I Really Didn’t Mean to Play Go!
Chapter 6: Today’s Sunset is Beautiful

Yu Shao’s family ran a hotpot restaurant.

It wasn’t some big, trendy chain restaurant, just a small family-run hotpot place on the corner. The decor was a bit outdated, but the food was great, and thanks to loyal customers, business was steady.

It was dinner time now, and the restaurant was in full swing. So, when Yu Shao got home, his parents were still at work.

In the living room, two dishes and a soup were sitting on the table, covered by a mesh food cover: stir-fried green peppers with dried tofu and shredded pork, braised beef with carrots, and winter melon soup. These were all simple home-cooked meals, likely made earlier by his mother, Cai Xiaomei, during a lull at the restaurant.

Next to the food was a note that read: Heat the food in the microwave before eating. Don’t be lazy.

Seeing the note, Yu Shao couldn’t help but chuckle.

In his memories, the original "him" often skipped heating the food and ate it cold straight from the table. That’s probably why this note existed.

However, now that Yu Shao carried the mentality of an adult, he naturally took better care of himself and wouldn’t eat cold food.

Soon enough, he heated the dishes in the microwave, served himself a bowl of rice, and turned on the TV for some background noise while he ate, savoring his meal.

As he was eating, his phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen to see a message on WeChat:

[Cheng Mengjie: What are you up to?]

Seeing the name "Cheng Mengjie" in his contacts made Yu Shao’s eyelid twitch slightly.

Cheng Mengjie was a girl from his class, fairly attractive, with a sweet, girly vibe. The original "him" had once confessed to her, only to be rejected with the classic excuse: "I need to focus on my studies in high school."

Yes, despite his crush on Xu Zijin, the original Yu Shao had still managed to confess to Cheng Mengjie. It was like claiming that Satomi Ishihara was his "wife" but still trying to marry someone else—it didn’t really conflict, right?

But rejection was rejection. The issue was that Cheng Mengjie didn’t leave it at that. She often messaged him afterward with things like, "If only we were already in college."

Was that a hint? Did she mean she would have agreed if they were in college?

"Could it be that she actually likes me?"

The original Yu Shao, being young and inexperienced, quickly got hooked. He convinced himself that her rejection was just her way of focusing on her studies, and that once she got into a good university, she’d come around.

However, just as his feelings for her reignited, Cheng Mengjie suddenly turned cold and stopped messaging as often.

The original Yu Shao, who wasn’t exactly lacking in optimism, came to a "brilliant" conclusion:

"She must be busy doing homework!"

By the time Yu Shao transmigrated into this body, the original "him" had reached the ridiculous point where a single reply from Cheng Mengjie would make him squirm on his bed in bliss like a worm.

In Yu Shao’s opinion, Cheng Mengjie was quite the skilled manipulator for her age. While he had been mastering Go strategy at her age, she had already mastered the art of "tea."

After transmigrating, Yu Shao completely cut contact with Cheng Mengjie. He didn’t talk to her at school and never messaged her online. Cheng Mengjie, on the other hand, didn’t reach out either, so Yu Shao figured the matter had blown over.

But now, it seemed that wasn’t the case.

So, should he reply to this message or not?

After some thought, Yu Shao decided that, as they were classmates, ignoring her entirely might seem rude. So, he typed a brief response:

[Eating.]

After sending the message, he put his phone down and continued eating.

By the time Yu Shao was almost done with his meal, Cheng Mengjie still hadn’t replied. Just as Yu Shao was starting to think this young "tea master" had finally turned over a new leaf, his phone buzzed again.

[Cheng Mengjie: The sunset is beautiful today. (Picture.jpg)]

Yu Shao opened the image. It was a photo of the sunset, with a pale, delicate hand in the frame making a peace sign. If a typical "Nike mouth" high school boy saw it, he’d probably think: Wow, she’s so cute and artsy!

Even Yu Shao took a closer look this time. After confirming that the Van Cleef & Arpels bracelet on her wrist was a knockoff from Putian, he contentedly closed the image and decided not to reply.

However, his phone buzzed again shortly after.

[Cheng Mengjie: Why aren’t you replying to me?]

Yu Shao still didn’t respond.

[Cheng Mengjie: Are you done eating? What did you have?]

Yu Shao finally couldn’t hold back. Picking up his phone, he typed a single word:

[Rice.]

The other side fell silent.

Even after Yu Shao finished his meal, there was no further reply from her. He was more than happy with this outcome.

After washing the dishes and storing the leftovers in the fridge, Yu Shao headed to his bedroom. Pulling out his books from his bag, he got straight to work on his homework.

By the time Yu Shao's parents got home, it was already 10 PM. These days, more and more people were eating late-night snacks, so Yu Shao’s father, Yu Dongming, and his mother, Cai Xiaomei, had been closing the restaurant later and later.

At one point, Yu Dongming had even considered running the restaurant 24 hours a day. But after discussing it with his wife, they ultimately decided against it—it would just be too exhausting.

When the couple returned home, Yu Shao had long since finished his homework and was now lounging on the sofa watching a movie.

Yu Shao felt he had discovered a hidden perk of transmigrating to this parallel world.

Although many of the classic films and shows from his previous life didn’t exist here, the classics of this world were just as good, if not better.

This meant there was an endless trove of exciting new movies waiting for him to "review." Compared to the effort of sifting through mediocre content in his past life, this was a huge improvement!

At one point, Yu Shao had toyed with the idea of bringing the films, novels, and TV shows from his previous life to this world, like those "plagiarist protagonists" from web novels who capitalized on knowledge from their past worlds.

But it remained just a passing thought.

When it came to the movies from his past life, Yu Shao only remembered the general plots. Making a movie required understanding cinematography, the art of lighting, and—most importantly—the ability to secure investments.

As for plagiarizing novels? That was even more unrealistic. Novels were often hundreds of thousands of words long—who could possibly remember all the details? Even if someone could recall them perfectly, writing at that scale would require not just immense skill but also the speed of a professional author.

Yu Shao could only tip his hat to those "plagiarist predecessors" in novels and think: I don’t have that kind of brainpower. Mind lending me some of yours?

“Did you finish your homework? Sitting here watching movies like that,” Yu Dongming frowned as he walked in and saw Yu Shao sprawled out on the sofa.

“Dad, I finished it ages ago,” Yu Shao immediately defended himself. “The homework is still on my desk in my room.”

“And you’re not looking at the time? Go take a shower and get to bed. Do you think you don’t have school tomorrow?” Cai Xiaomei chimed in, adding, “No self-control at all. If we hadn’t come home tonight, would you have stayed up watching movies all night?”

Yu Shao had once heard that mothers around the world all said the same things, and he hadn’t believed it at the time. But now it seemed like it wasn’t just "all mothers in the world"—mothers in both worlds were exactly the same.

Still, Yu Shao didn’t find it annoying.

His mother in his past life had passed away early, and it had been a long time since he’d heard this kind of nagging. Hearing it now actually warmed his heart a little.

“Got it, I’m going now.”

Yu Shao smiled, grabbed the remote to turn off the TV, found some fresh clothes, and headed into the shower.

“This kid…”

Seeing Yu Shao obediently go to the bathroom, Cai Xiaomei looked at her husband in surprise. “He’s been unusually well-behaved these past couple of days. Could it be that his rebellious phase is over?”