stonecrandall 010 She once possessed the pride of the world.
010 She once possessed the pride of the world.
The screening room was pitch black.
When the crooked English letters "Chen Wenwen, Love You" suddenly appeared on the big screen, the lights suddenly turned on.
Zhao Menghua, dressed in a sharp white suit, stood under the spotlight, holding a large bouquet of red roses. Meanwhile, Lu Mingfei was being pushed to the front of the row of letters by Xu Yanyan and Xu Miaomiao, one on each side.
"Lu Mingfei, stand up straight, we're just one letter away from you!" the twin brothers teased.
The light and shadow fell on Lu Mingfei, and he filled the empty space perfectly.
"i".
Everyone was holding back their laughter, waiting to see this loser's ridiculous appearance, with tears welling up in his eyes and looking utterly ashamed.
"You mean, you want me to stand here and be your lowercase 'i'?" Lu Mingfei asked Zhao Menghua.
"Yeah, bro, everyone in the literary society is putting in the effort, you can't just sit here and watch, can you?" Zhao Menghua raised an eyebrow smugly. "After it's all done, I'll definitely treat you to a big meal."
"Forget the fancy meal." Lu Mingfei casually extended one hand in front of Zhao Menghua. "Ten thousand yuan."
A round-trip ticket to Japan costs over two thousand yuan. Including accommodation and other expenses, ten thousand yuan is a reasonable budget, which this rich kid should be able to afford.
The snickers in the screening room suddenly stopped.
"What?" Zhao Menghua was stunned.
"I said, hire me as a background character, 10,000. 8,000 is fine too." Lu Mingfei looked at me like I was a low-quality NPC. "If you don't pay me, I'm leaving right now, and your confession formation will immediately have a gap. You choose."
"Are you out of your mind, Lu Mingfei?!" Zhao Menghua gritted his teeth, but couldn't lash out in front of Chen Wenwen, so he could only lower his voice and say menacingly, "Fine! Ten thousand it is! You stand there and don't move!"
"You should have said so earlier, boss. You're very generous." Lu Mingfei nodded perfunctorily and stood firmly in the "i" position.
Zhao Menghua straightened his collar, and just as he was about to cast a loving glance, a strange voice suddenly rang out.
"Zhao Menghua, you're disgusting!"
Su Xiaoqiang, who had been standing by and watching coldly, suddenly exploded.
She liked Zhao Menghua, and everyone in the class knew it. But she never expected Zhao Menghua to use such a hurtful method, not only humiliating her but also dragging the bewildered Lu Mingfei out to be a clown.
"Su Xiaoqiang, what's wrong with you...?" Zhao Menghua frowned.
Su Xiaoqiang didn't look at him again. She turned around abruptly, slammed open the soundproof door in her high-heeled sandals, covered her face, and ran out.
As the door hinges opened and closed, the white light from the corridor briefly swept across her silhouette.
Suddenly, a bright light ripped through her vision, her skirt slid into a crimson test suit, and the soundproof door transformed into the airtight hatch of the NERV base. That was the day Asuka's synchronization rate was surpassed by Shinji Ikari. The girl had turned around abruptly, clenching her teeth to hold back her tears, and stormed out without looking back.
"Idiot Shinji... Idiot Meiji... What do you know!"
Lu Mingfei immediately took off after him.
"Lu Mingfei! Where are you going?!" Zhao Menghua was furious, striding forward and grabbing his shoulders tightly. "You won't get a single penny if you leave through this door!"
"Let go."
Lu Mingfei felt a wave of disgust and subconsciously swung his hand behind him.
"Buzz—"
Zhao Menghua's hand felt as if it had slammed into an invisible steel plate, and then an extremely savage reaction force suddenly erupted out of nowhere.
With a muffled thud, Zhao Menghua didn't even see what happened. It was as if he had been hit in the chest by an invisible truck, and he fell flat on his back in the aisle of the screening room, letting out a scream of pain.
Everyone stared wide-eyed, completely dumbfounded, thinking he had tripped over his own feet and fallen, leaving an afterimage.
Lu Mingfei stopped and looked down at his right hand, which he had just swung, his pupils contracting slightly.
"Keep it for your own paper money," he said coldly, without giving Zhao Menghua on the ground another glance, and pushed the door open and left.
The heavy soundproof door shut out the noisy commotion inside, turning it into a muffled buzzing sound.
Su Xiaoqiang leaned against the cold marble edge of the sink, biting her lip hard, her tears smudging her expensive mascara into a mess.
Suddenly, a tissue was handed to me from the side.
"She cried like a little kitten."
Su Xiaoqiang looked up through teary eyes, only to find that it was Lu Mingfei who handed her the tissue.
"What are you doing here? Came to laugh at me?!" Su Xiaoqiang bristled like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, slapping the tissue out of Lu Mingfei's hand. "Go back to being your alphabet! I don't need your pity!"
The tissues fell to the ground.
Drip, drip. The water from the sink faucet dripped slowly.
"Are you here to laugh at me too?!"
The girl looked up and screamed hysterically at him: "Get out! You useless wretch from the logistics department, don't you dare pity me!"
The old Lu Mingfei, if yelled at like that by her, would definitely have immediately slunk away and closed the door.
He was afraid of facing the suffering of others, and even more afraid of his own powerlessness. But after being infected and baptized by the Apostles on Unit 3, Lu Mingfei's bones had been shattered and rebuilt.
He took a step closer.
"There's nothing wrong with being competitive, and I'm used to your bad temper." Lu Mingfei reached out and wiped away the tears from the corner of her eyes.
"Whether you're defeated or abandoned..." Lu Mingfei looked at her, his voice so soft it was almost a murmur, "you shouldn't hide in a corner and cry. Understand?"
Asuka didn't hide in a corner and cry.
She was crying in the dressing room, her back to the door, her shoulders shaking violently, but she refused to make a sound.
Pride was the only thing she had left, and she held it tightly with both hands, refusing to let anyone see it shatter.
Su Xiaoqiang's mind went blank as she stared blankly at the boy in front of her. She couldn't understand a word Lu Mingfei was saying. But the suffocating sadness and tenderness in his words made her heart skip a beat for no reason, and her cheeks involuntarily flushed.
"Slap, slap, slap."
The crisp sound of high heels clicking on the floor slowly approached in the empty corridor.
Lu Mingfei withdrew his hand as if he had been electrocuted and turned his head away.
A flamboyant girl walked over, with long, wine-red hair and a well-tailored suit, absentmindedly twirling a Ferrari car key in her hand. Nono strode into the mess, directly between the two, blocking Su Xiaoqiang.
"You'd give up 10,000 yuan in cash just to flirt with your classmate?"
The piercing alarm lights flashed wildly in Lu Mingfei's mind.
"What are you looking at?! I'm not happy about this! Close your eyes!"
Lu Mingfei stared quietly at the red-haired girl in front of him, his eyes unfocused.
"You look really good in red," Lu Mingfei murmured.
He looked at Su Xiaoqiang, and then at someone else's tears; he looked at Chen Motong, and then at someone else's pride.
"Who do you think you're talking to?" Nono's voice turned cold; she felt her pride had been severely offended by something unseen. She suddenly moved closer, her long red hair brushing against Lu Mingfei's cheek. "Wake up, Lu Mingfei."
Nono stared into his eyes and said, word by word:
"I'm not the deadbeat you're thinking of."
The figures of the two red-haired girls intersected and overlapped on Lu Mingfei's retina, before slowly separating amidst Nuonuo's cold voice.
The confusion in Lu Mingfei's eyes gradually faded.
"Sorry." Lu Mingfei took a step back. "I mistook you for someone else."
He closed his eyes, gave a self-deprecating laugh, and said, "You are not her."
"That's right, I'm not." Nono deliberately tossed her long red hair, letting that aura completely envelop Lu Mingfei.
"But I can give you something she can't." Nono looked directly into Lu Mingfei's eyes and lowered her voice, "You want funding to go to Hakone, Japan to find traces of the past? Sure, as long as you sign the enrollment agreement in Kassel."
Nuonuo waved the car keys in her hand, suppressing the complex emotions in her heart, and said in a businesslike tone:
"The flight to Japan has been approved, and the Gulfstream private jet is waiting for you at the airport. You want to go to that 'scenic' place? I can take you there right now."
Lu Mingfei quietly looked at Nuonuo, who was so close to him.
He nodded.
"OK."
He turned around and glanced at Su Xiaoqiang, who looked helpless.
"You deserve a better ending," Lu Mingfei said. "Don't waste your time on this terrible movie."
After saying that, Lu Mingfei put his hands in his pockets and walked side by side with the red-haired girl to the end of the corridor.
Su Xiaoqiang stood there blankly, watching their departing figures.
Suddenly I felt a void in my heart.
-----------------
He thought of Shinji.
Shinji has probably been told many times: stop wasting time, stop blaming yourself, and move on.
Every time someone said this, they would leave, leaving him standing there alone.
Lu Mingfei was the one who left right after saying that.
He didn't know if Shinji had moved on after he left.