"Boss, business looks good today."
"Ha, not bad today. What brings Young Master Feng by?" The boss's face was all smiles.
"Uh-huh. I just ran into a few brothers, so I'm taking a little stroll. Huh." Leaning on the boss's desk, Cao Dongfeng took the protection money the boss handed him with one hand while peering into the back room. When he saw Jiaming's clumsy, stiff button-work, he burst out laughing. "Boss, come on, come on, give me a few tokens. I feel like playing too."
Tokens in hand, he walked into the back room and thumped down against the cabinet Jiaming was playing on, blocking half the screen. "Hey, small world, you three. How about we play together?" But his gaze went right past Jiaming and fixed on the two girls playing the flying-shooter game next to him.
They were already openly on bad terms with this guy. Shasha immediately pulled a sour face. "What rotten luck. I knew we shouldn't have come here." Lingjing only glanced over and turned away, staring at the game screen with a face like ice. The two girls banged their machine until it clattered. With half his screen blocked, Jiaming's character was quickly killed. He sighed helplessly and gave the other boy a light push. "Come on, do you mind not blocking me? I can't even see."
Having just been snubbed in front of the two girls, and now seeing a boy he had always looked down on dare to talk back, Cao Dongfeng's face went cold at once. He reached out and slammed his hand on the machine. "Who the hell do you think you are, running your mouth around here!"
With that slap, he straightened up too. The second round was just about to start. Jiaming nodded with a satisfied smile. "Thanks. Blocking someone's game isn't a good habit."
"You—" Cao Dongfeng pointed at Jiaming, but before he could say more, one of the little thugs hurried up.
"Who do you think you are, talking to Brother Feng like that!" He was a newcomer to the Sand Bamboo Gang and did not recognize Liu Huaisha standing nearby. He swung his fist to hit, but the men behind him hastily held him back. Shasha slammed down her joystick with a bang, grabbed a stool, and planted herself in front of Jiaming. "What do you think you're doing?! You want a fight?" Lingjing stopped playing too and stood beside Jiaming. She said nothing, but her face was full of anger.
"Sorry, sorry, Sister Sha. He's new, doesn't know any better. Don't take it to heart." This was Sand Bamboo Gang territory, and these thugs belonged to the gang, so naturally they did not dare get involved in a conflict between Liu Huaisha and Cao Dongfeng. One of the older members stepped out and said a few words. Cao Dongfeng also raised his hands as if he were innocent.
"Ha, it's nothing, nothing. Just a little misunderstanding. Little Sister Huaisha, our families go back a long way. Why make a scene like this? I only..." He pointed at Jiaming. "We're all here to play games. If he can play, of course I can play too. You only improve by challenging each other and testing your skills. Classmate Jiaming may be weak in every other way, but I can see he's got real talent for games, so I wanted to have a match with him."
"Jiaming, let's just ignore him." Lingjing tugged at Jiaming's hand. She knew he wasn't good at this sort of thing, and with the other boy so confident, Jiaming would surely lose if he played. But so what if someone's good at this? Would that make him step up when your life is on the line? Shasha gave a snort. "I'll play you."
By now most of the people in the arcade had been drawn by the commotion and crowded around to watch. Seeing two pretty girls sticking up for Jiaming, most of them made sarcastic remarks. Cao Dongfeng spread his hands. "I know you're very good, Little Sister Huaisha, and I can't beat you. But Classmate Jiaming and I are about the same level. That's the kind of match that helps a person improve. Isn't that right, Classmate Jiaming?"
"Who's your little sister! Jiaming, ignore him, let's go." Huaisha looked thoroughly annoyed and was about to pull her two friends away when she heard Jiaming say: "Uh, sure, why not. He's got a point—you only improve through competition. I always lose to you, Shasha. Maybe after practicing with him I'll improve a lot."
"Jiaming, you—" both girls spoke at once. Their concern drew envious looks from the crowd. Jiaming only smiled and gave them an OK sign. Cao Dongfeng laughed. "See? Classmate Jiaming knows how to play along. We'll all improve together, together." He set a few tokens down beside Jiaming. "But one thing has to be agreed first. We're all men here, and a contest like this ought to have a little stake. How about this: whoever loses has to say 'I'm a wimp' three times, loudly."
"Say three what?" Lingjing asked with a smile from the side.
Seeing Lingjing's beautiful smile, Cao Dongfeng hastily repeated, "I'm a wimp." Then he saw the two girls and Jiaming dissolve into laughter, and the onlookers all began laughing too. He knew he had said the wrong thing. His face flushed bright red, and he looked ready to throw a punch. It was a while before Jiaming could straighten up. "Uh, okay, fine... I accept."
"Wait." Seething with pent-up anger, Cao Dongfeng blurted out the moment Jiaming agreed, "One more rule! Not just saying it—you have to crawl around on the floor like a dog three times! You dare?"
A hesitant look came over Jiaming's face. "Uh, there's no need to go that far, is there?" Cao Dongfeng lowered his voice so only the three of them could hear. "If you don't want to crawl like a dog, that's fine too. Then Lingjing has to go on a date with me for a day. How about it?"
"You're shameless." Lingjing took Jiaming's hand, her pretty face burning red, and was about to drag him straight out, when she saw that Jiaming had already made his decision with a resolute look. "Fine. Since you insist, I'll go along to the end. Worst case, I crawl three laps and say three times what you just said yourself anyway. Hmph, but I'm not necessarily going to lose."
Hearing this, Cao Dongfeng was overjoyed. The chance to humiliate this brat properly had finally come. Seeing he had made up his mind, the two girls could not very well object. The three put their hands together. "Let's do this!"
The two inserted their tokens and chose their characters. Once the match started, almost everyone gathered around. Cao Dongfeng looked calm and at ease, while Jiaming looked utterly flustered. The two girls were behind him, cheering themselves hoarse, but his play was truly excruciating to watch. With his first character, Jiaming barely shaved off a sliver of his opponent's health before going down.
Jiaming's second character came out, but his controls were still shockingly bad. Shasha leaned close to the worried Lingjing and said, "Jiaming really cares about you, you know." Lingjing's face reddened slightly, but it still held nothing but worry as she stared fixedly at the game screen.
After a moment, Shasha leaned over again.
"Don't worry. If he's about to lose, I don't care what happens—I'll just throw something and smash the machine to pieces. Hmph."
Lingjing gave her a grateful look and said quietly, "How could we do that? Worst case—worst case, I'll just go on one date with him. It's not like I'd let Jiaming...
Anyway, Jiaming only got into this trouble because of me."
With his second character, Jiaming seemed to find a bit of a feel for it, somehow muddling through until his opponent was down to Cold Blood before his own character died. Shasha had already started looking for a stool to smash the machine with. Cao Dongfeng burst out laughing. "Kid, looks like you're definitely going to lose." Jiaming looked quite nervous, but he said, "I'm better with my third one, Iori Yagami. I haven't lost yet."
"Heh, we'll see." Jiaming had only his last character left, while Cao Dongfeng still had three. The outcome looked decided. Still, Iori Yagami did seem to be the character Jiaming was more practiced with: after taking just one hit, he finished off Cao Dongfeng's red-health character. But when Cao Dongfeng's second character appeared, everyone was basically certain Jiaming was doomed.
To the onlookers, the enormous pressure had made the boy extremely nervous—his hands were even trembling. Lingjing took out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his forehead. A moment later, the match began.
Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang—
From almost the very start, Jiaming fell into something close to a frenzy. The joystick in his hand spun wildly for dear life, while his other hand pounded the buttons as if he were swinging a hammer. Under the onlookers' barely suppressed grins, Iori Yagami bounced around the screen like a shaman in a spirit dance, and every single move was a kick, a kick, a kick... Cao Dongfeng merely laughed and pressed his attack calmly. Then something bizarre happened.
A move that should have connected hit nothing, and the jumping Iori kicked him. His second strike went into empty air—Iori had attacked in the wrong direction and already leapt back—then on the third, Iori jumped in again and landed a very strange kick.
By the fourth, Cao Dongfeng was thoroughly annoyed: he stood up and blocked backward, only for Iori, instead of kicking from midair this time, to crouch and kick from the ground...
And so, in an atmosphere that was frustrating, monotonous, bizarre, and hilarious all at once, Iori's health was cut by more than half, yet Cao Dongfeng's character was ground down to death, one kick at a time.
"Haha, this kid's luck is way too good."
"That counts...?"
"Way too weird. Is he possessed?"
The onlookers pointed and chattered, but most assumed it was luck and kept laughing. The two girls were thrilled, happier than if they had won themselves. Yet despite winning that round, Iori's health bar had already dropped below half, and the opponent still had a full-health character. The third round did not look promising no matter how you looked at it. Shasha was still preparing to smash the machine. Cao Dongfeng gave a cold snort. Then the third round began.
This time there was no crazy pounding of the machine, and Jiaming's hands were not trembling at all. Not many people noticed, though.
Iori jumped again and threw a meaningless kick. Cao Dongfeng's character charged in and, bizarrely, was hit again. He thought it was just luck again—but after that one hit, he could no longer control his character at all, because it was a combo executed with absolute precision.
Scum Gale, Dream Bullet, Aoi Hana, Maiden Masher... From the moment that character's health was cut to half, people began sucking in their breath. Cao Dongfeng looked at Jiaming beside him. At the corner of Jiaming's mouth hung only a sincere, innocent-looking smile, his fingers tapping nimbly away at the buttons. And the result was an instant kill—a flawless victory.
"Yay!" Around them, the crowd was dead silent. The two girls cheered and hugged each other, jumping and jumping and jumping, so happy, so very happy. Cao Dongfeng's face turned the dead gray of a pig's liver. "You... you were playing me?"
"What? No, was I?" Jiaming laughed, his face bright with excitement. "It's just a game. I should be thanking you—you let me pull off such a great combo. I won't be losing to Shasha anymore after this. Oh, right—what did we agree the loser had to do again?"
Cao Dongfeng was trembling all over. "You Gu bastard, leave a man a way out. We'll have to meet again someday."
"Heh." Jiaming smiled and did not press him to do the dog crawl. He gave Lingjing a tug and walked straight out with the two girls. "I don't mind meeting again. Anyway, you said what you said in front of all these people. As long as you do it yourself, that's fine. Of course, you don't have to do it. I can't blow you into shape or stretch you into line. As for how everyone sees you, that's your own business."
Huaisha had wanted to insist he crawl on the floor before they let it drop, but now she just smiled and called back over her shoulder, "Like hell I'd want to see you again, Cao Dongfeng. You're a useless wimp."
If he did not do the dog crawl on the floor, word would certainly get out, and Cao Dongfeng's reputation would be all but ruined. But if he actually did it, Jiaming and the girls had already left; doing it for this crowd would still cost him every shred of face. Cao Dongfeng stood there, his face turning blue and purple, a frightening sight, as if he were about to have a seizure.
And out on the street in front of the arcade, the great hero who had just won, Jiaming, now had his neck savagely squeezed by Lingjing and Shasha, his tongue hanging out a mile.
"Urk... mercy... O heroines both... I'm dying..."
"Strangle you—I'm going to strangle you dead! You rotten thing, you had us worried to death back there! Strangle you..."
The two girls giggled and laughed, mercilessly mauling Jiaming as the three of them ran down the long street, roughhousing as they went. In the sky, the clouds glowed a fiery, sorrowful red.
Author's note: So it turns out that unless the old book is finished, the new book won't get a contract. What am I supposed to do...