Gao Dian’s Venting Parlor was located in a newly opened shopping mall office building in Fengtan.
Right next door was a wooden toy store that had gone bankrupt due to poor management.
The rundown state was obvious; even the signboard had fallen apart, leaving only a few radicals of the characters.
Combined with the gray, dingy cityscape surrounding it, the visual impact was strong, as if this nearly deserted mall was a mirage from the mid-2020s.
Li Yingqiao was driving Meng Yidong’s car.
The body was short, painted in black and white, with round headlights.
When it rolled slowly, it looked like a lazy little panda crawling—strongly contrasting with Meng’s own appearance.
She parked in the underground garage and took the sightseeing elevator up, finally finding the Venting Parlor’s Room 07 at the end of the corridor on the 13th floor.
Just then, someone from the next room stepped out and stood by the window at the corridor’s end to smoke.
When lighting the cigarette, they heard footsteps and looked over, probably thinking a customer had arrived.
They looked up and asked, “Got an appointment?”
Li Yingqiao felt this person looked familiar—probably a former schoolmate—but she couldn’t recall the name right away.
Just as she was about to ask if Gao Dian was around, a familiar voice came from inside the room—
“Seriously, not reconsidering? That area is still a wild scenic spot, but a tourism investment company is moving in soon. Once the government takes over, it’ll definitely be developed into a popular Fengtan tourist spot with unpredictable visitor numbers. If you join then, rent will definitely double, no longer the current price.”
“Aren’t you just full of crap, and dragging UA into this! Uncle, you’ve tricked us plenty these last couple years—”
“Huh? It’s Gao Dian.”
The man at the door didn’t bother to talk to her any further.
Instead, he impatiently crushed out his cigarette, tossed it into the trash, then took a swift step inside.
Grabbing the other man by the collar, he shoved him out, yelling: “You’re just blowing smoke here. All those so-called popular spots you’ve set up these last two years—name one that actually makes money. How do they earn? Is it from the five-yuan ticket? Or the shady under-the-table deals? Let me be blunt: this tiny place, no matter how much you upgrade the gear, can’t really produce anything. A ‘popular’ scenic spot? Keep dreaming!”
The middle-aged man who’d been thrown out lost all dignity, standing in the corridor red-faced and trying to fight back.
But no matter which way he looked, the two young men before him completely dominated the space.
Ashamed and angry, he pointed at Gao Dian and spat out, “Little cake! Think you’ve grown wings now?”
Then, glaring at the tall guy’s tattooed arm beside Gao Dian, he snapped, “Hanging around with these punks, you’ve become a thug yourself!”
What was worse was that the two tall men stood like a wall, blocking him completely so not even a fly could slip past.
Even if he swung his arms wildly to fight, the height difference meant he could at best punch the other’s chest symbolically without landing a hit on the face.
The younger generation was pushing out the old wave, and he, the former big shot, was being rubbed against the sand like a beach relic.
The thought made his face flash red, yellow, and green like a traffic light.
“Everyone in Fengtan’s gangsters knows Uncle Li’s name. Now you’re turning over a new leaf with Secretary Li, laundering all your money clean, and starting to cry wolf, huh? Honestly, if it weren’t for you being Li Yingqiao’s uncle—” Before he finished, Gao Dian seemed to notice a gaze fixed on the corridor the entire time.
He casually glanced up and suddenly stopped mid-sentence.
The whole corridor fell silent.
The tall guy next to Gao Dian followed his line of sight and finally recalled why the woman seemed familiar.
He slapped his head and blurted, “Damn, isn’t that the one? Your Fengtan’s Gao Kao champ?”
Gao Dian ignored him and stood frozen in the doorway, eyes fixed on the person opposite him.
After a long moment, he asked, “When did you come back?”
The middle-aged man turned his head at their voices and indeed saw his niece standing at the corner of the corridor, completely ignoring him.
She gave Gao Dian a familiar and bright smile, stepped forward, glanced inside the room, and said with a fair and unselfish tone, “Half a month. My mom said you opened a massage parlor, so I came to see. What are you two arguing about?”
Only then did she notice Li Wusheng.
Li Wusheng instantly felt as if a powerful backer had appeared.
His slouched posture straightened immediately like a fighting cock, arrogantly staring at Gao Dian, waiting for Li Yingqiao to back him up.
Gao Dian was too cold to bother with the act.
His face was icy, and his attitude completely different from before: “I warn you, for Li Yingqiao’s sake, I didn’t hit you this time. Next time you even think about Meowzi and his dad, no matter if you’re Li Yingqiao’s uncle or Li Ayi’s brother, I swear I’ll beat you flat. Next opening celebration, I’ll put you up as window decorations!”
Li Yingqiao leaned lazily against the corridor wall and slowly gave Li Wusheng a thorough once-over.
“What have you done this time?”
Gao Dian sneered, “He’s done plenty, I won’t bother with the far ones, just the recent. Brother Forty-one’s in the hospital, hit by him. Then he had the nerve to try to compensate with that broken shop of his. Their family’s not short of money, I’m telling you, don’t even think about it! You’re going to jail.”
Li Yingqiao’s expression darkened as she sharply looked at Li Wusheng.
Li Wusheng, cornered by Gao Dian’s accusations, jumped up, furious, “Nonsense! It wasn’t me, it was one of my old factory employees. I was just trying to help him out. Besides, who told Yu Renjie to walk his dog in that godforsaken place?”
“Wasn’t it you who reported Uncle Yu’s factory near the train station back then?”
Gao Dian asked.
Li Wusheng had no answer for that.
Over the years, while picking fights with Yu Renjie, he’d also copied him, trying to appear reformed.
But deep down, he was still the same thug, with bad debts piling up—enough to disgust anyone for days.
“Meowzi was kidnapped during middle school—”
That case had long been closed. Dong Tao was caught shortly after, and the police had cleared Li Wusheng’s name.
Gao Dian was just trying to scare him, randomly throwing accusations to deter him from bothering them again.
As Li Wusheng was about to protest, footsteps hurried over from behind. A SF Express courier walked in from the elevator, looking confused, carrying a bag of potted succulents.
“Delivery for Mr. Yu, who’s Mr. Yu here?”
“Give it to me. He went to get a haircut and won’t be back for a while,” Gao Dian said, taking the package from the courier. After checking the delivery code on his phone, he turned to Li Wusheng with a steel-hard voice: “Get lost. No negotiation. Otherwise, when Meowzi gets back, he’ll definitely beat you up. He’s no longer the little chick he used to be; we can’t hold him back anymore.”
Since Li Yingqiao’s graduating class finished their college entrance exams, Fengtan had begun building high-speed rail and infrastructure.
Rumor had it they’d even spent a fortune to build the Starlight Tower on Fengtan Mountain.
By day, it looked like an ordinary building; at night, just a glowing ordinary building.
It was like parents trying hard to keep up with the times by learning to use a smartphone, only to receive a huge scam call in the process.
Overall, Fengtan’s county appearance had changed drastically over the years, but the skills of its beauty and hair salons remained rock-solid.
Yu Jinyang suddenly felt like getting a haircut today.
He was naturally conservative with no adventurous spirit.
Getting a haircut in Fengtan was a risky affair. Before going down, Gao Dian repeatedly reminded him: if Linda was there, ask for Linda.
If only a man was available, say you’re visiting a friend and just pretend to look around and leave.
Unexpectedly, he found Linda successfully. She even recommended a male barber, but he couldn’t say “Sister, I only want you to cut my hair”—it might have seemed suspicious.
After the guy finished cutting, Yu Jinyang truly felt suspicious.
He couldn’t believe he could still look this ugly.
Yu Jinyang wanted to defend the dignity of his mangled, dog-chewed-looking head.
He snapped his fingers at Tony the barber, who jumped forward like a sprinter, fearing he was going to pay.
Yet at that moment, Yu Jinyang noticed a very familiar but strangely dressed person reflected in the mirror.
He ignored it, not expecting anyone to show up in Fengtan out of nowhere, despite the person’s challenging, direct gaze—almost blatantly staring at him.
Yu Jinyang had grown somewhat immune to such bold looks from girls and didn’t engage. He quietly looked away and continued negotiating with Tony about the octopus attack incident.
Irritated, Yu Jinyang scratched a few stray hairs on his head: “Really looks like I was attacked by an octopus, bro.”
“How could that be? This style was designed by our creative director Keven, who just returned from studying in Switzerland,” Tony smiled broadly.
“Creative director Keven—”
Yu Jinyang was still spinning slowly in the barber’s chair, about to point outside and ask if it was the guy squatting outside eating instant noodles, when his eyes met that stranger’s again in the mirror.
The gaze was like creeping vines rooting into him, never wavering.
Memories of someone suddenly surged backward, ripping open his frontal lobe.
The eyes and smile flashed vividly into his mind.
His expression froze in the mirror, like an octopus stranded by the tide, struggling to hold onto a visual anchor, not wanting to be tossed about by waves of sudden memories.
He was genuinely surprised.
He hadn’t expected her here.
“Handsome, trust me, if you can’t pull off this hairstyle, then no one in Fengtan can be as handsome as you.”
Yu Jinyang barely lifted an eyelid, brushing off the flattery.
But out of the corner of his eye, he caught Li Yingqiao’s face, full of schadenfreude—her smile stretched almost to the back of her head.
He returned the same unapologetically direct gaze in the mirror, with his usual slow tone, blackmailing Tony: “Don’t let my idol see this—”
He thought for a moment and added with some difficulty, “You should pay us some compensation.”
Tony probably handled too many “octopus attack” cases.
He gave them a flawless smile and turned to talk to the store manager.
In front of the mirror, the two had long since looked away.
Yu Jinyang was still a bit unwilling.
Compensation was useless; his hair was already ruined, and he’d have to wear a hat for a while.
He glanced back at Li Yingqiao, about to quietly ask when she’d come back.
Then Tony came back and said the manager rejected his unreasonable request but was willing to wash the idol’s hair for free as compensation.
He suspected Tony never actually met the manager and just went for a drink before returning.
Tony: “Believe me, this hairstyle will be popular soon. It really is our creative director Keven’s design from Switzerland. He just left to buy coffee after cutting your hair.”
“Bullshit. Zhang Xiaoqiang was obviously squatting outside eating noodles.”
“When he comes back, he can explain the design concept to you personally. Really, handsome, this style’s hot in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. Fengtan’s a small county town, so fashion is a bit behind.”
Yu Jinyang didn’t want to talk anymore, but Li Yingqiao said she wanted to wash the hair, so he could only sit bored, scrolling his phone and listening to Tony’s nonsense.
“Men can’t be too conventional. The more flamboyant and wild the hair, the more handsome you look,” Tony rambled.
Seeing Yu Jinyang’s face darken, Tony started pulling out all the stops.
Various worthless directors took turns flattering him, spinning fancy words—just to get him to accept the new haircut.
After a wave of empty rainbow praise, when Yu Jinyang’s head felt so numb even passing dog barks sounded like “You’re handsome,” Tony suddenly turned to the laughing Li Yingqiao washing hair nearby.
“If you don’t believe me, just ask her. Is this hairstyle handsome or not?”
Li Yingqiao, watching the whole scene, was shaking with laughter.
After all, she was the benefactor here, so she obediently gave a thumbs-up while lying there washing hair, saying, “Yu Jinyang, it’s handsome. You’re super handsome.”
“Are you afraid they won’t give you conditioner if you say it’s not handsome?”
Yu Jinyang didn’t buy her lie.
“If you’re not washing this hair, I’ve already paid. You can wash it if you want; I’m leaving first.”
Li Yingqiao squinted and called out to him: “…. MIÊN NIÊ!”
Only then did Yu Jinyang twitch his mouth, slid his phone into his pocket, and sat down in the empty shampoo chair beside her.
Shadows of fine hair framed his brow as he looked down seriously and finally asked, “When did you come back?”
Li Yingqiao didn’t hesitate: “Just got back. Came straight to find you.”
“Really? You never seemed this eager before. Something on your mind?”
Yu Jinyang asked, noticing Tony still watching them, his expression shifting from “How do I convince this guy?” to a gleeful look darting between them.
He changed the subject, “Where’s your financial director?”
“The financial director doesn’t understand design,” Tony immediately squeezed out a perfect smile.
“What do you need him for?”
“I’m paying the bill, bro,” Yu Jinyang said, barely holding back his patience.
“More precisely, where’s your cashier?”