Fake Boy

Chapter 4 – Who’s The Idiot

She bought Liuliu Plums for Lu Yao and returned to the classroom panting.   

The class supervisor was the English teacher, a person capable to make English sound like Shanxi dialect. When speaking English, she always had saliva in her mouth. Her English name was Amy and her Chinese name was Ami.

When Li Mingzhu entered the room, Amy glanced at her.

“Come in quickly, you are late for class.”

A commotion broke in the class, Amy shouted: “What’s with the nuoise[1]! Silence!”

Someone imitated her tone: “What’s with the nuoise, silence!”

The classroom burst into laughter.

Ami had a very soft personality and was easy to handle. She stared at them from the teacher’s desk: “What are you doing?!”

Li Mingzhu took advantage of the commotion to return to her seat.

She took out a water bottle from the drawer, unscrewed the lid and drank half the bottle.

She was really tired.

Li Mingzhu hardly got so tired that her face streamed with sweat. She was always clean and refreshing.

Gu Xiaofei, who sat on the other side of the passageway, asked gossipily: “What did you do? It’s the first time I see you come late.”

Li Mingzhu’s language exercise book got severely marked with a thick black line: “… Fed a dog!”

On the fourth floor, Lu Yao sneezed. The evening self-study in the art class was very lively, it seemed like a concert was going to be held.

Lu Yao’s seat was in the last row near the trash can, in the teacher’s words: garbage should sit with the garbage.

However, Lu Yao wasn’t an accommodating person, he kicked the trash can to the front of the classroom. The female teacher’s face got flushed and ran away in tears. She went to the grade director to complain.

At this time, Lu Yao was sitting with legs crossed with one foot in the air while eating Liuliu plums.

“Brother Lu, at night, are you going… ” the one talking to him was Wang Miao, one of the last row’s garbage, he made a gun gesture.

This gesture was a secret signal, meaning to smoke.

At school there was a good place for smoking acknowledged by the students, it was on the cement road behind the cafeteria, where the trees around blocked the view. Apart from the students who smoke, there were also couples kissing.

Ever since the start of the military training, Lu Yao received the favour of dozen of girls, some expressed it explicitly and some implicitly, some sent him text messages and some sent Weixin messages.

All the freshmen envied Lu Yao, but at the same time, thinking about his family background and looking at his face, they could only admire him.

“During the evening first class Song Mengjie came to look for you, but you weren’t here, she said she would come again after the evening self-study.” Sun Yu winked at him, “Are you interested in her?”

Lu Yao said: “Isn’t it tiring to run from the first floor to the fourth floor?”

“Well, she likes you.” Sun Yu replied.

“There are many people interested in brother Lu, how can we favour someone from a different class. I think our classmate Zhao Xiaoxin is pretty good.” Wang Miao stole a glance.

Zhao Xiaoxin modified her uniform. Earlier, when the discipline inspection team came to check the uniform, she took off her jacket, revealing her fashionable underwear and her well-developed breasts.

Apart from Lu Yao, the boys’ gazes all fell on Zhao Xiaoxin’s breast, making wretched smiles.

Lu Yao was chewing a Liuliu plum, not interested.

After the evening self-study ended, he sent Li Mingzhu a message, the content was simple and concise: [I’m hungry.]

Li Mingzhu was a day student, she had a very old cellphone, a model that had fallen into disuse long ago. She had bought it at a second-hand market.

This phone received Lu Yao’s message.

The excellence class had four periods of evening self-study, while the art class only had three.

Lu Yao sent his message to Li Mingzhu after the third period. As a freshman, he probably didn’t know the class arrangement of the excellence class.

Li Mingzhu replied: [I’m in class.]

Lu Yao thought that Li Mingzhu was refusing him: [Quick, I don’t have much patience.]

As Li Mingzhu received this message, Gu Xiaofei looked at her surprised.

Li MIngzhu had good grades and never looked at her phone during class. Moreover, the excellence class was under the school’s strict inspection. Every now and then the education director would pass by the hallways.

Gu Xiaofei lowered his voice: “Li Ming stop looking at the phone, Cai Gou is outside.”

The education director, Yang Facai, was a middle-aged man who was cursed by the students to never get rich. Cai Gou[2] was his widespread nickname.

Li Mingzhu put away the phone, quickly answered the last big Physics’ problem and in one fell swoop wrote the answer: ‘From the surface q, at a distance of L/2 from the centre of the circumpherence, the height is 3 meters.’

As soon as she finished, Gu Xiaofei shouted to the class: “What’s your answer to the last problem of Huanggang Danyuan test book’s A paper!”

The class president answered him: “Gu Xiaofei, you want to just copy the answer again!”

“Bah! This time I have the solving process, alright!?” Gu Xiaofei replied.

The class president laughed at him, even if he had the solving process, it was just nonsense, it looked awesome, but in reality, was all wrong, then at the end copied from someone else the right answer.

“Old Yan said that you can only get the points for the answer.”

“It’s two points. It’s enough. Do you know what it means two points in the university entrance exam? It’s twenty thousand!” Gu Xiaofei exaggerated, “Do you have any opinion about me, who has 20,000 yuan.”

The Physics class representative wore glasses as thick as the bottom of a thermos bottle, he pushed them up and asked Li Mingzhu, who sat three rows apart: “Li Ming, what’s your answer?”

“Three.” Li Mingzhu stood up.

After hearing this answer, everyone in the classroom started checking their own answers.

After getting along for one year, everyone deeply understood that Li Ming’s answer was the correct answer.

The reference answer could be wrong, but she wouldn’t.

“Oh, dear!” Gu Xiaofei burst into laughter, “Yang Ke, what solution is this?! 2.45 thirds, and there’s also a square root! This answer is wrong at first glance, alright? Don’t you have any answering techniques? How can a distance be a fraction, it must be an integer!”

As he said these words, Li Mingzhu walked out of the laboratory building with a sombre face.

The excellence class was in the laboratory building, while the art class was in the art building, between them there were four buildings. The distance was a bit far.

Li Mingzhu found Lu Yao in the small forest behind the school cafeteria. Lu Yao was smoking, there wasn’t any light, so she could only see the flashing light of the cigarette in his hands.

Lu Yao looked towards her hands, she was holding a white plastic bag with the school convenience store’s logo. He took it and rummaged in it: “There isn’t any meat.”

“I don’t have money.” Li Mingzhu said calmly, but her tone wasn’t very good.

Lu Yao took out his school card from his pockets and put it in her hands: “There’s one thousand inside.”

Li Mingzhu’s mouth twitched: “You are not afraid I use it for me?”

Lu Yao tore open the seaweed packaging: “If you aren’t afraid of being beaten by me, then swipe it.”

Li Mingzhu returned the card to him and sternly asked: “Lu Yao, what on earth do you want?”

Lu Yao was eating seaweed: “I don’t want anything, I just want to give you a hard time.”

He said it lightly, but it aroused anger in Li Mingzhu, who used to remain indifferent to favours or humiliations.

“You… don’t go overboard!” she said angrily, “I still have class.”

“Oh, then send me your class schedule, I’ll call you after class.” Lu Yao said unchanging.

This wasn’t what Li Mingzhu meant, she meant not to disturb her.

“I’m sorry for what I did, I apologise. You can’t pester me like this.” Li Mingzhu said.

“Ha ha, interesting.” Lu Yao lifted his head to look at her and pushed her fiercely. Li Mingzhu got unsteady and fell to the ground.

Lu Yao straddled his long legs and half sat on top of her. Li Mingzhu panicked but Lu Yao grabbed her by the collar. She rested her hands and elbows on the ground, while her upper body was forcibly lifted.

“You will get punished for fighting.” Li Mingzhu said calmly.

“What you did is also enough for you to get punished.” Lu Yao retorted, “Are you thinking that I have a good temper, eh?”

Li Mingzhu clenched her teeth. At this moment, Lu Yao’s aura was very terrifying.

He said: “I’ve never lost so much face, Li Ming.”

Li Mingzhu and Lu Yao looked at each other in the dark. Besides them, there were other people passing by, but when they saw their posture, they didn’t dare step forward.

Lu Yao loosened her collar: “I’m just making you run some errands, I can do more, you choose.”

He stood up, Li Mingzhu turned around and got up too.

Lu Yao looked a little unnatural. He rubbed the seam of his trousers, but no one saw it.

Whenever he had physical contact with Li Mingzhu, he would get goosebumps all over his body. Li Mingzhu’s body was as soft as a pool of water. Lu Yao never had such strong physical reactions when being in contact with other men.

Li Mingzhu had dealt with Lu Yao for several months, she knew his temper very well. After a moment of silence, she spoke: “We should set some rules.”

“What qualifications do you have to set rules.”

Li Mingzhu retorted: “I can help you with your studies, help you improve your grades.”

Lu Yao clearly didn’t need remedial lessons. The thing he hated the most was studying, and the second was Li Mingzhu.

Lu Yao actually got admitted to Yizhong through the exam. Although his grades were bad, he was very talented at learning. At that time, he got provoked by Li Mingzhu, so studied for the entire summer vacation and got very close to the minimum pass mark for admission. He paid some money and like this, he managed to enter Yizhong.

Lu Yao hated Li Mingzhu, but Li Mingzhu that sissy would always make him feel strange all over his body. He couldn’t bring himself to hate him anymore. He felt that he wouldn’t be able to go out with girls anymore.

During military training, he saw by chance Li Mingzhu’s photo on the school’s bulletin board.

In the photo, she had an upright manner. She had clear facial features, but there was a sinister aura between her brows. Because this face was so good-looking, Lu Yao immediately recalled the summer vacation of the second year of junior high school.

At that time Li Mingzhu pretended to be a student at Qinghua University. Seeing his photo on Yizhong’s bulletin board, Lu Yao connected the dots and came to a realization.

Li Mingzhu lied!

He fooled him and granny around. Lu Yao’s little hatred for him couldn’t be compared to being deceived for an entire summer vacation. A high school bastard dared to fool him?

Even Yizhong’s chairman when seeing him had to call him ‘young master Lu’. Who is Li Ming to treat him like that?

Lu Yao was born into an esteemed family. Since he was young, he always got whatever he wanted. He had never met someone like Li Mingzhu who was so daring and didn’t know how to appreciate favours.

He had strong self-esteem. He got fooled by Li Mingzhu, so he must make her pay, take revenge and erase the humiliation. Thus on the first day of school, he waited for her to block the road.

Lu Yao pressed the tip of his tongue on his palate, he looked at Li Mingzhu in a haughty manner for a while, then asked incongruously as the mouth of a horse on the head of an ox[3].

“What performance is your class doing for the welcoming ceremony?”

“Chorus.” Li Mingzhu answered subconsciously.

“You are also singing?” Lu Yao asked.

Li Mingzhu didn’t understand what he was up to, but still shook her head: “I’m not.”

She never participated in group activities, had no sense of the class’s collective honour, and liked to leave the group and be alone.

Lu Yao looked at her jokingly: “I can let you go, during the welcoming ceremony, you go on stage and shout out three times ‘Brother Lu is almighty, I’m an idiot.’ Then I will spare you.”

Li Mingzhu’s face immediately got pale.

Lu Yao’s intentions to ridicule her were very obvious, but Li Mingzhu also had strong self-esteem.

“How is it?” Lu Yao asked insistently.

Li Mingzhu asked: “What should I shout?”

“Brother Lu is almighty, I’m an idiot.”

Li Mingzhu feigned not hearing well: “I didn’t hear well, what’s the last sentence?”

“I’m an idiot.”

Li Mingzhu suddenly jumped and gave him a kick, she forgot all about the principle of knowing when to yield and when not[4]. She shouted: “You’re right, you are an idiot!”

This kick of hers was a sudden and surprising move, also known as the leg-breaking kick. She kicked him with all her force with the objective to break Lu Yao’s leg.

After the kick, Li Mingzhu ran away faster than a rabbit, the white uniform wrapping her body, disappearing in front of Lu Yao at the speed of light.

Lu Yao gasped in pain and bent down. He wanted to chase, but his leg was swollen and he was sweating profusely.

He gritted his teeth and held back for a long time, finally saying one word: “Fuck!”

Lu Yao knew that with Li Mingzhu’s personality, he should have been always on alert, but because he got the upper hand, he let down his guard and got carried away.

So she didn’t have any movement before, it was because she was waiting for the big move, she had the skill in cooldown!

Because of his face, he didn’t dare to cry out, so he hissed and gasped. The passing students looked at him, and Lu Yao yelled: “The hell you looking at!”

His fierce temperament made the crowd disperse as frightened birds.

Lu Yao jumping on one leg could never catch up. He could only swear: “Fuck!”

Just like this, he jumped to the infirmary. He decided to not live under the same sky as Li Mingzhu[5], but still hadn’t come up with how to settle accounts with her.

On the other end, Li Mingzhu ran back to the classroom with a snow-white face, grabbed her schoolbag and walked outside the classroom.

Before she left, she asked the class president: “Who’s next period’s class supervisor?”

The class president was taken aback by her grieved face as if she had lost her parents.

“It’s Mary…”

Mary was the nickname of the Biology teacher.

As soon as she heard that it wasn’t the home-room teacher, Li Mingzhu immediately said: “Ask for leave for me, I’m leaving first.”

She said she would leave and left. She didn’t dare to stay at school even for a moment, afraid that Lu Yao would come to her classroom.

On the way home, Li Mingzhu came to her senses and realised what she had done on impulse.

She wailed vexedly but helplessly, the moonlight pulled long her lonely shadow.

In the symphony of her tragic life, another symphony of fate called Lu Yao was inserted, and the ensemble produced an epic hapless life song.

Li Mingzhu couldn’t see the moon in the sky, just as she couldn’t see the future clouded by dark clouds.

At this time, she really didn’t want to face the next day.

Little theatre

Li Mingzhu: “Never would I’ve thought that in the future I would fall in love with an idiot.”

Lu Yao: “I fell in love with my arch-enemy, what should I do? PS: He’s a man!”

Notes

1. The misspelling is made on purpose to emphasize her accent. 

2. His name ‘Facai’ has the same pronunciation as ‘get rich’, thus the reason for the curse. / His nickname means ‘dog Cai’ (it sounds weird so a left it in Chinese), in China calling someone a dog is offensive. 

3. ‘The mouth of a horse on the head of an ox’ idiom meaning ‘incongruous’. 

4. ‘The principle of knowing when to yield’ i.e. yield to the strong, and be strong to the weak. 

5. ‘To not live under the same sky as’ idiom meaning ‘to feel irreconcilable hatred for sb’.