Summary: Miles apart but closer than ever, Chen Yao learns that home isn't measured by distance—it's the steady hands, late-night laughter, and quiet promises that refuse to let her stand alone, no matter how far she runs.
Chapter Four
The days slipped by in a blur of lectures, endless pages of case law, and late-night study sessions that left Yao's mind spinning. But despite the distance, the connection to ZGDX stayed constant, a bright, chaotic thread tying her back to something warm and alive no matter how heavy the days became. The Salt and Chaos group chat buzzed at all hours with nonsense updates and ridiculous photos, while Chen Tao and Jinyang sent check-in messages that made her smile even when she was bone-tired.
Still, she was not prepared when her phone exploded with a call at what her bleary mind guessed was somewhere close to four in the morning. She flailed for it blindly, groaning low in her throat as she cracked one furious eye open to see the name flashing on her screen.
ZGDX_Lv.
Lu Yue.
Without thinking, she smacked the green accept button and shoved the phone against her ear. "What," she croaked, her voice rough from sleep and pure rage, "do you want?"
On the other end, Yue, utterly oblivious to the sound of death incarnate now filling his ears, launched into his tirade with the energy of a man personally wronged by the universe.
"You would not believe the absolute bullshit your favorite hellspawn is pulling," he ranted without pause. "He stole my leftover ramen, hid my keyboard, and had the nerve to tell Rui that I lost practice hours because I was 'emotionally compromised'!"
Yao sat up slowly, hair sticking up at wild angles, blankets tangled around her waist, blinking into the darkness of her room like it personally offended her. "You," she said slowly, voice dropping into a low, dangerous growl, "woke me up at four-thirty in the goddamn morning to complain about your brother eating your noodles?"
Yue paused, just for a heartbeat, like her tone was finally starting to penetrate the fog of his outrage. "...Timezones are fake." he offered weakly.
Yao inhaled a sharp breath through her nose, exhaling with the careful control of someone trying very, very hard not to hurl her phone across the room. "Lu Yue," she said, voice dangerously calm, "I swear to all that is holy, if you don't have an emergency involving blood, fire, or a League official scandal, I am flying back to China solely to beat your ass."
Yue had the audacity to laugh. "Aw, come on, Salt Maiden," he said, far too cheerful for a man standing on the edge of death. "You missed me."
"I miss sleep more," she snapped.
"You can sleep when you're dead." he chirped.
"Keep talking," Yao said, flopping back onto her bed and throwing an arm over her face, "and you're gonna get there first."
There was a beat of silence, and then a soft, sheepish laugh.
"...Sorry," he mumbled. "Habit. I forgot you were, you know... eight hours behind."
"You forgot time exists," she muttered darkly.
"On the bright side," Yue said, completely unrepentant, "at least you know we still love you."
Yao groaned long and low, dragging the blankets back over her head like they could shield her from the idiocy radiating through the phone. "You're lucky you're cute." she muttered into the mattress.
"Tell Sicheng that!" Yue crowed. "He says I'm adopted."
A snort of unwilling laughter broke out before Yao could stop it, muffled against the blanket. "Go to sleep, Yue," she said, softer this time, exhaustion winning over anger.
"Only if you do too," he teased.
"Shut up, Yue."
"Goodnight, Salt Maiden."
She hung up on him with a satisfying tap of her thumb, tossing the phone onto the nightstand with a grunt before burrowing deeper into her blankets. But even as she drifted back into the thick, heavy pull of sleep, a faint, stubborn smile lingered on her lips. Because as much as she wanted to strangle him…. God, she missed them already.
Morning came in pale gray streaks across her small Cambridge apartment, the mist outside pressing against the windows like a heavy hand.
Yao groaned quietly as she rolled over, her muscles stiff and her brain still sluggish from being dragged into the chaos of Lu Yue's nighttime nonsense. She fumbled for her phone without opening her eyes, blinking blearily at the faint glow of notifications lighting up the screen. Most were the usual: school emails, one from Jinyang with a photo of her latest coffee disaster, a meme from Pang that made no sense without context. There it was. A private message.
ZGDX_Chessman.
Her heart kicked against her ribs once, sharp and unexpected, as she opened it. The message was simple. Soft. Careful.
ZGDX_Chessman: Did you get back to sleep after my idiot brother woke you up?
She stared at it for a long moment, the weight of it sinking slowly into her chest. No teasing. No demands. Just that quiet, steady concern. It was the kind of thing no one else ever bothered to ask. Slowly, without thinking too much, she typed back, her fingers moving lightly over the screen:
ZGDX_SaltMaiden: Barely. Planning to remove his vocal cords next time. Might frame you for it.
It took less than a minute before his response came through.
ZGDX_Chessman: I'll take the fall. Make it clean. Everyone knows I have been threatening to do it to him for years.
Yao laughed quietly, the sound barely more than a breath escaping into the stillness of the room. Another message followed almost immediately.
ZGDX_Chessman: You shouldn't have to lose sleep over idiots. Especially not when you already carry enough.
Something about the way he said it, no pity, no condescension, just plain acknowledgment, made her chest ache in a way that had nothing to do with exhaustion. For a moment, she hesitated, fingers hovering over the keyboard. Then she typed slowly, carefully.
ZGDX_SaltMaiden: Not losing sleep. Just... missing home, maybe.
She hit send before she could second-guess it. The typing bubble popped up almost immediately.
ZGDX_Chessman: Then stop trying to act like you're doing it alone.
Her throat tightened painfully, and she turned her face into the pillow, blinking hard against the sudden sting behind her eyes. Because somehow, without saying it outright, without making a scene of it, he had cut straight to the center of what she had not even realized she was feeling. She wasn't just tired. She was lonely. And for once, someone— he —had noticed. Another message came through, softer this time, almost like a whisper written into the quiet.
ZGDX_Chessman: You still have us. Doesn't matter where you are.
Yao pressed her forehead against the pillow, closing her eyes as her fingers tightened around the phone. It shouldn't have mattered so much. It shouldn't have hit so hard. But it did. Because he meant it. And because somewhere deep down, she wanted to believe it so badly it scared her. Slowly, she pulled the phone close to her chest and let herself breathe it in, let herself feel it without fighting. Without running. For the first time in a long, long time, she let herself just belong. Even from a world away.
Later that evening, the soft tap of rain against the windows blended into the low hum of the radiator, a quiet, constant noise that should have helped Yao focus. Instead, her eyes blurred over the dense paragraph of case law she was supposed to be reading, and she found herself glancing at her phone again, almost unconsciously.
No new messages from Sicheng. A small, foolish part of her deflated just a little. Before she could dwell on it, her phone buzzed sharply against the tabletop. She flipped it over without much thought. A new message from Jinyang, marked with a flurry of angry emojis.
Jinyang: Your precious Midlaner has screwed up. Again. Prepare the war drums.
Yao exhaled through her nose, long and slow, tapping the screen with the blank, mechanical patience of a woman who had seen this movie one too many times. She did not even dignify it with a response. Instead, she pulled up Lao K's contact with ruthless efficiency and hit call, swinging her legs up onto the couch as the phone rang twice before connecting.
Lao K's voice came through, a little breathless, a little wary. "Uh. Hey, Salt Maiden?"
"Put me on speaker," Yao said calmly, the tone of a woman who was about to set a village on fire and call it a learning experience. There was a shuffle, a brief murmur, and then the telltale crackle of speakerphone. She didn't wait for them to ask questions. "First one of you gremlins," she said sweetly—too sweetly, and everyone knew it, "who goes next door and terrorizes that idiot Midlaner Ai Jia for screwing up again..." There was a small chorus of snickers in the background. "I will personally send you imported snacks from London," she finished, voice sharp and clear as a blade.
A beat of stunned silence.
Then, complete and utter chaos.
"I call dibs!" Pang howled immediately, followed by what sounded suspiciously like a scuffle.
"Not fair!" Yue yelled. "I was gonna!"
"I'm faster, idiot!" Pang shouted back.
"Enough," Lao Mao said dryly, his voice somehow perfectly audible over the chaos. "We move as a unit."
"Mission: Midlaner Misery engaged." Lao K muttered under his breath.
Rui's voice cut in faintly from somewhere farther away, sounding deeply unamused but resigned. "I am not posting bail if someone calls security."
Yao smiled lazily into her phone, resting her head back against the couch cushions, the rain tapping gently against the windows. "Snacks are only for the truly creative." she added, savoring the sound of Pang and Yue arguing about strategy like overexcited children planning a heist.
"Define 'creative,'" Lao Mao said thoughtfully.
"If he cries, it counts," Yao said brightly.
There was a cheer so loud she had to pull the phone slightly away from her ear.
"God help Ai Jia," Lao K muttered, but there was no real sympathy in his voice.
Before she hung up, she heard Pang gleefully shout, "Operation Pink Slippers is a GO!"
Yao ended the call with a sharp laugh, tossing her phone onto the couch beside her. Outside the rain thickened, the gray sky deepening into the heavy velvet of night, but inside her small, cluttered apartment, a warmth curled through her chest—wild, chaotic, familiar. Family wasn't always blood. Sometimes it was a team of barely functioning idiots who would wage psychological warfare on your behalf because you offered them snacks. And sometimes…. Sometimes it was a certain lazy, sharp-eyed Captain who stayed quiet but made sure you never had to fight alone. A soft buzz against the couch cushions caught her attention. She glanced over. One new message.
From ZGDX_Chessman.
Simple.
Soft.
ZGDX_Chessman: Don't let them distract you too much. Focus, Salt Maiden.
Yao smiled to herself, the ache in her chest easing just a little more, piece by piece.
She typed back:
ZGDX_SaltMaiden: Wouldn't dream of it. But if Ai Jia ends up crying, it's not my fault.
The typing bubble appeared almost immediately.
ZGDX_Chessman: Wouldn't expect anything less. Sleep after you finish studying.
No teasing. No orders. Just quiet care hidden in the sharpness. She tucked the phone closer against her side, the rain blurring the outside world into soft, shapeless grays, and let herself drift for a few precious seconds longer in the warmth of it all. Of them. Of him.
Still stretched across the couch, the soft hum of laughter barely fading from her lips, Yao reached for her phone again with deliberate ease.
If Pang, Lao Yue, and the others were even half as determined as they sounded and she knew they were, then Ai Jia's life was about to become a very creative sort of hell. And it was only right that she update the instigator of this whole situation. With a slow, lazy tap of her thumb, she pulled up her chat with Jinyang—the one already littered with half-serious threats and poorly censored rage from earlier this morning—and typed without even bothering to correct the wicked little grin tugging at her mouth.
Yao: It's being handled.
She hit send and leaned back with a long, satisfied sigh, stretching out her legs along the worn length of the couch. It took only seconds for Jinyang's typing bubble to pop up, firing back almost immediately.
Jinyang: Define handled. I want suffering. I want regret. I want blood.
Yao snorted under her breath, flicking her hair over her shoulder with mock innocence even though no one could see her.
Yao: You'll have tears. That's close enough.
Another message blinked in almost immediately.
Jinyang: Acceptable. Carry on, Commander Salt.
Yao rolled her eyes but laughed quietly, thumbing a quick reply back.
Yao: Tell Tao-ge not to worry. If anything breaks, it'll just be Ai Jia's ego.
There was a brief pause, and then:
Jinyang: If Tao-ge asks, I had no part in this.
Yao: Of course. You're a picture of innocence.
Jinyang: The purest.
Yao set the phone down beside her again, her smile lingering even as she picked up her textbook once more. Somewhere across the ocean, her second family, the ones who bickered and fought and plotted minor psychological warfare in the name of love, was already carrying out her will with gleeful vengeance. And somehow, despite the thousands of miles between them, she did not feel far away at all. Not from them. Not from him.
It had barely been an hour.
Yao had managed to drag herself through exactly one and a half dry, painful chapters of her International Relations reading before her phone buzzed again, skidding across the surface of the couch from the sheer force of the notification. She blinked down at it, already half-expecting nonsense—and she was not disappointed.
At the top of her messages, the Salt and Chaos group chat was lighting up.
The most recent addition?
A blurry, chaotic photo.
Pang had proudly sent it, his message gleaming like a neon sign of triumph.
ZGDX_Pang: Mission accomplished. Target thoroughly demoralized.
The picture was a mess of motion and noise, someone's thumb was halfway over the camera lens, and the background was a tangle of figures but at the center of it all, clear as day, was Ai Jia sitting on the floor of the YQCB base, looking utterly defeated. His hair was a mess, his face buried in his hands, and beside him, someone.... probably Yue, had dumped an entire pink plush unicorn across his lap like a trophy of war.
Yao snorted so hard she nearly dropped her phone. More messages piled in beneath it.
ZGDX_Lv: We even got him to apologize to the unicorn. I expect double snacks for that one
ZGDX_Mao: Rui said if you send chocolate, it better be dark. Healthier.
ZGDX_K: Operation Pink Slippers concluded. Zero casualties. One very broken Midlaner.
ZGDX_Ming: Focus, idiots. Study first, gloat later.
Yao pressed the heel of her hand against her mouth, laughing quietly into her palm, her chest tightening with a warm, aching kind of affection that no amount of time zones could dull. She was still scrolling through their nonsense when another buzz came through. Not the group chat this time. A private message.
ZGDX_Chessman.
Her breath caught, even before she tapped it open. Simple. Uncomplicated. Exactly him.
ZGDX_Chessman: You remembered to eat, right?
No jokes. No distractions. Just a steady hand reaching through the noise.
Yao stared at it for a moment longer than necessary, something deep inside her chest curling tighter, pulling warmer. She thought of the way he had shielded her without asking for thanks. The way he had watched her, steady and unblinking, like someone who already understood that she did not want saving, only someone willing to stand beside her when she needed it. Slowly, her fingers moved.
ZGDX_SaltMaiden: Yeah. Dinner and a snack. Not living off instant ramen yet.
She hesitated a second, thumb hovering, then typed again, the words slipping free without resistance:
ZGDX_SaltMaiden: Thanks for checking on me.
For a heartbeat, the screen stayed still.
The typing bubble appeared.
ZGDX_Chessman: Always.
Just one word.
But it landed with the weight of a thousand things left unsaid.
Yao leaned her head back against the couch cushions, closing her eyes as the smile she had been fighting all day finally broke loose, soft and helpless and full. Because somehow, even across thousands of miles and the pull of different lives, Lu Sicheng still made her feel seen. Still made her feel wanted. Still made her feel home. Even when everything else felt so far away.
Half a world away, in the dim quiet of the ZGDX base, Lu Sicheng sat alone at his desk, the glow of his monitor casting sharp planes of light across his face. The others had scattered after the match, drifting toward showers, food, or mindless games to wind down the tension that always followed competition. But he stayed.
His chair creaked softly as he leaned back, phone in hand, scrolling lazily through the most recent messages, not from sponsors, not from team chat. From her. From Yao. The simple thread of their conversation glowed softly against the dark, the last message— Always —still sitting there like a mark left in fresh concrete, impossible to erase.
Sicheng stared at it longer than he meant to, the quiet gravity of it settling low and sure in his chest. It wasn't dramatic. It wasn't loud. It was just there. Like she was. A steady presence he had not even realized he had started depending on. The soft knock at the front door barely registered at first. It wasn't until he heard Rui muttering something and the heavy thud of a large package hitting the entryway floor that Sicheng finally lifted his gaze. Curious, he stood and made his way through the base.
Rui was crouched down, inspecting a massive cardboard box that took up half the foyer, looking faintly bewildered.
"This yours?" Rui asked.
"No." Sicheng said, but already a suspicion was curling in the back of his mind. Lazily, he leaned down, squinting at the shipping label.
From: C. Yao.
Sicheng smirked faintly, shaking his head. By then, the noise had drawn the others, Pang, Lao Mao, Lao K, and Yue shuffling in, looking like a herd of overgrown children at Christmas.
"What is it?!" Pang demanded, eyes wide.
"Did she send weapons?" Yue asked hopefully.
"If it's another plushie, I'm moving out," Lao Mao muttered under his breath.
Ignoring them all, Sicheng grabbed the box cutter off the console table and sliced through the tape cleanly, pulling open the flaps.
Neatly packed, each wrapped carefully in brown paper and twine, were individual packages. Every single one had a small handwritten tag tied to it.
ZGDX_Pang
ZGDX_Lv
ZGDX_K
ZGDX_Mao
ZGDX_Ming
ZGDX_Rui
And at the very bottom, tucked neatly against the side, one last tag:
ZGDX_Chessman.
The room fell quiet for a beat, a rare, reverent hush.
Sicheng reached in and pulled the first few out, tossing them to their rightful owners one by one.
Pang ripped his open immediately, letting out a delighted yell when he found specialized London chocolate bars, lemon-flavored crisps, and a bottle of artisan hot sauce he had once mentioned in passing he wanted to try.
Yue's contained a selection of exotic teas and a thick-wrapped, suspiciously heavy jar of imported honey with a note clipped inside—For focus. You need all the help you can get.
Lao Mao's box had high-protein snacks, jerky, and dark roasted coffee beans from a London roastery she must have hunted down specifically.
Lao K's held very expensive European face masks, skin care products, all kinds of different dark chocolates and dried fruits.
Even Ming's contained a carefully selected blend of calming teas and a sleek leather notebook embossed with a chessboard pattern.
Rui opened his to find gourmet coffee pods and English breakfast tea, along with a note— You're the only responsible one. Stay sane.
The boys erupted into chaos, arguing over who got the best gifts, half-threatening to steal each other's spoils.
But Sicheng didn't open his yet. He turned his small package over in his hands, feeling the weight of it, the warmth that somehow seeped through the brown paper like it was alive. Slowly, he slid a finger under the twine and unwrapped it. Inside, an elegant box of dark roast coffee, one he had once mentioned offhandedly during a late-night conversation. A small, worn copy of a classic strategy book he thought no one knew he admired. And tucked into the corner, a single slip of folded paper with quick, slanted handwriting.
Chessman,
Because you never miss a move and because even kings need something to come home to.
- Salt Maiden.
Sicheng stared at it for a long moment, something tightening in his chest until it was hard to breathe. Around him, the others argued and laughed and tore into snacks like a pack of wild wolves. But he just stood there, holding the note, the package, the pieces she had stitched together for him like she had been paying attention to every small thing he never thought anyone would notice. The corner of his mouth lifted in a slow, private smile no one else saw. And as he tucked the small note carefully into the inside pocket of his jacket, he realized something very simple and very final: Chen Yao might be eight hours and half a world away. But she was already under his skin. Already his. Whether either of them had dared to say it yet or not.