5 Requesting the Handsome Man’s Contact Information (5)

Almost two seconds passed behind you before the sound of pursuing footsteps rang out.

He had clearly not expected you to do that.

Just as you had planned, you made it off the carriage and were caught by him outside the train doors.

The only pity was that the hand reaching for you on the way over landed squarely on the bun at the top of your head.

You were yanked to a sudden halt, then stumbled and fell into his arms.

The atmosphere shifted at once from tense pursuit to something far more delicate.

You looked at the passengers who had stopped and turned back to watch. The excitement on their faces vanished, along with their eagerness to catch a thief, and each of them quickly looked away in embarrassed silence, heading toward the upward escalator.

Especially the aunt in the pink dress. The look she gave you before leaving was one that carried an unmistakably deep and layered meaning.

From her retreating back, shaking her head all the while, you could read her helpless sigh over the decline of public morality.

You tried to explain something, lifting your arm twice in helpless gestures, but in the end it fell quietly back down.

The subway whooshed away behind you and your target, taking every curious onlooker with it.

Which meant there was no eager witness left to call the police on his behalf and have you arrested.

Your plan to get his phone number while the police took your basic information had come to a tragic end.

Now, within a meter of the platform, only you and he remained, silent, chest to back.

If you could start over, you would not be Li Bai, and you would not be a thief either.

You thought your plan could still be salvaged. No one had to call the police for him; he could do it himself.

After all, he was an adult.

After all, you could not possibly eat a fifth flatbread now.

You drove your elbow into him, but he retreated more easily than you had expected, and your angry turn toward him faltered.

"What are you doing?"

You struck first, though your voice lacked the righteous confidence you had intended.

"Sorry," he said first, pointing to the phone you were clutching against your chest. "Did you accidentally take my phone?"

You had to admire how carefully he chose his words, and how considerate he was of your dignity.

Too bad you really did not need that now.

"No!" you shouted.

He seemed startled by your sudden loudness.

"Not accidentally!" you pressed on, chin lifted like some delinquent schoolgirl. "Exactly what you think!"

You saw surprise flicker in his eyes, and then he sized you up from head to toe with subtle scrutiny.

Feeling that things were going well, you continued to challenge him. "If you’ve got the guts, call the police and have them arrest me."

With that, you thrust the phone up under his nose and deliberately let it shake in your hand, full of provocation.

As you wished, he took the phone.

Recalling scenes from television dramas, you folded your arms across your chest, stepped one foot out, and swayed it back and forth while giving him a sidelong glance. He was a little tall, though, and the glare made your neck ache.

You watched him unlock the phone and operate something on the lit screen, but he never raised it to his ear.

You continued to stare at him out of the corner of your eye, and caught the motion as he switched the phone off.

"!"

He put the phone back into his trouser pocket and looked at you. "There are some rather memorable photos on it. I can’t just give it to you."

As he spoke, he took a gray folding wallet from his pocket.

You watched him open it with one hand, remove a small stack of hundred-unit bills, and hold them out to you between two slender fingers.

You were stunned. What kind of magnanimous saint had you run into here? A pure-hearted white lotus of the highest order.

You had to admit this was the moment in your four-round game that you most, most, most wanted to restart.

You had thought this was only a game. You had not really stolen his phone; you had only taken it to make him chase you, to get someone to call the police, and thus obtain his contact information.

But with a man like this, you suddenly felt ashamed.

You lowered your head, eyes fixed on the small patch of ground in front of those shabby shoes of yours, and cried out in your mind to the system: "I want to restart the game!" "Restart!" "I want to restart!"

Then he took hold of the wrist you had been holding against your chest and drew it away. Your lowered hand was lifted, and the stack of bills was placed into your palm.

You watched those long, beautiful fingers curl your own into his hand.

You felt the warmth on the back of your hand.

That warmth made you think of the flatbread that had followed you through every restart, and with mixed feelings you could only let out a long sigh.

The game did not answer your hysterical cries. You gave up.

You told yourself it was fine. So what if you failed this round and had to eat another flatbread next round?

What of five flatbreads? Gather five, and maybe you could summon a dragon.

You needed to pull yourself together and send away the good person in front of you. Reason told you that once he left the subway station, this round would end.

You, now full of conflicting emotions, desperately needed to be freed from this constraining situation.

You did not look up at him. You had to admit that, as the thief character, you could not face a kind and generous person.

Even if he was only a game character, even if he was nothing more than a string of code, you could not bear to wound a good heart.

Especially in recent years, stories kept appearing on the internet and in the media about good deeds being repaid with a bite. Every time you scrolled through the comments and saw people lamenting that "these days, if you see an old person fall in the street, you do not even dare to help them up," you always hated those ungrateful people for chilling the hearts of the good.

You did not look at him. To his still-withdrawn fingertips, you said, "Thank you."

In truth, more than thank you, you wanted to say sorry. But sorry seemed harder to get out than thank you.

You felt that just saying "thank you" was a little too pale, so you gritted your teeth and looked up, saying earnestly, "You’re a good person."

You did not know what expression you were wearing.

He seemed amused by you, a soft laugh slipping from his nose. "Do you have any paper on you?"

You did not know why he was asking that all of a sudden, so you shook your head.

You guessed he might be trying to lighten the awkward atmosphere.

You saw his hand reach into his trouser pocket again, rummage around, and produce a pen.

Still surprised that he carried a pen with him, you were taken by the other hand. He bent down, pressed the pen tip to your palm, and began writing.

You watched, stunned, as he carried out the entire sequence.

Only after he finished did you belatedly realize that your palm felt a little itchy.

When he was done, he raised his face to look at you, and your faces were nearly touching.

He curved his lips at the dazed you and said, looking straight into your eyes, "This is my number."

What had you just heard? You lifted your palm between the two of you and stared at the string of digits, blinking as you counted them one by one. Eleven digits.

He had actually given you his contact information?

No, you had actually obtained his contact information like this!

He seemed amused by you again, and with a thread of laughter in his voice said, "My family runs a company. My parents sponsor some students every year, both high school and college students. If you need anything, you can contact me."

"Sponsor who," he said, pressing down the hand you had been holding up in front of you, so that you met his gaze again without any barrier, and he winked at you, "is not a sponsor?"

That was not important. You raised your hand again and stared at the clear eleven digits in your palm, unable to believe that you had obtained his contact information just like that.

And he had written it himself for you.

You seemed to have... completed the task?

You lowered your hand, wanting to confirm it again, only to find that your target had already left.

You turned and searched around, catching sight of his side profile on the upward stairs.

He seemed to sense it and looked back at you, even giving you a wave.

You lifted your own hand and waved back.

About a minute later, after he should have left the subway station, cheerful music rang out in your ears, and colorful confetti began to fall from the sky.

You tilted your head up but could not find its source.

Looking around, you saw hurried passengers rushing to catch trains and the subway just arriving at the station, all frozen in place.

Had you really cleared the level?

You stretched out your arm and caught the colorful paper scraps drifting down.

You watched them fall one after another into your palm, covering the number he had written, quickly piling up into a small mound.

You brought the heel of your palm to your lips and blew gently.

The confetti scattered away as if scattered by a celestial maiden, and the eleven black digits appeared once more, proof of your victory.

You lowered your head and noticed a few scraps had landed on the toe of your shoe as well.

You stamped your foot, trying to shake them off.

But one triangular red piece stuck stubbornly in place, and you had no choice but to crouch down and brush it off with your fingertips.

Then you found that what came away was not only that scrap, but also the patch beside it that you had thought was a deliberate stain.

You froze for a moment, then realized what was happening and kept wiping other places.

As more of the marks came away, you suddenly understood that the shoes you were wearing were not stylishly distressed shoes at all, but genuinely dirty ones.

You had won this game not by bravery, not by wit...

but by poverty.

The light blue jeans on your legs, which you had thought were light blue, were actually a pair of faded jeans.

The T-shirt bearing the words "Be Brave" was not a clean, versatile basic, but a cheap white shirt.

Now that you looked at it, even the flatbread worth one coin that the game had brought in was proof of your poverty.

You even remembered that at the start of this round, you had wolfed down the entire flatbread in a rush.

You thought that, in his eyes, that scene must have been proof that you were starving.

So this was what the game had prepared for your clear.

Your silence, at this moment, was deafening.

You could hardly wait to see the game system now.

You were ready to greet every member of its family, one by one, without missing a single one.

The next second, as though the system had heard your thoughts, you were transported into a space all around you tinted gray-blue.

Light and shadow flowed across the gray-blue expanse like an endless sea at dusk.

The unfamiliar surroundings put you on guard, and you did not immediately launch into a tirade.

You pressed your lips together and looked around.

The space was about the same size as the fiery red one you had seen when first entering the game.

You were not sure whether the space could change colors, or whether this was an entirely new one.

You tried calling out to the system.

One second passed, then two, then three, and still there was no reply.

Suddenly, you noticed that your body was slowly lifting into the air. You stared in shock at your feet leaving the ground.

The next second, you were gathered into the embrace of a pair of huge snow-white wings, flashing with silver light.