RBNR Ch8: I haven’t liked anyone

Feng Chengyu had already walked away, leaving not even a shadow behind.

Sitting in the spectator stands, Qin Bao was still a little dazed.

How could he suffer from hypoglycemia in public and bump into him of all people?

Kneeling on the ground covered in sweat, his body trembling, looking as wretched as one could possibly be. Just thinking about that scene was too unbearable to look at; he regretted it so much he wished he had superpowers to travel back in time, eat his fill, and then leave.

Shan Yiming escorted Qin Bao inside, then ran back out to buy him a cup of milk tea, wanting him to wash down the taste of the takoyaki.

Strangely, this time Qin Bao didn’t express any disgust, nor did he say it tasted bad. He actually silently finished the entire box.

Their assigned seats weren’t together, but the seat next to Qin Bao had remained empty, so Shan Yiming just sat down beside him to make it easier to look after him. Someone recognized Qin Bao and tapped his shoulder from behind to ask for an autograph.

“Sorry, he’s not feeling well.”

Shan Yiming declined on his behalf.

Turning his head, he saw Qin Bao looking down, focused on biting his straw, exposing a section of his slender nape. His shoulder blades faintly protruded, and the black T-shirt hung loosely on his body—a standard clothes hanger physique.

Straight, tall, and without an ounce of excess flesh.

Shan Yiming couldn’t help but ask, “How long has it been since you ate a proper meal?”

Qin Bao thought about it. “I’ve been eating relatively little these past two weeks, but it’s all nutritional meals. Occasional hypoglycemia is pretty normal.”

Shan Yiming: “Normal?!”

Qin Bao jumped at his outburst and said irritably, “It is very normal. My former roommate would even induce vomiting after eating. Stop making a fuss over nothing.”

Shan Yiming was speechless: “You haven’t induced vomiting too, have you?”

Qin Bao waved his hand. “How is that possible? That’s so disgusting.”

Actually, Qin Bao still had baby fat when he was little. With a chubby, round face as delicate as a doll’s, everyone had wanted to play with him.

At that time, Shan Yike hadn’t been born yet, and Shan Yiming wanted to steal Qin Bao away to be his younger brother. The two kids secretly stayed in the rarely-visited attic of the Shan house for a whole night. Qin Bao cried loudly from hunger, and Shan Yiming sweated with anxiety, but he only had some cookies he’d brought up to feed him, not even giving him a sip of water.

Afterwards, Shan Yiming was strung up and beaten by his family. He adamantly refused to admit he was wrong, and swore he would definitely give Qin Bao lots of delicious food in the future. It was also because of that incident that Shan Yiming’s parents decided to have Shan Yike.

However, Shan Yiming did genuinely memorize everything Qin Bao loved to eat, and had sent him plenty of good stuff over the years.

As Qin Bao’s glands differentiated and he became a true Omega, the baby fat gradually faded.

He grew taller than most Omegas, with long arms and legs, and he wasn’t as soft and delicate as most Omegas. That slightly spoiled feeling about him merely stemmed from an innate arrogance in his bones. Sometimes when the childhood friends were together, it was very easy to overlook his gender.

The older he grew, the thinner he became.

“Let’s not talk about this.”

Qin Bao was a bit impatient, then looked at the field and said, “Tu Yisen.”

Shan Yiming followed his gaze.

The sky had turned completely dark, and the stadium lights were sweeping across the field. Tu Yisen was desperately waving both his arms at them.

Qin Bao had already taken off his hat and raised a hand in greeting toward Tu Yisen.

Because he had no strength, his movement appeared rather lazy. But even doing something so casually, it looked like a frame straight out of a youth commercial. Many people nearby were secretly sizing him up.

Some people seemed as if they were born with a spotlight on them.

Completely oblivious to this, he suddenly turned his head and said to Shan Yiming with grave seriousness, “Shan Yiming, I’m warning you, don’t try to convince me to stop playing around like they do. I’m not playing around. I will stick with it, and I will make a name for myself.”

His sudden seriousness made even Shan Yiming pause. He shook his head. “I won’t try to convince you.”

Qin Bao was somewhat surprised by this answer. He gave him an appreciative look. “Not bad, you’ve got long-term vision. Very promising.”

Shan Yiming: “Give me a break. As long as you don’t starve yourself to death, just go do whatever you want.”

Qin Bao said, “Starving to death is impossible,” then remembered something and apologized a bit awkwardly, “Sorry about that.”

“Sorry for what?”

“Your family confiscating your bike, that really is my fault.” Qin Bao picked at his corrugated cup sleeve. “Don’t worry, I have a lot of work lined up. I’ll try to buy you another one as soon as possible. It might not be as high-end as the Phantom, but you can use it for now.”

Shan Yiming let out a pfft of laughter and reached out to ruffle his hair. “No need.”

Qin Bao dodged the claw, his face a little warm. “Suit yourself, I was just saying it casually anyway. If you really despise it, I can save myself a sum of money.”

“It’s not that I despise it,” Shan Yiming said. “It’s hard to explain right now; you’ll know in a few days.”

Qin Bao had no interest in getting to the bottom of it. His mind was still lingering on running into Feng Chengyu during his hypoglycemic spell, leaving him feeling somewhat vexed. “We’ll talk about it later then.”

The game schedule was full of ups and downs and sudden twists, to the point that even Qin Bao grew interested.

The two of them yelled along with the crowd until they nearly lost their voices. Fortunately, the result lived up to expectations, and in the end, their school clinched the championship.

The school team members went to celebrate their victory. Tu Yisen invited Qin Bao to join them, but Qin Bao declined.

Someone joked with Tu Yisen, “Oho, trying to court him?”

“Get lost! That’s my brother!”

Tu Yisen chased after the joker to beat him up, and even Feng Chu joined in to help pin the guy down. “Speak clearly! Who’s trying to court who?”

Qin Bao didn’t have time to watch them goof off, so he shared a ride home with Shan Yiming. Upon arriving home, Mr. Qin was in the garden playing chess with the old master. Perhaps because Mr. Qin was playing too terribly, the old master was giving him a live lesson.

“Flaws, flaws everywhere! Before you’ve even made your move, I already know what you’re trying to do! No composure at all!”

The old master, frustrated by his son’s lack of progress, possessed a voice as loud as a temple bell.

As Qin Bao walked by, Mr. Qin’s gaze lingered on his face, making him feel very guilty. He went upstairs and checked the mirror, feeling relieved. He looked energetic and his eyes were bright; no issues could be seen.

“Has your mother contacted you these past few days?”

Not long after, Mr. Qin came upstairs to Qin Bao’s room.

Qin Bao had just taken a shower and was reviewing notes sent by a classmate. Without looking up, he said, “No. Do you miss her? Why don’t you call her yourself?”

Mr. Qin choked. “It’s not that I miss her. It’s just that we agreed beforehand that you two should meet once a week, for her to fulfill her duties, but she doesn’t seem to have come over recently.”

“We met last week, she just didn’t come to the house.” Qin Bao chewed on the end of his pen and mumbled, “She’s traveling with my grandpa and grandma on her side. They aren’t in the capital right now. I happened to be working there last week, so we met up on the spot.”

Mr. Qin stood there for a few seconds, then left without saying anything more.

He didn’t ask how Qin Bao had been doing recently, or why he came home so late.

Qin Bao threw down his pen. He suddenly felt mentally exhausted and didn’t want to study anymore.

Logging into his game, he saw that Xu Tangzhou was actually online too. This guy had clearly just declared a few days ago that he would quit gaming to study hard, and wouldn’t log on unless he passed his exams. He broke that resolution so fast.

After spectating a match first, he waited for Xu Tangzhou to finish and asked: [What did you score on the exam this time?]

Xu Tangzhou was caught off guard: […What score! How is it possible I only scored that much?! Can we talk about something happy?]

Qin Bao continued his critical hits: [Then have you finished your homework.]

Xu Tangzhou: [If you keep this up, I won’t carry you to a win.]

Looking at his match history, Xu Tangzhou was indeed on a winning streak. Qin Bao stopped provoking him and deliberately said: [Tch, I can win on my own.]

Xu Tangzhou: [Don’t go, don’t go! Let’s play together!]

[Happy puppy meme]

[My older brother is here too, I want you to play with us, do you mind? He’s really good.]

Qin Bao had indeed noticed earlier that Xu Tangzhou was constantly following and healing a specific teammate in the game, and that person did play quite well. He replied: [Better than me? Let’s play a round and see.]

After entering the game, Xu Tangzhou turned on his voice chat, excitedly introducing, “Brother, this is the friend I told you about. He was in the top fifty of the national server.”

Qin Bao: “…”

And dropped out the very next day.

Hyping your friend up like this makes it very easy to end up riding a tiger and unable to get off, Xu Tangzhou.

A pleasant male voice came from the other end of the headset, sounding quite polite: “Mm, hello.”

He heard Xu Tangzhou mention that the other party seemed to be a male university student too, but he sounded much steadier than Shan Yiming.

Qin Bao: “…Hi.”

Xu Tangzhou added, “Bao, this is the older brother I told you about. Not only is he amazing at games, but he can also play the guitar, piano, drums, and write songs—”

“Zai Zai,” the guy said calmly, calling Xu Tangzhou by his nickname. “It’s your turn to pick a champion.”

“Okay!” Xu Tangzhou said obediently. “What do you want me to pick this round, Brother?”

Qin Bao suddenly broke out in goosebumps.

Xu Tangzhou usually spoke in an obedient tone, but not this kind of obedient. Qin Bao felt something was extremely off, but couldn’t put his finger on what exactly. There was only one signal in his brain: Run.

Unfortunately, at this moment, Qin Bao didn’t know how serious the consequences were.

They only played one round.

In those thirty minutes, the guy called him “Zai Zai” a total of eleven times, and Xu Tangzhou called him “Brother” an unknown number of times.

“Zai Zai, someone’s coming.”

“Got it, Brother! I see them, step back a bit inside Brother, I have a shield.”

“Walk straight away, don’t detour, you don’t have boots, Zai Zai.”

“I know, Brother! I’ll have enough gold to buy them soon!”

“Zai Zai, watch your mana.”

“You too, Brother, you’re almost out of health! Let’s go home.”

Qin Bao: “……………”

After finishing that round, Qin Bao ran away very decisively.

Xu Tangzhou even sent a message asking if he disconnected. He found a random excuse to brush him off. A while later, Xu Tangzhou also went offline and called him directly.

Is he still going to invite me?

Qin Bao had dark lines down his forehead. “I shouldn’t disturb you guys, right?”

Xu Tangzhou said they stopped playing too.

“It’s already eleven, it’s my brother’s bedtime. I don’t want him to see me still online at this hour tomorrow,” Xu Tangzhou said. “How was your day?”

Xu Tangzhou knew it was Qin Bao’s first time walking for Marcos Malory and was very excited and envious.

“It felt alright, I guess,” Qin Bao said. “It’s just that I didn’t dare eat much since yesterday, and got hypoglycemia today.”

Xu Tangzhou: “I know, eating makes your stomach bulge. So are you feeling a bit better now?”

“Much better.”

Xu Tangzhou was very worried. “I know a friend who has a set of abdominal breathing exercise videos. If you do it, eating a little temporarily won’t make it very noticeable. Give it a try; you won’t have to be afraid next time you run into this situation. But honestly, apart from Marcos Malory, no other brand has such perverted requirements, and even if your stomach really did bulge a bit, they wouldn’t be able to tell.”

Qin Bao walked out onto the small balcony. Seeing the old master was no longer in the garden, he secretly lit a cigarette. “What video? Send it over so I can take a look.”

Xu Tangzhou: “Oh, I’ll ask him for it right away.”

During this time, Xu Tangzhou didn’t hang up either. As he was searching, he said to Qin Bao, “Actually, there’s something I wanted to tell you. I just wanted to wait until you were done being busy first.”

Qin Bao: “What is it?”

A minty flavor burst in his mouth, while his mind drifted to the piece of candy stuffed into his mouth today.

…And the fingers pressing against his lips.

On the other end of the phone, Xu Tangzhou said, “I think I’ve fallen for someone.”

Qin Bao stopped thinking about the candy, and even forgot to smoke his cigarette. “What? You’re dating?”

“No! Nothing’s even started yet!” Xu Tangzhou explained nervously. “Ugh, actually, I don’t really understand it myself. We’ve only met a few times in total, but whenever he talks to me, my heart beats so fast. When I lie in bed at night, I keep recalling scenes of us together, uncontrollably. The things he said, his voice, a single smile of his—they constantly replay automatically in my head.”

“Does this… count as liking someone?”

Qin Bao was stumped by the question.

His heartbeat also quickened along with Xu Tangzhou’s words, and his mind even followed Xu Tangzhou’s description to sketch out an image: beneath the evening sun, a blurry silhouette.

Compared to Xu Tangzhou’s “only met a few times,” it was even more absurd.

No wonder he felt like he had smelled that fragrance somewhere before. So it was him.

If you don’t control your pheromones properly, aren’t you just attracting people everywhere?

“I don’t know,” Qin Bao replied. “It’s not like I’ve ever liked anyone.”

Xu Tangzhou felt disappointed. “Alright.”

After a few seconds of pause, he still couldn’t hold back. “Aren’t you even going to ask who that person I’m talking about is?”

Qin Bao: “Who?”

“You’re too slow, you couldn’t even guess this.” Xu Tangzhou announced the answer like a big reveal, “It’s the older brother who was just playing the game with us.”

It suddenly dawned on Qin Bao.

That truly is so unexpected!

__

Author’s note:

Qin Bao smiles: So I’ve been a part of your roleplay since back then.