Through The Strait Gates Chapter 14

Mr. Zheng, who introduced himself as Xu Xilin's dad, paced up and down at the gates of Sixth High School a few more times, but Xu Xilin had a basketball team surrounding him every time, and he would whoosh by without even acknowledging him. Mr. Zheng couldn't find a chance to talk at all.

After a while, Mr. Zheng got Xu Xilin's number from somewhere unknown. He sent a text to Xu Xilin everyday just when school ended. So Xu Xilin blocked his number.

A month later, Mr. Zheng sent a package to Xu Xilin's school. It opened to reveal a limited edition pair of sneakers and a slip explaining that due to work, Mr. Zheng had to go abroad again, this was something for him to Remember dad every now and then, etc.

Unfortunately this didn't work on Xu Xilin.

He estimated the shoes' size, stuffed it under his desk carelessly, and sold it at a discount to a tenth grade student. With the money, he treated his entourage of friends to a buffet. The half-grown boys and girl stormed into the restaurant, none of them afraid they wouldn't eat their worth. They almost made the owner cry.

As someone who knew what had been going on all along, Dou Xun coldly observed this from the beginning to the end. He discovered that Xu Xilin was truly different from him.

He didn't lack shoes, he didn't lack human love, nor did he lack a father.

Xu Xilin's friends were everywhere. Every birthday, the anonymous gifts from girls that admired him could fill up his desk. He was friendly to anyone he wanted to, he hung out with anyone he wanted to. Even though he was still pretty easy-going and cheerful, and could discover cute points of other people on his own easily, if he held someone as unpleasant, that person could never bribe him over with gifts.

He lacked nothing, had no desires, so he was impenetrable.

Because he p.i.s.sed him off at the beginning, Mr. Zheng was put into the "unpleasant" category at the beginning. So it didn't matter if it was the late "fatherly love" or the "humble token of grat.i.tude". Xu Xilin didn't care.

Dou Xun didn't argue with the logical fault in his trash talk. "What would it take for you to acknowledge him as your dad?"

"Maybe *two or three million, I'm not that expensive," Xu Xilin estimated, thinking with an astounding economical logic, "Even though my mom didn't spent that much raising me, the currency was worth more before. You'd have to take that into consideration."

T/N: 1RMB=1/6USD(about)

He even took inflation into consideration, the ever so careful him.

Dou Xun only felt like he heard indifferent reason. Because he thought of himself as the "unpleasant" type, so even if he was occasionally given affection, he was always on edge. He was always afraid that if that someone saw what he was really "like", they would uproot the affection.

Dou Xun never considered that Xu Xilin might just have been angry at Mr. Zheng for bad mouthing Xu Jin.

He was used to hanging a "please don't kill me so fast" sign on his neck first, trembling in fear so that if his head was cut off one day, his reaction wouldn't be too surprised. It would be better for his dignity.

Dou Xun thought, "I've got to stay one last year."

This thought grew stronger everyday as this brief happiness was one day less with every pa.s.sing day.

The next thing he knew, the last noisy semester of eleventh grade had came to its end with the warming weather. Zhu Xiaocheng and Dou Junliang's divorce case didn't go smoothly. The couple brushed aside any remaining marital warmth, and all was left was a conflict of interests. Especially since there was a mistress on her tiptoes ready to take Zhu Xiaocheng's place.

If it weren't for the living expenses transferred to his account every month, Dou Xun almost had the illusion of being born an orphan.

He gradually got used to the days at the Xu household. His undetectable caution at the start was gone too. He started to have a little existence around his cla.s.smates.

Dou Xun did what he promised himself. He vowed to himself that he would stay for the last year, and was really going to be absent for the college entrance exam.

It was the day of the coming of age ceremony. The whole eleventh grade building was filled with rather well-dressed eleventh grade students--this was a special tradition of Sixth High School. It was rumored that in many other schools, the coming of age ceremony was performed alongside the exam pledge ceremony. Only Sixth High School chose to hold it at the end of the second year, just when the upper grade was going to take their entrance exam. Quite solemnly, in fact.

At this time, most of the students weren't actually adults by law yet. But the school asked them to change out of their uniforms early into a day of formal dress. If the girls wanted to, they could put on some simple makeup. The free parents could also come to witness the ceremony. This event meant that after the "pre-exam vacation" was over, these students would have to enter the real graduate cla.s.ses responsible for themselves.

After the whole ceremony was over, Qilixiang was so tired she was about to collapse. This was when Dou Xun, in a shirt white as snow, informed her of the bad news.

Qilixiang was about to go crazy. Dou Xun hadn't gotten into trouble in a while, and it seemed like even his antisocial symptoms were even improving. Qilixiang even thought her effort had moved the G.o.ds and finally changed this particularly p.r.i.c.kly kid. Who knew that all this was the calm before the storm--he had held himself back and pulled a big one on her!

He had applied for the exam a long time ago. Sixth High School's second grade exam policy was a real one, not the fake kind to train the students with forged school rolls. It equaled letting the students graduate early, and as he had already "graduated", it didn't matter whether Dou Xun missed out on this year's exams or bombed it and didn't apply for a university with this year's scores. If he planned to take next year's exams, he wouldn't count as the year's graduate.

Making himself "held back for a year" for no reason--how bored was he to do this?

Qilixiang dissected the effects of this for Dou Xun. "Do you know how many things will be affected by this, even if you can't see them? Some schools and courses put limits on former graduates. Of course there isn't a lot, and it doesn't really affect anything if you don't have interest in those professions, but the extra credit you earned from compet.i.tions will be gone too! How many people can you win by one point, Dou Xun, do you understand what this means!"

After listening to her talk, Dou Xun answered calmly, "If you get a score high enough, the lost bonus points won't affect anything."

Qilixiang almost fainted at his arrogance.

"Then what is this all about?" Qilixiang exploded.

"Wanting to stay in high school for another year" wasn't a good reason. So Dou Xun gave it some thought, and answered, "I don't want to take it this year."

Qilixiang realized that she was unable to communicate with him, so she had to emergency call Dou Junliang.

Dou Junliang was busy over his mistress and the wife demanding for a divorce. But hearing that it was about the entrance exam, he still set things aside and came to school.

Who knew that Qilixiang, due to her previous failed attempt to ask him to come to school, called Xu Jin after she called Dou Junliang. Ms. Jin Xu was in the Cayman Islands and really couldn't be of help, so she had to notify Zhu Xiaocheng instead.

And then... the s.h.i.ttiest match made in heaven, Dou Junliang and Zhu Xiaoheng, met in Qilixiang's office.

Before Qi Li Xiang could explain what happened, Zhu Xiaocheng started her tantrum magic first.

The gorgeous beauty, her expression on the edge of crying, forcibly held Dou Xun in an embrace. She pointed at Dou Junliang, "Son, tell Mom, did all the things he did outside that affected your feelings? Dou Junliang, let me tell you, our child is going through a crucial period now! If he's affected by you, I won't let you drop this!"

Dou Junliang thought this woman was absolutely unreasonable. "Oh, so that's my fault. Who's the one that hasn't been home for a decade? Me? You ask Dou Xun if he'd recognize you,his mom on the streets! And now you're dropping the blame on me! Let me tell you, you can't!"

Qilixiang was having a headache. "Please, the two of you, calm down, be civil..."

Dou Junliang gestured his hand across the air. "Hear me out, teacher, before this woman was back, we were doing well, right, Dou Xun? You know it too! The kid's grades were good too, wasn't it? This year's exam was something he fought for on his own too--hey, I don't know, why did everything become a mess when you came back, Zhu Xiaocheng?"

Zhu Xiaocheng had already started screaming. "Dou Junliang, it was you who left the kid in your s.h.i.tty hometown in the mountains!"

Dou Junliang was furious. "Right, my hometown is a s.h.i.tty place in the mountains, and you're from the city! My entire family were poor farmers, and you were the miss living on rations in the city! If you really looked down on me that much, why did you beg for me to marry you in the first place?"

Zhu XIaocheng spat at him. "Pffft, you shameless piece of s.h.i.t!"

Qilixiang: "......"

There was a faint smell of perfume in Zhu Xiaocheng's embrace. It wasn't strong, but there was a weird ingredient in it that kept digging into his nostrils and making him gag.

A drop of Zhu Xiaocheng's impa.s.sioned spit landed on the back of his arm. Dou Xun suddenly felt like he's had enough. He shoved Zhu Xiaocheng aside, and rushed out of Qilixiang's office.

Then he saw Xu Xilin at the end of the teacher office's corridor.

Seeing that Dou Xun, who usually was attached to his side, had disappeared in the teacher's office for half a day without a word, Xu Xilin was a bit worried. He ran to Qilixiang's office as soon as school ended. He wasn't afraid of Qilixiang, and if this was the usual incidence, he would just walk in after knocking. Who knew that before he could knock, he heard an earful of crying and cursing through the door. It even made him feel like he was at the neighborhood commitee's domestic mediation room.

After awkwardly strolling around the office door for a while, he watched the office's wooden door flew open. A boy barged out like a typhoon.

Xu Xilin was shocked. "Dou Xian Er!"

Dou Xun didn't hear him, and only dashed downstairs. Xu Xilin slung his backpack onto his shoulders, and ran after him. The two ran out of the teaching and research building at the speed of a hundred meter dash run, one running, one chasing. Xu Xilin finally got caught of Dou Xun at the Second Teaching Building. He asked carefully, "What's going on?"

Dou Xun didn't inherit Zhu Xiaocheng's hysterical moods. His anger was composed, and his pain was silent. The boy's thin chest heaved heavily in silence, his face almost as pale as his shirt.

Xu Xilin tried to pat his arm, but Dou Xun suddenly turned around and wrapped him in a solid hug.

A shoulder still had a heavy backpack slung on it, so Xu Xilin's two hands could only hang there unbalanced, since he didn't know where to put them. He couldn't help but feel a little awkward, as he felt that the meaning in this hug somehow was different from the normal, without taboo touch between boys.

"Not that..." Xu Xilin complained in a small voice. "Seriously, what happened?"

Dou Xun didn't make a sound. He shut his eyes lightly, feeling that of all the places in the world to stand on, to him...this was the only corner left.

T/N: short chapter...managed to squeeze this out