“Why has business at our internet cafe gotten worse after the college entrance exam? Where did all those students go who kept saying they’d come play here for three days and three nights once the exam was over?”
The internet cafe owner looked at the lobby, where only a few people were seated, and voiced his confusion.
A programmer who had been laid off halfway through the year and went out every day pretending to go to work, but actually stayed at the internet cafe all day.
The notorious school bully from the high school next door, who was said to have no equal in a fight and promised to bring his underlings to support the cafe, but actually just opened one computer and surrounded it with a ring of lackeys.
A food blogger who reviewed internet cafes while carrying a camera, with a pile of food on the table. Aside from one bowl of instant noodles he’d ordered himself, the rest had been sent by the owner.
And that high school student in the corner who treated the internet cafe like a bed, curled up there all night, lying motionless face-down on the table as if dead.
Wait, even the loud cheering from the group of bullies just now, who were playing pinball, hadn’t woken that student up.
The owner’s plump face turned deathly pale in an instant. He thought of the recent news about a student dying from staying up all night gaming in an internet cafe.
He hadn’t taken over this cafe for many days. It wasn’t going to turn into a crime scene, was it? The opening flower baskets at the door hadn’t even been removed yet.
Clutching his violently pounding chest, the owner shakily called out to the young front desk clerk, “Xiaosheng, go take a look at the student in the corner, he…”
The night-shift clerk still had an hour before clocking out. With sleepy eyes, he walked toward the corner. “Got it, boss. I’ll tell him to top up.”
The owner watched helplessly as the clerk walked straight toward the student, whose life or death was still unknown, and the rest of his words slowly popped out of his mouth. “See whether he’s dead.”
“Hey, classmate, wake up. Still playing? If you want to keep using the computer, you need to top up. We’re a small business, we can’t afford this kind of trouble…”
When Qi Xu was shaken awake, his head ached as if it were about to split open.
A thin layer of sweat covered his forehead. On the back of his gaunt hand were several burn scars, and his fingers were clenched tightly into a fist, the fingertips bloodless.
Before he died, scenes from his twenty-eight years flashed through his mind. In Qijia Village, Qi Guohui beat and kicked him; his arm had been used as an ashtray; when he was hungry, he could only fight pigs for food in the pigsty; and every night he would secretly take his textbooks and the mock exam papers his teacher had brought from the city to do his problems in the pigsty.
After the college entrance exam, Qi Guohui saw that he wanted to leave home, so he had the village uncles and great-uncles pin him down, tie him up, and throw him into the woodshed.
Just when he thought he would miss the exam preference submission, he was brought back to the Shen family.
He was the son of the Shen family in the capital. Back then, when Madam Shen went into labor prematurely on her way down to the countryside, his foster mother, who knew she did not have long to live, deliberately switched the identities of the two children whose backgrounds were worlds apart at the hospital.
When Qi Guohui was caught, he insisted that he knew nothing about the child switch and dumped all the blame on his dead wife. But when the Shen family came to take Qi Xu away, Qi Guohui looked expectantly at the Porsche, eyes shining, and asked excitedly, “Where’s my son?”
After being recognized by the Shen family, Qi Xu shot straight up into the sky. He had more pocket money than he could ever spend, a closet full of brand-new luxury clothes he had never seen before, and mountains of delicacies he had never tasted.
And yet, under the gaze of the world and the weight of rumors, he became nothing like the Qi Xu from Qijia Village who had once been full of hope for the future.
Because of the gap in social class and upbringing, everyone compared him everywhere with Shen Zeyu, from his behavior and manners to his grades, his social life, and even his clothes.
“It really is true that the child raised at their side personally is the one who turns out well. He can’t even use a knife and fork. How embarrassing.”
“Clearly he’s the madam and sir’s biological son, so why does he not resemble them at all? The Young Master’s piano playing is so good.”
“Let’s not let Qi Xu attend future banquets. He’s not suited for that kind of occasion.”
The more unhappy Qi Xu acted in front of his biological parents, the more they liked Shen Zeyu. He saw clearly what kind of position he held in the Shen family, and could only struggle desperately to climb higher. One day, they would see him.
Resentment and jealousy grew wildly in his heart like thorny vines, and his living, beating heart was torn to bloody shreds.
He worked through the night for a week, and Qi Xu finally finished the project in his hands perfectly before his father’s fifty-fifth birthday. He didn’t even change his clothes, just rushed back to the Shen family home straight from the company.
The birthday banquet had not yet started. A servant told him his father was upstairs in the study, and he took the contract with him and hurried upstairs in two quick steps.
“Dad, I can’t sign this share transfer agreement. This belongs to Qi Xu. I can’t take it.”
“Zeyu, these shares are being transferred to you unconditionally. It has nothing to do with him. I’m the CEO of Shen Group. He’s only the vice president in name.”
“Zeyu, this is what I allowed your eldest brother to do. Little Xu’s ambitions are too great, and you’re too kind and sensible. If your mother and I pass away, I’m afraid he won’t tolerate you. We have to pave the road for you and make sure you have a worry-free life. Only then can we leave with peace of mind.”
“Dad, don’t say things like that. I’ll sign it. You and Mom will both live to a hundred.”
Qi Xu heard the conversation of the family inside the study from outside the door, and he was not angry at all. In fact, as he listened, he even laughed.
His twenty-eight years had been ridiculous. More laughable than a clown jumping in circles.
Qi Xu turned and left decisively. He decided to hand in his resignation, leave the Shen family, and live a life that truly belonged to him.
Just as he was going downstairs, his lack of sleep brought on palpitations, and his foot slipped. He rolled down the stairs, his head crashing hard against the wall, rolling all the way to the bottom, his eyes smeared over with blood.
He stared up at the exquisite, glittering crystal chandelier overhead. Every polished crystal on it was a member of the Shen family, while he was only a tiny speck of dust that had landed on it, so small it hardly existed, blown away with the slightest puff.
Qi Xu closed his eyes slowly in resignation. So tired. At last, he could finally rest properly.
His shoulder was still being shaken constantly, and the voice by his ear grew increasingly impatient.
“You, classmate, are you going to keep lying there and not get up? I’ve seen people eat and not pay, but I’ve never seen someone use a computer and not pay. Let me see what your name is, and I’ll put up a sign outside later banning you from coming in.”
“Xiaosheng, stop shaking him…” The owner stopped him from showing disrespect to the dead. “Go check his breath.”
Xiaosheng didn’t understand. “Check what breath? The person isn’t dead.”
The owner said, “You shook him like that and he still hasn’t woken up. He should be dead, right?”
Xiaosheng’s drowsiness vanished in a second. His hand was shaking faster than pressing W, A, and D. Before his fingers even reached the student’s face, he saw the student tilt his head and sit up from the table in an extremely bizarre posture, muttering to himself.
He’d risen from the dead.
“Ah——”
Two screams rang through the entire internet cafe, frightening the programmer who was playing League of Legends so badly that he slammed F in panic and flashed straight into the enemy, handing over a kill and getting flamed by his teammates.
The school bully who was playing pinball forgot to press the key, and the ball dropped straight down. His underlings laughed at him for it, and then one of them got a slap on the head.
The food blogger, startled so badly his hand slipped, flung instant noodles onto the camera.
Qi Xu thought he must have injured his neck when he rolled down the stairs. He hadn’t died even after that. He really was lucky to have such a hard life.
He moved his neck slightly to the left, and a stabbing pain shot through him. He couldn’t help cursing a couple of times.
“Classmate?”
“Comrade?”
“Ghost?”
With his head as the center, his body turned toward the voice. Qi Xu saw two people, one fat and one thin. Neither of them was wearing a white coat. They weren’t doctors.
Xiaosheng held a finger under Qi Xu’s nose and felt a puff of warm air. He shouted loudly, “He’s alive.”
He and the owner hugged each other and cried their eyes out, crying and laughing at the same time.
Qi Xu looked in disbelief at everything before him. The black and white checkered tiles on the wall, flashy and gaudy, and the faux concrete floor on the ground with that battle-worn style. It was completely the interior design trend most popular in internet cafes ten years ago.
He moved his crooked neck again, and the pain proved that all of this was not a dream, but real.
Bluebird Internet Cafe. This was the first internet cafe Qi Xu had entered in the capital after being taken back from Qijia Village. He remembered it vividly, because this cafe was next to the high school Shen Zeyu attended.
Back then, he had been dazzled by the capital’s splendor, and even more shocked by the sheer size of that high school. Under some sort of spell, he bought a secondhand school uniform, pretended to be a student from Haizhong High, and satisfied the gap left by his years of schooling. Then he went to an internet cafe, logged into the high school forum, and searched there for information on Shen Zeyu.
That was also the first time he learned from the forum just how popular Shen Zeyu was. Nearly a thousand posts were confessions of love to him. With his noble bearing and excellent grades, he and the Xie family only son, Xie Huai, were called the Haizhong Double Swords, rivals for second place and first place in the grade, as well as childhood sweethearts.
“Classmate, are you all right?” Xiaosheng asked with concern.
Qi Xu, dizzy and light-headed, let out a heavy breath and collapsed back into the chair. “Thanks, I’m fine. How much do I owe?”
Xiaosheng said, “The five yuan you gave before is used up. From last night until now, I’m counting it as an overnight stay. Fifteen yuan total.”
Qi Xu pulled a wrinkled wad of cash from his pocket. This was money Qi Xu had saved up by secretly doing odd jobs in villages outside Qijia Village. One month, twenty yuan. He’d actually used twenty yuan for one trip to the internet cafe.
The twenty-eight-year-old Qi Xu had forgotten what exactly was going through the eighteen-year-old Qi Xu’s head.
After Qi Xu paid, Xiaosheng said, “There are still fifteen minutes left in the hour. You can play for another fifteen minutes.”
After the two of them left, Qi Xu sat in his seat and silently digested everything.
He still found it unbelievable. He had rolled down the stairs and, in one stroke, returned to eighteen. Heaven had given him another chance to choose again. He had just been recognized by the Shen family, and everything was starting over.
Qi Xu’s thoughts were still chaotic, and he was so deep in thought that he was completely cut off from the outside world.
Suddenly, a voice rang out at the entrance. “Students from Haizhong, the Baldie is here, run!”
The Baldie was the nickname for Haizhong’s dean of studies. He frequently appeared in the school’s small woods, by the walls, near the pond, and at internet cafes.
When the school bully heard this, he hurriedly led a group of underlings out the back door, shouting, “Thanks for the warning, senior. I will never forget this great kindness, even if my teeth have to grind themselves down!”
A boy with white-dyed hair and pierced ears walked in from the door, sauntering backward. “Ah Huai, since when did you become so helpful?”
Before the man appeared, his voice came first. A low, pleasant tone with a lazy, tired quality floated over.
“If you’ve been caught in the rain yourself, there’s no need to tear up someone else’s umbrella.”
The white-haired boy said, “But you didn’t tell them the Baldie was waiting at the back door. Isn’t that just pushing the younger students into a fire pit?”
“I left my brain behind after the college entrance exam. I just didn’t think of it for a moment.”
A well-defined hand lifted the curtain. The newcomer was very tall, at least six foot one. He wore a baseball cap, the brim pulled low enough to hide his eyes. One hand in his pocket, the corner of his mouth held a casual smile.
The white-haired boy skillfully went to the front desk to open a computer, then turned and asked, “A private room? The lobby’s too crowded… though it doesn’t seem like there are many people anyway.”
Xie Huai lifted his eyes and swept a glance over the lobby, then noticed there was still a younger student in the corner who hadn’t taken shelter from the rain.
Cries of misery came from the back door. It seemed the dean of studies had reaped quite the harvest today. According to his meticulous habits, he would definitely come in to check whether there were any fish that slipped through the net.
And sure enough, there really was one fish that slipped through the net today.
Xie Huai didn’t answer the white-haired boy, but instead walked toward the corner.
“Hey, where are you going?”
Xie Huai didn’t even turn his head. “You open the computer first. I’m going to lend the rain-soaked student an umbrella.”
The white-haired boy muttered, “I never see you this helpful on a normal day.”
The computer desk was knocked hard twice, and Qi Xu instinctively looked up.
Their eyes met. Both of them were visibly stunned for a moment.
Qi Xu actually looked very much like the Shen couple. The saying that a child inherits all their parents’ best features was perfectly embodied in him.
The boy was handsome, with fair skin. His deep eyes were as clear as a lake, a pair of affectionate eyes. The Haizhong school uniform he wore made him look innocent and pure, like a model student.
Xie Huai’s gaze slowly moved from his face to the school badge on his chest. It was indeed the Haizhong uniform, but why had he never seen him at school?
Qi Xu recognized the person in front of him as the teenage Xie Huai, the childhood friend who had grown up with Shen Zeyu.
After he made a fool of himself at the first banquet of his life, he never attended any more upper-class banquets. With Xie Huai, he had only exchanged a few hurried glances at school.
After graduation, Xie Huai went abroad to further his studies, and Shen Zeyu followed him. It was just that two years later, Shen Zeyu returned after finishing his master’s degree, while Xie Huai continued on to his doctorate.
It wasn’t until the year Qi Xu became vice president of Shen Group that he truly met Xie Huai at a celebration banquet as a business partner.
That night, Shen Zeyu never left Xie Huai’s side for even a single step.
Qi Xu took a glass of wine over to toast Xie Huai, only to be blocked by Shen Zeyu. Frowning, he reproached Xie Huai, “You promised me you wouldn’t drink, so why are you going back on your word?”
In the end, Shen Zeyu snatched the wineglass from Xie Huai’s hand and set it on the table, then pulled him away. Xie Huai let him do as he pleased helplessly, casting Qi Xu an apologetic look.
Qi Xu tipped his head back and drained the wine in the glass in one gulp. His stomach, having had nothing to eat, burned with pain.
He remembered that in his previous life, he had never seen Xie Huai at the internet cafe.
As Xie Huai saw his increasingly bewildered expression, he couldn’t help but remind him, “Junior, the dean of studies is here. Why aren’t you running?”
He looked at the computer screen and said earnestly, “Don’t think that just because you’re looking at the school forum, he won’t catch you. Even watching study videos will still get you a demerit.”
The noise from the back door grew closer and closer. The Baldie was about to make a grand entrance.
Qi Xu still didn’t move, as if his soul had been sucked out.
Seeing those round cat-like eyes, Xie Huai’s brain seemed to short-circuit. He grabbed Qi Xu by the wrist and, without further thought, ran toward the front door.
The dean of studies was lecturing the students behind him while pushing open the back door. The figures running in front were especially eye-catching.
He recognized one of them and shouted angrily, “Xie Huai, stop right there. After the college entrance exam you still won’t behave, you brat, now you’re even abducting younger students, is that it?”