Chapter 67
It seems that God heard Sun Pengfei's prayers, because Chengshi's car was still stuck in a tight traffic jam and couldn't get out at all.
So Sun Pengfei turned and walked towards Starry again. From afar, the dazzling neon lights above Starry's entrance almost made him fall flat on his face. At that moment, he felt heavy-headed and had difficulty breathing. He figured it was probably the effects of the drink he'd just had, and if he didn't do something quickly, he was afraid he'd vomit.
Thinking this, Sun Pengfei began doing jumping jacks in place, making fancy fist movements as he jumped, causing the gravel on the parking lot to rattle loudly. He silently counted to 100 in his mind, then took a deep breath and finished his jumping jack exercise. Now, the neon lights of Starry in the distance were no longer as glaring as before.
Sun Pengfei regained his confidence and excitedly charged towards Starry. At that moment, the music inside Starry changed to a more relaxed slow rock, something like an old dance track by the band Beyond. The familiar melody made Sun Pengfei feel even better.
However, Huang Ruoyu had already left the bar and was sitting upright in a booth, her swan-like neck outstretched, exuding an air of aloofness. But she kept staring at the entrance of Starry, like a child eagerly waiting for her parents to pick her up from kindergarten. Sun Pengfei, who was walking through the Starry doors, noticed, through the psychedelic lighting, that Huang Ruoyu seemed to give him a shy smile.
“It’s still stuck there, we can’t move an inch,” Sun Pengfei explained to Huang Ruoyu, his face flushed.
"Okay, sit down for a bit. I'm not in a hurry at all, how about you?"
At that moment, Sun Pengfei desperately wanted to kneel down, crawl to Huang Ruoyu's feet, and bury his head in her thighs. However, he restrained himself, instead boldly sitting down close to her, even subtly shifting a little closer after settling in. Then, instinctively, Sun Pengfei picked up a napkin from the table and carefully, bit by bit, tore it into thin strips. He then began furrowing his brow and intently crumpling the napkin strips, as if he were conducting a sophisticated experiment in a laboratory.
Huang Ruoyu stared blankly at the blurry figures on the dance floor, then relaxed her swan-like neck slightly and began to sway her body to the rhythm of the music, appearing quite engrossed in the music.
The scene became quite awkward.
“This music really has a feel to it. What do you think?” Sun Pengfei suddenly asked in a low voice.
"I don't think I feel anything."
"Actually, I don't really feel anything, but I always feel that Beyond's music should remind me of my childhood, because Wong Ka Kui passed away when I was in sixth grade. Do you know Wong Ka Kui?"
"I think I've heard of it before, is this one of his songs?"
“Hmm.” Sun Pengfei nodded, then continued on his own, “For many years afterward, Beyond was incredibly popular among students. Although we knew nothing about Beyond when Wong Ka Kui was alive, he became the first tragic hero. When I was little, I really wanted a Beyond cassette tape, but that wish never came true. You know what? I practiced piano every day back then, and I passed the highest level piano exam in the first year of junior high. More importantly, my mom thought Beyond or rock music was rubbish. In short, I missed the entire rock era—Beyond, the Magic Rock Three Heroes, I missed them all. I could even say I missed my youth. You don’t know how much I wished I could grow up quickly, turn 18 quickly…”
As he spoke, Sun Pengfei began to stare blankly at Huang Ruoyu's face. Then everything disappeared from his consciousness—Beyond, the Three Rock Heroes, piano lessons, even his mother—all vanished.
“Me too,” Huang Ruoyu, who seemed not to have been listening to Sun Pengfei at all, spoke up for some reason. “I’ve always been looking forward to growing up quickly. I wanted to be as mature as the older girls next door. When I was little, I envied them for being able to hide together and get their nails painted red, wear lipstick, and curl their hair, but they never included me. But I actually envied them even more for riding on the back of boys’ bicycles and speeding by. I really wanted to go on dates with boys. So when I turned 18, I came to Beijing. My roommate and I listened to Jolin Tsai, Cyndi Wang, Stefanie Sun, and S.H.E. over and over again, learning to sing their songs and dance their dances. But if I hear their songs now, all I can remember is how I was jumping around in the dance studio in my ridiculous leotard. And then I became more and more convinced that real life was slipping away from me. You probably wouldn’t believe it, but even though I came to Beijing, I didn’t go anywhere during my university years. I stayed at school every day because no boys asked me out, and the girls still didn’t seem to like me, just like they did in Shanghai.”
"How is this possible?!"
"What did you say?" Sun Pengfei's question was drowned out by the music, so Huang Ruoyu frowned and asked him.
"You're saying no guy has ever asked you out?"
"What's so strange about that? Boys have never liked someone like me."
What Sun Pengfei really wanted to say was: "I know the reason. It's because you're too outstanding and too beautiful, so guys simply don't have the courage to ask you out. How many people can be as confident as Cheng Shi, who's blessed with natural beauty?"
However, just as Sun Pengfei wanted to express, he still didn't have the courage to tell Huang Ruoyu the reason. So what he blurted out was, "Uh, I mean, so when you're not in class, you haven't gone out and had any fun either?"
"Play?" Huang Ruoyu repeated listlessly, "No, never. After I got into a university in Beijing, my grandma stopped giving me living expenses because she didn't want me to come to Beijing at all. She was afraid I would 'go astray' as my mom, as if she herself was so great. So when I wasn't in class, I was working part-time—McDonald's, KFC, Starbucks… Actually, it's not other people's problem, it's my own personality. Let me tell you a secret, Lao Sun: if someone is worried that their real life is slipping away from them, then that person is 200% crazy."
"No, no, no, that's not what I meant," Sun Pengfei quickly explained.
Sun Pengfei disliked the sarcastic expression on Huang Ruoyu's face as she turned down, he disliked the way she spoke, and he disliked even more the way she raised her glass and drank it all in one gulp—it was too much like the world-weary look he had imagined Huang Ruoyu would have when he bumped into her on the streets of Dali ten years later.
So Sun Pengfei quickly clarified: "What I mean is, I never imagined your adolescence would be so lonely."
"Actually, it's not so bad," Huang Ruoyu said. "But I never wanted others to think I was lonely, so when I was in college, I always tried to act like I didn't want to interact with others, so that I felt like I had the initiative. But in the end, this is also one of the advantages of living in Beijing, in Central Park—even if a person is really lonely, other people simply can't tell."
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