SITS CH50

Chapter 50: Revisiting Old Haunts

Darkness fell early in winter. Past seven o’clock, the hotpot they had spent the day preparing was finally set up in the living room.

Being effortlessly outgoing, Xu Zhouye had run downstairs to knock on a neighbor’s door and borrowed an induction cooker. Thoroughly impressed, Shen Man asked how he managed to have so much to say to complete strangers.

“Well, if you want to become familiar, don’t you have to talk first?” Xu Zhouye said. “Besides, everyone here knows you… The moment I knocked, they asked me…”

Shen Man said, “Asked what?”

Xu Zhouye said, “Asked if I was the kid who plays video games with you.”

Shen Man: “…” Fair enough. To traditional elders, a bunch of esports pros really were just kids hanging out playing video games.

Xu Zhouye continued: “I said yes, and they happily handed over the induction cooker.”

Living in a small town had its downsides; bring a single stranger home, and the entire neighborhood knew every detail in an instant.

In the past, Shen Man had always eaten hotpot in the kitchen. He spent barely a few days at home each year and couldn’t be bothered with the hassle, rarely standing on ceremony.

Thanks to Xu Zhouye this year, dinner was moved into the living room, allowing them to watch television while enjoying hotpot.

Past eight, the Spring Festival Gala began.

Shen Man and Xu Zhouye’s phones rang intermittently with New Year greetings.

The boss called both of them—first Shen Man, then Xu Zhouye.

Xu Zhouye put the call on speaker. Right as he was wishing the boss a Happy New Year, Shen Man picked up a meatball with his chopsticks and asked if he wanted it. Xu Zhouye said, “Yes, yes, put it in my bowl.”

On the other end of the line, the boss thought she was hallucinating: “Huh? What? Why am I hearing Shen Man’s voice?”

Before Xu Zhouye could speak, Shen Man leaned close to the phone and called out loudly: “Zhu-jie, your hearing is pretty sharp.”

The boss’s full name was Zhu Jingwan, though everyone habitually just called her Boss.

Hearing Shen Man’s voice, the boss finally confirmed that she hadn’t lost her mind—the world had: “What’s going on? What is going on here—why are the two of you together?”

“Boss, Happy New Year.” Playfully wicked as ever, Xu Zhouye wished her a cheerful Happy New Year before promptly hanging up.

Staring at her darkened phone screen, the boss glared hard enough to burn a hole through the glass, cursing furiously: “You two little brats, what are you up to?! How am I supposed to have a Happy New Year now, ahhhhhh!!”

Xu Zhouye couldn’t care less whether the boss was happy or not; he was having a wonderful time.

Shen Man asked if his family minded him not returning home for New Year’s Eve. Xu Zhouye replied that he had already cleared it with his mom; if his mom didn’t mind, his dad didn’t mind either. As an only child, his grandparents on both sides had always spoiled him rotten and never scolded him.

“That’s good,” Shen Man felt relieved.

Past nine, fireworks and firecrackers began booming outside. Firecrackers crackled incessantly, and every now and then a burst of fireworks illuminated the night sky.

Unable to hold back any longer, Xu Zhouye grabbed the two red plastic bags and bolted downstairs, his eager back resembling a mischievous kid. Grabbing a lighter off the table, Shen Man strolled unhurriedly behind him.

Finding an open plaza near the compound, Xu Zhouye picked through their stash before settling on a massive firework box—quite heavy, weighing well over ten catties.

Huffing and puffing as he lugged it to a clear spot, he turned around to ask Shen Man for a light.

Standing not far off, Shen Man lit a cigarette, hands tucked into his pockets. Seeing Xu Zhouye walk over, he casually handed over the lit cigarette from between his lips.

To his surprise, Xu Zhouye didn’t rush to light the fuse with it; instead, mimicking Shen Man’s posture with natural ease, he took two puffs.

He still didn’t know how to smoke, immediately breaking into a fit of coughs.

Knitting his brows, Shen Man scolded: “What are you doing? Told you not to learn if you don’t know how.”

Reprimanded, Xu Zhouye said nothing, merely jerking his chin to signal for Shen Man to step back.

Shen Man took a few steps back.

Ignited by the glowing ember, the fuse hissed and sputtered. A spark shot upward from the ground, soaring high into the heavens before exploding with a resounding boom.

Emerald fireworks cascaded downward like a waterfall, spreading across the darkness and lighting up the entire night sky.

Standing side by side, the two tilted their heads up toward the sky.

“Happy New Year,” Xu Zhouye murmured softly.

“Happy New Year,” Shen Man echoed.

Turning his head, Xu Zhouye looked at Shen Man’s side profile. The night blurred his features, leaving light to dance across his face only in the fleeting bursts of exploding fireworks.

The unfamiliar melancholy from earlier that day had vanished from his eyes, replaced by his usual serene calm. The falling sparks reflected like scattered starlight within his pupils, adorning his already striking eyes.

Like a river of stars cutting across a clear midnight sky.

Xu Zhouye gazed at him, utterly captivated.

Noticing Xu Zhouye’s stare, Shen Man turned his face slightly. His lips parted, seemingly uttering a few words, yet a firework detonated at that exact moment, drowning out the syllables.

“What?” Xu Zhouye called out. “Ge, what did you say?”

Shen Man shook his head.

Xu Zhouye pressed: “Huh? What did you say just now? The fireworks were too loud, I didn’t hear…”

Licking his dry lips against the brisk night wind, Shen Man said, “Nothing.”

Xu Zhouye refused to drop it: “If it’s nothing, say it again.”

Lifting his gaze back to the sky, Shen Man said, “Really, it’s nothing.”

He had wanted to ask Xu Zhouye if they should be together.

Perhaps the atmosphere was too warm, or perhaps the depth of affection in Xu Zhouye’s gaze had moved him to blurt it out. Yet fate had timed the exploding firework to swallow his words, dissolving the moment needed to say it a second time.

Falling for someone for the very first time felt just like stepping onto a tournament stage for the first time—nervous enough that one’s palms sweated, forced to stuff hands into pockets while feigning nonchalant composure. Wanting to ask about the other’s feelings while terrified of reading too much into things, all of his usual confidence had scattered like smoke alongside the fireworks. Shen Man had never fought a battle with so little certainty—turns out liking someone made a person this indecisive, a novel experience indeed.

“Hurry up and light your fireworks,” Shen Man said. “With a pile this big, how long is it going to take?”

Xu Zhouye’s attention was successfully diverted.

They had a chaotic assortment of fireworks—aerial shells, ground spinners, everything short of underwater torpedoes. Usually composed and mature, Xu Zhouye acted completely like an overgrown kid tonight, his grin never fading as he marveled at every single spark.

“This one is fun, super fun!” Whirling a long whip-style sparkler wildly in his hand, Xu Zhouye laughed like a goofball, spinning in circles around Shen Man completely oblivious to the flying embers—until he realized over a dozen pea-sized black burn holes now dotted his down jacket…

Xu Zhouye pulled a long, tragic face: “Ge, my jacket’s ruined.”

Entirely unsurprised, Shen Man said, “Didn’t I just warn you it would burn holes?”

Xu Zhouye muttered, “I thought you meant sparks falling from the sky…”

Spreading his hands helplessly, Shen Man asked, “Still lighting the rest?”

Xu Zhouye grinned: “Hehe, yep.”

Shen Man: “…”

Thus, he stayed out keeping his little wildling company until past midnight before reluctantly heading back upstairs.

After washing up, the two lay in bed beneath the same quilt, welcoming the new year amidst the distant crackle of firecrackers.

Too much had happened today. Exhausted, Shen Man closed his eyes and sank quickly into a deep sleep.

Steady breathing filled the dark room; Shen Man had a wonderful New Year’s Eve.

On the first day of the Lunar New Year, after eating noodles cooked by Xu Zhouye, the two drove out to sweep Shen Man’s grandmother’s grave.

The cemetery sat up in the mountains over an hour’s drive away. With heavy holiday traffic, it was already ten in the morning by the time they arrived.

Tidying the headstone briefly, Shen Man placed a bouquet of chrysanthemums neatly before the grave.

“Waipo, I’m here to visit you again,” Shen Man said. “This is my friend, Xu Zhouye.” Pulling the photo album Xu Zhouye had found in the bedroom out of his backpack, he bent down and flipped through it page by page.

“He found this,” Shen Man murmured softly. “I was always too scared to go inside the bedroom and look…”

“From now on, I’ll take a photo of myself every year,” Shen Man said. “One to put in the album, and one to burn for you, so you can see how I look down there too.”

See how the Man-man you always worried about has finally grown into an adult.

A gentle breeze suddenly stirred, swirling the smoke rising from the burning joss paper upward into the air. Watching the smoke curl, Shen Man took it as his grandmother’s agreement.

Once Shen Man finished speaking, Xu Zhouye offered a polite greeting as well before the two departed.

“What are we doing this afternoon?” Xu Zhouye asked from the passenger seat.

“Didn’t you want to see where I went to school?” Shen Man said.

Xu Zhouye cheered: “Yay, yay!” He genuinely wanted to see it.

The school wasn’t far from the residential compound, just a twenty-minute drive. Unfortunately, with winter break underway, the campus was empty and the iron gates were locked tight.

Peering through the bars of the gate for a moment, Xu Zhouye pointed inside, signaling he wanted to go in.

Shen Man said, “Climb over? That’s illegal…”

Xu Zhouye rolled up his sleeves. Shen Man assumed he was actually going to scale the fence, only to watch him turn and march straight up to the security booth, knocking on the window. Remarkably, someone actually answered; the guard was on duty even on New Year’s Day, asking Xu Zhouye what he wanted.

Beaming radiantly, Xu Zhouye spoke loudly: “Big brother, do you play Heart of the Wasteland?”

The guard blinked: “What?”

Xu Zhouye said, “Do you know Shen Man? The one who attended middle school right here, and plays pro esports now—just won the World Championship—”

Listening from the side, Shen Man’s scalp went numb, struck once again by sheer terror at Xu Zhouye’s social prowess.

People said the world was a playground for the bold; Xu Zhouye was practically the park director.

Yet what Shen Man found hardest to accept was watching the guard glance at Xu Zhouye, look over at Shen Man’s deadpan face, and slap his hands together: “OH!! I know him!! Of course I recognize him!”

Shen Man was thoroughly defeated.

Ten minutes later, having signed an autograph for the guard, Shen Man and Xu Zhouye successfully entered his middle school campus as visiting alumni.

“Hehe, knew they’d recognize you,” Xu Zhouye laughed carefree. “They probably even put you up on a banner…”

Shen Man instantly recalled Liu Shishi bringing up something similar.

Liu Shishi’s family hailed from a coastal region that placed immense reverence on ancestral halls. After winning Worlds, he had boasted more than once about finally earning the right to enter the ancestral shrine, adding that his clan elders had made a dedicated banner hung right outside his front door and insisted on parading him through the streets this New Year—such was the prestige of a World Champion.

Listening back then, Shen Man could only thank his lucky stars that his hometown lacked such traditions; he couldn’t begin to imagine the horror story of wearing a giant red rosette while being paraded through the streets by a crowd.

“Whoa, look, your photo really is up here.” Just inside the entrance stood an alumni honor wall. Crowded with portraits, a young Shen Man looked starkly out of place among the smiling faces. Delighted, Xu Zhouye pulled out his phone and snapped photos rapidly.

Shen Man murmured darkly: “Don’t post that in the team group chat.”

Xu Zhouye: “Huh?”

Shen Man: “…” Don’t ‘huh’ me.

Naturally he wouldn’t post it; he wished others could see as little of Shen Man as possible.

The campus was noticeably larger than Xu Zhouye had imagined. Walking further inside, Shen Man pointed toward a tall building ahead, explaining he had spent his three middle school years there, and high school at the same institution in an adjacent teaching block.

“How were ge‘s grades?” Xu Zhouye asked him.

“Passable,” Shen Man said.

Before turning fourteen, his grades had been quite strong; after the tragedy at home, he lost all heart for studying.

His teachers had pulled him aside for talks numerous times over it, to no avail. Some paths were simply written in stone from the start.

“I wasn’t great at it, couldn’t sit still,” Xu Zhouye shared about himself. “Luckily my mom knew I wasn’t cut out for academics and didn’t give me a hard time.” Plucking a leaf from a roadside bush, he twirled the stem between his fingers, watching it spin: “Good thing I’m decent at gaming, at least it gave me a path…”

Shen Man said, “If you only count as ‘decent,’ how is anyone else supposed to live?”

Xu Zhouye grinned: “Well, a person has to stay humble.”

Shen Man: “…Fair enough.”

A campus empty of students always felt overly hollow.

Strolling over to the athletic field, Xu Zhouye spotted the equipment near the long-jump pit. Placing both hands down, he vaulted effortlessly onto the parallel bars, sitting atop one rail with his feet resting on the other: “Want to sit for a bit?”

Shen Man climbed up, taking a seat beside Xu Zhouye.

The weather was pleasant today; the sun, absent for so long, had finally emerged, casting a gentle warmth across their shoulders.

“How old were you when you had your first love?” Xu Zhouye asked abruptly.

Shen Man shot him a glance: “Never had a first love.”

“Never?” Xu Zhouye said. “For real?” He was slightly surprised, though not entirely. Gorgeous as Shen Man was, his temperament certainly wasn’t something an average person could handle; that frosty gaze alone deterred waves of admirers before they could even strike up a conversation. Even so, Xu Zhouye still figured someone brave enough would have tried their luck.

“Mm,” Shen Man said. “Ran off to internet cafes every day, where would I find girls to date?”

Internet cafes back then were nothing like modern arenas—crowded with all sorts of shady characters and lacking non-smoking zones, leaving anyone who stepped inside thoroughly marinated in secondhand smoke, paired with grimy keyboards and mice. Though girls occasionally visited, the clientele was overwhelmingly male. Sitting in a corner with headphones clamped over his ears, completely oblivious to the outside world, Shen Man effectively cut off any potential romance.

A few people had approached asking for his contact info over the years, only to retreat swiftly after his icy rejections.

Shen Man had been perfectly content with that.

Looking back closely now, Shen Man realized that ever since turning fourteen, his life had consisted solely of himself.

Walking to school alone, returning home alone, gaming alone—no one had ever stepped into his monochrome memories to leave behind a splash of vivid color.

All that remained in his life was Heart of the Wasteland, and its roster of 187 Heroes.

Yet now… He cast a sidelong glance at Xu Zhouye. It seemed something else had finally entered the frame.