This girl is actually Ni Duoduo! She's the girl in the photo with the pure, innocent smile. As clean and simple as plain noodles! Huan Ge's daughter, Ni Duoduo!!
Only after watching the group of elderly relatives walk away did Aze realize what had happened. He whispered to me, "Hey... are you sure they're really middle school students?"
Qiaoqiao sighed, as if lost in thought: "Are we getting old?"
I ignored the two guys and chased after them as fast as I could!
"Ni Duoduo! Ni Duoduo!"
I ran up to them and stopped in front of them. Looking at that afro, I simply couldn't connect the girl in front of me, with her earrings, black lipstick, and monstrous appearance, with the image in the photo.
"Who are you, uncle?" Ni Duoduo glanced at me sideways.
"Middle-aged man?!" I rolled my eyes.
"Are you Ni Duoduo? Ni Duoduo from Class 4 of the third year of high school?" I took a breath and looked her over carefully.
"I am...who are you?" The girl looked impatient.
Do you have a father in America?
Ni Duoduo's expression changed immediately: "What's it to you!" She turned to leave, but I grabbed her and quickly said, "I know your father... He asked me to come and see you."
Ni Duoduo finally stopped and looked at me properly: "Looking at me? What's so interesting about me?"
The "girl" next to her, with a mohawk and seventeen or eighteen earrings, suddenly gave a strange smile and whispered in Ni Duoduo's ear, "Hey, this guy is pretty handsome. Is he your new sugar daddy? If you don't like him, give him to me. Don't waste him."
"Tch, would I even look at fish balls like that? That's so tasteless!" Ni Duoduo rolled her eyes and stared at me. "What's the matter? Just say it."
I thought for a moment and said, "Do you have time? I'd like to talk to you."
"Talk? What's there to talk about? Just say what you want to say, I have other things to do." Ni Duoduo pouted, looking impatient, then took out a pack of cigarettes, lit one, and took a practiced drag.
I hesitated for a moment, glanced at the group of young delinquents around her, and sighed: "Your father asked me to take care of you in China."
"Take care of me? Forget it." She smiled dismissively, then blew a big, round smoke ring in my face. "That's all?"
Before I could speak, the man holding the flowers caught up with me, rushed up to Ni Duoduo, and pleaded, "Ni Duoduo, I know I was wrong... please forgive me just this once?"
"Big brother, please spare me!" Ni Duoduo looked at him contemptuously: "We're all just playing around, I was just teasing you, you didn't take it seriously, did you? I'm warning you one more time, if you follow me again, I'll kick you!"
Seeing the boy's infatuated expression, Ni Duoduo frowned in disgust: "Hold out your hand."
“Oh…” The boy immediately opened one palm.
Ni Duoduo quickly stubbed out the cigarette in his palm, the burning butt causing the boy to cry out in pain. Ni Duoduo sneered, "You're in pain? Good!" Then she changed her tone and said to the boy earnestly, "Face reality, we're really not suitable... You're FM, I'm SE, we're completely on different wavelengths and have nothing in common!"
Then, without even glancing at me, he grabbed a few companions and quickly walked away.
The lovestruck boy stood there, clutching his hand with a pained expression on his face.
I was also a little stunned.
Aze walked up from behind and patted me on the shoulder: "Bro, stop spacing out..." Then he suddenly frowned: "Why do those words she just said sound so familiar?"
"Because that's what you always say when you dump girls." Qiaoqiao answered, standing behind us. "Chen Yang, what do we do now? Chase after them?"
Before I could say anything, someone suddenly ran up to me. It was that young, delinquent girl with seventeen or eighteen piercings in her face and glasses without lenses. She rushed up to me, pulled a small piece of paper from her pocket, and handed it to me, giving me a flirtatious wink: "Handsome, I like you. Call me!"
Then she blew me a kiss and left in a flash.
Part One: In the Martial World, Not in Control of One's Own Fate, Chapter Sixty-Eight: No One Is Born Degenerate
After calming down, I gradually came to understand.
It seems quite normal, both emotionally and logically, that Ni Duoduo would be a rebellious young woman. Considering her background—she lost her father at a young age, grew up in a single-parent family, and her mother passed away a few years ago—it's actually quite normal for a young girl lacking the warmth of family affection and proper upbringing to become a rebellious young woman.
"What are you standing there daydreaming about?" Aze nudged me.
I suddenly laughed and glanced back at Aze: "It's fine."
"What's good?"
"This girl is quite nice." My smile was genuine, and there was no longer any annoyance in my eyes.
Aze frowned: "Are you out of your mind? This girl is obviously a delinquent. We see girls like this all the time in bars. What's so good about her? Let me tell you, even if someone told me she's promiscuous and a drug addict, I wouldn't be surprised."
I understand what Aze meant; he was just too embarrassed to say anything too harsh.
Indeed, based on my life experience, I've seen far too many of these rebellious girls.
Go to any nightclub in Nanjing, go in around midnight, and you'll find it full of young delinquents and hooligans. They're all high on ecstasy, dancing and bobbing against the walls. Once they're high, they're completely out of control, and any man could just grab them and take them wherever he wanted, do whatever he wanted...
Although I understood what Aze meant, I simply shook my head without saying anything, and turned to look at Qiaoqiao: "What do you think?"
Qiaoqiao sighed: "This little girl is quite arrogant. She's at the most rebellious stage of her life... To put it nicely, she's fearless. To put it bluntly, she doesn't know her own limitations."
I was still smiling, but this time there was something else in my smile...
“Qiaoqiao, Aze… so what if she’s fearless? No matter how arrogant she is, can she be as arrogant as us? No matter how bold she is, can she be as bold as us? No matter how outrageous her actions are, can she be as outrageous as us? No matter how absurd her life is, can she be as absurd as us?” I said gently with a smile, “I just saw something familiar in her.”
"What?" Both Aze and Qiaoqiao asked at the same time.
“My own shadow.” I said casually, then smiled and looked at my two friends: “If I remember correctly… back then I was almost exactly like this girl.”
No parents. No relatives, no family affection... Isn't this just like my life a few years ago?
When I was in middle school, my parents passed away, leaving me all alone in the world. I went through a period of aimless wandering... fighting, brawling, smoking, skipping classes. I spent my days drifting through the streets...
I also went through a period like that back then... At that time, I hated everything and despised everything... including myself!
I used this almost decadent lifestyle to numb myself... to cover myself up... I frequented all sorts of chaotic places every day like a petty hoodlum, wasting time with a bunch of other petty hoodlums, getting myself into a state that was neither human nor ghost every night...
I wasted all my time outside because I was afraid to go home!
Because I have no home! My home is just an empty house! No one is waiting for me, no one will leave a light on for me! No one will leave food in the microwave for me... I can only use everything to cover up my inner fear, or rather... loneliness.
However, I am luckier than Ni Duoduo: I have a master who teaches me kung fu.
My master was an old folk martial arts master. He was a man in his fifties who owned a small barbershop. Years ago, my parents sent me to a small county town in another province to attend middle school, and my master lived in that small town. Few people knew that this seemingly unremarkable old man was actually a highly skilled folk martial arts master.
I remember very clearly that when I was in the second year of middle school, my parents died in a car accident. After rushing back to Nanjing from my county for the funeral, I never went back to school. As a teenager, I experienced the most painful experience of my life. I had no family, no friends… For the first month, I locked myself in my house, refusing to go out, afraid to see the sunlight like a ghost…
After that, I started going astray. I started hanging out in nightclubs and the like, drinking, fighting, and making a lot of shady friends, doing bad things with them. Only when I was drunk could I forget the loneliness in my heart.
My thought at the time was: Whatever! It doesn't matter what!
Anyway, even if I die, no one will worry about me!
During that period, I frequently went in and out of the police station. If I hadn't been so young at the time, I probably wouldn't have been able to get out so easily.
I lived like that in Nanjing for a whole year... and after a beating in a disco, I was taken to the police station again, then sent to the detention center and detained for ten days.
That was the last time I went to the detention center. Ten days later, I came out alone, without even a bag. My hair was sticky, and I had a strange smell. It wasn't that I didn't shower... but while I was inside, I would fight with the other people in my cell every night. Every night, I was either being beaten or beating others. I would roll off the bed onto the floor. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, someone would pick up a toilet bowl and pour water on me, then cover my head with a blanket, and then I would be punched and kicked!
And after daybreak, I have to pretend nothing happened. I have to rely entirely on myself! If I dare to report it to the police, I'll not only face harsher punishment, but also even greater retaliation in the nights to come!
And the reason for all this started on my very first day inside. I refused to buy cigarettes for one of the "bosses" in my cell. (Note: Nowadays, prisons and detention centers use card payment systems. Various daily necessities can be purchased by card. In some isolated areas, they might even sell cigarettes…of course, at much, much higher prices than outside!)
Ten days later, when I walked out of the detention center, I had several new wounds on my body. As I looked at the bright sunshine in the sky, I suddenly felt very lost... To be honest, at that moment, I really thought about... death.
And at that very moment, at the entrance of the detention center, I saw my master, who was in his fifties, standing under a sycamore tree. He had a cigarette between his fingers—I knew my master used to have asthma. He had quit smoking many years ago.
He was wearing a dark, old jacket, his posture was not very straight, and the wrinkles on his face resembled dried orange peel. Cigarette butts littered the ground. Seeing me come out, Master threw away his cigarette butts and slowly walked towards me.
To be honest, I was completely dumbfounded. I was stunned.
My master simply walked silently to my side, took out a thicker coat from a very worn leather bag, and put it on me. He didn't say a word throughout the whole process.
I was completely stunned. I just stood there, frozen, letting my master put my coat on me, letting him button it up one button at a time… Then my master stood in front of me, stared at me for a good few seconds, and suddenly slapped me hard across the face. My master's hand was very heavy; he was a martial artist. His hands were covered in calluses, and the slap sent me sprawling to the ground.
I was lying on the ground, my face burning with pain... but for some reason, I suddenly felt a surge of emotion... really! I wasn't angry at all, and I didn't hate my master for hitting me.
My master just looked at me like that... The sun was very bright that day. Although it was winter, my master stood in front of me, looking down at me. His broad figure seemed to cover the sky.
Then, my master reached out and helped me up, whispering only one sentence to me:
"Kid, let's go home."
At that moment, it felt like a floodgate in my heart was suddenly opened. Instead of getting up, I knelt on the ground, clung tightly to my master's leg, and cried uncontrollably, wailing one after another, wiping my master's pants with tears and snot.
Honestly, if I had to pick the most touching sentence I've ever heard in my life… it would be that winter afternoon, at the gate of the detention center, when my mentor said to me in his slightly hoarse voice, with a northern Jiangsu accent:
"Kid, let's go home."
It was at that moment that I felt alive again. I realized that I was still a human being! I still had a family!
...
…………
………………
In the car, I told Qiaoqiao about these past events in a calm tone. Qiaoqiao's eyes reddened as she listened. She quickly wiped away a tear from the corner of her eye and whispered, "And then?"
"After that day, I followed my master back to the small county town, back to his home. That night, my master took out some plaster and applied it to my wounds, and then personally cut my hair. The next day, he went to the school to help me with the procedures for returning to school, and I studied at that county middle school until I graduated from high school. In the last year, I behaved myself and didn't do anything wrong again." I took out a cigarette and lit it.
“Your master is such a good person,” Qiao Qiao sighed.
"Yes." I nodded. "Without my master, I wouldn't exist anymore."
"Where is your master now? Is he still in that county town?"
My facial muscles twitched, I sighed, and looked out the window: "He passed away. He died the year I graduated high school... from stomach cancer." After saying that, I threw the cigarette I had only taken a puff of out the car window, and then said calmly, "When my master passed away, I personally carried his coffin onto the crematorium truck... Before he died, he told me to come back to Nanjing, to live a good life, and to stop messing around. So I came back, and slowly lived until now."
At this point, I lowered my head and thought for a while: "Actually, in the past few years, I've been in those kinds of places and seen far too many shady things. Some people have tried to drag me down to do bad things, but every time I go to sleep at night, I dream about my master... In the dream, my master didn't scold me or say anything... I just dreamed that my master was standing at the entrance of the detention center waiting for me... And then, I didn't dare to do bad things."
Qiao Qiao looked somewhat emotional: "Chen Yang, you've never told us about these things before."
I smiled and said, "Qiaoqiao, even the best of friends have some secrets between them, right? For example, you, have I ever asked you why you only like women? And Aze, have I ever asked him why he's so promiscuous? Or Mu Tou, have I ever asked him why he's so dull?"
Qiao Qiao looked a little awkward, then raised an eyebrow and laughed as if to cover it up, saying, "Enough with the nonsense, just don't say it! Who cares!"
I stopped smiling and said seriously, "That's why I said that girl is actually quite nice." I took out the photo Jinhe had given me and handed it to her. Qiaoqiao took it, glanced at it quickly, and then continued driving, frowning as she said, "She looks like a very clean-cut girl in the photo."
“Yes.” I smiled calmly. “She must have been a very nice girl, but her experiences were probably similar to mine. It’s just that she didn’t have anyone around her to pull her out of that muddled environment.”
Qiaoqiao shut her mouth and didn't say anything. I sighed: "No one is born liking to be decadent..."
Upon hearing this, Qiao Qiao's body trembled slightly, and her eyes looked somewhat strange, but then she smiled and said, "Then let's go find that little girl now and continue your mission to save troubled girls."
Aze's car was following behind us. The three of us were driving towards the city center. Our destination was a karaoke room in the city. Before leaving school, I asked Ni Duoduo's classmates where they had made plans to hang out with friends that afternoon.
Perhaps I'm being sentimental, but I really feel like I see a reflection of myself from back then in Ni Duoduo's eyes. It's true... not just sentimental talk. And I told myself: I must help this girl!