Chapter 12: Hell Has Frozen Over
Lu Mingfei pulled back the thin curtain of the private dining booth, as if pushing open a heavy door that separated the inside and outside into two entirely different worlds.
Inside the booth, all the tables and chairs had been cleared away. The boys and girls were crowded into the cramped space, sitting cross-legged on the vermilion wooden floor around a spread of exquisite food and shochu.
In the center of the floor sat delicate small plates holding orange salmon sashimi, pink sakura sushi rolls, and brown, savory takoyaki. The boys had their arms slung around each other's shoulders, their heads tilted back and necks flushed red as they downed shochu recklessly, eager to display their masculinity in front of the girls. The girls covered their mouths with their hands and giggled softly at the boys' foolish antics.
Lu Mingfei froze for a second. He could not remember how long it had been since he last found himself in such a lively, noisy environment. A year? Or two?
The last time seemed to be in some small internet café that might have gone out of business by now. What game he had been playing, Lu Mingfei no longer remembered; he only recalled that the internet café had been really loud, the various noises easily piercing through cheap headphones to buzz and dart around inside his skull, while the secondhand smoke from the next table felt like it was blocking his lungs and suffocating him.
"The Little Goddess is back?" Xu Miaomiao curled himself into an O shape, and with a remarkably smooth and slick maneuver, rolled out a seat for Su Xiaoqiang.
"Not bad at all, you even managed to invite our Great God Lu along with you. Su Xiaoqiang, you really know how to pull it off!" a girl teased, though it was hard to tell whether her tone was sarcastic or sincere.
"Since I spoke up in person, how could Lu Mingfei possibly refuse to give me some face?" Su Xiaoqiang tugged at Lu Mingfei's sleeve from behind.
The latter nodded with absolute loyalty.
Although Lu Mingfei was out of touch with classroom politics, he was neither blind nor an idiot; he was well aware of the friction between Su Xiaoqiang and certain girls in the class. The cliques of high school girls were always so exclusionary. Whenever a girl came from a wealthy background and grew close to the boys, she would invariably be hit behind her back with labels like "tom-boy" or "tea-drinking bitch."
Once, a girl from the next-door class had a direct falling out with Su Xiaoqiang because the boy she liked had a crush on Su Xiaoqiang. Out came a stream of heart-piercing knife-like remarks: "Aren't you ashamed of hanging around with a bunch of guys all day?" or "So your family dug up a few extra lumps of coal, big deal! Why call yourself the Little Goddess? Wouldn't 'Little Coal-goddess' suit you better?"
Lu Mingfei actually hadn't wanted to meddle in other people's business, because after all, this was the Little Goddess. The Little Goddess only ever bullied others; how could anyone possibly bully her?
Yet that time, in a rare occurrence, Su Xiaoqiang did not argue with the girl. When the girl finally ran out of breath from her scolding, having poured every bit of bitter gall from her stomach all over Su Xiaoqiang, Lu Mingfei saw Su Xiaoqiang turn and walk away in absolute silence, soaked through with that flood of bitterness.
She looked like a thoroughly drenched drowned rat, and she looked terribly like his own past self.
Afterward, Lu Mingfei found Su Xiaoqiang hiding alone on the teaching building's rooftop, staring blankly into space. "I thought the Little Goddess would never admit defeat."
Hearing the voice, Su Xiaoqiang turned her head and saw Lu Mingfei, who was notoriously eccentric in their class. After a brief flicker of surprise, she lifted her pretty little chin. "Who says I lost?! I was just... just..."
Lu Mingfei kept a patient silence, waiting for her to continue.
"Did you come to watch me make a fool of myself too?" Unable to find a suitable excuse, the Little Goddess drooped her head, her pretty face crumpling together like a deflated balloon.
"A fool? Do you mean that crazy woman who went on an unprovoked street-rant, whether because her period was out of whack or her life is just miserable? She certainly looks pretty ridiculous," Lu Mingfei said.
Su Xiaoqiang raised her head and met Lu Mingfei's earnest gaze. She let out a sudden snort of laughter. "I never would've guessed that a guy like you could actually talk such nonsense."
"What kind of guy am I? Talking nonsense is my passive skill; unlike swordsmanship or musical instruments, you don't even have to learn it, you're just born with it." Lu Mingfei smiled along with her.
"Everyone says behind your back that you're deliberately imitating Senior Brother Chu Zihang, but I find you two are actually quite different."
"Being like the Senior Brother is hardly a good thing. If I turned into a stiff, awkward guy like him, I'd go crazy myself!"
"If the other girls heard you say that, you'd be cornered and beaten up at the door. In our eyes, Senior Brother Chu Zihang is the most perfect person!"
"Give me a break, where on earth is there any perfect person in this world?"
"Isn't Chen Wenwen considered perfect in the eyes of you boys?"
"Oh, please! Even you are much better than her!"
...
Inside the booth, Zhao Menghua signaled to Xu Yanyan. The latter immediately caught the hint and started shouting loudly, "A penalty drink! Great God Lu, since you came so late, you have to be penalized with a drink!"
"Lu Mingfei, drinking is fine with you, right? You didn't drive here, did you?" Zhao Menghua followed up on Xu Yanyan's lead, his tone dripping with concern.
"No," Lu Mingfei replied indifferently.
"Hahaha, I told you so! There's no way that flashy red Ferrari outside belongs to Great God Lu, but you guys wouldn't believe me!" Zhao Menghua said loudly, wrapping an arm around Xu Yanyan's neck and laughing.
Perhaps because the joke wasn't really funny, or perhaps because quite a few people could sense the invisible tension and hostility between Zhao Menghua and Lu Mingfei, the atmosphere in the booth instantly dropped a few degrees.
"Is it yours?" Lu Mingfei looked back at Zhao Menghua with a half-smile.
"So what if it's not mine?" Zhao Menghua's expression shifted, and then he said loftily, "In the future, I'm destined to have no shortage of Ferraris to drive!"
"Oh, that's great. As long as it's not a Bugatti Veyron." Lu Mingfei picked up a piece of sashimi and popped it into his mouth.
"What the hell? Lu Mingfei, don't tell me you thought spouting a few lines of nonsense means you get out of taking a penalty drink?" Zhao Menghua said with a frown.
"So you beat around the bush with me for half a day just to make me drink a glass, dragging in cars and Ferraris—why must a grown man be such a nagging fussbudget?" Lu Mingfei poured a full cup and drank it in one gulp.
"Who are you calling a fussbudget?" Zhao Menghua's eyes turned unfriendly.
"Alright, alright, what's the point of arguing at a class reunion? I'll propose a toast, let's end this topic right here." Su Xiaoqiang stood up at that moment, picked up the shochu cup in front of her, and downed it in a single tilt of her head.
A chorus of cheers and applause erupted inside the booth. The Little Goddess's bold demeanor finally managed to heat up the atmosphere once again.
"Actually, there's no need to bother with that guy," Lu Mingfei said softly.
"It's fine, I wanted to drink anyway. What kind of place is an izakaya if you don't drink shochu?" Su Xiaoqiang refilled her cup. "Now that I've finished Zhao Menghua's penalty drink, I'll toast you another one. Bottoms up?"
"Don't drink anymore after this cup." Helplessly, Lu Mingfei picked up his shochu cup and clinked it gently against Su Xiaoqiang's.
Fortunately, the shochu cups in this izakaya were small; otherwise, Lu Mingfei suspected the Little Goddess would turn into a rolling dragon today—the kind that had to be carried out horizontally.
"Cassel College's interviews... everyone probably failed across the board, right?" Zhao Menghua abruptly brought up the topic, though he actually cast a furtive glance toward Chen Wenwen.
"I didn't pass, anyway," Su Xiaoqiang shrugged. "Still, I don't care. My dad said he's sending me to study at Stanford University."
"I didn't pass either," Chen Wenwen said softly, then she secretly glanced at Lu Mingfei not far away. "I wonder if Lu Mingfei passed."
"If he passed, hell has frozen over. With the kind of crazy questions Cassel put out..." Zhao Menghua said.
"Pardon me, but hell really has frozen over."
For a moment, countless eyes in the private booth turned toward a single person.