"It must have been done by a scammer! And it must be an acquaintance in the community! Only acquaintances know that our family is rich, and Mingfei has applied to study abroad, but he did this to tease us!" Aunt slapped the letter and said it in a decisive tone.
“But who would send us a cell phone just to tease us? An N96. The parallel imports are sold for more than 4,000 yuan, and the official ones are over 5,000 yuan.” The uncle kept leaving his fingerprints on the pure black N96, like an old woman stroking an ancestral jade bracelet.
Uncle is a very particular person. He always tells Lu Mingfei and Lu Mingze at the dinner table that a mobile phone, watch, and lighter are the three-piece set of a man's status and taste. It is not easy to tell whether the socks are street stall goods for four pairs at ten yuan or high-end woolen goods for fifty yuan a pair, but these three-piece sets are to be placed on the table for people to see. Lu Mingfei occasionally has the opportunity to go out to dinner with his uncle. He did see his uncle holding a mobile phone in his left hand and a lighter in his right hand, slapping them on the table. During the chat, he inadvertently rolled up his sleeves to reveal the high-end imitation Montblanc watch he bought in Guangzhou, winning everyone's unanimous praise for his taste. Recently, Uncle was very dissatisfied with his Samsung mobile phone, which was a bit worn out. He always searched for reviews and prices of new mobile phones on some mobile phone websites. He told Lu Mingze more than once that the new N96 was very "high-end", but in order to pay the application fees for Lu Mingfei, Aunt, who controls the financial power of the family, would never agree to his changing the phone.
"What university? Are you bragging? A scholarship of 36,000 a year? Impossible! Chu Zihang, who ranked first in our grade last year, didn't get a scholarship to study abroad. Chu Zihang's whole family is in the United States and they all have green cards. One of his cousins is a professor at a university. Chu Zihang said that there are no scholarships for undergraduates. The better the major, the less scholarships there are. Those that have scholarships are for majors that Americans are unwilling to study, so they have to spend money to find Chinese people to study them." It was rare for Lu Mingze to be so concerned about his brother's future.
Lu Mingfei knew that Chu Zihang was Lu Mingze's idol. When most people in their middle school were still buying clothes from Nike and Adidas, Chu Zihang had already started using brands like "Burberry". Chu Zihang was one of their school's spiritual idols, far away in the United States, but no one actually knew what Chu Zihang was doing in the United States. Maybe Chu Zihang was working part-time in a restaurant, washing dishes like crazy, Lu Mingfei would think when he saw the admiring eyes of those people when they mentioned Chu Zihang.
Lu Mingfei is such a person. When others are thinking in an upward direction, he will inexplicably think in the opposite direction.
Lu Mingfei's Chinese teacher once used his composition as a negative example and criticized it in class, saying that the composition seemed to have no fantasy spirit, was full of pessimism, and therefore would not have any enterprising spirit.
Lu Mingfei had the urge to stand up and say something. When he was a kid, he watched See You Tomorrow starring Ge You and Xu Fan. Xu Fan said that Ge You had no ideals and no future. Ge You got anxious and drew a Mount Everest on the blackboard, blew up the middle part, and said, "I also have an ideal. My ideal is to blow a hole in Mount Everest so that the warm wind from the southwest can enter the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and turn the snowy Jedi into a water town in the south of the Yangtze River!" But when the Chinese teacher criticized him, he had a far-sighted vision and looked directly at the students who were dozing off in the last few rows of the classroom. So he didn't even glance at Lu Mingfei from the corner of his eye, let alone ask him to explain his mental journey when writing the composition, so Lu Mingfei lost the opportunity to stand up and defend himself.
Lu Mingfei's fantasy can be divided into two stages. When he was in junior high school, he admired his parents, who were archaeologists, so he imagined himself becoming Indiana Jones and forming an expedition team with his unreliable parents to search for ancient South American cities in the Brazilian rain forest.
When he was in high school, Lu Mingfei's fantasy reached a new level. It was because he watched three consecutive movies of "The Matrix" one time. He felt that he should have a very magical ability that has not been discovered yet, like "Neo", "the one". One day, a mysterious person will discover his ability, and he will transform himself in the eyes of everyone... As for what he will become, he has not yet decided. Every time the school held the Spring Festival Gala, the beautiful girl Liu Miaomiao, who was a tenth-level piano player in the class, played the piano on the stage, and the boys in the same class danced around the piano in black suits. Lu Mingfei sat in a forgotten corner with his cheeks on his hands, thinking about it. Maybe a helicopter will come down from the sky to pick him up. A group of men in black clothes and sunglasses walked into the venue with the coldness of CIA agents in the movie, and said in a deep voice, Mr. Lu Mingfei, it's not time to watch the Spring Festival Gala. The organization is calling you, and the war is about to break out. Then they would put on a black military uniform and a long windbreaker for Lu Mingfei, and escort him out of the venue under the gaze of his classmates. Outside the venue, a black helicopter roared, and the huge rotors stirred up a strong wind, like a knife cutting the face. At that time, whether it was the little beauty Liu Miaomiao or the dancing boys, they would stop and stare blankly at Lu Mingfei's back.
Every year on his birthday, Lu Mingfei would wonder if a helicopter would come to pick him up, but from the age of fifteen to eighteen, he had never even seen a helicopter.
Lu Mingfei knew that these grandiose imaginations were just to help him pass the time, but he really had nothing. As "Lu Mingze's brother", he could not find any merits in himself to be proud of. For him, the future should be to go to an unknown university, have a relationship in college, find a job and rent a house, maybe his parents would occasionally urge him to get married when they thought of him, and then he would get married, have a child, and go to work every day.
With this letter from the United States, his stagnant life seemed to be about to change. But in this family meeting, he was like an outsider, curled up in a corner of the sofa with his hands on his knees, and the endless mutterings of his uncle, aunt and Lu Mingze echoed in the living room.
Lu Mingfei knew that his aunt and Lu Mingze were a little shocked. If the letter was true, it was a great luck that only happens to one person in ten years. Lu Mingfei got it first, so Lu Mingze would be at a disadvantage if he applied again next year. Lu Mingze was unhappy first, and his aunt didn't like to see this sluggish child suddenly tremble. His uncle was actually a relatively easy-going guy. It was estimated that as long as Lu Mingfei was willing to give the phone to his uncle, his uncle would be happy to help him with passport and visa. His uncle had repeatedly emphasized that this phone would not work in the United States. It was a 2G machine customized by China Mobile, and the United States had already had 3G.
He stood up and walked out of the living room. No one noticed the departure of the protagonist. His uncle, aunt and Lu Mingze were still arguing about the authenticity of the admission letter.
Lu Mingfei returned to his room, turned on the old laptop, connected to the Internet, and logged into QQ. He stared at the girl's avatar in the baseball cap. The avatar was still gray, either offline or invisible, and there were no messages. Lu Mingfei glanced at the wall clock. He had left a message 18 hours ago, asking Chen Wenwen if she wanted to attend the literature club's activities tomorrow night.
Chen Wenwen actually didn't wear a baseball cap. She had long, soft, straight hair, which was very beautiful and didn't need to be covered with a baseball cap. Lu Mingfei met Chen Wenwen on the day he entered the school. Chen Wenwen was brought to school in a low-key manner in a Passat, wearing a white cotton skirt and a pair of white lace socks, with a Hello Kitty hairpin hanging on her long hair.
The most popular girl in Lu Mingfei's class should be the "little angel" Su Xiaoqiang. Su Xiaoqiang seemed to be delivered by a BMW 750i or a Mercedes-Benz S500 that day. The corners of her eyes and eyebrows danced with pride. After bidding farewell to her father who was in the coal mining business, she entered the class to report, looking at the boys in the new class with a scrutinizing eye, and also expected them to look back at her with admiration. But the boys all looked at Chen Wenwen, who was far less dazzling than Su Xiaoqiang, because after Chen Wenwen finished the formalities, she held a copy of Duras's "The Lover" and read it on the bench in the corridor. The sun shone on her white cotton skirt and skin, and everything seemed transparent.
The "little angel" had been proud for fifteen years, but on the first day of high school, she was defeated by a young literary girl, and she was filled with resentment. At this moment, there happened to be a tactless boy standing next to her, pointing at Chen Wenwen and saying to the "little angel", "That must be the beauty of our new class." The "little angel" was proud of her beauty and had never been bullied like this before. She stepped hard on the boy's foot and turned around and walked away.
That boy is Lu Mingfei.
In fact, Lu Mingfei is a very frank person. He thought Chen Wenwen was prettier than the little goddess, so he said so. Who knew that he would be enemies with the little goddess for three whole years. He said this without any evil intentions, because there were seven or eight boys watching Chen Wenwen at that time, and each of them was better than him. Later, these people formed a literary club. The core of this literary club is Chen Wenwen. There are weekly activities, reading some cold and sad European and American literary works, and writing book reviews to the Chinese teacher for correction. According to Uncle Lu Mingfei, the books they read are all those read by "middle-class white women". I don't understand why Lu Mingfei, such a lack of strings, is the director of the literary club.
But for Lu Mingfei, Chen Wenwen was the first female idol in his life. She established an image of a good girl who was suitable for family life. When he was only 15 years old, he gave up the idea of looking for a lively girl and felt that the greatest happiness in the world was to marry Chen Wenwen. Lu Mingfei felt that he had a little hope because he was invited by Chen Wenwen to join the literature club. The president Chen Wenwen had only invited two members, one was Lu Mingfei, and the other was Zhao Menghua, who was determined to win the little angel. It was relatively simple to describe Zhao Menghua. He was the guy in the school who was most likely to become the "second Chu Zihang".
But this foolish Kassel College actually sent the admission letter to Lu Mingfei.
Even with a scholarship of 36,000 US dollars, Lu Mingfei could not become the "second Chu Zihang" because he did not have that aura.
“Cut a plate?” A big-faced cat avatar popped up on QQ. The name was “Nono”. Lu Mingfei didn’t remember when he had added this person, but he never rejected invitations from others, so originally there were very few people who added him.
"Okay." Lu Mingfei answered casually.
Lu Mingfei still used the red dot control to operate. He was worried and lazy, but he just wanted to kill some time. Besides, it seemed that "Nono" was a girl, and the ones who were really good at playing in his channel were all middle-aged men with children.
But soon, Lu Mingfei found that this opponent was not only fierce but also cunning. The moment he was distracted, the worker bee he sent out to explore the way was eaten by two dogs of the opponent. Losing a worker bee was not a big deal, but the exquisite trap and delicate operation made Lu Mingfei alert. He strengthened the defense at home and sent out six dogs to patrol around, which saved his life. The opponent's team of dogs was detected by him at the first moment of invasion. The dog team, which lost the opportunity to attack, could only retreat immediately.
Lu Mingfei broke out in a cold sweat and didn’t dare to be careless anymore. He threw away the red dot and connected the mouse.
The official battle had just begun. The main forces of both sides were upgraded from Zerglings to Hydralisks, and they both used Dragons to launch sneak attacks during the Hydralisk assault. When the Queen appeared, the fight between the two sides had become intense. Lu Mingfei's hands on the keyboard moved as if he was playing a piano. Both sides had four bases each, and the mixed forces engaged in a fierce tug-of-war in the open space in the center. Blood was splashed on the battlefield. Lu Mingfei had almost no time to think, and he switched between different operating interfaces at high speed. He knew that the other side was not feeling well either. Both sides were fighting in micro-manipulation, and the operation frequency was almost the same as that of professional players.
This was the first time he encountered such a strong opponent in a field battle. He was so competitive that he decided to take the risk and upgrade the main base to level three, deploying the "three chariots" of Devourer, Guardian and Mammoth. This was a fundamental strategic transformation. If the opponent hesitated for a moment and did not attack while he was spending resources on upgrading, Lu Mingfei would definitely win.
The progress bar of the upgrade was increasing slowly. Lu Mingfei's heart was beating faster and his palms were sweating. He bluffed by adding a team of Hydralisks, a team of Zerglings and three Lurkers outside. If the opponent believed that Lu Mingfei was hoarding heavy troops and dared not attack, then she would be fooled. Lu Mingfei only had so many soldiers and he spent all his resources on upgrading.
It's almost time. The upgrade will be completed soon. The elite troops of the "three sets of vehicles" will advance in both air and ground, and can eat up the enemy bases one by one. Lu Mingfei felt the dawn of victory.
"You are upgrading the third-level base." At this time, a line of words popped up at the bottom of the screen.
Lu Mingfei was stunned.
"You can retreat now. I have four teams of Hydralisks and four teams of dogs here, all upgraded to level 2 attack and defense." Nono continued typing.
The progress bar was about to end, but Lu Mingfei could only type "GG" (which means good game, praising the opponent for playing well and admitting defeat) to answer that Nuo Nuo. He was seen through, and the opponent shared his vision while typing. Lu Mingfei clearly saw that outside the third-level base he was upgrading, as Nuo Nuo said, the troops were approaching and could launch an attack at any time.
Lu Mingfei quit the game, returned to the QQ interface, and said to Nuonuo, "I admire you."
Nuo Nuo didn't answer, but left the room with a grinning expression and went offline.
For the first time in his life, Lu Mingfei felt that someone had seen through him, like his closest friend, who had been away for many years, had come back to find him. He sat there in a daze for a while, clicked to check Nuonuo's information, but it was blank. He searched his memory and was sure that he had never known such a good player of StarCraft, and she was a girl.
He was suddenly startled and saw that Chen Wenwen's avatar was jumping, but it was gray, which meant that Chen Wenwen was online but had left.
"Go ahead, see you the day after tomorrow." This was the message Chen Wenwen left him.
He waited for almost nineteen hours, and only saw these five words. But his depressed mood suddenly seemed to evaporate, he jumped onto the bed, whistled, twisted his waist, his face was full of spring, and he forgot about losing to Nono.
When Lu Mingze walked into the bedroom he and Lu Mingfei shared, he looked his cousin up and down and said impatiently, "My parents said that they will call the people from that school tomorrow and see what happens."
Lu Mingfei instantly returned to the real world, remembering the troublesome matter of going abroad. He was too lazy to talk to Lu Mingze, and buried his head in the pillow, listening to Lu Mingze typing on the keyboard. Lu Mingfei's heart was full of mischievous joy. He believed that when he opened QQ tomorrow and logged into the "Sunset's Mark" account, he would see Lu Mingze's affectionate long poem or lyrical prose or something.