Chapter 10: You did well. You weren’t wrong.

A remote, run-down river embankment. Running into someone once was a coincidence. Running into them twice was fate.

Now that they had exchanged names, they were probably considered friends, right?

At School A, the only person Xu Lin was close to was Yi Wei. Everyone else, to varying degrees, held prejudices against District Thirteen. If they had prejudices against his hometown, then naturally Xu Lin had prejudices against them too. He couldn’t be bothered to socialize and didn’t want to engage.

So since enrolling, the only person he could genuinely call a friend was Yi Wei.

But now, maybe he could add one more: Ji Jixuan.

Yet this new friend wasn’t someone he could see very often.

Although they attended the same school, Xu Lin and the main city students were separated into two different worlds, like the Milky Way dividing the cowherd and the weaver girl.[fcnt] Without the [fcnt content="in the myth, she created the Milky Way to separate the lovers."]Queen Mother’s permission, they couldn’t meet. Xu Lin’s phone was useless, and he had no way to contact Ji Jixuan. In this vast city of Danshi, this river embankment was the only place where their paths might cross.

Would he see him again? Would he come back here?

The first two times, Xu Lin had encountered Ji Jixuan here completely unprepared. If they truly had a connection, wouldn’t there be a third time?

Why was he looking forward to seeing Ji Jixuan again? Xu Lin didn’t dwell on the answer.

More than a month had passed since they parted ways at the alley entrance. Xu Lin’s daily routine remained the same: classes during the day, his part-time job after, and then a detour to the embankment after work, to see if Ji Jixuan had come.

A simple, fulfilling life.

He didn’t get their “third encounter.” Instead, he got a minor nuisance.

That day, he and Yi Wei were returning from the library. As they reached the dormitory door, they heard the two roommates inside talking.

Xu Lin didn’t want to eavesdrop, but unfortunately, their conversation involved him. One of the roommates had lost a bracelet worth six figures, and without any evidence, he suspected Xu Lin had taken it.

“I left it by my bedside. When I woke up, it was gone.”

“Xu Lin comes back from his part-time job late every night. Isn’t that because he’s short on money? By the time he gets back, we’re all asleep. Who would know if he took something?”

“Besides, that kid’s from District Thirteen. Who knows if his hands are clean.”

Outside the door, Yi Wei’s hackles were up. He shoved the door open and yelled at them, “Watch your mouths! Not everyone’s after your crappy bracelet. Who knows if it’s even worth what you claim? You’re always showing it off. Xu Lin earns his money honestly through hard work. His hands are clean! Stop slandering him!”

The two inside, caught red-handed, weren’t intimidated. They laughed and fired back, “I was just guessing. Why are you so worked up? Maybe you stole it. Your shouting must mean you have a guilty conscience!”

Yi Wei was so angered by their shameless logic that his face turned red. “You’re full of it!”

“Xu Lin, do you dare let us search your things?”

One of the roommates, the one wearing glasses, patted Xu Lin’s locker door.

Yi Wei grabbed Xu Lin’s arm. “Ignore him. They’re both insane.”

But Xu Lin smiled. “Sure.”

“Xu Lin?”

Xu Lin patted Yi Wei’s arm, signaling him to calm down. He walked up to his locked locker and said to the bespectacled boy standing there, “I can open it for you. But what happens if you don’t find what you’re looking for?”

“Then you’re just lucky.”

Xu Lin let out a cold laugh. “You get all the good breaks, don’t you? Nothing comes that cheap.”

The bespectacled boy grew impatient. “What do you want, then?”

Xu Lin said, “How about we trade a finger? One of yours.”

The other boy faltered. “What?”

“If you find it, I give you a finger. If you don’t, you give me one.” Xu Lin pulled open his desk drawer and fished out a small folding utility knife, about the size of his palm. He slammed it onto the table with force. The sharp blade glinted as it embedded itself deep into the wood.

The practiced motion successfully startled everyone in the room, including Yi Wei, who was on his side.

“Deal?” Xu Lin asked.

The bespectacled boy was sure Xu Lin was bluffing. After the initial shock, he didn’t take it seriously. He stuck out his chin and retorted, “Of course!”

“Good.” Xu Lin jerked his chin at him. “Go ahead.”

The two Betas exchanged glances. Encouraged by the other’s nod, the bespectacled boy actually opened Xu Lin’s locker and started rummaging through it.

Of course, he found nothing.

Inside were just a few of Xu Lin’s clothes and a backpack. There was nothing else.

Silence spread through the dormitory.

The bespectacled boy clicked his tongue in annoyance and slammed the locker door shut.

“Penniless pauper.”

He muttered the insult, trying to salvage some dignity, and turned to leave. Xu Lin sidestepped, blocking his path.

The bespectacled boy frowned. “What do you want?”

Xu Lin stared at him, his voice low. “Did you forget what I said just now?”

“…” The other roommate chimed in, “Xu Lin, are you crazy or something?”

“Since you know I’m crazy, why did you provoke me?” Xu Lin shot him a cold glare, and the other boy immediately shut his mouth, frightened by the expression on his face.

Xu Lin pulled the knife out of the tabletop, leaving a deep gouge mark in the wood. He raised his hand, tapping the cold blade against the cheek of the bespectacled boy in front of him, over and over. “Which finger do you choose?”

The Beta’s forehead was beaded with sweat, his face pale. He stammered a warning, “D-don’t you dare! If you lay a finger on me, the school will expel you!”

Xu Lin scoffed at his naivety. “You still don’t know the unwritten rules of this school?”

“What?”

Xu Lin said, “If you were a Danshi local and I chopped off your finger, I’d definitely be expelled.” He raised an eyebrow, his voice dropping to a whisper. “But are you?”

“In this school, District Nine, District Seven, and District Thirteen are all the same.”

“Outsiders fighting among themselves? Who’s going to care? Who’s going to stand up for you? Don’t hold out too much hope for this place and take off the rose-colored glasses. In the sheepfold, only the winning lamb has value. The injured ones get skinned, stripped of their flesh, and gnawed down to the bone.”

“You wouldn’t dare! Stop fearmongering! You think Danshi has no laws? You think this is your lawless backwater? Try touching me and see what happens!” The bespectacled boy, emboldened, shouted louder and louder.

“Xu Lin…” Yi Wei called his name softly, worried.

Seeing that he had already achieved his goal of intimidation, and not actually wanting to cause any real trouble, Xu Lin was about to call it off. But then the bespectacled boy screamed again at the top of his lungs:

“You think just because you crawled out of that garbage dump of a District Thirteen, you can become a phoenix? Dream on! I can tell from your lack of manners that you were born but not raised. You definitely cheated on your exams too. District Thirteen is full of brainless idiots, a bunch of maggots rolling in the gutter. Your teacher must be a brainless cockroach too, to have produced such an ill-bred mongrel like you!”

Before he could even finish, Xu Lin’s eyes flew wide open, bloodshot instantly. His fingers clenched into a fist, and he sent the bespectacled boy crashing to the ground with a single punch. The boy groaned and lay there, unable to get up for a long time. He clutched his bleeding mouth with trembling hands, spitting out two knocked-out teeth.

Before he could recover from the searing pain, he saw Xu Lin, face dark as thunder, charging at him with the knife!

“Xu Lin!!!” Yi Wei screamed, covering his eyes, unable to look.

Several seconds passed. Hearing nothing, Yi Wei peeked through his fingers. He didn’t see the bloody scene he’d imagined.

On the ground, Xu Lin was straddling the bespectacled boy. The knife had pierced through the left lens of his glasses. The lens had shattered like a spiderweb, and the tip of the blade, caught in the broken glass, was only a centimeter from his eyeball.

The boy was pale as death, trembling uncontrollably, completely speechless.

Xu Lin grabbed him by the collar and hauled him up to his face.

He pulled the knife out of the glasses and used the tip to lift the boy’s bloodstained lip, pressing it against his front teeth. His eyes were wide with rage. “You bark one more word, and I’ll cut out your tongue.”

The boy was thoroughly cowed this time. He was terrified of the knife in his mouth and of the unhinged madman in front of him. He didn’t dare move. Blood and saliva dripped from his mouth as he whimpered incoherently, “I… got it, got it. I won’t do it again. Sorry. Won’t do it.”

Xu Lin stood up and flicked the dirty water off the blade. He wiped the remaining stains on the boy’s clothes silently, over and over. The cold gleam of the knife reflected in his eyes.

The dark look on his face made him seem like an overinflated balloon stretched to its limit. No one in the room doubted that if the man on the ground said one more word, Xu Lin would leap at him and flay him alive.

The next day, the other roommate’s missing bracelet was found wedged between his own bed and the wall.

Knowing they were in the wrong, they didn’t dare make a fuss.

After this incident, the two of them completely stopped challenging Xu Lin. They didn’t even dare to look at him.

Xu Lin’s cheek had been nicked by a shard of flying glass from the shattered glasses. It wasn’t very noticeable, just a thin red mark.

By the time he saw Ji Jixuan again, the cut had already scabbed over.

That night, Xu Lin sat alone on the river embankment, several freshly folded paper dragonflies scattered at his feet. Ji Jixuan arrived while he was in the middle of folding a new one.

He wasn’t in a great mood. He had been waiting over a month for Ji Jixuan to appear, and though his arrival finally came, Xu Lin was only briefly surprised. There was no major emotional stir.

He just greeted Ji Jixuan, then he lowered his head and continued what he was doing.

But Ji Jixuan stood by his side and didn’t leave.

Xu Lin looked up. Ji Jixuan was staring at his face—more precisely, at the cut.

It was barely noticeable, but Ji Jixuan had noticed.

It seemed exchanging names had been useful. This time, he finally remembered him.

Xu Lin touched the scab. “What, are you curious about this?”

Ji Jixuan didn’t say anything. Xu Lin kept his head down and rambled on, telling him about what had happened in the dormitory.

He fiddled with the colored paper in his hands, his voice low, like soft murmuring:

“He said I was born but not raised, and I wasn’t even that angry. But when he insulted my teacher, I couldn’t take it.” Xu Lin finished folding a paper dragonfly and placed it with the pile at his feet.

Pu Sha was his bottom line.

He blinked, was silent for a long moment, then added, “My teacher is a very good person. He’s very important to me.”

When he was younger, after Pu Sha had taken him in, he would often get into fights with other street punks.

Sometimes it was to protect his friends from being bullied. Other times, it was because he heard them badmouthing Pu Sha. They wouldn’t say anything explicitly terrible—just that Pu Sha’s dream of building a school in District Thirteen was wishful thinking, a pipe dream. They said taking in all those students was useless, that none of them would amount to anything. They called him foolish, naive, stupid for wasting his time teaching others.

Xu Lin couldn’t stand hearing anyone say anything bad about Pu Sha. He would always charge in and fight.

Sometimes he was outnumbered, but he never ran. He’d fight to the bitter end, often coming home covered in horrible bruises.

Pu Sha would apply medicine and ask why he’d been fighting. Xu Lin would press his lips together and refuse to say. Not knowing the reason, Pu Sha could only earnestly advise him, “If you’re outnumbered, run. If you know you can’t win and will get hurt, why go looking for a beating? Doesn’t it hurt?”

“Doesn’t hurt,” Xu Lin would stubbornly insist.

Pu Sha guessed at the reason. “Did someone insult you?”

Xu Lin shook his head. He didn’t care what people said about him.

What he couldn’t stand was hearing them insult Pu Sha or his friends.

Pu Sha had told him more than once, “Don’t fight anymore.”

Don’t fight? Some fights were unavoidable.

Xu Lin would listen to Pu Sha about everything except this. So he would only reply, “Fists are for protecting the people who matter.” And then he’d go on his way. Pu Sha couldn’t control him, so he’d just keep extra medicine stocked at home.

He thought Ji Jixuan would also say that fighting was wrong.

But instead, Ji Jixuan said, “Fists are for protecting the people who matter.”

The exact same words, word for word, fell from Ji Jixuan’s lips.

Xu Lin froze, his neck stiff as an un-oiled old machine, creaking as he turned to look at Ji Jixuan beside him.

Ji Jixuan gazed into the distance, his delicate features bathed in the night, reflected in Xu Lin’s eyes.

“You did well,” Ji Jixuan said.

“You weren’t wrong.”

In that moment, in that single instant… Xu Lin heard the blood boiling in his veins and his heart pounding so hard it threatened to burst through his chest.