It was nearing early morning when Lu Qi caught Li Yimiao in the swaying crowd. The young man was drunk. Lu Qi dragged him out, rejecting two young ladies and a young brother who wanted to add him on WeChat.
“Ge~ Hehe~” Li Yumiao smiled against Lu Qi’s shoulder: “Look how popular you are…..”
Lu Qi held him by the back of his collar and made him stand against a lamppost. He wore an unhappy expression, but his eyes were too innocently-shaped and he looked like an angry kitten.
As expected, Li Yimiao was unafraid. When the cold wind blew, his drunkenness was alleviated a bit. He smiled in an ingratiating way and leaned closer to ask: “Ge, what about that boy? Did you enjoy chatting?”
Lu Qi raised his fingers and knocked on his head, making Li Yimiao cry ow, ow.
“You’ve got too much nerve! How dare you solicit a prostitute?” Lu Qi was furious. “What will you do when it’s on your permanent record when you take the civil service exam in the future?”
“Ow! Ge, I couldn’t pass the academic qualification test.” The great scholar Li Yimiao walked around the pillar and hid behind the lamppost, coming to his senses at last. “What prostitute? Ge, what are you talking about?”
Lu Qi recounted what had just occurred, and concluded angrily: “Tell me! How much did it cost! That person looked so expensive, he’s worth five thousand per minute!”
Li Yimiao laughed out loud. “Did you hear what you just said? Ge! I only earn six thousand yuan per month!”
The two looked at each other.
Li Yimiao may not be reliable, but his financial strength was stable and reliable.
“En…..” Li Yimiao said: “Ge, did you recognize the wrong person? But I don’t think it was a complete mistake. He asked the price when he came up, so professional! I mean, can you compare the five-thousand-per-minute one to the one I arranged for you?”
Lu Qi: “So what is the name of the one you arranged for me?”
“Lai En, ah! His name is Lai En!”
Lu Qi: ……
. . . . . . .
Mr. Lai was stood up, and Lu Qi asked Li Yimian to give him an explanation. Li Yimiao inquired through his friends about what happened that night, and called Lu Qi to report the next day.
“It’s quite strange. Someone reported that the bar was involved in prostitution the next day and a man surnamed Lai was arrested. They say he was there to sell…..”
Lu Qi’s heart skipped a beat, and he thought uneasily, could they have arrested the wrong person?
“Ge, guess what happened next?” Li Yimiao’s tone suddenly rose. “That guy surnamed Lai was actually no good! The person sent to pick him up that night was his fiance!!”
The melon was getting bigger and bigger, like a snowball. Lu Qi quickly asked in a whisper: “Then did your friend tell that girl he……”
“I say, ah! The sister scratched that scumbag all over his face on the spot!” Li Yimiao viciously cursed this marriage-cheating dog to die without progeny. Then he said dejectedly: “Ge, I’m sorry.”
His original intention was only to make Lu Qi happy.
Lu Qi gave a hmm. “Don’t be so reckless in the future. I’m afraid you can’t judge others very well, and you’ll meet some messy people.”
Li Yimiao gave a long sigh: “It’s a good thing you ignored him, otherwise it would be hard to tell who the cheap one was.”
Someone called his phone on the other side, and Li Yimiao said goodbye to him before hanging up in a hurry.
Lu Qi tossed the phone away and threw himself onto the bed.
In fact, this reckless little cousin was still somewhat useful. If this incident hadn’t diverted some of his attention, Lu Qi would probably be more depressed now. He raised his hand to rub his swollen and painful temples. There was still some faint black and blue beneath his eyes.
He had been somewhat sleepless these days.
The rumors had been circulating for a week. Perhaps it could be said that this was cyber bullying.
At first, he felt that at worst, he could just not go online, but relevant news still reached his ears again and again. Friends in the real world or in the circle heard the news and also called him one after another. There were people who truly cared about him, and also disingenuous ones who were just watching the fun.
Lu Qi could only explain over and over again that he was not a pervert who harassed others.
He was really a little tired.
But he didn’t want to lower his head to Lin Yuan. Even if he gave in, he would never reconcile with Lin Yuan.
But the negative messages he continued to receive were mixed with personal threats, and this was affecting his life. Lu Qi installed a camera outside the door. Because the old building always had intermittent power outages, he bought one with a battery that could run for three or four days even with a power outage.
In the past two days, the nextdoor neighbor had moved in. This neighbor he had yet to meet seemed to prefer Russian music. Today, Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Reed Flutes” was playing. The sound was actually not very loud. Lu Qi’s place was too quiet, so the bright and lively music danced and jumped in his small living room.
His sofa was next to the neighbor’s living room. He could just hear a little bit while lying down on it, and he fell asleep while listening to the music.
When he opened his eyes, it was already dark outside and the music had stopped. He rubbed his eyes and sat up, touching the switch of the floor lamp.
There was a pop sound—
The room was still dark.
Lu Qi reacted belatedly. Oh. There was another power outage.
He fumbled for his phone, and upon opening it, there was a message from a stranger on the lock screen.
[Trash like you should die. Right Angle was driven into depression by your fans…..]
Lu Qi didn’t want to read any more, and swiped his finger to close the message. However, the lock screen became sensitive, and in the light from the building opposite, it unlocked with a click.
[Trash like you should die. Right Angle was driven into depression by your fans. If something happens to him and Honey Bear, you should die to atone for your sins. If you don’t do it then, I’ll assist you.]
Lu Qi’s fingertips shook as he turned off his phone.
The room returned to darkness.
He sat on the sofa and thought silently. He didn’t know whether 90° Right Angle’s depression was real or fake, but if this continued, he might have to see a psychiatrist.
Just as he was thinking, someone suddenly gave a quiet groan outside the door.
It was the faint voice of a man.
Lu Qi’s back subconsciously tensed, like a frightened cat in the dark that became so alert that its tail bristled.
He wanted to call Li Yimiao, but then he thought that Li Yimiao was half a head shorter than him and was really just a bean sprout, so he put it out of his mind.
He turned on the flashlight on his mobile phone, tiptoed to the kitchen cabinet, and took out the tool left there by the landlord after the renovation.
Standing by the shoe cabinet near the door, Lu Qi turned on the phone app connected to his camera.
The camera was all green under the night vision function, but Lu Qi could see a large black figure curled up at his neighbor’s door.
It was not accurate to say that he was curled up. The man was simply sitting on the ground, with one long leg bent up and the other stretched out. He wore a black hooded sweatshirt with the hood on his head, concealing most of his face.
He just sat like this with his head hanging. Several times, Lu Qi saw him getting up, holding his hands on the corridor’s cement floor with his tall body trembling slightly.
He might be someone who needed help.
If it had been before, Lu Qi would have gone out with a flashlight to help the person up. But the message he had just received, coupled with the threats he had gotten over the past few days, gathered in his mind like a dark cloud. He clenched the metal in his hand, and the cold temperature caused his limbs to stiffen.
As if he sensed that someone was watching, the man under the camera suddenly raised his head at this moment.
Lu Qi opened his eyes wide.
Even though the face was pale and gloomy through the night vision lens, someone who saw it once would never forget it.
It turned out to be Lion, the little duck.
Click—
The lock sprung open with a crisp sound, and the door was pushed open a small crack. The light of the mobile phone spilled out through that crack in the door and did not directly land on the other person’s face, but politely on his hand.
The hand hanging on his knee made a grasping gesture, as if he wanted to hold this cold white light.
Sitting on the ground, Mu Nanqiao slowly raised his head. His hood pressed down on his hair to cover his eyebrows, but the moment they looked at each other, Lu Qi could still see the fierceness that flashed across his handsome face.
Like a great beast hibernating in the dark.
Lu Qi shrank behind the door, only revealing one eye: “Hello? Are you okay? Why are you here?”
Mu Nanqiao’s expression was startled for a moment. He tilted his head, and the fierceness in his eyes subsided. After looking at him for a second, he asked in a hoarse voice: “Why are you here?”
Lu Qi: ……
Didn’t I ask first?
However, the other person’s expression was clear and sober, not like he was in a drunk or drugged state. A little relieved, Lu Qi poked out most of his body. “Do you need help?”
“En.” Mu Nanqiao nodded this time. “Please give me a hand.”
Lu Qi reached out to pull him up.
He had touched this slender hand twice. At this time, his palm was wet with cold sweat, and there were grains of dirt from the concrete floor. It was unknown if it was due to a sudden illness, but those long legs were completely unable to use their strength. Lu Qi finally pulled this person up, and he half leaned on Lu Qi as he took a bunch of keys out of his pocket.
“I live here.” He answered Lu Qi’s recent question, his voice low and leisurely. “What a coincidence, ah. Neighbor.”
It turned out that he was the “lighting store owner” and Russian music lover.
Lu Qi struggled to support him, and whispered softly as he opened the door: “This kind of work is very harmful to the body, look at how your legs are shaking…..”
Being so close, even though his voice was low, Mu Nanqiao heard it very clearly.
The chest against Lu Qi’s back trembled. The man seemed to be laughing.
“Actually, I…..”
His unfinished words were interrupted by disordered footsteps, and the two of them turned simultaneously to look down the stairs.
A figure quickly rushed up.
The light in the corridor was dim, but Lu Qi still saw the bright strip in the person’s hand.
That was a sharp knife, reflecting the light.
The figure didn’t seem to expect to see two men “hugging each other” in an intimate posture in the stairwell. He froze in place, like a mouse that had suddenly lost the target of its theft.
When their eyes met, Mu Nanqiao was the first to react. He instinctively pulled the boy behind him, but before he could pull him, Lu Qi stooped down like a little loach, slipping under his arm and back to his nest?
Mu Nanqiao: ……
So straightforward?
After just a moment’s hesitation, the figure was already rushing forward with the knife. He was clearly stumbling and not quite sober, but he swung the knife very fiercely and made a he he sound in his mouth, as if he was holding a mouthful of saliva.
Just as Mu Nanqiao was about to turn aside, the door behind him opened again and a breeze blew past. The little loach who slipped away had returned, and stepped between him and the knife-wielding hoodlum. There was a bam—clang—
The hoodlum rolled down the stairs with a grunt, and Lu Qi threw the knife far away.
Mu Nanqiao: ……
For a moment, there was an eerie silence on the stairs, and the only thing that could be heard was the boy’s nervous and rapid breathing.
Mu Nanqiao stared at Lu Qi’s slightly thin back, and slowly relaxed his tightened fists.
“What did you hit him with?” he asked.
Lu Qi gasped out in a trembling voice: “The…..the Holy Sword of Physics.”
Mu Nanqiao: ? ? ?
When he looked down, the boy was holding a rusty crowbar in his shaking hands.
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Neon Dragonfly Translations 