Through The Strait Gates Chapter 15

Xu Xilin hung a bag of dried fillet chips on a monkey bar and pushed himself onto it in a sitting position.

"What were you doing in Qilixiang's office?"

Hesitant, Dou Xun still decided to explain his ridiculous decision after some thought.

"Why aren't you going to take it, then?"

Dou Xun's initial inner melodrama had mostly pa.s.sed, so he kind of wanted to stuff the dried snack into Xu Xilin's mouth because he really wasn't patient enough to hear him repeat Qilixiang's words. But Qilixiang wouldn't scratch him easily and the same couldn't be said for Xu Xilin. Dou Xun was a bit lacking the energy to fight, so he didn't put his thoughts into action.

He pulled himself onto the adjacent bar, chewed on the overly MSG-flavored dried fillet snack, and answered a little too coldly, "I don't want to."

Xu Xilin's arms were supporting himself on both sides. The formal s.h.i.+rt was making him really uncomfortable. It gave him a restricted feeling, like it was disabling him. He thought, "Then why did you sign up for it?"

But Xu Xilin knew that Dou Xun must've already had an earful from his parents and the homeroom teacher. Right now, his ears didn't lack warnings and teachings. Dou Xun was quite stubborn. If he wasn't willing to take the exam, then even if they tied him up and abducted him to the examination hall, he was bold enough to hand in a blank paper. So Xu Xilin weighed the pros and cons, and half-comfortingly, half sincerely said, "That's normal. I don't want to take it, either."

Dou Xun: "......"

Xu Xilin realized he wanted to say more, so he naturally kept on complaining. "Actually, I don't want to be in third year yet. Third-years have evening study periods until eight something p.m. They even have to have dinner at school--I've heard that our school's cafeteria often has broom twigs mixed into the stir-fried vegetables. I'm genuinely concerned."

Dou Xun felt that Xu Xilin's worries were too shallow. He turned away and didn't want to acknowledge him anymore.

Who knew that Xu Xilin said next, "It's kind of nice that you're going to hang out with us for another year though."

After two sentences of nonsense, he finally tickled Dou Xun's unexplainable itch. Dou Xun's previously spiked-up  fur was smoothed back bit by bit.

"Yeah," he said almost inaudibly, his mood slowly brightening.

The sunset gradually faded. A cool breeze had snuck out of the cracks on the sun-tanned ground. The young man's two gangly legs dangled on the bars, swinging aimlessly. Watching the lights in the Educational Building's corner turn on, Dou Xun said to Xu Xilin, "Ms. Zhang asked me what I want to do in the future, but to be honest, I have no idea."

It took a while to Xu Xilin to realize that "Ms. Zhang" was Qilixiang. Thinking along Dou Xun's voice, he realized that he couldn't help. Because he didn't know what he wanted to do in the future, either--Xu Xilin was completely lost. In the past seventeen years of his life, the tiny waves in his emotions were mostly circled around irrelevant problems such as "where can I go today" or "the teacher's using break time again". He had no time to think about something as distant as the "future".

Xu Xilin had already came to this delicate age: on one hand, he had already begun to be embarra.s.sed to take pocket money from his white-haired grandma's hands, and had started to imitate an adult's way of social interaction. Sometimes, when he looked at Xu Jin, who was more than a head shorter than him, he would even have a "I'm grown now and I can protect Mom" ego boost.

But on the other side, he hadn't learned an adult's way of thinking yet. He didn't had ambition in his heart, because in his subconscious, he was unafraid knowing that the all-powerful Xu Jin would always cover him.

So he gave Dou Xun an awful idea.

"If you don't know, then you don't. You're not going to take the exam until next year anyways, you can wait until next year."

Dou Xun was speechless. He doubted that Xu Xilin's heart was as wide as the Pacific.

At this moment, Xu Xilin suddenly swung down from the bar in a monkey-like manner. He said to Dou Xun, "I see them leaving. We have to go now."

Backpacks on their backs and carrying the dried fillet chips, they ran away staying close to a row of ginkgo trees on the school wall's east side. Under the noses of the adults worriedly searching for them.

"We're not going home." Xu Xilin pulled Dou Xun onto a cab immediately after they were out of the school gates. "There's no school tomorrow anyways. There's an event tonight, I've already told Ms. Du about it. Let's go."

Dou Xun was actually unwilling to join in their activities. In his eyes, Xu Xilin and the gang were probably just hanging out together just for the sake of it. Whether it was going to the karaoke, the internet cafe or the arcade, they all deeply radiated an anti-intellectualism spirit. Dou Xun just couldn't understand the fun in it.

Just as the refusal was about to burst through his lips, Xu Xilin turned around and said to him, "A lot of people from our cla.s.s are going, even Lao Tsai's taken a day off from work! We're the only ones left, hurry up!"

So Dou Xun swallowed back his words again. Everytime Xu Xilin hung out with them without him, Dou Xun would panic about being abandoned. And that had a trend of getting worse and worse. Weighing the ups and downs, he still forced himself to get in the car. He also mocked, "Even coming-of-age can be an excuse for you guys to hang out...seriously, you people are..."

Before he could finish his words, Xu Xilin did something Dou Xun just failed to get the guts to—he stuffed a handful of fillet snack into Dou Xun's mouth.

"Driver, take us to Half Moon Crescent!"

The two of them ran into several cl.u.s.ters of people in weird formal dress, like the biggest insurance selling company in the city had came here for their annual dinner.

Xu Xilin had a Half Moon Crescent VIP card Song Lianyuan gave him. The gang rented out a luxury private room with the card. When they pushed the door open, the yowling burst out around their ears.

Dou Xun almost stumbled backwards with the noise that slammed into his face. He regretted his decision so much his guts twisted purple. He almost left right there, but Lao Cheng, who was in the room, yelled, "Our cla.s.s's genius is here!"

Xu Xilin suddenly gave Dou Xun a hard shove from behind, and pushed him directly into the private room. The speakers were so loud it was making his chest uncomfortable. Xu Xilin could only make himself heard by yelling at the top of his lungs, "Who the f.u.c.k ordered the booze? Are you crazy?"

On the small was a dozen beer bottles. Before the two came, there were already people drinking. Not to the point of being wasted, but they were all feverish with excitement. Those normally not that close with Dou Xun or not brave enough to talk with him were all pumped with adrenaline, all pouncing on Dou Xun with grabby hands.

"Sing a song for us, Dou Xian Er!"

"Just one!"

"Ooooorder him one, now!"

It wasn't sure who was that big of an a.s.shole and picked a "Can You Tell Me Where the Path Is". When the intro started playing, laughter burst out all around.

Usually the not so socially adept Dou Xun would find a quiet corner and be the "exceptional one" on his own. He had never been cornered like this before. He was absolutely unable to deal with it, turning around and ready to escape to the small steps on the other side of the room.

"Brothers, he's going to escape!" Lao Cheng said.

A few guys forcefully dragged Dou Xun back. "That side's full of girls, Dou Xian Er, what are you running to that side for?"

The girls were randomly swinging around the plastic hands and party sticks the karaoke place provided. "We don't want--"

"Okay, okay, stop bothering him or he's actually going to get angry in a minute," Xu Xilin grabbed the microphone over while blocking everybody away, "Come on, I'll sing for him instead. Everybody shut up."

The gang graciously gave him a minute of silence. Xu Xilin cleared his throat, and started to speak at the microphone in a school radio tone, "Notice, all students, please do not drink alcoholic beverages if you're not going to stay out for the entire night, or you're going to be dead when your parents smell it when you get home..."

The gang started booing.

Xu Xilin waved at the girls on the steps. "I'm going to take that as applause."

He was a mike hog. As long as there was no one to take the microphone away, he could keep yowling until dawn. But today, Xu Xilin put down the mike after just one song--he had to babysit Dou Xun.

Everyone hanging out together was just this way. You had to decide yourself to join in or not, or unless you had someone taking care of you, you would be naturally ignored. As time went on, the excluded person would, of course, be bored by this. It was impossible for Dou Xun to take the initiative to join them. He didn't know how. He was stupid at this, yet especially needed to retain his dignity. He just had to wait for people to invite him, so he always was the invisible person. But Xu Xilin had planned to take him here to take his mind off things, so of course he couldn't just leave him aside like that. He then willingly became the "bridge" between Dou Xun and the others.

He would arrange roles for Dou Xun first before gathering everyone for a game. He teased him every once in a while. He even had to come to the rescue when someone went too far on a joke and Dou Xun was about to lose it. He really had his hands full.

At first the game was relatively peaceful. The were playing cards in a circle, and the one that lost would have to go down and sing. After a few rounds they were unsatisfied, so they started adding "drinks" to the punishment. The loser could down a cup of booze, or drink a concoction of pepper salt, chili noodles and soy sauce added in Sprite.

After ten, the obedient kids with strict parents all went home. The rest were a bunch of unregulated and rather mischievous kids.

Wu Tao, with the alcohol he had downed showing on his face, finally tossed his cards down. With a devious plan in his mind, he suggested a bad plan. "All the 'babies' are gone, so I'm a.s.suming that the rest are the adults--how about we enter the 'adult' part of the party?"

Dou Xun was originally going to smoke a cigarette outside to kill time, and then wait for Xu Xilin to take him home to sleep. But then he heard this. He didn't know if it was just an illusion, but Wu Tao's gaze had raked over him. Rather mystically. As if anyone that left right now would be admitting they were a 'baby'.

Dou Xun's chunnibyou acted as expected. He sat back solidly.

Wu Tao took a head count. He pulled out a few cards from the deck, and then put two kings into that pile. "Let's play something more...wild. We have to agree first that if you want to play, play reasonably. No one's allowed to get angry. Whoever does, they're a b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

HIgh schoolers had limited experiences. To them, "wild" was the King's Game that Wu Tao had learned from watching p.o.r.n in internet cafes--everyone took a card, the one that got the small king would randomly pick two numbers, and the one that got the larger king would order these two to do something.

At first it was peaceful. Both the big and small kings weren't on track yet, and they mostly ordered stuff like "who walks around the room with who on their back", or "who switch socks with who".

Within two rounds, Wu Tao, the hooligan, was starting to protest. "G.o.d, how can you guys be this boring? A king, give me a king..."

As he muttered he dug in the pile, and pulled out one, teeth clenched. He flipped it over, and jumped up with a shout of joy.

A large king was on the table.

Wu Tao grabbed a beer and took a hard swig. He said deviously, "Let me see who's gonna fall into my hands this time."