Damn it, I'm surrounded by childhood sweethearts-Chapter 353 - 258. Hasn’t changed at all

Xu Qingfan’s home repair on the toilet was nearing completion.

He was holding the sink steady while the master plumber sealed the edges with a caulking gun.

Xu Qingfan watched the plumber replenish the sealant from a small red plastic bucket, and he couldn’t help but doubt its reliability.

"It won’t get moldy in the humid season, will it?" he asked.

"Young man, rest assured, this formula has been passed down from my grandfather. It won’t come loose even after a hundred years!" The decorator felt his professionalism was being questioned and gave Xu Qingfan a disgruntled look.

"Alright, alright, please continue," he said ruefully, shrugging his shoulders and continuing to hold the washbasin steady.

After all, the monk might escape, but the temple won’t. If it came loose, he’d be ready to fight back with a strongly-worded complaint!

"All done. You can come to me with any issues within two years, and I’ll fix them for you," said the plumber after the sealant had set, picking up his bucket.

"Wasn’t it supposed to last a hundred years? How come it’s down to two years now?"

"Who knows if I’ll still be doing this job in two years," the master gave him a look that said ’Are you stupid?’

Xu Qingfan:...

He made two trips to throw away the old sink downstairs, and then he cleaned the dust-covered floor.

Looking at his home, now spotless and refreshed, Xu Qingfan could finally take a breather. He grabbed a can of Coke from the fridge, flopped down on the couch, and sprawled out in a perfect imitation of Ge You.

He habitually clicked on QQ to check his messages, but as usual, no one in the group chat had said anything. The five girls seemed to have agreed to ignore him today.

"Burp~ What’s up with these people?" After lurking and checking the group messages for a while, he got up and went back to his bedroom.

Today was June 9, and the World Cup group matches were starting on the 11th. If Xu Qingfan wanted to create some hype, he needed to start warming up in advance.

Sina Weibo had been around for a while now, and as one of the first batch of users—and with his surfer pseudonym "Hong Kong’s Premier Romantic" already having considerable influence on the internet—his account had also gained hundreds of thousands of followers.

After opening the Sina Weibo page, Xu Qingfan opened a new tab to search for the World Cup group stage matchups.

He remembered who won or lost the matches after the round of sixteen, but he had no recollection of the group stage outcomes. So, drawing on his memories and analysis from his past life, he started typing out his match predictions in the editor.

Soon, a post titled "Disagree? Come at me, the universe’s foremost football prophet with mighty predictions!" was concocted by him.

Xu Qingfan couldn’t remember the exact scores and outcomes of each group stage match, but he had a rough idea of which countries qualified.

Group A: Uragu, Mexico; Group B: Argentina, Korea... and finally, Group H: Spain and Chile.

After finishing his writing, Xu Qingfan edited for typos and phrasing, carefully recalling if he made any mistakes in his mind, and, confident there were none, he clicked send.

[Grab the first comment! If I guess wrong, I’ll draw a cash prize of 10,000 yuan for the comment section, with no limit!] After securing the top comment spot in his own post, Xu Qingfan closed his laptop, letting the buzz build slowly over time.

...

"Then it’s settled, on the 29th we absolutely have to give Brother Qing Fan a huge surprise!" Lin Wanning finally closed her notebook and said with delight.

"For Brother Fan’s sake, what does it mean... his most beloved surprise!" Seeing everyone’s eyes on her, Xiao Ruawen quickly came up with a different way to phrase it.

"Spoiling this stinky dog, I bet he’s still at home sleeping right now," Xia Xiaoxiao couldn’t help laughing at the thought of Xu Qingfan being dumbfounded by their birthday surprise.

"Brother Fan has said something in the group," Wu Lingyu mentioned, having checked her phone during a bathroom break.

"What did he say?"

"Yu, what did Brother Qing Fan say?"

"What’s Brother saying?"

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As they checked their phones, Wu Lingyu explained: "He’s asking where everyone is."

The girls checked the group messages and indeed, the two simple words ’Where’s everyone?’ greeted them.

"Hahahaha!" Imagining Xu Qingfan typing those words, the five girls couldn’t help but burst into laughter.

"Should we reply to Brother Fan?" Wu Lingyu’s fingers hovered over the screen, ready to type a response, but she looked up to see what the others thought.

"Reply to him for what? Today is our secret meeting, just the five of us—don’t bother with him," Xia Xiaoxiao stirred her milk tea with a straw, her face beaming with a smile.

"That’s right! Today is the joyous meeting of us five sisters, let’s toast!"

"Cheers!"

The five plastic cups were raised over their heads and clinked together. While they lacked the crisp sound of glass, the girls’ bell-like laughter undoubtedly compensated for that.

Their friendship didn’t need a stinky man like Xu Qingfan to maintain, but then again, whenever they left him out to meet up on their own, they ended up discussing this stinky dog anyway.

Ever since the beginning, when they first gathered to discuss the love letter Xu Qingfan had received, this tradition had been going strong for six years.

Whenever a girl at school waited on Xu Qingfan’s usual route wanting to give him a love letter, she would first encounter one of the five girls, who would graciously offer to "help" by taking the letter and never delivering it.

Approaching noon, with their milk tea cups long empty, the girls’ meeting was drawing to a close.

"So let’s meet up here again on the 28th morning to get everything ready for the birthday the next day," Xiao Ruawen added finally.

"Okay!"

"See you then!"