Lu Yan planted his feet on the rocky slope at the lane’s entrance. Squatting down, he squinted at the mess of advertisements adhered to the store window some distance away.
The words “eyebrow tattoo”, “tattoo”, and a few other concise advertising slogans: “one haircut 60% off”, “two haircuts 50% off”, were haphazardly pasted on the display front.
“No special services provided.”
The largest font line read, “Welcome friends from all walks of life to exchange card skills.”
Lu Yan didn’t really care if the barber shop was actually a card room in disguise. In any case, just like that kid Li Zhen said, 60% off the price for a full wash, cut, and perm meant that the total could not be more than three digits.
Within the time span of him just locating the shop, Li Zhen already sent Lu Yan no less than ten messages.
Li Zhen: [ Yan ge, have you found the place?]
[I sent the location in the group chat, remember to look around you ah.]
[Just don’t trust your bizarre sense of direction and sixth sense.]
[Are you there yet?]
[Are you there yet?]
……
Lu Yan flicked his cigarette ash, and replied to the last message.
[I’m here, the place is so secluded.]
Not only was it remote, but the planning within the area was even more puzzling. The stone pile of unknown origin underfoot could have been waste materials left behind after maintenance construction, but one could never tell.
In the distance, there were several towering chimneys belonging to the nearby factories. Chemical waste gas was constantly floating out, creating a gray and smoggy atmosphere.
As Lu Yan took a puff of the remaining half of his cigarette, the bar owner’s words kept ringing in his mind: “Regarding your recent performance, I just have a few small requests and suggestions.”
Small requests.
Suggestions.
After squatting for a while, Lu Yan threw the cigarette to the ground, stepped down from the stone pile, and snubbed it with the heel of his shoe.
The barber shop in front of him was surprisingly small, occupying only half of the store front, which was barely drawn out with a partition board. The table for playing cards was wider than the working area for cutting hair.
When Lu Yan lowered his head and walked into the entrance, the people sitting by the table were still howling: “Two rounds.”
“Three cards plus one.”
“Damn it, blow it up!”
This was abruptly interspersed when Lu Yan said: “Master, perm my hair.”
Those people seemed to be experienced with this kind of temporary disbandment. In less than three minutes, they were gone.
The only one remaining was the store manager with blonde curly hair. His look was complete with two plastic combs pinned to his disheveled locks.
“You’ve come at a good time. If we continued playing, I would’ve headed straight into a loss”, he said as he put the card table away and stood it up against the wall, continuing with a severe accent, “My luck has been really fucking bad lately…”
As the manager rambled on, he took a peek at Lu Yan, looking at the customer’s appearance out of habit.
The first impression of the youth gave off a sense of evil.
The manager couldn’t pinpoint the root cause of the evil. In short, there was an evil aura all over his body.
He who came in was wearing a dark t-shirt with an English letter pattern printed on it. The youth flamboyantly inserted two studs at the end of his eyebrow—not looking like any decent person. Although there was nothing hanging on his ear, one could see a row of tiny ear holes, seven or eight, on both the lobe and cartilage.
His legs were slender and straight, and the youth’s hair was quite long.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Vijcafv jujlcra atf iluta, bcf mbeiv wjxf bea j ibcu yijmx uelajg yju bc tlr yjmx.
Oe Tjc qea vbkc tlr yju, jcv rjlv j rfcafcmf atja vlv cba wjamt tlr jqqfjgjcmf jr tf clwyis yjgujlcfv obg j mtfjqfg qglmf: “Ktfgf lr cb cffv ab atjcx wf, pera ulnf wf j vlrmbeca ijafg.”
The store manager was also a straightforward person: “Sure. What kind of style do you want?”
“Hang on, I’ll find a picture.” Lu Yan looked down at the chat log and swiped a few times, “According to this.”
“Not that I’m exaggerating, but you won’t be able to find a second hairstyling master like me anywhere around here. No matter what hairstyle you want, I can cut it for you.”
The more he exaggerated, the more energy he got.
“If you give me a reference, I promise to cut it exactly like that for you.”
As he said that, Lu Yan’s picture finally loaded.
The manager’s voice came to an abrupt halt.
It was a look with a very strong visual impact.
It was red and purple, with explosive volume and a mess of bangs covering the eyes. Half of the hair was wildly sticking up like a soaring flame. Every outlandish strand highlighted the shamate temperament of the model in the picture.
…..
Lu Yan was stuck in his seat for over four hours; by the time he headed out the door, it was already dark out.
The hair stylist ended up using two cans of hairspray, and his head was starting to hurt from the constant whirring of the hair dryer.
During that time, Lu Yan could not help but repeat the same tune in his head: Shamate, shamate, wash and cut, cut, cut, and blow.
Nose still stinging from the pungent smell of hair dye, Lu Yan turned on the front camera of his phone. As he borrowed the faint light from the three-color barber pole, he couldn’t help but curse in a low voice.
The reference picture manifested into reality, and the effect it had on Lu Yan was even more shocking than imagined.
What the hell.
What the hell is this?
Walking on the street, wouldn’t he become the most eye-catching lunatic on the entire block?
Lu Yan stared at himself through the camera for a while. Then he pressed the power button to turn off the screen.
The tri-color pole kept rotating in circles.
There was also a large speaker beside it, with the sound flowing from old machine parts that created the occasional static murmur.
“Forgive me for being untamed all my life.”
Halfway through the song, the screen that just went dark suddenly lit up again.
Li Zhen: [Are you done with your hair?]
[Did you really perm it?]
[Weren’t you also the one who said to Tong ge that you wouldn’t do it for the life of you? And that they could find another band, because laozi refuses to work?]
[Looks like you really are flexible.]
[Where are you going now? The bar is closed tonight, Tong ge asked me to tell you that the performance will be moved to tomorrow night, and he asked you to carefully maintain your current look.]
[Would you like to take a selfie at a good angle and show it to us guys?]
Lu Yan was too lazy to type. Instead, he leaned close to the phone and sent a voice message. He smiled angrily: “I still have to keep my look?”
After speaking, he let go.
After thinking about it, he pressed the voice button again.
“Take a few selfies,” Lu Yan imitated, “I am in a very bad mood now.”
In the past few years, Lu Yan formed a band, where he performed at local bars.
He did reject Sun Qiao completely backstage at the bar that day.
After all, whoever would agree to such a ridiculous hairstyle is an absolute fool.
……
But sometimes people need to bow down to life.
Lu Yan put the phone back into his pocket, and walked out two steps, when the speaker sang again: “I give chase braving the wind and rain— Unable to make out my shadows amidst the mist—”.
Listening to the song, he recalled the look in the eyes of the barber shop owner before he went out, which clearly said: “The youth seemed like a good person, but what the hell is wrong with his taste?”
……
The current neighborhood was only a ten minutes’ walk away from where Lu Yan lived. However, the close proximity meant that the environment was also similar; with a low civilization index and poor public security. Moreover, regarding the issue of urban planning, citizens could not for the life of them figure out what management was thinking.
All the street side stalls only opened as a joke.
Several restaurants also repeatedly wrote signs: “Our operations are unlicensed, food hygiene is unqualified, only come if you are unafraid of gutter oil.”
Internet cafes were even worse. They were all associated with the dark web, but the owners didn’t even bother hanging any signs.
Of course, there were honors too. Last year, it was even featured in the first rule of survival in Xiajiang City: “Those who encounter Xiacheng District must walk around it. Eight out of ten residents are not good people.”
What you think is what you get.
Lu Yan just crossed the street of restaurants and was walking near the community gate when he saw two people sitting side by side under the streetlights a few meters away.
Did his mind’s image manifested into reality again?
The sky was already dark, and the streetlamp cast long shadows of the two individuals.
One of them patted the other’s shoulder.
“Bro, I know, raising a child alone is not easy. I also divorced my wife, and the child is with me. Life is hard right now, but us men must bear our responsibilities. Every time I come home and see my child asleep, I feel—it’s just one word, worth it! This bit of hardship is nothing…”
The other said in a low mood: “Bro, that’s two words…”
“Whether it’s one word or two words, anyway, I understand you. I know how you feel now, I once felt just as uncomfortable as you.”
The person who spoke was wearing a gray work uniform. However, Lu Yan couldn’t tell if it was the original color of the outfit or the result of discoloration after long periods of wear. The man had plain features, but there was a distinct knife scar on his face which snaked from the corner of his eyes to behind his ears.
Lu Yan paused.
Then he took a few steps forward and squatted quietly behind them.
The two people were still intently speaking to each other, so they didn’t notice that anything was unusual.
When the person with a scar finished speaking, the depressed person nodded desperately. As if he found a confidant, he replied with a regional accent: “Yeah, it really is upsetting. She said she would leave and then immediately did! She did not even consider my feelings at all. Is the child only mine?”
After the other party finished complaining, Knife Scar squinted his eyes, and deftly changed the topic, “Bro, now that I have finally made it, I will tell you that the most important thing for a man is to succeed in his career. I have a business opportunity on hand. You only need to invest in this number…”
Knife Scar’s five fingers just stretched out, when an unknown force from behind forcibly pushed his fingers back.
“Who! Which dog is looking for death!” Knife Scar yelled, turning his head and looking back.
Except for the extremely ridiculous shape on his head, the face under the colorful hairstyle could not have been more familiar to him—the man’s eyes were slender and elegant, with deep set eyelids and a sharp face that brought in a kind of unknown evil. When that kind of face was expressionless and silent, it gave off a feeling of “laozi is going to hit someone.”
“Lu Yan?!”
“It’s me,” Lu Yan greeted him with a smile but maintained a firm grip on his hand. “Scar xiong, I haven’t seen you in a few months, have you recovered from your injuries? Seeing that you are in such good spirits, let me recall how you tricked others to invest in Dragon Tiger Pills last time. So what is it this time? Let me listen, I want to make a fortune too.”
As soon as that sentence came out, the person with the accent next to him was suddenly struck by the realization that he almost fell into a nefarious trap.
Looking at him, Lu Yan said, “You’re not from around here. New here?”
“I-I’m from Qingcheng, came here to work…”
“Qingcheng, a good place.”
As Lu Yan finished speaking, he found that he wanted to smoke again. Lowering his head to touch his pocket, he looked up to see that the man was still standing in front of him.
“What are you still doing in a daze? Run.”
That guy then finally reacted. Stumbling upright using his hands and feet, he ran across the road.
Knife Scar’s eyes became red with urgency: “Hey bro, come back… Lu Yan, damn it, let go!”
Only when the other was far away did Lu Yan loosen the force of his grip marginally.
Knife Scar’s fingers were held so tightly that he couldn’t move them for a while. Lu Yan patted his palm as if nothing happened, lightly slapped his hand, and then stuffed the cigarette he took out into Knife Scar’s hand.
“Scar xiong, want a smoke?”
Knife Scar’s heart was trembling with a big “fuck you” he wanted to scream.
Lu Yan really walked up just to immediately snap his fingers.
After snapping he then gently gave a high five and cigarettes. Is this something that normal people can do? Did Lu Yan really have no face left to lose?
“Blocking one’s path to fortune is like killing a parent. Instead of singing your songs well, you disturb me again and again. Regarding this issue, I’m not done with you!”
Knife Scar was so angry that his voice began to tremble, but he still took the cigarette and put it in his mouth. Standing up from the roadside steps, he rubbed his fingers and turned around, only to find that the “laozi is going to hit someone” face was already thirty meters away from him.
His voice trembled more and more, to the point where the cigarette fell out of his mouth.
“You’re running away!? Don’t run if you have the guts to block my fortune!”
As Lu Yan carried his guitar bag on his back, the purple-red flame on his head—which stood at least twenty centimeters high—was illuminated by the street lamp’s strong light. Every strand of hair was shining brightly.
He raised his hand and floated a few fingers in the air back and forth twice.
“Scar xiong, I’ll be going now. I still have things to do today. Let’s reminisce about it some other time.”
Knife Scar yelled and cursed for a while. Throwing the cigarette on the ground and stepping on it, he rushed to catch up to Lu Yan.
However, the two steps he took could not even measure up to the distance of Lu Yan’s one step. The difference in physical abilities between the two was really too big. Knife Scar chased for half a street before he could no longer keep up, and thinking of how it would be bad for him to make a huge commotion, he stopped and panted with his hands on his hips.
“Fuck off, get out of here! What reminiscing?!”
Only then did Lu Yan slow down his pace and turn right at the intersection.
Not far ahead was the Seventh Residential Area, abbreviated as Area Seven.
The naming here was quite arbitrary and the names of the residential areas were given in sequential order. However, calling it a residential area now was a bit of a stretch. Xiajing City has developed into a new first-tier city. The slum-like Xiacheng District was really bad for its image, so a few years ago, policies were introduced to encourage private companies to acquire and develop the area.
Area Seven was mostly demolished, and the surrounding area was full of ruined walls, and countless “tombs” formed from the blocks of cement and steel.
And in this messy and desolate place almost razed to the ground, there was a…no, half of a building still standing abruptly.
The side of the building read:
— Block 6, Unit 3
So interesting!! I wonder how Lu Yan’s hairstyle looks, cuz it really sounds interesting 😂