Chapter 57: 057 Xiao Tang’s Puzzle-solving Exploration
At noon, Tang Hexing woke up. The first second he opened his eyes, he fell into bewilderment and confusion.
He saw a strange white cat lying on him, sleeping soundly… Wait, where did this cat come from?
He looked around, and sure enough, it was his dormitory. But besides the little hamster Wang Heng kept, who else in the dorm kept pets? Though on closer inspection, this cat was quite cute, and its white fur was fairly clean.
Tang Hexing didn’t wake the little cat, set it aside to let it sleep, sat up, and then became even more confused.
He slept on the lower bunk, with his shoes right under the bed, reachable with a stretch of his foot. But looking down now, both slippers were there, but of the sports shoes for going out, only the left one remained.
Where did the right sports shoe go?
Tang Hexing patted his head, finally remembering… Yesterday was Saturday, everyone went to the social gathering together, played until very late, and he seemed to have drunk some alcohol. Then what? What happened next?
He patted his head again, but no matter what, he couldn’t remember.
The feeling of memory loss made Tang Hexing somewhat panicked.
He put on his slippers and got off the bed. Looking around, the dormitory was empty and quiet. No shouting from Fu Hanwen playing together, no silly laughter from Wang Ke watching loli anime, no sound of Wang Heng typing on the keyboard or flipping books—it was so quiet it felt unaccustomed.
Where did the roommates go?
Tang Hexing suddenly remembered a movie he had seen before, where the protagonist had split personality: a normal person by day, a murderous demon by night, and his daytime main personality knew nothing about it until one day he dug up the backyard and found piles of corpses… Thinking of this, Tang Hexing couldn’t help but shiver.
He should be a normal person, right?
It was just some alcohol—surely not enough to awaken the demon side, right?
The more he let his imagination run wild, the more panicked he felt.
Tang Hexing took a deep breath, telling himself to stay calm. From a reasonable perspective, the roommates must have gone out for something… He checked his mobile phone again—yep, noon twelve o’clock to the canteen for lunch, that made sense.
The phone’s battery was almost dead, so he walked to his desk to find the charging cable. But the moment he picked up the charging cable, he was confused again.
Why was the charging cable’s connector plugged into a piece of chocolate?
It was a Smooth brand chocolate, its wrapper already torn open, lying on the desk looking pitiful, forcibly inserted by that charging cable…
Tang Hexing pulled out the charging cable, looked at the connector full of chocolate crumbs inside, and his mouth twitched twice.
“Can this cable still be used? Probably not, right?”
So, what exactly happened last night?
At that moment, the little white cat finally woke up. It stretched, jumped down from the bed, walked over with elegant steps, rubbed against his pant leg, then lay down in the corner against the wall, curling into a ball.
Tang Hexing glared at the kitty: “Why are you so skilled at this! Am I your master or something that you’re rubbing against me like that!”
The kitty glanced at him and ignored him.
Tang Hexing looked down at himself—he was still wearing yesterday’s clothes, neither taken off nor changed. Sniffing the collar, he could still smell alcohol. So, he really did drink too much, huh?
If he was drunk, mistaking chocolate for his phone and forcibly plugging in the charging cable wasn’t hard to understand. But there were still two problems unexplained—the where did this cat come from? And where was his sports shoe?
Just as Tang Hexing was at a loss, the roommates came back.
Wang Heng opened the door, with Fu Hanwen and Wang Ke following behind. Wang Ke was carrying a plastic bag with meal inside.
“Oh, you’re awake!” Wang Heng smiled, “Do you remember what happened last night?”
Tang Hexing shook his head bewilderedly.
Fu Hanwen winked and said, “First confirm, are you really sober?”
Wang Ke held up his index and middle fingers: “How many is this?”
“That’s two!” Tang Hexing hurriedly responded, “So what exactly happened last night!”
The three exchanged glances, their eyes holding two parts sympathy, two parts reluctance, and… 100% schadenfreude.
Wang Heng pointed at the little white cat in the corner: “You can ask your Hanezawa Tsubasa—she witnessed almost the entire process.”
Tang Hexing glanced at the cat, still bewildered: “Hanezawa Tsubasa?”
Fu Hanwen took out his mobile phone, cleared his throat: “I think words are powerless. It’s hard for us to describe your behavior last night, really hard to explain clearly. But no worries, we recorded it.”
Wang Ke: “We all recorded with our phones, but little Fu pulled out his phone fastest, so his version is the most complete. You’ll know when you see it.”
Tang Hexing took the phone and opened the nearly three-minute video in the gallery.
At the start of the video, the screen shook, then focused on Tang Hexing. It was probably late night by then, past lights-out time. But luckily, two desk lamps were fully charged, providing ample lighting.
In the footage, Tang Hexing sat on his bed, bent over vomiting furiously.
Voices of the roommates talking came from the video.
Wang Heng: “Such a strong alcohol smell…”
Fu Hanwen: “Open the window to air it out, otherwise we can’t sleep tonight!”
Wang Ke: “He seems to have vomited all into the shoe…”
Tang Hexing looked closely—sure enough, he was vomiting into that sports shoe!
The real-life Fu Hanwen patted his shoulder: “We threw that shoe away overnight. Honestly, if it wasn’t wrapped in three layers of plastic bags, we really didn’t dare touch it.”
Tang Hexing: “…”
Wang Heng: “The best part hasn’t come yet—keep watching.”
The best part hasn’t come yet? Hearing him say that, Tang Hexing felt his scalp tingle.
But the next moment, Tang Hexing knew why Wang Heng said that…
In the footage, Tang Hexing held up the sports shoe full of vomit in his right hand, picked up the little white cat with the other, and said with a big smile on his face: “Thank you everyone for coming to my and classmate Hanezawa’s wedding! Here, I’ll drink this cup first as a toast!”
In the video, Wang Heng, Fu Hanwen, and Wang Ke said in unison:
“Wait!”
“Put it down quick!”
“Damn, I’m gonna puke too!”
Wang Heng grabbed a plastic bag from the desk and put it over Tang Hexing’s right hand, forcibly snatching the mutilated sports shoe.
“Quick quick quick, throw it away!”
“Throw it where? Fu Hanwen, your trash can?”
“Out! Throw it outside! Don’t ruin my trash can!”
“The sanitation old man will kill us…”
“Doesn’t matter, just throw it out first! I can’t take it anymore!”
“Pour what he vomited into the drain, then toss the shoe—that’ll be better.”
“Wang Ke, you do it! Whoever suggested it executes it!”
Tang Hexing watched the phone, his gaze already dazed. The video kept playing—after his “that cup” was snatched by Wang Heng, he didn’t lie down, but grabbed the little white cat and placed it in front of him, then bowed deeply to it…
Fu Hanwen sighed: “You know, we were busy until three in the morning, dealing with trash and mopping the floor.”
Tang Hexing: “…”
Wang Heng patted little Tang’s shoulder: “Don’t drink next time, really.”
Wang Ke added: “Yeah, alcohol makes you do wild things. Look, you have to take responsibility for classmate Hanezawa from now on, right? You even bowed to heaven and earth with her…”
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