Volume 2, Section 12: The Nude Photo Incident

In early 1995, Jianghai City's Xinhua District.

As one of Jianghai's old districts, this was also the most bustling area in the city center. Even though the government's urban planning intended to shift the city core toward several new districts, that couldn't be accomplished in a single day.

People all have a nostalgic heart. Anyone who had lived in Jianghai for more than five years would likely come to Xinhua District when going out—for example, the Shalankou Market, dirty and chaotic yet the oldest and largest in Jianghai; the flea market dealing in secondhand books and furniture; the old street with Jianghai's local snacks; and the pontoon bridge still in use despite the river-crossing bridge having been built. These were all the most familiar things to Jianghai's citizens.

The streets, expanded several times yet still crowded and congested; the shouts of small vendors haggling; the demolition sounds in prime locations; the roar of construction sites; the long lines of bicycles during rush hour—these were the first impressions Xinhua District gave people.

Of course, if you were familiar enough with the place and left the commercial main streets, you'd also see laundry hanging between old residential buildings, an elderly woman dozing peacefully in a bamboo chair, the occasional ring of a bicycle bell, ivy climbing the walls, a weedy little flower garden behind the buildings, and a solitary fig tree. When the distant noise drifted over faintly, you'd instead feel that this place was as peaceful as a paradise.

But of course, it wasn't truly peaceful.

Like every city, such an old district where antiquity and prosperity coexisted inevitably bred things lurking in the darkness—things we could call the city's parasites. Prostitutes, drugs, guns, gangs—in the police station's files, crime rates here were consistently high every year.

But if you kept yourself clean and minded your own business, you might also find that these things were actually far away from you, at most just topics for idle chat over tea. Because a young man who had just taken drugs might still greet you familiarly as he came downstairs; a major drug lord hiding half a kilo of heroin might, in your impression, just be a friendly neighbor you joked with every day; the young guy who had just come back from a knife fight might seem to you like nothing more than a kid who'd finished middle school and was busy looking for work... until one day they disappeared without a trace, and when chatting with others, you'd casually make up something like, "Oh, he went to Hainan Island to do business."

The world is complicated, but it's also very simple.

As one of Jianghai's oldest prestigious schools with the highest advancement rate, Xinghui High School was also located on one side of this old district where dragons and snakes mingled.

Evening time, near a dead end alley close to Xinghui High School.

"Ptooey, ah ptooey, damn it! I'd like to see... where you can run this time..." Sunlight slanted across the gloomy alley entrance. Deep in the alley, five teenagers around sixteen or seventeen, holding clubs, pressed forward step by step. Blocked into the alley was a short-haired girl of fourteen or fifteen, gripping a baseball bat, limping backward. Her left leg looked badly hurt, and there was a blood bruise at the corner of her mouth. Yet facing five people, her eyes remained stubborn and blazing. If not for the obvious swell of her chest, most people would probably take her for a handsome boy.

The leader of the five was a fat guy in a Xinghui school uniform. Spitting blood from his mouth, he cursed as he closed in: "Liu Huaisha, aren't you supposed to be tough? How come you're not tough now? Damn it, are you gonna do it yourself, or do we have to—"

"You fat pig." The girl named Liu Huaisha backed up while firing back without flinching, "If you've got the guts, come at me one-on-one!"

"One-on-one! Go to hell! Is your family in the mafia or something?" the fat guy cursed. "Back up, back up, how much further can you go? I'm telling you, we brought everything today—even a camera. We're gonna strip you naked and take some nude photos, see if you still act tough after this..."

Not far behind her was the dead end of the alley. The girl bit her lower lip hard and gripped the baseball bat tighter, ready to fight for her life. At that moment, a dark silhouette appeared at the alley entrance.

People occasionally passed by outside this dead end, nothing unusual. But when that silhouette lingered without leaving, it meant someone was standing at the entrance watching the show. The fat guy turned his head and saw a short teenage boy at the entrance. He was already in high school, but this kid was clearly just a middle schooler. After a few glances, he recognized him.

"Damn, you're that Gu Jiaming guy. What, you wanna stick up for your best buddy?"

Ever since she'd entered school, Liu Huaisha had gotten into several fights, making a name for herself. Even though the fat guy was in the high school division, he knew Liu Huaisha had two close friends: one was the pretty good girl Ye Lingjing, and the other was Gu Jiaming, who was mediocre in every way.

Looking now, this kid really had nothing outstanding about him—ordinary looks, even shorter than Liu Huaisha at the moment. He stood at the alley entrance with a backpack, looking over, then shouted loudly: "You! You're fighting again!" His tone completely ignored the other five.

"Go to hell! Get lost! None of your business!" Liu Huaisha forced herself to stand straight and yelled. One of the fat guy's companions, a boy holding an iron rod, smiled and walked toward the alley exit: "Think you're leaving? Come on over."

"If any of you dare touch him..."

Liu Huaisha raised her baseball bat and shouted. The fat guy laughed: "So what if we touch him? You think this is your dad's Sand Bamboo Gang turf? This is Xinhua District! Today we're taking nude photos of both of you—"

"Gu Jiaming, you idiot, run!"

As the boy with the iron rod walked out, Gu Jiaming seemed to accept his fate, shaking his head as he walked in. Before Liu Huaisha's shouts ended, he suddenly pushed a small cart meant for trash bins and charged inward.

The alley wasn't too narrow or too wide. The small cart barreling in was a huge pain to dodge. The boy with the iron rod sidestepped but got tangled up by two old trash bins falling off the cart. By the time the cart passed through the fat guy and his three companions' line, most of the stuff on it had fallen off. Liu Huaisha sat right on it, swinging her bat wildly. Jiaming spun around and pushed the cart charging out of the alley.

The boy with the iron rod had just recovered from the chaos when Liu Huaisha's bat smacked into his leg. He screamed and fell. The four behind quickly gave chase. No matter what, Jiaming was just a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old kid, pushing a cart with someone on it. In no time, the four were about to catch up. The fat guy, in the lead, reached for his backpack twice, barely missing each time. At that moment, the cart burst out of the alley.

Turn.

It seemed the cart lost balance during the turn. Jiaming staggered, and his left hand, which had been gripping the cart handle, instinctively swung back. At the same time, the fat guy charged forward at full speed, his face meeting it.

With a dull thud, the fat guy's body lifted slightly. Since he was running fast, his body seemed to hang in the air for an instant before crashing into one of the pursuing boys behind him. The two tumbled into a heap.

The cart fled desperately—turn, turn, turn again. After a moment, it crossed a road and finally stopped on Jianghai City's Sea Barrier. Jiaming seemed completely out of breath, crouching on the ground: "They're... not chasing anymore..."

"Nope, you're the best at running away."

Liu Huaisha looked around. No pursuers. She patted the boy's shoulder and laughed. Ever since she'd known Jiaming, this boy seemed to have only one thing she admired: running away.

Of course, where she couldn't see—back at the alley entrance—the fat guy lay on top of someone, still dizzy with stars in his eyes. Blood gushed from his round face like a spring, pfft... pfft...

"I... I'm gonna... kill... kill... kill... pfft... help..."

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"Why do you always have to fight? They're high schoolers, you know?"

"What, that fat guy was so arrogant, hogging the court and not letting anyone play. I just couldn't stand it... Ow, go easy..."

"You know pain? Serves you right!"

On a bench along the Sea Barrier, Jiaming had taken off Liu Huaisha's left shoe and sock, rolled up her pant leg, and was giving her simple treatment—applying medicated oil, rubbing it in, massaging evenly. The girl occasionally winced and slapped the boy's shoulder, then lay back munching an apple, letting him work on her leg. This wasn't anything new.

"Don't think you're made of iron. Taking on four or five high schoolers with a baseball bat—your family's in the mafia, but theirs are too. If that garbage cart hadn't been there to drag you out, I'd have run off long ago and left you there for them to photograph."

Remembering those guys talking about taking nude photos of her, Liu Huaisha felt a mix of shame and anger. She reached out and punched Jiaming's shoulder again: "I told you not to come over. Why did you have to—hmph, even if they did take pictures of me... it's none of your business."

"Don't move!" Jiaming's voice was calm. He lightly tapped her injury, making her wince and bare her teeth. She raised her hand to hit him, but he shoved the medicated oil into her hand and snatched the apple from her other: "You've got a cut on your lip, what are you eating an apple for? If you don't want a scar on your face, put this on yourself." He took a big bite of the apple and started eating it himself.

"Hmph, tyrant!" With her injured left leg in his grip, she had to bow to circumstance. Huaisha temporarily swallowed her temper, poured some oil onto her face, and started applying it. She'd been hurt often since childhood, so she was fairly skilled at this, but she still felt it wasn't as good as when Jiaming did it. Where his hands had rubbed, it always felt tingly and numb, the pain almost gone.

That's a pro for you...

Thinking this, she laughed: "Jiaming, you should just become a bonesetter when you grow up. Mom Ye could teach you... Oh yeah, where's Lingjing?"

"She said she'd meet us here, she'll be here soon... Being a doctor, huh, that doesn't seem like a bad choice..." As he rubbed in the oil, the boy started to ponder, as if considering the possibility. Watching his slightly dazed, thoughtful expression in the sunset, the girl burst out laughing: "I was just kidding."

Soon after, a cute girl with two pigtails, carrying a backpack, came down from a footbridge and trotted over to them. Then, the girl named Lingjing and the boy named Jiaming each supported one side of Liu Huaisha's body, and the three of them slowly walked homeward in the glow of the setting sun.