, he looked down through the window in the corridor and saw the group of students downstairs preparing for a snowball fight.

“Yao-ge, take a look at the Goose Group. The other dorms are provoking us, saying that we 319 are all old weak sick disabled.”

Zhang Yifang held his phone, reading the messages as he spoke. “They’re calling for a fight downstairs—a snowball fight, by dorm. Should we go too?”

Although he really wasn’t in the mood, Bai Yao had indeed been looking forward to a snowball fight. Today, the snow in the school was piled up very thick, and it was also very suitable for a snowball fight, so Bai Yao nodded in agreement.

Li Jinyang and Tao Lin were taking elective courses in another building. They were already out of class at this point and were rushing over here.

…

“We’ll go by floor. We’re on the Fourth Floor, you’re on the Third Floor, and they’re on the Fifth Floor.”

A boy said, “Now, let’s prepare first. The battle will begin in five minutes. Not far away are the steps and the concrete slope. It’s very high, so if you use the terrain, be careful not to get injured. Otherwise, if the principal gets angry, we won’t have a snowball fight next year.”

“Tch… that group of old weak sick disabled from 319 didn’t even come. There are fewer of us than them. Quickly make more big snowballs.” said someone from Dorm 302.

“Who are you calling old weak sick disabled?”

Li Jinyang and Tao Lin, as well as Zhang Yifang and Bai Yao, walked over from two directions.

Bai Yao saw him at a glance, that introverted person who didn’t reply to messages, standing in the crowd.

This introverted person was too tall and outstanding. Several small boys in his group surrounded him, calling him sweetly, one Liu-ge after another, saying Liu-ge, can you be our meat shield for a while and help us block some snowballs? Liu-ge, you’re so nice.

The fight hadn’t even started yet. Bai Yao directly picked up a small snowball that they had already made from the ground, then squatted down and used the snow beside his feet to make the snowball bigger.

After making the snowball big, hard, and solid, Bai Yao stood up and threw the snowball out with all his strength, hitting Liu Yucheng, who was standing there striking a pose, squarely in the face.

“Damn, why are you guys from the Third Floor starting the fight first??”

“Counterattack! Counterattack quickly!”

“Damn, charge! Kill them!!”

The snowball melee began. Some people were throwing snowballs, some were directly splashing snow, and some were pressing people to the ground and burying them with snow, making the scene extremely chaotic in an instant.

Compared to the surrounding noisy sounds, Liu Yucheng, who was still standing in place and hadn’t immediately joined in, seemed very quiet.

He lowered his head and brushed the snow off his hair—he didn’t expect that Bai Yao would take the initiative to attack him.

When he looked up again, Bai Yao was holding a handful of snow that he hadn’t had time to turn into a ball, and rushed in front of him.

At the moment when Bai Yao hooked his neck and pressed him to the ground, Liu Yucheng realized that Bai Yao wasn’t here for a snowball fight today, but to specifically fight him.

“Aren’t you sick?” Bai Yao asked him with a dark face.

“Is your leg already healed?”

Liu Yucheng asked back in a low voice, reaching out and grabbing Bai Yao’s collar, using his arms and waist at the same time to exert force, instantly reversing the situation—Bai Yao was flipped over onto the ground by him.

Of course, Bai Yao wasn’t willing to admit defeat just like that. Since his leg was fine, he naturally had to use his leg. He stretched out his leg to hook Liu Yucheng to prevent him from getting up, and seized the opportunity to grab a handful of snow from beside him and stuff it into Liu Yucheng’s clothes.

The two rolled around in the snow together. Their clothes and pants were soon covered with snow. Neither of them could stand up first.

Li Jinyang, who was currently in a 1V3 battle with Dorm 401, accidentally turned his head, saw the two people wrestling on the ground, and shouted in shock, “Yao-ge, be careful!!”

Bai Yao and Liu Yucheng were only focused on sparring, and neither of them noticed the surrounding environment. Not far from them were the steps in front of the teaching building, and next to the steps was a large concrete slope that was covered in ice, like a slide.

After Li Jinyang shouted like that, everyone stopped what they were doing.

Then, everyone saw the two people wrestling together not far away, falling down the concrete slope together.