Suddenly I Wanted to Say

The two of them finished their meal quickly, and Liu Xiaomei took a taxi home. Before parting ways, she pointed at Zhang Pa's bruised face and said, "You won't be seeing my mother for a while."

Zhang Pa hurriedly flattered her, "Auntie is exceptionally beautiful and kind..."

Liu Xiaomei smiled slightly. "I'm leaving." She got into the car and drove away.

Watching the taxi drive off, his phone suddenly rang. Pulling it out, he saw it was a call from Liu Xiaomei. Thinking she had forgotten something, he asked, "What is it?"

Liu Xiaomei said, "Let's chat for another ten rmb worth."

Zhang Pa calculated, "Let me see... twenty cents a minute, ten minutes is two rmb, ten rmb can buy fifty minutes. Goodness, you really can talk."

Liu Xiaomei laughed. "You calculated wrong. Isn't it ten cents a minute?"

"Ten cents?" Zhang Pa thought about it and said, "If we sign up for a family and friends plan, calls are free no matter how long... Let's get a family and friends plan together."

Liu Xiaomei said, "There's no need for that. You wouldn't call me once in ten thousand years, why go through the trouble?"

Zhang Pa insisted, "I will, I definitely will."

Liu Xiaomei chuckled. "Alright then. Once your injuries heal, let's go shopping."

Zhang Pa smiled as well. "Even if we get the family and friends plan, you just want to go shopping. You're just looking for an excuse to shop."

"So what? Just tell me whether you're going or not," Liu Xiaomei challenged.

"I'm definitely going, there's no question about that," Zhang Pa replied.

They had just parted ways, yet they continued chatting on the phone for a straight twenty minutes. Finally, Liu Xiaomei said, "I'm home. You go find an internet café and update your chapters."

Zhang Pa agreed.

Liu Xiaomei added, "If you didn't have a head full of injuries, I definitely would have dragged you to my place." Then she said goodbye and hung up.

On this day, Zhang Pa hadn't written a single word, though fortunately it was a new book and he still had a tiny bit of backlog chapters saved up.

Standing at the street corner, he looked left and right to search for an internet café when he heard Long Xiaole calling out to him.

That guy was sitting inside an Audi, poking his head out of the car window to wave. "Over here, Zhang! Over here!"

Zhang Pa walked over. "Just finished eating?"

"Damn, I'm hammered. Not just finished eating, just finished drinking," Long Xiaole asked. "Where are you going? Where's your woman?"

Zhang Pa said she went home.

Long Xiaole pushed open the car door. "Perfect. Keep drinking. Those women are acting crazy and insist on dragging me to a nightclub."

Zhang Pa said, "If you're not happy about it, why not just refuse? Why torture yourself?"

Long Xiaole told him he wouldn't understand and to get in the car first.

As Long Xiaole parked there to talk to Zhang Pa, another car pulled up fifty meters ahead. The door opened, and two women hopped out—Xun Ruyu and Yu Jiao.

A two-seater sports car, and judging by the situation, were they driving under the influence?

Zhang Pa remarked, "You guys are out of your minds."

Long Xiaole asked, "What did you say?"

Xun Ruyu trotted over, grabbed Zhang Pa, and said, "Don't you dare run off. Come drink with us big sisters."

Noticing her hazy, intoxicated gaze, Zhang Pa looked left and right. "I'll go with you, but can we not drive?"

"It's fine. We drive all the time, we can handle it," Xun Ruyu said.

Long Xiaole pulled at Zhang Pa. "Get in." He meant not to be a killjoy and not to play the moral high ground.

Zhang Pa shook his head and said to Long Xiaole, "We can go anywhere, but we have to stop by your place first."

"What for?" Long Xiaole asked.

"To work. My work isn't done yet," Zhang Pa said.

Long Xiaole muttered "fine," and called out to Xun Ruyu, "We're heading home first. Send me your room number, see you in a bit."

"You guys make such a big deal out of everything, even worse than women." Xun Ruyu and Yu Jiao ran back, got in their car, and drove off first.

Zhang Pa got into the car with Long Xiaole and asked casually, "Are they this crazy every day?"

"Who knows," Long Xiaole replied. "I've only seen them a couple of times before, but this is my first time drinking with her, and it's my first time meeting those other women."

Zhang Pa pressed, "Then why bother? You clearly don't want to go, yet you force yourself out to play."

"Who said I don't want to go?" Long Xiaole retorted.

Zhang Pa smiled slightly, changed the subject, and said, "I won't go inside your house. Just bring your laptop out, connect it to the internet, and I'll upload my chapters right there."

Long Xiaole laughed, "You really deserve the May Day Labor Medal. Do you have to be this dedicated?"

"It's not about dedication. You wouldn't understand even if I told you." Zhang Pa thought for a moment and added, "Find a place to buy some hangover medicine."

Long Xiaole scoffed, "Buy my ass. What's the point of drinking if you don't get wasted?"

"As you like," Zhang Pa replied, then asked, "Did you guys just finish eating?"

"We didn't just finish eating. There's no point in going too early; nightclubs only get lively later in the night," Long Xiaole asked. "Where do you like to hang out? Or have you ever even been to a nightclub?"

Zhang Pa shook his head. "Never been once."

"Today I'll broaden your horizons," Long Xiaole laughed. "No matter how freezing it is outside, inside a nightclub it's eternal summer, full of girls with long legs. But you've got to keep your eyes open—some are just looking to make money, while others are free."

Zhang Pa smiled. "You might not be good at much else, but you sure are an expert on how to play."

While talking, they arrived back at Kowloon Garden. Actually, it wasn't far at all; even the restaurant Zhang Pa had been at earlier was on the same street.

The car drove straight to the foot of his building, and Long Xiaole went upstairs. Shortly after, he came back down with a laptop. "Nobody's home. Why do people even buy such huge places? It's basically all empty." He glanced at Zhang Pa and suddenly suggested, "Why don't you just not go back tonight and stay with me instead?"

Zhang Pa took the laptop, powered it on, checked the network connection, and only after confirming it was connected did he plug in his USB drive. He logged into his account and password, quickly reviewed the chapters, and uploaded two chapters at once. Today's task was complete.

He shut down the computer, unplugged the USB drive, and thanked Long Xiaole.

Long Xiaole said, "Do you have a laptop? Take this one. I bought it before the New Year and barely used it."

Zhang Pa remarked, "I can tell, the hard drive is completely empty."

Long Xiaole insisted, "It's yours."

Zhang Pa shook his head. "I have one, actually two."

"You have two?" Long Xiaole tossed the laptop casually onto the seat. "Take it or leave it." He told the driver, "Brother Wang, let's go." As he spoke, he called Xun Ruyu: "Why haven't you sent the room number yet?"

Xun Ruyu snapped back, "Get over here right now, damn it, someone's taking advantage of me." She named the nightclub.

Long Xiaole burst out laughing upon hearing this. "Weren't you trying to take advantage of him too?"

"Go to hell!" Xun Ruyu hung up.

Long Xiaole gave the location to Driver Wang, then turned to Zhang Pa: "That woman got into a fight. Are you still going?"

Zhang Pa replied with a rhetorical question: "Obviously."

The driver drove fast, arriving at the destination in six or seven minutes. Zhang Pa and Long Xiaole headed over first while the driver went to park.

Right at the entrance, Xun Ruyu and her group were brawling and shouting back and forth with a few young men. Xun Ruyu pointed at them and cursed, "You guys are dead."

The young men didn't care at all, smiling mockingly as they said, "Dressed like a slut, aren't you just here to seduce men?"

In a nightclub, a woman's butt being groped—or getting groped—was practically normal; some men used this method to pick up women. If the woman wasn't disgusted and even smiled back, she was generally fair game to take home. Of course, there were always those who wouldn't tolerate it, which inevitably led to trouble.

Long Xiaole looked at the young guys on the opposite side and warned, "Let me give you some advice: apologize and get lost right now, before you find yourselves unable to leave."

Xun Ruyu immediately shouted, "They can't leave!"

Simultaneously, one of the young men spat in contempt, "Trying to scare me? Fuck off."

Zhang Pa stood on the outer fringe, staring blankly. To him, this whole business of groping and getting groped wasn't worth a single cent.

Long Xiaole looked back at him. "What are you doing?"

Zhang Pa smiled, walked up front, and asked Xun Ruyu in a low voice, "Did you call someone?"

"Yeah, I called people to come crush these bastards," Xun Ruyu said.

Zhang Pa pulled her aside to speak quietly. "I don't know what kind of life you led before, but since you want to make movies now, you must have investors, right?"

"What are you trying to say?" Xun Ruyu looked displeased. Instead of helping in a fight, he was wasting time with nonsense?

Zhang Pa explained, "Suppose your movie actually makes some money—not even a massive blockbuster, just enough to build a small name for yourself. If someone finds out you were brawling with people in a nightclub, regardless of who was in the right, you're bound to get flak and suffer losses. It'll hurt your career. Netizens and audiences don't care who started it."

Xun Ruyu froze. That was true. Even though she hadn't shot a single film yet, her goal was to become a star. What if she actually blew up? She hesitated and fell silent.

Zhang Pa told her, "Call your friend and tell them not to come."

Xun Ruyu replied, "Not a friend... I'll call."

If it wasn't a friend, it had to be the sugar daddy keeping her. Zhang Pa sighed inwardly—she was already this arrogant while being kept, what would happen if she actually became a star?

Xun Ruyu spoke a few words on the phone, hung up, and told Zhang Pa it was handled. But the moment she turned around and saw those young men again, her anger flared instantly, and she rushed forward to start cursing them out.

Zhang Pa pulled her back. "Leave it to me." He strolled forward leisurely, stepped right between the two groups, brought his hands together to make a time-out gesture, and shouted at the young men, "You guys had better clear out. If you don't leave, you'll regret it."

"What the fuck? Who the hell are you? Playing big shot?" someone on the other side cursed.

Zhang Pa glanced at him, then turned his head to see Driver Wang standing next to Long Xiaole. An idea instantly popped into his head, and he smiled at Long Xiaole, "If you got beaten up, Brother Wang would definitely help you, right?"

"Duh," Long Xiaole asked. "What are you trying to do?"

Zhang Pa said, "I have no power or influence, I can't go around provoking trouble. You just need Brother Wang to teach them a lesson, and they'll behave."

Long Xiaole looked somewhat astonished. "Is there anything else running through that brain of yours?"

Zhang Pa said, "I'm a patient. I can't afford to get beaten up again."

Seeing how serious he looked, Long Xiaole suddenly burst out laughing and murmured a few words to Brother Wang. Brother Wang took a large stride forward, ripped off his outer shirt to reveal an upper body rivalling a professional boxer's, clenched both fists in front of his chest, and said in a deep voice, "If you don't want to fight me, get lost right now."

Seeing this guy's physique packed with muscle, the young men hesitated.

Brother Wang said coldly, "If you don't leave now, don't blame me for being unpolite."

The young men looked at Brother Wang, then at Zhang Pa with his head full of bandages, deciding this wasn't a crowd to mess with. They spat out a curse, muttered threats to wait and see, and trudged away looking thoroughly aggrieved. (To be continued.)