Stewed Squid with Honey

Chapter 1 - eSports?

After returning behind the counter, Tong Nian buried herself into her work, all the while grinding her teeth together in resentment. One by one, she recorded each food item she had brought over a moment ago, and then she began to add and subtract things up, making absolutely certain her BFF did not earn even one extra penny.

Her BFF, Soy Milk, hesitantly extended his hand toward that fifty-yuan bill, but intimidated by a single glare from her, he retracted it again. "I was worried that you were being tricked, so I was just trying to test if he is one of those broke old dudes who's barely scraping by. My family runs a cybercafé, and I'm familiar with those types of guys who come here and just play games overnight. The vast majority of them have lives that are lousy. At most, you can say that this old uncle-dude's looks are a little better than most." After he said this, he even cast a glance from far at that backside, and speaking somewhat against his own conscience, he stated, "And they're just a wee bit better... "

Tong Nian continued totaling up the bill.

"Hey, don't ignore me, Squid 'Chicory[3]' [O Great One, Squid]? Squid Juju[4] [O Stupendous One, Squid]? Sealed Chamber Dada[5] [O Great One, Sealed Chamber]? Squid Da[6]? Little Squidie Fish? Little Fishie Squid?" Her guy-BFF switched through all her various 2-D world[7] nicknames, but none of them could even bring about a glance from her. At last, begging for mercy, he declared, "I'll help you, I'll help you."

"Really?" Tong Nian immediately lifted her head, a smile written from the corner of her eyes to the tips of her brows.

"We'll give him an entire week worth of overnights? And say he won it from a draw? Wait, overnights won't work. We need to give him an entire week of free access. That way, once he thinks about it, he can just come." While Soy Milk spoke, he clutched at his heart that was so agonized it felt as if it was dripping blood.

An epiphany went off in Tong Nian's head. "Great idea!" And then, she furtively motioned with her eyes in that direction. "You go."

"Me again?" Her BFF gaped at her.

"And..." Tong Nian mulled for a moment, then dropped her voice and instructed him, "Go tell him it's an instant prize draw. He just needs to scan the café's QR code with his WeChat[8] QR scanner and then a prize will automatically be drawn for him. Pull out those skills you used in your two months as a sales rep after being brainwashed by one of those multi-level marketing companies."

"... Our café doesn't have a public WeChat account."

Tong Nian bowed her head and stared at her mobile phone, struggling within herself for 2.5 seconds before resolutely making up her mind and changing her WeChat screen name. Handing over her phone, she told him, "Use my WeChat account." There on the screen, her WeChat name had astonishingly been changed to "There is Serendipity Tonight."

This was the Internet café's sign that hung outside: "There is Serendipity Tonight Internet Café."

Understanding her meaning, Soy Milk apprehensively clutched the mobile phone and went off to do some scamming.

......

The end result was... that night, in the wee hours, two major events occurred in her WeChat. The first was that a person with the handle, "Gn" was added to her contacts. The other was that her WeChat fan group completely exploded into an uproar. Her fans could not believe that their own normally cold, aloof, and outwardly-haughty-but-inwardly-adorable "Fish Playing in Sealed Chambers[9]" would actually change her screen name to "There is Serendipity Tonight"... Chicory's [O Stupendous One's] ID must have been hacked!

......

Her heart was noiselessly dripping blood, and she decided to simply treat this as if her account really had been hacked, not returning a single message and only staring with a silly grin at that user ID that had just been added to her contacts list.