The words "The other party is typing..." appeared on the screen, then quickly disappeared.
Lin Jing held her phone and waited for about five minutes, but still didn't receive a reply from Sheng Kuang.
He had seen her message, but was too lazy to reply?
Lin Jing's WeChat messages had notifications, but she couldn't help but frequently unlock her screen to look at Sheng Kuang's avatar.
Half an hour later, Lin Jing couldn't hold back and sent Sheng Kuang another message.
Xiao Jing Jiang: Are you home yet?
This time, no one even bothered to read the message.
Sheng Kuang hadn't replied to Lin Jing's message by nine o'clock that evening.
She actually had a plan for how to handle this. She imagined herself acting as usual, pretending nothing happened, and asking him, "Which team are you scrimming against today?"
Influenced by Jiang Wan, she was really afraid of being given the silent treatment.
When Jiang Wan gave her the cold shoulder, she mostly suffered in silence, not knowing how to respond.
As a result, even though she had an idea now, she hesitated to act.
In reality, it had only been a few hours since Sheng Kuang saw her message and didn't reply, not even a full night. It couldn't really be called the silent treatment, but she couldn't help but become anxious.
The frequency with which she tapped on Sheng Kuang's avatar increased, and she could clearly feel herself panicking.
Lin Jing felt that if she continued like this, she would lose her composure. To distract herself, she flipped over a test paper, shoved her phone into her desk drawer, and started doing problems.
She hadn't written two problems before she started spacing out.
When she came to her senses again, she had drawn several "Sheng Kuang"s on her test paper.
The phone in her drawer suddenly rang. She quickly dropped her pen and took out her phone. It was a spam call.
She slumped her shoulders in disappointment, stared at her phone for a while, thinking about throwing it back into the drawer, but then decided to tap into WeChat again.
She summoned her courage and started typing out the topic she had thought of. But halfway through, she remembered seeing Jiang Wan reply to others in a group chat but not to her, and remembering how Jiang Wan interacted with others on social media but ignored her. She instantly deflated.
That feeling of knowing you're being ignored through your phone was too painful, too awkward.
She had already been very humble in front of Jiang Wan. She really didn't want the same situation to happen with Sheng Kuang.
Lin Jing pursed her lips and deleted the line of text she had typed, character by character.
She tapped into her social media feed and happened to see that Jiang Zui had updated his status.
Lin Jing replied under Jiang Zui's post: "Is the scrim over?"
Jiang Zui replied instantly: "It ended long ago."
Lin Jing opened her mouth and, as if casually, continued to reply: "What are you guys doing?"
Jiang Zui, being quite honest, replied a minute later with a long string of comments under her post: "Jing boss is playing a trio with me and He Wang. Qin Yu is in a scrim, and the coach and Xin Ge are analyzing data."
Sheng Kuang was conspicuously absent.
Lin Jing paused for two seconds and replied: "And?"
Jiang Zui: "And there's no 'and'."
Lin Jing replied with an "oh" and was about to exit her feed when Chen Jing suddenly replied to her under Jiang Zui's post: "Lin Meimei, want to play a five-player game? We're one short right now."
Lin Jing glanced at the time. It was almost her bedtime, but she didn't refuse and readily replied to Chen Jing: "Sure, sure."
Lin Jing entered the game and was immediately pulled into a room by Chen Jing.
Chen Jing kept urging her to turn on voice chat, so Lin Jing did.
They were all in the training room. Several people were gathered together, and it was quite noisy with their back-and-forth chatter.
Midway through the game, the training room door was pushed open, and Lan Bowen's voice came through: "Come here, Sheng Kuang, take a look at this data to see if it's correct."
Hearing Sheng Kuang's name, Lin Jing's hands, which were controlling the steering wheel, paused.
"Lin Meimei!" Chen Jing called out to her.
Lin Jing snapped back to reality and saw her screen go black.
Sheng Kuang didn't say much, but Lin Jing could vaguely hear Lan Bowen talking to Sheng Kuang through the exchange between Chen Jing and the others.
Lin Jing held her phone and thought for a moment. When the game ended, she said, "Do you guys want to get some late-night snacks?"
Chen Jing: "What? Are you treating us?"
"Yes, treating you." She paused and then asked, "What do you guys want to eat? Is that barbecue place we used to go to often okay?"
Chen Jing didn't stand on ceremony and immediately said it was fine.
Lin Jing said "oh" and clicked on the app to order. As she ordered, she asked everyone if they wanted spicy food and about their preferences. When she got to the end, she saw ice jelly and asked if anyone wanted it. Several people agreed, except for Sheng Kuang. Lin Jing pursed her lips and finally asked him, "Ask Sheng Kuang, does he want some?"
The next second, Chen Jing shouted, "Sheng Kuang, Lin Meimei is asking if you want ice jelly."
Sheng Kuang didn't say anything.
Lin Jing held her phone, her heart sinking to the bottom.
She scrolled on the screen, unwilling to give up. "Then ask him, if not ice jelly, does he want mango pomelo sago?"
Chen Jing relayed the message: "Sheng Kuang, Lin Meimei is asking, how about mango pomelo sago?"
Sheng Kuang still didn't say anything.
Lin Jing opened her mouth. "Then, then..."
Just as she was about to struggle to speak, she heard footsteps from Chen Jing's side, and then she heard Sheng Kuang's voice: "Tell her to come ask me herself."
Chen Jing: "Huh?"
Although Sheng Kuang said this to Chen Jing, he clearly moved closer to Chen Jing's phone and said clearly: "Tell her, she lit the fire, she needs to put it out herself."