78 - Pranksters

Translated by rabbitrisu

Where Qi Yang had reserved was a so-called internet famous restaurant not far from the school. Generally speaking, the food tasted mediocre, but the atmosphere and food layout were all suitable for taking pictures.

But whether it was Qi Yang or Hua Xiaowan, their expressions were a bit embarrassed, since Su Zimo, who wasn’t the same as them, was sitting quietly opposite them.

That’s right. Qi Yang and Hua Xiaowan were sitting together in the four-person seat, and Su Zimo was across from them. No matter how they thought, it didn’t have the romantic date feeling that they’d planned for at the beginning.

Su Zimo, who was in front of them, was alone with nothing but a white cell phone.

Qi Yang glanced at the white phone that Su Zimo set on the table. It was a very ordinary-looking smartphone, and it was a very low-end brand Although it looked nice, the quality was only average. It was popular among students and young people with low funds.

The latest iPhone that Qi Yang bought for Hua Xiaowan cost the same as three of the same white model that Su Zimo had.

How could a person using that kind of cell phone be the kind of person who can enter and leave Qin Yange at will?

“By the way, Su Zimo, what did you go to Qin Yange for last night” Qi Yang ordered some internet famous dishes that seemed to be well-presented, thinking that since his romantic date was ruined, he may as well have some fun with his old classmate.

“Did you not meet your classmates at Qin Yange yesterday?” Hua Xiaowan obviously also knew about the reunion, and pouted unhappily. “If it weren’t for my parents being here, I would’ve followed you to Qin Yange!”

“Don’t worry, I’ll definitely take you there next time I have the opportunity. It’s just… very troublesome to make an appointment.” Qi Yang said, coughing slightly, then turned the topic back to Su Zimo again. “We did invite Classmate Su originally, but he said there was something important that day and refused. I don’t know why he appeared in Qin Yange again that day.”

“Maybe he needed to eat? After all, Qin Yange is a restaurant. You can go, of course he can go there, too.” Hua Xiaowan also smiled and said.

“Yes, but Su Zimo, you did carry a lot of things in your hands that day?” Qi Yang looked at Su Zimo with the same expression someone has when watching a movie. “It seemed to be stuff from a nearby convenience store. It was all food, right? If you really went to Qin Yange to eat, why did you go to that kind of cheap supermarket to buy so many things?”

Su Zimo, who had been quietly listening to the two people talking while waiting with Zhang Xiaoqing, was stunned. Then he remembered that he did go to the supermarket once before going to Qin Yange yesterday. At that time, he just wanted to buy more snacks to take to the nightmare world, but didn’t expect that Elder Fang Qin would give him so many snacks, so those big bags of junk food were still lying on the second floor study in the Su family’s manor.

“I did go to the supermarket to buy some things I needed.” Su Zimo said, taking a sip of the lemonade in front of him. “Classmate Qi’s words are a bit strange, as if I was specially helping the so-called cheap supermarket send things to Qin Yange.”

“……” Qi Yang, who was stunned by Su Zimo’s disapproval, turned his head and chuckled. “That’s exactly what I thought. Does Classmate Su believe I’m thinking too much? Qin Yange really isn’t a place just anyone can enter, but Classmate Su has many ways to prove that you didn’t go there to work, such as the name of the person who invited you to dinner that day. During this time, I’ve met many people while following my father. Maybe I really know the person who would invite you to dinner.”

Qi Yang thought he was cool and spoke for a long time, then raised his eyebrows at Hua Xiaowan proudly, seeming to enjoy the feeling of crushing the other party under his feet and bullying him.

“Why?” Su Zimo was still as calm as ever.

“Ah?” Qi Yang didn’t understand what Su Zimo meant.

“Why should I tell you my reasons for going to Qin Yange?” Su Zimo calmly drank some water. “Why explain things that don’t need to be explained to outsiders? Even if I explain now, there may still be people who don’t believe.”

Qi Yang was stunned again, looked at Hua Xiaowan next to him, thought about the dishes that would be served at some point, and leaned in Su Zimo’s direction to speak seriously. “Classmate Su, I’m actually very accepting. As long as it’s something former Classmate Su said, I’ll believe it.”

“I went there to meet an old gentleman named Fang Qin. That old gentleman was an old friend of my grandfather, so he invited me to have a meal.” Su Zimo looked at Zhang Xiaoqing from the corner of his eye. Her eyes were still closed, so he reluctantly continued to stall for time. “It’s just that.”

“Fang Qin?” Qi Yang frowned. “I seem to have heard that name, and it wasn’t that long ago…”

With that said, Qi Yang took out his phone to check, then ‘poofed’ a laugh and said, “Isn’t Fang Qin the name of Qin Yange’s owner? Classmate Su, you really deserve to be a boss. You really found someone who could definitely invite you to dinner at Qin Yange.”

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“Hey, what are you doing!” Although Hua Xiaowan couldn’t help smiling, she immediately knocked her boyfriend beside her. “You just promised you would believe what he said.”

“Sorry, sorry, I was wrong.” Qi Yang immediately gave an exaggerated apology. “I think top classmate Su should also want to joke with us and relieve the atmosphere of the table before playing this game, so we should believe everything. Hai hai, let me adjust.”

“It turns out that Qin Yange’s boss and Classmate Su’s grandfather are old friends? There really are such things. Many wealthy people have one or two old friend who have completely different family backgrounds, so it’s reasonable for Fang Qin’s owner to invite classmate Su to dinner.” Qi Yang nodded pretentiously.

“Almost right.” Su Zimo thought about the relationship between Grandpa and Grandpa Fang Qin, and felt that Qi Yang was right.

“Then taking advantage of this game, let me ask a question that our old classmates wanted to ask. Many people raised it during the reunion yesterday.” Qi Yang said, after pausing, “Classmate Su, why did you suddenly transfer schools at that time?”

“Wasn’t it a family reason?” Hua Xiaowan lowered her voice. “Isn’t it not good to ask questions about another person’s family?”

“Family reasons?” Su Zimo recalled that Du Xin seemed to have said that after he transferred out, people in the school began rumours that his family was poor and the reason he left the famous high school in Shoushan was because his family couldn’t afford his tuition. They wanted him to go work and make money and other such nonsense.

“Really, it was just a physical circumstance. At that time, my body couldn’t support me to continue studying, so I had to rest at home.” Su Zimo omitted some important information.

“That’s reasonable.” This time, Qi Yang didn’t disagree. Instead, he spoke with some understanding. “In fact, I thought they were exaggerating. After all, your two high school years weren’t too luxurious, but you never worried about money. How could you go out and pick up bottles to make a living?”

“En.” Su Zimo drank a few more sips of the lemonade in front of him, then frowned in disgust.

Lemonade was really not delicious. It wasn’t like the tea Ghost Umbrella makes.

For Su Zimo, habits were terrible things. They would gradually permeate every ordinary corner of his life. They looked like some unimportant details, but they can be noticed once they change.

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Just when Su Zimo couldn’t stay any longer, Hua Xiaowan’s cell phone rang suddenly.

Hua Xiaowan on the other side of the seat glanced at the name on the call. She was taken aback for a moment, and her movements became visibly stiff.

“What’s the matter?” Qi Yang glanced at the name on Hua Xiaowan’s screen. “Wen Xiaoyu? This name is quite similar to yours. Is it Xiaowan’s friend?”

“Ah? En!” Hua Xiaowan smiled awkwardly. “It’s a friend from a long time ago, or a high school classmate… Although we made a promise to go to the same university, we haven’t been in contact for a long time.”

“Since you’re in the same university, how come you haven’t been in contact? An old classmate is an old classmate after all, so the phone needs to be answered.” Qi Yang spoke with a smile. “It looks like a girl’s name, so I won’t be jealous of this.”

“En. I- I’ll take it.” Hua Xiaowan looked at her phone with hesitation. The more she hesitated, the more mixed her expression became, but in the end, she answered the phone. “Hello? Are you… the wrong number?”

“What!?”

He didn’t know what Hua Xiaowan heard, but she suddenly jumped up from the seat. She even raised her voice and shouted, “You and Lin Zhe are outside the restaurant? How did you know I was in this restaurant? Didn’t we say that we should cut contact?”

“I called you and asked you to come to the restaurant for dinner? Wen Xiaoyu, are you dreaming?!” Hua Xiaowan now seemed to have forgotten about her boyfriend Qi Yang sitting next to her, and also about her image of a nice girl in front of him. She said irritably, “How could I invite you to dinner? When I see you, I get a headache. Didn’t we agree not to meet because of that?!”

“Xiaowan, you…” Qi Yang looked at the angry Hua Xiaowan, disbelief in his eyes.

Su Zimo still sat quietly across from them.

From that moment on, the identities of the two sides were reversed, and now Su Zimo was the one quietly watching the show.

It was still a wonderful show.

“I… I…” After hearing Qi Yang’s voice, Hua Xiaowan panicked for a moment, then held her phone tightly and said in a low voice, “Let’s talk about it next time.”

“Hua Xiaowan, what on earth are you playing at!”

But before Hua Xiaowan had time to hand up, she heard the same sound over the phone as the did inside the restaurant. Su Zimo turned his head and looked and the entryway. Then he saw the two figures that he’d seen in Zhang Xiaoqing’s fantasy appear there, looking at Hua Xiaowan with displeasure.

The figures of a man and a woman – one was Lin Zhe and the other was Wen Xiaoyu, but the two people changed a lot from Zhang Xiaoqing’s imagination.

Wen Xiaoyu, Hua Xiaowan’s good friend who followed her as a classmate, removed her thick glasses, got a somewhat neat short haircut, and had light makeup. She looked even more stable than Hua Xiaowan, who felt changeable.

Contrary to Wen Xiaoyu, Lin Zhe, who Zhang Xiaoqing regarded as a male god at the time, looked completely different. His body was as thin as a twig, but as a university student who hadn’t yet graduated, his panda eyes and messy hair made him look even more degenerate than Mu Feng had at the beginning.

Judging from the three’s appearance, it was Lin Zhe who was hit the hardest by Zhang Xiaoqing’s affairs.

But Zhang Xiaowing, who sat at the table with Su Zimo, still shut her eyes. She didn’t even know if she saw Wen Xiaoyu and Lin Zhe, let alone what Zhang Xiaoqing was thinking about at the moment.

“Hua Xiaowan, are you kidding us?” Wen Xiaoyu looked a little angry. “You were so anxious on the phone and had us rush over as if you were about to die if we didn’t come. Now you’re telling us you haven’t called us? Could it be that we ran into a ghost?!”

“Ah!” Lin Zhe, who had looked sleepy next to her the whole time, woke up instantly when he heard the word ‘ghost,’ and then his entire body trembled before turning to Wen Xiaoyu in fear. “Hush… Don’t say that word! We made a deal, never say that word!”

“How long are you going to be crazy about this?” Wen Xiaoyu looked at Lin Zhe with an expression as if she hated iron for not becoming steel, then dragged him to Hua Xiaowan by his sleeves. ¹ Next to the table, she said “You can see that Hua Xiaowan has already moved on and found a boyfriend who isn’t as handsome as you, but who’s at least richer and more energetic than you. You’re just acting like a fool.”

“I really haven’t called you. If you don’t believe me, I can open my call log and show you.” Hua Xiaowan, who was sitting at the edge of the table, glanced at the degenerate Lin Zhe in disgust, then prepared to open the call log and show it to Wen Xiaoyu.

But halfway through, Hua Xiaowan’s hand stopped.

Wen Xiaoyu raised her head and took a look, then laughed and said, “Who said that you never called us? If you never called, what’s the matter with this call log? Could it be that you hit it when sleepwalking?”

“How is this possible!” Hua Xiaowan looked at the impossible call log on her phone like it was a ghost. “I’ve been with Qi Yang and his classmate the whole time. I never called you at all. They can testify.”

“Yes.” Qi Yang, who was suddenly named, thought for a while, then said strangely. “We’ve been together the whole time, and Xiaowan really didn’t call you.”

“Forget it. Lin Zhe and I came here to see if you were really going to die.” Wen Xiaoyu glanced at the people in front of her, then turned around with an indifferent expression. “You’re fine. Continue enjoying your lunch…”

For some reason, Wen Xiaoyu who had turned around suddenly stopped talking. Her whole figure turned into a log. ²

After a moment of silence, Wen Xiaoyu’s voice became a little dry. “Hua Xiaowan, was this restaurant so empty when you were eating just now?”

“En?”

After Hua Xiaowan heard Wen Xiaoyu inexplicably say that, she raised her head and looked around.

Then she found…

The whole restaurant had become completely empty at some point. In such a big internet famous restaurant, there were only the five of them standing and sitting together. Even the waiters and the cashier at the register had disappeared!

How is this possible?

The surprise on Hua Xiaowan’s face was hard to hide. After all, it was noon. The restaurant was an internet famous restaurant where many people lined up to enter. How could there be no one?

“It’s so quiet outside on a weekday?” Su Zimo prompted softly.

Everyone looked outside the floor-to-ceiling windows in surprise and found the very prosperous street nearby two or three universities.. had turned into an empty city. Not to mention the busy traffic, even the traffic lights alongside the road had changed. It was completely dark!

“What’s going on!” This time even Qi Yang jumped up from his seat. “Where’s the car? What about the people? What happened?”

A smile flashed at the corned of Su Zimo’s mouth. He glanced sideways in Zhang Xiaoqing’s direction and found that she had opened her eyes.

The palace of illusion was complete.

Footnotes

<ol>Hating iron for not becoming steel is to hate something for not living up to expectations. She froze.</ol>