Fang Xiaolei rode the escalator up and stood at the entrance, momentarily forgetting which direction to go.

In reality, after several years had passed, the things he had once been so fixated on and troubled by had long been forgotten.

When his family and homeroom teacher urged him to drop out of school, instead of anger, he felt more lost. After his emotions had calmed down from their intense fluctuations, he realized he had lost his direction.

Although he had never been interested in studying and his grades were poor in school, at least everyone had a common goal.

Suddenly stepping out of his comfort zone, he had no idea where to go.

The train station entrance was crowded with people.

He stood in the midst of the crowd, suddenly recalling the first time he met He Chao. But back then, they were only acquaintances and is was only a few days into the school year, he couldn't even remember his name.

It was early in their third year of middle school when He Chao, the class representative, knocked on the door to submit some forms. He was tall and handsome, and even when being punished to stand, Fang Xiaolei couldn't help but steal a few more glances at him.

He and Lei Jun were the two most troublesome students in the school, especially Lei Jun. He was wild since middle school and had a group of brothers from another school who he would call upon no matter what trouble he got into.

"It wasn't me who hit him," Lei Jun stood by the side, frowning and impatiently repeating for the third time, "Why would I hit him? As if I have nothing better to do. If I did hit him, I wouldn't deny it. At that time, I was at the internet cafe with Er Lei..."

The homeroom teacher slammed the table and shouted unhappily, "If it's not you, then who else could it be?"

"Teacher," Fang Xiaolei looked at He Chao placing the form on the table, then heard him say, "Isn't it inappropriate to speak like that? I was there last Friday too, the one in the alley across from the school."

"Why did you go to the internet cafe?" The homeroom teacher choked, trying to find an excuse for this outstanding student. "To look up study materials?"

He Chao candidly replied, "To play games."

"..."

Thinking about this, Fang Xiaolei took two steps forward with his luggage, wanting to say a lot but ultimately only said, "Brother Chao, let's get together sometime. There are some things I want to talk to you about."

After He Chao went out to make a phone call, he came back and kept drinking. He reached for the third can, but the beer in his hand was stopped by Xie Yu.

"Try drinking any more."

He Chao obediently let go.

Xu Qingqing and a few other girls had chosen some sweet and melodious songs to sing along to the music, slow and light, and they sang two or three in a row.

He Chao took a moment to compose himself before finally saying, "Er Lei is back."

Xie Yu guessed that this person must have something important to say, but he didn't expect it to be this. He made a sound of agreement to show that he was listening.

"Just called, he asked me to meet up," He Chao raised his hand to scratch his hair, "I..."

He still didn't know how to face it.

Even though he had been trying to move forward.

Whenever he asked about how Er Lei was doing, he was afraid to hear the words "not good."

Just as they were changing songs, the room fell silent for a few seconds.

Then He Chao heard Xie Yu say to him, "Brother, don't be afraid."

As evening approached, the sky was slightly darkening.

This group of people sang for a full three hours. Luckily, the beer wasn't too strong, so they didn't get drunk and there was no repeat of the crazy drunken scene from last time. When it was over, they packed up and went their separate ways outside the karaoke bar.

When Xie Yu got home, Zhong Jie and the others had just finished dinner.

Madam Gu cut up a fruit platter and brought it out from the kitchen, inviting him to sit on the sofa and have some: "You're back? Sit down and have some fruit?"

Xie Yu glanced at Zhong Jie, afraid that if he stayed too long, this idiot would start talking nonsense again: "You guys go ahead and eat, I'll go upstairs first."

After Xie Yu finished showering, he saw that there were already hundreds of messages in the Blackwater Street group chat "No Violence". Some of them had mentioned him, so he clicked on them.

[Mother Lei]: @xy, I've tidied up your room. If you have time during the holidays, come back and stay for a few days. Your Aunt Mei and Dalei are always talking about you.

[Barbecue Stand Prince-Lei]: When was it cleaned up? Did our house have a spare room?

[Mother Lei]: It's your room. You can go sleep in the attic at that time.

[Barbecue Stand Prince-Lei]: ...

[Barbecue Stand Prince-Lei]: Are you really my mom.

Mother Lei said she cleaned up a room for him to stay a few more days, but Xie Yu didn't plan on really staying. He just wanted to pick a time to come over and have a meal.

Unlike the extravagant fireworks show put on by the Zhong family for the New Year, the taste of the New Year in Blackwater Street seeped in from every corner.

Xie Yu got out of the car and saw a few children playing and running around in the alleyway. They had firecrackers in their hands and pockets, throwing them on the ground and laughing as they ran away.

"Bang!" went the firecrackers, and then they ran off to another spot.

The night before last, it snowed. By now, most of the snow on the road had melted, leaving only a small patch of white snow on the roof.

As far as he remembered, it had been a few years since it last snowed in City A. At that time, Zhou Dalei dragged him out to build a snowman.

Xie Yu looked disgusted and said, "What's with your girlish sentimentality?"

"It's snowing! I've never seen it before. Come on, let's go build one together."

In the end, Xie Yu squatted on the side, rolled a snowball, and threw it directly at Zhou Dalei's head. "Let's do something else."

In the residential area of Blackwater Street, the houses were closely packed together, with spring couplets hanging at every doorstep. Most of them read "Happy New Year" and "Good Luck and Fortune" in red and black characters.

As Xie Yu walked towards the familiar building, he saw Zhou Dalei standing on a ladder helping Aunt Mei put up her spring couplets. The words on both sides of the couplets were the same: "Rolling in Wealth".

The horizontal scroll read "Prosperity".

"..."

Xie Yu stopped in his tracks and chuckled at the scene. He took out his phone and snapped a picture, sending it to He Chao as he did so.

He Chao replied quickly.

- Quite talented.

- Please wish our mom a happy New Year and prosperity on my behalf.

Xie Yu lowered his head: What about you.

- We're meeting next weekend.

- I'm fine. It's good to meet up.

From afar, Zhou Dalei saw Boss Xie walking towards them after finishing pasting the Spring Festival couplets and coming down from the ladder. Inside the house, Aunt Mei was reminding everyone, "Don't mention anything about grades later..."

They all knew how much Xie Yu had scored on the exam.

Zhou Dalei's mind wandered as he listened.

Although Xie Yu had done well in Blackwater Middle School before, the quality of education there was too poor. They taught middle school English like it was elementary school level. It was understandable that he couldn't keep up with the learning situation in a big city like City A.

"You hear that?" Mother Lei gave him a pat, "Your Aunt Mei is talking to you."

Zhou Dalei replied, "Ah...I heard, I heard, but..."

He didn't finish his sentence.

In that rubbish game called "Trivia King Battle", ever since he received the title of "Stubborn Scrap Iron" in the game lobby, he wanted to uninstall the game since it was taking up space on his device.

However, when he tried to uninstall it, he received a message from the system advising him to think twice and not give up on his studies.

Feeling conflicted, he returned to the game lobby and stumbled upon a match where God X was solving problems at an incredible speed.

God X's speed was unbelievable, and he seemed almost superhuman, it was just the writing...

The game had a feature where you could use a whiteboard to do calculations and write notes.

The writing was especially familiar to him.

Suddenly, he remembered the phone call he made to Boss Xie in the past.

Although he wasn't sure and might have been overthinking, he had a strange feeling in his heart.

When Xie Yu went upstairs, many people had already arrived at Aunt Mei's house.

After dinner, they all gathered around the mahjong table.

"You haven't closed your stall in the past few days."

"Business has been good lately. The shops nearby have all closed down, so people come to me. I plan to work a few more days," said Mother Lei, throwing out a card. "Four kongs!"

Xie Yu used to help out at the stall often. Seeing that it was still early, he patted Zhou Dalei's shoulder and asked, "Is it still five o'clock?"

After patting him with no response, he asked again. It was only then that Zhou Dalei came back to his senses and said, "Ah, you don't have to...you don't have to work."

Xie Yu asked, "What are you thinking about?"

Zhou Dalei thought to himself, I'm thinking about this bizarre world.

The barbecue stand was crowded, and the winter weather was cold. Father and Mother Lei set up their food tent near the street.

Even though they didn't let him help, Xie Yu still went over to assist with taking orders and serving food. Zhou Dalei was busy at the table next door, but the customers were ordering too quickly for him to keep up. "Wait a minute, how many skewers of lamb?"

Xie Yu handed Zhou Dalei the order slip from table 1 and said, "20 skewers, half a pint of beer, and one order of fried rice..."

There were a total of seven or eight items, and Zhou Dalei quickly wrote them down, amazed: "How did you know?"

"I overheard," Xie Yu replied.

He had a good memory and could remember things after hearing or seeing them just once.

Zhou Dalei handed two slips of paper to his mother, leaning against the plastic shed door. He felt the urge to smoke and pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. After a moment's hesitation, he said, "Mom, I remember Boss Xie used to have good grades."

Taking the slips of paper, Mother Lei was busy with her hands and had no time for idle chat. She casually said, "I remember you got a perfect score in math too in your first year of elementary school."

Zhou Dalei: "..."

During the busiest time of the evening, the flow of customers was at its highest. After the last table finished their meal, Xie Yu helped them close up and dragged the plastic stools to the warehouse.

"Can you talk to them?" Xie Yu was a bit tired after working for a while. "It's almost Chinese New Year, they should take a break at home."

There were still a few children on the street lighting fireworks. As soon as they were lit, the flames burst open and burned for a few seconds with a sizzling sound.

With a storage box in his hand, Zhou Dalei put it down and stopped in his tracks, his mind racing with several thoughts. Finally, he couldn't resist calling out to him, "Boss Xie."

Xie Yu didn't turn around, "Spit it out."

"Is that 'X' you?"

Zhou Dalei asked again: "The one in that Trivia King, I don't remember the exact name, is it you?"