Guide on How to Fail at Online Dating

Chapter 18 - Friends first, sister next, then finally as a sweetheart yes.

The arena was open from 7.30 to 9.30. When Lu Hang returned to the dormitory, he saw Xiang Huaizhi wearing only one side of his earphones as he manipulated his character to brandish his weapon and send his opponent out of the PK scene with one strike.

“Amazing, amazing.” Lu Hang placed his bag on the bed and complained, “Say, what do you think all adults are thinking nowadays? Calling the entire family over for one birthday, everyone surrounding a huge table and making it seem like a New Year’s Eve dinner. Always asking questions one after another, asking about studies first, then about relationships, disturbing me so much that even the food didn’t taste good anymore. I quickly ran away when my Dad went to the toilet…who did you team up with in the arena tonight? Without me around, did you lose points like crazy…what the fuck?”

When Lu Hang got a good look at who was in Xiang Huaizhi’s party, he immediately swallowed back all his murmurings.

At 9.30, the arena ended right on time. All of the teams that were waiting or in the middle of a battle were rushed to the arena portal by the system in an instant, and for a moment, the top of the city wall was filled with people.

Xiang Huaizhi spoke to the one in his party, “I’m leaving.”

After he spoke, he didn’t give his team mate any chances to respond before disbanding the party.

[Current] Xiao Tianjing: Thank you Gege for taking me along to play the JJC! Gege baibai! *^o^*

This dialog box suddenly popped out that stunned all the players around them. No one flew away for quite a while, and they were all still crowding around on the top of the city wall.

Xiang Huaizhi didn’t even turn back and was the first to leave the scene.

Lu Hang coughed twice, then acted coquettish, “Thank you Gege for taking me to the arena~”

Xiang Huaizhi, “Are you a parrot spirit?”

And his intonation wasn’t similar at all. If it was Xiao Tianjing, she would certainly drag out the last syllable at the end for a long, long while.

After listening to it for two hours, he almost had a mental breakdown.

“I just learnt a bit, don’t attack me.” Lu Hang moved a chair over to sit beside him. “Old Xiang, there’s something up with you ah! You actually took Xiao Tianjing along to play in the arena?! Does she have a complete set of equipment? You’re foregoing points just to take a girl along?”

“Fairy Fox Caves don’t depend on equipment.” Xiang Huaizhi said, “I didn’t lose points.”

“Didn’t lose points?” Lu Hang thought for a bit, “Oh, her points must have been reset, so all the people the two of you were matched up with were noobs right? Did they have experience?”

It wasn’t accurate to call them all noobs either. Their first three opponents were indeed not strong, but after encountering Chunxiao and Regardless of Lovesickness, the opponents they were matched up with all had 2,500 points and above.

However, ever since Xiao Tianjing gradually got familiarized with the application of Fairy Fox Caves’ PK skills, they didn’t lose a single round. She did nearly end up as the victim of insidious attacks by people from Idle Pavilion, but fortunately there was now a precedent set. Whenever a battle was almost over, Xiao Tianjing would start running around the whole map and vowed to death that she wouldn’t appear within the enemy’s casting range.

He had to admit that this little fairy fox played much better than he had imagined.

“No different from 1v1.” Xiang Huaizhi said.

Lu Hang rarely turned his computer off all year round. There was a scene in NCH called Fairyland. While afk-ing in Fairyland, players would gain experience once every three minutes. Although they didn’t get a lot, it was much better than nothing. He sat in front of his computer and looked at the messages received from friends while afk-ing.

“How could it be no different, Jingjing Meimei is so chatty…” Lu Hang looked through his new messages and frowned. “Why did Regardless of Lovesickness PM me…ai Old Xiang, she actually asked me about your relationship with Xiao Tianjing? How should I answer that?”

Xiang Huaizhi raised an eyebrow. “You even added Regardless of Lovesickness?”

“Yeah. She wanted to drag me into Idle Pavilion before, but I thought that that guild had too much drama, so I didn’t go. It’s fortunate I didn’t, otherwise wouldn’t it be super awkward between me and Xiao Jingjing now?” Lu Hang looked up at him and asked, “Tell me quick, how should I answer her?”

Xiang Huaizhi left his character at Fairyland, got up to wash up, and only said, “Friends.”

[Friend] Long Road Ahead: They’re friends ah, why?

[Friend] Regardless of Lovesickness: Impossible.

[Friend] Regardless of Lovesickness: Xiao Tianjing even confessed to Yearning For in the arena just now.

Fuck, something like that happened?!

Lu Hang looked back at Xiang Huaizhi, who was currently washing up, and shook his head as he uttered tsks.

Lad, you aren’t being honest ah.

[Friend] Long Road Ahead: Haven’t you heard of a saying.

[Friend] Regardless of Lovesickness: What?

[Friend] Long Road Ahead: Friends first, sister next, then finally as a sweetheart yes.

[Friend] Regardless of Lovesickness: …

[Friend] Long Road Ahead: In any case I’ll just tell you this first, Xiao Tianjing often does instances with us nowadays. If your guild members initiate a compulsory PK with my brother…

[Friend] Long Road Ahead: You know it, slag men don’t have good tempers. For the sake of wooing girls, he may just end up doing something [shuts up]

Xiang Huaizhi, who was gargling, suddenly sneezed and thought that it was almost winter.

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During the weekend, Jing Huan returned to his school dormitory with a bag of food and beer.

As soon as he entered the dormitory, he heard Gao Zixiang shouting, “Quick, quick, quick! Give me milk! Otherwise the BOSS is gonna launch a group attack on me! Fuck your milk missed again&#k2026;do you know how to play Fairy Fox Caves or not?!”

Lu Wenhao, “Fuck, if you can, then you milk ah! This damn sect’s skills have such a small scope, you should pray to Buddha if you can touch even one out of three blood pools! Besides, do you think there’s no CD for skills? Do you think I’m a 36D that you can get some out if you just casually squeeze them?”

Gao Zixiang said coolly, “I think those two mounds on your chest really aren’t any smaller than 36Ds.”

“Bullshit, you rubbed them before?”

Jing Huan, “…”

What kind of fucking off-limits conversation is this?

He put the bag down and glanced at the simple and conspicuously empty dining table. “Where’s the pot?”

Lu Wenhao glanced at him in a hurry. “Huanhuan you’re here? So early? Give us a moment ha, we’ll be done soon, we’re currently in a 25-man instance.”

Jing Huan, “Why are you playing NCH again? Didn’t you delete your character?”

“You know that I don’t have many classes this semester, and I’m so bored to death every day, so I bought a character to do instances with this idiot. His team is about to participate in the SPK, and they lack a bunch of materials.” Speaking of this, Lu Wenhao uttered two hngs, “But in the end, not only did he not thank me, but he’s also dissing Laozi’s operation every day!’

Gao Zixiang, “No wait, do you know what sect the character he bought is in? Fairy Fox Cave! Isn’t he fucking trying to screw me over on purpose? And he’s not willing to switch sects either…”

Jing Huan’s hands paused. “What’s wrong with Fairy Fox Caves? Aren’t they pretty strong?”

“Other people are the ones who are strong, but him? He doesn’t even know how to cast blood pools properly…” Another blood pool missed. Gao Zixiang couldn’t hold it back anymore. “After we’re done with this instance, go switch your sect for Laozi!”

Jing Huan couldn’t be bothered to listen to them fight. “So you’re saying that I’m the one paying for food and drinks, but I still need to wait for you two grandpas to finish playing before I can eat?”

“No, no, no, we’re about to finish soon, give us another ten minutes…no, five minutes.” Gao Zixiang said, “Our pot was borrowed by dorm 102, we still need to go look for them to get it back.”

Jing Huan regretted coming now. He should’ve bought a pot and base ingredients by himself, then cooked and ate it alone at home.

He picked up his bags again and turned around, ready to leave.

“Ai Huanhuan, where are you going?” Gao Zixiang quickly stopped him.

“Going home to eat hot pot.”

“Don’t ah! Gao Zixiang said, “We’ll be done very soon, Ge! Just sit for a while, we’ll definitely get this done in 5 minutes!”

Jing Huan lifted his hand and looked at his watch. “If you guys don’t finish in 5 minutes, I’ll unplug your network cord.”

After that, he threw his bags onto the washstand and opened the dormitory door.

Lu Wenhao, “Didn’t you say 5 minutes, why are you still leaving…”

“Getting the pot.” Jing Huan didn’t even look back.

Jing Huan went up to 102, knocked on the door, and there was only a response from inside quite a while later. The door was opened, and an odour wafted out from the inside.

Jing Huan couldn’t help frowning slightly and restrained his impulse to cover his nose.

“Yo, Jing Huan, why are you here? Rare guest ah.” The one who opened the door was a student from their major. They played basketball together before, but he wasn’t very familiar with him.

Jing Huan, “Un, here to take back my dorm’s pot.”

“Oh yeah, I’ll get it for you now, give me a minute ah.” The other party turned around and walked into his dormitory.

Jing Huan looked at the situation inside through the door crack. Without mentioning anything else, just the pile of stinky socks left outside the toilet door alone made him lose most of his appetite.

That person came back very quickly. He handed the pot to Jing Huan. “Sorry ah, I wanted to return it earlier, but I played basketball until I forgot to do so.”

“It’s all right.” Jing Huan took it and was prepared to leave.

“Wait a minute, Jing Huan, I just so happen to have something I wanna discuss with you.” The guy asked, “It’s my birthday next weekend, and I’ll be celebrating it in the bar opposite. Come along with the rest bei?”

They actually weren’t close enough for one party to invite the other to their birthday.

But Jing Huan’s so handsome ah, as long as Jing Huan went, he would be a live signboard. He would then be able to invite all of the girls in their major.

Jing Huan smiled, his tone both polite and distant, “I have something on then, can’t go.”

After saying that, he turned around and left, not giving the person behind a second opportunity to invite him.

Jing Huan studied the pot in his hand while walking upstairs.

If he wasn’t mistaken, the orange colour on the lid of the pot…shouldn’t be chili oil that got onto it when 102 was eating hot pot ba?

The pot was lent to them when he moved out, so it should’ve been two weeks since then. Could this still be fucking washed off?

Might as well just buy another one.

He thought for a bit, then decided to take a look at the inside of the pot before doing anything else. He walked over to the window in the stairwell, placed the pot on the window sill, then lifted the cover of the pot.

Only to see in the middle of the pot, a black foreign body with scattered orange spots, which was especially eye-catching. After sensing some movement, it quickly circled inside the pot and proved its vitality.

Jing Huan, confronted with it without any preparation, was first caught in a daze for a few seconds, then he went weak at the knees and almost fell to the ground.

He opened his mouth to scream, only to find that he was so frightened that he couldn’t even make a single sound.

He mustered all the energy he had left to fling the pot high up into the sky.

What Jing Huan feared the most in his life were insects. He would even feel a sense of disgust upon seeing spider types in the game, let alone that live thing right at the edge of his finger-tips!

There was even a short moment when he thought that he was going into shock.

The pot was thrown to the ground, making a crisp, ear-piercing clang upon impact. The cockroach crawled out and began scuttling around like it couldn’t find its way. Jing Huan was so frightened he quickly retreated, then his leg stepped on air, and he felt as if his heart stuttered to a stop–

He knocked into a meat wall.

Jing Huan breathed a sigh of relief, luckily… he didn’t fall to his death.

The person behind him got a fright too, but he reacted extremely fast. In order to prevent Jing Huan from falling any further, he quickly reached out and held Jing Huan’s waist to support him firmly.

“Are you okay?” The one behind asked.

The voice was extremely familiar, and Jing Huan unconsciously blurted out, “I’m okay, thank you Ge–”

Both of them paused at the same time.

Jing Huan immediately snapped out of his stupor and cursed in his heart.

God damn Yearning For who nagged nonstop in his earphones every day, now he fucking thinks everyone’s voice sounds like his.

He turned around and met face to face with the guy behind him, saying sincerely, “…thank you Ge Men.”

—

Juurensha: THEY MET IRL!!! (Also good god, 102 is disgusting, I would want to throw the pot cockroach and all at their face) It’s definitely the first time anyone said Yearning For talks too much….

Zryuu: I tried…to make…Long Road Ahead’s comment rhyme HAHA… if anyone has any better rhyme for it pls let me know in a comment below ROFL

The Chinese version: 先是朋友后是妹，最后变成小宝贝。