Love O2O- Beyond a Beautiful Smile

Chapter 42- The Red Packet

Relating to Episode 25 of Love O2O Series.

A/N: Updating this between classes... you know, that time I really should be getting assessment work done? Eh. After this update I'm going to stick to one update a week. The only time this will change is if I write more than expected during the time I have allotted for non-assessment writing, in which case I'll space the updates out a bit. But I really can't keep doing what I've been doing and updating several times a week. This is my last semester and it's full of all the crappy, compulsory subjects that I can't keep avoiding anymore. So they're taking a lot more time and emotional energy than I expected. I'm also getting to the stage in the story where I go back to script from the series a lot more. Which means each chapter takes longer than usual because I script out the dialogue from the scenes, decide what I'm going to use, and then build the chapter around that.

When Hao Mei and KO made it in to work the next morning, the office no longer looked like a scene from a historical drama and apart from a bright red box left on Mei's desk, had returned to its usual muted hues. KO and Mei stood behind his computer chair, eyeing the box with great suspicion. Around them, conversation was hushed, as if their peers were waiting for their reaction. Which only made Mei even more reluctant to open the mysterious present. He nudged it with a ruler and when it didn't explode, gave it a harder shove. It slid sideways... then nothing. Picking it up, he frowned at the weight and gave it a shake. Something inside rustled? Or rattled? And was there a crinkle too? What the hell is in this thing?

"Open it."

"You open it."

"It wasn't on my desk."

"That's because they're all too scared of whatever you would do to their computers." Mei scowled at the package on his desk. "It's red. It's obviously for both of us. Why don't you open it?"

KO folded his arms. "I don't care."

"Huh?"

"You'll open it. Because you want to know what it is. I don't care."

"Ungrateful."

"Who do you trust to give you a red packet that you appreciate?"

"Ah...."

"This is not from him."

Mei had to acknowledge that KO had a good point. Xiao Nai's red packet was already in his desk drawer, waiting for him to file them away at home. Which meant that this box was from someone in the office... He looked around and noticed all the heads suddenly duck behind computer screens. Or maybe from everyone in the office. He wrinkled his nose at KO.

"Fine. But if anything jumps out at me, sicc 'em."

KO grunted agreement and watched over Mei's shoulder as he peeled the red wrapping paper off and used a key to slice open the tape keeping the box closed. Peeling the flaps back, they both peered inside.

"Nuts?" Confused, Mei pulled several packets of nuts out of the box. Some were cashews, some almonds, some mixed. Some were raw while others were roasted. The only thing they all had in common was that they were all salted. "Eh? Why salted nuts? I like the sweet snacks... why would they give me salty nuts?"

KO choked on air and, shaking his head, left his naïve furen to work it out himself.

"Hao.... Laosan is bringing me food but he's still not back. I'm starving," Yu Ban Shan sat on the edge of Mei's desk and whined. "Do you have anything to eat?"

"There are nuts in the drawer." And he still couldn't work out what that present had been about. The way everyone kept asking him for snacks and sniggering was really starting to get on his nerves. "Help yourself."