Early 1995, Xinhua District, Jianghai City.
As one of Jianghai City's old districts, it was also one of the city's most prosperous areas. Although the government intended to shift the city center toward several new districts in its urban planning, that was hardly something that could be accomplished overnight.
Everyone was nostalgic. Anyone who had lived in Jianghai City for more than five years would usually come to Xinhua District when they went out shopping. There was Shalankou Market, dirty and messy but also Jianghai City's oldest and largest; the flea markets dealing in old books and furniture; the old streets with Jianghai-style local snacks; and the pontoon bridge that was still in use despite the construction of a bridge across the river. All of these were things Jianghai's residents knew best.
The streets remained bustling and crowded despite several expansions. Street vendors hawked their wares, people bargained, prime locations echoed with demolition work, construction sites rumbled, and long streams of bicycles lined up during rush hour. These were the first impressions Xinhua District gave people.
Of course, if you knew the place well enough and left the commercial main streets, you would see clothes drying between old residential buildings, elderly women dozing peacefully in bamboo chairs, the occasional ring of a bicycle bell, Boston ivy crawling across the walls, weed-choked flowerbeds behind the buildings, and lonely fig trees. With the distant clamor faintly drifting over, this place instead felt as peaceful as a paradise untouched by the world.
Of course, it was not peaceful at all.
Like every city, an old district where age and prosperity coexisted was bound to breed things that lurked in the darkness—things that could be called the city's parasites. Prostitutes, drugs, guns, gangs... According to police records, such crimes remained exceptionally high here every year.
But if you kept yourself clean and obeyed the rules, you might find that those things were actually far removed from you, no more than topics for idle conversation after meals. Perhaps a young man who had just taken drugs would still greet you familiarly while coming downstairs. A major drug dealer hiding half a kilogram of heroin might seem to you like nothing more than a kind neighbor you could joke with every day. That young man who had just gone out to slash someone might appear to you as merely a kid who had been scrambling to find work ever since graduating middle school... Until one day, they vanished for no apparent reason, and when chatting with others, you would only casually make up something like, "Oh, he went to Hainan Island to do business."
The world was complicated, yet also simple.
As Jianghai City's long-established prestigious school with the highest advancement rate, Xinghui High School stood right beside this old district where all sorts of people mingled.
Near dusk, in a dead-end alley somewhere near Xinghui High School.
"Pah, pah, fuck! Let's see where you can run this time..." The slanting sunlight cut across the gloomy alley entrance. Deep in the alley, five youths of sixteen or seventeen advanced with clubs in hand. Blocked inside was a short-haired girl of fourteen or fifteen, holding a baseball bat as she limped backward. Her left leg appeared badly injured, and blood had pooled at the corner of her mouth. Yet even facing five people, her eyes remained stubbornly fierce. If not for the obvious swell of her chest, most people would probably have mistaken her for a handsome boy.
The leader of the five was a fat boy in a Xinghui school uniform. Spitting blood from his mouth as he approached with curses, he said, "Liu Huaisha, weren't you fucking arrogant? Why aren't you acting so arrogant now? Fuck, are you going to do it yourself, or do you want us to do it for you... ..."
"You dead pig." Liu Huaisha retreated while snapping back without the slightest show of weakness. "If you've got the guts, come fight me one-on-one!"
"One-on-one? Go to hell! Is your family in the underworld or something?" the fat boy cursed. "Keep backing up, go on. How far can you fucking back up? Let me tell you, we brought everything today. I even brought a camera. We're stripping you naked and taking some nude photos today. Let's see if you dare act so arrogant again..."
The blocked-off end of the alley was not far behind her. The girl bit down on her lower lip and gripped her bat tighter, preparing to fight for her life. At that moment, a dark figure appeared at the alley entrance.
People occasionally passed outside this dead-end alley, so that was nothing unusual. But when that dark figure lingered for a long time, it meant someone was standing at the entrance watching the show. The fat boy turned his head and saw a short youth at the entrance. He himself had already entered high school, while this kid was clearly only a middle schooler. After looking for a moment, he recognized him.
"Fuck, you're that Gu Jiaming, aren't you? What, you want to stand up for your best friend?"
Ever since she had entered the school, Liu Huaisha had gotten into several fights, making her notorious. Though the fat boy was in the high school division, he knew Liu Huaisha had two best friends. One was the pretty, well-behaved girl Ye Lingjing. The other was Gu Jiaming, who was utterly mediocre in every respect.
Looking at him now, the kid truly had nothing outstanding about him. His appearance was ordinary, and he was even shorter than Liu Huaisha at the moment. Wearing a backpack, he stood at the alley entrance and looked over before shouting, "Y-you got into another fight!" His words completely ignored the other five people.
"Go to hell! Get lost, now! I don't need you meddling!" Liu Huaisha shouted as she barely forced herself upright. One of the boys beside the fat one, carrying an iron bar, merely smiled and walked out of the alley. "Trying to leave? Come over here too."
"If any of you dare touch him..."
Liu Huaisha raised her baseball bat and yelled. The fat boy laughed. "What if we touch him? You think this is your dad's Sand Bamboo Gang territory? This is Xinhua District! Today, we're making you take nude photos together..."
"Gu Jiaming, you idiot, run!"
As the boy with the iron bar walked outside, Gu Jiaming seemed to have accepted his fate. He shook his head and walked into the alley. Liu Huaisha had not even finished shouting when he suddenly shoved a small cart holding garbage bins beside him and charged inward with it.
The alley was neither too narrow nor too wide, but dodging the cart charging through it was extremely troublesome. The boy with the iron bar darted aside, only to be struck into a frantic mess by two old garbage bins falling from the cart. By the time the cart broke through the defensive line formed by the fat boy and the other four, most of what had been on it had fallen off. Liu Huaisha immediately climbed onto it, wildly swinging her bat. Jiaming circled around, pushed the cart, and rushed out of the alley.
The boy with the iron bar had only just recovered from the chaos when Liu Huaisha swung her bat into his leg. He screamed and fell to the ground. The other four quickly gave chase from behind. No matter what, Jiaming was only thirteen or fourteen. Pushing a cart with someone riding on it, he was about to be caught by the four in the blink of an eye. The fat boy at the front reached out twice to grab his backpack, but both times Jiaming barely dodged away. At that moment, the cart burst out of the alley.
It turned.
As though he lost his balance at the instant the cart turned, Jiaming staggered. His left hand, which had been gripping the cart's handle, instinctively swung backward. At the same time, the fat boy charged forward at high speed and brought his face right into it.
With a dull thud, the fat boy's body lifted slightly into the air. Because he had been running at high speed, his body seemed to hang suspended for an instant before colliding with another youth chasing behind him. The two tumbled into a heap.
The cart raced for its life, turning, turning again, then turning once more. A moment later, it crossed a road before finally stopping atop Jianghai City's Sea Barrier. Jiaming seemed completely out of breath as he crouched down and said, "They... they didn't catch up..."
"Nope. Running for your life really is the only thing you're good at."
Liu Huaisha looked around. With no pursuers in sight, she patted the boy's shoulder and laughed. Since she had known Jiaming, there seemed to be only one thing about him that she admired: his ability to run away.
Of course, where she could not see—back at the alley entrance—the fat boy still had someone pinned beneath him. His head was spinning, stars danced before his eyes, and blood gushed continuously from his round face like a fountain. Pff... pff...
"I... I'm going to... kill... kill... kill... pff... Help..."
"Why do you always like fighting when you've got nothing better to do? Do you know they're high schoolers?"
"That fat guy was being way too arrogant. He hogged the basketball court and wouldn't let anyone play. I just couldn't stand it... Ow, be gentler..."
"So you know it hurts? Good. Let it hurt you to death!"
On a bench atop the sea barrier, Jiaming had taken off Liu Huaisha's shoe and sock from her left foot and rolled up her pant leg. He was giving her simple treatment, applying medicated oil, then rubbing it in and massaging it evenly. The girl would occasionally smack the boy's shoulder from the pain, then lie to one side and munch on an apple, letting him handle her leg. This was hardly the first time such a thing had happened.
"Don't think you're made of iron. You took a baseball bat and challenged four or five high schoolers by yourself. Your family might be in the underworld, but so are theirs. If there hadn't happened to be a garbage cart that could drag you out, I would've run away long ago and left you there alone for them to photograph."
Remembering how those guys had said they wanted to take nude photos of her, Liu Huaisha felt a surge of embarrassment and anger. She reached out and punched Jiaming's shoulder again. "I told you not to come over. Why did you... Hmph. Even if someone took pictures of me... it'd be none of your business."
"Don't move!" Jiaming's voice was calm. He lightly slapped her injured spot, making her bare her teeth in pain. She raised her hand to hit him, but he stuffed the medicated oil into her hand instead and snatched away the apple in her other hand. "Why are you eating an apple with an injury around your mouth? If you don't want your face ruined later, apply this to your face yourself." With that, he took a huge bite out of the apple and started eating it himself.
"Hmph, tyrant!" With her injured left leg in his grasp, circumstances forced Huaisha to lower her temper for the moment. She poured out some medicated oil and applied it to her face. She had been injured often since childhood and was quite practiced at applying medicine, but no matter what, she always felt she could not do it as well as Jiaming. Wherever his hands had rubbed, there was always a tingling numbness, as if the pain had vanished altogether.
That's what a professional is like...
Thinking that, she smiled. "Jiaming, you should become a bone-setting doctor in the future. Mom Ye could teach you, too... Oh, right, where's Lingjing?"
"She said she'd wait here. She'll be here soon... Becoming a doctor does seem like a pretty good choice..." As he helped her rub in the medicated oil, the boy began pondering it, seemingly considering whether that path was feasible. Seeing his rather blank, foolish-looking expression as he thought in the sunset, the girl burst out laughing. "I was just joking."
Not long afterward, a cute girl with a backpack and two pigtails came down from the overpass nearby. She jogged over to the two of them. Then Lingjing and Jiaming each supported one side of Liu Huaisha, and the three slowly walked toward home in the glow of the setting sun.
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