Lu Yan trudged on a mound of pebbles piled up near the alleyway. Crouching down, he took a look at the pasted mess of posters and advertisements on the storefront from a distance.
The writing on the upper part of it was written in a crooked and offhanded style: ‘eyebrow tattoo’ and ‘body tattoo.’ There were also a few brief sentences: ‘40% off for a single haircut’ and ‘50% off for two.’
No special customer service provided.
The sentence with the largest font size read: ‘We welcome fellow card companions to learn about card techniques.’
He was apathetic to whether it was a cardroom or a barber’s shop. Long story short, the cost for rinsing, washing, cutting, and coiling with a 40% discount was as Li Zhen had said — it won’t be no more than three digits.
While searching for the manager of the barber shop, Li Zhen had already sent him no fewer than ten messages.
Li Zhen:
[Lu-ge have you found the place yet.]
[I’ve sent the location to the group chat, if you can’t find it remember to check there.]
[Don’t always blindly trust your sixth sense of direction.]
[Have you arrived there yet?]
[Are you there yet?]
…….
Lu Yan swayed off cigarette ashes, and replied with a single line.
[Here, it’s quite inclined.]
Not only was it inclined, but the structure arrangement of this area was also very sketchy. Underneath his foot, there was a chunk of rock from who knew where. Perhaps it had been left behind from repair and construction work. Looking further into the distance, there were towering chimneys of nearby factories. Carbon dioxide gas continued to be emitted, drifting in the air.
Lu Yan stuck the remaining half of the cigarette into his mouth, savoring its taste as the bar owner’s words echoed in his ear, “For this time’s performance, I have a bit of a request, as well as an advice…”
Bit of a request.
Advice.
He felt that it was quite remarkable that he was squatting here now.
After squatting for a while, he flicked the cigarette to the ground, jumped down from a slab of rocks, and squashed the cigarette butt with his foot.
The barber shop in front of him looked exceptionally small. It occupied only half of the storefront, even using boards to make space for half the room.
The table for playing cards was more spacious as compared to the hairstyling area. Lowering his head as he made his way in, Lu Yan heard the people inside noisily chattering.
“Two rounds.”
“Three for one.”
“F*ck your mother! Blown¹!”
Suddenly, a voice interrupted: “Shibo², perming.”
[1] An expression while playing their game.
[2] A sort of respectful address. It has a similar meaning to “master” or “yifu”.
The group seemed used to this kind of sudden interruption, and within three minutes, they had dispersed without leaving even a shadow behind. The only one who had remained there was the older brother of the shopkeeper, his hair dyed yellow with sloppy curls and a plastic comb clasped on them.
“Your arrival is so coincidental. If I had continued, I would have definitely lost,” the store manager sorted out the card counter. After, he leaned on the wall and continued to speak with a heavy accent, “Lately, my luck has been really awful...” As he spoke, he glanced leisurely towards the entrance, studying this customer’s appearance out of habit.
Ominous was his first impression.
He couldn’t say where this bad intuition came from; he just simply felt an ominous air surrounding his body.
Coming through the entrance was a guy wearing a dark T-shirt with a printed pattern of what looks like a certain English letter. He had exaggeratingly striking pierced eyebrows. He clearly didn’t look like an ordinary individual. Although he didn’t wear any earrings on his ears, there was still an impressive row of ear piercings, at least seven or eight of them with some even on his ear bones.
The man’s legs were slender and straight, and his hair was also long.
With his back facing the light source, he couldn’t be seen very clearly, especially as he hauled a dark guitar case behind him.
Lu Yan placed down the guitar case and uttered a sentence that didn’t suit his appearance. He negotiated for the price quite expertly: “Thanks, but that’s unnecessary. Charge me a cheaper price later.”
The shopkeeper was an easygoing person: “Sure, how would you like the perm?”
“Hold up, I’ll find a picture,” Lu Yan lowered his head as he went through his chat history, swiping up and down a few times, “Use this as reference.”
“Not that I’m bragging, but in this faraway place, you can’t find another person with such competence as I do. No matter the style, I’ll make it exactly according to your reference.”
The shopkeeper’s boasting got bolder: “Show me the reference, I’ll definitely make it out exactly as you like!”
Just whenLu Yan pulled out the picture, he suddenly paused and became speechless.
This hairstyle was visually impactful and assaulting to the eye.
Reddish violet, puffy hair , with bangs masking his eyes, half the hair even wildly sticking up like soaring flames. The strange highlights in the hair paired with the attitude of the model in the picture gave off a vibe — Dumb punk³.
[3] Also known as 杀马特 or ‘damage brains’.
They like and blindly imitate the clothes, hair, etc. of Japanese visual rock bands
Lu Yan spent four hours fixing up this hairdo, and after coming out of the shop, the sky had already darkened. He had wasted two bottles of hairspray and the hair blower made his scalp ache.
During that period of time, a melody kept playing inside his mind: Dumb punk, dumb punk, rinsing, cutting, drying, rinsing, cutting, drying.4
[4] Original copy of the song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE_8lpYVC20 Cringe warning...
He sniffed the pungent scent of hair dye and turned on the camera function on his phone. With the help of the light coming from the three-colored barber’s pole, he got a clearer view of himself. Afterwards, he couldn’t help but spit out a curse under his breath.
The image of the model reference had become real but it’s effect on his hair was far from what he had envisioned.
What the heck is this?
What the hell is this stuff?
Marching around on the street, will he be known to the public as the most attractive sociopath?
Lu Yan stared at himself in the camera reflection for a while before clicking the power button to turn off the screen.
The three-colored spiral continued to rotate.5
[5]: The three-colored spiral outside the barbershops
Beside it was an installed loudspeaker with an old melody floating through, transmitting muffled noises while broadcasting an old song.
Excuse my unrestricted indulgence and yearning for freedom~~
Halfway through the song, the phone screen that had dimmed a while ago lit back up.
Li Zhen:
[Done perming yet?]
[You really did it?]
[Didn’t you say to Qian-ge’s face that you would “rather be beaten to death than perm it, whoever wants to find another band to just scram, anyway Laozi is quitting.”]
[You are truly so flexible6.]
[Where are you going now? The bar is out of business. Qian-ge wanted me to remind you that the performance schedule was changed to tomorrow night, and he asked for you to continue maintaining your present hairstyle.]
[How about you pick a nice angle to take a selfie and send it to your bros?]
[6] A person who can endure when he is frustrated,
And can do a lot when he is successful.
Lu Yan was too lazy to type. Leaning close to the phone, he sent a voice message as he held back his anger: “I still have to maintain my current hairstyle?”
After he finished speaking, he lifted his finger off the button. He pondered for a while, and then pressed the recording button again.
“Took a few shots,” Lu Yan said,” Laozi’s7 in a bad mood right now.”
[7] An arrogant way to refer to oneself.
In the past few years, he had formed a band and his career had been performing gigs in bars.
At the backstage that day, he had firmly rejected Sun Qian.
Whoever perms their hair is an idiot.
……
But sometimes, you still have to bow down to the way of life.
Lu Yan put his phone into his pocket and as he took two steps forward, and the loudspeaker started broadcasting again: “Pursuing amidst the wind, not a shadow to be seen in the fog.”
He listened to the melody as he recalled the look the shopkeeper had given him that clearly said: You’re a normal being, yet why is your sense of aesthetics so weird?
This district was fairly close to the place where he lived and he could reach there on foot within ten minutes. Living close by also meant that the environment was the same. With a low population number, construction and engineering plans were always suspicious. Worst of all was the public security system.
The shops opened nearby were purely for entertainment.
Multiple restaurants seemed to have “Unauthorised application and poor food hygiene. If you’re unafraid of eating gutter oil then do be our guest” written on.
Internet cafes were just lacking a sign that said that it was part of the dark web.
Of course, there were also remarkable points. Last year, it was nominated to be the core area for multi-level marketing in 2018. The key to survival in Xiajing City: If you meet any residents of Xiacheng District, turn and make a detour, chances are eight of ten are scumbags.
Speak of it and it really comes.
Lu Yan walked past the food court eatery street and strolled up to the gate of the district. What he saw were two people sitting side by side under the streetlamp, not more than five meters away from him.
The sky had already darkened and the streetlight made their shadow stretch far.
One clasped the other on the shoulder.
“Xiongdi8, I understand being a single parent isn’t easy. I’ve divorced my wife; The child was given to me to take care of. The days are a bit tougher, but that’s what a man is responsible for so you must take up the responsibility. Everyday, when I arrive home, when I see my child in deep slumber, only one word comes to my mind: ‘Worth it!’. All those tough days are worth it…”
[8] A close way of calling a friend.
The one beside said in a low voice: “Ge, that’s two words.”
“It can also be counted as two words. In short, I can relate to you. I understand your state of mind now, and I am also as agonized as you are.”
The one who spoke was clad in grey construction overalls. It’s hard to determine whether this was the clothes original or if, after washing it for a long period of time, it had become like this. His figure looked normal aside from the scar tracing from the corner of his eye to the back of his ear.
Lu Yan paused his steps.
Then he took a few steps forward and silently squatted behind them.
Like a tailing ghost.
The two people didn’t notice anything unusual and continued chatting.
Once the guy with the scar finished, the crestfallen person nodded desperately, as if he had found a companion. He said in a foreign accent: “Yes, it’s really troublesome. She said she’d leave and she really did. She never considered how I would feel. Is my child worth only a silver?!”
After the other party finished complaining, Scar squinted his eyes and changed the topic: “But once you learn to take up the responsibility, I am telling you as a brother, that the most crucial matter for a man is to flourish in business. Once you get this in the bag, you only need to invest according to this statistic…”
The Scar guy held up five fingers. Suddenly, there was a force that grabbed him from behind and he stiffly put his five fingers back down immediately.
“Who is it?! Are you courting death!” The scar guy roared, swiftly turning his head back to look.
Except for that extremely eye-catching hairstyle, the face covered by theflashy and freakish hairdo was quite familiar. The man’s eyes were slim and slender, his double eyelids deep, and the corner of his eyes are lifted. His face looked fierce, giving him a hint of mysterious aggressiveness. His expression remained indifferent and detached, exuding the air of ‘I want to beat someone up.’
“Lu Yan?!”
“It’s me,” Lu Yan approached them with a smirk, not releasing the strength of his hand. “Dao-ge, I haven’t seen you in a few months. Have your injuries healed up? You look quite active. Last time, you deceived people to buy dragon cougar elixir, what’s up this time? Tell me about it too, I want to flourish in business as well.”
Even after hearing this, the guy with an outlanding accent still didn’t realise that he almost got scammed.
Lu Yan glanced at him: “You are not from around here. You’re new?”
“I… I came from my hometown Qingcheng. I came here to work…”
“Qingcheng… quite a nice place,” Lu Yan spoke. He suddenly got the urge to smoke again, so he lowered his head to search his own pocket. When he looked up, he saw that the other party was still standing still, “What the heck are you doing? Run.” That’s when the other man finally reacted, raising both hands and feet and sprinting across the road.
Dao’s eyes were bloodshot from panic: “Ai, xiongdi, come back! Lu Yan, what the hell… let go!”
Once he was sure the other man had already ran far away, Lu Yan pulled back with a bit of force.
Dao-ge’s fingers were becoming numb from being held too hard. Lu Yan slapped his palm as if nothing happened, giving him a high-five with a pa! from the slap. He then took out a cigarette and stuffed it in Dao-ge’s hands: “Dao-ge, wanna smoke?”
Dao-ge’s mind was already a mess.
You came up and broke my fingers.
And then you slapped my palm and asked if I wanted a smoke. Is this a normal thing that a human does? You have no shame.
“Interrupting someone while they’re making money is like murdering one’s parents. Why don’t you bother with your singing instead of disturbing me again and again? Let me tell you, this matter between us isn’t over yet.”
Dao-ge was so enraged that his voice was shaking, but he still continued to smoke. He bit his cigarette and stood up from the sidewalk, scrubbing his fingertips as he turned around, only to find that the man who is exuding the vibe of ‘wanting to beat someone up’ had already sprinted thirty meters away from him.
His voice trembled even more and he spit out the cigarette in his mouth: “You still dare to run?! Stop running unless you want to invite trouble!”
Lu Yan hauled the guitar case on his back, the streetlight shining from above. His hair, the reddish violet flames of at least twenty meters in length, was lit up by the bright light and every strand of his hair was shining radiantly.
He held up his hand and waved back and forth twice: “I’ll be going, Dao-ge. I still have something to do today. See you again next time to reminisce about the past!”
Dao threw out some profanities and flicked the cigarette to the ground. He stood up and started chasing.
But the more steps he took, the smaller his strides became compared to the previous one. The gap between the two was too wide. Dao chased for one-half of the road and couldn’t catch up anymore. Thinking that it would only make things worse if he kicked up a big fuss, he halted his steps and panted for breath: “Reminisce, your ass. Scram, scram, scram!”
Lu Yan slowed down his footsteps and took a turn to the right of the intersection.
In front him, not far away is District No. 07, or Seventh Blvd. for short.
Calling it a district was quite pointless. The districts were usually named randomly according to their order in a sequence, but it’s still too generous to actually say that this was a residence building.
Xiajing is still an advanced first-tier modern city. Only this rundown residence in Xiacheng affected its image. In the past few years, there were programs encouraging private companies to develop businesses here.
Seventh Boulevard was quite rundown, surrounded by crumbling walls, a myriad of steel bars and clay blocks poking out from the base to form what looked like a ‘grave wall9.’
[9] Literally a wall made out of graves like in cemeteries.
But such a chaotic and isolated place that’s not far from being torn down, still has one...no, half a building still standing.
Written on the side of the building was:
— No. 06, Third Unit.
---------------------------------------------------
The author has something to say:
Note: Lyrics come from Beyond 《海阔天空》.
Translator: Piggybank
Editor(s): Rum, Muku
Proofreader: Rae