My hometown is far away in Moscow.

001 Good Mood Stationery Store

The playground was deserted, with only the sound of chaotic English reading coming from a classroom in the distance, carried on the gentle spring breeze. Hu Yi tightened his belt at the entrance to the toilets at the far end of the playground, humming a little tune as he quickly slipped to the wall, skillfully using a broken iron bucket as a stepping stone to climb over it.

There was a nearly one-meter difference in elevation between the playground floor and the street outside the wall. Climbing up wasn't difficult, but looking down from the wall still made him slightly dizzy. Hu Yi sat on the top of the wall, gently braced himself with his hands, and jumped down. He tore off a piece of toilet paper to carefully wipe the dust off his leather shoes, tidied his hair, put his hands in his pockets, shrugged his shoulders, and walked to the steamed bun shop at the intersection ahead. He bought four meat buns for one yuan, turned around, and swaggered towards the school's main gate.

The school is located on the edge of the old city, very close to the moat. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, many government offices were located nearby, and the surrounding streets were mostly named after government offices, a name that has been used to this day.

There is an open space in front of the school. The small street directly opposite is the site of the Salt Transport Commissioner's Office during the Qing Dynasty. The street is dilapidated and narrow, barely wide enough for a bus to pass through. Both sides are crowded with all kinds of small restaurants and shops.

A few dozen meters from the school gate stood a small, single-story building with a sign that read "Good Mood Stationery Store." Just after 7:30, the shutter door was tightly shut. Hu Yi glanced towards the school, then banged on the door a few times: "Boss! Get up!"

"Who is it? Coming!" A groggy male voice came from inside. A moment later, the roller shutter was pulled up halfway, and a disheveled middle-aged man mumbled sleepily as he pulled up his pants, "It's you, kid. You're here early today."

Hu Yi nodded and bent down to go inside. The room wasn't very big; a single bed stood against the wall at the far end, and several computers were crammed tightly against the other two walls. The Good Mood Stationery Store had gone out of business after only three months and was rented to its current owner. The store still had the stationery store sign hanging outside, but inside it had been turned into a computer room.

The computer room was an early form of internet cafe, where all the computers were connected to the same local area network, making it convenient to play games online, but they could not access the Internet. The owner of Good Mood was in his thirties, fair-skinned and chubby, with a look in his eyes that often flickered with an innocent and dreamy quality that Hu Yi didn't take seriously, but occasionally revealed a hint of cunning and worldliness that Hu Yi couldn't understand.

The boss yawned, picked up his toothbrush, squeezed some toothpaste onto it, then bent down and squeezed it behind the bedside to turn on the main power switch: "I just installed a few new games last night, they're pretty cool, but unfortunately they lag a little."

Hu Yi casually pulled up a chair and sat down, pointing with his toes at the computer case next to him: "It's the 21st century! These crappy machines of yours are still Pentium 166s. How can they not lag when playing new games? Besides, other companies have been able to access the internet for a long time now. You need to keep up with the times, otherwise who will want to play here in the future?"

"I know, surfing the internet is all the rage these days," the boss chimed in with a grin. "We're short on funds right now, but I'll get a new machine as soon as I have some extra cash, and then I'll figure out how to get a wired internet connection—you play first, I'm going to brush my teeth."

Hu Yi crossed his legs and took a bite of his steamed bun: "I'm not playing anything today, I'll just sit here for a while."

The boss blinked: "Huh? You woke me up so early just to come in and sit down and eat steamed buns?"

Hu Yi's face was cold and stern: "Yeah, I just don't like staying in the classroom, it's annoying. Why don't I come here for some steamed buns?"

"Sure, of course." The boss grinned. "Since you're already here, what are you doing? Have some fun."

"I... forgot my money today." Hu Yi's face flushed slightly. "I still owe you thirty yuan."

"No problem, I'll just put it on your tab if you don't have any cash." The shopkeeper winked at him. "I'll give you an hour for free, and the billing will start at nine. How about that?"

"Alright." Hu Yi hesitated for a moment, then pulled a cigarette from the crumpled cigarette pack and tossed it over. "I'll settle the accounts with you next Monday."

"No rush, no rush. You have the best credit among the students at No. 1 Middle School, so it's okay if it's a few days late." The boss smiled, tucked a cigarette behind his ear, tugged at his badly shrunken white tank top, and with his messy hair, squatted down by the water tap outside the door, casually stuffing a toothbrush into his mouth and poking around with it.

Two hours passed in the blink of an eye, and a few more students slipped in. Seeing Hu Yi, they laughed and exclaimed, "Damn? No wonder that kid disappeared so early this morning; he was hiding here studying again!"

Hu Yi knew they must have slipped out in the chaos after their morning exercises. He tilted his head back, a cigarette dangling from his lips, and said arrogantly, "You guys dropped off your bags during morning self-study and came straight here. You all seem quite studious!"

"Study my ass! The first two periods are with our homeroom teacher, we can't skip them." The students chattered amongst themselves for a few moments before eagerly taking their seats and turning on their computers. Hu Yi noticed one person still standing at the door and beckoned, "Dongzi, what are you standing there for? Turn on a computer and let's play together!"

Dongzi took out a handful of loose change from his pocket, counted it, walked behind Hu Yi and smiled shyly: "No thanks, Brother Yi, I'll just watch you guys play."

"It's okay, it's more fun when we play together." Hu Yi pressed Dongzi down into the chair next to him and reached out to turn on the computer for him: "Play for two hours, put it on my tab."

Dongzi happily agreed, and just as he placed his hands on the mouse and keyboard, the door opened again, and an old face peeked into the room—it was the Dean of Students. The students froze instantly, like wooden statues, and the atmosphere in the room became extremely awkward.

Good Mood Stationery Store had been secretly operating a computer room for over half a year, and no school teacher had ever walked in. The store owner didn't recognize the dean of students, but seeing the students all looking like statues, he guessed that these must be school leaders, so he had no choice but to bite the bullet and ask, "You...do you need something?"

The dean of students' expressions shifted between anger and uncertainty. His gaze swept over every student in the room, finally settling on Hu Yi, who was smoking a cigarette. Just as everyone was feeling uneasy, Hu Yi suddenly exhaled a puff of smoke, took off his headphones, and glared impatiently at the dean: "What are you looking at?"

The room fell silent. The head of discipline's face flushed and paled in turns, and he slowly said in a low voice, "What did you say?"

"I don't repeat myself." Hu Yi chuckled. "What's wrong? Getting old? Is your hearing failing you?"

The head of the teaching department stared at Hu Yi, who was breathing heavily for a few moments. He then put on an expression of utter disgust, swallowed the words "hopeless" back, and withdrew with a cold laugh.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Someone nearby laughed, "Hey! Yi-ge is really something else. Last time I was caught smoking at the gate, he gave me a good scolding and fined me five yuan. Look at Yi-ge, he got rid of him with just a couple of words!"

Dongzi seemed a little nervous: "He just left like that? Won't he come back to cause trouble for you?"

Hu Yi had shown off his power in front of everyone and was very pleased with himself. With a half-smirk, he said nonchalantly, "Don't worry, we'll graduate in a month or so. If he's going to cause trouble for us at a time like this, isn't he afraid of getting punished later? He's not stupid."

Chatting and laughing while playing games, it was lunchtime before they knew it. Hu Yi bought two sesame seed cakes and a bottle of mineral water, and squatted down at the entrance of Good Mood to eat and drink. Students passing by would greet him from time to time, some warmly, some respectfully.

Hu Yi enjoyed this feeling. In the students' words, it was called "having a good time," meaning he knew a lot of people and everyone gave him face. As one of the worst students, this was the only way he could find a sense of belonging at school.

In fact, Hu Yi wasn't always a poor student. Although he was inherently rebellious, he had a strict upbringing and his grades were quite good. Unexpectedly, after entering high school, his rebellious phase, which had been building up for many years, suddenly erupted, and an extremely strong aversion to school followed. From then on, he threw his studies to the wind and spent all his time hanging out with delinquents both inside and outside of school.

Playing cards, soccer, and video games; drinking, smoking, dating, and occasionally getting into fights—Hu Yi felt his life was quite "fulfilling," except for his utter lack of interest in studying. Skipping classes was commonplace for him; his only enjoyment in class was engaging the teacher in conversation, otherwise he spent his time reading martial arts novels and sleeping. His parents noticed the change in him and tried every disciplinary method to no avail, so they could only pray to God that their son would soon realize his mistakes and turn over a new leaf.

However, his parents' wishes did not come true. Because of his frequent violations of school rules, Hu Yi is now a bad student on the academic affairs office's blacklist. His homeroom teacher sees him as a black sheep affecting the class's college entrance examination pass rate and has long since abandoned him. The principal and the dean of students' affairs tried to use their rich experience in educating students to save this misguided young man, but Hu Yi not only continued to do as he pleased, but also became increasingly disrespectful to the school leaders. Now, with the college entrance examination approaching, he knows he has no hope whatsoever, so he simply isn't in a hurry and only plans to find any job after graduation to get by.

Two groups of high school freshmen across the street were arguing for some unknown reason, shoving and pushing each other, and it looked like they were about to come to blows. Hu Yi recognized a few familiar faces on both sides, so he slowly got up and walked over, one hand in his pocket and the other holding a sesame seed cake, and with a frown, he put on a superior air and scolded, "What are you doing? What's all this commotion about?"

Several students rushed to Hu Yi to complain about the other party, but Hu Yi, too lazy to listen to their grudges, impatiently pulled a long face: "Alright, we're all from the same school, can't we talk things out? What are you arguing about at such a young age?" He then took two steps forward and whispered with concern, "Even if you want to fight, you should stay away from school. What if you get caught and punished? Hurry up and leave!"

The two groups of students awkwardly parted ways. Hu Yi was quite satisfied with his successful mediation. He stuffed the last bite of his meat pie into his mouth, turned around to go back to playing games, and just then, the pager clipped to his waist beeped. He glanced at the caller ID, frowned slightly, walked to a nearby shop, picked up a public phone, and dialed: "Mom, are you paged me?"

Mrs. Hu's voice sounded slightly tired: "Have you eaten?"

"have eaten."

"Come home early tonight, your dad and I have something to tell you."

"What's up?" Hu Yi lazily took out a cigarette and tapped it lightly on the table a few times.

"Let's talk about it tonight. Go straight home after evening self-study, don't go out partying."