My Classmate Is 200 Million Years Old - CHAPTER 093 ♦ SUBURB

The Lunar New Year atmosphere is no longer as lively as it had been in the past. Regardless, it was still considered bustling to someone who’s never celebrated this occasion before, like Xuan Mo.

As soon as Xuan Mo’s mother divorced, she decided to head back to stay with her parents. Xuan Mo’s maternal grandparents had been on vacation at a coastal city for a prolonged period of time. Apparently they head out to travel often and lived happily, hence were incredibly healthy. This year however, they learnt that their daughter had left the Lu family and was heading back to “celebrate”?

Both her grandparents had houses back in the rural side of H city. Since they were heading back, they evidently hoped to spend the new year happily at the countryside. When it was nearing the 30th, Xuan Mo’s mother started packing with her as they prepared to spend the new year with her maternal grandparents at the countryside.

Naturally, Xuan Mo was curious. From her memories, new year meant having reunion dinners, receiving red packets, sometimes watching in dismal when she saw her brother and his friends head out to play, call Yi Hai Lan, and the sentence he’d always say to her was to wish her happy Lunar New Year and ask her to look out for her health.

She probably won’t have figured that this year, Yi Hai Lan would be the one calling and looking at his phone is dismal.

The train ticket they bought was 4am; it was already 8am when they reached her grandparents’ place. No one was there to pick them up, not her grandparents, first uncle and second uncle nor their wives. Apparently they’d head out to visit their relatives in the neighbouring villages.

Both her uncles stayed at Mashan* Town, so her elder cousins also lived and studied there, and were welcoming towards Xuan Mo when she visited.

* 马山镇 = horse mountain town

Her elder cousin (male)* was three years her senior, and was currently in his third year in high school. Her elder cousin (female)* was two years older and was in her second year in high school.

* in Chinese 表哥 = maternal elder male cousin; 表姐 = maternal elder female cousin; unfortunately in English, the word ‘cousin’ isn’t gendered nor does it indicate whether it is maternal/paternal

Xuan Mo’s mother went head to unpack their things in the room she and Xuan Mo was staying in. Ma Yue and Ma Ting Ting volunteered to bring Xuan Mo around to take a look at the place.

Xuan Mo’s mother had always been very busy so she’s never brought Xuan Mo back to celebrate new year. After marrying Lu Jia Hua, in order to nurture their father-daughter relationship, her mother had no choice but to stay in the city to celebrate new year with them. This time, Xuan Mo’s mother finally had the chance to bring her back.

To Ma Yue and Ma Ting Ting, there wasn’t much to see in this small town, but they still brought Xuan Mo around to see the market place where the entire street was filled with sellers selling new year goods, children running all over the place as they played with firecrackers, and the sound of squawking chicken and duck; everyone was deep in the spirit of celebration.

Ma Yue bought a box of firecrackers and played with it with Ma Ting Ting as they walked, chatting in their hometown dialect. Once in a while, they’d switch to mandarin and ask Xuan Mo some questions, but they were mostly about where she studied, what’s there to eat at H city, what’s fun at H city and the likes.

Evidently, they travelled to the city often to play. Their father was a contractor, so to a certain extent, they fared better, economically, than some of the children that grew up in the city even.

They walked past the market, and made a round around the lake in town. It was in the middle of winter so it wasn’t fun to spin around in the fields. They couldn’t find anything fun to do so they could only stand by the river and watch the flowing water.

“Let’s go to the internet cafe.” Ma Yue suggested.

Ma Ting Ting immediately agreed.

Xuan Mo sighed internally, was internet cafe the only fun thing they could think of…

She suddenly recalled the text Ah La Lei sent her, and told her to text him if she was free in the afternoon. He’d wanted to team up and play a knockout round in the afternoon.

And so, the three of them headed to the only internet cafe in town. Xuan Mo felt like dying the moment she stepped inside. The place flooded with a thick stench of cigarettes mixed with all sort of strange odour. There were all sorts of people inside. What shocked her even more was that she saw a Caleian?!

The intensely coloured body hair, the strange and colourful clothing, and, huh, but Caleians didn’t like to colour the area around their eyes dark, and they didn’t like to wear tattered clothes with holes in it…

“Heh! It’s brother Bang!” Ma Yue seemed elated to see the guy that looked like a Caleian. Just as he was about to bring Ma Ting Ting and Xuan Mo over to greet him, Xuan Mo ignored him, paid ten dollars on her own and sat herself down in front of a computer.

She’s heard that proper internet cafes required you to display your IC. The one Lu Yu Chen brought her to was owned by Ah La Lei so they didn’t need to; the Qi Mei La internet cafe was Qi Mei La’s territory so they didn’t need to either. Evidently… this was not a proper or legitimate internet cafe.

But, this made things all the more easier.

Ma Yue, Ma Ting Ting, Brother Bang and other Caleian-looking youths chatted, as they did, all sorts of vulgarities flew around. Xuan Mo frowned, trying her best to avoid the germs that had landed so accurately on her mouse and keyboard. After switching the computer on, she logged into IS, a voice-calling application used when gaming.

As expected, everyone was there and they were chatting randomly in the chatroom. Ah La Lei, Lu Yu Chen and Tan Lu En were all there. When they saw that Xuan Mo had logged on, they cheered before hollering to go battle.

Xuan Mo smiled, saying: “It’s a little noisy where I am, remember to listen out for my instructions later.”

“Yes sir!” Hollers sounded.

It was 29th today, so regardless whether you worked or studied, you’d be free today, so pretty much everyone in the team was present. Over thirty of them had voiced that they want to spectate, and so, all of them logged on to the interface. The chatters in the internet cafe had quietened down too. That brother Bang pointed at Xuan Mo and said something. Ma Yue replied him in cheekily and the two of them laughed; Ma Ting Ting on the other hand wasn’t so happy.

Xuan Mo entered the interface and joined the voice chat to wait for their opponents.

By now, everyone would have played a few knockout rounds. On some days, they would play four to five rounds, now, they only had two more rounds left before they complete their twenty. They were ranked high up on the leaderboard after winning all eighteen battles they’ve participated in. At least in regionals in China, as long as they win all twenty battles, they were able to enter the elimination round just with the number of wins.

Ah La Lei had completely given up on trying to determine who the team leader was, nor did he cared. Though they could make up a loss with the points earned, Ah La Lei now would not participate in any battles if Xuan Mo wasn’t present. Though he’d been mocked about having to wait for Xuan Mo even though he’s the team lead, he didn’t give a damn.

Eighteen wins wasn’t something easily accomplishable. Only a handful of teams, less than ten in fact, would be able to achieve such a feat. Hence, this was the reason as to why it was so important to accumulate points. When a few teams have won the same number of battles, the points they’ve accumulated would determine their fate.

Ah La Lei was euphoric when he realised that their Thunder team was definitely going to make it into the elimination round. And so, when realised he didn’t feel at all pressured when he prepped for the next few battles… aye, hold on, something’s not right…

“Ahhhh! It’s Mid-Def team!” Howls ricocheted within the voice chat. Everyone could see the information on their next opponent from the team leader’s shared screen — Mid-Def team that had won all twelve of their games so far.