Through The Strait Gates Chapter 6
Wu Tao hung out with Xu Xilin's group of friends during the day in cla.s.s. They were pretty nice to each other, and as Wu Tao was far away from home, Xu Xilin sometimes brought him some snacks or other food to help make his life at the dorms a tad bit better. After a few brush-bys, he became light acquaintances with the bunch of sports students. All of them were polite to Xu Xilin, greeting him whenever they brushed by him. When they didn't have training, every once in a while, they would be brought by Wu Tao to play basketball when they didn't have enough players. They've also went out for a few meals together before.
But really, Xu Xilin wasn't really acquainted that much with them, but also wasn't in any conflicts with anyone of them, either. They were what was called "*the water in the well does not offense the water in the river".
He did had heard some nasty rumors that originated from the dorms, but as he hadn't witnessed them himself, he had never asked Wu Tao about it--it was none of his business to.
Xu Xilin glanced back at Dou Xun's desk. Most of the normal people, except for vacations and exam weeks, only brought home materials they needed. Most of their things were left in the cla.s.sroom. Only Dou Xun's desk was empty, clear of even paper sc.r.a.ps, looking as if it was unused.
Carrying a five plus kilogram school bag every day...this was psycho to the point of a statement.
Pffft, as if anyone would want to take away that pile of trash of his?
Xu Xilin asked naturally, "Oh, how? Beat him up?"
Wu Tao smiled a little, acting as if he was a supernatural person with loads of secrets in his arms. Used to being a loner in cla.s.s, at this moment, all the reasons why he was one all seemed to reveal themselves, glowing-up into "above the common herd".
"Beating him up? That would be be letting him go too easily," Mr. Above-the-Common-Herd Wu said casually.
Xu Xilin suddenly felt annoyed by Wu Tao's actions, and did not reply immediately. He thought, "If you're so 'bada.s.s', why didn't I see you helping Tsai Jing out when he was cornered by the high-rate loaners?"
But thoughts were merely thoughts, and Xu Xilin didn't want to embarra.s.s Wu Tao right in his face. He only spoke, "Nah, forget about it. You don't know about it, but today, in the 3rd floor office, she screeched at me like bats.h.i.t crazy. He looks like her newest *sweetie, don't mess things up."
*not in a romantic sense, don't get me wrong
Wu Tao was not satisfied, and glanced sideways at Xu Xilin, trying to anger him more on purpose. "Qilixiang? She means nothing--dude, not that I'm saying, but if you can take even this, you're d.a.m.n well-tempered."
Xu Xilin's expression darkened.
He knew what Wu Tao wanted--he was only looking for trouble. But as he didn't have a good reason, he wanted to use Xu Xilin as one. Xu Xilin did despise Dou Xun quite a lot, but one thing was one, and Xu Xilin did not want to use a bunch of bored out boarding students as a gun. Plus, if he really wanted to f.u.c.k up Dou Xun, would he need anyone else to help him to?
"Pffft, do I look like I can't take care of him myself and is crying for off-court help?" Xu Xilin looked at Wu Tao, his expression close to smile, but was it, really? "Tao Ge, I've been nice to you most of the time, why the heck are you making me look like a weakling, huh?"
He spoke in a joking tone, but a soft, neither sharp nail was wrapped in his words. Although he embarra.s.sed neither side of the conversation, he still managed to express the notion that he was not pleased about this.
Wu Tao's expression twisted. The boys around him looked at each other, afraid to say a word.
But then Xu Xilin stood up, and slung his arm over Wu Tao's back like nothing had happened. He loosened out the stressed atmosphere himself, "It's literally the weekend, why are you mentioning disappointing people for nothing? My mom's going to come home this week from the south, and she's going to bring some fruit; do you want mangoes or mangosteens?"
Wu Tao's gut was still twisted uncomfortably, but Xu Xilin had already given him a step down. Evaluating the pros and cons in his mind, he knew that a little conflict like this wasn't worth becoming enemies with Xu Xilin. So he looked down, and walked down the steps clumsily. "...Mangoes, mangosteens are too much trouble."
"Great, I'll carry a box over to your room on Monday," Xu Xilin pawed Wu Tao's short hair, "Wash yourself clean and wait on the bed."
Wu Tao cursed in a low voice, "f.u.c.k, my hair!"
And the two let the thing slip.
Although he got into a fight this morning, and had a tiny conflict with Wu Tao tonight, Xu Xilin's mood going back home was still pretty bright.
His mom was going to be home from a business trip.
Xu Xilin actually used his mom's surname. His family consisted of a mom, a maternal grandmother, a Ms. Du and a dog named Dou-Dou. Except for him, all of his family members were female--even the dog.
His parents split when he was very young. His mom never told him why exactly they split--she only skimmed over it, telling him, "Your father doesn't want to stay with us anymore."
"Dad" had disappeared from his life before Xu Xilin had clear memories.
In earlier years, a divorce was something that shocked the entire neighborhood. Xu Xilin remembered that there were a lot of professional-level gossiping women that loved to pet his head like a dog and spit out a string of sarcastic words that were meant to "pity" his family. All of that were things around when he was three or four years old. A child of that age did not have entire memories, and even though Xu Xilin couldn't remember what his own father looked like, he somehow remembered those people's faces and what they said.
He did not understand what those words meant at that time, but the hidden venom in their words did not need a fully-functioning brain to comprehend--a nose would be enough to sniff that out.
Once, their words were heard by Xu Xilin's mom, and she dashed over in three-inch heels, verbally battling the group of women without a single bad word or repeating her insults even once. A legendary battle of insults won by the lesser side was thus recorded in history.
Xu Xilin's mom was formerly named Xu Xiaohui, but after her divorce, she changed it to Xu Jin. A former lawyer, she was.
She was a medium-sized woman, and had a fierce personality. After the landslide win in the battle, she simply left her luggage of a son to her mother, quitting her job as a lawyer and entered the business "sea".
Madame Xu Jin had already saw everything clearly--a child without a father wouldn't be looked down upon, but a child with a poor father would.
After she quit her job, she gathered a group of professionals from every field using her acquaintances she gained over the years, and started a company herself. Her company specialized in legal consultation and related programs designing for cross-border mergers and acquisitions. She was overseas for most of the year, drifting everywhere on the globe.
As her company performed better and better, their living conditions also improved greatly. They moved out from the old neighborhood where two out of three cats had lost at least one eye. His family had well living conditions now, and all of his neighbors were polite, and knew to keep their distance. Xu Xilin was never pointed at anymore.
To Xu Xilin, his grandmother, who raised him, was the person he was closest to, and also the one who doted on him the most. But young humans know by instinct to become close to the strong and powerful, which made the fierce and powerful Xu Jin more influential to him.
When Xu Xilin arrived home, Xu Jin had just finished a phone call, waving him over to where she was.
"What do you want, gorgeous?" Xu Xilin said.
"I have to tell you something..." Then Xu Jin caught a clear glimpse of his face, and her words stopped, her fingers pinching his chin and raising it. "What happened, you got into a fight?"
"Ow, Mom, your fingernails are so sharp!" Xu Xilin complained. "Don't worry, I got it all taken care of, Qilixiang won't bother you......Ow!"
Xu Jin pressed down hard on the bruise on his chin. "If I hear you give any of your teachers nicknames again, I'll......"
Xu Xilin wagged an imaginary tail, grinning at her, "Hit me?"
Xu Jin evaluated the tall, strong little b.a.s.t.a.r.d, and felt like hitting him would just make her hands hurt. So she said, "I'll record it for your homeroom teacher to hear."
Xu Xilin: "......"
A former lawyer indeed.
"Your G.o.dmother *Chengzi is back from abroad. She's arguing about a divorce with her husband, and the household's all strained. She wants to send her kid over to live with us for a few days."
*Chengzi: 橙子, oranges
"Let the kid stay. They sound pretty miserable." Xu Xilin agreed immediately, setting down his backpack uncaringly.
"Chengzi" was a nickname. Chengzi's actual name was Zhu Xiaocheng. She was Grandma Xu's G.o.ddaughter, and also Xu Xilin's G.o.dmother.
The two family's friendship traced back to the grandfathers, and were very close in the past--when Zhu Xiaocheng was young, there was a time when her parents weren't able to take care of her, so they sent her to Xu Jin's and she lived there for more than a year.
But the two families had their separate roads in life, and being apart in different cities meant that they even found it hard to visit each other during Chinese New Years due to the traffic. They slowly drifted apart. Only the recent three or four years did the two families reignite their friendship.
Zhu Xiaocheng was a beauty--as beautiful as a flower. At the age of forty, her glances from pa.s.serby were still as many as when she was young.
Unfortunately, she was golden only on the outside, and trash on the inside. Except for acting vulnerable and admiring her looks, she had no other skills. Even her luck was terrible. She managed to marry a rich man, but the rich guy turned out to be a sc.u.mbag.
Zhu Xiaocheng couldn't bear to lose her rich wife's status, and was forced to maintain her half-dead marriage. Then one day she couldn't take it anymore, and did something only someone like her could--
Ms. Zhu Xiaocheng left her family and everything, and went to the US to worship the Buddha, taking only her sc.u.m of a husband's credit card. She just made the things she didn't want to see get out of sight!
......To be honest, this thing, no matter the time, the place, or the person, was full of ridiculous absurdity. No one but Zhu Xiaocheng could've done something like this.
Being past middle-aged, and no heart in any business or her own family, she slowly lost common topics to talk about with people of the same age as her. Loneliness and depression were unavoidable. So she used Xu Jin as her own personal tree hole--because she thought that since she and Xu Jin both failed in marriage, they had common language.
Every time Zhu Xiaocheng came back, even if she didn't went back to her own home, she would grab Xu Jin for a round of spilling sorrows.
Xu Jin never wanted to empathize with her. To be honest, she had been annoyed by Zhu Xiaocheng since they were young. Every time Zhu Xiaocheng came over, the normally full of words Ms. Xu Jin would become a mute gourd. Except for "um, I know", there was only "yes, I know, yes", and she switched sitting positions every three seconds--as if she was always urgent to go to the bathroom.
Sadly, it was useless, as she was the only that was annoyed by Zhu Xiaocheng. Both her mother and son liked her.
Zhu Xiaocheng was lovely and well-behaved when she was young, and compared to Xu Jin, who had an extra long rebellious phase, she was a true apple of Grandma Xu's eye. Grandma Xu had raised Zhu Xiaocheng for more than a year. She treated her as her own, and adored her greatly.
As for Xu Xilin, the reason he liked Zhu Xiaocheng was simple: First, she was a major beauty. Second, the beauty never came with empty hands. Limited edition sneakers, watches, electronics...she was willing to buy whatever he wanted.
Zhu Xiaocheng wasn't any good at being a mother, but as a G.o.dmother, she could have a hundred and twenty points out of a hundred--anyways, Xu Xilin always fled the second the gift was in his hands, and the one that was left to listen to Zhu Xiaocheng was his mom Xu Jin.
"Oh, right, Mom," Xu Xilin asked randomly, "How old is Chengzi's kid? Are they a girl or a boy?"
Xu Jin was stuck at his question, "...Yeah, I actually don't know, she's never mentioned."
So every time Zhu Xiaocheng cried mountains of essays to Xu Jin, she could manage to not stray from her topic, and wouldn't talk about anything else except for how much she was going through--even her own child!
Xu Xilin shook his head, and thought that to be born as Zhu Xiaocheng's child, that kid must've done loads of evil stuff the last life, because that was the only way he could be so unlucky this life.
As he was lost in thoughts, his phone rang. A local fixed line.
Xu Xilin answered the call. "Hey?"
"It's me, " Tsai Jing's voice sounded from the other side of the line, pressed low, "I'm using a payphone to call you, I have to tell you something."
Xu Xilin was happy simply by hearing Tsai Jing's voice, and he asked, the corners of his eyes naturally concealing a smile, "Why are you all saying that you have something you want to tell me today, and what is that something?"
"You know that Lao Huang asks me to help him sort out some stuff every now and then, right?"
"Lao Huang" was their Chinese teacher, and was someone that came back to teach after retirement. He was kind, and cherished Tsai Jing's talent. After he knew Tsai Jing's family's situation, he always found ways to help him find out tasks that could help out his income. He often let Tsai Jing help him sort out drafts and books. None of the tasks were heavy, and the pay was well.
"Yeah, what?"
"I stayed a while in Lao Huang's office, but before I left, I remembered that I had left a math paper in cla.s.s, so I went back to get it," Tsai Jing said, "And then I heard Tao Ge and the tall guy from Sixth cla.s.s......"
"Li Buozhi from the track and field team?" Xu Xilin's footsteps heading upstairs halted for a second. Li Buozhi had a bad reputation. Last semester, he got into a conflict with students in the cla.s.s for the graduated students, and got a disciplinary warning on his record getting into a fight outside of school.
"I think they talked about doing something to Do Xun, and they also mentioned you," Tsai Jing whispered, "I saw that you didn't look so pleased when he mentioned this today, so I thought to warn you."