Chapter Fifty-One Birthday Party

  "Some people, upon meeting for the first time, know they are friends. Some people, upon meeting for the first time, are destined to be enemies for life."

  "What's going on?" Ouyang asked Wang Lin again.

  "I went into the office, and then she talked to me about a lot of dreams and reality, every sentence was pointing out my shortcomings, and told me what I should do. Wang Lin was still distracted, it seemed that the conversation with Teacher Yang in the morning had indeed dealt him a big blow."

  "Wang Lin, right? I think there's nothing to it. That phrase is... killing a chicken to scare the monkey." Zhang Hao spoke up from the side, looking carefree but with a sharp insight. Li Quan nodded in agreement beside him. After finishing dinner, Ouyang led the group on a stroll around the Le Fang residential area. Having spent a year studying at Fengmao, he was quite familiar with the surroundings. Zhang Hao seemed particularly interested in the musical fountain in the center of the complex, but it was closed from September to... Li Quan didn't react much, just quietly listening to Ouyang's introduction. Before long, they arrived at Mu Yuhan's building.

  "I'll call my deskmate down," said Wang Lin, taking out his phone. Although Ouyang saw that Xu Yuejie looked a bit unhappy, he let Wang Lin make the call since there were so many people around. Five minutes later, Mu Yuhan walked downstairs from upstairs.

  "Are you finished eating so early?" Mu Yuhan said to Wang Lin, Wang Lin nodded, Ouyang asked: "Didn't you plan to take a nap? I remember you saying that after dinner, you were going to take a nap."

  Meng Yu rubbed her eyes and said: "I was just about to lie down when this guy called me up, who are these two..."

  Xiao Yang Chen looked surprised and said: "Dear, you don't know them yet? They introduced themselves this afternoon. This is Li Quan, that's Zhang Hao."

  "Oh," Mu Yuhan seemed indifferent to the two new classmates, Zhang Hao and Li Quan just smiled awkwardly.

  "Alright, let's go to the fitness equipment area," Ouyang said and walked towards the center of the community. Everyone followed him over there.

  "Hey, Li Quan?" Just as Li Quan was about to leave, he heard someone calling him from behind. He turned around and saw it was Xu Yuejie.

  "What's wrong?" Li Quan said.

  "It's nothing, Ou Yang is usually careless, I'll give you my phone number, if you're bullied or something in the future, remember to tell me and I'll help you out." Xǔ Yuèjié said, then gave her phone number to Lǐ Quán.

  "Alright, I think Ou Yang is a pretty good guy. By the way, are you and he boyfriend and girlfriend?" Li Quan asked while writing down the number.

  "Heh heh, guess what?" Xǔ Yuèjié said with a smile, then walked quickly towards ōuyáng.

  Arrived at the warehouse, Ouyang seemed to have thought of something, then walked into the warehouse, bought a few cans of Coke and came out.

  "King Lin, do you still remember who treated us to our first can of Coke?" Ouyang said as he opened the bottle cap.

  "Remember Zhao Junyi? Today I saw that Zhao Wei, he's not a good guy to mess with either. I have a feeling something is going to happen." Wang Lin handed out the cola to everyone.

  "It's alright, with Zhou Feng here, there's nothing to be afraid of." Ouyang said after taking a sip of cola.

  "By the way, where's Zhou Feng?" Wang Lin suddenly remembered that Zhou Feng hadn't joined them for lunch.

  "I don't know, after school let out he just went off somewhere by himself." Ouyang said nonchalantly.

  "Haha, I won! Another can!" Zhang Hao shouted from behind. Ouyang smiled and shook his head, then was about to take the pull ring to exchange it for a prize when Li Quan also patted himself, and it turned out that his pull ring also said "come again for another bottle". Looks like only he didn't win.

  Not far away, in the cold drink shop, sat Xu Yu Jie and her group of girls.

  "Ouyang is really unlucky, he himself didn't win the prize." Xu Yu Jie said this while looking at Ouyang.

  "Yu Jie, have you and Ouyang had a fight recently?" Mu Yuhan suddenly asked, Xiao Yangchen looked at Xu Yuejie, Xu Yuejie was also surprised, then said: "No, who told you that? We're fine, right?" After finishing, she pushed Xiao Yangchen, Xiao Yangchen quickly nodded in response.

  "Nothing, I was just asking," Mu Yu Hang said and then lowered his head.

  "Have you noticed that since the new classmate arrived, your previous morning dawn has become Ou Yang?" Mu Yuhan thought to herself, feeling a bit worried. She understood Xu Yuejie's personality and wondered if she should do something to prevent Ou Yang from getting hurt. Mu Yuhan stared at Ou Yang and the others, lost in thought.

  Returning to the classroom, Ou Yang felt something was off. The students were all gathered around Zhou Feng's seat, and Ou Yang couldn't figure out what was going on either. She pushed through the crowd of classmates and saw that Zhou Feng was injured, with wounds on his face and arm.

  "What's going on?" Ouyang anxiously asked, looking at Zhou Feng who was forcing a smile and waving at him.

  "It's nothing. I just accidentally fell." Zhou Feng said with a smile, wiping away the blood that flowed out with a handkerchief.

  "What can you do with me?" The voice came from the doorway. Ouyang looked over and saw Zhao Wei, who was clearly less injured than Zhou Feng.

  Wang Lin rushed up to Zhao Wei in one swift motion, grabbed his collar and loudly asked: "What right do you have to hit him?"

  "Because he wouldn't switch seats with me? I was sitting in the back and couldn't see the blackboard clearly, how about it, if you can't beat me then don't talk so much nonsense?" Zhao Wei pushed Wang Lin away with a slap and walked towards his own seat. This scene was witnessed by all the classmates at that time.

  "It seems that I'm not worthy of being looked at by my classmates, and you're worried about me." Zhou Feng's expression was still the same, in Ouyang's memory, it seemed like this person had never been angry before, always with a faint smile on his face, really couldn't be dealt with.

  The afternoon class passed quickly, and Zhou Feng asked the teacher to leave after the first class. The teacher told him not to come tomorrow either, but to rest at home instead. What Ou Yang was concerned about was that after the third class, Zhang Hao and Li Quan found themselves saying: "Let's gather at the school gate as soon as we get out of school."

  "What's wrong?" Ouyang said in confusion.

  "What's going on? Of course, we're blocking him!" Zhang Hao said, pointing to Zhao Wei's position with his hand. Ouyang said: "You shouldn't be thinking... forget it, no need."

  "It's not necessary, since you consider me a friend, I think this is a very normal thing," Zhang Hao said and returned to his own seat, Li Quan also nodded in agreement with Ouyang.

  After school, Ou Yang and Xu Yuejie talked about some things, Xu Yuejie didn't ask much and went home with Xiao Yangchen first. What made Ou Yang curious was that Xu Xue Mei insisted on going home together with him. When Ou Yang asked for the reason, Xu Xue Mei said: "I heard there's a good show to watch tonight." After hearing what Xu Xue Mei said, Ou Yang punched Wang Lin in the stomach, and Wang Lin laughed and said: "Ah, of course we have to watch the show together!"

  At the school gate, Zhao Wei was pulled to a corner of the residential area by Zhang Hao and Li Quan as soon as he came out. By the time Ouyang and others arrived, Zhao Wei was already squatting on the ground, repeatedly saying: "Don't hit me, I'm wrong." Ouyang could tell that he must have been beaten up by Zhang Hao.

  "What's happened to your daytime courage? Why aren't you shouting now?" Ouyang said with a kick at Zhao Wei.

  Wang Lin suddenly remembered something and chimed in: "Go ahead and shout, shout your head off, no one will come to save you, haha."

  "It's really not right." Xue Mei said coldly.

  Zhang Hao said to Ouyang, "It's about time, let's go." Ouyang nodded and turned around to say to Zhao Wei who was squatting, "I'm telling you, we're not easy to bully. You'd better not mess with me and my friends." Seeing Zhao Wei nodding repeatedly, Ouyang signaled everyone to disperse.

  Wang Lin and Zhang Hao both rushed to catch their respective commuter trains, Li Quan walked towards the bus station by himself, while Ouyang and Xu Xue Mei headed together towards the Happiness Community.

  "You're not trembling with fear, are you? You're nervous, right? You never did this in elementary school." Xue Mei said, looking at Ouyang who seemed to be shaking slightly.

  "In elementary school, I was always being bullied and threatened, and I never thought Zhang Hao could do something like this. Thinking about it now, I'm still a bit scared. You think he won't go tell the teacher tomorrow, right?" Ouyang said, wiping away the cold sweat on his forehead.

  "Hey, why didn't you think about it when you kicked him just now? Don't worry, nothing's wrong, and nobody saw it, right?" Xu Xue Mei comforted Ouyang. "I'm worried about something else."

  "What's wrong?" said Ouyang.

  Xu Xue Mei paused for a moment and said: "Nothing's wrong, let's go."

  Actually, Xu Xue Mei's concerns in her heart were the same as Mu Yu Hang's. When Mu Yu Hang shared his concerns with Xu Xue Mei, she only then noticed the issue, but Xu Xue Mei was clear in her mind that Ou Yang liked Xu Yue Jie, possibly not before, but from this vacation until now, Ou Yang had genuinely fallen for Xu Yue Jie. Although Xu Xue Mei knew the outcome was impossible, she also didn't want Ou Yang to suffer unnecessarily.

  On the third day, as soon as Zhou Feng arrived at class, Zhao Wei found him and started apologizing. Zhou Feng still didn't understand what was going on until Ou Yang told him, then he also began to admire Zhang Hao's courage and said he wanted to treat Zhang Hao and Li Quan to dinner.

  "Fortunately, Zhao Wei didn't tell the teacher." Zhou Feng still had some worries in his heart.

  "What are you worried about? If he was going to report us, we would have been called in by our parents yesterday. Look, this kid is still jumping around." Ouyang pointed at Wang Lin and said to Zhou Feng.

  "I should thank those two new classmates, right?" Zhou Feng said, and Wang Lin nodded. Ouyang said: "That's good, coincidentally three days later is Saturday, it's Li Quan's birthday, let's get together then, you're treating us." Zhou Feng smiled and said: "No problem."

  Every time there are classmates or acquaintances having birthdays around him, Ouyang always feels a sense of inexplicable loss. His birthday is in the twelfth month, and everyone is busy celebrating the New Year. Probably only his parents and himself remember his birthday.

  On Li Quan's birthday, everyone gathered at a Western restaurant on the first floor of a high-rise building next to the Happy Community. Everyone was in high spirits, chatting and laughing, except for Mu Yuhan and Xu Xue Mei, who looked less than thrilled. Ouyang asked, "What's wrong?" Mu Yuhan glanced at Xu Yuejie, who was feeding Li Quan fries. Ouyang thought nothing of it and said, "We're here to have fun today, so don't look so gloomy, okay?" Zhang Hao suddenly jumped up from his seat and loudly exclaimed, "If you two want to find a partner, find me!" Xu Xue Mei quickly stuffed a piece of bread into Zhang's mouth. Wang Lin was already laughing uncontrollably.

  "Okay, okay, it's time to blow out the candles." The party had been going on for a while and had reached its climax, which was when the birthday boy would blow out the candles. At this moment, Ouyang still felt particularly happy until he saw Li Quan holding hands with Xu Yuejie and standing up.

  "Should I tell you now?" Li Quan asked with a smile, turning to Xu Yu Jie.

  "Suit yourself, as long as you're happy." Xue Yu Jie also responded with a smile.

  "Huh." Li Quan closed his eyes, made a wish, and blew out the candle. Zhang Hao was still clapping, unaware of what was happening. Li Quan turned to everyone present and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I have some good news to share with you all - Xu Yuejie has become my girlfriend!"... The only ones applauding were Xiao Yangchen and Zhang Hao, while the others had their own expressions: Wang Lin looked furious, Zhou Feng's expression was unclear, Xu Xue Mei and Mu Yuhan looked annoyed.

  Of course, there is also the bewildered Ouyang Chenxi.