After the preliminaries came another weekend.
Lin Nan used to spend weekends lying in bed scrolling on his phone since he had no computer to play with. Now he had a computer, but he was still listlessly lying in bed.
He needed to conserve his energy for tonight's second round of preliminaries. Though there were only a few dozen teams registered in total, so theoretically just two matches should be enough to determine all the qualifying teams.
He used to love lying on his stomach with his legs up while playing on his phone, but unfortunately, since he was currently developing, lying on his stomach would only cause waves of pain in his chest. So now he could only wrap himself in blankets and lean against the wall, with his feet sticking out from under the covers to rest on the bed rail.
Due to National Day disrupting their sleep schedules, no one in the dorm had slept well all week. Finally reaching the weekend, they all gradually woke up around noon.
"Nan Nan, why are your feet so small?" Tu Junhui, who had just woken up, wouldn't miss any opportunity to tease Lin Nan. He lay on his side observing Lin Nan's direction.
"Size 37," Lin Nan answered without lifting his head.
Since Lin Nan was mainly short in stature, his feet weren't large either, which meant he usually had to buy shoes online, otherwise he could only buy women's shoes.
"Truly worthy of being our dorm's flower—even your feet are delicate and exquisite," Tu Junhui continued teasing.
But thinking about it, how did Lin Nan's feet manage to be even more delicate than those foot fetish beauty pictures of girls online? He stared straight at those two feet, then finally helplessly lowered his head to continue reading his novel.
He was afraid that looking too much might bend his preferences. Nowadays he was trying to learn from Chen Yao's example of not going shirtless or wearing only underwear in the dorm, precisely because spending time with Lin Nan made him unconsciously treat him like a girl.
Xiong Da, on the other hand, didn't seem to have such thoughts and still ran around showing his ribcage after showering every day.
Maybe that's what having a big heart meant?
"By the way, Xiong Da, did you change the cat's food this morning?" Lin Nan suddenly poked his head up to ask Xiong Da, who had pulled an all-nighter below.
Cola's living supplies—food, drinks, toys—were basically split evenly among the four roommates, but Lin Nan and Chen Yao paid the larger share. After all, they were the first two to agree to keeping the cat, while Tu Junhui and the others only reluctantly nodded after being persuaded.
However, they were just students and couldn't afford premium cat food brands like Orijen, so the cat food expenses were barely acceptable to Lin Nan.
Adding cat litter and canned food, Cola's monthly expenses were only about 300 yuan. Although Lin Nan was a bit poor, scraping together 100 yuan from his own meals wasn't too big a problem—he just had to be extra careful not to overspend on food and drink.
Most of the cat toys were homemade by Lin Nan: cardboard box scratching posts, cardboard box cat beds, tree branches found around school that were disinfected and turned into climbing frames.
Basically using local materials, almost anything could become Cola's toy. The only issue was that the tree branch took up a corner that used to store miscellaneous luggage, making the entire dorm considerably more cramped.
"Fed him early this morning and scooped the litter too. When you go downstairs for lunch, take it down with you—I bagged it up and put it in the bathroom," Xiong Da was quite reliable.
It was already noon, but Lin Nan still had no appetite. He nodded and continued curling up in bed with his phone.
Before having a computer, Lin Nan was always thinking about buying one. Now that he had a computer and had even downloaded a bunch of games using Chen Yao's account, he somehow had no desire to play them.
He'd already wasted time downloading games—he couldn't waste his life playing them too, right?
Lin Nan had never been addicted to games. It was mainly that school life was sometimes truly boring, so games served as entertainment. As for reading books, that was impossible—he'd never read books in this lifetime.
"Are you guys going to watch the Honor of Kings competition next Tuesday?" Tu Junhui suddenly asked.
"Don't play that game."
Although the game was very popular now, aside from playing together when bored in class, everyone in Lin Nan's dorm usually played their own games.
Lin Nan yawned and turned to look at Chen Yao's bed.
Since their beds were right next to each other, they slept head-to-head.
Chen Yao was already awake, staring at the ceiling with drowsy eyes, clearly still a bit dazed from just waking up.
"How about we find a buffet to go out and eat together today?" Seeing Lin Nan's gaze, he casually suggested.
"I still need to save money to buy cat food and litter for Cola." Although he said this, his uncle had recently given Lin Nan another sum of money, so his living expenses weren't actually tight.
Just as they were talking, Lin Nan's phone suddenly rang.
He looked at the caller ID in confusion, then answered: "Mom, what's up?"
Lin Nan's parents rarely called him. They usually chatted on WeChat, though he didn't use WeChat much either, so he often didn't respond for two or three days.
"Hello, is this Lin Nan?" His mother sounded worried on the other end. "Your dad was in a car accident. We might not be able to send you living expenses for a while."
"Huh?"
He was instantly stunned.
Both his parents were truck drivers. After the recent incident where an overloaded truck collapsed an overpass, they didn't even dare overload anymore. After driving trucks for ten to twenty years, they should be considered law-abiding...
"He ran a yellow light and got hit by a car. Can't blame anyone else." His mother's tone gradually became calmer. "You don't need to come back—I've got things at home. Just try to find some part-time work during this period. If you run out of money for food, ask your uncle to lend you some first."
"???"
Lin Nan listened to the voice on the other end in complete bewilderment.
"He should be okay, right?" He didn't actually have a great relationship with his father, but still asked another question.
"He's alright. We have money at home to treat him."
Since his mother said so, Lin Nan reluctantly felt relieved.
Actually, car accidents were something that could easily happen to anyone around you. Some were acts of heaven—you could be sitting at home and still get hit. Some were due to poor traffic law awareness among parents and grandparents' generations. Most wouldn't result in serious harm... but Lin Nan had never imagined such a thing would happen to his own family.
He just wanted to comfort his mother as much as possible, but didn't know what to say.
"I'll hang up now." His mother's tone didn't sound too sorrowful, and she quickly hung up.
But Lin Nan looked troubled. His spirits, already low from too much pressure, immediately became even more deflated.
In fact, his parents could now only be considered living together for convenience. The main reason they hadn't divorced was mostly due to his existence as their child. He could understand his mother's somewhat cold attitude.
You had to know that the current divorce rate across all age groups was around fifty percent. Most of these were couples from the old era who were victimized by arranged marriages and forced to live together, but now that social attitudes had opened up, divorces naturally increased.
"What's wrong?" Chen Yao noticed that the same kind of worry from before National Day had appeared on Lin Nan's face again.
"No money to live on..." Lin Nan sighed deeply. Although he was somewhat worried about his father, he didn't want to show it to others.