Xingtie: My silly online friend is actually a raccoon!

Lu Ze hesitated for a moment after finally waiting for the bell to ring to signal the end of get out of class.

Seemingly having finally made up his mind, he turned his head to talk to Bangya, lowering his voice and trying to make his tone sound casual.

"Um... Bonya, which city in Russia are you from?"

Bangya was taking out her textbook for the next class from her bag when she heard his question and paused.

She turned her head, glanced at Lu Ze with her gray eyes, then looked away and continued organizing her books.

Then there is no more.

"Well……"

Lu Ze scratched his cheek, a little embarrassed.

After waiting a moment and confirming that she had no intention of paying attention to him, he could only awkwardly touch his nose and turn his head away.

Shen Zihao, sitting in the back row, witnessed the whole thing. He was so engrossed in laughing that his shoulders were shaking, and then he mouthed to Lu Ze:

"You got what you deserved, didn't you?"

Lu Ze glared at him but ignored him.

For the rest of the day, Bonya didn't say a word to anyone.

She always had an unapproachable demeanor, either quietly reading a book or resting with her eyes closed on the table, as if the noise around her had nothing to do with her.

Lu Ze is not a particularly good social person, but he is not socially anxious either.

But facing this new deskmate, he felt for the first time that he wasn't a good conversationalist.

This is because the other party doesn't give him a chance to chat at all.

The bell rang to signal the end of the last class in the afternoon, finally bringing the day's classes to a close.

Students left the classroom one after another, with those participating in club activities walking in twos and threes, and the corridor was soon filled with noisy footsteps and laughter.

Lu Ze tidied up the messy desk and was about to leave when he caught a glimpse of Bangya walking out of the back door of the classroom alone. She wasn't heading towards the dormitory area or the main road at the school gate, but rather she was going around the teaching building and heading towards the side gate of the school.

That direction... seems to lead to the shopping street.

Lu Ze hesitated for a second, then followed.

He didn't try to hide his whereabouts, but he didn't get too close either. He just followed her at a leisurely pace, keeping a distance of about twenty meters.

Bonya walked slowly, her Roman curls bouncing merrily behind her head, and her earphone cord dangling from her school uniform collar, as if she were listening to music.

She crossed the intersection of the commercial street, turned into a side street, and finally stopped in front of an arcade.

Lu Ze looked up at the signboard. It was an arcade that had been open for quite some time. The storefront wasn't large, and some of the neon lights were no longer working, but familiar arcade sounds and button clicks could be faintly heard from inside.

Bonya pushed open the door and went inside.

Lu Ze stood at the door, thought for a moment, and then followed him inside.

The lighting inside the arcade was much dimmer than outside, with rows of arcade machines neatly arranged, their screens flashing with colorful lights.

There was a dance machine in the corner, and two girls who looked like junior high school students were dancing enthusiastically on it.

Several boys were engaged in a fierce battle in front of the fighting machines in the middle.

Bonya walked straight to the innermost machine and sat down in front of it.

Lu Ze glanced at the screen from afar. It was a zombie-themed shooting game with an outdated art style, but the combat feel and special effects were still pretty good.

He went to the counter to exchange some game tokens, then casually walked over to the machine, creating the impression of a chance encounter.

"What a coincidence! So you're here too, Bangya!"

Bonya looked up at Lu Ze.

She then looked away and focused on the game on the screen, skillfully manipulating the character and expertly blowing off a zombie's head.

Lu Ze had already gotten used to her lack of interest in anything.

From the moment she entered the classroom this morning until now, apart from the sentence she said during her self-introduction, she hasn't spoken a single word to anyone.

She would never speak if she could resolve the issue by nodding or shaking her head.

Lu Ze didn't say anything more, but instead put two game coins into the machine's coin slot.

This machine supports two-player cooperative gameplay, and the prompt "Player 2 Join" immediately pops up on the screen.

He picked up the controller on the other side, which was shaped like a submachine gun, selected a character, and joined her game team.

Bonya glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, but did not stop him.

Games start.

The zombies in the first few levels weren't too difficult, and Bonya's controls were very skillful, showing she's a veteran player.

She moved steadily, had excellent marksmanship, and allocated her ammunition wisely, allowing her to handle each wave of zombies with ease.

Then came the boss battle in the fourth level.

A gigantic mutated zombie appeared at the far end of the screen, with an absurdly high health pool, and its attack range covered most of the screen.

This is the strategy of arcades: put out a few easy levels first to attract people to play.

Then, after two or three levels, the difficulty suddenly increases dramatically, since the arcade can't let you play all day with just two game coins.

Bonya's character was cornered while dodging attacks, and her health was already low.

Just as she was preparing to withstand a wave of damage and force a health exchange—a series of combo notifications suddenly appeared in the upper right corner of the screen.

Lu Ze's character flanked from the side, firing a series of precise shots that destroyed the BOSS's weak point armor. He then slid to dodge the sweeping attack, and after getting up, fired another burst of bullets at the same weak point.

The BOSS's health bar dropped at a visible rate, and in its stunned state, it didn't even have a chance to fight back before collapsing to the ground amidst a series of explosion effects.

The words "STAGE CLEAR" popped up on the screen, giving it a rating of S.

At this moment, Bonya slowly turned her head, and for the first time, a different look appeared in her gray eyes as she looked at Lu Ze.

It was a wonderful feeling, as if the two of them had met all over again.

She stared at Lu Ze for about two seconds, then turned back and silently pressed the start button for the next level.

But she did not leave his team.

That evening, they completed all the levels of the game together.

Bonya still rarely speaks, but Luze noticed that she would unconsciously smile when he made a brilliant play.

When he made a mistake, she would make a very soft, almost inaudible "tsk".

When the game ended and the results screen appeared, Bangya stood up with a satisfied expression and turned to walk towards the arcade entrance.

Lu Ze thought she would leave without saying a word.

But as she reached the door, she suddenly stopped and turned her head to the side.

"……goodbye."

The sound was very soft, yet it clearly reached Lu Ze's ears.

Then she pushed open the door and stepped into the night.

Lu Ze sat in front of the machine, watching her figure disappear into the light outside the door, and it took him several seconds to come back to his senses.

She actually took the initiative to talk to me.