My hometown is far away in Moscow.

The four spoke at the same time, and the preparatory student heard them clearly, answering them in an orderly manner: "In the residential area across the street, there are about ten Russians, all with hair, not like skinheads. When I came over, they hadn't made a move yet, they were just cursing at the two of them, and now they might have already suffered a loss."

"Damn it! Grab your weapons! Let's go!" Yan Zhiwen cursed angrily, grabbing the half-meter-long steel chain he used to fasten his keys from the windowsill and holding it in his hand.

Xu Qiang frowned and said, "Zhiwen, don't get agitated. There are fewer of us. Let's go check the situation first and see if we can avoid a conflict. Your chain is all over the place; be careful not to hurt your own people."

"Yes, we're outnumbered!" Yan Zhiwen deftly slipped on his heavy leather boots and instructed the preparatory student who had brought the message, "A few of us will head over first. You go and call all the Chinese gentlemen in the building!"

Hu Yi felt a surge of adrenaline. Looking around and finding nothing he could find, he rushed into the kitchen, grabbed a cleaver, and held it tightly. Returning to the bedroom, he saw that the other three had already left, except for Peng Song, who was still sitting on the sofa, staring blankly at Lu Tao's guitar. Hu Yi waved to him, "Hurry up! Go find something to hold this!"

"I...I..." Peng Song's voice trembled slightly, "Should I go too?"

Hu Yi glared at him: "Damn it! You're such a coward! How has Li Baoqing always treated you? Now that he's in trouble, you don't even dare to go help? There are so many people around, what are you afraid of!"

"Hey, hey! I'm not afraid, I'll go!" Peng Song threw down his guitar, stood up, and said with a pained expression, "I'm still wearing slippers, why don't I go back inside and change my shoes?"

"It's too late!" Hu Yi roared, "What are you talking about, changing?!"

"Okay!" Peng Song rushed into the kitchen, searched around, and then followed Hu Yi towards the elevator with a frying pan in his hand.

The shops on the first floor weren't too busy at the moment. The Arab owner was chatting with the security guard in the lobby as usual when suddenly the elevator button clicked. A group of Chinese rushed out in a flurry. The two tall men in front, one holding a cleaver and the other a chain, were frowning and glaring, exuding a murderous aura.

Following closely behind them were two short men, one dressed in a suit and exuding a refined air; the other with a capable expression and a somber face.

Trailing at the back was a chubby little guy who almost got squeezed by the closing elevator doors as he stepped out. He struggled for a few moments before managing to push the doors open again. He was carrying a frying pan in his hand and wearing a pair of cotton slippers. He shuffled along, trying his best to catch up with the four people in front of him, and hurriedly followed them out of the dormitory gate.

The shop owner watched them go, then asked curiously, "Huh? Where are these Chinese people going?"

The security guard stared intently at the entrance: "Judging by the looks of it, they're probably going to fight?"

The boss shook his head: "Why would you need a pot in a fight?"

"I don't know." The security guard seemed a little worried. "Did you see that person holding a knife? It was a really big knife!"

"I see it." The boss pondered for a moment, then said in a deep voice, "I've seen that kind of knife before."

"You've seen it before?"

"Yes, in a Chinese kitchen. Guess what? The Chinese use those kinds of knives to cut vegetables." The boss gestured quickly with his hands: "I really don't understand why they use such big knives."

As the two were discussing, another group of Chinese people poured out of the elevator. Some were carrying brooms, some were holding spatulas, some were holding rolling pins, and some were carrying plungers. They all looked unfriendly and angry, and swaggered out of the door. Unfortunately, some of them were still wearing brightly colored pajama bottoms, which somewhat diminished their imposing presence.

The security guard stared blankly as they ran past him, frowning in confusion. "Are they with that group from before? With pots and pans, are they... going to cook?"

"That's right, it must be a get-together."

"A get-together? But their expressions are far too serious."

"Being serious is the right thing to do." The shop owner nodded with certainty. "You know what? Chinese people value cooking very much. I've heard that they still often worship the god in charge of cooking, and many people even put up pictures of the god of cooking on their walls."

The security guard suddenly realized, "Oh, no wonder the atmosphere was so tense! Today must be the day they're worshipping the god of cooking!"

"Not necessarily." The boss smiled slightly. "They're dressed very casually; maybe they're having some kind of cooking competition or something. Chinese people just like to get together and work on cooking."

Li Baoqing felt incredibly unlucky, extremely unlucky. He had just encountered the skinheads not long ago, and now he had inexplicably gotten involved with a group of scoundrels.

After class today, he and Yu Feifei went to the market to buy some groceries. On their way back to the dormitory, they saw a group of young people gathered near a flower bed in the residential area. A Russian man with black hair, around forty years old, was talking loudly and confidently to them.

Li Baoqing had seen the black-haired man a few times. He was probably a resident of the neighborhood and often loitered downstairs. Every time he appeared, he was drunk. When he saw foreign students passing by, he would glare at them coldly and sometimes utter two or three incoherent Russian words or let out a few strange laughs.

Li Baoqing usually kept his distance from such drunkards. But today, seeing him giving a passionate speech to a group of young people, completely unlike his usual drunken self, he couldn't help but steal a few glances at him as he passed through the crowd.

Unexpectedly, just as he glanced to the side, someone suddenly stuck out their foot and tripped him. Caught off guard, Li Baoqing stumbled a couple of steps and almost fell. Turning around, he saw that the person who stuck out his foot was a young man in his twenties, holding a bottle of beer, sitting on the flower bed and giving him a provocative smile.

Li Baoqing didn't want to provoke them, but hearing the unrestrained laughter of the people around him, he couldn't help but frown and mutter to himself, "Are they shameless? They're really sick."

He spoke in Chinese, not loudly, but the young man seemed intent on picking a fight, leaping down to block his path: "What did you say?"

"It's nothing." Li Baoqing impatiently turned his face away, trying to walk past him. The young man stepped forward and blocked the way, gesturing to the others, "Come here, this guy is insulting me."

"I... I didn't." Li Baoqing felt a surge of anger. He wanted to accuse the other party of tripping him first, but he didn't know how to express it in Russian. He could only stand there and watch helplessly as several Russians surrounded him and Yu Feifei.

The middle-aged man with black hair pushed through the crowd and entered the circle, turning to the young man and asking, "What's wrong? What did he say to you?"

The young man crossed his arms and raised his chin: "He wasn't speaking Russian, I couldn't understand it, but he was definitely swearing."

Most of those who gathered around were teenagers, around seventeen or eighteen years old, some probably not even adults yet. Although they were quite tall, they hadn't fully grown in and looked rather thin. The middle-aged man with black hair, however, was very burly, with a fleshy build. He sported the same silly hairstyle as Hu Yi, held a stainless steel flat wine jug, and glared at Li Baoqing, reeking of alcohol: "Why are you swearing?"

"I didn't, it was him, him, him..." Li Baoqing said "he" several times, struggling to express himself, and could only keep panting.

Blackie realized he didn't speak much Russian, and his expression turned menacing: "What are you doing here?"

"I'm a student! School, this way; dormitory, that way!"

"I'm asking you why you came to Moscow! You're a student? If you can't speak Russian, why are you studying here?" Black Hair shoved Li Baoqing hard in the chest. "Speak! Why are you swearing?"

Li Baoqing was pushed and stumbled back a few steps, retreating to the wall. Seeing that these people were completely unreasonable, Yu Feifei couldn't help but shout, "It's not his fault! We were walking, it was him—" She pointed at the young Russian man drinking beer, then raised her leg to demonstrate, "His leg, sticking out like that, almost made my friend fall!"

Li Baoqing echoed repeatedly, "Yes! That's right! It's him, it's him, it's definitely him!"

Blackie took a sip of his drink, frowned, and looked at the young man: "Is that so?"

"You're lying." The young man still had a defiant expression. "My foot was there the whole time. He was just walking around without paying attention and kicked my foot. I didn't expect him to not only not apologize, but also start cursing at me."

"It's not true! It's not true!" Although Li Baoqing couldn't understand everything, he could roughly guess that the young man was distorting the truth. He was so angry that he trembled all over, pointing at the young man with a shaky hand: "You...you...aren't you happy?!"

The beer-drinking guy chuckled sarcastically, "I'm telling the truth, you're a liar."

"It's not true!"

"Shut up! You liar!" Black Hair glared fiercely at Li Baoqing, then yelled at the group of children around him, "See? What did I just say? These foreigners are a menace. They come to Moscow to cause trouble and only bring problems to our lives. The government should have driven them all away long ago!"

The Russian children all looked at Li Baoqing, their expressions a mix of indifference and confusion. Seeing that his words hadn't elicited a warm response, Black Hair patted one of the children on the shoulder: "Do you remember what I just said? Why did your mother lose her job? Because the factory she worked for was driven out of business by these foreigners!"

The child frowned slightly, his breathing becoming heavy. Blackie pulled another child to his side: "Why is it getting harder and harder to run your family's shop? It's because foreigners are selling cheap goods, disrupting the normal market order!"

Yu Feifei and Li Baoqing looked at them blankly, completely bewildered. Black Hair sneered, raising his voice with an air of seriousness: "Do you know? These despicable foreigners are swarming into Russia like locusts, bringing huge sums of US dollars, crippling our economy, dumping counterfeit goods, swindling our money, and then buying our girls! They're shameless bloodsuckers! More hateful than the Americans!"

This long string of words far exceeded the vocabulary of a preparatory student. Yu Feifei could only barely understand a few sentences, while Li Baoqing was completely confused, thinking that Hei Mao was talking about what had just happened. He angrily pointed at the young man and shouted, "It's not true! He's very unhappy!"

"Shut up!" Black Hair let out a burp, raised his large hand and lightly slapped Li Baoqing on the forehead, then held the wine jug high above his head: "Ten years from now, Russia will be a paradise for foreigners, and you will only be able to accept their exploitation. Want to save our country? Then drive them out with your own hands!"

"Get out of here!" A child suddenly threw an empty plastic Coke bottle at Li Baoqing, and the others followed suit, picking up things from the ground and throwing them at him.

"Hey! Stop it!" Yu Feifei shrank back in fright and leaned against the wall. Li Baoqing quickly stepped in front of her. Fortunately, there were no broken bricks or tiles nearby. All they could find were dry branches stuck in the snow and soft drink boxes. They didn't hurt when they hit her, but they left a lot of black marks on her clothes.

The two were both shocked and furious, unable to understand why these peers would attack them for no reason. Their eyes clearly revealed their naivety and inexperience, but their faces were full of anger and hatred, and they cursed each other with the most vicious language without restraint.

The black-haired man didn't actually fight; he just stood aside, fanning the flames with his spittle flying. For a moment, Li Baoqing really wanted to rush up and fight these people to the death, but he gritted his teeth several times and held back, hoping they would stop.

This neighborhood is relatively quiet, and most of the pedestrians who occasionally pass by tend to walk around them without paying any attention. Only one elderly woman with white hair and a hunchback shouted a few words at them. When no one paid any attention to her, she had no choice but to walk away angrily with her cane.

Since no one was around to interfere and Li Baoqing offered no resistance, the other party became increasingly audacious. The young man drinking beer walked straight over, smiled, and lightly patted Li Baoqing's cheek twice, muttering a few filthy words, which caused the other children to burst into laughter.

Li Baoqing, at his breaking point, was about to explode when he suddenly saw a group of people dragging a sparse line into the residential area. Leading the way was Yan Zhiwen, who was carrying a steel chain. He rushed forward and shouted at the top of his lungs, "Baoqing! We're here! Are you alright?!"

"Brother Yan!" Li Baoqing perked up and shouted, crossing his legs, "I'm fine! Damn it, those brats went too far!"

Lu Tao and the others came to stand next to Yan Zhiwen one after another. When the children who were besieging Li Baoqing saw that so many people were coming from the other side, they also took a few steps back and gathered on both sides of Hei Mao in a line.

One of the children was a little slower, and when he retreated to Li Baoqing's side, he gave a sarcastic smile. Peng Song rushed over like a ball of flesh and shoved him aside, then held a frying pan in front of his chest like a breastplate, his left hand gripping the handle from below and his right hand lightly supporting the edge of the pan from above, standing majestically beside Li Baoqing and Yu Feifei.

Black Hair, drunk, sized up the group before him, took a swig from his flask, and sneered, "Comrades! Do you see this? These are the foreigners entrenched in Moscow! So many of them! So arrogant! They actually dare to openly provoke us!"

The Russian children, their blood boiling with fervor, glared hostilely at the Chinese opposite them. Black Hair, mimicking a scene from *Braveheart* where William Wallace gives a pre-battle pep talk to the Scottish army, paced back and forth in front of them, waving one hand incessantly: "Foreigners are parasitic on our land, about your age, and will steal your jobs, your resources, your women, and then reproduce here! If this continues, will we still have a place in Russia? What will we do?!"

"Get rid of these sons of bitches! Defend Moscow!" The young man drinking beer slammed his bottle on the ground, and the other kids were also excited, raising their middle fingers and cursing at the other side.

When people go abroad, the first thing they often learn is the swear words in the local language. The Chinese preparatory students naturally learned a few phrases as well. Hearing the Russians swear so rudely, they couldn't help but get furious. They gripped their kitchen and bathroom utensils tightly and slowly approached each other.