When I Meet the Moon - Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Hearing this, Yun Li’s mood—which had just relaxed thanks to his deft handling—tensed right back up.

What did he mean by his very first try?

Yun Li didn't quite follow what he was saying and asked tentatively, "Haven't you strapped anyone else in before this?"

The man: "Mn."

"..."

Choked by his matter-of-fact response,

Yun Li even wanted to second-guess whether she was simply making a mountain out of a molehill.

Although this attraction only looked to be a little over two meters high from the ground, it still carried a certain degree of risk. Right now, Yun Li couldn't afford to worry about anything else and had to strike up another conversation to find some peace of mind: "Then did you undergo any training before starting work?"

The man didn't lift his eyes: "What training."

"Like," Yun Li couldn't think of anything else, and at this point abandoned any pretense of tact, pointing directly to the crux, "how this safety harness should be tied so it's the safest and reduces the risk factor to a minimum."

After listening to her finish, the man replied: "None."

"..."

In that instant, Yun Li felt like she was about to go on a genuine bungee jump, and the staff member was telling her that this rope might snap, but not necessarily, so she could just try it out first.

Yun Li froze entirely: "Then if the safety harness isn't tied right, will I get flung out?"

The man glanced at her, as if pondering it for a moment: "I'm not sure."

Seeing that both of them looked completely carefree, Yun Li pressed her lips together, telling herself not to scare herself—when the man suddenly gave a light tap to the buckle on the safety harness and said nonchalantly, "Want to give it a try?"

Yun Li: "..."

Yun Li: "?"

The words spoken by the person in front of her sounded like the whispers of a demon.

However, the man merely tossed out that one sentence, pulled his hand back right after, and made no further moves. Yun Li even let her petty thoughts run wild again, harboring a feeling that he was holding a grudge over her previous words and was trying to intimidate her with this.

Her spine rigid, Yun Li lowered her head to pat the area around the buckle, checking if anything had come loose.

At that moment, someone in the distance called Xu Qingsong over.

Before leaving, Xu Qingsong chuckled softly and offered some reassurance: "He's just joking with you, don't take it seriously." Then, turning his head, he reminded the man: "What are you doing? Be responsible, stop messing around and scaring people."

The man still wore his "perfunctory and going through the motions" expression, but perhaps because of that, he finally spoke a human sentence to Yun Li: "Rest assured, everything has been inspected." Afterward, he pointed to the rope beside her: "If you get scared later on, just grab onto this."

Yun Li nodded, hesitating for a moment before slowly moving her hands away.

The man picked up the VR headset from the side and placed it over her head: "There's a dial in the back, adjust the tightness yourself."

The imagery before Yun Li's eyes shifted into a line of distant text, complete with a burning fire special effect.

The man: "Clear?"

Yun Li narrowed her eyes: "A bit blurry."

As soon as the words left her mouth, she could feel the man's hand pressing against her headset, giving it a downward nudge. Her field of vision grew clearer accordingly, and Yun Li raised a hand to give it a micro-adjustment to a comfortable angle.

Because this attraction involved up-and-down movement, wearing the headset casually like that risked making it slip off easily. Therefore, two securing straps were added, buckling underneath the chin in the manner of a helmet.

Once the VR headset was on, she became completely disconnected from the real world.

Yun Li had no idea what was happening around her and felt somewhat nervous, only hearing the man give a preview-like "Here we go" before the scene began to shift.

A bottomless cliff stretched out before her, with mountain mists and clouds in the distance.

The game didn't start with an immediate plunge; there was a buffer period. The NPC in front of her opened and closed its mouth as if speaking. Afterward, Yun Li's perspective shifted to the protagonist wanting to jump yet hesitating out of fear, dragging it out for a long time.

Before she could even react, the avatar took a fierce leap downward.

The hanging chair beneath her sprang into motion as well.

Plunging to the very bottom, it bounced up and down repeatedly thanks to the bungee cord. The sensation of weightlessness was intense, with the deep blue sea looming terrifyingly close, only to shoot back upward violently a second later.

For a split second, Yun Li squeezed her eyes shut in terror, then forced herself to open them again.

She belonged to that breed of people who were cowardly yet loved thrills. Every time she went to an amusement park, she would feel intensely intrigued by all those high-altitude thrill rides, only to lose the courage to actually climb aboard once she reached the entrance.

As for these VR experience attractions, Yun Li knew they were virtual and not genuinely terrifying, which made her want to try every single one of them.

In short, her courage existed solely in the virtual world.

The moment she returned to reality, it plummeted straight back to zero.

The duration of the attraction wasn't long, but because the sensation was entirely too realistic, Yun Li still felt as though every second dragged like a year. Yet once she emerged from her "narrow escape," she felt invigorated, thrilled, and exhilarated.

Yun Li took off the VR headset.

The man took it from her and unbuckled the straps.

Yun Li returned to solid ground. Glancing sideways, she noticed a screen nearby that appeared to broadcast the exact scenes she had just experienced in real-time. In other words, whatever she had just seen, everyone else could see as well.

According to what He Jiameng said, to ensure the produced videos achieved a better visual effect, this footage would later be sent out uniformly to the respective creators.

Yun Li muttered a word of thanks, thought for a moment, and voiced a question: "Doesn't this game have any sound?"

The man lifted his eyes.

Yun Li explained: "I saw the characters' mouths moving, but I couldn't hear any audio."

Unsure himself, the man simply put the headset on. After a moment, he took it off and inspected the VR unit in his hand: "There's sound, but the right ear canal seems to be broken."

With that, he double-checked: "You didn't hear anything at all?"

"..."

Yun Li's breathing hitched.

This happened to collide directly with her congenital defect.

A broken right ear canal meant sound would only come through the left ear channel.

Yet her left ear was completely deaf from birth.

Hence, she hadn't heard a single thing.

"Ah, is that so?" Yun Li said dryly. "Then I must have been too nervous just now, so I didn't catch it clearly."

"Mn."

The man didn't dwell on it. Having finished Yun Li's "task," he reverted to his "nothing is my business" attitude, redirected his attention back to the equipment, and quietly began testing it.—

Afterward, Yun Li went off to try other attractions, and when she passed by this spot again later, the man was nowhere to be seen. Having crossed a few items off her list, by the time she finished trying out everything that caught her interest, a good half of the day had already slipped by.

She counted as one of the more energetic participants among the arrivals.

Some people suffered from motion sickness after playing for extended periods and had long since finished up, chatting away in the lounge area instead.

Finding an empty corner, Yun Li rapidly reviewed the footage she had just captured while running through how she wanted to edit it later in her head.

Before long, He Jiameng tracked her down to deliver a message.

As the host, Xu Qingsong wanted to treat everyone to a meal, take the opportunity to officially get acquainted, and see them off. Hearing that everyone else had already readily accepted, Yun Li had no choice but to swallow back her urge to refuse and go with the flow.

……

The dinner gathering took place at a rather famous restaurant in Nanwu.

EAW had booked a large private dining room furnished with two large round tables on the left and right. Yun Li took a seat toward the inner corner, flanked by He Jiameng on one side and Cicada on the other.

Some of the attendees had known each other prior to the trip, while others had hit it off famously over the course of the day. The dining table was exceptionally lively, with most people still buzzing with excitement as they discussed their experiences playing the various attractions.

Yun Li dreaded these kinds of settings the most and pretended to busy herself with her phone the moment she walked in.

The last to arrive were Xu Qingsong and the man.

With only two empty seats remaining at the inner table, the two walked over. He Jiameng blinked, and upon spotting the man, her "face-con" tendencies flared up instantly: "Teacher Leisurely, did you get a look at what this handsome guy looks like underneath his mask today?"

Today?

Yun Li spoke the truth: "Didn't see him today."

Pausing for a second, she debated whether to tack on: But I saw him before.

Before she could get it out, Xu Qingsong called out: "Xiao He."

He Jiameng: "Huh?"

"Would you mind swapping seats?" Xu Qingsong surveyed the seating arrangement and patted the man's shoulder. "He's caught a cold these past couple of days, and that's right by the AC vent. Let him sit on the inside."

He Jiameng stood up immediately, chiming in: "Of course, no problem at all."

Before Yun Li could fully process what was happening, the two of them had inexplicably ended up seated right next to each other.

Having already wanted to avoid such large-scale gatherings, and now having a stranger she had crossed paths with multiple times planted right beside her, Yun Li was torn over whether she ought to greet him, making her feel even more unsettled.

Keeping her gaze averted, she lowered her head to drink her water.

Xu Qingsong showed no inclination of introducing the man. When someone at the table addressed the man directly, he remained silent for a beat before answering, as if making sure the person was actually talking to him, and his replies were exceedingly brief.

It was as if another conversation terminator had materialized out of thin air.

Empathizing deeply, Yun Li wanted to check if he felt equally annoyed, yet didn't dare look his way.

Before long, the center of conversation shifted back to Xu Qingsong.

Yun Li turned her attention back as well.

Yet her mind wandered inappropriately, realizing that everyone seemed to have completely forgotten to ask the man his name.

Shortly afterward, the man took off his mask.

During their previous encounters, either the lighting conditions had been poor, her viewing angle skewed, or she simply hadn't looked closely. Now, seeing him up close, Yun Li noticed that his hair color had a slightly lighter hue, though whether it was dyed or natural she couldn't tell.

Farther down were a set of flawless facial features, leaning toward a Eurasian aesthetic.

His physical hardware was exceptionally superior.

Yun Li suddenly felt a mild sense of familiarity.

As if she had seen him somewhere before...

Before she could dwell on it further, the waiters began serving the dishes.

The plates laid out on the table varied widely, catering to everyone's individual preferences.

Whether due to a poor appetite or extreme pickiness, Yun Li could see out of the corner of her eye that the man barely touched a thing throughout the entire meal. The separate bowl of porridge he had ordered was only reduced by a fraction.

Once the dinner concluded, someone proposed heading to a nearby KTV for a singing session.

Xu Qingsong readily agreed with a smile.

The meal had cost a fair bit, and the rest of the group had no intention of letting him shoulder the bill all by himself. They suggested playing a mini-game, splitting the two tables into opposing teams, with the losing team footing the bill.

After some lighthearted pushing and shoving over various game choices, they settled on a quick and simple telephone-game style challenge called "Whispers."

The rules dictated that each team would send one person to whisper a phrase to the first member of the opposing team, keeping it under thirty characters and making it as tongue-twisting as possible. From there, it would be passed down the line. The voice had to be kept soft, ensuring no third party could overhear.

The team whose final player accurately reproduced the most characters would be declared the winner.

Yun Li's heart skipped a beat.

Right after that, she was hit with an even greater piece of bad news: "Let's pass it counterclockwise, then."

Counterclockwise meant passing from left to right.

Which meant the man sitting to her left would be passing the message to her.

Did that mean she had to lean her left ear over...

The sentences designated for each team were quickly finalized, and the messaging started from one end.

Their table had Xu Qingsong initiating the chain, leaving four people between him and Yun Li. The transmission moved quickly, and as the distance closed in, her anxiety mounted right alongside it.

Although her left-ear deafness didn't impose any major disruptions on her daily life and she rarely minded it,

that didn't mean she wanted to broadcast her defect to a crowd of acquaintances.

Torn, Yun Li looked toward the man: "Um..."

The man turned his head sideways.

She opened her mouth, wanting to say, "Can I use my right ear to listen this time?", but it felt entirely too deliberate. Before she could finish, her breath deflated: "Never mind, it's nothing."

Before she knew it, the turn reached the man.

Watching the person next to him pass the message along, Yun Li slanted her body slightly to eavesdrop, yet failed to catch a single word.

The whispering ended, and the man looked toward her.

Locking eyes with him, Yun Li braced herself and leaned in close.

They held still for a few seconds.

Without moving, the man suddenly spoke up: "Come closer."

Yun Li froze: "Huh?"

The words lacked any overt emotion, but their phrasing invited misinterpretation. A few people at the dining table couldn't resist snickering quietly.

As if entirely oblivious, the man rested his elbow on the table and lazily propped up his chin. Seeming to see right through her reservations, his gaze shifted toward her right ear as he flatly repeated himself.

"Lean in closer.”