Braised Pork Ribs
The training camp life was dull and tedious. The students were almost completely cut off from the outside world, spending their days reading, doing practice questions, eating, and sleeping—every moment scheduled to the minute.
As the semi-final drew nearer, Lu Xingjia and Qin Mudong gradually fell into a rhythm with each other.
Every day at noon, the two of them would go to lunch a bit later. With no one left in the classroom, they would sit side by side, quietly reading and studying.
This peaceful time was short—only about twenty minutes each day—but it always felt especially long, because it was theirs alone. A quiet, shared, and private moment.
But there was one downside:
By the time they made it to the cafeteria, all the good food was either sold out or had long lines stretching to the door.
Lu Xingjia had been craving braised pork ribs for several days, but every time he saw the line snaking several meters long, he lost all hope.
That particular day was no different.
They entered the cafeteria side by side, and the line for braised pork ribs stretched all the way across the room, practically reaching the entrance.
“This is insane,” Lu Xingjia muttered under his breath, tugging Qin Mudong toward another area. “Forget it, let’s just go somewhere else.”
If it were just him, he might have waited. But with Qin Mudong with him, he felt bad making him stand in line.
“Do you really want to eat this?” Qin Mudong asked.
Lu Xingjia pouted. “It’s whatever, it’s just the line is…”
“Then let’s get it,” Qin Mudong interrupted.
The tall boy took a long stride and walked to the end of the line, standing firmly in place.
“But…” Lu Xingjia opened his mouth, about to say more, when Qin Mudong calmly said, “I want it too.”
Lu Xingjia’s words caught in his throat, but his heart warmed.
“Okay then,” he said, a smile spreading across his face. “But braised ribs alone won’t be enough. What else do you want? I’ll go buy it.”
“Anything’s fine,” Qin Mudong replied lightly.
“Then let’s get noodles!” Lu Xingjia said, eyes crinkling with his smile. “I’ll go grab two bowls of ramen and wait over there.”
He pointed to an empty spot behind the line.
Qin Mudong gave a slight nod. “Okay.”
The braised rib line inched forward slowly. Lu Xingjia ran back and forth twice, bringing over both of their bowls and placing them on the table they’d picked. Then he grabbed chopsticks and spoons.
Just as he sat down, a tall, skinny boy with a gentle appearance tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, is someone sitting here?”
The cafeteria tables were long and shared by many. Lu Xingjia pointed to the spot beside him, where Qin Mudong’s noodles sat. “Here, yes. The rest, no.”
“Thanks,” the boy nodded, and soon returned with two others. The three of them sat beside Lu Xingjia, eating and chatting animatedly.
Their lively conversation only made Lu Xingjia’s side of the table seem even quieter. The noodle soup shimmered with oil, and Lu Xingjia’s gaze drifted past the chatty trio to where Qin Mudong was still in line.
Why was the line for braised ribs this long? The noodles were getting cold!
Qin Mudong’s figure moved slowly with the queue. Lu Xingjia played idly with the tips of his chopsticks, glancing toward Qin Mudong again while half-listening to the trio’s conversation in boredom.
High school was the peak age for being dramatic and showing off. People spoke without filters, and Lu Xingjia quickly figured out the relationship between the three guys.
The boy sitting directly across from him was referred to as “Long Ge,” full name Xu Feilong. He had the kind of handsome face that girls liked and carried himself with a roguish air. He wasn’t wearing a school uniform, so it was unclear which school he belonged to. He wore ripped jeans and a denim jacket, and even the way he talked had a cocky, street-smart edge.
The other two were clearly his underlings. One moment they were bragging about how many girls liked him, the next they were talking about how good his grades were.
Totally uninteresting.
Lu Xingjia propped his head up with one hand, silently praying for Qin Mudong to hurry up and come over—when he suddenly caught the faint mention of “Qin Mudong” from the trio beside him.
Was he hallucinating Qin Mudong’s name because he’d been thinking about him too much?
Lu Xingjia pursed his lips and mentally urged Qin Mudong to hurry. As he waited in bored silence, he heard the name “Qin Mudong” again.
Did they really know him?
Lu Xingjia perked up and listened closely. The trio’s conversation soon became crystal clear.
The tall, skinny boy who had just asked Lu Xingjia a question earlier was sitting next to him. He picked up a ball of rice with his chopsticks and stuffed it into his mouth, mumbling, “That kid Qin Mudong really came, huh?”
“Yeah, he’s got good grades. It’d be strange if he didn’t come,” one of them nodded and wiggled his eyebrows at the guy across the table. “Long Ge, so? Have you two met yet?”
“You’ve got some nerve even bringing that up.” Xu Feilong shot them a vicious glare and slapped the back of the boy’s head. “If you guys hadn’t egged me on, would my damn head have gotten cracked open?”
Lu Xingjia’s hand paused mid-air. In that instant, he remembered what Ji Angran had said before — about Qin Mudong getting into a fight.
The boy rubbed the back of his head, grinning shamelessly. “Hey, you can’t blame us. You’re the one who made the bet.”
“Bullshit. I didn’t tell you to go spill the beans,” Xu Feilong spat at him, pointing at the side of his own forehead. “See this? Still got a scar. Hurt like hell!”
This time, the boy finally looked a little apologetic and chuckled awkwardly. “Yeah, but how were we supposed to know he’d actually go that far? We just tricked him a little — was that really necessary? He acted like a girl who just got her heart broken.”
With just a few lines of dialogue, Lu Xingjia pieced everything together.
Back in middle school, Xu Feilong had called himself the “boss,” while Qin Mudong was the most aloof student in class — never interacted with anyone. So the lackeys made fun of Xu Feilong, saying he couldn’t really be the boss if he couldn’t get even Qin Mudong under his wing.
Xu Feilong, prideful and competitive, took the bait and bet that he could become friends with Qin Mudong. So he approached him on his own and actually managed to befriend him.
But from their tone, it was clear they had never respected Qin Mudong. They thought he was fake, arrogant, pretending to be above them.
Lu Xingjia suppressed the anger rising in his chest. At last, he understood the truth behind that fight.
It wasn’t Qin Mudong’s fault at all—he had simply found out the truth about their deception.
The three were still chatting animatedly when Long Ge slammed his hand on the table and scowled, “Qin Mudong’s just a damn psycho. Doesn’t matter how well he does in school—he’ll still be a rabid dog in society…”
Lu Xingjia had never seen someone so shamelessly twist the truth and dodge responsibility. He was both angry and disgusted. Unable to hold back any longer, he slammed his chopsticks down on the table.
Xu Feilong flinched and looked up in surprise.
The small boy across from him looked slender and obedient, but there was a sharp edge in his eyes, an aura that made people instinctively wary.
The last time Xu Feilong had seen eyes like that was when Qin Mudong beat him up.
Qin Mudong was genuinely cold, genuinely ruthless — his eyes sharp like a hawk’s, as if he could tear you apart. Xu Feilong had known that from the beginning.
If it hadn’t been for his friends teasing him about being scared, he’d never have gotten involved with Qin Mudong.
Now, this kid was glaring at him, eyes burning with contempt, lips curled into a mocking smile.
“Did hurting your head make you so dumb you couldn’t even beat a ‘rabid dog’ on a test?”
The words weren’t meant to hit hard, but they struck deep. Xu Feilong’s expression changed.
Among his group, his grades were never that impressive. In fact, he barely scraped by this time. It was a private insecurity he kept buried.
Having it laid bare, he instinctively opened his mouth to curse, but after weighing the situation, he forced a smile and softened his tone. “Hey, classmate. Do you know Qin Mudong? I think there’s been a misunderstanding…”
He had always tried to maintain the image of a loyal “big brother” type. Openly mocking a classmate wasn’t exactly honorable, and he didn’t want to leave behind a bad impression.
Before he could finish speaking, they all saw Qin Mudong walking over, holding two small plates of braised pork ribs.
The air froze. All four boys at the table immediately fell silent.
Lu Xingjia even stiffened up, his eyes locked onto Qin Mudong.
The small dishes were placed in front of Lu Xingjia, and Qin Mudong sat down calmly.
He’d always been indifferent to irrelevant people, and didn’t even glance at the trio sitting nearby.
Lu Xingjia hesitated to speak, but Qin Mudong lightly tapped the edge of his bowl with his chopsticks and instructed, “Eat quickly. Class starts soon.”
The tall, skinny boy kept giving his companion frantic looks, mouthing: “What do we do???”
His expressions were extremely exaggerated, complete with wild gestures.
The other boy mouthed back: “How would I know!!!”
Their exaggerated movements finally caught Qin Mudong’s attention.
He looked up unconsciously. The moment he saw clearly who the three people beside him were, his expression turned cold, his face gradually going pale.
Blood rushed to his head, and those mocking words began echoing endlessly in his mind.
“Yeah, I lied to you. So what?”
“You didn’t actually think someone wanted to be friends with you, did you?”
“With that deadpan face of yours, who would ever like you? Stop dreaming.”
…
The dim sky, the vivid blood, the nauseating feeling — they clung to him tightly, inescapable.
His fingers clenched suddenly, nails almost digging into his flesh.
Why… why was Lu Xingjia sitting with them?
Seeing Qin Mudong’s expression, Lu Xingjia immediately understood. He grabbed Qin Mudong’s icy hand and hurriedly, frantically explained, “You know them? I just heard them badmouthing you, and I couldn’t hold back, so I cussed them out.”
“Don’t listen to them. Look at me — I’m Jia Jia!”
The warmth of his touch spread through the skin on Qin Mudong’s wrist. Qin Mudong shut his eyes in anguish, his breathing ragged, ears filled with the deafening roar of his own pulse.
Seeing the two of them like this, Xu Feilong actually calmed down.
He had seen Qin Mudong lose it before, genuinely believing the guy was unhinged, so he couldn’t imagine anyone really wanting to be friends with him.
He figured the small boy in front of him would soon be frightened and wouldn’t want anything more to do with Qin Mudong.
A hint of a smug smile even crept onto his lips as he added fuel to the fire: “So you’re Qin Mudong’s friend? What a coincidence. Nice to meet you. I’m Xu Feilong, also a friend of his from middle school.”
He deliberately emphasized the word “friend.”
“You might be misunderstanding us,” he said, one hand in his pocket, smiling almost kindly. “I’m not the type to talk behind someone’s back. We were really close back in middle school. Then one day, out of nowhere, Qin Mudong beat me up and cracked my head open.”
“Qin Mudong probably has some kind of natural violent streak. If you’re gonna hang out with him, be careful. You might end up like me — stabbed in the back before you even know it.”
Qin Mudong’s eyes suddenly snapped open, full of pain and fury.
He reached for a plate on the table, but Lu Xingjia moved faster, standing up and stepping in front of him.
“I’m his friend. But you’re not,” Lu Xingjia said slowly and clearly. “Scum.”
Without sparing them another glance, he grabbed Qin Mudong and found the furthest table they could, carrying all the food with him.
After everything was set down, Qin Mudong was still sitting in a daze, his dark eyes like a dead, still pool of water.
Lu Xingjia sighed softly and sat beside him.
“Let’s eat…”
He deliberately softened his voice, pretending nothing had happened — but before he could finish, Qin Mudong grabbed his wrist tightly.
The moment he heard Lu Xingjia’s voice, all the emotions Qin Mudong had bottled up exploded.
His whole hand was trembling, veins bulging on his arm, fingertips pale from the force of his grip. He was squeezing Lu Xingjia’s wrist so hard it ached, like he wanted to fuse him into his very bones.
“Jia Jia,” he said, voice hoarse and shaking, every word scraped raw like sandpaper.
“I really did… think of him as a friend.”
Lu Xingjia froze. His anger turned into a sharp, aching sorrow that pierced through every inch of his being.
He understood now — understood the hidden pain in Qin Mudong’s words, and hated himself for not realizing the truth earlier.
Because Qin Mudong truly thought of that person as a friend, it shattered him when he found out the friendship was a lie.
Lu Xingjia felt like a fish dying on land, with a boulder pressing on his chest. He gasped desperately for air, but couldn’t breathe.
And he knew — this was only a fraction of the pain Qin Mudong had experienced.
Qin Mudong thought he’d found light, only to discover it was just the glint of a rotting fish’s scales in a sewer.
No wonder he has feared the light ever since.