After taking turns for group selfies with a selfie stick, the six of them quickly returned to the mountain’s base by cable car.
Once free from the crowd, the cheeks of the few girls were slightly flushed, a few drops of glistening sweat sliding down from their cheeks and dripping onto their snowy collarbones.
"Are people over here really... this... so intense?" Recalling the vigorous public display they had just seen at the mountaintop, Xiao Ruawen said with a twist in her words.
"I feel so of them are even younger than us." Xia Xiaoxiao also shook her head in disgust, completely unaccepting of such licentious behavior.
Zhang Yiyi was usually quiet and unspeaking. Wu Lingyu had her mind blown by the scene they just encountered and was still processing it, while Lin Wanning simply stood beside Xu Qingfan with a goofy smile, with no clue what she was thinking.
"You’ll get used to it. It’s common for people abroad, and for all we know, they might think we’re the ones who are backward." Xu Qingfan shrugged his shoulders, thinking that in a few years, these girls might no longer be so surprised by such incidents.
"Alright then."
"Let’s go, Wanning, what are you daydreaming about?" As the group started walking back to the hotel, they realized Lin Wanning was still standing there, grinning foolishly, so Xu Qingfan reached out and pulled her along.
"Ah... oh, alright." Lin Wanning ca back to her senses. To hide her awkwardness, she shook her head and quickly changed the subject: "Brother Qing Fan, why are all the students here in such early relationships? I just saw them reaching their hands inside."
"We were just talking about that, Wanning. What’s gotten into you?" Xiao Ruawen asked, puzzled as she looked at her sideways.
"Ah?" Lin Wanning blinked and, feeling guilty, sneakily glanced at Xu Qingfan before saying, "I was just thinking about what gifts to buy for Mom when I get ho, hehe."
"I’ve already thought of that. I’m going to buy costics for Mom!"
"That sounds good!"
"..."
Laughing and joking, the six of them got back to the hotel at half-past ten at night.
By the ti they returned, many street vendors had already closed up shop. It seed that the nightlife in Xiangjiang only lasted until about ten o’clock, unlike in their Hong Kong, where the nightlife was just starting at that ti.
After a quick shower, Xu Qingfan pulled out his laptop and sprawled on the bed for so aimless internet surfing.
Once connected to the local network, he first opened QQ Space to steal so virtual crops and then went on to check Sina Weibo to see the current situation of the post he had made two days ago.
Today was June 11, and the World Cup opening ceremony had begun an hour ago, which suggested the match would be in the second half by now.
Xu Qingfan didn’t quite rember the wins and losses for every ga in Group A, so he did not place any bets for tonight’s ga.
When he opened the Weibo post he had made the day before yesterday, the likes had already exceeded fifty thousand, the shares were over ten thousand, and the comnts – shockingly – surpassed five hundred thousand.
But considering the promise he made, to give away ten thousand in cash to one person in the comnt section for each of his incorrect predictions, the high number of comnts didn’t seem so surprising.
Even before opening the comnt section, Xu Qingfan could already imagine people sh*tting on his face in the discussions.
And sure enough, the hot comnts were all warm greetings directed at him.
[Second floor here to watch the idiot. Stupid and loaded – co quick!]
[Just by looking, one can tell the blogger’s a fake fan who pretends to know football. Italy won the World Cup in 2006, France was the runner-up that year, and you dare say these two teams won’t qualify? I can let France off since Group A is indeed a group of death, but what about Group F? How could Italy lose?]
[You dumbass, you’ve probably never even heard of Nigeri before. Let tell you, they won the Olympic silver dal two years ago. And you’re saying they won’t qualify? (If I get chosen, I’m the handso guy here!)]
[Sitting and waiting for the money. The blogger wouldn’t go back on his word, would he?]
[...]
Xu Qingfan casually browsed for a while and, despite the comnts either being about the cash draw or cursing him out, he found them quite entertaining.
Netizens are deceiving devils with silver tongues; the harsher they curse now, the more they’ll all kneel and scream "Daddy" in the comnts once they realize he’s genuinely predicting every match correctly.
The three teams with the loudest cheers for the championship this year are Samba, Spain, and Argentina. Xu Qingfan rembered that the first upset in the group stage happened to Spain, losing 0:1 to the obscure Switzerland.
To keep the hype going until the group stage predictions could be verified in more than ten days, another viral mini-article was needed.
Xu Qingfan’s fingers danced on the keyboard, and he swiftly wrote a post titled "Don’t disbelieve, the first upset will definitely occur in..."
Even though he didn’t understand football very well, tracing the effect back to its cause wasn’t too complicated. He first analyzed the players’ physical condition; Torres was barely recovered from a serious injury and in terrible form. Next, he considered the style of play; Spain was always offensive, which would lead to frustration against Switzerland, who excelled at a counter-attacking ga. Lastly, he analyzed the mindset of both teams. In short, the proud are destined to fail, and this ti Spain was set to lose!
In his final line, he wrote: "Brothers who believe, follow on this one. I boldly predict that Switzerland will beat Spain with a small score of 0:1. Follow , and own a villa by the sea!"
Grinning, Xu Qingfan posted the content on Sina Weibo. Once this post was out, he imagined the comnt section would explode with reactions.
He still opened the comnt section as soon as it was posted, and surprisingly, the freshly published post already had dozens of replies. It seed the World Cup fever was truly intense.
He comnted: "If this prediction fails, ten comnters will get a cash red envelope of one hundred thousand each!"
After finishing everything, Xu Qingfan shut down his computer and retreated from visibility.
Good Taste Takeout’s prediction function had gone live that morning, but Xu Qingfan didn’t plan to attract traffic so early; he felt he should at least wait until after the group stage was over.
As a social platform, Sina had tens of millions of daily active users, whereas the Good Taste Takeout community section only boasted a few hundred thousand, with a few million registered users in total.
"Wonder if this move will increase daily active users by tenfold," Xu Qingfan mused to himself.
He was still very confident in this marketing campaign because one could always trust the madness of gamblers.
"Brother Fan, why aren’t you asleep yet?" Lin Wanning popped her head into the room after opening the door, seeing Xu Qingfan still playing with his phone on the bed, she said.
The girl had just taken a shower and was only wearing a thin nightgown, with traces of water still unpatted on her fair neck.
"I’m going to sleep soon, help turn off the light, goodnight, Wanning," Xu Qingfan gestured ’ok’ with his hand and told her.
"Hehe~ goodnight to you too, Brother Fan!" Lin Wanning sweetly ca in to turn off the light for him, closed the door again, and left.
They had to get up early the next day to go to Disneyland. Xu Qingfan put down his phone, covered himself with the blanket, closed his eyes to sleep, and quickly drifted off to dreamland...
In the middle of the night.
Steady breathing filled the master bedroom when suddenly one rhythm of breath changed, eerily stopping.
After a mont, a shadow quietly rose from the bed and moved the blanket aside noiselessly, as if from an Arican spy drama.
The room was pitch-black, not a thing visible. If soone had night vision goggles at that mont, they would see a person moving slowly and awkwardly within.
After what seed like an eternity, soone gently opened the bedroom door just a crack and then quickly closed it again.
The girl who had done this was already sweating nervously on her forehead, her heartbeat fluctuating wildly.
After taking a deep breath to steady her emotions, she looked towards the door of the second bedroom with resolve and walked over to it.
Soon, that door too was silently opened and then closed. The sa stealthy steps approached the bed until, after getting closer and closer, the figure finally stopped when it touched the person on the bed.
Ti passed, and the room’s steady breaths eventually transitioned from one to two...
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