The phone, apart from the game's sound effects, remained silent for a long time.
Lin Jing's eyes were glued to the spectacular scene in the game. After she spoke those two sentences, she saw him pause in the jungle for a few seconds, and then the speaker icon behind his avatar lit up.
He must be in the training room, and it was a bit noisy around him, with Chen Jing's voice being the loudest, as if he were bickering with Qin Yu.
Lin Jing held her breath, her fingertips unconsciously tightening around the phone.
After about ten seconds, the noisy sounds suddenly disappeared.
Sheng Kuang didn't say anything and muted his mic again.
Lin Jing was so confused by Sheng Kuang's reaction that her mind couldn't keep up. She thought he would be happy when she said that, but now it seemed that wasn't the case.
He seemed even unhappier.
Lin Jing slowly swallowed, "You..."
She had only said one word when a line of text appeared on the screen.
yLs·
Lin Jing moved her lips, swallowed the rest of what she was going to say, and replied with an "oh." After a two-second pause, she also muted her mic.
Although Sheng Kuang hadn't used voice chat these past two days, he would occasionally give her instructions in the game. But after this, there was no communication between them in the game, as if they were two strangers with no connection.
This atmosphere made Lin Jing feel suffocated.
She watched Sheng Kuang earnestly operating in the game, and her mood began to sink.
Just as she felt a heavy stone pressing on her chest, making it impossible to breathe, the opposing team's crystal was destroyed.
Before the crystal could fully explode, Sheng Kuang's call came through.
The constantly vibrating phone made her palm tingle. She looked at the incoming call on the screen, and after a while, she took out her earphones, put them in her ears, and answered.
Before Lin Jing could speak, Sheng Kuang on the other end of the line asked directly, "Why didn't you submit it?"
Lin Jing opened her mouth, unsure how to answer.
It was quiet on Sheng Kuang's end. He had probably left the training room and returned to his room.
Neither of them spoke, remaining silent through the phone.
After what felt like either tens of seconds or even dozens, Sheng Kuang let out a soft sigh on the phone, "I'm sorry."
"..."
Lin Jing was stunned. Clutching her phone, she didn't know how to react for a moment.
She looked at the half-finished drawing on her brightly lit iPad, and after a few seconds of silence, she opened her mouth, "Why... why are you suddenly apologizing to me out of the blue?"
"What do you think?" Sheng Kuang's voice was a little low, as if he were regretting something. "I was quite childish."
"...Huh?" Lin Jing blinked her eyes, looking very confused. "What was childish?"
Sheng Kuang waited for a moment. Seeing her still in a daze, he sighed again, this time with more annoyance than before. "I just felt like a terrible person."
The impatience in his tone grew even stronger. "I was just feeling a bit down, and because of that, the girl who was feeling down abandoned her bright future."
"..."
Lin Jing opened her mouth, then opened it again. Her emotions became extremely complicated in that instant.
She thought he would be happy if she told him she wasn't submitting the exchange student application, but unexpectedly, he became even more displeased.
She didn't actually want to be an exchange student, nor did she believe that being an exchange student was the only path to a bright future.
The exchange student program was Jiang Wan's idea. As soon as she entered university, Jiang Wan had started preparing for her to become an exchange student, purely to make Jiang Wan happy.
Over the years, she had done many things according to Jiang Wan's wishes. For example, she liked to paint, but Jiang Wan thought painting had no future, so it remained her hobby.
Her preferences didn't matter; as long as Jiang Wan was happy and satisfied, that was enough. Even when she received her admission letter, and Jiang Wan told her she absolutely had to go abroad as an exchange student, to see the wider world, she had nodded without a second thought.
She hadn't even asked herself if she wanted to go abroad.
It wasn't until she met Sheng Kuang, and until a few days ago when He Lin told Sheng Kuang in front of him that the exchange student application had been sent to her email, and until two days ago when He Lin urged her to fill out and send the application to him over dinner, that she started to think.
She realized she had been living according to Jiang Wan's wishes all along, without any of her own ideas.
She actually didn't want to go abroad at all. She wanted to stay at the university and complete her studies diligently. She felt that the teaching resources in China were sufficient for her to improve, and that times had changed. The country was strong enough that she didn't need to go abroad to prove her excellence.
She admitted that her decision not to submit the application was, to some extent, related to Sheng Kuang. But she hadn't done it solely because of Sheng Kuang; it was because of Sheng Kuang that she started to think about what she truly wanted.
Lin Jing blinked her eyes and brought her thoughts back. "Do you... have a mirror around?"
Her question was a bit strange, and Sheng Kuang paused. "Huh?"
Lin Jing said slowly, "If you have a mirror, please go and look at it."
Sheng Kuang thought the girl's mind seemed a bit off, but he still humored her and actually went to look in the mirror. "I looked. And then?"
"And then," Lin Jing said expressionlessly, "didn't you notice that the words 'narcissistic' were written all over your face?"
Sheng Kuang: "..."