CHAPTER 69: CHAPTER 65: SCUMBAG MAN

On the pager, there was a familiar number displayed, it was none other than Boss Han, who had just left a message for Su Ziceng.

Could it be that there was another issue with He Malu? Su Ziceng looked around the neighborhood, that was the particular inconvenience of a pager, having to return the call, but fortunately, she was on campus where there were public phone booths everywhere.

Su Ziceng found a phone booth and called back, "Mr. Han left a text message, hoping you could call back ******." This time, Boss Han didn’t leave a direct message, but a phone number instead.

The matter seemed urgent; Boss Han must be waiting by a phone booth. Su Ziceng quickly returned the call.

As the call connected, Boss Han’s voice was tinged with anxiety: "Ziceng, can you help me find Wuxu? She hasn’t contacted home for over a week now." Yan Wuxu’s home was near where Boss Han lived, next to a small convenience store. Although Wuxu did not often return home, she would make a phone call every Saturday or Sunday night at six o’clock.

Two weeks earlier, Yan Wuxu had brought home a lot of food and fun things. Although she came alone, she had already told her family that she would bring her new boyfriend over after a while and had even given Mrs. Yan a sum of money, saying it was to spruce up the house and add some furniture, after which there was no further news.

"She didn’t leave any other number, just the pager number of her boyfriend last time," Boss Han’s voice carried a bitter tinge as he reported the number.

The number belonged to Fei Qing, and Su Ziceng sighed inwardly. Just as she had predicted, something had happened to Yan Wuxu.

"Brother Han, do you like Yan Wuxu?" Su Ziceng listened as the other end of the phone fell into silence. The connection seemed to break for a full half minute. Perhaps it was the way Su Ziceng addressed him as Brother Han that had closed the gap, or perhaps her recent good deeds had unintentionally opened Boss Han’s heart.

"You must be laughing at me," the usually loud Boss Han’s voice weakened a bit, and Su Ziceng could imagine him scratching his head, his face flushed, "Don’t tell her!"

His following words made Su Ziceng burst into laughter, "I’ll help you look for her." For Boss Han’s sake, she decided to forgive Yan Wuxu.

In the dormitory, it was dim. As soon as Su Ziceng opened the door, she smelled a musty odor; the room hadn’t been ventilated for days. Yan Wuxu wasn’t inside, and Su Ziceng checked. The bedding on her bed was neatly folded, and the textbooks and notebooks on the desk were placed far away without a single wrinkle.

In the wardrobe, the white polka-dot Chanel dress was still neatly sealed in a garment bag. Yan Wuxu was meticulous in her work; even amidst such a significant emotional event, her surroundings remained orderly.

Where could she go? Su Ziceng thought it over and decided to look for Fei Qing first; he was always with Hang Yishao. Hang Yishao’s class schedule for the semester was still lying nicely in her drawer; he had class on Sunday night.

At Daquan University, Hang Yishao and Fei Qing had been out playing for a week, still showing some signs of fatigue. They had planned to skip the evening class, but earlier news revealed the teacher would take attendance, so they reluctantly headed toward the teaching building.

The evening breeze blew, giving Fei Qing, who had slept all afternoon, a chill around his neck, "My dad said that a new batch of mobile phones just came into the country. Let’s get a few to play with; I’ve been wanting to ditch this pager for a while."

"You may run away from the temple, but not from the monk," Hang Yishao knew all about Fei Qing’s little schemes. Although they both got into romantic troubles, Hang Yishao was straightforward about it: he was flirtatious but not sleazy, and he never owed any ’romantic debts’. When breaking up with any woman, he was thorough and clean-cut, which was why Hang’s father and Hang Mu rarely interfered in his love life.

"Look at what you’re saying, if I had half your skills, I wouldn’t be having such a headache. How would I know that Yan Wuxu would be clingy like a piece of stick chewing gum, impossible to shake off," Fei Qing dared not put the battery back in his pager. These past few nights, he had stealthily looked and his pager had several unfamiliar calls, Yan Wuxu really was like a persistent ghost.

"Ah Qing," Fei Qing was startled, there at the staircase landing stood Yan Wuxu, her Kelly Women’s College uniform particularly striking.

It was nearly class time, and the night was a public course. People were coming and going at the stairwell, and both Hang Yishao and Fei Qing were celebrities. Being cornered by an out-of-school girl at such a strategic location was indeed something that stood out.

"What are you doing here?" Fei Qing couldn’t believe that Yan Wuxu had another trick up her sleeve. After leaving messages without a response, she actually showed up in person. She must have been hanging around Su Ziceng too much, having learned all the bad stuff.

At this moment, Yan Wuxu looked distraught. Her hair was no longer as smooth as before, and staying up all night left her looking even more haggard. Her delicate face had lost its usual softness, her eyes staring blankly at Fei Qing, almost like a walking zombie.

The reason Fei Qing was drawn to Yan Wuxu in the first place was because he liked her quietness, her seemingly sweet face, and the simple style of her Kelly Women’s College uniform that made her look particularly pure. But when a domestic cat is cornered, it too can become clingy and difficult to shake off.

"I came to find you," after calling for several days without a response from Fei Qing, Yan Wuxu was thinking she had already promised her family that she would bring Fei Qing over in a few days to let them meet him. But just in a few days, he had turned his back on her.

"Why can’t you be flexible?" Fei Qing, already very uncomfortable being stared at by countless pairs of eyes passing by, only wanted Yan Wuxu to move out of the way quickly: "I don’t answer your calls; don’t you get it? We’re over."

"Why? Is it because there is something bad about me? Anything you dislike, I can change, I can change everything." Yan Wuxu didn’t care about the disdain already showing in Fei Qing’s eyes; she kept babbling, her gaze scattered, trying to grab onto Fei Qing.

Where had the tender man who once held her in his arms gone? In the midnight reveries, he was still whispering sweet nothings in her ear. Aboard the yacht, as he removed the many layers bound upon her, he had promised to treat her well for a lifetime.

"Are you annoying or what?" Like a dog-skin plaster being flung away, Yan Wuxu was shaken off by Fei Qing, his fingernails grazing her cheek, leaving behind a swollen, painful scratch.

Yan Wuxu stumbled, missing a step, her body like a kite with its string cut, about to fall downwards.

Her body was caught in time, and Yan Wuxu was pulled back to her original place. Her eyes were still hollow, like a puppet on strings, held in the hands of Su Ziceng.

"Fei Qing, are you even a man? You hit a woman?" Su Ziceng familiarly found her way to the teaching building and witnessed this scene. From Yan Wuxu’s cheek to her chin, a trace of blood had emerged.

"Su Ziceng, it’s none of your business. I’ve got money; isn’t it okay if I regard it as buying a woman with money? I didn’t mistreat her with what she ate and used in the month with me." Fei Qing, restrained by Hang Yishao, could only reply verbally, then pulled out his wallet, took out a cheque, and threw it at Yan Wuxu.

The ink on the cheque had already dried, the handwriting of the black fountain pen was strikingly confident. Just as the cheque was about to land in Yan Wuxu’s arms, she suddenly trembled in pain, like the intense pain that struck her that night on the yacht for the first time.

"Don’t think I don’t know - I’ve looked into your family background; fifty thousand is already a high price. I’ve also heard you have sticky fingers. This kind of person, still pretending to be innocent in front of me," Fei Qing’s voice droned on like a drake.

Su Ziceng abruptly swung her hand, causing the cheque to deviate from its intended path.

The cheque flew out of everyone’s sight, plummeting towards the ground below. Yan Wuxu watched that piece of paper like a white feather fall through the crowd, dropping downwards, and her heart followed bit by bit, as if plummeting into a bottomless abyss, never to recover.

The black fountain pen wrote out the five zeros with flair. "Fifty thousand," Su Ziceng twitched the corner of her mouth, feeling a bit of bitterness.

In her hands, Yan Wuxu’s were thin and weak, her large eyes wide open, staring incessantly at the cheque, her hair flying up with the motion. Yan Wuxu pulled away from Su Ziceng’s hand, gathering her hair back in a hasty, scribbled manner, pulling back the drifting strands in a frenzied, urgent, and helpless gesture.

An indescribable bitterness rose in Su Ziceng’s throat, stretching into her stomach, not knowing what to say.

Before her rebirth, for Hang Yishao, she had repeatedly made the same gesture, writing the highest cheque possible, even a blank one. Every woman who received her cheque would beam with joy, and then return Hang Yishao to her.

Su Ziceng never knew that a woman receiving a cheque could have such an expression. She didn’t realize, for Yan Wuxu, it wasn’t just a simple cheque; it was the severed ladder leading to a higher status, the ladder to the life she aspired to.

Yan Wuxu thought she was climbing a mountain of gold, not realizing that halfway up, she would miss a step and fall miserably and disgracefully.

Onlookers at the side were pushed away by Su Ziceng, who quickly ran to the stairs, picked up the cheque, then walked back.

Past the still dazed Yan Wuxu, Su Ziceng walked straight up to Fei Qing.

Without the previous indignation, Su Ziceng’s face even bore a smile. Her smile was sweet, the mole by her mouth becoming more animated, her expression like that of a primary school student who found money on the road, wanting to return the cheque to the "Mr. Fei the policeman."

So much so, that everyone thought she was harmless.

Before the storm, the calmer the surface, the more earth-shattering the next moment. Hang Yishao and Fei Qing were both deceived by that smile of hers.