That ambiguous touch still lingered on his hand, leaving him unable to figure out what she meant. Encouragement? Approval? Or some kind of warning? Wang Xiaoliang immediately understood why Wei Zijin had asked him to pose as her boyfriend.
How awkward would it have been for Wei Zijin if she had come to this supposed final get-together alone?
The laughter in the private room continued. Chen Xiaoying and the others clearly had no intention of letting the subject drop so easily.
"Zijin, tell us! How did you train our comrade Wang Xiaoliang to be so obedient?"
"Exactly! Share your secrets for keeping a husband in line!"
Wei Zijin raised her glass, a perfectly measured smile on her lips as she calmly handled her roommates' teasing. "There's no training involved. Xiaoliang simply respects me."
Her voice was gentle, but she deftly elevated Wang Xiaoliang's joke about being "henpecked" into a matter of "mutual respect."
The girls let out another chorus of "oohs," but their teasing had noticeably lost its bite.
Listening beside her, Wang Xiaoliang felt a jumble of emotions. He had to admit that Wei Zijin was leagues ahead of him at handling situations like this. She always managed to defuse the sharpest questions in the gentlest way.
Just then, Zhao Shengkai raised his glass. His face showed signs of tipsiness, and his voice grew louder. "Come on, what's the point of just talking? Drink up! We're celebrating today, so nobody's going home sober!"
Chen Xiaoying, seated beside him, immediately chimed in. "That's right! Drink up!"
The two bottles of Wuliangye they had brought were soon empty. With a grand wave of his hand, Zhao Shengkai summoned a server and ordered another identical bottle.
"We're going all out tonight!" He looked around the table and declared exuberantly, "After the drinks, round two is karaoke! My treat!"
Alcohol was a gentle killer, quietly stripping away the disguises people wore.
As the third bottle of baijiu was opened, the temperature in the room seemed to climb another few degrees.
Wang Xiaoliang rarely drank baijiu, but his alcohol tolerance was actually decent, especially with beer. A case of nine bottles was no problem. Of the three men drinking, he was still the most clearheaded.
Zhao Shengkai and Ouyang Hai, on the other hand, were both showing signs of drunkenness.
Zhao Shengkai's face was flushed and shiny, and his voice kept getting louder. Ouyang Hai's tongue was getting a little tangled too, but his arm remained firmly linked with Wang Fen's.
The girls, meanwhile, had entered a different kind of excited state.
"No, no, just drinking is boring. We need some entertainment!" Chen Xiaoying proposed, slapping the table.
"Yes! Performances!" Li Lanxiang joined in.
"Fanta, you have such a great voice. Sing something!" Chen Xiaoying turned her attention to Wang Fen.
"After you, Zijin's next. Everyone has to show off a talent today."
Wang Fen initially tried to decline, but under everyone's urging, she eventually stood up. Rather than use the room's karaoke system, she sang a cappella.
"There's a little happiness, of course, but the loneliness is stronger. No tears when sorrow comes, and even tears don't count as grief..."
She was singing a song Wang Xiaoliang had heard before, called "The Third Person."
Her voice was lovely, with a distinctive huskiness and melancholy, but it felt somewhat out of place on what should have been a festive occasion.
Wang Xiaoliang noticed that as the song flowed on, the smile gradually disappeared from Wang Fen's face, replaced by an all-consuming sadness.
"...He thought, perhaps that would be all right, that would be all right. Maybe it wasn't so bad, wasn't so bad."
As she sang the final line, two clear trails of tears slipped down her cheeks.
The singing stopped abruptly.
The lively atmosphere in the room instantly cooled.
Everyone froze.
"Fanta, you... what's wrong?" Chen Xiaoying was the first to react, looking at a loss.
Ouyang Hai's expression changed too. He hastily pulled out a few tissues and clumsily tried to wipe Wang Fen's tears. "Fenfen, don't cry. What's wrong?"
Wang Fen shook her head, took the tissues, and wiped haphazardly at her face, forcing a smile that looked worse than crying. "Nothing. It's just... the song is so moving."
The explanation was far too flimsy. Everyone could tell something was wrong.
The atmosphere, brimming with romantic sweetness only moments earlier, was now filled with awkwardness.
A flicker of displeasure crossed Chen Xiaoying's face. She clearly felt that Wang Fen's sudden breakdown had spoiled everyone's fun. Her eyes shifted as she tried to force the mood back on track.
"Oh, it's nothing serious. Graduation makes people sentimental. That's normal." She waved a hand, then resumed her gossipy tone. "I think we just don't talk enough! Tonight, we're putting everything on the table! You girls have all been so secretive. When did you start dating? How did you get together? Spill everything!"
She intended to bury the awkwardness beneath an even juicier topic.
But after what had just happened, no one was in the mood to talk about any of that.
Zhou Qiang had been sitting silently in a corner. Now, he suddenly stood up.
"I'm going to the restroom."
He said it quietly to Li Lanxiang, then lowered his head and hurried out of the room.
Watching him leave, Wang Xiaoliang suddenly felt a powerful urge to escape as well.
Chen Xiaoying kept pressing for answers, but no one responded.
He stood up too.
"I'm going too."
Wei Zijin glanced at him without speaking and gave a slight nod.
Wang Xiaoliang left the room and let out a long, stale breath. The air-conditioning in the corridor cleared his overheated head a little.
He had come out partly for some air, and partly because WeChat messages from students wanting drinks in the dorm kept pinging.
The restroom was empty. The bright mirror above the sinks reflected his own face, slightly flushed from the alcohol.
Zhou Qiang was not there.
Somewhat puzzled, Wang Xiaoliang entered a stall.
He locked the door and squatted down without lowering his pants, wanting a little peace and quiet. He had felt stifled for too long. He wanted a quiet moment and to make some money while he was at it. As the WeChat requests for drinks came in, he replied to each one, telling them to go to his dorm room and help themselves.
The restroom door was pushed open.
Two people staggered in, accompanied by laughter and chatter they could not keep down.
Their voices made them easy to identify: Zhao Shengkai and Ouyang Hai.
A splashing sound began. Evidently, both men were urinating.
Their mouths did not stop either.
"Shengkai, you really put away a lot tonight." Ouyang Hai sounded distinctly drunk.
"Hey, I'm in a good mood." Zhao Shengkai let out a drunken belch, his voice brimming with smugness. "But seriously, these days all the good cabbages get rooted up by pigs."
Wang Xiaoliang's heart jolted, and a bad feeling rose inside him.
Zhao Shengkai continued, "Take that Zhou Qiang. A short little runt who barely says a word, and he actually landed Li Lanxiang. Fucking unbelievable. What do you think she sees in him? That he doesn't drink? Or that he knows how to pinch pennies?"
His words dripped with undisguised contempt and disdain.
Ouyang Hai chuckled in agreement. "Maybe he has some good qualities we don't know about."
"Good qualities, my ass!" Zhao Shengkai grew louder. "If you ask me, Zhou Qiang isn't even the most infuriating one. It's Wei Zijin! My goddess has fucking terrible taste!"
Wang Xiaoliang felt the blood rush straight to his head.
He heard Zhao Shengkai say in a viciously mocking tone, "That boyfriend of hers is a complete hick! Did you see what he was wearing? ERKE! Fuck, what year is this? Wearing that stuff to a party full of gorgeous girls-how does he have the nerve?"
"Him, dating my goddess!"
"The number-one fucking hillbilly!"
Each vicious remark stabbed into Wang Xiaoliang's ears.
Squatting in the stall, he felt every muscle in his body tense. The new clothes he had bought specifically for tonight's gathering now seemed to turn into a branding iron, scorching his skin.
So this was the joke he was in their eyes.
A bumpkin wearing ERKE. A penniless loser who was not good enough for Wei Zijin.
Ouyang Hai spoke again, this time with a hint of warning. "All right, ease up. Don't keep eyeing another woman when you already have one. However great Wei Zijin is, she's someone else's now. Just keep Chen Xiaoying happy. Not just anyone gets to become the Chen family's son-in-law."
"I know, I know." Zhao Shengkai sounded a little more sober. "And I have you to thank for that, Hai. If you hadn't..."
He trailed off, seeming to realize something, and immediately changed the subject.
"By the way, what was up with Wang Fen earlier? Why did she start crying halfway through the song? Come on, man, don't tell me she's still thinking about her ex?"
Ouyang Hai let out a long sigh. The splashing stopped; the two men had probably moved to the sinks.
"Brother," Zhao Shengkai lowered his voice, "let me speak from the heart. With everything you have going for you, what kind of girl couldn't you get? Why does it have to be her? I know you like her, but she's..."
"I can't help it."
"I like her. What else can I do? I chased her for four whole years, from freshman year to senior year. I finally got somewhere. It wasn't fucking easy."
So this was the story behind the seemingly sweet couple. Four years of pursuit might have earned him nothing more than a yes from a woman who could not forget her ex.
Wang Xiaoliang squatted on the floor, listening to their conversation outside, his emotions tangled beyond measure.
First he had felt angry on Zhou Qiang's behalf and his own. Then he felt a trace of sympathy for Ouyang Hai.
But that sympathy was soon swallowed by a fresh surge of anger.
Because Zhao Shengkai spoke again.
"Fine. It's your business, as long as you know what you're doing. Anyway, I really can't stand that hick Wang. At karaoke later, let's take turns getting him drunk and make him embarrass himself. Let Wei Zijin see exactly what kind of loser she picked!"
"Hahaha, don't go too far. He is Wei Zijin's boyfriend, after all," Ouyang Hai said with a laugh.
"Boyfriend? Probably fake! Do you buy it? I sure don't. A broke-ass loser like him-why would Wei Zijin want him? She definitely brought him along as a shield!"
"I've been with countless women. No matter what kind of woman she is, the vanity is always the same."
Zhao Shengkai delivered his verdict.
The most ironic part was this.
He had guessed correctly.
They really were pretending.
An uncontrollable fury exploded in Wang Xiaoliang's chest.
He wanted to kick open the stall door, charge out, grab Zhao Shengkai by the collar, and punch him hard.
Who the fuck do you think you are?
What gives you the right to judge other people like that?
What gives you the right to humiliate me like that?
Outside, he heard their retreating footsteps and the door closing.
Before you continue