Chapter 7: I Can't Believe This

"What?" Song Wenbin shouted. "What do you mean?"

Liang Shen gave him an incredulous look, and barked a laugh. "You're telling me, you lived with this luck of yours for fifteen years—your entire life, by the way—and you don't even know how it works?!"

"He's not the brightest," Chen Zhu pointed out.

"I can tell."

Song Wenbin spluttered angrily, propping himself up again. "Of course I know how it works! It prevents my body from being harmed, or helps me out of unfavorable situations."

"Look," Liang Shen called out, pointing behind Song Wenbin, who turned his head to give a cursory glance, before a loud wham echoed from the force of Liang Shen's snapping punch. Song Wenbin groaned at the pain, cradling his cheek with one hand.

"How'd you do that?!"

Liang Shen poked the rubber end of his pencil into Song Wenbin's face, jeering at him. "I'm not some kind of anime villain. If you want to get answers, either figure it out, or peel it out of me by force." He tapped his pencil again, and this time, a magpie latched onto it with a soft chirp, azure feathers lining its wings and tail.

Wang Canghai, Liang Shen, and Song Wenbin stared at it for a second.

Then, a cascade of fluttering arose behind Liang Shen, and he quickly glanced back to see a parliament of magpies—a foreboding, ethereal sight, like locust swarms in the summer. Waves of ink and flashing azure ruffled in all cardinal directions, chaotic, but target-organized. Towards one person, in particular.

"I've never seen that happen before!" Song Wenbin gasped in amazement. Wang Canghai had nothing to say, peering silently at the scene and shoving the golden badge into the winter jacket's inner pocket.

Liang Shen jumped back as the magpies flew at him like homing missiles, skirting around the central tree with deft steps and catlike reflexes, jumping over the bench and bushline and landing just beside Zhou Rong.

"Give me your pouch," Liang Shen asserted, indicating with an open palm.

Zhou Rong tapped a finger on her chin. "You should prove you're better than me, right?"

"Fuck y—" was the beginning of his sentence, before Zhou Rong placed a small, drawstring pouch on his hand. He flicked it open, grasping inside and throwing the bread crumbs at the flock flapping and squawking above.

`Why does she have that in the first place?` Wang Canghai wondered.

"Sorry!" A familiar voice shouted suddenly, and just behind Zhou Rong suddenly was a familiar pink. Liu Fengmian wrapped his arms around Zhou Rong's arms and midsection, entrapping her and causing her to snap her legs back in reply.

"This is an opportunity to run for it!" Liu Fengmian yelled, grimacing at the pain in his foot and shins. Still, he managed to hold on, if only just barely. Ouch.

`I take my previous statements back, maybe he is reliable,` Wang Canghai thought.

"Thanks for the help!" Chen Zhu shouted back, grabbing Yin Aiguo and helping him up before looking back. Song Wenbin was standing up now, the lines of his mouth drawn tight and an almost nervous light in his eyes. Chen Zhu motioned for Song Wenbin to follow.

"Come on!"

Song Wenbin blinked, then turned and grabbed their bags before running towards the other two. There was tenseness in his jaw that betrayed his anxiousness as they hopped the viridian fences, going the same way Liu Fengmian and Wang Canghai had a few days ago.

Wang Canghai and Liu Fengmian decided to run to the front of the school instead. After grabbing the bike and spending a few minutes fumbling around, attempting to shove two bodies atop the cheap metal, Wang Canghai grasped the handlebars as Liu Fengmian stood on the metal pipes centered on the back wheels. Then, they moved down the busy streets, sounds of happy chattering and the honks of motorbikes filling the air.

"Where are we going?" Liu Fengmian asked.

Wang Canghai shrugged. "I'm going down near the ferris wheel by the ocean. Unless you're ok with going."

"I'm down," Liu Fengmian agreed, hands clasped on the other's shoulders tightly. "....Say...um..."

"Just spit it out."

"...Well...I was just wondering why Zhou Rong hates you so much." Liu Fengmian watched the lights of the skyscrapers flash by, shadows rapidly deepening. "She mentioned that she's not the only one who hated you. Like she knew you before, in Xinan."

Wang Canghai puffed out another breath, legs beginning to tire with the peddling. "She tormented me back in Xinan. I remember she told me she hated how weird I was. She hated me because I didn't keep up with her bullshit, and tha' cost me my normalcy."

"Is that it? For such a petty reason?"

"Most decisions tha' young are immature. We do such awful things for such petty reasons, and I have no doubt people still will, even grown up," Wang Canghai replied, sighing. "I don't think I'll ever understand some people. And….really, despite all tha' I hated about Zhou Rong, I hated Liang Shen more, because he always...went too far. And I don't understand why. I don't know if I ever will."

They stopped by the edge of the ocean, iridescent swirls of light reflected by the sunset onto the stirring waves, slowly lapping at the dull sand. Wang Canghai disliked the large pebbles hidden amongst the thin sand, unlike in Taiwan, where the sand was finer. But it would do.

A colorful ferris wheel, painted coat slightly washed away from frequent rain and covered in a thin film of rust, creaked towards the left. A swingset, unoccupied, sat on the side of the road framed by cold railings near the beachfront.

Liu Fengmian sat near Wang Canghai on the sand, watching the waves push against the retreating trails of water on the wet sand, revealing little white shells and bubbles.

"I'm sorry," Liu Fengmian said after a pause in comfortable silence, unable to meet the other's eyes as he stared at his limp hands. "I was the one who urged you to set up the meeting with Yin Aiguo. And I went down after one punch from Liang Shen—I actually was unconscious for the majority of the time—and I couldn't even help until the very end."

"Look," Wang Canghai started, rubbing his nose in irritation. Then, he elbowed the other, who yelped. "If you think you were useless, you need to stop right now. I got out of two uncomfortable situations because of your intervention. Both with Liang Shen. Most students—and even teachers—wouldn't even stand up to Liang Shen, and you just did it twice in one day."

"But—"

"Yes, it was a bit underwhelming when you lost to one punch. But I can't say shit when I didn't even fight back during Xinan, and even now, I don't know if I truly want to. Less of the revenge aspect, and more of the consequences part."

Liu Fengmian gasped, hitting a fist to the palm of his other hand in remembrance. "Oh yeah! I thought it was so cool you decided to say all that! You're going for the school's top ling xiu now, right?"

"I don't know," Wang Canghai muttered, one hand on his chin as he peered into the horizon. "I'm...a flip flopper. I can't decide on one decision, because I think my wants and my thoughts contradict each other. I want to beat Liang Shen so badly it hurts, but I'm afraid of being put in the spotlight again, along with being targeted by the other ling xius as well. It's nerve wracking, being put into this type of position."

He took out the golden badge that'd been hidden on the inside of his jacket.

"But I'll put my all into it this time. Back in Xinan, I tried avoiding attention as much as possible. I tried to conform, and it didn't work. It didn't work here, either. When you solve a problem, you aren't supposed to repeat the same mistake—so I think I'll push myself on this new path. Try something new. And this time....maybe something will be different."

Liu Fengmian grinned, pushing his fist forward. Wang Canghai stared, before bumping fists with him.

"I'm going to try that as well! Truth be told, I've always been awful at putting theories into practicality, but...I think it was my own mindset," the former laughed. "Anyway, what's that badge for? Song Wenbin gave it to you right?"

"Yeah. I'm not sure either, but apparently the ling xiu thing is a selection system. I don't know for what, though."

"I heard something about 'wishes' being granted," Liu Fengmian pondered. "That's it though. There's a lot of questions I still have. Like what was Song Wenbin's weakness? Why did that other girl come instead of Zhou Rong, like last time? What's our gameplan?"

"I'm not sure what Song Wenbin's weakness was, but I remember Liang Shen throwing his pencil, and then taking the opportunity to hit him," Wang Canghai pointed out. "He also hit Song Wenbin when he was distracted, before. I think Song Wenbin has to expect being harmed, or being put into an unfortunate situation, for his luck to work."

Liu Fengmian nodded. "Also, perhaps Zhou Rong and Liang Shen actually set up another girl on purpose, but that still leaves the question of the first letter. Maybe she only switched the second. I feel bad for the girl, though—she brought up all that courage to confess only to be played with."

Wang Canghai took out his phone, placing the golden badge down onto the cooling sand. "Do you happen to have tha' video you took of Zhou Rong on your phone?"

"You know, that sounds a bit salacious."

"You're the one tha' said it, not me," Wang Canghai clipped back, though Liu Fengmian complied. Soon, the latter's eyes bulged comically, fingers brushing across the screen rapidly to check.

"Huh?!" He yelped, the bright screen reflected in his glasses. "I could've sworn....how is this possible?"

"Did you notice anything off?" Wang Canghai asked. "About anything? My video was also deleted from my phone, which means they had access to both our phones to do so. Which means our passwords were broken. Even though Liang Shen is intelligent, I don't think this is his expertise—he was never one for technicals."

Liu Fengmian groaned, rubbing both hands slowly down the length of his face. "I do remember a heavy weight settling into my side pocket while I was talking to Zhou Rong but I dismissed the feeling. Agh! I think I remember running past a guy with short, black hair out the front doors, but I didn't pass him a second glance!"

"Tha' really narrows it down," Wang Canghai deadpanned. "Almost everyone has black hair. Tha's short. Tha's kind of our regulation."

"Not mine," Liu Fengmian pointed out.

"And I don't understand how so many students manage to skirt the regulations. Besides, why were you talking to Zhou Rong?"

"Well..." Liu Fengmian looked embarrassed, twiddling his thumbs. "She confronted me because I was slandering her image by spreading that video around. Mainly to the people I knew, but I wanted to make sure she wouldn't get class monitor."

Wang Canghai felt a tingle of surprise nudge at his brain, the only indication of that feeling a mote widening of eyes. Then, the tips of his lips twitched, just barely so.

"...Thanks. For supporting me," he said. And he meant it. Then, he grasped a thin piece of driftwood nearby, leveling the sand in front of him with a swipe and a nod at the other. "Shall we start on our gameplan?"

Liu Fengmian nodded back with a determined expression.

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"What a troublesome ability," Liang Shen commented as a thumb pressed down on a hose just so, a continuous stream of water fanning out onto the magpies that'd long since kept their distance and pecked at the bread on the floor.

Zhou Rong stood next to him near the basketball courts, sitting atop the concrete multi-sink for washing purposes. "We've never seen anything like that in Xinan. This highschool is quite eccentric."

"No kidding," he snorted, but grinned. "I don't mind it, though. It's more fun this way."

Zhou Rong shivered, remembering their previous conversation about the letters.

-

`"Xiao Rong, you can't be fucking kidding me," Liang Shen deadpanned after Zhou Rong had finished explaining her brilliant plan of forging two letters. "That's not going to work twice. Look, you've got a friend that's planning on confessing her love to that somehow-popular chuunibyou, Jin Haoyang, correct?"

"Yeah," Zhou Rong replied, narrowing her eyes in suspicion. "Why do you want to know that?"

"Then listen to my plan and we'll make this work far better in our favor," Liang Shen explained as he circled the cracked table in the small apartment they were both in. The peeling paint on the walls accentuated the dingy nature of the room, although the surfaces were scrubbed clean and the wooden flooring shined in evidence of its obvious care.

"Why do I have to listen to you?!" Zhou Rong exclaimed indignantly, scrunching her eyebrows together in distaste.

"First of all, you barely have a put-together plan, which was just painfully obvious. Second of all, I'm simply better in every way."

She sighed, giving him the middle finger, to which he reciprocated with the same motion and a smirk. "What happened to the cute little kid who used to hide behind me?"

"Ha, I would've bullied him if I'd seen him now," Liang Shen barked with a laugh, rolling his eyes with clear disgust. "He was pathetic. Don't mention that ever again to me."`

-

Zhou Rong blinked, and the faint images faded away. She'd replaced the contents of the second letter, without Liang Shen's permission, and gave the real ones to Jin Haoyang. Unsurprisingly, the bastard didn't care, or even open it, and said he had more important things to do.

So Zhou Rong was going to tell Xu Qingling what he said after, perhaps today.

`Her letters really were heartfelt,` she thought idly.

"Our plan went a bit awry with Liu Fengmian's interception," Liang Shen pointed out suddenly, rolling the hose back into the container at the side of the concrete athlete sinks. "But our strength lies in adaptability, not strategy. When I tell you to do something, Xiao Rong, do it. Trust in me."

Zhou Rong watched a magpie peck the other angrily for the last morsel of food. "You know I will."

She threw a piece of bread on his shoulder.

Liang Shen turned his face slowly at her, bloodlust coming off him in waves. "Oi. The other way around should apply too."

Zhou Rong watched him dodge magpies and grab each one midair with violent precision for the next ten minutes.

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"Song Wenbin, shut up!" Yin Aiguo yelled, punching said person in the face. Song Wenbin fell onto the floor, cradling the injured area with wide eyes. "If you apologize one more time I'll go insane!"

Song Wenbin looked away guiltily.

"Stop it right now, that's weird," Chen Zhu sighed, crossing his arms together as they sat on empty benches near Da Gongyuan—the nearest park.

"I'm s—"

"No, no, no, stop it right now," Yin Aiguo warned, pointing one finger in front of his face. "You're probably thinking something along the lines of 'did they only go along with me because I forced them to' or 'do they hate me'."

"How did you—"

"Shhh," Chen Zhu said, grabbing Yin Aiguo's hand to shove the finger closer against his mouth in an indication to shut up.

Yin Aiguo punched Song Wenbin one more time.

"Ow!"

"I'm satisfied now," Yin Aiguo said, brushing the dust from his uniform sweats. "Wenbin, I'm clarifying this right now. You didn't force us to go along with you and your stupid escapades, you only coerced us."

"Oh wow, that's so much better," Song Wenbin replied sarcastically.

"Besides, we're not that helpless. That's why you made us fight for you instead, and although there were some people—like that crazy guy Yang Guang—that we didn't exactly want to face off, we'd still stick by you," Yin Aiguo continued. "Yes, you're stupid. You're embarrassing. An absolute idiot."

"A selfish prick," Chen Zhu added.

"That too."

"But you're our stupid embarrassing idiot selfish prick," Yin Aiguo said, jabbing his finger into Song Wenbin's chest to emphasize his words. "There are a lot of qualities you need to work on. There were a lot of times I wished you considered what Chen Zhu and I advised you on. But you're not that bad of a friend, when it all comes down to it—you're bullheaded, but tough. Stubbornly considerate. Enthusiastic, genuine, and accepting."

Chen Zhu nodded along with Yin Aiguo's words, inputting no words. Nonetheless, Song Wenbin knew he was adding in, in his own, awkward, way.

"So stop moping around," Yin Aiguo finished, letting Song Wenbin grasp his outstretched hand and pull himself up. "We're still your friends. Just....like Wang Canghai said, we're still pretty young, and we've got plenty of time to figure it out. You won't have to do it alone though."

"Right," Song Wenbin laughed, feeling the wind tug at his jacket. "Right, I forgot you guys are idiots."

"Well...we're raccoons of the same hill, after all*."

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It was Friday.

As always, the classroom atmosphere filled with a hyperactive energy by the end of the day, tens of eyes intently peeking at the hands of the clock ever so often as the teacher droned on and on. Except Wang Canghai, who was fast asleep as always.

Only when the familiar piano tune rang, along with the usual "class dismissed!", did the students excitedly rush out into the hallway like a hole in the wall of a dam. Liu Fengmian and Wang Canghai stayed back after they gathered their belongings and shoved it into their bags.

"Do you two need something?" Chen laoshi asked, pausing from wiping the blackboard.

Wang Canghai nodded.

"You mentioned a martial arts student a few days ago tha' you would be willing to introduce me to."

Chen laoshi gave him a surprised look.

"I'd like to take you up on tha' offer."

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