Dragons begin with courage

Lu Mingfei released the mouse and let out a long yawn. The screen displayed the grayed-out screen of the StarCraft game ending, the word "Defeat" particularly glaring. He skillfully pressed Alt+Tab to switch back to the desktop and clicked on the little penguin icon.

In his QQ contact list, the girl's profile picture in the baseball cap remained stubbornly gray, like a wax seal that had lost its warmth. He had waited in vain again that afternoon.

A familiar, empty sense of disappointment washed over him, not heavy, but nagging. He ruffled his hair haphazardly, and just then, another avatar popped up—it was that cheeky-looking panda, ID "Old Tang." Without even clicking, Lu Mingfei could picture the smug face on the other end, and the endless "guidance" about how "unacceptable" his loss in the previous game was.

If Lao Tang had seen with his own eyes how he lost, he'd probably be so shocked he'd swallow his "guidance" and call him a "madman." Lu Mingfei was using an old, outdated IBM laptop, without a mouse, controlling everything with the little red dot. Using a red dot to control thousands of troops in StarCraft is like trying to embroider with chopsticks—pure self-torture. If he had a mouse, Lao Tang's prized tactics probably wouldn't have lasted more than eight minutes.

But so what? Time may have passed, but that grayed-out profile picture never lit up. Hours of waiting seemed to be just for a "Are you there?", followed by a quick "Yeah," then a few bland words uttered, and then even longer silences.

This behavior is like waiting foolishly for a ship at an airport. Absurd, and doomed to failure.

Besides, even if the ship did come, he didn't have a ticket.

The early spring sunlight streamed in through the window, warmly enveloping him. In the hallway, his aunt's white sheets, hung out to dry, billowed slightly in the breeze, while outside, the lush green leaves rustled gently—a scene of tranquility. Leaning against the door, his aunt's nagging and complaints from next door were filtered through the wooden planks, becoming blurred and distant, as if from another noisy world unrelated to him.

Spring has come again.

Lu Mingfei, a senior in high school, is about to turn eighteen. A name as faint as a shadow in a crowd.

It wasn't entirely a shadow. Four years ago, on that stormy night, he was unexpectedly caught by a blinding spotlight—although the light was accompanied by the screech of brakes, the twisting and hissing of metal, and an overwhelming stench of blood.

Chu Zihang, the legendary figure known to everyone at Shilan Middle School, the center forward of the provincial youth football team, and the teenage model on magazine covers, suddenly turned his head and asked him through the rain on that miserable rainy day, "Want a ride?"

Then, everything spiraled out of control.

The nine million Maybach was reduced to twisted scrap metal. Chu Zihang's biological father, Chu Tianjiao, was covered in blood and on the verge of death. He and Chu Zihang, on the other hand, miraculously suffered only minor injuries, as if they were deliberately protected by some force, or perhaps... deliberately left behind at the scene.

That bizarre car accident made Lu Mingfei the focus of the entire school's attention for a long time. Curious, inquisitive, and gloating gazes intertwined, trapping him within them. Everyone wanted to pry some "insider information" out of him—about Chu Zihang, about that expensive luxury car, about what exactly happened that rainy night.

But he couldn't say anything. His memories were like a piece of film that had been roughly cut off, leaving only fragments of the beginning and the end: Chu Zihang's profile as he invited him into the car, the cold road when he woke up, the strong smell of blood, and the twisted metal.

Finally, the official conclusion was logical but weak: speeding in the rain led to loss of vehicle control. The luxury car brand even faced a minor public relations crisis as a result.

Lu Mingfei's gaze drifted unconsciously across his QQ friend list. A friend with the system's default gray avatar and the nickname "Senior Brother" lay there quietly.

Chu Zihang had left Shilan High School long ago. He didn't even take the college entrance exam; he went abroad during his senior year. He only added this QQ account when he left, but the chat history was so clean it looked like it had never been opened, with only two lines of text:

Lu Mingfei: Hello, senior brother, I am Lu Mingfei.

Chu Zihang: Hmm.

That was the last time.

He still doesn't understand why Chu Zihang reached out to him back then. After that car accident, an invisible barrier stood between them. Perhaps it was an unwillingness to touch upon their shared painful memories, or perhaps... it was simply a deep-seated self-awareness: someone as unremarkable as him was unworthy of having any further interaction with someone like Chu Zihang, who lived in the center of the spotlight.

"Lu Mingfei! Are you deaf?! Still playing around! Go to the mailroom and see if there's any mail from America! You don't care about your own affairs at all! If no school accepts you, do you think you can even get into a top university? What's the use of all the money we've spent on you?!" Auntie's thunderous roar pierced through the door, violently pulling Lu Mingfei out of the mire of memories.

He shuddered, responded reflexively, and fled the room as if escaping.

Six years. It's been a full six years since my parents left.

He had long since become accustomed to the rules of survival under this roof: keep a low profile, obey orders, and disappear when necessary. The good news was that his parents seemed to be alive, sending money regularly to support part of the family's expenses and sustaining the thin thread of connection between them. The bad news was that their faces in his memory were irrevocably fading and blurring, like an old photograph soaked in water.

When he first started junior high, he would childishly boast to his classmates on the way home from school about his parents who were "doing great things abroad." But he soon realized that what was truly enviable were the private cars parked at the school gate, waiting to pick up their children. As the flow of students dispersed like the receding tide, his friends were picked up one by one by their own cars. Through the car windows, they looked at Lu Mingfei, who was kicking pebbles and wandering alone on the street, their eyes filled with envy.

"Lu Mingfei's family is really open-minded; they never interfere with him, he has so much freedom." (laughs)

They didn't know that Lu Mingfei's "freedom" often ended up in an empty house, or climbing to the rooftop, sitting next to the buzzing air conditioner unit, watching the city lights gradually light up until the night swallowed him up.

Sometimes, a darker thought would creep into his mind: perhaps his parents were already dead. Those letters, those money orders, were nothing more than well-intentioned lies woven by his uncle and aunt. In this clumsy way, they preserved a memory for him, and also left themselves with a "legitimate reason" to raise him.

He even began to feel ashamed of his own doubts, which led to a twisted sense of "understanding." Look, his aunt may have a bad temper, his uncle may be a bit of a wimp, and his cousin Lu Mingze may be a bit spoiled and annoying... but they did give him a roof over his head, didn't they?

He was probably ill, suffering from Stockholm syndrome, and he even began to defend his uncle and aunt's behavior.

But when he saw that his uncle was driving a BMW, his aunt was playing mahjong with more confidence, and his cousin Lu Mingze was earning the nickname "Prince Ze" among his classmates, a morbid, relieved sense of security welled up inside him.

Because this proves that the line is still there.

This proves that the distant, vague man and woman still "exist" somewhere.

This proves that Lu Mingfei has not been completely and thoroughly forgotten by this world.

The thought was as insignificant as the last straw in a drowning person's hand. He clung to it tightly, afraid to let go, as if if he did, he would fall into the deep sea called "loneliness," never to see the bottom.