The afternoon sun exuded a languid air, spilling across his body until he felt soaked through, longing for an afternoon nap he would never wake from.
Old Street Hair Salon was quite famous among certain circles in Anzhou. Some people even crossed half the city just to get their hair washed here.
Lu Jiuling actually had an impression of that long-legged girl.
Every day on his way to school, he walked down this street and had seen her several times.
Beautiful and pure, with a tall, slender figure and a pair of legs longer than life itself—to any guy, she was definitely the kind of girl who could dazzle his world.
Riding his bicycle down the old street in the afternoon, passing by that barbershop called "Mai Mang," he turned his head inadvertently. Through the glass window, he saw that long-legged girl in shorts sitting on the sofa, flipping through a magazine…
A meter of sunlight draped over her body, like a soft light cast by the gods themselves.
Thus, that stunning glimpse left in the depths of his eyes—even years later when he recalled it—would remain a sweet memory, as if he could still smell the afternoon sunlight, the barbershop, and the young girl’s body wash, all mixed together into something called the scent of youth.
When Lu Jiuling arrived, the long-legged girl was sweeping the floor.
“Welcome!”
Ye Shaoguang, broom in hand, looked up to see a handsome boy standing at the shop entrance. The water bucket he carried didn’t quite match him.
It would have been better if he were holding a few books and wearing a pair of glasses. It would have complemented his scholarly, bookish air perfectly.
“Hello, I’m here to deliver the water bucket!”
Lu Jiuling smiled, quickly scanning the shop’s interior.
Five brown barber chairs, two sofas for guests against the wall, the floor covered in anti-slip black-and-white tiles—there was a bit of design aesthetic to the place.
On the workbenches: electric clippers, hair dryers, combs…
Categorized and neatly arranged.
Several giant model posters hung on the walls—fashionable and beautiful, if somewhat dated.
Besides the long-legged girl, there was also a young woman and a young man in the shop, both around twenty-three or twenty-four.
Judging solely by the environment—clean, tidy, plus beautiful staff—the business was probably doing well.
“Just put it over there!”
Ye Shaoguang set down the broom, pulled a hundred-yuan bill from her jeans pocket, and held it out to Lu Jiuling. “Your money!”
Lu Jiuling didn’t take it.
How could he have the face to take back money he’d already given away?
Besides, after completing a deity’s game, he wasn’t short of these small sums.
Ye Shaoguang didn’t take advantage of others like this, but she wasn’t a wishy-washy person either. Seeing that Lu Jiuling wouldn’t accept it, rather than forcing it on him, she chose another way.
“Want a haircut?”
Ye Shaoguang sized up Lu Jiuling’s clearly untended hair of nearly two months. “Free!”
Lu Jiuling was somewhat tempted.
After that ride-hailing car crashed him into this world, he’d faced the pressure of the college entrance exams, constantly studying with no time to take care of his personal image.
Now that he had a new future ahead, he didn’t need to be so frantic.
“Come here, lie down!”
Ye Shaoguang walked over to the shampoo bed, picked up the showerhead, and began adjusting the water temperature.
“Sorry for the trouble!”
Lu Jiuling went over, put on the cape, and lay down.
“Little Guang, shall I do it?”
The female staff member came over wanting to take over.
“No need, this is my friend!”
Ye Shaoguang refused. “Sister Li, you rest!”
Soon, warm water rushed over Lu Jiuling’s head. After his hair was thoroughly soaked, several fingers—gentle yet carrying a hint of strength—worked across his scalp.
Quite comfortable.
Lu Jiuling closed his eyes. Not for enjoyment, but because from his lying angle, he could see her chest and jaw perfectly, and he didn’t want to be impolite.
“My skills aren’t bad, right?”
Ye Shaoguang smiled proudly.
“Mm!”
Lu Jiuling nodded subconsciously.
“Don’t move!”
Ye Shaoguang pressed down on Lu Jiuling’s head with her left hand. “Usually Sister Li and the others wash and cut hair for the customers. I don’t make a move unless it’s an important guest.”
Lu Jiuling was amused. “Are you the shop’s treasure?”
“Uh…”
Ye Shaoguang was a bit embarrassed.
As the shop owner’s daughter, although she knew how to cut hair, she didn’t normally do this because she didn’t like the job. The reason she’d said that was to make Lu Jiuling feel his hundred yuan was well spent.
But Ye Shaoguang had a bright, outgoing personality. The awkwardness passed quickly, and she promptly changed the subject. “I see your school uniform—are you from No. 2 High School?”
“Your school seems pretty strict. I don’t know if you’re allowed long hair. How about I give you a chestnut cut?”
“That is, very short on the sides above the temples, with short, textured layers on top.”
Ye Shaoguang actually felt that Lu Jiuling’s face shape was better suited for a three-seven side part, giving him a scholarly-scoundrel vibe, but wearing a hairstyle like that at No. 2 High School would probably earn him a scolding from the homeroom teacher.
“Do whatever you think is best!”
Lu Jiuling didn’t care. From middle school through university, he’d been busy grinding away at his studies every day. For clothing, grooming, and hairstyle, he only pursued one thing: clean and fresh.
After washing his hair, he sat in the barber chair. Ye Shaoguang picked up a hairdryer and began drying Lu Jiuling’s hair. “My name is Ye Shaoguang. What about you?”
“When grass and trees are all flourishing, one doesn’t realize the spring light grows late?”
“Yes!”
Ye Shaoguang’s eyes brightened. As expected of a top student from No. 2 High School—he’d immediately caught the meaning behind her name. “What about you? What’s your name?”
“Lu Jiuling!”
Pfft!
Ye Shaoguang couldn’t hold back her laughter. “Six-ninety?”
Lu is the formal way to write the number six, so pronouncing it as six isn’t wrong.
“It’s not six, it’s Lu!”
Lu Jiuling knew the long-legged girl was joking with him, because classmates who heard his name pretty much all had the same reaction—after all, six-ninety just rolled off the tongue too easily.
“What’s the meaning behind it?”
Ye Shaoguang was curious.
“My parents hoped I would live a long life in peace and safety. At first they wanted to call me Lu Bailing, but then they felt that when the moon is full it begins to wane, and things reverse when they reach the extreme. A hundred years was too perfect—they were afraid my fortune was too thin to bear such a name, so they changed it to Jiuling!”
In the makeup mirror before him was reflected Ye Shaoguang’s tall, proud figure, her jeans perfectly outlining the curves of her hips and thighs. Standing there, graceful and slender, she was like a proud red-crowned crane.
“My mom felt the character ‘ling’ for ‘age’ didn’t look good, and it had too many strokes. If it were an exam, everyone else would have finished two fill-in-the-blank questions while I was still writing my name!”
“So she changed it to ‘Ling’ for ‘soaring.’”
Lu Jiuling thought of his parents. Ah… there was no going back now.
“Haha, your mom is so funny!”
Ye Shaoguang held the haircutting scissors, like a little shark going chomp-chomp through Lu Jiuling’s hair. Her technique was excellent—even flicking her fingers to show off a dazzling scissor flourish. “The character Ling is nice too. ‘I will ascend the peak supreme, and gaze down upon all the lesser hills,’ right?”
“Yes!”
Lu Jiuling reached out and gave a thumbs-up. “Amazing!”
Lu Jiuling’s mother had placed high hopes on him, and he’d grinded for more than a decade without letting her down. Unfortunately, a ride-hailing car had ended everything.
“What’s so amazing? Who hasn’t memorized that kind of poem?”
Ye Shaoguang’s expression dimmed.
Her grades were mediocre. Although her home wasn’t far from No. 2 High School, with her grades she wouldn’t get into university even if she attended No. 2. So her mother had sold the enrollment quota for their school district housing.
Ye Shaoguang envied those top students the most, so when she helped Lu Jiuling pick up fish that morning, besides her inherently kind nature, it was also because of the No. 2 High School uniform he was wearing.
Befriending top students, spending more time with them—maybe she would catch some of their intelligence too.
Thinking of this, Ye Shaoguang felt somewhat uneasy and embarrassed, announcing her school. “I… I’m from No. 38 High School!”
After saying this, Ye Shaoguang secretly observed Lu Jiuling’s expression.
That school’s education quality was average, belonging to the lower-middle tier in Anzhou.
Ye Shaoguang was worried that Lu Jiuling would look down on a poor student like her.
“The girls at our school are all hideous. I heard No. 38 is full of beauties. Do you have time to take me for a spin around your school?”
Although Lu Jiuling had only been here for half a month, No. 38 was nearby, so of course he knew about it.
As for looking down on poor students, he wasn’t that shallow.
“Who told you such nonsense? Where are there any beauties in our school?”
Ye Shaoguang pursed her lips. Then she saw the boy before her turn his head and glance at her.
“Hey, don’t move—you’ll get a bad cut!”
If Lu Jiuling had directly said, “Aren’t you a beauty?” Ye Shaoguang would definitely have felt he was frivolous, and her impression of him would have plummeted. But the action of him turning his head to glance at her made Ye Shaoguang feel happy.
A boy’s gaze that involuntarily turns toward a girl is the sweetest love poetry!
But this time, Ye Shaoguang’s imagination had gone astray.
Lu Jiuling had turned his head because some cut hair had fallen on his neck and was a bit itchy—he had no other meaning whatsoever.
The line about No. 38 producing beauties was just polite courtesy. He couldn’t possibly praise their school for being full of top students, could he?
What difference would that be from pointing at a monk and calling him a bald thief?
Although Ye Shaoguang hadn’t introduced herself much, with Lu Jiuling’s intelligence, observing her speech, her figure, and hearing her school, he had basically deduced a lot of information.
“Do you like sports?”
Ye Shaoguang was now wearing jeans and a loose T-shirt, hiding her figure, but Lu Jiuling still remembered how this girl had looked in shorts that morning.
Those two long legs weren’t the delicate, voluptuous, fair-skinned kind like his landlady’s, but rather filled with a sense of power, with muscle lines so beautiful it was unreal.
She definitely had more than five years of training under her belt!
“I like mixed martial arts. I’ve practiced boxing, sanda, karate…”
Ye Shaoguang’s grandfather ran a martial arts gym. She herself had been quite rowdy as a child, like a boy, and had always liked these kinds of combat skills. Being exposed to it all the time, she’d developed this hobby.
“Then you can really fight?”
Lu Jiuling was surprised. Ye Shaoguang’s hobby was quite unique. Generally speaking, girls didn’t like fighting. Training in these not only caused injuries but also built muscle, making one’s figure look unattractive.
“If any school bullies mess with you in the future, just say the name Ye Shaoguang of Old Street!”
Ye Shaoguang raised her chin proudly. This was the only thing she had to show for herself.
“Cool, like Huo Yuanjia of Jinmen or Huang Feihong of Foshan!”
Lu Jiuling hadn’t expected that Ye Shaoguang had made a name for herself. It seemed her fighting ability wasn’t just boasting.
“Uh!”
Having Lu Jiuling say it like that, Ye Shaoguang became embarrassed instead, and also worried that Lu Jiuling would see her as a bad girl. “Actually, I don’t usually fight!”
“Executing justice is what you should do, Hero Guang!”
Lu Jiuling teased.
“Shouldn’t it be Hero Ye?”
Hero Guang?
That doesn’t sound good!