In the weeks that followed, Lili was really glad for Lei calling with her every late at night. She was up until almost 1 am and he was waking up around 6 am so they could call for a long time.
And she appreciated it. Without him and his support, she would overcome the pain of losing granny.
The next person to be by her side was Lucy. She was her funny, silly, amazing pillar that held her up. She always said something crazy and Lili had to burst out laughing. And for her, the smile repaired her heart bit by bit.
And who showed himself as a sympathetic friend was Adam, her gaming friend from college. They used to play games a lot together, and now he was helping her over messages, too.
But he was playing on European servers, and mostly only casually now because he was a busy doctor.
Her hand was okay now. So, she started with the work Lei gave her. She made the bracelet a little bit easier. Of course, after asking Lei for permission. And he just said that now it's completely her call. Which made her fall for him a bit more. She hated it when she couldn't use her imagination.
Today, she was going to call Lei again and play SoL with them. It was okay for her to be awake almost the whole night. She couldn't sleep, anyway.
And she would pass out in the morning from exhaustion, not having any nightmares.
She was forging steel ingots while being on call with Yixing, Huobai, Chao, and Shan when the most epic moment for her happened since she left Hong Kong. She almost died of laughter.
When she was on call in a game. Lei was normally working in his father's company, or now, half his company. Well, so they only sent messages through WeChat. And somehow, he got pretty naughty.
Lili knew he was being silly because of her. Making her think about something else. But when she came back from the run, he wrote to her:
"I would warm you up better in bed." Let's honestly say that it was hard to not think about images of them both in bed or shower, or anywhere else.
"It's 4 am there. You are supposed to sleep," he reprimanded her as usual.
"I don't want to… Make me…" she sent back with some tongue-out-sticking emojis.
Laughter pierced her ears, and a mixture of languages was next.
"Hey, hey. Only one at a time. And only English, please. Your Cantonese lessons are pretty useless and your Mandarin is not even remotely good like Lei's," she said to Huobai.
They tried to teach her Cantonese. Without a chance. For her, Mandarin was quite hard. Cantonese destroyed her belief that she could read some hanzi.
"You are having a naughty time with the boss, fujan?" Yixing made fun of her, giving her nicknames all the time. She climbed up the social ladder now to fujan.
When she meets these little children, she is going to teach them a lesson. And how did they know what they wrote?
"We just got a team message. All of us. Even our secretary, saying: 'I will spank your ass if you don't go to sleep'. And because it's ten o'clock here, we doubt it's for us." Lili was red even on said ass.
She laughed so much. Lei was hopeless. He had problems with jumping through various chats. Another eruption of laughter started, and she knew it was bad.
"Chao replied… They are dying… He will kill us soon...." Shan tried to tell me between the eruptions of others laughing.
"Hao, hao. Tell me, so I can die with you, too." It was the first time her mood became light like this. She even messed up the forging because she wasn't paying attention.
"Chao asked him if the spanking will be on the bare or over clothes…" Lili cried how much she was holding the laughter in.
It was late, and she didn't want to disturb her parents' sleep. They were with her. They help each other to overcome this. And it was getting better.
She knew that the pain would never stop but granny would never want to see her not smile. She always said that Lili's smile is as pure as lily. Lili smiled at the pun.
"I think the boss finally realized he sent the message to the wrong people." Laughter somehow subdued but quieter giggling still could be heard from someone.
"He is coming down. Oh, crap, it's not him. It's the secretary of his. Believe me, that guy is the devil. He made us clean after ourselves. He said he would suggest decreasing the budget for our snacks." Now Huobai whined. She smiled again because, like normal people, they loved snacks and this could prove itself as an amazing threat.
"Nooooo… He is coming behind the secretary!" Chao yelled.
"What secretary?" she asked, because she had no idea what Chao was talking about. And she didn't like at all the feeling that arose inside her. Nobody answered.
After a few seconds, the fight for headphones could be heard. When she heard Lei's voice, she knew who won. Well, he was the older one, more fit.
"I hope you had fun with them. Now, go to sleep. Or else I will come to find you and put you to sleep myself." Lei said, and she couldn't help but laugh more.
"Is it a threat or a promise?" Lili said, full of laughter.
"We will win two more rounds here in China, then we have to win Asian games and I will come to you. When you finish the bracelets, I promise I'll be there to take them." Lei said with yearning in his voice.
"Then I'll be a good girl, go to sleep and finish it soon. The sooner the better..." Lili said goodbye to everyone and went to sleep. Because she would start hard work tomorrow.