Chapter 5: Hiding in Internet Cafes

  Seeing this, some people may ask again, you say this is not right, aren't internet cafes all prohibited from allowing minors to enter? How old can you be when you're in the first year of junior high school?

  The friend who said this basically doesn't understand the actual situation in my city back then. At that time, it seemed like there was a rule about minors not being allowed to enter, but up until around 2006, none of those internet cafes actually enforced it.

  Even if from 06 to 09, a white A4 paper with "Minors Prohibited" was posted on the door of every internet cafe, it couldn't stop the determination of internet cafe owners to think of all sorts of ways to extort pocket money from primary and secondary school students.

  I went to the internet cafe area on the northwest side of the North Campus. Firstly, this place is relatively far from the activity range of students in the South Campus, and it's absolutely impossible for students from the South Campus who play truant during the day to come so far to surf the internet.

  After all, there is no gate on the north side of the south campus, and outside the north wall of the south campus is a small garden with three rows of teacher buildings. The usual practice in our city is to enclose the small garden in front of the building with a fence and turn it into a small vegetable garden for each family.

  Those who live in the teachers' building are mostly retired old teachers who have reached a certain age. They are the only ones who really enjoy the welfare of our school, and it is impossible to climb over the north wall to go online.

  The school is located on the east side of the road, and there are internet cafes nearby. Students generally don't bother to climb over the wall, so going online in this area will greatly reduce the chances of running into familiar people.

  Is this better? The northwest internet cafe area of the North Campus is not worse than the east internet cafe area of the South Campus. It's located next to the national highway, which is a must-pass route for my uncle when he comes to our city, making it convenient for me to quickly meet up with him.

  I walked into a small internet cafe that was deliberately chosen, located by the national highway. The internet cafe was very small, with only one floor, 30 or so computers, and the entire internet cafe probably had an occupancy rate of no more than half even at its busiest times.

  The reason for this is that it's too far from the four schools around here, and it's the most remote corner of this internet cafe area. It's not even 7 o'clock in the morning, so there are only a dozen or so students who haven't gone offline yet still surfing the web. A cleaning auntie is moving extra chairs to sweep away yesterday's trash.

  Under the dim light of the internet cafe, I walked towards the counter. There were two people behind the counter, a man and a woman, both looking like they were around 21 or 22 years old.

  The man was leaning against the small wooden cabinet inside the bar, dozing off. It seemed that he had been on duty last night. The woman was quickly counting the cash in the till from last night's business.

  I suddenly thought that wearing this large sunglasses that can cover half of my face in the internet cafe would be too eye-catching, it seems that I have to think of a way to modify and change my appearance. Taking advantage of walking inside, I started to observe the structure of the internet cafe.

  This small internet cafe has two doors, front and back. The back door leads to the national highway. Because it's a one-story building, the toilet is not built inside the house, but outside the back door. Possibly for convenience on rainy or snowy days, a plastic shed was set up leading to the toilet on the left side.

  I passed by the counter and said to the female cashier who was arranging things inside the counter, "Sister, I'll go to the toilet first, and then open a machine for me when I come back."

  "Alright, big brother." The female cashier subconsciously looked up at me for a moment, perhaps accustomed to the bizarre attire of the delinquent youths who frequent internet cafes, and was not surprised by my rural "killing horse" outfit. She then lowered her head and continued sorting out the things that the male cashier had messed up last night.

  I walked into the bathroom, but instead of going into one of the stalls, I stood in front of the sink and took off the large sunglasses that were on my face. First, I used a ceramic knife from my waist pack to shave off my own eyebrows, then I applied black eyeshadow all over my slightly sunken eye sockets with a black lip balm, making both my upper and lower eyelids completely black.

  I stood in front of the mirror, raised two middle fingers and stuck out my tongue, making a ferocious face at the mirror. This deathly cool pose even scared myself.

  I took off my jacket and removed the sports jersey underneath, cut it into pieces with a Browning folding knife, and threw it into the plastic liner of the flip-top trash can that had been replaced that morning, checking to see if anything was left behind.

  Turn around and put on casual wear, zip up to the diaphragm position, intentionally revealing my robust chest muscles and the ghost head tattoo on my chest, and card that plastic sunglasses at the zipper.

  When I was in high school, my classmates and I planned to get a full-body tattoo that included both arms, chest, back, and neck.

  His father, who had a crane at home, and his mother, who ran a mahjong room, were both neglectful of him. As a result, he was able to spend more than half a year completing this painting. Although it was winter, you can see how little care his family showed for him.

  I wasn't that lucky, only completing the back of a Buddha image on one side and an Asura evil spirit on the other, as well as the smoke ghost pattern from my right arm to my chest front.

  The remaining left arm was just finished, and the part of the left chest had not started yet. During a bath with my dad, it was exposed, and I got beaten up badly. He insisted that I wash it off.

  I colluded with my cousin to deceive my dad, saying that just getting a tattoo and then washing it is bad for the body. It's only been half a month since I managed to get away with this, and because of what happened in my past life after I got into a fight and went to vocational school, my family never forced me to get a tattoo again.

  I've become so disheveled that even I don't recognize myself, I bet no one can identify me now. After tidying up the things in my backpack, I turned around and left the restroom, returning to the internet cafe through the back door.

  "Sister, open a machine for me," I said with my two elbows propped on the counter, tilting my head and staring at the female cashier with dark eyes from my dark eye sockets, while using two fingers to hand her twenty yuan.

  "Number 17," the female cashier said after taking the money I handed over and fiddling with the computer, turning to tell me.

  From 2008 to 2009, some irregular internet cafes in our city still had the phenomenon of being able to surf the internet without using an ID card. Although police would check every weekend and fine those caught, ordering them to suspend business for rectification.

  Sometimes, even if the police come to check every other day or even every day, it's just a formality. The internet cafe owners all know people, and as soon as the police leave, they get the message and kick out all the minors, leaving only adults. When the police arrive, they just ask a few questions, and in all my years of going online, I've never actually encountered a situation where the police really checked IDs.

  "Thanks, sis."

  I stood at the counter and looked around, got my bearings, and walked towards the row where No. 17 was located. No. 17 was inside, with two young boys who looked like junior high school students playing World of Warcraft on the internet.

  And behind these two little guys, there is a heavy concrete pillar that bears the weight. The distance between the chair and the concrete pillar is almost zero. If I sit in seat 17, I will completely lose my room for maneuver.