### 5. Fate
Some roads you walk with certain people seem incredibly long, while with others, they're so short that you're reluctant to take another step.
The cobblestone path along the river that Lu Mingfei took after school was like this. It was a specially designated scenic walking street in the municipal engineering project, costing a lot of money. On one side was the greenish-blue river water, and on the other side were cafes, cinemas, flower shops, and various specialty stores. The scenery was beautiful, but it had nothing to do with Lu Mingfei because he always walked alone.
But today was different. He was walking side by side with Chen Wenwen on this road.
"Lu Mingfei, which school do you want to apply to?" Chen Wenwen asked him.
They had just rented a small hall in the cinema and booked the screening of *Wall-E*. Then Lu Mingfei accompanied Chen Wenwen to buy a paper bag of wind chimes. Chen Wenwen said her mother liked them. Lu Mingfei secretly checked the price of roses. It didn't seem too expensive outside of holidays. He could still scrape together the money for 99 roses. Now Chen Wenwen held a bag of wind chimes and walked home with him. This was the first time Lu Mingfei knew that Chen Wenwen's home was actually not far from his own.
Lu Mingfei turned his head to look at Chen Wenwen. She was wearing that white cotton dress, and the sunset shone on her skin, making it seem transparent.
"Just apply to any school you can get into," Lu Mingfei said. He hadn't told anyone that he had received an admission letter from a US university.
"Will you study in your hometown?"
Lu Mingfei's heart stirred. He thought Chen Wenwen was quietly asking where he would go to college.
"Anywhere. A university with lots of classmates would be best," Lu Mingfei replied.
"I want to go to Beijing. Zhao Menghua and Su Xiaoqiang are all applying to universities in Beijing," Chen Wenwen said softly.
"Beijing is great," Lu Mingfei said.
"Do you like Beijing too?"
"Beijing has great lamb spareribs!" Lu Mingfei said this, wishing he could slap his own face. What a great opportunity! If he had a thicker face, he could say something more affectionate like Beijing is great because of you. He thought to himself that he was just too timid and hadn't done what Nuono advised.
Chen Wenwen smiled silently and hummed softly.
The sound of their footsteps was especially clear in the silence. Lu Mingfei counted the steps, not daring to look at Chen Wenwen.
This silence wasn't going to work. He looked up suddenly, froze for a moment, and so did the person facing him. She adjusted the large sunglasses on her face and pulled up the brim of her baseball cap.
It was Chen Mopupil, or Nuono. She was strolling on this street too, wearing the same purple slow-jogging shoes, a tight pair of jeans, and a white crop top, with a short-sleeved blue-striped shirt over it. After her initial surprise, a slightly malicious smile appeared on her lips, and she waved at Lu Mingfei, "Hi! Hi!"
Lu Mingfei knew where that gleeful feeling of meeting an old aquaintance came from. It was purely to show off in front of Chen Wenwen. He had tasted this little witch's evil before.
"Is she your friend?" Chen Wenwen asked slightly embarrassed. She was also suppressed by the sharp aura of Nuono, who didn't seem to have grown up in this small southern city.
Lu Mingfei stuttered in response, and Nuono had already bounced in front of them.
"Hi! Hi! So coincidental, huh?" Nuono said, then turned to Chen Wenwen, "This is Chen Wenwen, right?"
"How do you know my name?" Chen Wenwen asked, startled. She was usually shy in front of strangers.
"I heard him say... he said..." Nuono suddenly stopped and said, "Right, you owe me ice cream, don't you?"
Blackmail! This was blatant blackmail!
As long as Nuono didn't talk nonsense now, Lu Mingfei would even call her sister. Lu Mingfei quickly took out his wallet, "I'll buy it for you. What flavor do you want?"
"One with strawberry syrup on top," Nuono said, taking off her baseball cap and brushing her dark red hair with her hand.
Lu Mingfei had no choice but to spend money and bought three ice creams. He didn't have much money left in his pocket. He didn't mind spending on Chen Wenwen, and he didn't regret spending on Nuono. He just a bit regretted the one for himself, as long as this little witch shut up. The three of them walked along the river road biting into their ice creams. The flowers of the locust trees fell on Chen Wenwen's white skirt and Nuono's baseball cap. Nuono kept complaining while Chen Wenwen spoke softly to her. With the two girls present, Lu Mingfei was like a giant light bulb, having nothing to do with it at all. Lu Mingfei couldn't help sending irritated glances at Nuono, but Nuono seemed as if she hadn't seen it.
"Did Lu Mingfei say a lot of bad things about me?" Chen Wenwen asked.
"No," Nuono replied indifferently, "He said he loves literature, so he joined the Literature Club."
"Oh, I like reading books too," Chen Wenwen said, "Are you classmates?"
"No, we were primary school classmates. But I've been studying in the US recently and just came back," Nuono turned to Lu Mingfei, "Do you remember the wall-climbing ivy on our teaching building wall? When I went back to have a look, it had climbed all the way to the rooftop!"
Lu Mingfei nodded vigorously, thinking this ice cream was worth it. Nuono was an honorable merchant with vivid descriptions. But then he had a sense of illusion that what Nuono said seemed to be true. He clearly didn't remember having Nuono as a classmate in elementary school, but he remembered the wall-climbing ivy. He was a bit slow and had a bad memory. He had basically forgotten all his primary school classmates, remembering only the light shining through the green leaves of the ivy. For a moment, he could barely distinguish whether what Nuono said was true or whether he remembered it correctly.
"Were your parents immigrants?" Chen Wenwen asked. Many people in their school were talking about immigrating with their whole families.
"No. I hold a Chinese passport. I'm just going to study. I'm a freshman at Cassel Academy."
"Did you skip a grade? Lu Mingfei is only a senior."
"Oh, we're not classmates; she's my junior," Nuono lied quickly, "Isn't that right, Lu Mingfei?"
"Oh, junior," Lu Mingfei knew what Nuono was trying to imply.
Nuono smiled as if she had bloomed.
Finally, they parted ways at a three-way intersection. Lu Mingfei and Chen Wenwen continued forward, and Nuono headed in another direction. Lu Mingfei watched Nuono bouncing away, feeling again that she might disappear, taking away the other possibility in his life.
His uncle and aunt had been nice to Lu Mingfei these past two days. The aunt kept talking about letting Lu Mingfei tell his seemingly unreachable parents when he got there to send Lu Mingze to study in the US. Lu Mingze resisted this strongly. He pulled a long face at the dinner table and said some things like he would still need to rely on his grades to go abroad, not on connections. Lu Mingfei knew his brother was holding a grudge about this stroke of luck. Moreover, Lu Mingze had been very unhappy these days because "The Trace on the Sunset" had been offline, which made him anxious. So, he was increasingly monopolizing the old laptop, not giving Lu Mingfei a moment's opportunity.
While nagging that Lu Mingze shouldn't be online all the time and should study harder to have a chance in the future, the aunt still sent Lu Mingfei to buy milk for breakfast the next day. Lu Mingfei went out and heard Lu Mingze suddenly get anxious and argue with the aunt in the house.
He felt a jumble in his heart and didn't go downstairs, going straight up the stairs. There was no elevator in this building, and the highest floor was only seven stories, with a terrace on the rooftop with a noisy air conditioning unit and crisscrossing pipelines. The property management has set an iron door in the corridor, marked with "Terrace Closed." In fact, if it weren't closed, no one would run up there. The staircase leading to the top floor had a horror movie feel to it, full of cartons, two broken motors, and some old sofas and wooden tea tables thrown away