Qian Wei stiffly turned her head to follow her own hand—and sure enough, the hand she was holding belonged to Lu Xun, fair and clean. Following that hand upward led to Lu Xun’s face, still touched with a frosty chill, still pale as ever, though there was now a faint dark aura hovering about his brow.
“Lu Xun! I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean any of what I just said.” Qian Wei immediately let go of his hand, nearly ready to drop to her knees in tears. “It’s just—my family favors boys, and Qian Chuan gets treated like royalty while I’m stuck doing all the dirty, exhausting chores like some maid, getting scolded and hit all the time. Life’s been a nightmare, every day feels like living in hell, worse than a dog. To survive, I’ve had no choice but to swallow my pride and suck up to Qian Chuan—I don’t dare say a single bad word about him in front of him. But deep down, of course I know you’re the best. It’s just that reality won’t let me stand up straight, so I’ve had to scrape by like this, learning from a young age to read the room and lie through my teeth…” She put on a pitiful expression. “Everything I said was fake. How could Qian Chuan possibly compare to you in my heart? You’re my idol. And honestly, Qian Chuan doesn’t even have your physique—he doesn’t have that waist or that backside of yours. Come to think of it, of course he couldn’t—I was muttering to myself the whole time I was feeling around, like, ha, this really isn’t him after all…”
Qian Chuan, I’m sorry! You’re taking the fall for this one!
In her panic, Qian Wei had spoken without thinking, and the moment the words left her mouth, she realized her mistake—she’d just poked the exact wound she should have avoided! This was basically reminding Lu Xun of how she’d just been groping his waist and backside… Replaying what she’d said earlier, she wanted to die of embarrassment—things about firm abs and the bed not being able to handle it, what had she even been saying?! Thank god this was 2009, before the law had gotten around to criminalizing forcible indecency against men! For the first time, Qian Wei found herself grateful that China’s legal system hadn’t caught up that quickly.
“A thousand a night?” Lu Xun said this with a smile, his expression looking remarkably friendly—which only made Qian Wei more nervous, more anxious. Lu Xun was the type who got calmer the angrier he got.
“I thought you were Qian Chuan just now!” Qian Wei groveled shamelessly. “He’s worth a thousand a night, tops, not a cent more! But with your education, your talents, your looks, how could you possibly only go for a thousand a night?! Someone at your level—at least five thousand! You know how it is, every industry these days values overall quality, and someone like you is incredibly rare!”
“Are you saying I look like a gigolo?” Lu Xun kept smiling. “But didn’t you just say I had kidney deficiency? How does someone with kidney deficiency work as a gigolo? We law students value logic above all else. Care to explain that one, Qian Wei?”
Qian Wei wanted to cry. Never anger a law student—especially one like Lu Xun. Last semester’s legal logic course had been brutal, with a class average of just 64. Qian Wei had barely scraped by after sending the professor a month of daily “good morning” and “good night” flattery texts—meanwhile, Lu Xun had scored a perfect mark.
“How could you possibly have kidney deficiency?! With you, I’m sure seven times in a night is no dream!”
“Should I be thanking you for your confidence in me?”
Qian Wei laughed nervously. “How could I dare! It’s my honor to express my trust in you!” She turned her head, glancing around, successfully changing the subject in the process. “Oh, where did Qian Chuan and the others go? Actually, I was trying to help you sabotage things between Qian Chuan and Mo Zixin—I just never expected I’d mistake you for him.” Bringing it up again, she couldn’t help feeling frustrated. “What a shame for Qian Chuan. Come on, Lu Xun, we need to step up our efforts!”
Lu Xun’s expression remained indifferent, showing not the slightest hint of nerves. “I don’t need anyone’s help chasing girls.”
Qian Wei sighed inwardly. Even now, still holding onto that pride. Save that line for ten years from now, when you’re still single and bitter about never winning Mo Zixin over!
“I’ll just be helping out on the side. I won’t get in the way of you doing your own thing to win her over.” She glanced at him. “Isn’t that what I signed up for—to be your little sidekick? In my heart, you’re my lord!”
“I’m the lord, but you don’t exactly seem like the loyal minister.” Lu Xun glanced at her shirt, which prominently read “Treacherous Minister.”
“…”
As if worried Qian Wei wasn’t sufficiently mortified yet, Lu Xun added, with an air of aloof superiority, “And besides—do I, Lu Xun, really need to chase girls?”
“…”
Lu Xun, being this arrogant is exactly why you’ll end up single! You think it’s such a great thing, always being chased by girls?! Just wait until you find out there are girls out there who don’t fall for it at all—who not only don’t chase you, but are completely immune to you—and then you can go cry about it! Qian Wei thought, and when that day comes, I’ll be right there, quietly watching you try to keep up the act.
By now, more and more groups of visitors were filing out of the haunted house, but no matter how long Qian Wei waited, there was no sign of Qian Chuan. Never mind Qian Chuan—Mo Zixin and Liu Shiyun had vanished too. Qian Wei tried calling, but with music and noise blaring throughout the theme park, no one could probably hear their phones ring, and no one picked up.
“Did they come out before us?” After waiting a good while, with most of the previous batch of visitors already gone, still no sign of the others. Meanwhile, Qian Wei’s stomach let out an unbecoming growl. She coughed, embarrassed, trying to cover the sound—fortunately Lu Xun seemed to be looking elsewhere and hadn’t noticed.
“Not waiting anymore.” Lu Xun stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I’m hungry. Let’s eat first.”
Hunger must be contagious, because Lu Xun immediately set off toward the restaurants.
Qian Wei hurried after him, trying to talk him out of it. “Why don’t we wait a bit longer? That way we can eat with Mo Zixin later—you two have missed two attractions in a row already! What if we finish eating and miss her again?” Unfortunately, right as she finished speaking, her stomach growled again.
Lu Xun said nothing, just glanced pointedly at her stomach.
“I can wait! I can hold out a bit longer!”
Lu Xun said lazily, “I can’t.”
“Then how about you go eat first? I’ll wait here, and once Mo Zixin shows up, I’ll bring her over to meet you?”
Lu Xun frowned. “Aren’t you supposed to be my sidekick? Shouldn’t you be the one running ahead to line up and order?”
Fine… Qian Wei had no counterargument, and could only follow Lu Xun to the restaurant.
Visitors weren’t allowed to bring in outside food or drinks, which meant the park’s restaurants held something of a monopoly. It was mealtime now, and every restaurant was packed with visitors from all directions. Lu Xun hadn’t been wrong—there really was a line. The dining here wasn’t the sit-down, order-at-the-table type, but more fast-food style: long lines to pay and order, with pickup at a designated counter. The food court had several different sections to choose from—pizza, rice bowls, noodle soup, and so on.
“Lu Xun, I’ll treat you to pizza!”
Lu Xun, however, wasn’t buying her enthusiasm. He gave her a rather disdainful look. “I don’t eat junk food. I’ll go line up for noodle soup on my own. You go get in your pizza line.”
Qian Wei was happy enough to be left alone, settling comfortably into the pizza line. Though it was the “junk food” Lu Xun so looked down on, the line was surprisingly long. While she stood there zoning out, waiting, a young man and woman who’d been lingering outside the line suddenly, with lightning speed, cut right in front of her as if nothing had happened. The pair looked like a young college couple, but their cutting-in technique was so smooth it left Qian Wei genuinely stunned.
“Excuse me, could you two please go to the back of the line and not cut in?”
Normally, a direct reminder like this would send the line-cutters slinking off in embarrassment. But today’s pair, apparently, had a much higher tolerance for confrontation.
The girl turned around, arched one perfectly groomed eyebrow, and gave Qian Wei a disdainful smile. “Cutting in? My boyfriend and I have been standing right here this whole time.” She glanced at her boyfriend as she spoke. Following her gaze, Qian Wei noticed the guy in front of her was quite tall, with thick, muscular arms visible beneath his shirt, and an unpleasant, aggressive look about his triangular eyes—altogether an intimidating presence.
The guy sized Qian Wei up with an unfriendly look. “We’ve been standing right here. You got a problem with that?”
He clearly wasn’t someone to mess with. The people behind Qian Wei, equally inconvenienced by the couple’s line-cutting, chose to grumble silently rather than speak up, following the principle of not making trouble for themselves—not one of them dared back her up.
Evidently well-practiced at this sort of scene, the girl smirked and deliberately spoke loudly: “Babe, we’re getting six pizzas later, right?”
The guy grinned back. “Yeah, let’s make it eight. Already sent Monkey and the others ahead to save us a table. He and I can each polish off two.”
“You two have some nerve cutting in line and then ordering like this too, don’t you think?” The pizzas here were made fresh to order, and if this cutting couple was about to order eight pies, Qian Wei would be stuck waiting even longer—this was truly unbearable. “Do you two just make a habit of cutting in line for absolutely everything?”
“Yeah, we cut in line for everything, and we especially wanted to cut in front of you. You got something to say about it?” The girl’s face was smug with satisfaction. “You don’t see anyone else here with as many opinions as you, do you? Talk much, don’t you? Who do you think you are? Ever heard of minding your own business when you’re out and about?”
A girl behind Qian Wei tugged at her sleeve. “Hey, just let it go. Not worth arguing with people like that, it’s not that big a deal, we’ll just get our food a little later.”
Being someone in the legal profession—perhaps it was baked into her bones to fight for what was right—Qian Wei couldn’t let it slide. “It’s exactly this kind of let-it-slide attitude that keeps encouraging people with no manners like this.” She took a deep breath and shouted, loud and clear, “You two, cutting in line—get to the back, now.”
Her voice was loud enough that half the food court turned to look. Faced with all that scrutiny, the cutting couple began to falter—especially the girl, whose face cycled rapidly through shades of red and embarrassment. The guy, far cruder, simply shoved Qian Wei hard.
“What’s your problem?! Apologize to my girlfriend!”
He was a big guy, and to defend his girlfriend’s honor he’d put some real force behind the shove. Qian Wei staggered, losing her footing, and was about to topple backward when a pair of strong hands caught her shoulders just as she stumbled that first small step.
“No one ever taught you not to put your hands on a girl?”
The voice carried a chilly edge, but to Qian Wei’s ears in that moment, it had never sounded so pleasant.
She turned toward the voice and found Lu Xun.
He glanced at the line-cutting couple, his voice still cold but as sharp-tongued as ever: “Since you two love cutting in line for everything so much, are you planning to cut in line to die first too, someday?”
The line-cutting guy, predictably enraged, flexed his bulky arms. “This has nothing to do with you, mind your own business. Or do you want a beating too?”
Though the guy across from them was built like a tank, an intimidating presence to Qian Wei, once Lu Xun stood beside him, it became clear the other man was actually shorter.
Lu Xun kept up his aloof, untouchable demeanor, sweeping the man with a look of pure contempt. “I never mind other people’s business, and I don’t care about things that don’t concern me.” He glanced at Qian Wei. “This one, though—you really don’t have the right to touch her.”