"Hey buddy! Hey! Waiter!"
The call grew clearer, pulling Fang Qingze rudely out of his thoughts.
"Huh? What is it?" Fang Qingze turned around to find a burly man at table number four calling him.
"The bill," said the man in the tank top, looking Fang Qingze up and down. "What's wrong with you, kid? I've been calling you forever and you didn't even blink."
"Ah, right..." Fang Qingze forced an apologetic smile. "Sorry about that. That little girl just now—she's about the same age as my sister, so it made me think of her for a second. I spaced out."
"Is that so?" The man let out a hearty laugh. "You're not very old, are you? Judging by the look of you, you must still be in high school. How come you're working as a waiter here? Oh, right, No. 7 High School isn't far from here. Are you doing this part-time?"
"I'm still a second-year student at No. 7 High School. I really am just working here part-time," Fang Qingze nodded in confirmation.
"I knew it," the man nodded knowingly, standing up to pat Fang Qingze on the shoulder with a smile. "Not bad, kid! Studying at a key high school like No. 7 High and still managing a part-time job. What's that expression again? Oh, right—working-study program, lightening the load for your parents. You're something else, kid."
The man stood close to 1.95 meters tall and was built like a tank. Even though Fang Qingze was a relatively tall 183 centimeters among his peers, he looked like a tiny little potato dumpling standing next to this guy.
It had nothing to do with height; the difference in build was just too massive. By comparison, Fang Qingze was a toothpick through and through.
"You flatter me, mister. Just earning some pocket money, nothing worth mentioning." Fang Qingze offered an awkward smile. He didn't mention that he was an orphan and didn't have parents like the ones the man imagined. He preferred being treated as an ordinary person over facing other people's pity.
He just found this man's friendliness a bit bizarre—especially since the guy had been giving him the once-over just a moment ago.
*Wait.*
*No way, right?*
Fang Qingze suddenly felt a chill run down his spine. *Damn it, I swing the normal way; I don't have that kind of taste.*
The man looked like he wanted to say more, but someone at table number four gave a gentle cough. With a sheepish look, the man pulled back his hand. "Alright, no more chatting with the kid. Let's settle the bill, and cover that table over there as well," he said, gesturing toward table number six.
Fang Qingze followed the direction of the man's fingertip and saw that the two people at table number six had somehow already left.
"Got it." Fang Qingze reached out to grab the order sheets for the two tables to tally up the bill.
The man stopped him, however. "Forget it, kid. We're in a rush. No need to run back and forth doing all that math—we've already figured it out. Between the two tables, it comes out to about 850 New Dollars. Here's a thousand. Keep the change as a tip, don't worry about it."
With that, he handed Fang Qingze five 200-dollar bills.
Federation currency denominations were basically the same as the old days, except for the addition of a 200-dollar note.
Fang Qingze opened his mouth to say they could have just scanned a QR code to pay.
But the men from both tables were already striding away.
Fang Qingze tucked the banknotes into the pocket at the waist of his uniform, then grabbed a basin, a rag, and some detergent. He quickly cleaned up the three tables to get them ready for the next customers.
Taking off his gloves, Fang Qingze walked over to the counter and handed the money the man had given him to Ren Fang. "Auntie Zhang, this is from those two tables just now. I calculated it—850 in total. They didn't shortchange us."
Ren Fang took the bills, sliding them apart one by one with the pads of her fingers, then called out to Fang Qingze as he turned to get back to work. "Hang on a second."
Fang Qingze looked back at her, puzzled. "Is there something else, Auntie Zhang?"
He watched as Ren Fang tapped away on her phone. At the exact same time, the phone in his pocket buzzed.
"Take a look at your phone." Ren Fang didn't even raise her head as she went back to what she was doing.
Baffled, Fang Qingze pulled out his phone.
The lock screen showed a little cat sunbathing in the light—white with black stripes, resembling a tiger, with a vague capital "M" visible on its forehead.
*Uncle Zhang from the barbecue restaurant sent you a red packet. Please accept or return it in time.*
"Auntie Zhang, this is..." Fang Qingze was a bit dazed.
"The tip from that table just now," Ren Fang glanced up and gave him a sideways look. "I heard everything."
"I don't need this, Auntie Zhang." Looking at the red packet in the chat interface, Fang Qingze had no intention of keeping any tip; his monthly salary was quite enough.
He tapped open the chat interface to return it.
"Tch," Ren Fang rolled her eyes, reached out and snatched the phone right out of his hand. "Don't be so wishy-washy, kid. A customer gives you a tip, you take it. Your Auntie Zhang here makes at least—ahem. Anyway, you call me your auntie, am I going to swindle you out of your money?"
Helplessly, Fang Qingze took back his phone. "Then I'll have to thank Auntie Zhang..."
"What are you thanking me for?" Ren Fang cut him off directly. "This has nothing to do with me, the customers gave it to you. If you're going to thank anyone, thank them."
"Go on, go on! Stop bothering me and get back to work, there are customers over there waiting to pay." She waved him off.
"Right..." Fang Qingze could only nod softly, looking at the accepted red packet on his chat screen.
The 150 New Dollars sat quietly in his phone. That amount was enough to pay for his breakfast for more than ten days.
A warmth welled up in his chest, and the dull, heavy feeling inside him seemed to wash away quite a bit.
***
Time ticked to 9:20 PM.
The nightlife in City Number Seven was just getting started. The pedestrian street was seeing even more foot traffic than before, and virtually all the shops along the street were open for business. Consequently, the barbecue restaurant had fewer customers now, though the norm was still around eight or nine tables filled.
The other part-time worker had also arrived at around 8:30. He was a guy of about twenty-five or twenty-six named Mu Zheng, rumored to be a free spirit without a fixed job who just frequently came here to pick up shifts.
The difference between the two of them was that Mu Zheng's shift ran from 8:30 PM until the restaurant closed at midnight.
Heaven only knows what he did during the day; he probably had some other work. Otherwise, dropping by every few days to work for just a few hours wouldn't earn him enough to even rent a room in a place as insanely expensive as City Number Seven.
Because they were "colleagues," Fang Qingze interacted with him quite a bit. They would chat during lulls in the work—nothing too deep, mostly just tossing casual remarks back and forth, but it kept things from getting awkwardly silent.
"Xiao Fang."
Ren Fang called out to him from the counter.
Fang Qingze stopped wiping the table and wiped the sweat from his brow.
"You can get off work now," Ren Fang pointed to the wall clock. "It's 9:30, getting late. Hurry up and head home."
"Isn't it only 9:20?" Fang Qingze shook his head, indicating there were still a few minutes left and he would leave in a bit.
Ren Fang just smiled, fixing a lingering, quiet gaze on him without saying a word.
"Uh, alright then." Here it came again. Fang Qingze couldn't handle her gaze; it made his whole body crawl with discomfort. "I'm heading home first, then."
Ren Fang nodded in acknowledgment.
"I'll take it from here." Mu Zheng walked over and took the rag out of Fang Qingze's hand. "Go on home. What's a few minutes? It's not like the boss lady isn't going to pay you for the time."
"I just..." Fang Qingze didn't know how to put it. He had never been accustomed to special treatment; this kind of kindness always made him feel undeserving.
Mu Zheng cut him off, striking the pose of an older brother. "You've got to get up early for class tomorrow, hurry home and get some rest. High schoolers are still growing, working too late will..."
He suddenly froze, looking up at Fang Qingze, who stood a good half a head taller than him. The words "stunt your growth" stuck in his throat, utterly impossible to spit out.
He could only mutter gruffly, "Just get home already, kid."
With that, he ignored Fang Qingze and went back to wiping the tables on his own.
Watching Mu Zheng's sullenly retreating back as he wiped tables, Fang Qingze sighed. He went to the changing room, took off his work uniform, slung his backpack over his shoulder, said goodbye to Uncle Zhang, Auntie Zhang, and Mu Zheng, and left the barbecue restaurant.
***
At the New Century Amusement Park, two burly men weighing well over 190 kilograms and packed with bulging muscles sat on adjacent wooden horses on the carousel.
The wooden horses beneath them were styled in a very cute, anime-esque aesthetic, looking like tiny little figurines underneath the two behemoths.
The carousel horses were actually quite sturdy, but under the visual impact of these two, their structural integrity felt deeply concerning, as if they might shake apart at any second.
Not far ahead of them were He Shengting and his family of three.
Xiao Linlin was laughing happily, sharing a horse with her mother. As the carousel rose and fell, she cheered, "Wah-oo! Wah-oo!" He Shengting sat on a horse beside them, his eyes half-closed.
"Strong guy, you think that kid's any trouble?" Xu Gang lowered his voice to ask Zhu Qiang, though his voice was naturally too booming, so his attempt to keep it down just came out muffled and rumbling.
"Nah, just an ordinary kid," Zhu Qiang shook his head, also lowering his voice. "Had Wenhui check him out. Just an ordinary student at No. 7 High... Well, not entirely ordinary. He works and studies at the same time and still manages to stay in the top five of his grade."
Zhu Qiang clicked his tongue in wonder. What kind of freak of nature could handle studying and working at the same time?!
When he was in school back in the day, things like math functions, whatever the hell those charged particle movements in physics were, chemical formulas, biological genes... they all left him cross-eyed and with a splitting headache.
Even understanding the stuff was a struggle; how was a guy supposed to work a job *and* master all of that?
That was a heavy blow to the hearts of underachievers like them. *Are you even human? Where's your apology?*
"Is that all?" Xu Gang asked again.
"Let me think..." Zhu Qiang lowered his head in thought, pressing his clenched fist against his chin—or rather, his philtrum, turning himself into "The Thinker on a Carousel."
"Oh right," he slapped his forehead. "He's an orphan, too, grew up at Sunshine Orphanage. The little sister he mentioned must be a kid from Sunshine Orphanage as well—they've got quite a few kids there. Uh, earlier I was going on about how great it is to 'lightening the load for your parents'... feels like I might have stepped on a landmine there."
Seemingly unintentional words that somehow managed to inflict accidental damage—Zhu Qiang wore an expression of indescribable awkwardness that looked bizarre no matter how you looked at it.
"Don't overthink it," Xu Gang sighed. "You didn't mean to. Besides, who's supposed to know a random stranger's family background? What you said at the time wasn't wrong anyway. Plus, I got the impression he's a pretty cheerful kid. Well... aside from those eyes being a bit devoid of emotion, I doubt he cares about what you said."
"Let's hope so..." Zhu Qiang sighed, pushing down his lingering guilt.
"Anyway, moving on," Xu Gang changed the subject. "What I'm more curious about is—did the two of us really have to get on this goddamn carousel?"
He looked around. Either parents accompanying their children, or young couples with hands around each other's waists sharing a single horse. The two giant brutes stood out like a sore thumb.
Zhu Qiang straightened his expression. "What do you know? We're doing this to protect the boss's family up close!"
"I call bullshit, you just wanted to ride it yourself!" Xu Gang clearly didn't buy it. He looked around the carousel: the other six brothers were stationed at six spots with prime visibility, keeping any malicious actors entirely within their line of sight.
"Rubbish, I did not! As if!" Caught red-handed, Zhu Qiang's face immediately darkened.
"Look at that, getting defensive!" Xu Gang gave a look that practically screamed, *I knew it.*
"Didn't you ever ride this with a girlfriend back in the day?" Xu Gang felt like phrasing sounded wrong, and hurriedly added,
"I mean the carousel."
"You really shouldn't have bothered adding that last part." Zhu Qiang's mouth twitched.