A Sleepless Summer of Ripe Rain (I)

Chen Wenwen stood there blankly, clutching two icy coins. Once she came to her senses, she bit down hard on her pearly teeth.

"I've got something to do—something urgent. Find a phone booth and sort it out yourself. Two coins should definitely be enough. If not, once I'm done and have time, I can ask Xu Miaomiao and the others on QQ whether they've seen Zhao Menghua. No need to be polite with me. You took pretty good care of me before," Lu Mingfei said, somewhat unclearly.

Who had taken care of whom was hard to define. Considering how often he used to run errands for her, it was hard to say who had been looking after whom.

He genuinely had no intention of keeping score right now. There was no point in dwelling on anything now; his attention was on his chat window with Fen Dog.

He really was not good at lying to fool people. Anyone could tell how perfunctory he was being.

Chen Wenwen shook her head. "No, that's not what I meant."

"Oh, oh... but I don't have an IC card or a 201 card. The internet café's front desk can probably call the police too. Anyway, good luck! Once he's rescued, you can let everyone know in the class group chat so they won't worry," Lu Mingfei replied casually.

"That's not what I mean either. I don't want an IC card or a 201 card," Chen Wenwen explained again and again.

Lu Mingfei blankly raised his head, still not getting it.

"I don't have a municipal transit card either," he said awkwardly.

"Not those," she denied again.

"Don't you have anything you want to say to me?" Chen Wenwen asked softly.

A beam of light seemed to crack through a gap in his thoughts. Lu Mingfei suddenly froze, lowering his head, which looked rather like a dark brown bird's nest.

His heart seemed to soften, no longer quite so hard. A weary, defeated voice muttered hesitantly within him, saying that they were classmates after all, so why did he have to be so heartless?

That seemed to make some sense.

He, Chen Wenwen, and even Zhao Menghua, whom he instinctively disliked a little, were all classmates who had shared memories of youth. Maybe he really was being too indifferent. No matter what, they were still more familiar than strangers.

Everyone at Shilan High School had looked at Chu Zihang with the sentiment, "A real man should be like this." Yet Big Brother Chu was as distant as the most eye-catching cloud on the horizon. Worse still, his life was painted in cold tones, and cold-colored clouds inspired not the slightest urge to chase after them.

By comparison, Zhao Menghua, who seemed a little more approachable, was the truly enviable rich guy with a fulfilling life—the kind who made people grit their teeth and wish they could replace him.

Honestly, Lu Mingfei did not like Zhao Menghua much either. He thought the guy was boring, full of petty schemes, and putting on airs. Still, he was not so stingy that he could not offer a word or two of blessing for appearances' sake.

"Well then, my condolences. You don't need to pay back those two yuan. We're classmates, so there's no need to write an IOU."

"If you're short on money, I've got... fifty-two yuan... and fifty cents. I might need to take the subway soon, so I can't give you all of it. I'll go to the front desk and break the fifty, then give you twenty."

His scratching grew faster without him realizing it. Lu Mingfei hesitantly nudged the half-bottle of Nutrition Express on the desk toward her. He had poured it into a cup to drink and had not touched it with his mouth, so he gestured that he would reluctantly part with it if Chen Wenwen did not mind.

Actually, he had probably meant to hand over the fifty-odd yuan he had left with a grand flourish, then generously tell her that Zhao Menghua—Brother Zhao—was blessed by fate and would surely enjoy happiness as vast as the Eastern Sea, live as long as the Southern Mountains, reach a hundred years of age, and die peacefully with a smile. Things would turn out for the better, so President Chen did not need to worry or grieve too much. But somehow, perhaps in the interest of saving time, the words changed flavor as they reached his lips.

The awful words slipped out.

Maybe it was not just to save time. Maybe he had always been the kind of fool who could not bring himself to offer insincere blessings.

He was... a somewhat selfish fool, like a melon farmer in a field, crouching by a ditch and carefully measuring the boundaries of his plot, concerned only with his own harvest.

For people who had become strangers to him and no longer mattered, he had only that tiny bit of goodwill. Once it was spent, there was nothing left.

He had once immersed himself in the world of the instance dungeon, instinctively thinking about clearing it, about rescuing Chu Zihang and the others, about proving himself in that world. Sometimes, he could not help doing things with a stubborn mindset.

He did not want to change things recklessly. He did not want to love all living beings so broadly. He was just the sort of person who could not even recite Amitabha properly when trouble came knocking, but once he found his comfort zone, he would roll over like an Arctic seal and pat his belly.

Compared with a game, this place was more like a reflection of the real world—so real it felt like the future or a parallel timeline. Everyone had their own way of living, and everyone had their own things to do.

Of course, so did he.

Chen Wenwen wanted to say more, but after seeing Lu Mingfei spend the last of his goodwill and turn away with an expression that said, "I have serious business to handle, do whatever you want," she pressed her lips together.

She had rarely seen Lu Mingfei this serious. It was as though the person in her memories was still sitting at the desk behind her, bathed in morning light. Under some kind of filter, their silhouettes overlapped, yet he was completely different from the Lu Mingfei in her memories in some way.

So she stood up and prepared to leave the internet café, turning back every two steps.

To the literary-minded Chen Wenwen, this moment was like a silhouette scene that was neither especially poetic nor especially grand. Everyone else seated in the internet café was merely background. After the scattered sorrow, rainbow rain would weave itself into the wind bridge of the night, and the curtain would not fall so quickly.

But the other pathetic character in the silhouette did not turn back as she had imagined.

Lu Mingfei and Fen Dog, who had come back online, were already chatting so engrossedly that they forgot heaven and earth. When golden wind and jade dew met, a lowly mountain stream found a kindred spirit. They analyzed and finalized the subway route to the dragon lair, naturally failing to notice Chen Wenwen's gaze, where undercurrents surged.

In the end, Chen Wenwen did not go far. At the entrance to the internet café, she gently lowered her head, her soft, disheveled black hair hanging over her shoulders.

Young people coming to use the internet café occasionally cast glances her way, unable to understand why a girl was blocking the entrance at this hour. They guessed she might be there to catch someone cheating.

Fen Dog sent three dark-red "urgent" notices. "Comrade Little Lu, the organization is calling you. Now that the route is set and the information is confirmed, if you want to head to the battlefield, it's time to move out. Read the new messages while you run. Our missing Vanguard Chu needs rescuing."

As Lu Mingfei pressed the shutdown button, he skimmed the content Fen Dog sent afterward.

Chu Zihang had gone missing? His last signal had been at the entrance to Wangfujing Subway Station? The situation was urgent?

Then what was there to say?

There truly was nothing to say. It was time to head to the battlefield.

After turning off the computer, he hurriedly stood up.

He had serious business to do. As long as he had something to do, he could cast off all unease and devote himself to it without worry.

"Excuse me, coming through."

As he left the internet café, Lu Mingfei quickly turned sideways and brushed past the motionless Chen Wenwen.

A fierce gust swept by. Chen Wenwen's hair became even messier as she stared dumbly at the figure running into the rainy night without an umbrella, watching in confusion.

On the Roadview camera, Lu Mingfei was sprinting at full speed through the neon glow of traffic.

"Girl, can you stop taking advantage of me while eating potato chips?"

In a dark room resembling a hotel room, the ninja girl wearing headphones to monitor the feeds and watch the Roadview cameras turned to lock eyes with Chip Girl beside her. They kicked at each other with their long legs.

"Little White Rabbit came out on his own..."

"Holy shit..."

Taking the opportunity, Chip Girl stuffed two potato chips into the ninja girl's mouth.