Chapter 6

That year, when Li Mingzhu fooled Lu Yao and the old woman, it could be said that she was beset by perils.

At that time, Lu Yao was still as tall as her, and he refused to comply with discipline (although he still didn’t comply), Li Mingzhu took grandma Wang’s money, so she bent her back and gave her all to improve Lu Yao’s grades, but failed to help Lu ‘Adou’[1].

She had even chosen the place to put the cheat note in the men’s toilet, but Lu Yao, who had second-year syndrome, was very proud, and would rather die than cheat, leaving Li Mingzhu helpless.

The relationship between Li Mingzhu and Lu Yao was just like the small note in the men’s toilet and the second-year syndrome’s pride, it was irreconcilable.

As his teacher, Li Mingzhu has been pretending for such a long time, that he became magnanimous, she could tolerate some of Lu Yao’s temper.

Unfortunately, Lu Yao took pleasure in challenging her bottom line, which caused them to frequently turn against each other, they would start by greeting their ancestors[2] and end by spitting at each other.

Now they have passed the age of spitting. At this moment, they sat together. They found it difficult to put down their pride and also couldn’t find a reason to greet each other’s elders.

So after Li Mingzhu said they should have a serious talk, Lu Yao thought: ‘Talk a shit, I have nothing to talk about with you.’

At the door, Wang Miao, who had long disliked this sissy of the top class, shouted: “Li Ming, brother Lu is treating you courteously, don’t you disregard his kindness, talk my ass! Why don’t you talk about love[3]!”

Li Mingzhu snorted coldly in her heart, dating Lu Yao would shorten her life.

Li Mingzhu wanted to live up to seventy or eighty years, live until her bitch parents were dead and be energetic enough to tap dance on their coffin.

Lu Yao only ate half of his meal, but he suddenly lost his appetite, he said: “I’ll take care of you when my leg is healed.”

A threat that had no deterrent effect. Li Mingzhu was a cunning person who grew up on the fringes of society, how could she be afraid of his words!

“Oh, then take good care of your wound.” Li Mingzhu’s glasses reflected a sinister light, Lu Yao shuddered, from the glasses he saw Li Mingzhu’s countless evil thoughts.

He had every reason to believe that this four-eyed sissy must be thinking of some wicked plan so that his leg wouldn’t heal for a long time.

Li Mingzhu stood up, the class bell already rang once.

“If you want your legs to heal quickly, you should eat less takeaway food. It’s not like the food in the cafeteria can poison you to death.”

Lu Yao kept a cold face, indifferent to Li Mingzhu’s words.

Li Mingzhu probably also felt that she was a bit naggy.

She was older than Lu Yao, and also had taken care of this brat for a while. Seeing him eating takeaway, she somewhat found it unhealthy.

But the current situation wasn’t suitable for such a warm and affectionate concern.

Sure enough, Lu Yao coldly put down the takeaway box: “Li Ming’er, don’t play the emotional card with me, it’s useless.”

Li Mingzhu thought: ‘We don’t have any emotional cards I could play.’

She said: “As you wish, Lu Yao, what you want to do is none of my business. I apologize for what happened in the past. I will also do my best, if you need my help.”

Li Mingzhu said reasonably: “But you can’t hinder my classes or I won’t listen.”

Li Mingzhu, at last, said: “Think about it carefully.” She tidied her clothes and walked out of the infirmary intact and unharmed.

Wang Miao watched dumbstruck Li Mingzhu go out. It took him a long time to recover, he looked at Lu Yao: “He, he left just like this?”

Lu Yao was suppressing his anger, having nowhere to vent it. At this time, Wang Miao just bumped into the muzzle of the gun[4]: “If not like this, he fucking left through flying?!”

“No, I mean… he…” just left?

Wang Miao was so shocked that he didn’t know how to move his hands and feet.

Li Mingzhu, this cunning four-eyes, last night did such an outrageous thing to Lu Yao. So this morning when Lu Yao called his comrades to catch him, Wang Miao thought that after bringing him here, this good student would either die or have to peel off his skin[5].

However, he just went inside for a while and then just walked out without missing an arm or leg.

Wang Miao thought: ‘Lu Yao, brother Lu, so you said to invite him over for a talk, it really was a simple talk? Why is it different from the way you ‘talked’ to others before?’

Lu Yao’s face darkened and gave off a fierce aura, Wang Miao tactfully shut up, not daring to speak again.

After this talk, Lu Yao seemed to have listened a little bit, or maybe because his leg was limping, as he didn’t do anything excessive, other than ordering her to run errands.

Li Mingzhu didn’t oppose much, firstly, because Lu Yao’s leg indeed got injured by her, and secondly, because running errands didn’t hinder her from attending classes.

At least, in this period, Lu Yao didn’t order his lackeys to bring Li Mingzhu away without saying a word anymore.

In the middle of September, Lu Yao’s leg healed and he reverted to his old ways, making trouble for Li Mingzhu.

Li Mingzhu was so annoyed that she hid as much as she could, she hid until the welcoming ceremony.

The welcoming ceremony was where Li Mingzhu and Lu Yao’s ill-fated high school relationship started. For half a month, the highly intelligent Li Mingzhu regretted her kick every night. If she hadn’t given that kick, maybe there wouldn’t have been such problems.

During this ill-fated ceremony, Lu Yao went into the limelight. It could be said that he got infinite glory.

Li Mingzhu moved a stool and sat on the sports ground. She was sitting in the middle of the class. Her face was expressionless also when watching the ceremony, she wasn’t surprised, even when Lu Yao came on stage.

During the summer vacation when she was giving remedial lessons to Lu Yao, Li Mingzhu saw a violin in Lu Yao’s study room. At that time she just thought that Lu Yao, as someone with second-year syndrome, bought it to act pretentiously. This idiot went off-key while singing, how could he have such a noble sentiment to play the violin.

It turned out that Lu Yao really could play the violin.

He played the violin with such seriousness and lovingness, that made the hearts of female schoolmates in the audience bloom and explode with love, shouting they wanted to marry him.

Li Mingzhu had his arms crossed and finished listening to Lu Yao’s performance without any expression, listening to the end she still didn’t know what song he played, but it was much better than the previous one.

In her mind, playing the piano or the violin was an act full of passion, with loose hair, playing to the point of excitement, from an elegant artist becoming a punk rock singer. The more they shook their heads, the better they would play.

This was how Li Mingzhu, who had low artistic ability, perceived artistic behaviour.

However, Lu Yao was refined and composed, very different from his usual personality.

After the welcoming ceremony, there was still one evening self-study left. Without giving them a break, the school drove the students to their classrooms like sheeps, fearing that they would miss the last evening self-study.

As soon as everyone heard that they had to go back to class, they became slumped and wilted.

“Damn, why don’t they just let us go back to the dormitory!” Gu Xiaofei complained.

Li Mingzhu was at the end of the line, hearing the wailings in front of her arise one after another, she thought they were much more sentimental than the chorus they sang at the ceremony.

The sports ground had five exits and each exit was guarded by the members of the student council and the supervision team. After the merge of the first and second student councils, many departments were dismissed and they hadn’t had time to train newcomers, but looking at it, they employed the supervision team first.

The supervision team was that student organization which used violence to control violence and was composed of students from the art class.

They were all tall and burly, completely looking like school bullies.

When a pretty girl walked over, the boys of the supervision team at the exit would immediately whistle at her, stroke their hair flirtatiously and wink as if their eyelids were spasming.

Li Mingzhu acted low-key, hiding among the group of students and trying to slip through unnoticed.

Twenty minutes ago, Lu Yao sent her a text message, telling her to wait on the tree-lined path: the pathway between the sports ground and the basketball court.

For Li Mingzhu, Lu Yao’s orders were eighty per cent bullshit.

Her eyes could automatically filter everything related to Lu Yao.

Li Mingzhu was already being low-key to the extreme, but when she walked through the exit, she still got caught by the supervision team.

“Wait, you, come here, let the students behind go first.”

Li Mingzhu said: “I’m leaving with them.”

“No, we have something to tell you.” One of the supervision team members laughed, “Don’t make things difficult for us, senior.”

Li Mingzhu thought: ‘Talking eccentrically.’

The supervision team really dared to detain Li Mingzhu. When Lu Yao rushed over, Li Mingzhu had already been waiting for a while.

Lu Yao just got off the stage, so was still wearing a suit, he had taken off his coat and only had the shirt on, the top button was undone and the hem was tucked into his trousers: he had a very well-proportioned build, the suit on him made him look like he was walking a runway.

Li Mingzhu looked at him calmly and evaluated: ‘Gaudy’.

Lu Yao came running, when he was still one hundred meters away from Li Mingzhu, he suddenly came to a stop, made a calm face and with the steady attitude of a leader, walked over slowly.

“Brother Lu, this guy wanted to run away just now!” The one who caught her immediately reported in a lackeying manner.

Li Mingzhu thought: ‘The legs are on my body, I can run whenever I want.’

Lu Yao threw the violin on his back into Li Mingzhu’s arms, suddenly having a weight on her hands, Li Mingzhu’s body swayed a bit. Lu Yao saw it and thought disdainfully: ‘Sissy’.

“Bring my violin back to the dormitory and buy me a meal on the way.” Lu Yao ordered.

Li Mingzhu said, “You aren’t attending the evening self-study?”

After she finished speaking, she immediately shut up.

The art class didn’t have a fourth period in the evening, they finished at 9:40. Only the excellence class had it.

Li Mingzhu looked up at the great clock on the international building, it was 8:40, in other words, she still had two periods of evening self-study.

But Lu Yao was directly going back to the dormitory, Li Mingzhu said, “Skipping class again.”

“It’s none of your business.” Lu Yao rolled his eyes, “You aren’t thinking that you can still discipline me, right?”

Li Mingzhu put on a fake smile, thinking that it was better to avoid unnecessary trouble, this bastard was amenable to coaxing but not to coercion, the more you opposed him the more trouble he would cause, so she asked calmly, “What do you want to eat?”

“Up to you.” Lu Yao crumpled his tie into a ball and stuffed it into his suit pants, making his pocket protrude very unsightly. “Bring it yourself, don’t find someone else to deliver it. If I open the door and see it’s not you, then be prepared.”

The canteen closed at 6:40. If someone wanted to eat, they had to go to the western restaurant.

The western restaurant was near the sports ground, the upper floor was a coffee shop, and the lower floor was a fast food restaurant, which used the same meal card. Li Mingzhu ordered a fast food takeaway and delivered it directly to Lu Yao’s dormitory.

Lu Yao’s dormitory was in the international building, the most expensive of all the dormitories.

This building was some distance away from the teaching building, so in order to be on time for class, she ran upstairs.

The international building’s lower eight floors were classrooms, the upper eight floors were dormitories and in the middle was built a small garden. Li Mingzhu walked through the garden and then through the almost empty cafeteria.

It was the first time she entered the international building, she walked around for a long time before finding the entrance of the dormitory, in the end, it was a foreign teacher who was going downstairs, that helped her and led her to the north entrance.

The lift went up, and Li Mingzhu stepped out of the door, looking around, she bemoaned the corruption of capitalism, paying an extra 5,000 yuan for the dormitory fee, this environment condition wasn’t unmeritable.

Lu Yao lived in a double room, but the other roommate hadn’t moved in yet, Li Mingzhu opened the door and said coldly: “I’m leaving the things on the carpet by the door.”

Inside, Lu Yao was taking a bath. Before he went on stage, the makeup artist draw two flick eyeliners on him, making his already handsome face give off the bewitching charm of a fox spirit.

Lu Yao was really grossed out by men wearing makeup. He reluctantly lowered his noble head and endured these two damn eyeliners being on his face for more than an hour.

As soon as he got back to the dormitory, he couldn’t bear it anymore, so went into the bathroom and washed his face while taking a shower.

When Li Mingzhu was calling out outside, there was the sound of running water in the bathroom, so Lu Yao didn’t hear her.

Little theatre

Li Mingzhu: Regularly delivering meals to the little puppy dog I picked up.

Lu Yao: Who the hell is a dog! Try saying it again, I’ll kill you!

Many years later

Mrs Lu: Regularly going home and cooking for the dog.

Lu Yao: …Woof!

Brother Lu! What about your backbone! The dog ate it?!

Lu Yao: Nowadays what man isn’t afraid of his wife? Is it reasonable not to be afraid of your wife?! Is it reasonable?!

Every time Mr Lu thought of what he did back then as Little Mr Lu, he would feel grateful for having saved his dog’s life and managed to survive.

He was just afraid that Mrs Lu one day would recall it and settle accounts with him.

Notes

1. ‘Adou’, also known as Liu Chan (207–271), was the last emperor of Shu Han, commonly perceived as an incapable ruler and accused of indulging in pleasures while neglecting state affairs. So ‘Adou’ is used to describe incapable people who would not achieve anything even with significant assistance. return

2. ‘Greeting their ancestors’ here means ‘to make offensive references to somebody dear to the person to whom one is speaking’. return

3. ‘Tan lian ai’ literally ‘talk about love’, means ‘to be in love, dating’. return

4. ‘Bump into the muzzle of the gun’ means ‘to run into trouble by coincidence’, here, Wang Miao spoke to Lu Yao when he was in a bad mood, so got yelled at. return

5. ‘Either die or have to peel off one’s skin’ means ‘to receive a major harm or a significant loss’. return