The door was open, the bathroom was just on the left, and Li Mingzhu heard the sound of water and understood the situation.

She was in a hurry and didn’t want to stay for too long, so she banged on the door and raised her voice: “Lu Yao, I’m leaving the things at the door, remember to eat them.”

When Li Mingzhu was buying food, she thoughtfully bought a bottle of water.

Although she had a cold face and a cold heart, after more than ten years of dedication, the habit of taking care of others has been engraved in her bones. Even facing a little brat like Lu Yao, she would prepare everything properly.

The sound of running water in the bathroom stopped, Lu Yao opened the door half-naked.

Li Mingzhu met his eyes.

Lu Yao’s build was very eye-catching, it had a youthful feeling, his waist was covered thinly by muscles, and his skin was dazzlingly white.

Li Mingzhu’s gaze dodged for a moment and, with her unchanging dead voice, repeated: “Remember to eat, I’m leaving.”

Lu Yao didn’t plan to go over and get it at all, he directly ordered: “Bring it in and put it on the table.”

But when he saw that his meal was placed on the white porcelain tiles, he got offended, he raised his voice and said: “You fucking put it on the ground?! Do you think you are feeding a dog?!”

Li Mingzhu thought: ‘That’s right, I’m feeding a dog.’

Lu Yao shouted, but there was no movement behind him, Li Mingzhu didn’t walk in and his dinner wasn’t placed on the table properly either, it still was on the white porcelain floor.

Lu Yao put on his black pyjamas, which lined his skin like a piece of fine jade.

“Li Ming, are you deaf? I told you to bring the dinner in!”

Li Mingzhu said coldly: “Did you break your arms? Or did you break your leg again? Don’t you know how to reach out and walk?”

“Don’t disregard my kindness while I’m still being nice, I’m saying it one last time, bring it in.” Lu Yao frowned.

Li Mingzhu thought: ‘What an attitude! I have to give him a lesson.’

She and Lu Yao looked at each other, between them there were four metres.

Li Mingzhu: “Why don’t you ask me to feed you?”

Lu Yao taunted: “Do you think I don’t dare to?”

After saying this, he imagined the scene where Li Mingzhu, this sissy, used chopsticks to pick up vegetables and feed them to him, just like a eunuch[1], the main point was that thinking about it, Li Mingzhu’s stinky face was fairly pretty, Lu Yao immediately stopped this thought and swore: ‘Shit.’

He never thought that Li Mingzhu would agree.

But she did: “Okay, I’ll feed you.”

Lu Yao’s heart skipped a beat, he thought: ‘What does he mean? A man feeding another man?’

Li Mingzhu was expressionless, her deadpan face was expressionless all day long, as if every minute and every second she was preparing for a funeral, and who knew whose funeral.

With this mourning temperament, she slowly squat down, picked up the chopsticks and knocked twice on the takeaway box.

“Lu Yao, come here to eat.”

That gesture, that appearance, it was only missing that she whistled twice, calling for Lu Yao.

Li Mingzhu really dared to feed Lu Yao with the attitude of feeding a dog.

Lu Yao: …

“You’re courting death.” He squeezed out three words from his gritted teeth.

Li Mingzhu sneered: “What’s your problem.”

Before Lu Yao exploded with rage, Li Mingzhu rushed to the door and swiftly closed it, she took out the key from her pocket and at the speed of lighting rotated it twice. Inside, Lu Yao tried to open the door but to no avail and understood that Li Mingzhu locked it from outside.

“Li Ming, you dare to lock me!”

Li Mingzhu said: “Save your energy. After eating, go to bed, don’t think about how to oppose me all day long.”

“Fuck your mother! Open the door!”

Li Mingzhu coldly said: “Then go fuck her, my mother’s leg is broken, so you have to put in some effort, it’s five hundred per night.”

Li Mingzhu’s mother worked as a prostitute in the past, actually, it was only two hundred per night. Saying such a high price, she really wasn’t afraid of being struck by lighting.

She was so ruthless that didn’t seem like a normal person, the more a wound was mangled to the point that blood and flesh mixed up, the more cruelly she would tear it open, not waiting for it to scab, tear it even muddier.

Li Mingzhu had a cold personality since she was a child, cold-faced, cold-hearted, and distant, but the only one who could make her heart waver was this never-scabbing wound, this crazy woman with a broken leg.

Lu Yao banged violently on the door, it’s not known whether he had trampled on the meal or not.

Li Mingzhu recalled the landlord’s dog, it had no teeth, but barked at her as soon as she got home, Li Mingzhu still didn’t understand what kind of enmity she had with that dog.

Probably, she had a feud with all dogs in the world, otherwise how come she enraged Lu Yao!

Li Mingzhu lived in the moment and didn’t think about the future, she lived her day as if it were her last.

For the time being, she decided to put behind her the fact that she dared to lock Lu Yao. She walked home, opened the curtain and entered the room, took the little cabbage left on the table, poured boiling water over the leftover rice, and ate it without making a sound, only then did her stomach become warmer.

Looking around, the house was pitifully small, the lighting was poor, and the roof was very high: this was the attic of a building.

H City had quite a few urban villages[2], the locals had chosen a piece of land on their own and built these peasant houses[3] which had five floors. Li Mingzhu lived on this ‘sixth floor’ for more than ten years, and the rent rose from fifty per month to one hundred and twenty per month.

For ordinary people, this amount of money was nothing more than allowance money that can be spent in the supermarket, but for Li Mingzhu it was a big burden.

The fifth and sixth floors were connected only by a small iron staircase.

The family on the fifth floor had rented three rooms, they almost rented the whole floor, so as a matter of course they occupied the public area and made it into their living room, even the balcony outside become theirs.

Every time Li Mingzhu came home, she had to pass through their ‘living room’, which made them very unhappy.

Therefore, living under the eaves of others, when she was young, Li Mingzhu signed many treachery and loss of power conditions, one of which was to give remedial lessons to the son and daughter of the family on the fifth floor.

After Li Mingzhu finished eating, she removed the black cloth in the middle of the small attic, her mother rarely laid down and slept peacefully.

Li Mingzhu looked at her apathetically for a while, then closed the curtain again.

Such a small room was separated into two smaller rooms by a dark cloth.

The only bed in the house was given to her mother, when Li Mingzhu wanted to sleep she would spread a woven bamboo mat and sleep on the floor, in winter, she would add two layers of quilt to make do with it.

Every day, she had to hurry up and finish all her homework during evening self-study, so that she could make time to cook medicine for her mother when she came back.

Li Mingzhu didn’t dare to make too much noise when cooking medicine. She walked over the boxes where clothes were piled and opened the door on the east side of the attic. Outside was a balcony of about 70 square meters, which was very empty.

A solar-energized water heater was placed on the balcony. The attic where she lived was like a small square inlaid on top of a large square, walking out of the small square, a small corridor was on the right side and a plain tent was set up in the corner, underneath was the pot for decocting medicine.

She couldn’t cook medicine in the attic. Half of her room was used as her living place, and the other half was used by the landlord to put two large stainless steel water tanks. If the smoke ruined these two silver-white monstrosities, Li Mingzhu would be kicked out of the house.

So she usually cooked medicine on the balcony, the landlord probably took pity on her and turned a blind eye to it.

When she finished boiling the medicine, it was already early in the morning, after putting the dark Chinese medicine on the table, Li Mingzhu tiredly spread out the mat on the floor and got ready to sleep.

Li Mingzhu wasn’t usually so tired, this semester had just started more than a month ago, but she was already physically and mentally exhausted.

In addition to dealing with the difficult lessons and homework, she had to spare time to fight a battle of wits and courage with that bastard, Lu Yao.

Lu Yao enjoyed tormenting her and never got tired of it. Every time, he would aggressively tell her he was going to settle the score, but after a long time, he still hadn’t beaten Li Mingzhu.

He was exactly the same as the landlord’s dog, when facing Li Mingzhu, it would bark like a cannon, it had a small body but a big voice, and it bared its fangs as if it wanted to tear Li Mingzhu into pieces, but after waiting for a long time, it was just putting on a farce to scare people.

If one day Li Mingzhu was in a good mood, was merciful and played with the dog for a while and brushed its fur, the little dog would immediately throw off its helmet and armour, expose its stomach and roll over Li Mingzhu’s feet.

This night, while sleeping, Li Mingzhu made a dream, she dreamed that Lu Yao had two dog ears, softly leaning forward, behind he also had a big tail which upon seeing her started waving happily, every time Li Mingzhu got close, Lu Yao seemed to be facing an enemy, barked in the attempt to show his strength, while retreating at the speed of light.

In the dream, Li Mingzhu thought: ‘Am I that scary?’

The next day’s morning self-study, Li Mingzhu came into class and sat down. When she touched the drawer, she found two pink love letters.

High school was the time when love first awakened. She had handsome looks, and some people just loved her cold personality, saying that she was a “cold model student persona”. Even though the former waves who threw themselves into Li Mingzhu’s arms all died in the cold wind of the twelfth lunar month, the waves behind followed one after another.

Li Mingzhu stuffed the love letters directly in her schoolbag without even looking at them, anyone with a discerning eye knew that she would definitely throw them away.

Gu Xiaofei was jealous with envy, and said dryly, “Li Ming, you aren’t reading them?”

Li Mingzhu didn’t reply, she took out her book and started to review.

Gu Xiaofei made fun of himself, tutted, and started talking with the people in the second group.

As soon as the welcome party was over, the time immediately became tense, with the beating of gongs and drums they were greeted by the midterm exam.

Lu Yao got locked up, so was well-behaved for a few days, but not seeing Li Mingzhu for a while, made him act despicable again, he wanted to make trouble for Li Mingzhu.

He suffered losses a few times and learned his lesson. Recently, apart from class, he hadn’t had much movement.

Li Mingzhu thought that he had turned over a new leaf, but on Monday, during the flag-raising ceremony, some students of the art class got publicly criticized for fighting, among them there was Lu Yao.

When Li Mingzhu heard Lu Yao’s name, her face had a slight change, she raised her spirits and listened to a few words.

How the fight happened, the education director ‘Cai Gou’ reported it too quickly, she couldn’t hear it clearly. Li Mingzhu only heard that Lu Yao was going up to make a self-criticism in front of all the teachers and students of the school.

Li Mingzhu thought: ‘Isn’t this killing him?’

Lu Yao walked out from the art class team, he nodded to his classmates as he walked, not showing sincerity in his apology at all.

As soon as he came out, a rustling sound sounded in the neat and huge student team, it could be vaguely heard the excited murmur of the girls. The education director took the microphone and called out several times to be quiet.

Lu Yao stood still on the stage, not like someone who came to conduct a self-criticism, but like a popular idol who came to a fan meeting.

Even in her own class, Li Mingzhu saw in front of her Yang Ke twisting her hair, stretching her neck and looking forward.

Li Mingzhu suddenly realized: ‘So, early in the morning, Yang Ke was putting on makeup in the classroom for this reason!’

Looking at it again, in the front row the model student’s representatives with ponytails and glasses as thick as the bottom of a beer bottle were all gone, instead, there were hot girls in miniskirts, evidently, they had secretly changed positions, seeing their makeup, Li Mingzhu felt creeps all over her body.

Lu Yao coughed, the school uniform on him unexpectedly made him look like the protagonist of an idol drama, as if he really came to hold a fan meeting.

“Esteemed teachers, dear classmates, I feel extremely guilty…”

Notes

1. In ancient China, the emperor’s meals were composed of many dishes, so some dishes were very far away, eunuchs (or palace maids) would serve the emperor during meals, the emperor would tell them what dish he wanted to eat and they would pick it and put it on the plate in front of him. return

2. T/N: Villages included in a city’s range. return

3. Also called ‘farmer houses’, they are houses built privately by villagers in rural areas, in general, they seldom carry out an architectural design, but directly find a construction team and built it, so they look crude and unpolished. This kind of house generally has poor conditions and the buildings are packed together. return