After managing to fool Wu Tianqi, Li Yang immediately began to recall, when exactly did the daughter of the richest man die.
Memory is generally vague; he knew what happened, but pinpointing a specific time was still very difficult.
After Wu Tianqi left, one of his roommates returned and said to Li Yang, "Li Yang, can you help us snag a few computers at Geek Internet Cafe around four o'clock?"
Li Yang asked in confusion, "Why not go to Xinhua Internet Cafe? It's only a little over 500 meters from the school."
The person shook his head and said, "The computers at Xinhua Internet Cafe are too crappy. Geek Internet Cafe just opened, and recently they're having a promotion. The overnight fee is particularly cheap; we're just afraid we won't get a machine."
Li Yang's memory started to explode.
One day after staying overnight at the internet cafe, he seemed to have heard about someone who drowned.
It happened near that Geek Internet Cafe because the cafe is located by the river.
But he was in a hurry to get back to school to deliver breakfast to Wang Manqi and wasn't interested in the incident, so he didn't pay much attention to it.
This was something so trivial that it would likely stay buried in memory for a lifetime if not reminded.
He smiled and agreed, "Sure, I'll save you a spot later. That place doesn't require ID, right?"
He was underage...
"It's a new internet cafe, who would go there if they demand IDs. Don't worry, I already checked it out. Just go to the front desk and ask them to give you a slip; they have plenty of spare IDs."
"That's fine, leave it to me."
...
Li Yang calculated and figured it was probably some Saturday within the last two weeks.
Because he didn't have time to stay overnight on other days.
During school, the dorm manager takes roll call every day, except Saturday night, since many boarders would choose to go home, and you could easily make up an excuse to sneak out.
Though he would cut classes here and there, he generally picked on teachers who weren't nosy. However, when it came to Liu Dayou's classes, he'd be more active than anyone else.
For example, during morning reading, he was absent very few times, and even if he went to the classroom just to sleep, he'd still go.
With only four weeks left before the college entrance exam, he definitely didn't stay overnight in that last week when the whole town was checking internet cafes. All the cafe owners had been instructed not to let them in through the back door.
Including tonight, there were only three possible time points.
He decided to visit on all three occasions.
After grabbing a bite at the cafeteria, he received a message from Jiang Banxia.
Due to the limitations of voice communication, Jiang Banxia mostly explained the chemistry part.
Because that didn't require looking at diagrams, the text description was still precise.
Physics and math needed some diagrams, like force analysis and auxiliary lines.
Li Yang sneakily included some personal additions, but so far nothing had stumped Jiang Banxia, which meant that if those questions appeared in the college entrance exam, Jiang Banxia could easily handle them.
Truly impressive! Being first in the grade is no exaggeration.
However, math and physics still needed to be discussed face to face.
Otherwise, if questioned in the future, would you really claim to have learned just by a few exchanged lines remotely?
It's like when you haven't had any contact, and you claim the child is yours.
After four o'clock, he set out.
Though the distance to Geek Internet Cafe was about two kilometers, for a student, this distance was just right.
It wasn't that he couldn't afford a taxi, but that walking was more cost-effective.
To save money, after arriving at Geek Internet Cafe, he first took a glance and saw there were plenty of empty computers. Around 5:30, he went to the counter and opened up five computers.
With people not yet arriving, he took the rare chance to enjoy a game.
No need to guess; tonight would definitely be a five-internet-cafe-sit, they'd never win.
The entire internet cafe was almost full-screen LOL, and coincidentally, he had a bronze account.
He was bronze purely because his roommate was so bad that they often borrowed his account to experience the high-level gold rounds, and as a result, he got pushed back to bronze.
And the reason his roommate was bronze was that the system's lowest rank was bronze.
After staying overnight, he could typically rank up to gold; he had even reached master level in a past life.
Later he heard there were many girls in mobile games, and he was also good at them. After making the leaderboard, girls indeed tried to flirt.
Just as he was ready to act, news of the bioweapon mother hit, and it scared him off immediately, making him decisively quit.
Played a satisfying match, completely dominating.
It was like playing the classic version; originally there was no desire for this game anymore.
No wonder nostalgic versions of outdated games could still make money.
After his roommates arrived, he played with four idiots for a while, and then Wu Tianqi messaged him.
"Fellow Daoist, where are you? Come, we need a forward!"
This message had been sent about ten minutes earlier; back then, he was with the four idiots and really couldn't spare a hand to reply.
By this time, Wu Tianqi was bombarding him with messages.
"Weren't you going to study seriously? Where are you?"
"Are you snooping around about my aunt's business? Damn, I even spoke well of you in front of Jiang Banxia, saying how you study earnestly in the dorm."
"Give me your location in three counts, or I'll call Jiang Banxia."
"Fellow Daoist Li, you don't want Jiang Banxia to know about this, do you?"
"Jiang Banxia is much better than my aunt. My aunt is old and has nothing besides some money."
"I heard she had many boyfriends abroad; you probably wouldn't like that..."
"Don't tell me I really have to call you uncle..."
...
He sent dozens of messages without getting a reply from Li Yang, and Wu Tianqi visibly grew more anxious.
When Li Yang picked up his phone, he saw a message from Wu Tianqi.
"Li Yang, it's me, Jiang Banxia. Where are you?"
Li Yang laughed upon seeing this, and replied, "Fellow Daoist Wu, stop pretending."
First, at this time Jiang Banxia would surely have gone home.
Second, Jiang Banxia would never ask where he was, but would only discuss math problems with him.
But Wu Tianqi seemed to be into the role and said, "I'm not Wu Tianqi; I am Jiang Banxia, Xiaxia..."
Li Yang: "Really?"
"Of course it's true; I just happened to run into Wu Tianqi at the basketball court and grabbed his phone. Where are you?"
Li Yang: "I had something to do, so I went out for a bit. But you're acting a little odd today. You specifically told me before that you'd always send 'dad' as a code word before deleting the chat record. Today, without the code, I thought it was that guy Wu Tianqi pretending."
After he sent that, the response frequency suddenly disappeared.
Li Yang didn't wait any longer because if he didn't save the game with the four idiots, they would surely lose.
A few minutes later, after he stabilized the game's situation, he picked up his phone again.
And then saw a message had appeared in the chat box.
"Dad, where are you?"