Chapter 3 Question in the Alley
The car stopped at the mouth of the alley. I thanked Qin Zhimin and got out.
I walked alone into the dark depth of the alley.
"Song Sheng."
Qin Zhimin called me in a calm voice.
I turned back and tried to raise a smile.
"President Qin, is there anything else?"
Steady footsteps sounded behind me. Qin Zhimin walked up to me.
He looked up at the row of run-down apartment buildings, then suddenly asked, "Was giving me up for Five Hundred Thousand worth it?"
"Song Sheng, if you had not betrayed our love back then, the woman standing beside me today would be you."
That one sentence pulled me back to six years ago.
Back in high school, Qin Zhimin was the hardest student in class to control. School bully. He loved skipping class. His family had money.
To keep him out of trouble, the homeroom teacher made me, the discipline officer, his deskmate.
Sleeping in class. I wrote his name.
Late to morning reading. I wrote his name.
Leaving evening study early. I wrote his name.
"Hey, top student, good student. Two sheets of scratch paper and still not enough? In a bit the homeroom teacher will call my mom again to complain."
Seeing I was about to take out a new sheet, Qin Zhimin spoke, sounding helpless.
I looked at him seriously. "You did not come to P.E. today. I have to report it to the homeroom teacher."
"You really are an obedient dog." Qin Zhimin mocked.
Our deskmate days went on with me reporting him every day.
Until one night in summer, I ran crying out of my house and curled up by the wall at the school's back gate.
Qin Zhimin passed with a few followers. He looked at the bruises on my arm, startled.
"A good student gets bullied too?"
"Forget it. Stop crying first. Tell me who hit you. I will hit them back for you."
He had barely finished when my dad chased over with a belt.
He pointed at me and cursed. "Grown some nerve. Learned how to run, huh?"
As he spoke, the belt swung at me.
I shut my eyes on instinct. The pain I expected did not come.
Qin Zhimin caught my dad's arm.
The boy was tall and strong. With a light force, he threw the man, who seemed drunk, to the ground.
"This is your dad?"
Qin Zhimin frowned at me.
I nodded, ashamed.
My dad liked to gamble. Every time he lost, he drank until he was senseless.
After my mom ran off, I became the one he took it out on.
After that night, things between Qin Zhimin and me eased a lot.
When he skipped class now and then, I covered for him, and he tried to follow the rules.
Qin Zhimin started walking me home every night. He stood downstairs until the light in my room went out, then left.
One day in the second half of senior year, Qin Zhimin came to school with a backpack, which was rare.
He said, "Song Sheng, I have thought it through. I will study hard and test into the same college as you."
For a while after that, he really did study hard.
But his college entrance exam scores were still not good.
So he and I agreed he would attend a junior college near Nanda, the school I applied to.
But on the day we filled out the applications, Qin Zhimin did not come to school.