48 Hours a Day

Chapter 26: Journey

Fuerdai is just a label.

On its own, it carried no derogatory connotations. For people who were either good or bad, they were further classified into superior and inferior. Objectively speaking, compared to the average person, these children of the nouveau riche had the privilege of enjoying better educational resources, therefore turning most of them into the superior kind.

But why do fuerdais have such a bad reputation?

It was only a simple explanation, though. The average person’s vice was smaller, perhaps only affecting those around the individual. By comparison, due to the fuerdai having control over more resources, the repercussions would often be more severe once they committed any wrongdoing, descending into an entire series of problems for the society.

Take Cheng Cheng, for example. Although his sins were not that grave, many people in school condemned him. When he joined the student union in his freshman year, he quickly turned the school into his territory. In a matter of months, he had already dominated all elections causing the old council members who disapproved of him to withdraw from the union.

By his sophomore year, he became the president, and all the newly promoted council members were all his people. He basically dictated the entire student union. Birds of a feather flocked together.

When he was recruiting people, he would continuously pay extra attention to the prettier girls. Once they joined the union, he would covertly appoint his subordinates to deliberately make things difficult for the girl. Then, he would use his position in the student union to settle this matter, making him the hero nobody had asked for.

One thing led to another, and many of the innocent freshmen took the bait. Eventually, while they were discussing matters of the school, they would somehow or rather end up in his bed.

There was a rumor going around that by the time Cheng Cheng was in his second year, that more than five girls had undergone abortion because of him.

One even threatened to commit suicide, but the matter was eventually resolved with an undisclosed sum. Of course, it was a sensational amount. At the end of the day, plenty of people disapproved of Cheng Cheng.

After hearing about all these, Chen Huadong, who had initially planned to speak his mind, found himself on the horns of a dilemma. He did not work at Cheng Cheng’s family hotel and, it did not matter to him whether or not Cheng Cheng was a fuerdai.

However, after finding out about how Cheng Cheng dominated the student union, he could not reconsider his decision. As there was no student league in their school, club funds had to be first approved by the student union before it was reported to the teachers.

On top of that, the student union was also in charge of the periodic assessment of each club.

During their freshman year, Chen Hua Dong and few guys set up an anime club called Tiger Shark, which had been doing pretty well so far.

Although their club had only a few girl members, a group of pansy guys coming together to exchange mysterious codes and indecent material was good fun. If he were to offend Cheng Cheng, Chen Huadong had to think about the problems Tiger Shark would be facing.

To top it all off, the school had a rule that required everyone to participate in morning exercises for a set number of times. No surprises there as the ones in charge of taking attendance was the student union as well.

In summary, the student union was the kind you would usually not notice, but if you rub them the wrong way, it would be problematic, to say the least. Cheng Cheng had quite a substantial number of followers, to begin with.

Chen Huadong finally decided to pursue a relationship with Xu Jing because he did not want to have to walk around on eggshells every day, always on the lookout for anyone who might want to beat him up.

Shen Xixi was looking kind of helpless. She had already said everything she could say. Most people would have given up already, but Cheng Cheng did not have the slightest intention of letting go.

Next to them, it appeared that the Wang Huan girl realized she had done something wrong, and kept her head down saying nothing.

In the end, Zhang Heng broke the awkward silence, “Excuse me, your fly is open.”

“…”

Cheng Cheng looked down and saw the gap in his pants on his groin. Even though his underwear was not visible, it was still somewhat indecent.

Zhang Heng would have been better off not mentioning it at all. He could have pretended not to notice it. Now that it was pointed out, he did not know if he should pull up his zip in front of everyone. It was the most awkward of situations.

Cheng Cheng stared at Zhang Heng for a while before telling Shen Xixi, “Xixi, someday I will make you understand how I feel about you.”

At that, he quickly hurried back into the safety of his BMW. If you pay attention to the way he was walking, you could see how unnatural his movement was, as if he dared not stretch his legs.

“Hurry! Hurry! Let’s go!” Xiao Xiao implored. “Once he gets his zipper up, he’ll come back to intrude.”

Like bats scurrying out of hell, everyone piled into the minibus, hastening the driver to scoot as they slammed the door shut.

Xu Jing was in fits of laughter. “Hahaha! Did you see that guy’s face??! Oh, it’s too funny!”

When she finally caught her breath, she imitated Cheng Cheng’s tone, “Xi Xi, someday I will make you understand how I feel about you…”

The legal-loli made sheep’s eyes at Shen Xixi as she spoke.

Everyone exploded into laughter.

Xiao Xiao covered her mouth. “Enough. Stop talking. It’s so disgusting. He’s a bastard who specializes in deceiving freshman girls. What the hell was all that innocent love act.”

Shen Xixi looked at Zhang Heng apologetically. “I’m sorry. You got involved because of me.”

Zhang Heng shook his head. “It’s no problem. I’m not part of any student clubs.”

Because of her boyfriend, out of the four girls, Xiao Xiao was the most familiar with Zhang Heng and the others in her boyfriend’s dorm. Last semester, they even hung out a couple of times over skewered barbeque meat.

Somehow, someway, she seemed to be influenced by Wei Jiangyang and became very interested in her roommate’s love life. She turned to Shen Xixi and said, “Xixi, didn’t you want a band? You should consider Zhang Heng. He’s really good at the piano. You know Paganini’s La Campanella, right. This guy could play it with his eyes closed.”

Zhang Heng was getting tired of the rumor, having constantly heard it around his extremities.

But before he could deny the gossip, Wei Jiangyang carried on, “Yeah! Yeah! Zhang Heng loves working out. He runs 10 kilometers every morning, and he’s part of the rock-climbing society and is aiming for the K2 ¹peak now. Oh, and he has also learned archery since he was five. The bow never leaves his side. His skills surpass all. People call him the Zhang Sun² from Water Margin³.”

“Ahem, it’s actually Little Li Guang Hua Rong¹!” Xiao Xiao buried her face in her hands.

The legal-loli, another a mischief-maker, chipped in chirping, “I did say that when I first laid eyes on Zhang Heng, I could tell that he’s a gallant and intelligent person. He’s so much better than that Cheng Cheng who can’t even zip his pants.”

Chen Huadong was a little slow on the uptake. Whatever that had to be said had already been said. It took him the better part of the day to come up with something. Eventually, he said, “Zhang Heng loves small animals too. Frequently, after dining in the canteen, he would always keep the fish bones and then bury them in a nice, quiet place.”

“…”

“Hey, that’s enough! If you want to make up stories, you should at least be thoughtful about it!”

Everyone laughed. The glumness accompanying Cheng Cheng’s appearance was suddenly gone, and everyone was in a chatty mood again.

In this age, when guys and girls come together, there was constant teasing and goofing, instinctively unleashing their youthfulness without much care or thought.

After Shen Xixi had heard everyone’s presentation of Zhang Heng, she found herself a little intrigued by him. But that was it. She gave him a friendly nod, and then turned to the despondent Wang Huan and began chatting with her.

Likewise, Zhang Heng thought nothing else of Shen Xixi. She seemed like a pleasant girl who made people feel comfortable around her. He, however, did not harbor any romantic feelings towards her.

Dark shadows flitted past as he looked out the window.

Sometimes, he also wondered—what kind of girl did he like? Chen Huadong had always been legal loli-phile, and Wei Jiangyang preferred girls like Xiao Xiao who appeared to be tough on the outside but, at the same time, also gentle deep down inside.

It seemed like everyone knew for sure what they wanted. Yet, he could not even begin to describe his type.

But for all that, Zhang Heng somehow believed that he would be able to tell when he meets the right person.