CH 21

Chapter 21: Failed Revenge

For two straight weeks, Yue Zhishi’s method of transportation was Song Yu’s backseat. His happiness remained consistently at its peak. He felt like there was a reason behind Song Yu’s bringing him to and from school and allowing him to study in the fifth floor activity room, but he’d always had a magnanimous heart and never closely examined anything that happened to him.

Even though an uncle at a nearby repair shop had long repaired his bicycle, he kept it at the school entrance and didn’t use it. All the excuses and reasoning he prepared in advance were enough to fill up an entire excel sheet, waiting for the day Song Yu wanted to get rid of him, but he never had the chance to pull a single one of them out.

Winter seemed to be competing with the end of the semester to see who could arrive faster. The two of them eventually arrived together at the same time without warning and caught Yue Zhishi unaware.

It was soon time for the semester exams. The school requested the junior high year 3 students to attend an extra half day of class on the Saturday morning right before the monthly break, and the high school year 3 students were asked to attend an extra day. The Peiya that was originally known for no remedial lessons also ended up providing them.

Yue Zhishi originally wanted to stay until the afternoon to go home together with Song Yu, but the seasonal flu season had slaughtered through the entire school. Other than the disinfected classrooms being used for lessons, students were not allowed to enter anywhere else. Yue Zhishi could only go home first by himself.

He stood at the entrance to the corridor and wrote a text message to Song Yu, explaining the situation.

He received a reply one second after pressing send — a simple ‘okay’.

It’d been a very long time since he went home with Jiang Yufan. On a whim, Yue Zhishi invited him to have lunch with him at Aunt Rong’s private restaurant. Jiang Yufan had heard long ago that her restaurant was super difficult to book, so he couldn’t be more excited and wanted to call home to let his parents know. But he didn’t have his cellphone with him.

Yue Zhishi pulled his out. “Use mine, luckily I brought it today.”

Coming out the math teachers’ office, Song Yu glanced at the third floor corridor. Most of the junior high students were already gone, with only a few students dawdling still. Their talking voices echoed loudly in the empty space around them.

He took a quick look into the activity room as he passed it. Workers were inside disinfecting it.

Qin Yan just then ran over from the staircase, hand carrying a takeaway bag. He greeted him and said, “Let’s go, our fried chicken just arrived. What did Old Zhang want you for?”

“Nothing much, just some competition stuff.”

“I had to wait so long for the delivery driver to find the drop off place, I’m going to freeze to death.” Even though Peiya wasn’t strict with their students, food delivery drivers still couldn’t enter the school. Students could only pick up their orders through the fence railings.

Qin Yan rubbed his hands together and took out the fried chicken box from inside the bag. “While I was waiting, I saw a couple’s entire fierce argument. Good thing I’m single…” He took a sip of his coke. “I also saw a few young people getting ready to fight. Once they pulled off their uniforms and chucked away their cigarettes, it almost looked like one of those mafia movies.”

With the windows closed, the sound of the outside wind screeched like fingernails scratching down a blackboard. Song Yu frowned and put down the chopsticks he’d just picked up. “Were they junior high students?”

“How’d you know?” Qin Yan stuffed his mouth with some fried chicken, garbling his words as he continued describing what he saw. “There was a tall and skinny guy with a crew cut, a little fatty and a bony guy with dyed brown hair. Everyone else I saw weren’t students from our school, dunno if they were students from other schools or gangsters. They didn’t look like the type you’d want to annoy, not even trying to hide as they smoked in the parking lot. Are all junior high students like that now…”

Song Yu got up to leave without waiting for him to finish speaking.

“Hey, where you going? Not eating anymore?”

“I have something to do.”

He tried calling Yue Zhishi twice, the line busy each time. Song Yu ran to the bicycle parking zone and immediately noticed Yue Zhishi’s bike was gone. It was particularly obvious when a bicycle that was there every day suddenly disappeared. He rode his own bike towards the direction of his house at an unprecedented speed.

Song Yu waited at a red light at a fork in the road, the busy line signal still playing through his wireless earphones. He redialed. 

[I’m sorry, your call could not be connected.]

The northern wind at the intersection blew hard enough to make one frustrated. The light for the other road flashed green, and the bicyclists next to him flew across. Song Yu looked at it. It was a road he normally wouldn’t take.

It took six stops on the bus to go home, and it wasn’t considered a short amount of time. When riding his bike, Yue Zhishi liked to take little shortcuts, cutting through a residential alleyway waiting to be demolished to save himself some time. Song Yu knew this, even though he didn’t go home with him often.

That old alleyway hadn’t been so lively in a very long time.

All the big green trashcans at the entrance to the alley have been kicked over to spill onto the floor. Wang Jie chewed his gum, looking like a little gangster, the people next to him throwing their cigarettes onto the floor before they stamped them out with the soles of their feet. Seeing the marks left behind by the cigarette ashes, Yue Zhishi thought of the villains in many of his manga series who liked to forcefully leave behind some signs of their existence with their ugly posturing.

“Just because you guys have more people!” Jiang Yufan stood in front of Yue Zhishi. “So unlucky, start something at school if you have the guts!”

Wang Jie spat out his mouthful of gum, and it landed on the floor right in front of Yue Zhishi.

“Are you worth me fighting you one on one?” Wang Jie had just finished speaking when the tall and strong looking boy behind him grasped his shoulder and considered Yue Zhishi.

“It must be you making things hard for my bro. Your little face is quite pretty, do you like the spotlight that much?” 

Yue Zhishi didn’t reply, his expression excessively calm. In reality, he was thinking this time he must definitely dodge and not let them hit his face, and he must definitely smash Wang Jie’s face this time. After the fight last time, he watched an entire night of various fighting videos in regret, growing more unsatisfied with his own performance the more he watched.

His absentmindedness during this moment caused great affront to that big bro. “I’m talking to you!” He advanced and forcefully pushed Yue Zhishi’s chest.

Jiang Yufan grew frantic. “What are you doing! Don’t touch him!”

Yue Zhishi took off his schoolbag and handed it to Jiang Yufan, hinting at him with his eyes before he turned around and said to the strong-looking boy, “This has nothing to do with him, let him go.”

“This little fellow sure is good to his friends.”

“I’m not leaving.” Jiang Yufan also wanted to take off his bag and chuck it together with Yue Zhishi’s onto the ground, but Yue Zhishi stopped him and said, “Hold my bag, don’t let it get dirty.”

Or else how would he explain it to Song Yu.

Wang Jie stared at him, looking as if he wanted to fight him himself, but he was once again pulled back by the guy in the black clothes. He couldn’t move and could only yell, “Yue Zhishi, come over here, I’ll fix things for you.”

“Fix what, I still need to go home for lunch.” Yue Zhishi didn’t care about him and swept his eyes across the people in front of him. A bird flew across from the rooftops, its shadow passing over his pupils. “Are you all coming up together?”

His words were drowned out by the sounds of a bicycle braking and falling onto the ground. No one heard his perfectly heroic declaration right before a fight. But Yue Zhishi wasn’t discouraged at all, because the person who arrived was Song Yu.

The moment Song Yu turned his head to look at them, his hair was blown into a rare moment of disarray by the wind. The messy hair looked very good on him, and even the alarm on his face was able to move someone’s heart. His bicycle was chucked behind him, and the thick outer coat of his uniform was also chucked into a corner — he clearly had a light obsession with cleanliness, but he didn’t stop to consider at all if something was dirty or how he should later tidy things up.

Song Yu headed towards him with long strides as the light shined on his back. In Yue Zhishi’s heart, this was the exact image of a hero arriving to save the day.

Song Yu grabbed him by the arm and dragged him bodily behind him, just like when they were younger.

“Who the fuck is this?” The strong-looking boy glanced at Wang Jie, looking rather dissatisfied with the expansion of the battlefield. Wang Jie also looked annoyed at this sudden unexpected appearance.

“I’m his older brother.” Song Yu took off his watch and passed it to Yue Zhishi. “Stand further away.”

Song Yu spoke to him in a very low, somewhat gentle voice. Yue Zhishi moved to stand in the wind and stared at the watch in his hands — it didn’t look much different from when he’d first bought it, still clean and new. It didn’t look like it’d been used for four years. The second hand ticked along on the watch face, and his heart accelerated with it.

The other person wasn’t as tall, but he wasn’t afraid with his larger amount of people. He even looked Song Yu up and down, deliberately provocative. “So? You here to take his hits?”

Song Yu lifted his eyes, and the blue vein at the end of his eyebrow quietly twitched.

“I’m here to hit people for him.”

He was still in elementary school the last time Song Yu fought in front of him.

That was when Yue Zhishi was being bullied the heaviest. He’d greedily taken a few bites of the school provided cookies, and large sheets of red and swollen rashes had appeared on his face. After they saw the rashes, some of the boys who’d previously ostracised him taunted him, saying he’d turned so ugly, and surrounded him in a circle to stuff a few more cookies into his mouth. Too much time have passed, and Yue Zhishi no longer remembered how he’d begged for help. He only remembered how Song Yu looked when he arrived, standing in front and sheltering him from everyone else just like a manga hero.

But they didn’t have a cool ending like in a manga series. One of them was decorated by fighting marks, and the other was disfigured by his allergic reactions. Lin Rong forced them to sit in at the entrance of Yanghe Qizhe like official mascots.

In comparison to a fully experienced Yue Zhishi, Jiang Yufan clearly had no idea what he was seeing.

“Wait — no way — your brother is this awesome…..” He watched as Song Yu, by himself, flipped the strong-looking boy. The remaining other people hesitated to get closer.

Yue Zhishi held onto the watch. “He’s taken taekwondo lessons.” He then added, “I have too.”

Jiang Yufan stared at a tranquil Yue Zhishi with two wide eyes.

No wonder he fought one versus four last time in the bathroom.

The ‘big bro’ Wang Jie brought with him was nothing more than another paper tiger. Song Yu had seen this from the moment he entered the alleyway. He’d worried that the guy would’ve hidden some sharp weapons on his body, but after observing for a while, he noticed his clothes didn’t have any pockets. His hands didn’t have a single callus, so rather than calling him strong, it was probably better to describe him as someone with a high level of body fat.

If the ringleader could be defeated first, it would be stupid to fight the followers instead. Song Yu didn’t want to waste too much time on this scuffle, so he gave him a few side kicks to his chest. He couldn’t hit too hard, or else he would have to worry about being pulled into the police station. He could only use clever methods to dispose of this big bro.

“Zhang ge!” 

Other than Wang Jie, the other people circled around Song Yu. A little bro with dyed red hair jumped up and wrapped his arms around the back of Song Yu’s neck, wanting to pin him down for everyone else.

Song Yu frowned and looked a bit annoyed. He grabbed the guy’s arms and threw him over his shoulder to land heavily on the ground, the dust rising from the impact.

No one dared to come closer after a succession of force. The Zhang ge on the ground was just about to get up when Song Yu kicked him again, several times in a row, to the point where Song Yu would only just lift his leg and the other guy would shrink backwards in reflex. 

“Want to try again?” Song Yu asked.

“I’m so fucking unlucky today,” the guy cursed as he retreated.  

Song Yu stood there with his arms hanging by his side. He rotated his wrists and said, face still clear of any expression, “Don’t touch him again. If I find out, things won’t be as simple as today.” 

Yue Zhishi watched as Zhang ge stood up with his trembling fat body. He was just like one of those unimpressive villains in many manga series, retreating with a grey face surrounded by his people while spitting out words like ‘I’ll be back’. 

Wang Jie was the angriest. Nothing had gone according to his plans. His eyes landed angrily on Song Yu, and his fists clenched.

“Don’t even think about it.” Song Yu didn’t bother to even look at him and went to pick up his outer coat from the ground. 

“I’m not interested in fighting a child.”

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Qin Yan: Yet another day of being stood up