"You... you can't talk like that! You won't die! Absolutely not!"
Holding up her phone, Natasha walked into her room and flipped the camera to show Chen Ge her desk.
Pinned to the wall behind the desk was a palm-sized color portrait of the Jade Emperor. In the middle of the desk sat a fist-sized ceramic incense burner, holding the burnt stubs of nine incense sticks.
In front of the burner lay fruit offerings—five oranges and five apples—neatly arranged on a plate in the shape of a plum blossom.
Beside the fruit were pastries: five cheese buns, five slices of honey cake, three short and thick ruble sausages, and a bottle of vodka. The modest desk was packed to the brim.
On a stool beneath the desk rested a pack of yellow incense sticks and a pack of red candles as thick as a little finger.
Chen Ge felt both touched and amused. Natasha had actually gone out of her way to bring back a deity, burn incense, and light candles to pray for him—and she had even treated the Jade Emperor to Russian specialties.
Not knowing whether to laugh or cry, he asked, "Where on earth did you get that portrait and incense?"
"Yesterday I visited a Chinese friend. She told me praying to the Heavens is the only thing that works, and she took me to Lyublino Market in Moscow. We found a Chinese store that sells ritual goods and bought the portrait of the Lord of Heaven, along with incense, candles, and joss paper."
As Natasha spoke, she pressed her hands together and made a respectful bow toward the image of the Jade Emperor.
"She even taught me the traditional Chinese rules for worshipping deities. Offerings can't be in even numbers; they have to be odd numbers, arranged like plum blossoms, and you must bathe and change clothes before praying.
"Last night, after setting out the offerings, I took a shower and put on a brand-new outfit before lighting the incense and candles. I did three kneelings and nine kowtows, and then I went by the roadside to burn joss paper."
After explaining every detail, Natasha added, "Oh, right—my friend taught me how to kowtow too. She's really curious about you. Would you like to meet her?"
Chen Ge's interest was piqued, and he nodded. "Sure. Does she live with you?"
"We rent apartments off-campus. She lives next door. I'll go get her!"
Natasha stepped outside and walked over to room 702 next door, raising her hand to knock.
"Lin, are you there?"
A girl about one hundred and sixty-eight centimeters tall, wearing a white nightgown, opened the door.
Her face was completely bare of makeup, and her soft, lustrous black hair fell loosely over her shoulders, with a few strands drifting across her chest.
The wide neckline of the nightgown exposed a stretch of delicate collarbone.
Yet Chen Ge had no mind for any of that, because her eyes were breathtaking.
They were clear almost to the point of transparency, like pebbles washed smooth by a mountain stream, glistening and veiled in morning mist.
Her lashes were long and curled, each one distinct without a trace of mascara, fluttering like butterfly wings whenever she blinked.
Her teeth were perfectly straight, gleaming radiant white when she smiled.
It wasn't a harsh, cold white, but a warm, mellow tone, like the flesh of a freshly peeled water caltrop.
Her lips were naturally pink, the upper lip thin and the lower slightly fuller, set against warm, fair skin with a rosy undertone. She radiated a clean, pure air, imbued with an innocent sweetness untouched by the world, every smile and glance gentle and endearing.
She was beautiful—not the kind of sharp elegance that took one's breath away, but a sweet, pure charm that made it impossible to look away.
*Bright eyes and gleaming teeth.* The phrase leaped into Chen Ge's mind unbidden.
"I'm here, just watching a show. Natasha, don't you have class today?"
The girl looked sweet, and her voice was just as sweet.
"Let me introduce you to my brother's Chinese comrade!"
Natasha flipped the camera, tilting her head against Lin Xiyue's so the frame captured them both.
Chen Ge cleared his throat and tilted his camera up so it only caught his face. He greeted her in Mandarin.
"Hello, beautiful. Surname Chu, given name Ge. Code name Sledgehammer, from Yunnan."
Looking at the screen, Lin Xiyue was momentarily struck by Chen Ge's handsome features, followed immediately by pleasant surprise.
Could it really be such a coincidence? A fellow villager from back home!
"You're from Yunnan too? Which part?"
Hearing the familiar local accent, Chen Ge gasped softly. He stubbed out his cigarette in the bedside ashtray and said in surprise, "Jianchuan, Dali. What about you?"
"No way! I'm from Jianchuan too! Dengta Village, Shaxi Town... Holy shit, Chen Ge! You're Chen Ge!"
Lin Xiyue clapped a left hand over her mouth, her eyes widening into saucers. She reached out with her right hand to grab the phone, exclaiming in a mix of shock and joy, "It's me, Lin Xiyue! My dad is Lin Dahai!"
Chen Ge froze. He searched his mind for a few seconds before retrieving memories of Lin Xiyue from the original Chen Ge's past.
An elementary school classmate from the same village. Her family was a major grower of ground ginseng, the wealthiest household in the village with thousands of mu of fields.
Only, back then Lin Xiyue had been short, dark, and chubby, nicknamed Lin Heidun—Lin the Dark Stump. Now she had transformed into a tall, pale, slender, and curvaceous beauty who smelled clean and sweet. It was almost impossible to connect her with the girl in his memories.
Running into an old friend in a foreign land... or rather, half a childhood friend. A warm smile appeared on Chen Ge's face as he asked in astonishment, "Small world! Lin Heidun, did you get plastic surgery?
"I remember back in the first semester of fifth grade, you got chased by a dog after school, fell right into our family cesspit, and my grandpa had to fish you out! Hahaha!"
Hearing that nightmare of a dark history brought up, Lin Xiyue flushed red from head to toe. Covering her face, she shrieked, "Ahhh! Shut up! Shut your mouth! If you ever mention that again, I'll kill you!"
Natasha: ???
What were they saying?
Did they know each other?
"Lin, do you know Hammer Brother?"
Lin Xiyue glared at Chen Ge, pulled Natasha into the room, shut the door, and answered in Russian, "Yes, I've known him since childhood. We're from the same village and were elementary school classmates."
Switching back to Chinese, she scoffed, "Chen Ge, that code name of yours is so hopelessly uncool! Couldn't you pick something awesome like Dragon God, Underworld King, Reaper, or Demon Lord?"
After tearing apart his code name, Lin Xiyue moved on to his real name.
"Natasha, his name is Chen Ge. Chen—Ge. You can just call him Chen. His full name takes too much advantage of people."
"Chen—Ge?" Natasha mimicked the Chinese pronunciation, sounding it out. Then she tilted her head, leaned close to Lin Xiyue's ear, and asked in a low whisper, "Is Chen's father...?"
Lin Xiyue glanced at Chen Ge in surprise, her expression turning complex as she whispered back to Natasha, "Yeah. His father was framed."
With that, she turned her head to gaze at Chen Ge, voicing the question that the entire village—no, the entire town and county—still couldn't fathom to this day.
He had been the very first top scholar in all of Dali Prefecture to come from Jianchuan County. The entire county had celebrated, with folks flocking to Chen Ge's home with their children just to absorb some scholarly luck. But the door had remained locked. Chen Ge had vanished from then on, never to be seen again.
She had looked into it privately and discovered that Chen Ge had also come to Russia. She had intended to dig deeper, but considering that prying into his personal life would be intrusive, she had let it go.
"Chen Ge, what were you thinking back then? Eleventh in the entire province, top scorer of Dali Prefecture... and you didn't even go to university..."
Chen Ge raised a hand to rub his temples and asked, "What was the point of studying? What could I have done with a degree?
"What was my nickname? 'Little Convict,' 'Little Drug Dealer.' Hahaha."
Hearing his bitter laughter, Lin Xiyue's heart ached for him, purely mourning the cruel hand of fate he had been dealt.
At the same time, fury surged within her, and she cursed angrily, "Fuck those goddamn bastards! May their sons be born without an asshole! May their whole family drop dead, and may their ancestral graves get blown to hell!"
Who was she cursing? Naturally, the ones who had planted drugs in Chen Ge's father's truck.
Back when his father, Chen Lang, had been arrested and imprisoned for drug trafficking, the villagers had split into two camps. One believed Chen Lang was guilty without a doubt: he had hauled cargo from Dali to Guangzhou for twice the normal freight fee, so who would believe he knew nothing?
The other camp firmly believed Chen Lang was innocent and had been framed. Cases like that were all too common, and Chen Lang was an honest, kindhearted man who would never do something like that.
The double fee had been requested by the client for expedited delivery, which was completely reasonable!
Yet simply because the shipping fee had been unusually high, the court ultimately presumed that Chen Lang "should have known," sentencing him to fifteen years in prison.
Lin Xiyue's family belonged to the camp that believed Chen Lang had been wrongfully framed. When the verdict came down and Chen Lang was transferred to prison to serve his sentence, Lin Xiyue's father, Lin Dahai, had stood up for justice, telling everyone in the village to keep their wagging tongues shut.
Chen Ge waved his hand nonchalantly. "Don't bother cursing them. That's just fate! I've accepted it. Being abroad is great—nobody looks down on me here."
Chapter 25