After watching three consecutive series of Matrix one time, Lu Mingfei suddenly felt that he should have a very magical ability that has not been discovered, like “Neo”, which is “the one”. One day there will be a mysterious man to explore his ability, he will have a great transformation under the burning eyes of people around him… And do some earth-shattering things.
But his Chinese teacher criticized the cla.s.s with his forward-looking style, looking directly at the last few rows of students of the cla.s.sroom who were napping. He did even use his split vision to glance at Lu Mingfei who sat in the corner, so Lu Mingfei can only shrink his head and give up to explain his own journey mentally.
No one discussed the great idea with him; he had to hammer out the details himself. By the time Lu Mingfei was in his third year of high school, the fantasy had been set. When the school did the Spring Festival Gala, the piano level ten beauty Liu Miaomiao played the piano on the stage, and all his male cla.s.smates in black suits were dancing around the piano. At that time, Lu Mingfei sat in a forgotten corner, imagining, thinking of there might appear a helicopter from the sky to pick him up then a group of black sungla.s.ses men like CIA agents in movies will walk in the hall. They will say Mr. Lu Mingfei, it"s not the time to watch the Spring Festival Gala. The Organization is calling you. They will give Lu Mingfei a black military uniform and long windbreaker, surrounding him with the focus of all his cla.s.smates. Outside the hall, there would be a black helicopter roaring by the huge rotor, like knives cutting face. At that time, the little piano beauty Liu Miaomiao and all the dancing boys would stop and stare at the figure of Lu Mingfei.
The point of this story is not how he will save the world, but the other"s sight staring at his figure.
Super cool!
Actually, Lu Mingfei understood that this illusion is just killing his time. But he could find no merit in himself to be proud of. For him, the future should be to go to an unknown university, fall in love with a normal girl, find a job and rent a house, maybe his parents will urge him to get married occasionally when they think of him, then he will get married, have a child and work every day.
With this letter from America, his stagnant life was about to change. But in this family meeting, he felt like an outsider, huddled in a corner of the sofa with his hands firmly on his knees, and the living room was filled with the echo of endless chatter of Aunt, Uncle and Lu Mingze.
He got up and walked out of the living room. No one noticed the main character"s departure at all, and the remaining three were still debating the authenticity of the interview notice. Aunt and Lu Mingze were quite upset. If this letter is true, it"s a stroke of rarely dumb luck that fallen on Lu Mingfei. Aunt was not used to despondent Lu Mingfei"s suddenly brightened up. How could her own son come over him in the future?
Lu Mingfei returned to his room and connected to the QQ, staring at the girl"s icon wearing a baseball cap. The icon was gray, which means offline or invisible. Anyway, there"s no message. Lu Mingfei looked at the wall clock, he left the message 18 years before, asked if Chen Wenwen wants to partic.i.p.ate in the activity of Literary Club tomorrow evening.
Chen Wenwen does not actually wear a baseball cap. She has long soft straight hair, very beautiful, so there"s no need to cover herself with a baseball cap. Lu Mingfei knew Chen Wenwen on the day he entered the school. She was sent by a Pa.s.sat in a low profile, wearing a white cotton skirt and a pair of white socks with lace and a “h.e.l.lo Kitty” hairpin on her long hair. The hottest girl in Lu Mingfei"s cla.s.s should be “Little Fairy” Su Xiaoqiang, Su was sent to school with a Mercedes S500 with DKNY. Pride filled her eyes. She waved to say goodbye to her rich father and took a look at the new boys in the cla.s.s while hoping they could back with admiring sight. But the boys stared at the corner by the window. When Chen Wenwen had finished the school entering procedure, she sat on the bench with a copy of Duras"s L"amant in her hand. The sun shone on her cotton dress and skin, and everything seemed transparent.
“Little Fairy” had kept her proud for 15 years. She was defeated by a little artistic girl on the first day of high school, thus she"s filled with dissatisfaction. Unluckily, there was a "blind" boy standing beside her, pointing at Chen Wenwen and whispering to “Little Fairy”: “That should our cla.s.s belle.”
Have ever "Little Fairy" been subjected by bullying like this? She stepped on the boy"s foot hard and turned to go.
That boy is Lu Mingfei.
In fact, Lu Mingfei is a very frank person. He thought Chen Wenwen was more beautiful than “Little Fairy", then he said so and causes "Little Fairy" "s aversion for three years. At that time there were seven or eight boys around Chen Wenwen. Each of them thought so, but others know the truth of “Silent appreciation”. Later, these people formed a literary club. The core of the literary club was Chen Wenwen, who took part in weekly activities to read some cold and sad European and American literary works and wrote the feelings after reading them to the Chinese teacher for correction. According to Uncle, what he read were all written by “white women of the middle cla.s.s”, and he did not understand why Lu Mingfei was a member of the literary club.
To Lu Mingfei, Chen Wenwen is the first female idol in his life and sets up the image of an appropriate good girl for him. At the age of 15, Lu Mingfei felt that the greatest happiness in the world was to marry Chen Wenwen. Lu MingFei feels there is little hope because he was invited by Chen Wenwen to join the literary club. President Chen Wenwen had invited two members, one is Lu MingFei, another is “Little Fairy” "s love Zhao Menghua. It"s easy to describe Zhao Menghua, he is most likely to be “The Second Chu Zihang” in school.
Zhao Menghua was also applying to go abroad without any offer yet, but this confused Ca.s.sel College sent the interview notice to Lu Mingfei.
“Wanna have a play?" A big cat"s icon was jumping up with the ID “Nuo Nuo”. Lu Mingfei did not remember when he added this person, but he never refused the invitation of others: there are very few people adding him.
“Fine.” Lu Mingfei answered casually.
Lu Mingfei was still using TrackPoint operation, he had something in mind lazily. Besides, “Nuo Nuo” sounds like a name for a girl, those tough hands in the channel should be all kinds of uncles. But soon, Lu Mingfei found that the opponent is both fierce and cunning. He was distracted by the moment, then his exploring Drone was ambushed by the other side with two Zerglings. Loss of a Drone is not a big deal, but the clever little trap let Lu Mingfei alerted up. He strengthened the defence of his base, while produced six Zerglings to patrol around. This saved his life, he was aware of a team of invasion Zerglings in the very first moment, so the Zergling team can only immediately retreat without an opportunity to attack.
Lu Mingfei can"t neglect the opponent anymore, he connected his mouse.
The formal battle had just begun. Both sides had updated their arms from Zergling to Hydralisk and sent Mutalisks coincidently with Hydralisks attacking at the same time to generate a double line attack. When the queen appeared, the fight between the two sides has been heated up. Both two sides had four bases, mixing armies launched a fierce fight in the central, and plasma were splashing on the battlefield. Lu MingFei had sweat on his forehead, clicking his keyboard as if playing the piano. He estimated that the other one is not easy: They are competing on micro-operation at an almost professional level. For the first time, Lu Ming encountered such a strong opponent and decided to take the risk of updating the main base to level 3 to produce the combo of Devourer, Guardian and Ultralisk. This is a fundamental strategic transformation, if the other side has some slightest hesitation and stops the attack, Lu Mingfei can win the game doubtless.
The progress bar was advancing slowly, Lu Mingfei"s heart was beating accelerated with sweating palms. He bluffed and made a group of Hydralisk and three more Lurkers. If the opponent thought Lu Mingfei is setting a large group of the army, then she"s made a fool of herself. This is all that Lu Mingfei had right now, and he costed all the resources on updating.
Soon, the upgrade will be completed, and the combo will be able to take over enemy bases one by one as soon as they leave the field.
Lu Mingfei felt the dawn of victory.
“You"re updating your base to level three.” A line of words appeared at the bottom of the screen.
Lu Mingfei was stunned.
“You can concede, I have four teams of Hydralisk and four teams of dogs, all second level.” Nuo Nuo went on typing.
The progress bar was about to come to an end, but Lu Mingfei can only type “GG”. While Nuo Nuo was typing she shared the vision. Outside Lu Mingfei"s base, Nuo Nuo"s soldiers pressed the border, once they attack, a crushing victory will come.
Lu Mingfei quitted the game and switched back to the QQ interface, said to Nuo Nuo, “Admire!”
Nuo Nuo did not answer and left an expression of grinning, then went offline.
Lu Mingfei, for the first time in his life, felt that he was seen through by someone, like his closest friend. After many years of separation, he came back to find him. He sat there for a moment, clicking through to see Nuo Nuo"s profile, but it was a blank. He searched his memory, convinced that he had never known such a great StarCraft girl player.
The head picture of Chen Wenwen was bouncing in the list, it"s gray however. It means Chen Wenwen went online but had left.
“Go, see you the day after tomorrow.” This"s the message Chen Wenwen left for him.
He waited for almost nineteen hours, and all he saw were these seven words. But his low mood suddenly seems to be evaporated. He jumped into bed with a whistle, wriggle his waist, and forgot about the loss on StarCraft at all.
Lu Mingze walked into his bedroom and looked up and down at his cousin, said impatiently, “My parents called that Guderian professor, said the day after tomorrow to the Regent Hotel to have the interview, they let you be prepared."
The next night.
“Hey, Old Tang, do you know what questions American college interviews ask?” Lu Mingfei was typing in QQ.
“What? Did you get an interview?" Old Tang"s panda head icon was kept jumping.
Old Tang is the only person Lu Mingfei could think of and the only person who can help. Old Tang, an American Chinese, living in New York. Probably he has the family name of Tang, everyone called him Old Tang even he"s not old. It is said that Old Tang grew up in the United States, so he can"t speak Chinese very neatly, but it is ok to type on the Internet. Old Tang has no problem except feeling too good about himself at times. His life goal is to be an Indiana Jones.
“Well, tomorrow morning is the interview, but I searched the Internet for a long time and found nothing about what will interview ask about.” Lu Mingfei answered honestly.
“Well…… The interview questions can be different for universities. For example, New York University and Harvard University are completely different."
“Do you know Harvard or New York then?”
“Didn"t I tell you that I went to society to work after high school?” Old Tang posted a frustrated panda face on the screen.
“This ‘went to society" shows your Chinese progress is obvious!”
“Come on, let"s do the video call, I"ll give you guidance on p.r.o.nunciation.” Old Tang said.
Lu Mingfei took a look at the bed and sleeping Lu Mingze, hesitated, “Then you should low your voice down, my cousin is sleeping."
“No problem.”
Video voice then rang two times and got connected. A funny-looking guy with drooping eyebrows waved his hand with the voice like thunder, “Hey! Dude!”
Lu Mingfei was so scared that he almost jumped over and ate the speaker.
“Be Quiet! Lower your voice!” Lu Mingfei waved his hand to Old Tang while unplugging the speaker line and switched to his headset.
“What"s the big deal?" Old Tang muttered. "The house I rent is near the railway. It"s noisy. Where are you? Being so careful?"
“I live with my aunt and uncle.” Lu Mingfei whispered.
“Oh, oh." Old tang nodded, lowered his voice and spoke in sloppy Chinese. "So you can move out if you pa.s.s the interview? I"ll definitely help you!"
“Old Tang, you"re such a good dude.” Lu Mingfei gave a thumbs-up.
“As the first place in the StarCraft channel, it will be really stingy if I don"t help the second place." Old Tang said, “Hha!”
For a moment Lu Mingfei was a little touched and became more confident in tomorrow"s interview. He wandered all day and spent the afternoon on the roof looking at the setting sun. No one can tell him what an American college interview is like. The other interviewees are probably correcting their p.r.o.nunciation word by word under the guidance of a tutor or parents? But Lu Mingfei found no one to help him. He searched for a long time and saw Old Tang was online, so he went to try. He doesn"t know Old Tang very well either.
But, in the corner that he does not think of, there"s still a person to be able to help him as his brother.
Loyalty, this is loyalty!
“It is said that I am also a person whose parents were dead,” Old Tang continued to sigh. “You know, it is not easy to get along here in America, especially for single people like us. Fortunately, I can get social relief… “
“What are you talking about! Why you"re saying also? My father and mother are just working outside!” Lu Mingfei spat at him.
“Oh, oh, soorry, I got the wrong meaning.” Old Tang bowed his hands repeatedly in the window.
“Please dude, can you stop using your weird Chinese! What"s soorry? Sorry, okay? Isn"t it time for us to do some accent coaching?” Lu Mingfei felt quite discouraged.
“Hum, right, I"ll have some play after teaching, quick! Start now!” Old Tang cleared his throat, “This is the most common opening question used in the interview: Why did you apply for this college, please give me a reason?”
“But I didn"t apply… “
“Come on! Don"t talk nonsense, practice with me! Brother, I am responsible for your life! The great faculty is the key reason, and your college has a very good researching atmosphere…”
” The great faculty is the key reason, and your college has a very good researching atmosphere…” Lu Mingfei followed Old Tang to practice.
As the night went on, all was still in the little southern town. Street lamps lit up the empty streets, and most of the lights in the buildings went out, leaving only the windows of several sleepless families. In one of the windows, a boy repeated some sentences again and again with his unclear p.r.o.nunciation, cramming; while another guy thousand miles away was eating yogurt and shouting "No, No, No!" to his every wrong p.r.o.nunciation.
Lu Mingze turned his eyes, glanced at Lu Mingfei and snorted impatiently. He then m.u.f.fled his ears and rolled over.
On the third morning, Regent hotel.
This is the most luxurious chain hotel in the city, a five-star hotel. Lu Mingfei knew this hotel because Uncle likes to drink tea here in the lobby and chat with friends while letting the waiter refill the strong tea into boiling water. It is not expensive but can make him have a sense of superiority to enjoy the world"s top service.
Lu Mingfei had not entered the gla.s.s door of the hotel and was staring around with a pair of red eyes that had been burning all night.
This hotel is fu**ing luxurious! American schools are fu**ing rich! Lu Mingfei praised in his heart.
He was sitting outside the executive room, which had 17 chairs for each of the 17 interviewers. No one asked them to show any identification, and when Lu Mingfei stepped gingerly into the hotel"s front door, a waiter smiled and said, "Are you the student who comes to Ca.s.sel College for the interview? Follow me to the executive floor, please." He was then brought into the room by a pretty sister in a dress and ten-centimetre heels to meet his acquaintances.
Chen Wenwen, Su Xiaoqiang, Zhao Menghua, Liu Miaomiao were all here. There were others he had seen but could not name, others came from his school, and others he had never seen before.
“Lu Mingfei?" Everyone who knew him made such a surprised sound as if his presence on the occasion were very strange.
Lu Mingfei had to wave the letter in his hand and grinned. “I"m here for the…” He gulped. “Interview.”
Then he sat down on the last chair gloomy with a form and a pencil with names and ages and all that. Lu Mingfei filled in while his eyes flew around.
The situation looked terrible. Everyone"s enemy was well prepared. Needless to say, Zhao Menghua"s tutor is an American, Su Xiaoqiang p.r.o.nunciation lived in the USA for a year. Even Chen Wenwen didn"t dress casually. She wore a blue skirt with white lace socks and a white scarf, and she changed her hairpin to a pearl oyster, like the British n.o.bles" uniform on television.
Lu Mingfei scratched his head and sighed.
“Nice dress.” After losing interest in comparing strength, he turned to look at Chen Wenwen.
The waiter brought tea, croissant and a cup of hot milk, Lu Mingfei ate bread and drank hot milk. After solving the problem of hunger he kept looking at Chen Wenwen. A moment later, a thought occurred to him… Perhaps he"s enough lucky to pa.s.s the exam, and he can go abroad to study together with Chen Wenwen?
He looked up at the roof and suddenly gave a dumb laugh that startled everyone around him.
“Lu Mingfei, don"t make a sound. The examiner is coming. Inside the room.” Chen Wenwen covered her mouth and whispered to him, pointing to the inner conference room.
“Are you ready?" Lu Mingfei smiled and interrupted. This is a meaningless line, he just wanted Chen Wenwen to speak.
“I"m not sure,” Chen Wenwen said, looking at Su Xiaoqiang and Zhao Menghua, lowering her eyes despondently. “My speaking skill is not as good as theirs…”
“You"ll be all right! I think your spoken English is pretty…” Said Lu Mingfei.