“You—”
“Don’t start yelling yet, let me explain things to your mom first.”
Xu Ye went back to the main screen, pulled up his chat with Jiang Meilin, and typed frantically. “Auntie, I was just bragging on Moments a little, it’s not what you’re thinking.”
Jiang Meilin replied almost instantly. “I already knew one of the phones was for you.”
Jiang Meilin: Are you two together right now?
Xu Ye: Yeah, we’re at the Bund.
Jiang Meilin: Good. Take care of Qingqing. Auntie’s got a meeting.
Xu Ye: No problem!
Once he’d finished replying, he deleted the Moments post and said, “Okay, all explained. And the post is gone too.”
“I don’t want to talk to you right now,” Qingqing snapped.
“Come on, it’s fine. It’s not like your mom didn’t already know about us.”
“Get away from me.”
“I was wrong, okay? I said I was wrong, isn’t that enough?”
He got up, walked over, crouched down in front of her, and leaned his face in close. “Tell you what — go ahead and slap me, twice even.”
“You think I won’t?”
“Go for it, then.”
Qingqing raised her hand — and then noticed several passersby watching them. She lowered it quickly, ducked her head, and muttered, “Just sit down.”
“Then stop being mad.”
“Sit!”
“Say you’re not mad first.”
“Fine! I’m not mad!”
He happily sat back down next to her.
Once the onlookers had wandered off, Qingqing, still not quite over it, reached over and gave a vicious pinch to the small patch of skin on his arm.
Xu Ye didn’t even flinch, just grinned, shamelessly pleased with himself. “Feel better now?”
“Hmph.”
Seeing she’d let it go, Xu Ye crossed one leg over the other and fired off a message to the dorm group chat.
Xu Ye: @Everyone — you guys up yet? Sent from an iPhone 6s 128GB Rose Gold
Yang Fei: Just woke up, why?
Xu Ye: No reason. Just got a new phone, testing the signal. Sent from an iPhone 6s 128GB Rose Gold
Yang Fei: You bought a 6s?
Xu Ye: Yep. Sent from an iPhone 6s 128GB Rose Gold
Zhang Xinzhou: Do you actually need to put that at the end of every single message?
Xu Ye: Honestly, I don’t know how to turn the signature off.
Yang Fei: How much’d it cost?
Xu Ye: Didn’t cost a thing. Girlfriend got it for me.
After firing off that last message, Xu Ye left the group chat, snapped a photo of the Oriental Pearl Tower, and sent it to Qin Zhiwei.
Xu Ye: [Image]
Xu Ye: This is the Oriental Pearl. Pretty nice, right? Sent from an iPhone 6s 128GB Rose Gold
Qin Zhiwei: ???
Qin Zhiwei: You got a new phone?
Xu Ye: You mean this iPhone right here?
Xu Ye: Girlfriend got it for me.
Xu Ye: 4.7-inch screen, A9 chip, 5-megapixel front camera, 12-megapixel rear, supports 4K video, 128 gigs of storage, front-facing fingerprint sensor — works incredible.
Xu Ye: Why aren’t you saying anything?
Xu Ye: Hey, big bro Wei, you there?
Qin Zhiwei: I’m sharpening my knife.
Qin Zhiwei: Send me your location, I’m coming over right now.
…
That afternoon, the two of them went to see The Four III [TL: a 2014 Chinese wuxia film starring Deng Chao and Liu Yifei (already familiar to readers from Ch. 48)] at the movie theater.
Xu Ye hadn’t seen this one before in his past life, so he actually watched it pretty intently.
Qingqing wasn’t much of a wuxia fan. By the time the credits rolled, her assessment was a fair and balanced one word: mediocre.
After leaving the theater, the two of them walked over to the foot of the Oriental Pearl Tower. Before coming to Shanghai, Xu Ye had assumed the tower would look spectacular up close. Standing right under it now, though, he found himself thinking it was just okay.
No mountain or river could compete with a beautiful person.
Some people just had to stand there to become the best view in the room.
“Let me take a picture of you.”
“No.”
“We’re already here, come on, just one.”
“Then don’t go posting it anywhere.”
“I promise!”
“Where do you want me?”
He thought about the framing for a second, then guided her up onto a set of steps. “Just stand right there. Trust me, I’m basically a professional photographer.”
“Yeah, right~”
Once she was in position, he backed up several steps, crouched down with his phone, and started adjusting the angle.
The setting sun spilled across the stone pavement, washing her cheeks in warm red light. She was wearing a pale blue dress that day, her long hair falling like a waterfall over her shoulders, the breeze tugging at the hem of her skirt and stray strands of her hair. She didn’t have to do anything at all — just standing there was enough to draw the eyes of half the people around them.
“Are you done yet!” Feeling all the attention from the surrounding crowd, Qingqing gave a small, irritated stomp.
Xu Ye, having found his angle, fired off several shots in quick succession before hurrying over and holding the phone up for her, his head practically pressed against hers as they leaned in to look together. There was a time, not long ago, when Qingqing would’ve shoved him away for getting this close. Now she didn’t.
“Well? Pretty good shots, right?”
“They’re fine.”
“Then take one of me too.”
She agreed without any pushback. She walked to where he’d been standing and took a photo of him at the same angle, glancing at it herself before handing the phone back.
This dumb pig was surprisingly photogenic, she thought.
“Here.”
He took the phone back, looked it over, and grinned. “Should we get one together too?”
“No! Absolutely not!”
“Just one~”
“No.”
“Fine, fine, no picture then. Not that it matters — I already snuck in a few candid shots of you earlier today.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
“Are you eating dinner?”
“I’m good.”
“Then take me back to school.”
“You got it. This way, your highness~”
“Suck-up.”
They retraced their route, got off at the subway stop nearest the Shanghai Conservatory, and still had a twelve-minute walk ahead of them to reach the school. As they walked, trading stories about funny things that had happened during military training—
“SCREEECH!”
A piercing brake sound cut through the air. Xu Ye’s eyes snapped toward it immediately — a small delivery truck had slammed to a stop in the middle of the road, and less than a meter in front of it, an elderly man had crumpled dramatically to the ground.
The truck was already stopped.
The man only fell after the truck stopped.
That was a textbook scam. [note: pengci]
Unbelievable. Of all the things to run into.
The truck driver scrambled out of the cab almost immediately. From the look of him — a yellowed white undershirt soaked through with sweat — he clearly wasn’t a man of means. The second he spotted the old man writhing and howling on the ground in front of his truck, his face went pale with panic.
A small crowd was already gathering.
Xu Ye thought it over for a moment, then turned to Qingqing. “Wait here a second. Time for me to be a good Samaritan.”
Under her startled gaze, he walked out into the middle of the road, phone raised and recording.
“Coming through, coming through, make some room.”
“Wow, old man, look at you — out here running cons at your age?”
“I’ve got the whole thing on video. This driver clearly never touched you. You lay down on the ground all by yourself. Bit shady, don’t you think?”
The old man, seeing the phone pointed at him, only howled louder.
Xu Ye smiled. “Sir, every truck’s got a dashcam these days, and there are cameras all over the street. Faking an injury to extort money is a crime, you know. Everyone, did you all see what just happened here?”
Whether it was an act or not was obvious at a glance. A man this age, actually struck by a real vehicle, wouldn’t have the lungs to howl this loud. The crowd, watching him get louder and more theatrical by the second, started murmuring and pointing.
Just last year, the comedy troupe Mahua FunAge had performed a sketch called To Help or Not to Help — about exactly this kind of scam — on the CCTV Spring Festival Gala [TL: China’s most-watched television broadcast, airing live every Lunar New Year’s Eve], and the “pengci” scam [TL: short for a fraud where someone fakes being struck by a vehicle to extort compensation — a phenomenon that became a genuine social anxiety in China, especially after the sketch made it a household term] had become a major topic of public conversation ever since.
Realizing the crowd had turned squarely against him, the old man on the ground abruptly stopped howling.
He shot Xu Ye one furious glare, then, amid a chorus of disapproval, scrambled to his feet and slunk off. The truck driver, watching this unfold, felt a weight lift instantly off his chest. He rushed over, grabbed Xu Ye’s hand, and said with a face full of relief, “Thank you so much, kid. I genuinely don’t know what I would’ve done today without you.”
Looking at the driver’s plain, grateful smile, Xu Ye smiled back. “Hey, it’s nothing. Just doing the right thing.”
“This kid’s a good one.”
“Really is~”
“Son, are you married?”
“Still in college.”
“Oh, then do you have a girlfriend? Want Auntie here to set you up with someone?”
(End of Chapter)