Nono forcefully pulled Lu Mingfei into the street-side food stall.
It was peak business hours for the night market. Incandescent bulbs swung beneath the canvas canopy, and the air was thick with the charred fragrance of cumin-spiced meat skewers and low-grade oil.
The boss was a chubby middleman, sweating profusely as he stood in front of the grill.
An ordinary boy wearing an old T-shirt paired with crushed-heel sneakers sat across from an exquisite, high-class girl in designer brands with flying red hair. The moment this combination sat down, the men at the surrounding tables even lowered the volume of their finger-guessing games, their eyeballs all drifting toward this side.
Nono pulled over a sticky red plastic chair and sat down, casually grabbing the grease-slicked, light-reflecting laminated menu and making a bold wave at the boss. "Boss! Fifty mutton skewers, twenty orders of chicken cartilage skewers, one order each of grilled chives and grilled eggplant, and bring three jin of spicy crawfish!"
After a moment's thought, she added, "Also, move a dozen iced Pure Draft Beer over here! Make them the coldest ones!"
"Coming right up! Beauty, please wait a moment!" Shocked by this boldness, the boss hastily shouted back.
Nono reached out to grab the plastic cup on the table, but Lu Mingfei snatched the tableware away a step ahead of her.
He tore open the packaging film, dumped their bowls and chopsticks into a plastic basin, and poured in boiling hot tea. His chopsticks stirred and rinsed methodically in the water. Next, he pulled out two sheets of tissue and wiped down the oily patch of table in front of Nono little by little, only then placing the scalded bowls and chopsticks by her hand.
Finally, he folded a square dry tissue and placed it beneath the glass cup she drank from to prevent condensed water droplets from trickling across the table.
Staring at the spotless bowls and chopsticks, Nono leaned backward.
"What's with this kindergarten-class-tending pose of yours?" she sized Lu Mingfei up suspiciously. "You eat the grime at a street stall, don't be pointlessly fastidious."
"I'm used to it." Lu Mingfei pulled his hand back.
Soon, the grilled skewers and crawfish were all served.
Nono peeled crawfish barehanded, red chili oil staining her fingertips. One bite of shrimp meat followed by one gulp of iced beer, she ate with sweat on her brow and loudly declared it immensely satisfying.
Lu Mingfei only poured himself a cup of warm water, holding a single grilled mutton skewer and chewing very slowly.
Nono suspected this brat was putting on a deep act, but Lu Mingfei was truly chewing and swallowing slowly. Since there was no need to rush to board a plane and fight for their lives right now, he naturally wanted to eat slowly.
"I said," Nono finished half a cup of beer in one breath, "what on earth is your situation?"
Lu Mingfei raised his eyes. "What situation?"
"I really understand you less and less." Nono used a skewer to point at Lu Mingfei. "Clearly a standard loser high school student, how did you suddenly turn into this... world-weary, worn-out old man look? Professor Guderian says you're a dragon-slaying genius, but you don't even want to step foot into Cassell. I still want to ask, why don't you answer me when I look for you on QQ for a game of StarCraft?"
Lu Mingfei put down the bamboo skewer and used a tissue to wipe his fingers clean one by one.
"I didn't have the mood to play games back then." Lu Mingfei looked at the neon lights in the distance, his gaze hollow and drifting. "It's hard for me to explain it to you."
"Don't act so deep." Nono tried to forcefully shatter this atmosphere that was making her panic. "With a beauty like me sitting opposite you, even if you aren't nervous, don't look at me with that gaze of watching a stray little girl. It's asking for a beating."
"You shouldn't always be so aggressive and clawing." Lu Mingfei looked at her and pushed a can of room-temperature Herbal Tea to Nono's fingertips, blocking the fourth can of iced Pure Draft Beer she was about to pick up.
"Cut it out, why aren't you this practiced when dealing with Chen Wenwen?" Nono wiped the corner of her mouth.
"I already told you I don't like her."
"Fine, I didn't want to give it to you anyway. Here, the recommendation letter your parents wrote you." Nono fished an envelope out of her bag and slapped it onto the table with a thwack. "They're also honorary alumni of Cassell College. They hope you'll inherit your father's career."
Lu Mingfei froze.
He stared at that envelope, a momentary daze appearing in his eyes.
"My... parents?"
"Yo, are you so touched you want to cry?" Nono's eyes narrowed. "Stop putting up a front, Big Sis is right here. Acting cowardly occasionally isn't disgraceful."
Lu Mingfei genuinely hadn't reacted in time.
Having stayed over there for too long, he had already defaulted to everyone being an orphan. Rei Ayanami was a clone, Asuka's mother went mad and then hanged herself, and Misato Katsuragi's father died in Antarctica.
The sole exception was Shinji Ikari, but his dear father Gendo Ikari-who intended to take all of humanity and dissolve them-was better off dead.
Oh, and his mom was gone too.
"What is it?" Nono frowned. "Stunned by excitement?"
"I almost forgot... So my mom and dad are still alive. Oh right, I actually have a mom and dad."
Nono drew in a sharp breath, looking at him as if he had a mental illness. "Are you out of your mind?! Who forgets that their parents are still alive?!"
Lu Mingfei tore open the letter. The contents were very short, not written to him but to the school so he could take the backdoor.
He had a mom and dad. Alive ones, ones who hadn't gone crazy, hadn't died in Antarctica, and hadn't been hiding in an underground laboratory plotting the Human Instrumentality Project.
This was probably the best news he had heard in his entire life.
He tucked the letter into his pocket and casually dropped a dark joke: "I thought my parents had already died in the Second Impact... Or else they were those kinds of anonymous crazy scientists hiding in some underground laboratory, trying to figure out how to pull my soul out and stuff it into a monster."
Clang.
The beer cup in Nono's hand dropped directly onto the table, beer splashing all over the floor.
"What kind of underworld tragedy setting is loaded in your brain?!"
"Over-association, literary processing." Lu Mingfei brushed it off with a perfunctory laugh and tucked the envelope into his pocket.
Nono massaged her throbbing temples, grabbed her bag, and prepared to end this torment. "The letter has been delivered. You reject Cassell, so continue being your pathetic old uncle here in the future."
Lu Mingfei nodded and stood up to pay the bill. Back when he lived with Misato and the others, he was the one holding the money.
The boss smilingly came up holding a calculator. "Two hundred and twenty-eight in total, let's call it two hundred and twenty."
Lu Mingfei reached his hand into his pants pocket, his fingers brushing against the envelope. Reaching deeper, there was nothing. Only then did he belatedly remember that his current identity was a poor student who hesitated even over buying a game magazine, and the rest of his pocket money had all been spent in the supermarket that afternoon buying compressed biscuits to use as emergency combat rations.
Under the sour gazes of those bare-chested men at several tables, Lu Mingfei withdrew his hand from the empty pocket with an expressionless face.
He turned to look at the red-haired young lady opposite him and spoke.
"No money."
Before Nono could react, he pointed at the pile of lobster shells. "And basically all of these were eaten by you. You pay the bill."
Nono was dumbfounded.
"You don't have money and yet you dared let me order three jin?!" Furious, Nono laughed in spite of herself. Gritting her teeth, she pulled three red hundred-yuan bills from her wallet, slapped them onto the table with a thwack, and glared at the boss. "Keep the change!"
The bare-chested men at the adjacent tables-who had already been red-eyed with jealousy-were even so startled that the edamame in their hands dropped into their plates. They had originally thought this was merely "a fine cabbage being chawed by a pig," but after all that fuss, this "pig" motherfucker was actually here for a free meal?!
Lu Mingfei asked the boss for eighty yuan in change and stuffed it into his own pocket, considering it his travel expenses to the airport.
This set of movements was smooth and flowing, utterly natural.
After stowing away the change, Lu Mingfei turned his head, ignoring Nono's murder-intent gaze.
"As for the invitation from Cassell College... Help me pass a message to Professor Guderian."
"After I take a trip to Hakone, I will give him a definite reply."
Having said that, he shoved both hands into his pockets and, under the astonished gazes of everyone present, turned and swaggered into the night.
Late at night, Regent Hotel, executive suite.
In front of the suite's conference table, Ye Sheng and Shide Aki were quietly checking flight information. The two shoulders were extremely close, Aki's side-profile was slightly red, and the corner of Ye Sheng's eye could not control itself from drifting toward the girl's hair-tips.
The air was sticky to just the right degree.
Dragging her footsteps, Nono pushed open the door and flung herself fiercely into the leather sofa like a corpse.
Hearing the door open, the two immediately separated as if electrocuted, straightening their bodies.
"Nono, you're back." Ye Sheng gave a light cough, attempting to conceal his awkwardness.
Nono sprawled across the sofa in a limbs-spread shape, staring lifelessly at the ceiling. "God..." she muttered to herself, "Thank God, I finally saw humans."
"Lu Mingfei... doesn't he look like a human?" Aki asked, puzzled.
Nono rolled her eyes, pointing at the two flustered people. "I mean, I finally saw normal adolescent males and females exuding a pink, sour stench! This is the life a living person ought to have."
Shide Aki abruptly stood up, stammering as she waved her hands. "No... Nono, what are you spouting nonsense about! Ye Sheng-kun and I are just partners! Academy regulations strictly forbid agents from-"
"Alright, alright, put away that transparently evasive script of yours, even a blind man can tell the two of you have taken a fancy to each other." Nono rolled her eyes.
Ye Sheng hurriedly changed the subject. "What on earth is Lu Mingfei's situation?"
"The situation is that he will definitely go to Japan these few days. You'd better help him secure a visa, otherwise, if his mental illness flares up, he really dares to hijack a plane."
Ye Sheng froze. "He's serious?"
"Truer than pearls."
Looking at the cautious pair before her, Nono suddenly sighed.
"So..."
Nono switched to an old-fashioned tone. "Ye Sheng, Aki."
"Present!" The two subconsciously straightened their chests.
"If you like each other, confess quickly. If you want to be together, do it sooner rather than later."
Having said that, Nono pushed open the bedroom door, leaving the shocked Ye Sheng and Aki stranded in place.