The screening room was pitch-black.
When that crooked line of English letters-"Chen Wenwen, Love You"-suddenly appeared on the big screen, the lights snapped on.
Zhao Menghua stood under the spotlight in an immaculate white suit, holding a huge bouquet of red roses. Meanwhile, Xu Yanyan and Xu Miaomiao pushed Lu Mingfei up to the front of the letters, one on either side of him.
"Lu Mingfei, stand straight! You're the last letter we need!" the twin brothers jeered.
The light fell on Lu Mingfei, and he filled the gap perfectly.
"i."
Everyone stifled their laughter, waiting to see this loser tear up and squirm in humiliation.
"So you want me to stand here and be your lowercase 'i'?" Lu Mingfei asked Zhao Menghua.
"Yeah, bro. Everyone in the Literary Club is pitching in. You can't just stand around watching, can you?" Zhao Menghua raised his eyebrows smugly. "Once this works out, I'll treat you to a big meal."
"Forget the meal." Lu Mingfei casually held out a hand in front of Zhao Menghua. "Ten thousand yuan."
A round-trip ticket to Japan alone cost over two thousand. Including accommodation and other expenses, ten thousand was a perfectly reasonable budget, and the rich kid in front of him could probably afford it.
The snickering in the screening room abruptly died.
"What?" Zhao Menghua froze.
"I said, ten thousand to hire me as your backdrop. Eight thousand works too." Lu Mingfei looked at him as though he were a poorly made NPC. "If you don't pay, I leave right now, and your confession setup gets a hole in it. Your choice."
"Are you out of your mind, Lu Mingfei?!" Zhao Menghua gritted his teeth, but he couldn't make a scene in front of Chen Wenwen. He could only lower his voice and snarl, "Fine! Ten thousand it is! Stay planted right there. Don't move!"
"You should've said so sooner. Very generous, boss." Lu Mingfei nodded perfunctorily and took his place firmly in the "i" spot.
Zhao Menghua straightened his collar and had just worked up a tender gaze when another voice suddenly rang out.
"Zhao Menghua, you make me sick!"
Su Xiaoqiang, who had been watching coldly from the sidelines, suddenly exploded.
The whole class knew she liked Zhao Menghua. But she had never imagined he would do something so hurtful, humiliating her while dragging a clueless Lu Mingfei out to play the clown.
"Su Xiaoqiang, what the hell is wrong with you..." Zhao Menghua frowned.
Su Xiaoqiang didn't spare him another glance. She spun around, strode away in her high-heeled sandals, shoved open the soundproof door, and ran out with her hands over her face.
As the door swung open and shut, the corridor's white light briefly sliced across her retreating figure.
The harsh light suddenly dragged his gaze away. Her skirt faded into a scarlet test suit, and the soundproof door became an airtight hatch in the NERV base. It was the day Asuka's synchronization rate had been surpassed by Shinji Ikari's. That girl had spun around just like this, clenching her teeth to hold back her tears, slamming the door as she left without looking back.
"Stupid Shinji... stupid Mingfei... what do you know!"
Lu Mingfei immediately ran after her.
"Lu Mingfei! Where are you going?!" Zhao Menghua panicked, stepping forward and clamping a hand onto his shoulder. "Walk out that door and you won't get a single cent!"
"Let go."
A wave of disgust swept over Lu Mingfei, and he instinctively flicked his hand backward.
Bzzzt-
Zhao Menghua's hand felt as though it had slammed into an invisible steel plate. Then an utterly savage counterforce erupted out of nowhere.
There was a dull thud. Before Zhao Menghua could even see what had happened, he felt as though an invisible truck had rammed him in the chest. He landed flat on his back in the screening room aisle, screaming in pain.
Everyone stared wide-eyed, dumbstruck, thinking he had tripped over his own feet and fallen so fast he'd left an afterimage.
Lu Mingfei stopped and glanced down at the right hand he had just swung. His pupils contracted slightly.
"Keep it for your funeral offerings." He tossed out the words coldly, then pushed through the door without another glance at Zhao Menghua on the floor.
The heavy soundproof door reduced the raucous shouting inside to a muffled drone.
Su Xiaoqiang leaned against the cold marble edge of the sink, biting her lip hard. Her tears had smeared her expensive mascara into a mess.
Suddenly, someone beside her offered her a tissue.
"You've cried yourself into a little tabby cat."
Su Xiaoqiang looked up through her tears, only to discover that the person offering the tissue was Lu Mingfei.
"What are you doing here? Come to laugh at me?!" Like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, Su Xiaoqiang instantly bristled and slapped the tissue out of his hand. "Go back and be your letter! I don't need your pity!"
The tissue drifted to the floor.
Drip, drip. Water fell from the faucet one drop at a time.
"Did you come to laugh at me too?!"
That girl lifted her head and screamed hysterically at him, "Get out! I don't need pity from some useless logistics grunt!"
The old Lu Mingfei would have shut the door and slunk away the moment she shouted at him like that.
He was afraid to confront other people's pain, and even more afraid of being powerless to help. But after enduring the baptism of the Angel's infection inside Unit-03, Lu Mingfei's bones had been shattered and rebuilt.
He stepped closer.
"There's nothing wrong with wanting to win. And I'm long used to your bad temper." Lu Mingfei reached out and wiped the tears from the corner of her eye.
"Whether you've been defeated or abandoned..." Lu Mingfei looked at her, his voice so soft he seemed to be murmuring to himself. "You shouldn't hide in a corner and cry. Do you understand?"
Asuka hadn't hidden in a corner to cry.
She had hidden in the changing room, her back to the door, her shoulders trembling violently, stubbornly refusing to make a sound.
Her pride was the only thing she had left. She clutched it tightly in both hands, refusing to let anyone see it shatter.
Su Xiaoqiang's mind went blank. She stared dumbly at the boy in front of her, unable to understand what Lu Mingfei was saying at all. Yet the suffocating sorrow and tenderness in his words made her heart skip a beat for no reason, and her cheeks burned despite herself.
Click, click, click.
The crisp tapping of high heels slowly approached through the empty corridor.
Lu Mingfei pulled his hand back as though he had been shocked and turned around.
A bold-looking girl approached, with long wine-red hair and a tailored skirt suit, idly swinging a set of Ferrari keys. Nono strode straight into the mess and planted herself between them, blocking Su Xiaoqiang from view.
"You gave up ten thousand in cash just to flirt with a classmate out here?"
Shrill alarms blared in Lu Mingfei's mind as warning lights flashed wildly.
"What are you staring at?! I'm in a bad mood! Shut your eyes!"
Lu Mingfei quietly watched the red-haired girl before him, his gaze unfocused.
"You really do... look good in red," Lu Mingfei murmured.
When he looked at Su Xiaoqiang, he saw someone else's tears; when he looked at Chen Motong, he saw someone else's pride.
"Who do you think you're talking to?" Nono's voice turned cold. She felt that something unseen had deeply offended her pride. She suddenly stepped closer, her long red hair brushing Lu Mingfei's cheek. "Wake up, Lu Mingfei."
Nono stared into his eyes and said, stressing every word:
"I'm not that dead girl you're carrying in your heart."
The images of the two red-haired girls crossed and overlapped on Lu Mingfei's retinas, then slowly separated again amid Nono's icy words.
The confusion gradually faded from Lu Mingfei's eyes.
"Sorry." Lu Mingfei took a step back. "I mistook you for someone else."
He closed his eyes and gave a self-mocking smile. "You're not her."
"That's right. I'm not." Nono deliberately tossed her long red hair, letting that presence envelop Lu Mingfei completely.
"But I can give you something she can't." Nono looked straight into Lu Mingfei's eyes and lowered her voice. "You want funding to go to Hakone in Japan and chase a shadow from your past? Fine. All you have to do is sign Cassell's enrollment agreement."
Nono raised the car keys in her hand, suppressed the tangled emotions in her heart, and spoke in a businesslike tone:
"The flight to Japan has already been approved. The Gulfstream Jet is waiting for you at the airport. If you want to go to that place with the 'beautiful scenery,' I can take you right now."
Lu Mingfei quietly looked at Nono, standing so close before him.
He nodded.
"All right."
He turned and glanced at Su Xiaoqiang, who stood there with her hands raised helplessly.
"You deserve a better ending," Lu Mingfei said. "Don't waste your time in a lousy movie like this."
With that, Lu Mingfei slipped both hands into his pockets and walked toward the end of the corridor beside the red-haired girl.
Su Xiaoqiang stood rooted to the spot, staring at their retreating backs.
Suddenly, she felt hollow inside.
He thought of Shinji.
Shinji had probably been told countless times too: stop wasting time, stop blaming yourself, move on.
Every person who said that left afterward, leaving him standing there alone.
Lu Mingfei was another person who said his piece and walked away.
He didn't know whether Shinji had moved forward after he left.