A bit busy this weekend, so here is an early update for the week.
Remember that little cold I got while in City Q? Well, it has developed into a full blown cold. Not to be dramatic, but I felt like I was dying. Fever, congestion, drippy nose, cough, aches, chills. I seemed to have every symptom of the common cold on google to the dot.
My cold took a turn for the worse from small stress factors: not sleeping well in a hotel room, eating food my stomach wasn't familiar with, and the dramatic temperature difference between indoors and outdoors. For the last two days of my days in City Q, I had to spend resting in the hotel bed to get well enough to fly back to City B.
I felt bad for Lin and his family because I kind of ruined their vacation. Lin had to present the final design to Tyranny's boss and Old Han without me. His family also wanted to make sure I got back home safely and wanted to shorten their vacation to leave at the same time as me. After much convincing that they should stay and I would contact Lin every step of my trip back home, AnChen and Lin finally felt reassured enough to let me get on the plane on my own.
x
Old Man Han came to the hotel to visit one of those days too while mumbling how a huge idiot I was to be able to get so sick in the warm summer weather. Well that wasn't his exact words. The whole encounter went something like:
Knock, knock.
Two strong knocks came from the door. Darn, who was knocking so early? I felt around for my phone. When I checked the time, it was already noon. Okay, maybe it wasn't that early anymore. But as a sick person, I needed like 18 hours of sleep.
"Who is it?" I asked in a raspy voice while coughing.
"Han." The one word response was the only thing I got.
Well shoot. I told Lin to let Old Man know I was sick and wouldn't be in the club for the rest of the time I was in City Q, but I didn't think the man himself would come out to visit me.
"Open up. I don't want to be caught by someone passing by." He said again when he didn't a response for a while.
He did have a point. It would be bad for both of us if he were to be caught outside my door. What would the Internet and paparazzi think? Captain Han visiting secret girlfriend at the hotel? Girlfriend in question happened to be young Glory Sculptor? If anyone looked up the name to the hotel room, I would be dragged into this whole mess too. Silently, I unlocked the door.
"I'm really sick. I don't want to get you sick too. You should head back or enter at your own risk." I peek through a crack of the door while let out a few coughs.
"I will take my chances." Old Han pushed open the door and entered without hesitation, then something perked his interest. He smirks, "Nice PJs, Brat."
"Ah?" I asked dumbly before realizing I was still in my chicken drumstick PJ sets. "AH!" I dove under the safety of my bed cover.
"W-what brings you here?" I flustered after being caught in embarrassing PJs. My friends in the states have bought me the PJ set as a joke due to my strong love for fried chicken, especially leg and thigh pieces.
"Checking up a certain idiot."
"I'm not an idiot." I popped my head out of the cover and stuck out my tongue at him.
"Not a normal idiot for sure." Old Han let out a gentle smile that doesn't suit his usual thug like face. The gentle expression was fleeing. It was so short that I thought I had imagined it or have hallucinated from my fever or something.
Old Man put a hand on my forehead to check my temperature. His hand felt cool on my warm skin. I saw his lip twist into a frown instantly at the touch. I knew then his hand wasn't cool; I was just feverish.
"You really are a special idiot to get this sick. I doubt you would go to a hospital?" He said while tucking me.
"No hospitals. Hospitals is where bad things happen and people die." I said stubbornly.
"How are you feeling?" He decided not to question my assumptions and settled on the ground by my bed.
"Sick." I sniffled to add effect.
"If you exercised more regularly, you would have a stronger immune system."
"Exercise hurts."
"That just mean you lack exercise even more, Brat. Also, do you eat your vegetables or do you only eat fried chicken?" He gave me a judgemental look.
"You can't talk to a sick person like that. If you keep on talking to me like that, I'm going to kick you out." I huffed and gave Old Man an ultimatum.
"Alright, alright." He finally dropped the hateful topics of vegetables and exercise.
Han WenQing opened his phone to look up recent Glory eNews to share with me. I adjusted my position on the bed, bringing the bed cover with me as I went, so I could look over his shoulder to read some of the headlines with him on the tiny screen. We talked about some of the interesting transfers and Glory events until his voice lulled me into a deep sleep. I fell asleep on his shoulder mid conversation. Before leaving, Old Man moved my head to the pillow and made sure I was all tucked in.
x
Home sweet home. After sending a text to Lin that I have arrived at my apartment in City B safely, I face planted into my bed. My bed! To be fully honest, I didn't even remember how I got home safely. I only remembered brushing my teeth quickly and stripping down before going to sleep for a really long time. It felt really good to sleep in my own bed again.
If the time and the date on my phone was all correct, I had passed out close to 20 hours. I must say I was pretty popular from all the unread QQ messages on the notification screen.
Lin had messaged me back to let me know he and the family were glad I made it back okay and send a cute picture of them together in front of an aquarium. Old Han also had messaged me to wish me a fast recovery. I thanked both of Lin and Old Han for checking up on me after I woke up from my long slumber.
To Old Han, I also added, [Hope you didn't get sick.]
[I won't. I'm not you.] Old Han quickly replied.
[Shoot straight to the top.]
[Of course.] I smiled. I could almost hear the confidence in his voice as I read his text.
x
The rest of the messages were from Ye Xiu and YiFan. Something big must have happened in Glory. Ye Xiu, while also enlisting YiFan, was asking me urgently to get online and deal with a new troublesome guy that had appeared on Herb Garden's side.
[Can't you just deal with him?] I really didn't feel like dealing with anything today.
While waiting for Ye Xiu's response, I went to wash up and change into a fresh outfit. I draining a full glass of water after a relaxing shower. I probably should eat something too, but didn't feel well enough to. I also didn't have too much real food left at the apartment either.
Besides my snack stash, I didn't have anything in the cabinets or fridge to cook. I had tossed away anything perishable before I left with YiFan since it would have gone bad two weeks later anyways. I had just gotten back so I haven't had time to go shop for new food yet. But at the same time, I also didn't feel well enough to go to the store.
[You are more familiar with him.] Ye Xiu had messaged back after I got out of the shower.
I let out a sigh. I wondered who Ye Xiu was talking about when I logged onto Glory. If it is Liu XiaoBie, just send Little Lu his way to deal with it. I'm sure the two swordmaster would gladly keep each other busy again.
[XiaoBaiBai. Perfect timing. Come to this coordinate fast.] Ye Xiu messaged me not even a second later when I logged on.
[What's going on?] I asked YiFan for more explanation since Ye Xiu was either busy or being purposely very vague about the whole situation.
[Captain was seen with Herb Garden in the last couple days.] YiFan messaged me back shortly after.
Captain?
[You mean Wang JieXi? He isn't your captain anymore little bro.]
[Oh...Yeah. Senior Ye is wondering if you were close yet?]
[I don't know. I think I might be lost.]
[Sis...your lack of direction is really something else.]
[Number 1 and you know it!] I send a laughing emoji along with the message.
x
YiFan came to get me after I told him my current location. It seemed like I was pretty close, I was only a few maps too far north. With YiFan as my guide, I arrived at the scene soon.
When I arrived, it was the normal scene of the Four Guild Alliance locked in battle Tyrannical Ambition over the boss. Both Blue Brook and Samsara were in disarray after being trampled out. However on the sidelines, a very eye catching Witch character stood in front of Herb Garden.
The Witch wasn't eye catching because he was wearing gaudy gears or any physical traits. He just had a certain aura around him that made him stood out. It was very hard to explain, especially this was a game so how could a game character give off any aura. But just go with it.
Herb Garden must have been fed up with being bullied by Ye Xiu and Tyrannical Ambition day and night, and went to ask Wang JieXi for help. If Wang JieXi was here to fighting over wild bosses, then it would be truly troublesome for everyone.
"XiaoBaiBai. Can you go check to see if that's Wang JieXi and see what he is up to? He showed up out of nowhere and has been watching like that all morning now." Ye Xiu came to complain to me when he had a moment to breath during the fight over the wild boss.
"You couldn't do this yourself? Are you scared? Aren't you going to go to bed soon anyways? It's getting late for you guys. " I noted it was already past 7 in the morning. Already a bit later than when everyone from Happy got ready for bed.
"After this boss. It has something we need. Do you think I would be scared of him? I'm just not that close to that guy. Are you okay though? You sound a bit different." Ye Xiu noticed I sounded a bit nasally than usual.
"Just a cold. I won't die from it." I assured Ye Xiu.
"Feel better XiaoBaiBai. We are counting on your contributions. But you must be a complete idiot to have caught a cold this time of the year." Ye Xiu said before returning to battle.
I sighed deeply. I didn't have the energy to argue with someone like Ye Xiu right now. Like a bad rechargeable battery, I felt my energy drained to the red zone even though I just woke up. At this moment, I just wanted to go back to bed. I knew Ye Xiu would never let me go easily if I didn't complete this task. Without much choice, I made my way to Herb Garden as fast as I could.
x
"Greetings to the Goddess. What brings you to Herb Garden?" A witch by the name of Arisaema greeted me when I got closed.
"Just came to chat with Captain Wang over there. Could I?" I asked nicely as possible at the moment. I wasn't in the best mood but I also didn't want to piss off Herb Garden. Currently I was a bit far to get any aid from the guild alliance, so Herb Garden could end me if they wanted to do so easily.
Arisaema must have relayed a message to Wang JieXi's character through a private chat. He was silent for a while before Arisaema invited me over to where Wang JieXi's temporary character was.
"It's been a while. How have you been? How is your break?" I greeted pleasantly like Wang JieXi was a good friend I haven't seen a while. I have to butter him up to get him to loose up his lips.
"Everything has been fine. Why has Ye Qiu send you?" Wang JieXi saw straight through my tactics without even spare a glance my way. Jeez, I was a really bad spy. Glad I didn't do this professionally.
"Haha. You knew?" I laughed before going into a coughing fit.
"Are you okay? You sound pretty sick." Wang JieXi glance over before returning his view back to something in the battlefield below.
"Just caught a cold. Haha, you must think I am an idiot too for somehow catching a cold in this weather." I laughed it off.
"I didn't say that."
"Captain Wang, I want nothing more to go offline and rest up right now. So please help me, to help you."
"You mean to help Ye Qiu. I fail to see how this conversation will benefit me in anyway."
"If you just tell me what you are here for, I can stop bothering you sooner." I tried to come up logical reasons to get information out of Wang JieXi but it was a bit hard to think while sick.
"Tell Ye Qiu I'm not here for the wild bosses if that's what he is worried about. Is he scared that I would?" Wang JieXi taunted.
"Who knows. No? Maybe? I don't know. He probably just think it'd troublesome if you did. So why are you here then?"
"Something came up in game that required my attention, that's all."
"Oh, did Liu XiaoBie cry to you when he lost to the kid from Blue Rain last week?" I followed his character's line of sight and saw a familiar energic youngster in the crowd and ventured a guess. I couldn't tell what was going on in the Magician's head right now but I knew I was right since he didn't say anything. "That kid is pretty amazing.
"Why do you think he is amazing?" Wang JieXi actually seemed a bit interested in hearing about my opinion on the matter? The world must be ending soon.
"First, he have crazy fast hand speed that's comparable to Liu XiaoBie. You should have seen them fight last week. They were matching each other move for move. Second, the kid have energy and stamina. He fought Liu XiaoBie for at least 30 minutes without showing any signs of slowing down. Third, he can really think out of the box during situations. He might not come up with the best or correct solutions, but his solutions can definitely surprise you." I gave my analysis after thinking back to all the encounters I had with Lu HanWen in the last few weeks. "He is only 14. Can you imagine what kind of crazy growth we will see from him in the future?"
"Hm. If you would excuse me, I am going to take a closer look." Wang JieXi considered my words before flying away.
"Wait! Before you go, do you know a good nearby pharmacy?" I yelled and went into a coughing fit. Wang JieXi, however, had already jumped on his broom and flew away when I opened my mouth. I wasn't sure he had heard me.
I completed my mission from Ye Xiu. I told Ye Xiu what everything I found out for Wang JieXi before logging out of the game to take care of things and myself offline. I wasn't sure if everything Wang JieXi fed me was the truth or lies. Ye Xiu will have to use the information with a grain of salt.
x
Buzz, buzz. My phone buzzed from a new message just as I was putting on shoes to head out to the store.
[YaoCao(药草) Pharmacy(1). It's within walking distance from your apartment.] A brief message from Wang JieXi read. He sent over the address too.
[Thanks!] I replied before heading out for errands. For the first time in a really long time, I was glad that Wang JieXi and I were on good terms again.
(1) Literally means herbal pharmacy.
A/N: thank you so much for those who have left reviews in the last few chapters! I have been reading them, but I have been busy with required classes for work and bad allergies among other things to have responded to them. Still under the weather with allergies right now. Please forgive any huge grammar errors I missed.
To Naliyu: HWQ is jealous, although he would never admit that out loud. I feel like he would be the type of guy who buries himself in work and denies he feels anything for anyone, and he would say something like "I'm too busy to be in love."
To guest: What deja vu moment did you have? Did I wrote something similar before? I can't recall if I did ahaha. I went to look for the news about the cat lost in the airport after seeing the comment and thought "what a coincidence!" Especially the part about the cat heading to China.