OVTTGTBE Chapter 5
by VolareLulling to Sleep Business
Bai Yao tried transferring 3000 yuan to him, but he still couldn’t see the last character of his real name.
Bai, who had often been scammed out of money in the past, Yao, couldn’t help but wonder in his heart—could this WeChat account be Peach Milk’s alternate account? Like a work WeChat or something?
He heard Peach Milk sighing in his earphones.
“If I were a scammer, I would have already scammed you out of 3000 yuan,” he said softly, “Don’t casually transfer money to people you meet online.”
“I’m not afraid,” Bai Yao said casually, “Just accept it, and you don’t need to buy too much. I’ll be on vacation in a while, and it’ll be a waste if I can’t finish eating it by then.”
He thought very simply, if Peach Milk/Yuan Shuang was actually a scammer who swindled him out of these 3000 yuan, then he would just treat it as a reward for accompanying him for the past few days.
Peach Milk received the money, and he gained emotional value; this was within Bai Yao’s acceptable range. However, once the money was paid, they would be even, and there would be no further contact in the future.
Anyway, he didn’t lack these 3000 yuan.
Before the start of this semester, his mother had transferred him a six-figure sum of pocket money, which was her most common way of expressing “affection.” Besides the cost of the limited-edition shoes that Bai Yao bought this semester, there was still a lot left.
After a while, Peach Milk asked him, “Do you have any food allergies or things you can’t eat?”
Bai Yao answered directly, “No, I don’t have any allergies.”
As he said this, he was thinking that if Liu Yucheng heard this, Liu Yucheng would probably think he was just messing with him before.
If Liu Yucheng wasn’t so introverted, and had bothered to ask Zhang Yifang, Li Jinyang, and the others about it when they were dating, he would have known that it wasn’t that Bai Yao had no allergies, but that he had too many.
So many that Bai Yao was too embarrassed to tell Peach Milk, someone he had never met and who was proactively expressing concern for him at this time, that his stomach would feel uncomfortable if he ate this, that he would get red rashes if he ate that, or that the skin on his body would turn red.
He was very afraid of being seen as troublesome and picky.
No matter what his master bought, Bai Yao would gratefully accept it, just as he always did when anyone gave him food-related items.
As for his three roommates, Bai Yao had told them about all of his allergies when he first met them, and proactively stated that if they minded, they didn’t have to call him when they went out to eat, it was fine.
Fortunately, the three of them never disliked Bai Yao because of this, and they were very considerate of Bai Yao’s tastes when they went out to eat together.
After waiting for a long time, Peach Milk slowly said, “…Okay.”
Bai Yao didn’t say anything more. He logged into his game account, cleared out his backpack, and looked at the upcoming dungeon guides.
Twenty minutes later, Peach Milk’s voice came from the earphones, “I’ve bought it.”
“I chose Reverse Wind Express, it will arrive by tomorrow morning at the latest. I filled in your game name as the recipient: [Don’t Blame Me, My Internet is Lagging].”
“Haha, okay.”
Bai Yao chuckled and thanked him again, “Thank you so much.”
Peach Milk: “Let’s get in the game.”
Bai Yao: “I’m already online. Today, we’re going to do that dungeon you mentioned earlier, the one with all the nuns and monks. I’m already getting excited just looking at the pictures.”
“So, not only are you an M, but your fetish is monks?” Peach Milk asked in confusion.
Bai Yao’s face turned red, and he quickly said, “That’s not it!! I want the glowing weapon that the final boss drops!”
“Oh, that’s a whip… Your class uses a staff, not a whip.”
…
The two of them ran several dungeons in a row. When it was almost one o’clock in the evening, Peach Milk started urging Bai Yao to log off.
“You need to go to sleep early, or your wound will heal slower.”
Bai Yao was really enjoying the game. He looked at the coolest glowing weapon in his backpack—the Fluorescent Jade Whip—but he couldn’t equip it, and he felt a little depressed. He even regretted why he had chosen a mage in the first place, instead of a melee class that could use whips.
“If it really doesn’t work, I can help you level up a new character that can use whips later.”
After hesitating for a moment, Peach Milk said, “But you can also change classes by spending money, it’s just that it’s a bit of a hassle to re-farm the equipment.”
“Someone whose fetish is giant, red-butted baboons, don’t laugh at me,” Bai Yao chuckled, “That baboon even has a helium voice. Do you like helium voices?”
Peach Milk: “?”
Peach Milk: “I don’t, where did you see that???”
Bai Yao: “Hehe, guess.”
That night, Bai Yao’s little mage leveled up more than a dozen times. Not only could he explore new maps, but he would soon be able to unlock flying.
As long as he unlocked flying, he and his master wouldn’t have to hug each other and ride the same horse like other couples in the game when running maps and doing quests.
Because Peach Milk’s equipment was so cool and good-looking, it gave off a sense of being a pro-player; his own equipment was ugly and rustic, and had the air of a newbie. Overall, it looked both ambiguous and a little weird.
“Then you should go to sleep first, I’m going to wander around the new map,” Bai Yao said, “I’m so excited playing right now, I can’t sleep at all.”
“Be good.”
“Staying up late will slow down the healing of your wound, get in bed now.”
On the one hand, it was because he had someone to play with today, and he was really enjoying the game; on the other hand, Bai Yao didn’t know when he would be willing to voice chat with him again, so he really didn’t want to hang up.
“I need to go wash up first.”
After thinking about it, Bai Yao said tactfully, “I… I won’t hang up the voice chat yet, okay?”
“You can call when you’re in bed,” Peach Milk said quietly, “I’m free tonight.”
“Okay, then I’ll shut down my computer first! I’ll call you again when I’m in bed.”
His words were like a reassurance, and Bai Yao happily hung up the voice chat, dragging his injured leg little by little into the dorm’s attached bathroom.
While brushing his teeth, Bai Yao held his phone and hesitated for a long time, but he still clicked into his mother’s WeChat chat box and actively made a voice call.
“Hello? Dudu, Mom is in Country E right now, in a meeting,”
A woman’s voice came from his phone, “What’s the matter?”
Bai Yao: “…”
She flew abroad again.
Zhang Yifang, Tao Lin, and Li Jinyang’s parents had all learned about their fight from the counselor, and they had taken them home this morning.
He didn’t know who his father was since he was a child; his mother, Bai Junyi, had always been single and extremely busy. He could understand… and he had always known how difficult things were for his mother.
The counselor probably couldn’t reach her, so she didn’t know that he had been hospitalized after a fight. This kind of situation had been very common since he was a child.
“Mom, I… it’s nothing.”
Bai Yao had to say, “I’m going on vacation in a while.”
“Oh, you’re coming home?”
The woman said hurriedly on the phone, “Send me the date and flight number, or send it to Aunt Zhou, and have her arrange for someone to pick you up. Do you have enough money to spend?”
“Enough.”
Bai Yao said in disappointment, “You don’t need to pick me up, I’ll just take a taxi home.”
Just like when he was little.
When he was a child, other children had their families to pick them up after school, but Bai Yao was always alone, waiting from afternoon to evening.
His elementary school teachers all said that he looked like he was malnourished, so thin and small, but so well-behaved that it was heartbreaking. Sometimes he would wait in the teacher’s office, and when he had finished all the homework he had to write and memorize, and the teacher was about to leave work, no one would come to pick him up.
In the end, either his mother finally remembered that she had a child in the midst of her busy schedule and sent a driver to pick him up; or Bai Yao would take a taxi home himself.
Now that he was grown up, he should have gotten used to it long ago.
The woman paused and said, “The airport is a bit far from home. I’ll still pick you up then, remember to send me the date and flight number.”
“Mom is busy, I’m going to hang up now, take care of yourself.”
After saying that, she hung up the phone in a hurry.
Bai Yao looked at the ended call on his phone and desperately tried to recall the happy things that had happened recently in front of the mirror, so that the tears in his eyes wouldn’t fall.
It’s okay, a distant parent-child relationship isn’t anything rare.
A large piece of skin had been scraped off the side of his right leg by the concrete, and when he was sent to the hospital, it looked bloody and terrifying.
It really hurt.
His three roommates often called him “Brother Yao.” In front of them, Bai Yao could pretend to be fine, and could always take care of the three of them when they encountered anything. In front of Peach Milk, he could also pretend to be a happy apprentice who wasn’t afraid of pain at all, and say boldly, “These are just small injuries, no big deal.”
He comforted himself in his heart that he could still have a voice chat with Peach Milk later, and that having someone willing to talk to him was actually quite fortunate.
Bai Yao wiped his eyes with his sleeve, adjusted his emotions, and started thinking about how to get into bed later. Although it would take a bit longer, since he could walk from the school gate to the dorm by himself today, and then up to the third floor by the stairs, then the mere ladder to the upper bunk should be a small matter.
…
“I’m already lying down.”
More than ten minutes after washing up, Bai Yao finally used his phone to call Peach Milk for a voice chat again.
In order to avoid the wound on the right side of his right leg from rubbing against the blanket, Bai Yao could only lie on his side facing the wall on the left, with one hand supporting his head, like a concubine leaning on the bed in ancient times, leaving his right leg exposed outside the blanket.
He hadn’t originally planned to remove the bandage on his leg, but it was tied so tightly that it was really difficult for him to climb the ladder, so he had to take off all the bandages first. After finally lying down on the bed, Bai Yao felt a bit uncomfortable looking at the dirty old bandage, and he felt a bit disgusted to wrap it back on.
He had no choice but to leave the wound exposed like this, and think of another way tomorrow.
“Does your wound still hurt?”
A gentle voice came from Bai Yao’s earphones, “Would you like me to sing you a song? It’s a good opportunity for me to expand my lulling to sleep business.”
“Okay.”
Bai Yao felt a warmth in his heart, and the previous depression was swept away. “If my face wasn’t a bit swollen, I could sing you a song too. I’m a really good singer! I’m popular with thousands of young girls… and young boys!”
That’s just how he was, he was actually very easy to coax. It’s just that no one had ever coaxed him before.
“Is that so.” Peach Milk laughed too, laughing very softly, “I’ll listen to you sing after your wound heals.”
“Yes! It’s a deal!”
Inside the hotel room, Liu Yucheng closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
His mind was filled with the image of Bai Yao standing in the sunlight, singing loudly, during military training at the beginning of the semester.
That day, Bai Yao had made a mistake and was punished by the instructor to do fifty push-ups and perform a show in public. Bai Yao readily stepped out, did fifty push-ups without changing his expression, and then sang a song loudly in front of all the students present.
He was the kind of person who had a talent for singing; shyness, restraint, and social anxiety had nothing to do with him.
He had shown himself to be incredibly natural from beginning to end, and even enjoyed it.
It was also on that day that Bai Yao’s sunny and cheerful figure and his name were imprinted into Liu Yucheng’s mind.
“What song do you want to hear?”