Having secured his leave, Wang Chuqin still insisted on finishing his morning workout, reinforcing the muscle memory of his new serving technique before packing up and leaving the Training Hall.
As he walked out of the hall with his bag on his back, he happened to run into Lin Gaoyuan and Wang Manyu walking in for early practice.
"Brother Yuan, Sister Manyu. I've booked a flight for 4:30 this afternoon to go see Shasha," he volunteered.
This meant he had no intention of launching a surprise attack this time; if Manyu told Shasha in advance, he wouldn't mind.
He simply had to see her—avoiding it was not an option.
"Oh, bring her some snacks or something. And tell her to remember to watch the livestream of my match next week," Manyu said expressionlessly.
"Oh. I'll tell Shasha. Brother Yuan, I'm heading out," he said, waving goodbye to both Gaoyuan and Manyu with his bag slung over his shoulder.
Gaoyuan unconsciously curled his lip. Judging by this, Toutou was once again blindly walking straight into a brick wall, ready to play the role of the devoted pushover.
"Manman, let's go. I'll spar with you today," he said with a grin, taking Wang Manyu by the arm and walking proudly down that other broad and sunny avenue of devotion.
Night had already fallen by the time the plane landed at the airport.
A tall figure wearing a dark coat, a baseball cap, and a face mask appeared at the airport arrivals gate.
Though completely covered up, the momentum in his gait and movements still gave away something out of the ordinary.
Wang Chuqin was quite helpless about this disguise. Ever since winning gold at the Paris Olympic Games, his popularity nationwide had skyrocketed like a rocket, catching up fast to Shasha. And his mixed doubles partnership with Shasha had attracted unprecedented attention.
Moreover, external speculations about their relationship, the fans' frantic chasing, and some inexplicable abuse all rushed at them, making it so that wherever they went, they encountered pervasive stalking and hidden photography.
Faced with these gossips and paparazzi photos, Wang Datou had gone from initial anger and speechlessness, to not bothering to explain, to ultimately ignoring them with a somewhat rebellious counterattack—even proactively stepping into the camera's view.
Come on, take your pictures! Isn't that what you want, some news? Here, take a look, Shasha and I are doing great! Let all those rumormongering haters get lost!
Yes, we are partners and also a couple. Yes, I adore her, and she adores me back.
Yes, we're dating, and it doesn't affect winning championships at all.
Yes, we learn from each other and achieve success together. This is top-tier human romance, jealous yet?
Yes, we are a pair—either bless us or jump off a building!
Though Sha-Tou had never officially announced it, countless camera languages expressed the voice deep within their hearts.
Over the past two years, he had even grown somewhat accustomed to the flashing of those camera lenses. Perhaps after being pointlessly questioned for so long, one truly becomes impervious to everything.
Therefore, during this period of separation from Shasha, whenever he inadvertently saw too many analysis videos online, his heart felt completely at peace.
Some of those analyses claimed they had always been faking their CP and had now parted ways because their contract had expired. Others claimed he was ungrateful, stepping on Shasha to rise to the top before kicking her away, calling him callous and mercenary. Some said he had a change of heart, cheating after being separated from Shasha in a long-distance relationship, and even digging up vague, nonexistent videos of his infidelity. Still others called him cold-blooded, caring for nothing but matches.
He didn't care. Anyway, given his special constitution for being cursed at, no matter what he did, people would attack him.
As long as Shasha and the friends around him knew the truth, that was enough.
Yet the only thing that managed to break his defenses was a series of jubilant videos filled with overwhelming gratitude toward him. They thanked them for breaking up, calling him a great guy who had finally given them a chance to steal Shasha back.
These people were frantically filling up the comment sections on Shasha's and his main pages, asking Shasha to hand out love-numbered tickets as well. When he saw that the numbers had already surpassed one hundred thousand, he speechlessly closed the page.
This time, he had consciously avoided the daytime, choosing to arrive at night. First, he didn't want to bring unwanted attention to Shasha and disrupt her recovery from illness and surgery; second, he and Shasha were genuinely in a very difficult period right now, and he had no wish for outsiders to know.
This visit to Shasha was crucial. If Shasha had truly made up her mind about something, everything would be beyond redemption.