By the time I got home, it was past ten. Lao Han and Lao Chu were nowhere to be seen—they’d probably already gone to bed.
I flopped onto the sofa. Long Ge poked her snow-white head out from her doorway, glanced at me, saw I was in one piece, and smirked. “Well, look at you—all flushed and satisfied. How was that ‘Hongmen Banquet’?”
I nodded. “Not bad. Meal ran a little over fifty thousand yuan.”
Long Ge chuckled. “Guess dying there would’ve been worth it.”
I ignored her.
Seeing I was fine, she scratched her back and vanished back inside to grind her dungeon.
Back in the day, Long Ge was always on the move—you’d catch only glimpses of her, like a mythical dragon. Lately? She never left. Couldn’t, really. Even if she did, she’d just head to the internet café… where guys with knives waited day and night.
Now she holed up in her room, filling it with smoke and chaos. Forget whether *she’d* get depressed—I was the one cracking. Her ashtray was always overflowing. She wouldn’t clean it. Just cut open a tin can, added water, and flicked ashes into it. Last time, I cleared out three.
I stepped into her room. Lights off again. Cigarette dangling, she clacked away at her keyboard. I pulled up a stool, sat beside her, watching her grind the dungeon, words stuck in my throat. After a long silence, I finally asked, “Long Ge… can I ask you something?”
Without turning: “What.”
“Stuck home all day… isn’t it frustrating?”
She kept mashing keys, grinding the map. Long pause. “It’s fine.”
I forced a grin. “Yeah, right. Nowhere to go.”
Silent, she slammed the keyboard—mashing even when skills were on cooldown. I winced, scared my twenty-yuan keyboard would shatter. Then she murmured, “What do you want to say?”
That quiet line detonated me.
Memories flooded: thirty burly men cornering me in an alley; flashy-haired thugs with telescopic batons waiting outside the café; her overflowing ashtrays; underwear tossed everywhere… All that chaos fused into a powder keg—and blew.
I roared, “Bai Hailong! Can’t you just *stop* picking stupid damn fights?!”
The words burst out raw. I froze at my own voice.
Long Ge said nothing. Finished the map. Started the next. After a long silence: “The hell you yelling for?”
I swallowed hard.
“Long Ge. I’m giving you a chance. Stuck in my house, going nowhere—it’s eating you up, right? So bro… after this blows over, what then? Can you just… be good?”
“Think. You could go anywhere. A peaceful life waits. Didn’t you say you were done with all that? *Good.*"
“You’re a woman now, Bai Hailong. No one’s hunting you. At most, some clueless guy catcalls—you yell back. Honestly? Only women would even *touch* you. This life’s *so damn peaceful*. Or… you still wanna be ‘Little White Dragon 2.0’? A Valkyrie? Relive your gangster days?”
“One last time. Do you want peace? *Do you?*"
She kept playing. Pitch black. Only the cigarette’s ember glowed. After a long pause, her voice raspy: “I don’t wanna go anywhere. I just wanna play games… at your place.”
I stood, walked to the door, muttered low: “Fine. Play your whole life away. Play till you drop.”
Before I shut the door, she stayed silent—cross-legged on her swivel chair, hands off the keys. Smoke curled upward. The tall chair back hid her completely, revealing only a sliver of that snow-white head.
