Chapter 9

Based on past experience, Qi Yang had braced himself for a joint attack from the homeroom teacher and Mu Yicong’s parents the next day at school.

But morning reading session and the first class passed, completely uneventful.

Qi Yang propped his book up, rested his head on his desk, and ate his breakfast. His new deskmate, Wu Kong, kept sneaking glances at his face.

“What are you looking at?” Qi Yang shot him a look from the corner of his eye.

“What happened to your face?” Wu Kong whispered.

Qi Yang touched the scab that ran from his nose bridge down to his right eye socket and cursed at him. “None of your fucking business.”

“Fine, don’t tell me.” Wu Kong pouted and pulled out a bag of soup dumplings to eat too.

Qi Yang had some battle scars from yesterday too.

That bastard Mu Yicong might look refined and quiet, but when he actually fought, his punches were no joke.

Aside from the first punch that landed on Qi Yang’s face, Mu Yicong aimed all his remaining punches squarely at his ribs.

When Qi Yang got home and lifted his shirt, there were red marks all over his side and waist. By morning, they had all turned purple and black.

They still ached.

But that kid wasn’t much better off.

Qi Yang looked across the classroom out of the corner of his eye. The cut on Mu Yicong’s mouth had scabbed over. There probably wasn’t a spot on his stomach that wasn’t bruised either.

As soon as the bell rang, Liu Dameng stood up to rush to the back row. He looked at the window by Qi Yang’s seat, then sat back down with a face full of horror.

The homeroom teacher ‘swished’ open the window and called out coldly, “Qi Yang.”

Wu Kong was drinking his soy milk. He was so startled he squeezed the bag, spraying himself in the face.

Qi Yang moved his chair out of the way, finding it both disgusting and amusing.

“Mu Yicong.” The teacher named them one by one. “And Huang Xiaoyu. Come to my office.”

She finished calling them, picked up her bag, and left. The class started buzzing again.

“She didn’t call me?” Liu Dameng stood up and pointed at himself, a little incredulous.

Huang Xiaoyu was grumpy. She tossed her ponytail and was the first to walk out.

No one spoke to each other on the way to the office. Qi Yang sized up Mu Yicong out of the corner of his eye. The guy didn’t even spare him a glance.

“What happened yesterday?” The teacher made them stand in a row, her face cold. “Did you fight?”

What a stupid question.

Qi Yang kept his eyelids lowered, looking like he couldn’t be bothered to answer.

“Qi Yang and Mu Yicong. And Liu Dameng and a few from Class 6.” Huang Xiaoyu answered quietly, obediently. “That’s Lai Jiahao and them. But they only showed up later.”

“So many people?” The teacher’s eyebrows shot up.

“Not that many.” Qi Yang couldn’t stand listening to this. “They were just cheering. The fight was only between me and Mu Yicong.”

The teacher’s expression softened a bit. “So, what really happened? Was it you who started it, Qi Yang?”

She was clearly asking Qi Yang, but Mu Yicong directly spoke up. “Like I said yesterday. I started it.”

Qi Yang was stunned for a moment. He turned his head and looked at Mu Yicong, cursing under his breath.

What kind of bullshit is this?

“I kicked him first,” he immediately clarified to the teacher.

“I punched his face first,” Mu Yicong followed up, pursing his lips.

The teacher was about to have a stroke. She slapped the desk hard. “You trying to win a contest? Think this is something to be proud of?”

Her head was throbbing from the morning’s drama. She rubbed her temples and called on someone else. “Huang Xiaoyu, you tell me.”

Huang Xiaoyu was standing behind Qi Yang and Mu Yicong. She looked left and right, a little hesitant.

In the end, she pointed at Mu Yicong and said softly, like a mosquito buzzing, “It was… Mu Yicong who started it.”

But she quickly added, “But Qi Yang was the one who blocked his way, wouldn’t let him into the classroom.”

The teacher kept Mu Yicong behind for questioning. Qi Yang and Huang Xiaoyu walked out of the office. Liu Dameng shot over like a rocket, appearing in front of him from a mile away.

“What happened?” he asked eagerly. “What did she say? Did she mention me?”

“Mention your ass.” Qi Yang looked pissed. “I was the one who got beaten up.”

Liu Dameng blinked. “Huh?”

“Stop being so ungrateful, Qi Yang!” Huang Xiaoyu glared at him.

“Get lost,” Qi Yang said.

A bunch of troublemakers skipped the morning exercise and gathered for a meeting behind the wire fence at the back gate of the school, where vendors set up.

“What, what do you mean, he said he hit, hit you first?” Lai Jiahao’s laughter sounded like farting when he stuttered. “That’s so, so, so funny.”

“Go die somewhere.” Qi Yang was annoyed just hearing him stutter.

“I don’t get this Mu Yicong guy at all,” Liu Dameng said. He was squatting behind a bush with another guy, learning to smoke, coughing up a lung. “Is he trying to butter you up by saying that?”

“Maybe he wants to make Qi Yang his big brother?”

“You sick or are they sick?” Qi Yang shot that down immediately.

Junior high was a really strange phase. Kids had just left elementary school and entered adolescence, and it was the time when they were most likely to copy what they saw.

There were students who thought fighting and being delinquent was cool, who thought they were like the tough guys in movies. And naturally, there were students who couldn’t fit into that group but wanted to.

Liu Dameng’s theory of ‘buttering up’ wasn’t entirely baseless.

There was a weird trend in schools where you had ‘big brothers’ and ‘big sisters’. If you could get a powerful student troublemaker to be your adopted sibling, it became a weapon you could flaunt, making you feel like you were ‘protected’.

Liu Dameng had at least seven or eight ‘sisters’, which made him look like a total idiot in Qi Yang’s eyes. But he was proud of it.

But if anyone tried to say Mu Yicong was that type of person, Qi Yang would find it hard not to laugh.

When it came to fighting, the guy wasn’t scared. To start brown-nosing after it was over… it was the kind of shit only a certain kind of mind could come up with.

Besides, with Mu Yicong’s arrogant, nose-in-the-air attitude, he didn’t even want to be seen as in the same league as Qi Yang, let alone butter him up.

Qi Yang was already annoyed, and thinking about it just made him angrier.

“Who cares what, what he thinks,” Lai Jiahao didn’t understand why Qi Yang was so upset. “He said he started, started it. Isn’t that better?”

True. Qi Yang’s only punishment this time was an additional 800-character self-criticism.

He’d just been called to see his parents yesterday. If Huang Xiaoyu had pointed at him instead of Mu Yicong just now, the teacher definitely wouldn’t have let him off so easily.

“Maybe he just thinks it sounds cooler to say he started it,” Liu Dameng offered a different line of thinking.

“Could be.” The other guy sucking on a cigarette butt chimed in. “A new kid who dares to fight right away. He probably wasn’t a pushover at his last school either.”

“You’re just sucking on my spit! How am I supposed to smoke that?” Liu Dameng smacked the guy on the head.

This explanation was the most reasonable and the most likely.

But it still pissed Qi Yang off.

He wasn’t afraid of getting called to see his parents. He wasn’t afraid of punishment. He just… inexplicably didn’t want to feel like he was one-upped by Mu Yicong.

The morning exercise was over. The area got crowded with students buying snacks, and it attracted two patrolling teachers.

Lai Jiahao was afraid his mom would catch him. They all went back to their own classes, asking Qi Yang what he thought, whether they should just find a place after school and beat Mu Yicong up.

“None of your business. This is between him and me.” Qi Yang thought he sounded really cool saying that.

“So, it’s settled then. Yangzi is going to war with him.” Lai Jiahao was, after all, the son of a Chinese teacher. Good at summarizing. “Then, then from now on, he’s our, our enemy too.”

“So, what are you gonna do to him?” Liu Dameng asked seriously.

“I don’t know,” Qi Yang said. “I’ll go home and think about it.”

He thought about it all the way until school let out. He finally came up with an idea.

Mu Yicong had just finished copying the homework assignments from the blackboard when his phone vibrated in his desk drawer.

He bent down and took it out. It was a text from his dad.

The number wasn’t saved in his contacts. The message was concise: Your homeroom teacher called your mom. Keep a low profile at school. Don’t cause trouble. Don’t reveal anything about your family or my work.

Mu Yicong replied with a single word: Okay.

The sent icon was still flickering on the screen when a brand-new notebook slammed down on his desk with a “Smack!”.

Qi Yang’s face, with that thin scar, was right in front of him. He propped his forearms on the desk and leaned in, staring at him eye-to-eye.

Mu Yicong tightened his grip on his phone, lowered his eyelids, and said nothing. He stuffed his phone back into his bag and started packing up his things.

“Oh my god, I’m so scared,” Liu Dameng said sarcastically from behind. “I thought you were gonna throw another punch.”

Huang Xiaoyu heard the commotion from the back row and quickly walked over again. “Qi Yang, what are you doing now?”

“Nothing.” Qi Yang didn’t turn around. He just looked at Mu Yicong.

“Just leave them alone,” Liu Dameng pushed Huang Xiaoyu back. “The kid on duty ran off again.”

Mu Yicong ignored everyone. He was packing his books one by one.

His open English textbook was being pressed down by Qi Yang’s arm. He tugged at it, but Qi Yang didn’t show any sign of moving.

“Move aside,” he said to Qi Yang, looking at him.

“Write my self-criticism for me.” Qi Yang tilted his head with utter confidence.

“Why?” Mu Yicong asked.

“Aren’t you the righteous type?” Qi Yang said. “You love taking responsibility, don’t you? You can take the 800 words for me too.”

Mu Yicong didn’t say anything, but as Qi Yang’s words trailed off, he swore he saw that subtle look again in Mu Yicong’s eyes.

A bit of arrogance, a bit of boredom, a bit of mockery, as if he thought Qi Yang was childish.

Standing in front of him, this Mu Yicong was silently screaming two words with his whole being: ‘Dumbass’.

It took all of Qi Yang’s willpower not to grab Mu Yicong by the collar.

He shoved the notebook forward. “Write it or not? I even got the notebook ready for you.”

He was prepared for Mu Yicong to refuse, for them to start another fight. But Mu Yicong looked at the notebook, thought about it for a moment, and actually put it in his bag.

“Fine.” He went back to grab the book that was being held down. “Take your hand off.”

Qi Yang let go and stood up. He looked at Mu Yicong for a moment with mixed feelings, then cursed under his breath, turned, and walked away.

A few of them went to an internet cafe and played some Dungeon Fighter Online. Liu Dameng and the others unanimously agreed that Mu Yicong was just scared of Qi Yang, so he’d do whatever he was told.

Qi Yang couldn’t figure out why. He just felt like he’d punched a pillow. It was supremely unsatisfying.

His game playing was sloppy too. Annoyed, he pushed the keyboard away and got up to leave.

When he got home, he could hear loud music playing before he even walked in the door.

Qi Dahai and Zou Meizhu were at it again, being all romantic. They were dancing in the living room, holding each other. Zou Meizhu was even wearing high heels indoors.

“Son’s home!” Zou Meizhu called out sweetly when she saw him walk in.

Qi Yang dropped his bag and was about to go to his room when he saw a new phone on the table, playing music. He stopped and picked it up.

“Dad’s?” He looked at the silver-and-white logo on the back, shaped like an apple. “Pretty trendy.”

In the era before full-screen phones were everywhere, when the streets were full of BBK and Nokia phones, this big-screen, candybar phone was quite stunning.

“A friend gave it to him.” Qi Dahai whistled proudly. “Cool, son?”

“Cool,” Qi Yang nodded. “Give it to me when you get a new one.”

“Why wait until I get a new one?” Qi Dahai said. “Dad will get you one tomorrow.”

“I want one too!” Zou Meizhu immediately pouted.

“I’ll buy, I’ll buy,” Qi Dahai agreed quickly. “Our family only gets the best.”

Qi Yang wasn’t that interested in phones anyway. Qi Dahai had given him one in Grade 7, but he preferred playing computer games. Sometimes he even forgot to bring his phone.

But this new phone in his hand… it looked like the same model Mu Yicong had been holding.

“Go get a new one tomorrow. I’ll take this one.” Qi Yang stuffed the phone into his pocket.

“Hey, you little brat!” Qi Dahai raised his leg to kick him again.

“Alright, if your son wants it, just give it to him.” Zou Meizhu pulled him back. She smiled as she looked at Qi Yang’s face, then suddenly screamed. “What happened to Yangyang’s face?”

Qi Yang couldn’t even be bothered to talk to his oblivious parents.

He grabbed the phone and went into his room. He swapped his dad’s SIM card for his own. Then, he thought about it and called Liu Dameng. “Do you have Mu Yicong’s phone number?”

“Huh?” Liu Dameng was taken aback too.

Qi Yang was also stunned. He pulled the phone away and stared at his own reflection in the screen. He cursed himself for being ridiculous.