Chapter 158
Chapter 158
Even as my mother stubbornly denied being afraid, she forced a smile and greeted Bai Su and Huihui.
“Hello. You’re Xiao Zhong’s friends, are you? What should we call the two of you?”
Bai Su’s voice sounded inside my parents’ minds.
“Hello, Uncle and Auntie. My name is Bai Su, and this is my little brother, Huihui.”
My parents nodded in response as well.
“Hello, Miss Bai. Hello, Huihui…”
They exchanged a round of polite greetings.
After chatting briefly, they all seemed to run out of things to say.
Both sides could only grin awkwardly and chuckle at each other.
I hurriedly suggested that we watch television.
At around this hour, the town’s little television station would begin showing all kinds of supernatural Hong Kong horror movies again… Watching them had probably already become part of my parents’ daily routine.
And wouldn’t you know it, the timing was perfect.
That night, the Lianghe Town video station was showing a Hong Kong movie about a Daoist priest hunting monsters.
One part of the story involved a Maoshan Daoist fighting a vicious fox demon!
The fox demon could not only transform into a human woman to seduce men, drink their blood, and devour their hearts and livers, but also possessed all manner of powerful demonic arts.
In the end, the protagonist exhausted every method at his disposal before finally destroying the fox demon and ridding the people of its menace.
As we watched the fox demon commit one evil deed after another, Huihui became so furious that he rolled back and forth across the floor, his furry body resembling a large jar.
He slapped his belly with his short, thick forepaws and let out angry fox cries–squeak, squeak, squeak!
Meanwhile, the aggrieved voice of a little boy sounded telepathically in our minds.
“That’s horrible! Isn’t that wretched evil fox ruining the reputation of our entire fox clan? What am I supposed to do if I meet cultivators someday and they beat me too?”
His childish, innocent complaint made all of us burst out laughing.
My mother laughed so hard that tears streamed from her eyes.
From that moment onward, her fear of my two monster friends vanished completely. Before long, she was even hugging Huihui and playing with him, saying his soft fur made him feel just like a pet dog…
And so I spent two days of the holiday at home.
On the final day, I prepared to leave for town after breakfast.
After all, I had promised Yao Nan I would attend her birthday party.
She had already given me her exact home address before the holiday.
At eleven thirty that morning, I arrived at Yao Nan’s home without incident.
Before that, I’d even had time to stop at Old Cao’s coffin shop and leave the textbooks, workbooks, homework, and everything else from my schoolbag there.
I went into the party unburdened.
I had to admit that Yao Nan’s family truly seemed quite wealthy!
Their home stood in a newly developed area near the southeastern side of Lianghe Town. Construction there had begun only in 1996.
Because it had been built later, the entire area had been planned and designed as a whole.
Not only were the roads wider and the shops along them cleaner and more orderly, but the three newly built residential compounds were also quite upscale–they were apparently called commercial garden residences or something like that.
Even I could sense that society had been changing more and more rapidly over the past several years.
But that was a good thing. Overall, everyone’s lives were improving. Even the countryside was a little wealthier than when I had been younger…
“Riverside Garden. This should be the place.”
I murmured the name silently.
A security guard stopped me at the entrance. Only after I gave him the exact building and apartment number and left my name was I allowed inside.
Building Three, third floor, Apartment One.
The front door was made of steel and looked both elegant and extremely sturdy. It was nothing like the wooden doors found in the countryside or the rolling shutters used for the shop residences lining the streets.
I had a general idea that it was called either a security door or an anti-theft door. It provided both safety and soundproofing. Wang Dachun’s home had one too.
It sounded quite lively inside.
Even through the thick iron door, I could faintly hear laughter and playful voices.
I pressed the doorbell.
Ding-dong, ding-dong!
“Coming, coming!”
A faint response came from inside, accompanied by the thump-thump-thump of slippers running across the floor.
Click.
The lock opened with a soft noise, and the security door swung inward.
A pretty teenage girl appeared before me–but she wasn’t Yao Nan. She was a little older, and although her features weren’t as delicate as Yao Nan’s, they bore a faint resemblance. A tiny beauty mark sat at the corner of one eye.
I immediately smiled and introduced myself.
“Hello. My name is Wu Zhong, and I’m Yao Nan’s classmate. She invited me to her birthday party today.”
“Oh, so you’re Wu Zhong? You really are rather handsome.”
The girl studied me with interest for several moments.
What?
I was bewildered and failed to understand her meaning at first.
She smiled again.
“My name is Wang Qian. I’m Yao Nan’s older cousin, and I’m in tenth grade at Fubei Secondary School. She was just telling us about you. Come in, Classmate Wu Zhong. Here, you can wear these slippers.”
Wang Qian ushered me inside and cheerfully pointed to a brand-new pair of men’s slippers beside the door.
At the same time, she turned and called into the apartment.
“Nannan, aren’t you going to hurry out and welcome your dear deskmate?”
Uh…
Something about her tone struck me as strange, almost as though her words carried a deeper meaning.
Of course, that might have been my imagination.
After entering, I casually swept my gaze around and formed my first impression of Yao Nan’s home.
It was huge!
Much larger than even Wang Dachun’s home.
As I became good friends with the three of them, I had also learned a little about their family circumstances.
Zeng Jin’s family ran a wholesale fruit business–which was why he had accompanied his parents to the dinner Boss Duan organized for his friends and their families. Boss Duan was the largest fruit grower in all of Fubei County.
Both of Wang Dachun’s parents worked for the government, and neither held a low position. They could be considered prominent figures in Lianghe Town.
Thus, although his family wasn’t extraordinarily rich and enjoyed only modest prosperity, they held very high social standing!
Zeng Jin’s family might be wealthy, but their social status was far below that of Wang Dachun’s parents.
That was one reason Wang Dachun had always been the leader of their former little clique of spoiled rich kids… Besides being large, strong, and good at fighting, family background mattered too.
As for Yao Nan… Her mother also worked for the government and held a position no lower than those of Wang Dachun’s parents. Her father was a businessman with considerable prestige in town.
This combination of wealth and influence provided Yao Nan with an excellent living and educational environment. It also spared her much of the harassment that pretty girls from ordinary families often encountered.
Take the former Wang Dachun, for example. He thought Yao Nan was pretty but never dared go too far with her…
The friends a family like hers socialized with would naturally come from similarly impressive backgrounds.
That explained why the adults gathered on the western side of the roughly six-hundred-square-foot living room–playing cards, mahjong, and chatting–were all dressed so elegantly.
“Deskmate! You’re here? Hurry over. We’re watching Pokémon! Dinner will be ready in a little while!”
Yao Nan spotted me as well and ran over happily to welcome me.
I looked around.
The living room was more than six hundred square feet. The adults were enjoying themselves at one end, while the teenagers and children played at the other.
Neither group disturbed the other.
It was perfectly normal for these social elites from Lianghe Town, nearby towns, or Fubei County’s urban center to use their children’s birthday parties as an opportunity to visit one another and strengthen their relationships.
I even thought I spotted one of our school’s vice principals. He usually stood beside the principal during the flag-raising ceremony.
Social circles existed in every time and place.
“Boss, you finally made it!”
Wang Dachun also walked toward me with Zeng Jin following behind him.
Their parents already knew Yao Nan’s parents, so naturally, they had been invited as well. Besides, the four of us had become fairly good friends.
Boss?
Wang Qian and the other teenage boys and girls nearby all looked surprised.
They knew Wang Dachun too. He was considered a spoiled rich kid and had quite a temper within their circle.
They had never imagined he would show such respect toward someone like me, who plainly came from an ordinary family.
At that moment, a boy with his hair parted down the middle glanced at me.
“Your name is Wu Zhong, right? Since today is Yao Nan’s birthday, you brought her a present, didn’t you?”
Naturally, one was expected to give a present at a birthday party.
I had already seen a large pile of gift boxes of every kind near the door. Presumably, they were all for Yao Nan–some had probably come from the adults, while others were from Yao Nan’s friends.
After all, adults had their own social circles, and children did too.
I understood that perfectly well.
To tell the truth, the countryside might be poor, but when it came to social etiquette and the ways of the world… ancient or modern, in China or abroad, among the poor, the middle class, or the nobility… it was exactly the same everywhere!
But this boy clearly regarded me with faint hostility.
It was completely inexplicable!
I didn’t even know him. Today was the first time we had ever met.
While I was still puzzled, he extended his hand toward me, imitating the mannerisms of adults.
“Let me introduce myself. My name is Liu Yilong. I’m in ninth grade at Fubei Secondary School, and I’m like an older brother to Yao Nan because we grew up together in the residential compound for our parents’ work unit. So my relationship with her may be a little different from everyone else’s. I’ve been preparing her present for this birthday party for more than two months.”
Oh, so he was her childhood sweetheart?
I smiled and nodded, then extended my hand and shook his. But the guy seemed to grip my hand with deliberate force, then continued squeezing harder.
“Is he crazy?”
I was already becoming annoyed. But since this was Yao Nan’s birthday, I couldn’t very well cause a scene. So I squeezed back.
I might have been only in seventh grade while he was in ninth.
Unarmed martial arts were also my weakest subject among all the arts I currently studied… But an ordinary schoolboy like him still wasn’t anywhere near my level.
The moment I applied force, he must have felt a burst of excruciating pain shoot through his hand.
“Ow!”
He couldn’t keep himself from crying out.
I released his hand with a smile. “Sorry, sorry. I became a little excited when I saw one of Yao Nan’s friends and accidentally lost control of my strength.”
Afterward, I turned toward Yao Nan.
“Deskmate, you won’t blame me, will you?”
Yao Nan’s eyes narrowed with laughter as she shook her head.
“Of course not. You didn’t do it on purpose. And besides…”
As she spoke, Yao Nan turned toward Liu Yilong again.
“Why are you talking such nonsense? I never accepted you as my older brother. Just like everybody else, we’re friends. There were so many of us who grew up together in the residential compound for our parents’ work unit.”
Liu Yilong’s expression froze, and he looked a little aggrieved.
“Nannan, didn’t you always follow me around when you were little and call me big brother?”
“I didn’t know any better when I was little… Oh, right, Deskmate. What present did you prepare for me today?”
She tilted her head and smiled at me.
Her expression was filled with anticipation.
Beside her, Liu Yilong seemed rather disdainful. He gave a soft snort, folded his arms, and watched me sidelong.