Chapter 49: The Night Club

Evergreen Apartments;

A few hours later, the front door creaked open, and Li Liu stepped in, unbuttoning her coat, clearly tired, until she saw the living room.

Colorful balloons with a “CONGRATULATIONS” banner strung across the wall, snacks on the table, and music humming softly in the background.

She blinked in surprise. “W-What’s going on?”

“Congratulations!!” everyone chorused together with big smiles, Zhi Yan, Yu Xiaofei, and Hao Bin holding up glasses in cheer.

Li Liu’s eyes widened. “Wait, this is…”

Zhi Yan walked up with a grin. “Congratulations, girl. Also, we have another good news to celebrate too.” She nudged Lin Fang lightly with an elbow. “My old classmate here got the fourth-highest score in the exam.”

Li Liu froze. Her eyes darted toward Lin Fang in stunned silence. “You… really passed?”

He gave a modest shrug. “Not exactly. There is still the final trial.”

“Eh? The final trial?” As Li Liu tilted her head in confusion, Lin Fang waved his hand, “Forget about me. The star of the party is you. I mean, you are now an A-rank Monster Trainer.”

“Yeah, Ain’t I?” Li Liu couldn’t help but chuckle. Before they knew it, she rushed forward and hugged him, wrapping her arms tight around his shoulders. “Haha. I’m just so happy. Three years. For three years, I failed in a row, and today, I finally succeeded.”

“Uhh… Yeah…” As Lin Fang froze in surprise, Zhi Yan’s smile faltered as the rest of the eyes shifted to the couple.

Then it suddenly hit Li Liu.

She realized what she had just done and how everyone looked at her. Quickly pulling back, she coughed into her hand, a slight blush rising on her cheeks. “I mean… sorry about that. Just… really happy today.”

She turned and then pulled Zhi Yan into a hug. “Now, I can finally visit my parents proudly.”

Zhi Yan hugged her back, but her eyes didn’t soften. Her smile stayed, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Of course. I’m happy for you, too, bestie,” she said in a breezy tone, but in her heart, there was an inexplicable storm of feelings clashing.

Meanwhile, Li Liu glanced at Lin Fang and smiled knowingly. Lin Fang couldn’t help but respond the same way.

After a while;

The living room was filled with laughter and the clinking of glasses. Plates piled high with hotpot, fried skewers, and sweet buns littered the table. Li Liu, Zhi Yan, Yu Xiaofei, and Hao Bin were halfway through a round of truth-or-dare, trading ridiculous college stories and teasing each other between bites and sips.

Lin Fang sat quietly at the side, nursing a glass of beer. He chuckled when the others laughed, but he rarely chimed in. After all, he didn’t even go to college to have any college memories. Whatever strong memories he had in his 20s were from his past life, and they were just too painful to remember.

Hence, he could only be a patient listener until the end.

But in the mid way, his phone buzzed, turning his attention away for a bit. It was from an unsaved number,

“Excuse me,” Lin Fang muttered, getting up. He stepped out to the corridor, where the air was a bit quieter and cooler.

“Hello?” he picked up.

The voice on the other side was calm but curious. “Hello, is this Lin Fang? Owner of Fang Fang Pets?”

Lin Fang raised an eyebrow. “Yes. Who’s this?”

“This is Shang Wei speaking. I made an order online recently, and your business card was found inside the package. I have something important to discuss with you. Are you free tomorrow morning, say, around 8 AM?”

“8? So early?”

“Sorry, I have a return flight at 9.”

Remembering slipping his business card into a certain package for the customer who made an almost quarter-million-credit-worth purchase a few days ago, Lin Fang became slightly excited. He glanced at his watch. 11:17 PM was shown.

“You’re in Huaxi City right now?” he asked right away, formulating a plan to meet him.

“Yeah,” Shang Wei replied.

Lin Fang then asked, “Since it’s not midnight yet, there are a lot of places still open. If you’re free, maybe we could meet tonight instead?”

“Right now?” Then, there was a pause from the other side before Shang Wei spoke. “Sure, not a problem.”

There was another pause before Shang Wei asked. “I’m just asking to be sure. You’re an adult, right?”

“Obviously,” Lin Fang replied with a wry snort.

“Then let’s meet at Ecstasy.”

“Ecstasy?” Lin Fang repeated, confused. “Is that a hotel, a restaurant, or a…”

“It’s a club,” Shang Wei replied smoothly. “Search for it on Baidu Maps. I’ll be waiting there.”

“Alright,” Lin Fang said after a pause. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

As he hung up, he stared at the phone for a second. “A club meeting at midnight? Hmm… since it is past midnight, it surely will be crowded…”

Lin Fang slid his phone back into his pocket and re-entered the apartment. The laughter still lingered in the air when Lin Fang returned to the living room.

“Hey,” he said, slipping his phone into his pocket, “I gotta head out for a bit. Need to meet someone.”

“Ooh… is it a girl?” Hao Bin asked, wiggling his brows. Li Liu and Zhi Yan swiftly shot their gazes at Lin Fang at the same time, hearing those words.

Lin Fang, however, gave him a dry look. “No. It’s a client. Apparently, he wants to meet before catching his return flight.”

“Oh?” Zhi Yan tilted her head. “At this hour?”

“Yeah, he’s flying out tomorrow morning,” Lin Fang explained. “He asked me to meet him at some club called… Ecstasy.”

“Wait, you’re meeting a client at a club?” Yu Xiaofei arched an eyebrow.

Lin Fang shrugged. “I know, weird. But he sounded genuine. Maybe he wants to talk over a drink. Anyway… if you guys feel like it, we can all go together. Could be fun.”

Hao Bin glanced at his watch. “I’m on shift at 3 AM, but…” he paused, then grinned, “Screw it. Let’s live a little.”

Yu Xiaofei smiled and nudged Li Liu and Zhi Yan. “Girls? Shall we?”

Li Liu’s eyes gleamed. “Don’t have to ask me twice.”

Zhi Yan hesitated for a beat. But then she smiled too. “Alright, why not? Let’s change into something decent.”

An hour later, the group rolled into the buzzing nightlife of Huaxi City.

Zhi Yan’s sleek black car pulled up just outside Club Ecstasy while Lin Fang parked his motorcycle nearby and removed his helmet, trying not to look too out of place next to the stylish quartet emerging from the car.

As he entered the club, he found that the inside of the club was loud and vibrant, quite crowded, as he expected.

It didn’t take long before Li Liu, who is already high on alcohol, threw herself onto the dance floor, pulling Yu Xiaofei and Hao Bin along with her.

Lin Fang stuck to the bar at first, sipping on a drink with a puzzled look as if the glass might give him life advice. Zhi Yan sat beside him, swirling her own drink, occasionally watching the others with a hint of a smile.

“Not your scene?” she asked, raising her voice above the music.

Lin Fang chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. “You overestimate me, sister. Not everyone is cut out to dance.”

She looked at him, and a mischievous glint appeared in her eyes as she said. “Back in high school, I remember a rumor about you secretly sneaking into a nightclub with a teacher.”

“Say, what…”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep