Chapter 147 — The Long-Awaited...

"If you don't study properly now, what'll you do later? Run with the underworld?" Yang Ce pressed on.

"Hey, what's with you, so long-winded—are you ever going to stop?" Another student looked up and raised his cue. "Don't kill our mood, or my buddy here might just give you a taste of this cue."

But once he got a clear look at Yang Juehuan, he froze, and the hand holding the cue dropped sheepishly. "Brother Yang, it's you? I didn't know it was you. I spoke a bit sharp—sorry."

"Huh?" Yang Ce was taken aback. "You know me?"

"Of course. You were the year above me, Brother Yang. I'm Xiaoqiu—don't you remember me?" The student was excited to see Yang Mo. "This place—you were the one who brought us here back then!"

"What? I brought you here?" Yang Ce was stunned for a moment, but then he remembered. Back at No. 4 Middle School he had been the chief of the bad students. There were plenty of people he didn't know, but they all knew him. In those days there was nothing to do but skip class all day, and these students had often followed his lead. When he was bored, he had brought some of them to Xu Peng's billiard hall to drum up business, though which ones exactly, Yang Shuoxuan couldn't recall. So when the student said this, he flushed bright red on the spot. "Is that so? Heh heh, well, carry on then."

The other students recognized Yang Ce too and chimed in. "Brother Yang, play a frame with us!"

Yang Jincong shook his head with a smile. "You all play. Xu Peng and I still have things to talk about."

Having been thoroughly embarrassed, Yang Ce walked back awkwardly. Xu Peng and the others were all struggling not to laugh, and Wang Yanqiu said with even more scorn, "Yang Ce, so you were a school thug back in middle school!"

"Not at all, not at all—just the ringleader." Yang Ce gave a dry laugh. "This was really me with nothing better to do, asking for trouble. I never thought I'd be reaping what I sowed."

"Brother Yang, have lunch here with sister-in-law at noon," Xu Peng said. "I'll have Xiaoying fix a few dishes."

"Sister-in-law?" Yang Ce and Wang Yanqiu exclaimed in unison, exchanged a glance, and denied it. "Who's sister-in-law?"

"Uh—" Xu Peng saw Yang Ce arrive with Wang Yanqiu and assumed she was Yang Ce's new girlfriend. He was puzzled, though: Yang Ge's previous girlfriend hadn't been bad at all, so how had they broken up so fast, and him already with someone new?

But with Wang Yanqiu right there, Xu Peng didn't dare ask. He'd have to wait for a private moment—except it turned out he had it all wrong.

"Sorry about that. I thought you were Yang Ge's girlfriend," Xu Peng said apologetically to Wang Yanqiu.

"Ha, your sister-in-law is way better looking than her, and it's not like you haven't met her," Yang Ce said, pointing at Wang Yanqiu with a chuckle.

Wang Yanqiu glared at Yang Puqi and ground her heel down on Yang Juehuan's instep. The girl had real skill, and the force behind that foot was fierce and precise; prepared as Yang Moyi was, she still stomped him into genuine pain, and he could only smile bitterly.

Now Xu Peng was thoroughly confused. If they weren't a couple, their gestures and tone were awfully intimate—yet neither would admit it, and Yang Ce had even said to Wang Yanqiu's face that she wasn't as pretty as Chen Shutang. He had no idea what these two actually were to each other.

"No need to go to any trouble. Xiaoying just got pregnant, so it's better she doesn't breathe in cooking fumes," Yang Ce said with a wave of his hand. "How about I call Li Dagang and see if he's free? We'll get him and find somewhere to eat out. If he can't make it, the rest of us will go."

"That works too," Xu Peng said with a nod. Then he rose and called over to the students playing billiards: "Xiaoqiu, I'm heading out with your sister-in-law in a bit. Keep an eye on the shop for me, all right?"

"Sure, no problem, don't worry, Xu Ge." Xiaoqiu, entrusted with the responsibility, looked absolutely delighted. Young people his age took such things very seriously, seeing it as a mark of trust and a step up in standing.

Xiaoying heated a few bowls of instant noodles in the microwave, handed them to Xiaoqiu and the other students, and said, "Xiaoqiu, your sister Xiaoying's treating today. It's on the house."

"Oh, that's great!" Xiaoqiu and the others said, overjoyed.

Yang Ce phoned Li Dagang, who had just gotten to the office. Yang Ce explained the situation, and Li Dagang said at once that he'd be right over.

"That Li Dagang, he's doing pretty well for himself—at his company he can just take leave whenever he wants," Xu Peng said, rather surprised.

"I suppose so," Yang Lanxu said. Naturally, his own connections had something to do with it, but he didn't elaborate.

A dozen minutes later, Li Dagang arrived at Xu Peng's billiard hall. "Dapeng, Yang Ge, I'm here."

"Look at you, coming to a place like this dressed up like a proper gentleman—doesn't it feel awkward?" Yang Ce said with amusement at Li Dagang's white-collar getup. "This doesn't exactly look like a place white-collar types hang out, does it?"

"You called in such a hurry, and I was already at the office—it's not like I could go home and change, right?" Li Dagang laughed. "Anyway, we brothers are tight, so who cares."

To be continued

959. Friendship

Xiaoqiu and the others knew Li Dagang too. Seeing him arrive, they hurried to greet him—"Li Ge," "Gang Ge."

Li Dagang had already met two of Yang Juehuan's girlfriends, so seeing Wang Yanqiu now didn't strike him as strange at all. Yang Ge was something else, and Li Dagang had long since gotten used to it.

Still, there was something familiar about Wang Yanqiu. Li Dagang thought it over but couldn't quite place her, and assumed he must have met her before alongside Yang Ge.

"Dagang, let me introduce you. Wang Yanqiu, my neighbor—and my classmate too," Yang Ce said, gesturing at Wang Yanqiu.

"Ah!" It hit Li Dagang all at once, and he pointed at Wang Yanqiu. "When you bought your house, I handled the deal!"

With Heng's friends, Wang Yanqiu couldn't afford to be too cold. Their identities were already known to each other, and now that old grudges were set aside and she wanted Yang Ce to help her build up her hit-squad, she did her best to be easygoing. "Hello. Heh, so you remember me."

"Now that Yang Ge's jogged my memory, it's all coming back. But back then you looked at the house and signed and paid on the spot—we barely interacted, so the impression wasn't all that strong." Li Dagang finished with a click of his tongue. Yang Ge's lady friend clearly had money—paying for a villa that size without batting an eye.

"I didn't expect you to get here so fast. It's not even noon yet—first thing in the morning, I can't get anything down," Yang Yanzhou said. "How about we do something else first?"

"Yang Ce, why don't you take me for a stroll around the university? Neither Dagang nor I ever went to college—we've never felt the atmosphere inside one. Xiaoying was saying a few days ago she wanted to walk around a campus and get a feel for it, but there's never been a chance. Now, with you and your friend, two college students, showing us the way, we can walk in like we belong there," Xu Peng suggested.

"That works. Let's go, then," Yang Yu nodded. People who had been to university could hardly understand the feelings of those who hadn't, nor their yearning and longing for it.

Yang Ce, though, was probably something of an exception, because back then he hadn't even entertained the notion of testing into university—only by a stroke of luck had he gained his special ability and gotten in smoothly.

Yet those bleak days before the college entrance exams were still vivid to Yang Ce, so he could understand what Li Dagang and Xu Peng were feeling right now.