He picked it up and gave it a shake. It was something light.
He tore open the gift box and saw a black box inside. Attached was a message in a familiar hand: “Boy, a birthday present for you.”
Wang Zheng reeled a little. Besides Old Merchant, nobody could write so ugly, unless it was on purpose.
Clearly, Old Merchant knew he was back. He might even have known that he had gone to revisit his old house.
Wang Zheng sucked in a deep breath. Must it always be this way? Would he suddenly grow fat or something if they met?
Besides…
It was a birthday present!
Wang Zheng felt like he might have developed a phobia for presents. The last time Old Merchant had given him a coming-of-age present, he had been turned upside down completely. Although the end result was favorable, but the intermediate process had been nothing short of torture. And now, another birthday present…
It wouldn’t be more of the same, would it?
Would it?
But it was difficult to tell! That Old Merchant… the more he mulled over him, the more he realized there was more than met the eye. Once more was not out of the question.
Never mind that, he would find out once he opened it.
He opened it and it was a magic cube…
In an instant, Wang Zheng’s heart rate quickened, and he almost threw the thing away. But he quickly realized that it was not a real magic cube, but instead a box that resembled one. Below there was a message, in Old Merchant’s handwriting: “Haha, did I scare you? Confused? Falling apart?”
Wang Zheng’s teeth were itching now. In his mind’s eye he saw Old Merchant laughing at his cowardly form.
Vile old man with a wicked sense of humor!
Clack. Wang Zheng decisively opened the box. He wanted to get to the bottom of Old Merchant’s antics!
It was another even smaller black box.
Wang Zheng’s face was now darker than the box. He gave this smaller box another shake, but there was no sound.
He eyed the box. It was no ordinary box, but a 8-tier trap box. It needed a strict algorithm to open. With one wrong step, the box would be locked forever, and unable to be opened.
A challenge? Or a prank?
Wang Zheng gave it a quick look over, and opened the box easily. 36 steps. It was actually a mathematical problem. Most people would not have been able to open it, but it was no trouble for him at all. It seemed like this thing was important after all.
Opening the box, it fell apart into wooden pieces, and a slip of paper drifted down onto the table.
Picking up the slip, he saw that it was finally not written in Old Merchant’s illegible hand. In truth, perhaps nobody besides Wang Zheng could decipher it. It was not even untidy. It was a whole new orthography altogether.
On this slip was an internet address. After deciphering, it seemed like a one-time file download link. Once the file was downloaded, the cloud would automatically erase it.
Opening his Skylink, Wang Zheng considered, then quickly built a safe mode firewall before connecting to the address. It was indeed a file hosting site, where millions of files were uploaded and downloaded everyday.
After permission was granted, the file was readily downloaded into the firewall protected portion of the Skylink. After checks to confirm that it was virus-free, he realized that it was a virtual community!
Wang Zheng was puzzled. Did Old Merchant give him a sim-game as a birthday present?
Was he laughing at him for being a virgin?
Damn, really? His 10th birthday present had been 100 math problems! His 11th birthday present had been 300! 12th birthday present, 500…
Now he was almost 30, and he actually got a game? Why couldn’t he have gotten this in elementary school? At that time he had so ardently wished for such normal children games, rather than play with others!
If Old Merchant was around, he would demand an accounting. Return me my childhood!
But after hesitating for a while, Wang Zheng still decided to open it. The game was quickly installed in the Skylink.
It was actually an unofficial virtual community, a private server. Such virtual world products were strictly regulated. Had Old Merchant secretly started this one?
Even if it was profitable, that was a waste of talent, wasn’t it? Even he could do something like KING Company, why would Old Merchant waste time on this?
Wang Zheng was just about to open it, when the dorm’s door was pushed open. It was Chen Xiu and Ye Zisu.
“Zisu? When did you get back?”
“Last night on the Federation warship, so I didn’t inform you. I just settled some matters today, and then came to find you.” Ye Zisu said with a smile.
“Boss, I heard you bought these two books?” Chen Xiu blurted out anxiously.
“Eh, yeah. What’s up? You wanna read them?” Wang Zheng was a little puzzled. How did the news that he had been tricked by the salesman get out so fast?
“Oh, let me see. Hey boss, for real, things have blown over right? It’s nothing much to start anew. This world has yet to come up with something to confound us. Right, Sister Zisu?”
Chen Xiu scratched his head. He felt like Yao Ailun had been exaggerating over the Skylink. Wang Zheng’s state of mind looked great.
Ye Zisu smiled and nodded. She was a little puzzled at the books that Wang Zheng handed over to Chen Xiu, but she had come to find him for a reason. “In 2 days’ time, there’s a Dawn Middle School reunion, organized 3 months ago. Many classmates are coming. At that time, we didn’t know if you could return to Earth, so we didn’t invite you. But since you’re back how about going to take a look? If you’re going, I’ll just have a word with the organizer. Oh that’s right, the organizer this time round is the school’s student union. It’s tied together with the school anniversary celebration.
In senior high, besides Yan Xiaosu and Xie Yuxin, Wang Zheng had other friends, but they were not as close. Besides some times when the mood soured, on the whole Wang Zheng did miss them quite a bit.
Ties with classmates were like white wine. The longer they kept, the purer it became. In the 2 year interval, he felt a sudden urge to meet them when he thought about them.
Wang Zheng nodded with a smile. “Count me in.”
What Wang Zheng did not foresee was that his high school class monitor would Skylink him that night, excited about his achievements. “You bastard, The Milky Way Scientific Contribution Prize as a university student! Who would have thought! Back then did you scrape a pass on purpose? Each time it was exactly 60 marks. Now that I think about it, that would be harder than scoring full marks. I was right, you bastard! You must come to the gathering this time round, the precursor to next month’s 100th year school anniversary.”
“Yes, I’ll definitely come. You have my word.”
Wang Zheng accepted with a bitter smile. Back then he had indeed let his class down. Although he had scraped a pass, but each time he pulled the class average down. Those that affected the excellent review of the class monitor included him.
“Good! Good, good. You must come for the school anniversary as well.”
“The alma mater’s school anniversary. If I wasn’t invited, I would still show up.” Wang Zheng rubbed his nose, laughing. In his heart he thought that for the 100th year anniversary, Yan Xiaosu and Ye Zisu would not let him go either. Even if nobody invited him, those two punks would definitely drag him along.
The next night, Yan Xiaosu had finally finished his business talks, rushing back from Titan. Without a second word, he dragged Wang Zheng off to a BBQ shop, and ordered round after round of beer, declaring that they would not head home before they dropped!
As expected, halfway through their drinking, Yan Xiaosu took a tremendous swig, and began to pour his heart out.
“Boss, sometimes I really envy you and that Xie Yuxin guy.”
“Spit it out. Are you about to make some life decision?”
“As expected, you really understand me. If I was a woman, I would definitely…”
“F*ck off! If you were a woman, I would rather go and die.” Wang Zheng laughed as he finished another cup.
“I’ve decided to quit school. I’m just too busy now. This semester, I’ve attended a week’s worth of classes at most.”
Yan Xiaosu’s head rolled, and then he said: “Now is the critical period. Once the company is firmly set on the right track, I’ll make my comeback.”
To this decision of Yan Xiaosu, Wang Zheng did not say anything. He simply raised his beer glass, and continued to help himself to alcohol and meat.
In his heart, Wang Zheng knew that Yan Xiaosu had thrown himself into everything after the breakup with An Mei. His results were brilliant, but between school and work, one eventually had to give. The Ares College would cut him no special slack simply because of who he was.
Looking at Yan Xiaosu, he was suddenly reminded of an old saying. Breaking up with the first love was the starting point of maturity for guys. Whether this was right or wrong, Yan Xiaosu had finally begun to shoulder responsibility.
As he said that, he and Aina now…
“Cheers.” Wang Zheng smiled expansively. What was the point of thinking so much? Men should live in the present. Quitting school, or joining at Elite X College, to live one’s life to the fullest was the important thing.
“Cheers!”
Yan Xiaosu lifted his bottle as well, happily drinking himself into oblivion.
2 hours later…
Ye Zisu appeared in front of the BBQ shop, irritated. She was here to drag some people home, and also to foot the alcohol bill for these two drunkards.
She helped Yan Xiaosu to the backseat, and he unceremoniously collapsed over it the moment his ass made contact with cushion, hoarding the entire back. He was unmovable. She had no choice but to put Wang Zheng shotgun. At this moment, seeing how drunk he was, he could not possibly go to school. Professor Wang was after all a person with status, and in such a state he would be a bad example to the students.
Firstly, she sent Yan Xiaosu back to the Yan house. Father Yan took one look at the comatose Wang Zheng in the passenger’s seat, then looked at Ye Zisu, and shut his mouth. He just blinked and carried Yan Xiaosu into the room.
Ye Zisu opened her mouth and gave a wry smile. Sitting back in the car, she looked at the fast asleep Wang Zheng. It was so quiet… Suddenly, she could not think clearly.
Her gaze fell on Wang Zheng’s lips. An unbidden and daring thought welled in her heart, and grew steadily in her mind. It swelled suddenly, making her breathing ragged.
She could not lie to herself about her feelings, although she had tried so hard to, all this while.
But…
Everyone should let themselves go once in a while, right?
What better time than now, when everybody was drunk? She just wanted… Thump thump. Ye Zisu’s heartbeat grew quicker. Ye Zisu eyed Wang Zheng’s lips. His sweet breath…
In her heart, it was like the wolf had isolated a poor deer from the pack.
Just a little courage, just a light one, just one. She just wanted to know what it felt like. Books, movies, television, always portrayed it as so perfect. She wanted to know if her world would be reversed. She felt like she had suddenly become the center of the universe.