After dinner, they continued working through tomorrow’s action plan in meticulous detail — down to whether a given section called for running or walking, and if running, whether fast or slow, and how fast fast should be and how slow slow should be.

Bai Youwei sat with them listening until ten o’clock that night. Her eyelids were drooping, and she finally couldn’t hold out any longer and headed upstairs to bed.

But once she was back in the room, she found herself oddly wide awake.

She figured it was because the earlier conversation had been so dry that now, alone with nothing to do, her mind had reactivated. She took out her pen and notebook, jotted down a brief account of her whole day, and dropped it into the shared inventory slot.

Yi Zichu on the other end read it quickly, placed the notebook back in the shared inventory, and added a single line: *Congratulations.*

She had found the person she’d come looking for, after all. Of course congratulations were in order.

Bai Youwei wrote a little more about what the Combat Zone was like — different rules, brutal dungeons, fierce competition, and so on.

Yi Zichu replied: *Sounds exhausting.*

Bai Youwei decided this kid was genuinely hopeless at conversation. So awkward.

She held her pen and thought for a moment, then started writing again: beef slices, fish balls, tofu skin, mushrooms, chrysanthemum greens, lotus root slices… Pack a hot pot tomorrow!

At that moment, in the Life Zone, Yi Zichu retrieved the notebook from the shared inventory and flipped it open —

Yi Zichu was quiet for a long time.

Ning Yao saw him staring blankly and asked: “What did Weiwei jie write this time?”

Yi Zichu: “Um… nothing much. She… she wants hot pot tomorrow.”

Diandian and Jiujiu immediately cheered: “Yay! Hot pot! Hot pot! We want hot pot too!”

Youyou also looked up at Yi Zichu with great expectation. “Zichu ge’s cooking has been getting better and better lately — hot pot is going to be amazing.”

Yi Zichu didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

A bunch of little foodies…

……

Shen Mo returned to the room at nearly half past eleven.

Bai Youwei had been in bed, drifting toward sleep, but the sound of the door snapped her wide awake. She sat bolt upright. “You’re back.”

Shen Mo took one look at her sleepy, bleary little face and felt something in his chest soften without him noticing. He walked over and bent down to press a kiss to her forehead — then caught himself, thinking that the gesture had perhaps been a bit too intimate.

Bai Youwei seemed perfectly used to it, not the least bit surprised. She leaned closer, her face resting against his arm. “What time are you leaving tomorrow?”

“Departing at nine-thirty,” Shen Mo replied. “If it goes fast, we’ll be back by one in the afternoon. Slowest case, four o’clock.”

“Ahhh…” She let out a long, wistful sigh. “Does that mean I’ll be home alone all day tomorrow? We barely just reunited, and we’re being separated again…”

Shen Mo felt as though he were cradling a little lamb — small, soft, impossibly easy to want to shelter.

He sat down on the edge of the bed, his voice unconsciously dropping to a low, gentle murmur: “I’ll come back as soon as I can… Things will be a bit hectic for a while. Everyone wants to make use of my newcomer bonus buff — to try and break a record while it lasts. After that window closes, breaking records only gets harder.”

Bai Youwei tilted her face up to look at him. “How much does it add?”

Shen Mo lightly brushed the hair from her cheek and explained: “It adds 20% on top of the base score — the system’s way of encouraging new users to stream actively.”

Bai Youwei: “If I joined too, wouldn’t that add 40%?”

Shen Mo smiled. “The system isn’t foolish. No matter how many new members are on a team, the buff effect stays at 20%.”

“How boring.” Bai Youwei pouted. “Looks like I’ll be keeping an empty bed warm all by myself.”

Shen Mo’s lips curved slightly. He reached out and cupped her cheek, then kissed her.

One kiss led to another, and they toppled onto the bed together.

His lips grazed her ear, her hair fanning out across the pillow. Marks on her chest still hadn’t faded; he pressed deeper over them, voice dropping low: “At least not tonight.”

“Tonight?” She looked up at him with wide, luminous eyes — bright, and carrying the faintest trace of wanting.

Shen Mo came back to himself. Remembering tomorrow’s mission, he thought that perhaps tonight — it would be best not to go too far after all.

—