Chapter 3 Qiao Feng I 3

  "Many things must be experienced once," said the philosopher Linghu Chong later, "no matter what the outcome is, it's just... experiencing once."

  Yang Kang said: "It's all because of eating too much stale bread!"

  At that time, Kang Min was sitting next to Qiao Feng, quietly drinking. Kang Min's alcohol tolerance was better than all the girls, and she could drink alone with Qiao Feng, so no boy dared to tease her into drinking. After drinking a lot, Kang Min's eyes were still very bright, just like before, and the traces of car lights passing by were reflected in her eyes.

  Kang Min said, "Let's sing a song?" Qiao Feng said, "When I was young, I was part of the Little Owl Singing Troupe in our village. The farmers wouldn't even let me go to their villages." Kang Min laughed and asked, "Why?" Qiao Feng replied, "I sang once and the hens were too afraid to lay eggs." Kang Min said, "Okay, then I'll sing."

  Kang Min sang a song "I Waited Until the Flowers Withered", on the screen, an exaggeratedly beautiful woman in a swimsuit appeared by a swimming pool, gazing at the water with worry. Qiao Feng couldn't help but burst out laughing.

  Kang Min sings really out of tune with her piano talent, she's just talking while singing or singing while talking. She says:

  "Do you know, do you know, I've waited until the flowers have wilted"

  "Do you know, do you know, I've waited until the flowers have withered..."

  Kang Min stood in front of the screen, wearing water-washed jeans and a white cotton undershirt. She had a white handkerchief tied around her head, looking very quiet. As she sang this song, hats flew back and forth in front of her, and dishes flowed like water. Qin Hongmian was behind her, playing fist with Bai Shiming. In the end, Kang Min couldn't finish singing because Qin Hongmian snatched the microphone and sang "My Heart Is Clear" with Bai Shiming.

  "Come on," Kang Min said, sitting back down at the table. "Old rules, I'll carry you home if you get drunk." Qiao Feng got drunk, but Kang Min didn't have the strength to carry him home either. A few girls pulled along the drunken Kang Min as they walked ahead, while Qiao Feng was still able to find his way on his own. As they walked halfway, a seemingly disappointed senior brother sat by the roadside playing guitar. The cool breeze blew over, and even in summer, the night was chilly. Many people couldn't help but stop and listen to his melancholic guitar. Further ahead, friends who had been walking together in twos and threes gradually dispersed. When Qiao Feng was blown awake by the wind, he saw Kang Min slowing down, slowly pulling away from the group of girls ahead and falling back beside him.

  "Qiao Feng," said Kang Min.

  "Ah," Qiao Feng said with a chuckle, "does Xiaokang have any unfinished business in our department? Even if you want to blow up the political science department, brother will definitely help you complete it."

  "Not," Kang Min said, "play less basketball in the future and focus on getting good grades first."

  "Ah," said Chao Feng, "you're now starting to evolve from my older sister to my mom."

  "Listen," Kang Min said, "last time you fought with Murong Fu and the others, Fang Zheng was very dissatisfied. In the future, be more honest, or if someone else catches you again, I won't be able to cover for you."

  Qiao Feng was taken aback for a moment and said: "Oh."

  "I've packed some miscellaneous stuff I used before in a cardboard box, and I'll send it to your dorm tomorrow. There are old notes, vocabulary cards and so on. You can decide how to deal with them yourself."

  "Oh," Qiao Feng and Kang Min walked silently side by side under the dim streetlights, "Remember to call me when you go to the train station tomorrow."

  Kang Min smiled: "It doesn't matter if you send me off or not, I don't have much luggage."

  She slowly came to a stop and stood under the dim light of the street lamp. Qiao Feng was slightly puzzled, so he stopped alongside her.

  "Qiao Feng," Kang Min raised his head to look at him, a slender and soft hand gently pressed against Qiao Feng's chest. "Be more careful yourself."

  Like this, very simply, Kang Min cried, in the summer night's late wind crying like a paper doll that would break at any moment. Something was stuck in Qiao Feng's throat, making him feel uncomfortable.

  "What's wrong with Xiaokang?" Qiao Feng looked at Kang Min in a daze as he turned his head and ran away, disappearing into the darkness by the flower bed.

  "What's wrong?" The usually gentle and amiable Shifu suddenly glared at him, "Keep pretending to be stupid then."

  That day, Qiao Feng got extremely drunk, his head hurt as if it was going to split into two halves. So when he returned to the dormitory, his 1.9-meter-tall frame collapsed onto the bed like a scattered bamboo pole, and even his legs were carried onto the bed by Xuzhu. When he closed his eyes, Qiao Feng seemed to see the bright moon outside the window, and then he saw the bright moon in his dream. That big, round, yellow moon, shining like a pancake, swayed gently above his head.

  Qiao Feng dreamed of himself standing under the night sky looking at the moon, the moon was very, very far away from him.

  At the moment of waking up from a dream, Xuzhu was sitting next to him drinking black rice porridge. The aroma of black rice porridge mixed with the smell of Xuzhu's socks, which made Qiao Feng feel like it was similar to the free soup in the Art Garden cafeteria.

  "Expensive," Jue Feng muttered, "is it really worth learning how to make this black rice porridge?"

  "Farmer's garden."

  "What's with the farm?" Chiao Feng vaguely felt something was off.

  He looked up and saw the sun outside the window, only to realize where the problem lay. The lazy sunshine was not in the morning at all, and black rice porridge was not sold in the farmyard in the morning.

  So, is it late afternoon?

  "What's the time now?" Qiao Feng hastily kicked aside Zhuo Yu and stuck his head out to look at the clock.

  5:40, the sky has already turned dark.

  Xu Zhong saw Qiao Feng put on his clothes in a flash, and with a burst of wind, he rushed out of the dormitory, dodging obstacles and trash with a pose as if he was dunking on the basketball court.

  "It's not that serious, is it? Is dinner really that exaggerated?" Zhuo Yu munched on his steamed bun, "Most of the students have already left school today, there's hardly anyone queuing up in the cafeteria..."

  Qiao Feng walked into the girls' dormitory very smoothly, and no one stopped him. Because the empty girls' dormitory was like a desert, even the old lady who was in charge of the building wasn't afraid that he would peek or be rude, at that time the person in charge of the building might have been the only female in the dormitory which housed over a thousand girls - even the mother rabbits that the girls used to keep as pets were gone.

  Qiao Feng quietly walked into the girls' dormitory, turned left and went upstairs, pushing open the ajar door of the dormitory beside the stairs.

  The bed was cleared, the trash was swept away, but the newly cleaned dormitory seemed to be shrouded in a layer of invisible dust. The stool was gone, and the quilt had been rolled up, leaving only the rough wooden board on the empty bed, with perhaps a corner of newspaper that hadn't been torn off yet. The only thing that brought some human touch was the clothesline that had been forgotten to be taken down, swaying gently in the breeze blowing through the window.

  Just like Qiao Feng saw in his dream, the moon.

  Qiao Feng was taken aback for a moment, reached into his pocket to feel for cigarettes. Fortunately, there was still one left, he lit it with some awkwardness, turned around and silently walked out of the dormitory.

  "No smoking in the girls' dorm," said the dormitory supervisor, appearing ghostly behind Qiao Feng.

  "Get out," Chiao Feng frowned, "the boys' dorm doesn't allow it either, go back and ask your old man."

  The dormitory head was stunned, she simply couldn't understand Qiao Feng's logic. The husband of the female dormitory head didn't necessarily have to be the head of the male dormitory, but Qiao Feng had a one-sided wish that the head of the male dormitory and she were very compatible.

  "There are no girls, and it's not a girls' dormitory anymore," Qiao Feng waved his hand and walked out of the building alone, leaning against the empty bicycle shed, slowly finishing the last cigarette.

  According to Zongzhu, Qiao Feng later called the company where Kang Min was going. However, Kang Min first went for training, then went for outdoor trekking training, and finally was directly sent to Hainan.

  About three to five months later, an old student who was going to study in the Western Regions came back to school to take care of his grades. He ran into Qiao Feng's dorm and started chatting with them, mentioning Kang Min. The old student said that Kang Min got married, did you guys know? Xū Zhú said who would be so bold as to marry our little Kang sister. The old student said nonsense, there are many people in the world who dare to eat leopard gallbladders, do you remember Xiao Ma from your basketball team?

  Xu Zhong was taken aback: "Ma Dajun?"

  He slowly exhaled a ring of smoke: "That's called perseverance. Originally, he could have stayed in Bianliang, but wasn't it for the sake of pursuing a stable life that he went to work at the same company as her? They were both sent to Hainan early on."

  "Really?" said Zhuo: "Can Brother Ma control Sister Kang?"

  "It's a girl, after all," said Lao Sheng, who had been away from school for several months and had clearly broadened his horizons. He waved his hand carelessly as he held his cigarette. "She'll have to get married eventually. Xiao Kang is clever, Ma Dajun treats her well, so of course she'll marry him. Girls age quickly, those boys who used to chase after her aren't reliable, it's better for her to find someone dependable. Who has the time to waste on that? It's good that she can stay young for a few more years."

  At this time, Zhuo Yu saw Qiao Feng pick up the rice bowl and go outside, and hurriedly said: "Hey, Qiao Feng..."

  Xu Zhong originally wanted to ask Qiao Feng to help him occupy a seat for self-study, but heard Qiao Feng say something that made no sense.

  Qiao Feng said: "Ma Deyuan used to be able to grab rebounds..."

  That night, after all the self-study rooms had turned off their lights, Qiao Feng was playing basketball on the quiet outdoor basketball court outside the three schools.

  The three lamps were gone, only a faint light beside the bulletin board shone on the basketball court. And then there was the starlight above. Nobody else played ball in such a dark night, Qiao Feng did.

  A passing brother said: "Wow, this guy is fierce, fighting alone for the whole game!"

  Qiao Feng played the whole game alone, like a leopard bringing the ball to the three-step basket, then snatching the fallen basketball and moving it to another half court, coming and going like the wind. One after another.

  Up basket, up basket, again up basket.

  Qiao Feng stood alone under the basketball hoop, the ball rolled off the rim and fell to the ground with a loud thud.

  No one applauded.

  Qiao Feng sucked up the apple Fanta and walked out of the library, coolly raising his head to gaze at the starry sky, crumpling the paper cup in his hand into a ball and throwing it far away into the trash can.

  The students next to him took a detour, thinking that Qiao Feng was quite like a triad boss going out to kill someone at that time. At that time, the sports center always played Hong Kong movies, and before the big brothers went out to risk their lives, it was windy and easy to get cold, and the large printed white paper was blown up and down in front of the window. If Qiao Feng had pulled out an Uzi and taken care of everyone around him at that time, he would have perfectly interpreted this scene.

  However, here is only a big deal for Bian Da, so Qiao Feng just raised the corner of his mouth and said in a low and classic tone: "Damn it!"

  The result of this farcical transformation is "Journey to the West", and someone once said: "He looks like a dog."