Chapter Eleven: Su Xiaoqiang

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In Lu Mingfei’s impression, the name Su Xiaoqiang seemed utterly incompatible with an internet café.

It was like imagining the noble Queen Elizabeth wearing a lavish, custom-made gown while rolling up her sleeves to chow down at a greasy street food stall.

Similarly, it was hard to picture someone as proud and beautiful as Su Xiaoqiang, a wealthy heiress, huddled in the darkest corner of a dingy internet café playing games.

It wasn’t that Lu Mingfei held any prejudice against internet cafés; it was just that in this era, they were far from the polished establishments they would become a decade later.

Not only was the clientele a mix of all sorts, but the environment was often dirty and disorderly.

Chances were, the cleaning rag at Su Xiaoqiang’s house was cleaner than the mouse pad at this internet café.

Besides, given Su Xiaoqiang’s wealth, if she wanted to go online, someone would have delivered a top-of-the-line i7 3770K with a Titan Crossfire graphics card to her home in no time. There was absolutely no need for her to come to a place like this.

Wait, the Intel Core architecture hadn’t been released yet at this time. What was the configuration again?

Lu Mingfei opened the task manager and glanced at it: it was a Pentium III processor, famously based on the Tualatin architecture.

His mind involuntarily replayed a scene from the cartoon "Big Ear Tutu":

“Tutu, look what Grandpa Niu brought you.”

“Wow, it’s an Iraq war-damaged version of the 780 graphics card, thanks Grandpa Niu.”

“Hehe, you like it? Grandpa Niu’s got plenty more, all picked up from the trash.”

“Then starting tomorrow, I’m going dumpster diving with Grandpa Niu too.”

…

But putting that aside, what would a young lady like Su Xiaoqiang do when she came online? Play games? Watch dramas?

Curious, Lu Mingfei leaned back slightly in his chair and peeked at Su Xiaoqiang’s screen from the side.

The screen reflected a bright glare, too white to see clearly. Screens back then were made of poor-quality material with narrow viewing angles; just a slight head tilt would wash out the image.

Su Xiaoqiang seemed unaware of him, gripping the mouse with a focused expression, moving her left hand slightly, pulling right, the mouse clicks rattling non-stop, like she was playing an FPS game.

Could it be she was playing CS 1.6?

Did she also harbor the soul of an FPS gamer?

Lu Mingfei leaned closer again, managing to catch a clearer view of her screen—she was actually playing a tile-matching game.

He was momentarily stunned but quickly understood.

Su Xiaoqiang clearly didn’t frequent internet cafés, probably wasn’t skilled at other games, so she could only play simple ones like tile matching.

Just as he was about to pull back and focus on his own game, Su Xiaoqiang suddenly turned her head and caught him peeking.

Her beautiful eyes immediately flashed a cold look.

Awkward.

“Um, well…” Lu Mingfei scrambled for an excuse. “I slept poorly last night, got a stiff neck, just twisting it a bit.”

Damn, what a lame excuse.

Su Xiaoqiang just stared silently, which sometimes conveyed more than words.

Lu Mingfei watched her expression, unsure how to respond, so he carefully moved his chair back and sheepishly retreated, facing his own screen.

Great, high school hadn’t even started and he’d already offended Su Xiaoqiang again.

Page 2 of 3

But the second floor of the internet café was dark, so Su Xiaoqiang probably hadn’t seen his face clearly. By the time school started, she would likely have forgotten about him.

Lu Mingfei put on his headphones, pretending nothing had happened, and casually joined a StarCraft room.

“Let’s practice Protoss today.”

Loading the game, selecting the race, building the base, mining... just as he stole some workers, a sharp scream came from Su Xiaoqiang’s side.

She threw off her headphones, curled up her long legs into the chair, half-covered her eyes with her left hand, and furiously clicked the mouse with her right.

“What’s wrong?”

Hearing her scream, Lu Mingfei hurried over. Looking at her screen, he was dumbfounded.

A pop-up had appeared showing an illegal website where a man and woman were engaged in indecent acts.

Su Xiaoqiang tilted her head and peeked out from between her fingers, her voice delicate and despairing:

“Can’t close it…”

“I-I-I’ll help you.”

Lu Mingfei volunteered, took the mouse from her, crossed the keyboard, opened the task manager, selected the process, and ended the task in one smooth motion.

“All done, closed it for you.”

Su Xiaoqiang peeked once more through her fingers, confirmed the inappropriate content was gone, then sighed deeply, her face faintly flushed in the screen’s white glow.

“How did you close it? Why couldn’t I?”

“It’s a virus webpage. Clicking to close won’t work. It only multiplies. You need to use the task manager.”

Lu Mingfei demonstrated the steps again.

“This internet café’s firewall is useless. It often pops up during games. I’m used to it.”

“Oh,” Su Xiaoqiang replied, looking at Lu Mingfei again.

Only now did she notice he was wearing the Shilan Middle School uniform, and judging by the collar style, from the junior high division.

She was surprised. “You go to Shilan Middle School?”

“How can you slander me so baselessly?” Lu Mingfei denied frantically. “Who says I go to Shilan Middle School?”

He realized that although he had been caught spying on Su Xiaoqiang’s screen, it wasn’t quite social death yet—but she probably already thought he was a perverted peeping tom.

He just hoped that after these two summer months, she would have forgotten about it. But now she had recognized his school uniform.

That would only deepen her impression of him.

“If you’re not a Shilan Middle School student, why are you wearing the uniform?”

Lu Mingfei was silent for a moment and glanced down at himself.

Damn, he had forgotten about this.

Forget it, let her recognize it.

Su Xiaoqiang crossed her legs, folded her hands in front of her, curiosity gleaming in her eyes.

“What’s wrong? Afraid to admit it? Embarrassed that a Shilan Middle School student would come to a dingy internet café to play games?”

Lu Mingfei resisted the urge to stick out his tongue, thinking, What’s there to be embarrassed about?

Page 3 of 3

Back in the day, he had the guts to show up at Zhao Menghua’s trap with a toilet seat around his neck, standing up for Chen Wenwen.

His main concern was simply not wanting to anger this young lady again and be roasted by her for three years in high school.

“Not really. It’s just that it’s inconvenient for students to go online elsewhere. One time I was playing a one-on-one StarCraft match at the internet café, and when my opponent lost and got angry, he reported the café for illegally letting minors play online. I got scared and ran away.”

“Ha! That’s a report well-deserved.”

“Yeah, it was deserved. But I couldn’t go home, and there was nowhere else to go. I had to find a place to stay. Sometimes when they crack down or I’m out of money, I just wander the streets.”

Su Xiaoqiang was momentarily stunned, as if lost in thought, but quickly snapped back.

“Wait, aren’t you a Shilan Middle School student? Their tuition isn’t cheap. You wouldn’t be homeless, would you?”

“Can’t really say it’s home, but also can’t say it’s not. It’s complicated. I can’t explain it right now.”

Lu Mingfei returned to his seat, put on his headphones, ready to continue his StarCraft match, but saw that his base was already surrounded by a massive Zerg hydralisk and infested terran assault force.

He’d been chatting too long with Su Xiaoqiang and had fallen behind in development and building. Even if he were possessed by Lü Bu himself, he couldn’t salvage the situation.

He could only watch helplessly as the enemy focused fire on his structures.

“Damn, talked too long and forgot the game was still on.”

Lu Mingfei sighed and typed GG.

“What game are you playing?” Su Xiaoqiang suddenly leaned over. “Ah! Those monsters look disgusting!”

“Uh, StarCraft…”

Seeing the curiosity on Su Xiaoqiang’s face, Lu Mingfei hesitated a moment and then explained:

“The setting is that, long in the future, humans exploring outer space discover two other alien species, and then…”

He briefly summarized the StarCraft story background.

“Ohhh.” Su Xiaoqiang shook her head. “I didn’t understand.”

“…”

“But it feels more fun than tile matching.” Su Xiaoqiang blinked. “Teach me?”

“It’s pretty violent, maybe not suitable for you…”

“I’ll buy you a drink?”

“It’s not about being hungry or not eating breakfast. The real reason is it’s quite bloody…”

“How about a cup of instant noodles with egg and sausage?”

“I want mushroom chicken stew flavor.”

“Deal!”