Yu Huaiting was completely dumbstruck.
He gripped the greatsword with both hands, maintaining an utterly bizarre and awkward pose, like a sculpture turned to stone in an instant.
The air was deathly silent.
The two stared at each other wide-eyed in the dim light.
“I…” Yu Huaiting’s Adam’s apple bobbed with difficulty, his voice dry.
“Speak.”
Fu Songcheng tightened his grip on the dagger, his gaze colder still, looking as if he’d stab straight through if Yu Huaiting so much as twitched.
After a long while, Yu Huaiting finally deflated like a punctured ball and abruptly let go.
Clang!
The heavy black sword slammed onto the floor with a dull thud.
Yu Huaiting was red to the ears with pent-up embarrassment, his hands rubbing uneasily against his pant legs.
“I didn’t hit you on purpose just now.”
Fu Songcheng didn’t move, the dagger still aimed steadily at him, his eyes full of disbelief.
Yu Huaiting took an anxious step forward.
Fu Songcheng immediately leveled the dagger horizontally, the tip pushing another inch forward.
Yu Huaiting hastily raised both hands in surrender and quickly stepped back half a pace.
“I didn’t know what I was doing!”
“Continue.” Fu Songcheng spat out two cold words.
“That woman,” Yu Huaiting’s face was full of grievance and irritation, “I don’t know her at all! She set me up! I swear I didn’t even get a clear look at her face!”
Fu Songcheng still watched him without a word.
“And…” Yu Huaiting lowered his head, his voice growing smaller and smaller.
“What?” Fu Songcheng frowned slightly.
“Sorry.”
He said those three words extremely fast and soft, muffled in his throat, drifting past like a gust of wind.
Fu Songcheng was taken aback.
“What are you muttering?”
“Nothing!”
Yu Huaiting jerked his head up and shouted loudly, throwing caution to the wind. “Anyway, I’ve explained it clearly! Believe it or not!”
Seeing Yu Huaiting’s state—so embarrassed he wished he could crawl into a crack in the floor, his ears red to the root—the anger that had been churning in Fu Songcheng’s chest all night dissipated for the most part.
He quietly put away the dagger.
Since Yu Huaiting had found himself a way out, attributing the whole thing to “getting drunk and going crazy,” Fu Songcheng naturally didn’t mind going along with it.
Falling out completely would benefit neither of them.
Since they were destined to part ways, why get tangled up here?
“Fine.”
Fu Songcheng sighed and casually ran a hand through his messy hair.
“It’s fine.”
Yu Huaiting froze, looking at him in disbelief.
“You’re not angry anymore?”
“What’s there to be angry about? Didn’t you take the shared damage too?” Fu Songcheng pointed at the bruise at the corner of Yu Huaiting’s mouth. “We’re even.”
Yu Huaiting instinctively touched the corner of his mouth, hissing.
“Since you’re sober now, go back first.” Fu Songcheng lay back down on the bed and pulled the blanket over himself. “I still need to sleep.”
Just… like that, it’s over?
Yu Huaiting stood in place, a sense of powerlessness washing over him, like punching with all his might into cotton.
He’d prepared a bellyful of explanations, even braced himself for Fu Songcheng’s cold mockery and a couple of dagger stabs.
But Fu Songcheng had just lightly, airily, let the whole matter drop.
“Oh.”
Yu Huaiting responded dryly, bent down to pick up the greatsword from the floor, and put it back into his system backpack.
“Then I’m leaving.”
“Mm. Close the door on your way out.” Fu Songcheng turned over, his back to him.
Yu Huaiting turned and walked stiffly out of the bedroom.
Once outside Fu Songcheng’s rest room door, standing in the empty, cold corridor, Yu Huaiting looked back at the tightly shut door.
He felt suffocated in the chest, his heart hollow and empty.
Fu Songcheng’s offhand “it’s fine” was even harder to bear than that cold line in the tavern—”your business has nothing to do with me.”
What did he have to do to calm down?
What should he use to trade for what?
The corridor’s motion-sensor lights went out after Yu Huaiting stood still for so long, swallowing him whole in the cold darkness.
He didn’t want to go back to his own rest room, but didn’t dare look for Fu Songcheng again either.
“So damn annoying!” Yu Huaiting ground his teeth in the dark, a low growl like a cornered beast in his throat. “Fu Songcheng!”
He punched the wall beside him.
Bang!
A sharp pain shot through his knuckles, but Yu Huaiting didn’t even frown.
The next second, Fu Songcheng—woken by the pain—remotely slapped Yu Huaiting’s Sympathy Doll twice, not holding back at all.
The slaps left Yu Huaiting’s face burning. He pressed a hand to his freshly remote-slapped cheek and actually felt a strange sense of reassurance.
Fu Songcheng’s two slaps carried tremendous force—clearly laced with plenty of personal grudge. Yet Yu Huaiting’s hanging, hollow heart, because of that pain, oddly settled back into his stomach.
“Hmph!”
Yu Huaiting leaned against the cold wall, using his tongue to prod his aching cheek, savoring it over and over.
As long as there was emotional turbulence, as long as there remained an unbreakable shared-senses link between them—then things between them weren’t over yet.
He took a deep breath, suppressed the surging restlessness in his chest, and dragged his heavy steps back to his own rest room.
The door closed. He threw himself heavily onto the bed, thinking that with his heart a little more settled he’d be able to sleep—but when he actually closed his eyes, his tangled thoughts kept him tossing and turning.
Yu Huaiting flipped over abruptly and yanked the blanket over his head.
“So damn annoying!” he growled irritably under the covers.
He shut his eyes and forced himself to sleep, but his heartbeat was inexplicably fast.
He began reflecting—had his explanation just now been too pale?
Had Fu Songcheng heard that “sorry” clearly?
Were two slaps enough to vent his anger?
He tossed and turned in bed like a pancake on a griddle.
…
The next morning, in the training hall’s combat gym.
Fu Songcheng, radiating low pressure that screamed “keep away,” pushed open the door to his private training room.
On each of his cheeks sat a clearly visible red handprint, even slightly swollen, which—paired with his murderous eyes—looked somewhat comical.
“Morning—!!”
The one-on-one assistant coach waiting early in the training room’s eyes flew wide, the equipment in his hand crashing onto the soft mat with a clang.
“What happened to you?”
The coach leaned in, risking death for gossip. “Who’s so dishonorable—they hit you in the face of all places!”
Fu Songcheng walked to the bench and folded his jacket neatly on top.
“I did it to myself.”
“Huh?” The coach was utterly dumbfounded. “Been under a lot of stress lately?”
Fu Songcheng didn’t want to deal with him and began warming up.
Last night, woken by the sound of Yu Huaiting punching the wall and the pain in his hand, he’d pulled the Sympathy Doll from his system backpack without a word and, winding up his arm, viciously slapped it twice.
After that, Yu Huaiting’s side did indeed quiet down.
But then the system’s voice rang out emotionlessly in his head:
[Warning! Player detected applying “severe malicious physical strike” to ‘lover’. Damage Synchronization triggered.]
Before Fu Songcheng could react, the slaps he’d dealt landed squarely on his own face.
He’d endured those two slap marks through the latter half of the night, and even ice-compressing in the morning hadn’t fully brought them down.
“Let’s start training.”
Fu Songcheng hid his twitching mouth and strode onto the mat. “I want to practice rapid close-quarters approach.”
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