My Online Friend Can't Be This Cute — Chapter 38

Yan Nuoya, sitting on the ground, blinked and gave a faint smile.

"No, no need. I still have plenty of water left."

"You can be polite with the other classmates, but do you need to be so polite with me?" Mo Xiangwen put on a puzzled expression and asked, "Aren't we friends?"

"Then..." Her outstretched hand paused slightly above the bottled water. "Then I'll take this drink."

With that, she reached for the electrolyte drink, while Mo Xiangwen merely watched her without moving.

Just as her hand touched the drink, she seemed to think it over carefully and switched to the other side.

"Mm, forget it. I'd better drink bottled water." Yan Nuoya smiled. "Even though there's still some water left in my bottle, if I have another one, I won't have to ration it."

Mm, exactly as he had guessed.

Overload Mode quietly kicked in. He needed to think as quickly as possible to avoid letting Yan Nuoya notice.

Based on what he knew about Yan Nuoya...

Yan Nuoya's original choice was most likely bottled water. She had simply refrained from taking it directly in order to tease him.

Out of courtesy, most people would ultimately choose bottled water, whether they actually wanted it or not.

Without a certain level of closeness, no one would deliberately choose the drink first before switching to bottled water.

It was both a little joke between people with a good relationship and a reflection of one's personality.

And he had finally caught the true shape of that sense of familiarity.

It was a sense of politeness—politeness to the point of coldness.

But why did it feel so familiar to him?

"Nuoya, don't you like this drink?"

"It's not that I dislike it." Yan Nuoya shook her head. "I just don't feel like drinking it right now."

Although he had expected it, if Yan Nuoya had really chosen the drink, he would have been in an awkward spot.

He would probably have had to run to the convenience store immediately and buy Yan Nuoya a new bottle.

After all, Su Mengli had given him this drink. It somehow didn't feel right to pass it on to someone else.

"You sweated quite a bit during military training. It'd be good to drink some electrolyte beverage and replenish yourself."

He would first see whether he could get the conversation into a natural back-and-forth flow.

In the best-case scenario, he might even be able to ask her outright.

Yan Nuoya's bright purple eyes suddenly stared at him for several seconds. Then she unexpectedly chuckled softly.

"That was too stiff. You're not the type to force people." Yan Nuoya shook her head, her voice carrying a certain certainty. "Much less keep pressing a girl with questions."

Thanks for the invitation. At university, and he had just lost a verbal sparring match.

This was too difficult for a single guy. He didn't want to play anymore.

An Utter Humiliation!

That night, Mo Xiangwen paced back and forth on the balcony with a sigh.

Ah, what an utter humiliation. What an utter humiliation.

This was outrageous. It was driving him mad.

As the saying went, an army was trained for a thousand days to be used at a crucial moment.

He had fed and pampered you so well all this time, so why was it that when the crucial moment came, you couldn't even beat a little girl?

Huh? What was wrong with you?

Say something, say something. Hurry up and say something, cheat ability.

Have you no shame? Have you no shame?! You might not have any, but I do!

Whenever he thought of Yan Nuoya's teasing smile, he felt his face heat up and wished he could crawl into a hole.

And he had wanted to throw away his dignity and try to bait information out of her?

What happened in the end? He hadn't even lasted one round.

He couldn't take it anymore.

"Hey, Old Mo." Qin Yongfeng couldn't stand watching any longer. "Did you have a fight with Classmate Yan?"

"Yeah, you've been pacing for more than an hour." Xi Shaojie sighed. "You've already been standing for two days. Are your feet made of iron?"

Of course not. His feet hurt too.

It was just that whenever he thought of this morning's crushing defeat, he couldn't sit still.

"Now that you mention it, there are shoelaces and sanitary pads in the black plastic bag at my seat. Take them out and see which ones work for you."

"Pad those crappy shoes with them. It should make them a little more comfortable."

Before he had even finished speaking, the three of them had squeezed around his seat and eagerly opened the plastic bag.

"I never expected it, Old Mo. You came prepared." Qin Yongfeng sighed.

Xi Shaojie complained, "You should've taken them out earlier. I put a layer of tissues in mine, and it was useless. My feet still hurt like hell."

Zhong Taihong picked up an insole and stuffed it into his shoe. Afterward, he found that his foot felt cramped when he put it back in, so he had no choice but to switch to a sanitary pad as well.

After trying again, it really fit perfectly.

"Ah, Old Mo, you really had the foresight."

"Enough, enough. Stop making noise. I'm annoyed." Mo Xiangwen sighed. "Just take whichever ones work for you."

"What are you annoyed about? It's a girl. If it doesn't work out, just apologize." Zhong Taihong said nonchalantly.

"Apologize for what? I didn't do anything wrong..." Mo Xiangwen suddenly felt that there was something off about that sentence.

"Ah, as the saying goes, one day as husband and wife brings a hundred days of affection. What can't be talked out?" Zhong Taihong shook his head. "Hurry up and make up. Stop sighing here and bothering us."

"Fuck, wait, you almost led me down the wrong path." Mo Xiangwen said with a dark expression. "What the hell do you mean, a hundred days of affection? I'll say it again: Yan Nuoya and I are perfectly innocent classmates and friends."

"Hehe, you're already calling her by name." Xi Shaojie sneered. "And you're still going on about being perfectly innocent friends."

"Are you idiots so love-brained that you think everyone is dating?" Mo Xiangwen cursed, then couldn't be bothered to pay any more attention to the two of them.

Ah, it looked like trying to fish for information was a dead end.

Yan Nuoya was simply too cautious—perhaps even more cautious than he was.

The moment she noticed him that morning, she had directly abandoned any intention of continuing the conversation. She had not even teased him a few more times... though perhaps that in itself had been a form of teasing.

Since probing her for information would not work, he would have to see if there were any clues instead.

As Overload Mode activated, memories of his past interactions with Yan Nuoya rapidly flashed through his mind.

The first time they met had been at the scenic area. Her reaction had seemed perfectly normal.

Although he had been utterly stunned by Yan Nuoya's beauty, her reaction to him at the time had been ordinary, as if he were just another passerby.

The second time was while waiting for the high-speed train and on the train itself. She had been holding a notebook, writing something he did not know about, and she had looked normal then as well.

If he could get hold of that notebook, it might be of some help to him.

But that was basically impossible. Even if the notebook were right in front of him, he could not casually peek at someone else's notes.

But on the high-speed train... Mo Xiangwen frowned. He was not sure whether Yan Nuoya had actually been looking at him then.

The third time was when he went downstairs at the hotel to pick up his delivery. As soon as he got down there, he saw Yan Nuoya sitting on a sofa in the lobby, looking utterly bored, as if she were waiting for someone.

Judging from Yan Nuoya's later reaction and their conversation, the person she had been waiting for might very well have been him.

Right, there was definitely something wrong with this part.

If Yan Nuoya had really been waiting for him, then why?

At that point, he and Yan Nuoya had only met twice in total. Why would Yan Nuoya have been waiting for him?

If there was something wrong with this part, did that mean Yan Nuoya had definitely recognized him during those first two encounters?

On the high-speed train, had it not been his imagination that someone was watching him? Could Yan Nuoya really have been looking at him?

What else? Why had he thought, with such excessive self-awareness, that Yan Nuoya was angry at him?

She had clearly looked expressionless... right, most of the time when she was with him, she smiled. Being expressionless was already enough to explain part of it.

There had also been her tone, the atmosphere—it all felt different from how she normally interacted with him.

Right. If he considered the way Yan Nuoya treated people she had just met, compared to the way she treated him the second and third times she saw him...

It was almost certain that Yan Nuoya had known him for a long time.

So could she have been a relative or a neighbor's child? Mo Xiangwen decided to call his parents and ask directly.

"Dad, think with Mom for a moment. Do we have any relatives with the surname Yan?"

[You don't need to ask your mom. I can tell you for certain that we don't.]

"Ask her, ask her. Dad, please, hurry up and ask. This is important."

[Ah, fine.]

Then, the sounds of Mo Chenfeng and Zhou Xiuqin talking came from the other end of the phone. After a short while, the phone was picked up again.

[I asked. We definitely don't have any relatives with the surname Yan.]

"None? Then what about a neighbor's kid or something?"

[No.]

"That's not right. Then where's my childhood sweetheart?" Mo Xiangwen questioned. "According to the plot, shouldn't there have been some really cute girl who kept insisting on playing with me?"

[What childhood sweetheart? Most of the kids around our home were boys.]

[Besides, with the personality you had as a child, you wouldn't have played with girls anyway.]

Tsk, as expected of his dad. He really understood him.

Indeed, he used to play ball, swim, catch shrimp, and fish with the other boys. He had even kept fishing as a hobby after becoming a corporate drone.

He had absolutely no memories of playing with cute little girls.

[What, have you figured it out? Do you know it's time to find a girlfriend?]

"Haha, sure, sure. Next time, definitely."

Mo Xiangwen hung up the phone. Just as he was about to urge Overload Mode to work harder, a powerful wave of hunger suddenly surged up and nearly made him faint.

Damn it, he was starving.

He had almost forgotten that this useless cheat ability could eat like a monster. It was one thing for it to eat so much, but it did not even do any work.

Other than boosting his concentration and thereby improving his efficiency, it was completely useless.

After all these months, this cheat ability had never properly reflected on whether it had been working hard enough.

Eidetic memory, precise muscle control, imitation—could it at least give him one of those?

Grrr—

His stomach complained loudly again, forcing him to completely stop his wild thoughts.

...Forget it. Scolding a cheat ability that improved efficiency somehow felt like scolding himself for being bad at things.

He should stop thinking so much and order some late-night food first.

Mo Xiangwen sighed. After ordering takeout, he returned to his seat and closed his eyes to rest, reducing his energy consumption.

The moment he closed his eyes, Yan Nuoya's smiling face appeared in his mind.

Release Announcement!

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As everyone knew, a release announcement was also called a sob-story announcement. If he did not cry, he would seem a little out of place.