“You really made me lose my temper,” Xia Mi pouted. “Did you hear? The campus news today says that Senior Nono is getting engaged to Senior Caesar. He even ordered a diamond ring from Van Cleef & Arpels—a worldwide limited edition. Wow, that’s really impressive!”
Chu Zihang was stunned and silent for a long time. “No wonder…” he murmured.
“Brother, drowning your sorrows in alcohol isn’t the hero’s way!” Finger pounded the table, sighing.
Lu Mingfei struggled to lift his head. He looked at the empty bottles on the table, counting them three or four times but failing each time. In any case, there were probably four or five empty wine bottles, with a dozen empty beer bottles on the floor.
“Can’t count,” Lu Mingfei slumped heavily onto the table. “Drowning sorrows in alcohol is also an attitude toward life. You don’t understand. Us Chinese heroes—all drown their sorrows after heartbreak. Have you read wuxia? Know Li Xunhuan? And Duan Yu and Xu Zhu? Drinking away their sorrows—it’s just how heroes do things!”
“I’m mainly emphasizing the word ‘drown’… But if you were buying the alcohol and wanted me to drink with you until the end of the world, I’d still smile and say just one thing—‘two orders of pork knuckle, please!’” Finger complained with a pained expression. “But please, you’re even poorer than me right now. You’ve skipped a few classes, got warned by Norma, and now your credit card is suspended… The booze is all on me. You know, even though I’m a man of character, feeling pain in my wallet is only human.”
“You’re so annoying. I’ll pay you back when I have money!” Lu Mingfei didn’t even bother to look up; his head felt as heavy as lead. “Who else would I borrow money from if not you? Should I go to the boss and say, ‘Boss, I heard you’re marrying Senior Sister, and I’m feeling down, so I want to borrow some money to drink’?”
“Caesar is a reasonable guy, you know. If you said that, he’d probably send you a few cases of aged Bordeaux!”
“I know the boss is reasonable, but…” Lu Mingfei sighed. “I’m not…”
In fact, he also wanted to be a reasonable person. Girls come and go, so what? Just like what Teacher Xu Zhimo said in “Goodbye Again, Cambridge”: “I wave my sleeves, not taking a cloud away!”
Lu Mingfei’s extracurricular reading notes in his second year of high school were on “Xu Zhimo’s Poetry Collection.” He was even praised by Chen Wenwen for having good taste at the time. But come on, even someone as free-spirited as Mr. Xu only fell for the famous literary beauty Lin Huiyin at Cambridge, rowing boats a few times in pursuit of her, and still failed in his lifelong quest. He kept thinking of Miss Lin even until the plane he was on crashed into the mountains, making him the brightest firework in the night sky. In a way, it was quite similar to his own experience.
Damn it! He always realized these things when he was feeling down, as if everything today was a sign from the past. If only he’d chosen “Selected Poems of Li Bai” for his reading notes—Master Li was carefree, loved drinking, and when he raised his cup, it was “the waters of the Yellow River come from heaven,” which would surely prevent these moments of nostalgia!
“Of course you’re not a reasonable person. You’re an idiot.” Finger said, “Idiots aren’t reasonable.”
“Damn it, you’re just now realizing I’m an idiot? We’ve lived together for a year; we could even swap underwear!”
Finger scratched his fluffy hair. “Take it easy. Let’s review the past and look to the future. Actually, you never really had anything going on with Nono, right? When you met her, she was already Caesar’s girlfriend. Even though Caesar is surrounded by those beautiful girls from the Student Union, he’s always been loyal to Nono. They’re a perfect match, made in heaven. In a year, they’ll be getting engaged; it’s only natural. As Caesar’s underling, you should be genuinely happy for them. When they get married, you could even be the flower boy, holding Nono’s bridal train with a big smile…” Finger gave him a big thumbs-up. “Wouldn’t that be great?”
“Pfft! Flower boys are for kids!” Lu Mingfei said.
“You think you’re not a kid?” Finger grinned.
Lu Mingfei was stunned. After all these years, he was still just a kid? But thinking about it, that’s what being a kid is all about, right? Loving something especially hard, thinking about it every day—watching some animation, putting up posters on the wall, crushing on the female lead, listening to someone’s CD over and over again, calling yourself their fan. Just waiting to grow up, hiding those posters, figures, and CDs in a box like they’re treasures, believing they are lifelong treasures, thinking that when you grow up, you can meet that dream-like man or woman.
But before you grow up, the animation stops airing, the posters wear out, and the once-handsome singer becomes an awkward, stubbled uncle who’s not cool anymore.
As you grow up, someone else leaves you.
Nono is that person. She’s just a dream, a beautiful heroine on an anime poster, or an energetic young girl singing and dancing in the spotlight. When some kid is obsessed with her, she might already be secretly married, kissing some random guy every night when she gets home, making dinner for him, watching TV together, then sleeping together. While they sleep in each other’s arms, that kid is lying in bed watching stars and fantasizing, slowly, slowly growing up.
“So I’m still a kid… Damn it!” Lu Mingfei slowly closed his eyes and fell asleep.
Chu Zihang opened his eyes and looked at Xia Mi, who had fallen asleep at the bedside. It was already late at night.
Xia Mi wore a simple white shirt, a waist-cinching school uniform skirt, her silhouette moonlight-like in the darkness, slender and delicate. She had a faint scent on her, at once warm like sunlight and dewy fresh. Chu Zihang suddenly found the scent familiar; it was a long-forgotten, comforting smell. He felt both surprised and delighted, as if he had found an old photo in the corner of a broken hard drive—fuzzy from overexposure, with only slender green grass tips and a girl’s thin calves under a white dress visible.
He was also a bit puzzled; he couldn’t remember where he’d smelled this scent before.
Xia Mi sleepily raised her head, a mark from her wristwatch still imprinted on her face. “I fell asleep… Calculus almost drove me crazy. I swear, Cassell College’s calculus class is just insane.” She had fallen asleep while chatting with Chu Zihang and munching on her textbook. She’d been hanging out in the hospital room a lot these days, as if it were her personal study room. Chu Zihang had gotten used to it; if he was tired, he’d just fall asleep as if she wasn’t there, and sometimes when he woke up, she’d still be there, and sometimes she’d be gone.
Xia Mi flattened the rolled-up calculus book, stuffed it into her bag, and glanced at Chu Zihang. “Senior, what are you daydreaming about? Something on your mind? Don’t worry, everyone’s on your side. The investigation team can’t do anything to you.”
“I’m thinking about a friend,” Chu Zihang said.
“What could possibly worry you, Young Master Chu?” Xia Mi cupped her face in her hands, looking eager for gossip.
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