Lu Huai was depressed.

Lu Huai just wanted to drink.

Even though... he’d barely touched alcohol before. His only real impression of it came from New Year’s when he was little. The adults at home had jokingly let him try a sip of baijiu.

That burning, spicy sensation had stayed buried deep in his memory. Back then, it had felt like his throat had been scorched.

After that, Lu Huai never really got another chance to drink. Only his father drank at home, but he wasn’t bored enough to make an underage kid drink too. And other than Yan Ningning, Lu Huai didn’t have any especially close friends, so naturally no one invited him out for food and drinks for no reason. Except once in middle school, before the social anxiety... before that happened, a classmate had a birthday and invited a lot of people out to eat. He’d secretly tried a little beer then.

After that, there was never another chance.

But today... he saw it.

And all of a sudden, Lu Huai really wanted to drink. To the point where he could barely care about anything else. After one big gulp, he already felt the blood rushing to his head.

His body temperature rose too.

Watching the boy sitting on the sofa, cheeks flushed, staring blankly at the TV—

Beside him, Su Xiangrong, still wearing a tank top, opened another bottle and took a sip. Then she looked at Lu Huai curiously.

“I was joking earlier, but what’s actually wrong with you? You don’t look like you got sexually assaulted. If that happened, you should be happy.”

“Why would I be happy...?”

Lu Huai still didn’t look at her when he answered, but his tone... it was kind of bold.

“Huh? You really did run into something, didn’t you? You can even talk this loud now?”

“Am I talking loud?”

Lu Huai looked at Su Xiangrong in confusion.

Su Xiangrong stared at the boy who actually dared to look her in the eye.

Then she looked at the bottle in his hand.

“Come on. Cheers.”

Lu Huai nodded on instinct.

Their bottles clinked together... and all he heard was the sound of his own heart breaking.

It was hard to describe. It probably wasn’t like heartbreak, because Lu Huai had never even been heartbroken before. He hadn’t even started anything!

Once the alcohol hit, it hit hard.

And once it hit, he couldn’t stop.

Su Xiangrong’s alcohol tolerance wasn’t necessarily that great. Lu Huai’s was definitely terrible.

But somehow, the two of them finished the entire case of beer Su Xiangrong had bought.

Lu Huai leaned against the sofa, dizzy and disoriented.

By now, the social anxiety seemed gone. So did the shyness. All that was left in his heart was an indescribable frustration.

He leaned there and sighed.

Beside him, Su Xiangrong’s pale cheeks had turned rosy too, and her hair was a little messy. One leg was planted on the sofa, the other loosely folded. The posture was extremely ungraceful.

“What are you sighing for?”

“I feel awful...”

The boy said it with his head tilted back.

“What’s so awful... you’re so young... When I was studying, I wasn’t suffering like you.”

“It’s not about studying.”

“Then what could it be...? With how shy you are... you’re like some virgin or something...”

Su Xiangrong muttered. Her face was red, but it definitely wasn’t from shyness.

Lu Huai was even more stunned.

“I... I am a virgin! So what?! Can’t I... can’t I have something bothering me too?!”

Su Xiangrong turned sideways and applauded him.

“Wow, amazing. A virgin. So impressive!”

“What’s so impressive about that?”

“Virgin pee is impressive!”

“...I can’t be bothered talking to you.”

There was no way Lu Huai would ever talk to a girl like that while sober.

Countless traces of alcohol seemed to have become the perfect bridge for letting it all out.

Smiling, Su Xiangrong got even bolder. She nudged the dizzy boy beside her with her elbow.

“Then tell me. What exactly is this so-called thing bothering you...?”

Lu Huai paused... In the end, he decided not to tell Su Xiangrong the truth. It would only drag trouble to her. There was no way Su Xiangrong could stand against a girl like Xu Wenxi... A girl who had to think about whether rent was cheap enough—how could she possibly fight someone like that evil woman?

Even if Su Xiangrong was pretty weird too, and definitely not normal... there was no need to drag her into a storm like this. Besides, they weren’t even that close.

And what could she do if she knew? Beat up Xu Wenxi? She’d have to get past Li Yuanyuan first. Or go to the police like he had? That was pure fantasy.

It would only mean one more victim. Even though Lu Huai was now full of doubt toward life and suspicion toward the world, he still hadn’t reached the point of taking revenge on society and dragging unrelated people into the storm.

That counted as his last bit of gentleness.

A useless guy with nothing but yasashi...

After thinking for a moment, Lu Huai finally said helplessly,

“If there’s something... and you realize you can’t do it, but you have to do it anyway, what do you do?”

Su Xiangrong thought about it. Maybe because she’d been drinking, every movement was amplified by her loosened mood. She became completely uninhibited and directly stuck a finger between her pretty lips and teeth, striking a textbook thinking pose.

“Mmm... do you mean absolutely impossible? Or maybe possible, just way too hard?”

“Probably... just way too hard.”

Su Xiangrong nodded, then said with certainty,

“Then do it. If you already know there’s no other choice, then do it. What are you scared of?”

“But it’s really hard...”

“What’s so hard?”

“Like... submitting something to the literature club. It has to get picked... Or getting from top twenty in the grade to top three this semester...”

“So after all that, it’s still about studying.”

“What did you think?” Lu Huai muttered. Everything in front of him felt like it was... spinning a little.

The worst part about drinking was never when you were drinking a lot.

It was the moment after you’d already drunk a lot and stopped to rest.

Because then you realized that the second you closed your eyes, the whole world seemed to spin. And your stomach churned with a powerful wave of nausea.

“I thought maybe after school today, you found out the girl you like was in the classroom selling cola with another guy...”

“You... NTR?”

“Hehehe... if it’s just that kind of thing... then go do it. At least try. Before the result comes out, who knows if you really can’t do it? Just like me...”

“You?”

“Becoming a rapper!”

“Aren’t you already a rapper?” Lu Huai asked in confusion, while trying to suppress the nausea.

“A famous one! A famous rapper!”

When Su Xiangrong said famous, she angrily pounded the sofa.

It was pretty cute.

Too bad Lu Huai wasn’t in the mood to appreciate it. There was a devil living in his head every second.

“Oh... I thought you guys liked staying underground.”

“The ones who can’t make money are the ones stuck underground. You think they really spend all day underground, proudly saying they don’t envy the mainstream rappers who go on shows, blow up, gain a million followers, and make over ten million a year?”

“That’s... pretty real.”

“Heh. Real is all we’ve got left. Our label’s not strong enough. We haven’t made a name for ourselves in Chuzhou yet. Sure, some people come to our live shows... there even seem to be some fans. But actually... actually they’re all just horny creeps!”

Lu Huai glanced at Su Xiangrong. The peaks wrapped inside her tank top were holy ground in every man’s dreams.

“Even though I’ve never heard your songs, I’m your fan now too.”

“Oh, so you can joke around now? Nice.”

Su Xiangrong immediately straightened her back. Good lord, now that was what you called ready to burst out.

Lu Huai still couldn’t handle that kind of boldness. He quietly pulled his gaze back. This was probably what it meant to have the lust but not the guts.

Su Xiangrong brushed her hair back and sighed, then rambled on.

“Those bastards... they even mocked me... said I’d be better off auditioning for a girl group... Why be a rapper? Talking about passion and all that... keeping your bottom line while wanting more people to see you... saying that makes me a hypocrite and all...”

“That’s kind of true...”

“What did you say?”

Su Xiangrong grabbed the soft flesh at Lu Huai’s waist and moved to pinch him. Right now, Lu Huai was extremely resistant to physical contact.

He didn’t feel any flirtation from it. Only danger.

The boy immediately dodged away and sighed too.

“No... I mean... the fact that you’ve kept going... that’s not easy either.”

That was the truth. Holding onto your principles while carrying your dreams... wasn’t that the reality for a lot of ordinary people? And most people... had already lost their principles. Like him.

Su Xiangrong held up her beer bottle and raised it toward the light. The light hit the bottle and scattered in messy refractions.

“I’m going to make everyone see me... I’m going to become the exception they talk about... I’m going to make them all see it, just so I can finally vent all the anger I’ve swallowed for all these years...”

“Don’t sing...”

Lu Huai suddenly shook his head and said that.

Su Xiangrong narrowed her eyes at him.

Even drunk... she kind of disliked this boy right now.

She especially hated it when she spoke from the heart and someone brushed it off.

Even drunk, she still hated it.

“You think that’s childish and too idealistic, don’t you?”

She asked it without any expectation, but she didn’t expect the boy leaning on the sofa to turn toward her.

His body swayed a little. He looked at her with eyes so heavy they seemed barely open.

“I’m asking you... will you keep going?”

That... wasn’t what she’d expected.

“I...”

“Will you keep going for your goal?!”

“I will...”

“For the sake of living openly, with your head held high, will you keep going?!”

Lu Huai seemed to have gone crazy.

His face was red, and he waved his arms around.

It was a strange sight. He looked like the embodiment of some prophecy.

Like he was bringing some kind of calling.

Su Xiangrong took a huge gulp of beer.

“I’ll keep going!”

Lu Huai wobbled as he tried to stand, then collapsed back onto the sofa in the next second.

Seeing that, Su Xiangrong stood up and directly grabbed the boy’s soft wrist.

She hauled him up.

With the bottle in hand, she raised it over her head.

“Lu Huai, will you keep going?!”

“I... I will...”

“Will you reach your goal?!”

“I will...”

Lu Huai seemed to have no idea what he was even saying anymore. He only felt a blazing heat inside his chest.

That heat wasn’t physical.

It was the burning of his heart.

He had to survive... had to be happy... had to save this family... had to make that devil regret it!

Leaning crookedly against Lu Huai, Su Xiangrong’s voice was loud.

“So... we both have to keep going!”

“Okay...”

“I’ll make everyone see me! And you... you have to get what you want and do what you need to do!”

“Okay...”

“I can’t hear you!”

“Okay!! I’m going to survive! I’m going to... I’m going to...”

The two of them collapsed onto the sofa at the same time, slumping there like two heaps of mush.

So no one heard the weak little sentence that slipped from the boy’s mouth:

“I’m going to make her regret it...”

At that moment, the boy saying those words sounded pretty tough.

But in the middle of the night, a ringing phone jolted him awake.

Still suffering over why his head hurt so much, the boy saw the new phone by his hand.

“Why does this not look like my phone...?”

Then he saw the words glowing on the screen.

[Her Majesty]

“...”

Cold sweat practically dripping down him, Lu Huai fumbled and answered the call.

“H-Hello! I... I was sleeping just now...”

The silent person on the other end slowly said,

“It took you a full ten seconds to answer. That was your first test. Consider this a warning. Since it’s your first time, you did acceptably well. Good night.”

“...Good night.”

“Address me properly.”

“Good night, Your Majesty the Queen...”

“Good.”

Lu Huai put down his phone, feeling oddly empty.

He checked the time.

2:30.

Then he covered his forehead.

At an age when boys and girls should all be asleep, that girl, who could've steamrolled through life on looks and family background alone, was still awake.

She really was cute, like...

“Is she insane?!”