Chapter 20: Brother, give me some real interview questions.

Tuesday morning, the alarm I had set long ago failed to ring; instead, the sound of my stomach growling echoed through the room.

Waking from a dream that was far from pleasant, Lu Mingfei reached out to his side. He didn't find the soft, fragrant embrace he might have hoped for, but rather a pillow that smelled faintly of disinfectant.

Disdainfully tossing the pillow aside, the young man slowly opened his eyes. After a night of sleep, the bloodshot veins in his eyes had faded, and his spirit was no longer as dejected as it had been the night before.

He pulled out his phone and checked it, only to find that it had shut down automatically.

"Trash Cassell."

He muttered a curse under his breath, ran downstairs to borrow a charging cable from the front desk, and picked up some breakfast on his way back. By the time he had finished washing up, the battery had enough charge to turn the device on.

With wet hands, he picked up a new bandage to replace the old one, but paused as he pulled it away: "It’s already scabbed over?"

The wound from when he had angrily punched the mirror the previous night had formed a reddish-brown scab in just ten hours, and the edges were already showing signs of flaking.

They say a drop of essence is worth ten drops of blood; Lu Mingfei couldn't help but wonder how long it had been since this body had engaged in any self-gratification for its recovery rate to be this terrifying.

The phone powered on. There were no missed calls, only a flurry of messages on QQ. He quickly skipped over the messages from irrelevant people; the only one that made Lu Mingfei pause was the "cheating player" named "Nono." This person hadn't been satisfied with getting beaten up once and had spent half the night sending messages asking for another thrashing. He wasted three seconds blocking and deleting her.

Finally, there was a string of messages from Old Tang:

"Big-Headed Bear, the interview is tomorrow. Are you nervous?"

"Heh heh, got some good news for you. A college student started working at the place where I pick up odd jobs, and I managed to get a set of community college interview questions from him. See if you can use them."

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"Brother, why aren't you replying?"

"Alright, I guess you're tired from studying."

"Good luck, waiting for your good news."

Checking the time, he saw the messages were all sent after ten o'clock last night, right when Lu Mingfei had fallen into a deep sleep due to physical and mental exhaustion.

He opened the images and found that all the interview questions were in English, but every sentence had Chinese annotations below it. The blocky characters were written in a jagged, crooked hand—the calligraphy skill was on par with his own. Clearly, Old Tang had translated them specifically because he was worried Lu Mingfei wouldn't understand.

Looking at the dense translations, Lu Mingfei could easily imagine Old Tang hunched over his desk, writing them out, then smugly arching his eyebrows, whistling, and flicking the paper with his finger as if he had accomplished a great feat. In the past, whenever he did that, it was to celebrate the completion of the design for some high-end, sophisticated product.

But now, what made him so proud was merely a set of ordinary community college interview questions.

At that moment, Lu Mingfei truly understood the meaning of "a small gift carries deep affection."

"Thanks, brother." He typed and deleted a long message, eventually settling for a simple, sincere opening: "I was too tired last night and fell asleep by accident. Sorry I didn't reply sooner."

Old Tang replied instantly: "No worries, it's still early enough to look them over. Try to pass in one go. When you come to New York, I'll take you for a ride on the Greyhound bus, and we'll sit by the window with a hot dog each and watch the pretty girls."

"Deal. I'll bring a case of cola to find you when the time comes."

The corners of Lu Mingfei's mouth curled up. The weight that had felt like the Five Fingers Mountain pressing down on his heart was momentarily eased.

Old Tang was a man who tended to have a high opinion of himself, often positioning himself as the older brother when they hung out. He always acted like, "I'm older than you, so I'm your big brother and I'm going to look out for you." Because of this, Old Tang wouldn't mention how much effort it had taken him to get those questions; he would just brush it off lightly, as if the stuff were easy to come by.

And Lu Mingfei wouldn't ask what favors Old Tang had called in or what price he had paid, nor would he suggest using money to compensate for Old Tang's efforts. He would simply keep it in his heart, waiting for the day he could make a comeback, so he could return what Old Tang had lost with interest.

"OK, I won't distract you from your studying. I've got to get to work; it's rush hour and it's crowded."

Old Tang sent his final message and quickly went offline to start his shift. Lu Mingfei took a bite of the still-warm pork bun, feeling a warmth spread through his body.

Not wanting to let down Old Tang's kindness, he went through the interview questions while eating breakfast, quickly committing them and the answers to memory.

Once his phone was fully charged, he put on a relatively clean set of clothes and headed out to the Regent Hotel.

He didn't hold much hope for passing the interview and getting into Cassell College. Even if his parents could pave the way with money and favors, he wasn't necessarily going to spend four years wasting his time at a university. Someone was waiting for him. Many people were waiting for him. But for the sake of Old Tang's effort, he definitely couldn't perform too poorly.

The interview was held in the conference hall on the executive floor of the Regent Hotel. As soon as Lu Mingfei stepped into the lobby, a waiter approached with a smile and asked if he was there for the interview. After receiving an affirmative reply, there was no need to verify an invitation or ID; he was taken directly to the outside of the conference hall by the receptionist who had been waiting there.

Seventeen chairs were set up, one for each interviewee.

When he arrived, only the last chair was empty, with a form and a pencil resting on it.

His gaze swept over the "competitors" who had already filled out their forms and were sitting upright: Chen Wenwen, Su Xiaoqiang, Zhao Menghua, and the most low-key of the "three golden flowers"—Liu Miaomiao, nicknamed the "Piano Beauty." Lu Mingfei remembered that this girl who played the piano was also a little fan of Chu Zihang, and her greatest wish was to perform a duet on stage with him. Unfortunately, compared to Su Xiaoqiang, she was more reserved, and her affection wasn't as obvious.

As for the others, they were all strangers to him; he didn't recognize a single one.

While he didn't recognize them, they recognized him, and their ways of greeting him were remarkably similar:

"Lu Mingfei, what are you doing here?"

The most surprised among them were undoubtedly Zhao Menghua and Su Xiaoqiang. The former had never imagined that among his competitors would be an unlearned loser—what kind of status did Lu Mingfei have to deserve an interview at the same school as Young Master Zhao? The latter hadn't expected that what Lu Mingfei had said about receiving an interview invitation from an overseas university was actually true, and that he was crashing her party!

As for Chen Wenwen, her expression held a hint of surprise, but not much. Since the misunderstanding about Lu Mingfei skipping class to travel with a beauty had been cleared up, his impression in her mind had recovered slightly, so he received a nod and a look of encouragement.

However, Lu Mingfei ignored the gazes of the crowd, picked up the paper and pen, and plopped down into the last chair. Still wearing his signature dead-fish eyes, he spoke in a voice that was neither too loud nor too soft, but perfectly clear to everyone:

"I heard they were serving free breakfast here, so I came to grab a bite."

As he finished speaking, a waiter happened to walk by with tea and snacks. A croissant and a cup of hot milk—Lu Mingfei still had room in his stomach, so he devoured them in no time.

Of the sixteen formally dressed boys and girls, more than half had their attention fixed on this guy who was here to freeload. They had all prepared thoroughly before coming, and none of them had touched the snacks provided by the hotel, afraid that if they ate, they wouldn't digest in time and would end up burping or causing a scene during the interview.

Once Lu Mingfei finished eating and started filling out his form, Su Xiaoqiang finally couldn't help but ask:

"Are you here for the interview, too?"

Lu Mingfei scribbled on his form without looking up:

"That's right. After careful consideration, I've decided to take my talents to the East Coast of the United States this fall and officially join Cassell College."