Henry Clark grew up with him, but still couldn’t figure him out. You could call him sunny, sure, or call him narcissistic, sure, or call him a scumbag—he was a bona fide scumbag. Because he knew exactly how to stab people right where they were most vulnerable. But sometimes, he could put on a better front than anyone else. All in all, just don’t cross him, because there’s nothing he won’t do. As for why The Brooks Family was willing to adopt him, it was all because of his “strong fate.”

This was true—Henry Clark had a “weak fate,” and as a kid, seeing “ghosts” was a regular thing. But after he started hanging out with Brian Brooks, he never saw anything weird again. Even Brian Brooks’s precious little brother, who used to cry every night after he was born, stopped crying once Brian Brooks moved in.

Brian Brooks had no interest in hearing how people comforted their boyfriends. He planned to finish the rest of his Coke and go find a movie to watch. Just then, Henry Clark’s sarcastic voice sounded in his ear: “Isn’t that David Hayes, that asshole?”

Brian Brooks glanced at him lazily. “What, you know him?”

“From No. 1 High, back in the day,” Henry Clark squinted, scrutinizing David Hayes. “You remember Edward Price, right? My friend from junior high, the one who had to transfer because his mom forced him.”

His mom forced him?

“Yeah, his mom. Forced him.” Henry Clark confirmed, breaking the sentence deliberately.

A few years back, No. 1 High was actually a real mixed bag, because they hadn’t yet canceled the direct-admission program from the affiliated middle school. Every year, some rich, useless kids would buy their way in. Later, to boost college entrance rates, No. 1 High split into three campuses: Zongshan, Main, and Yulin. Zongshan was where Brian Brooks’s five experimental classes were—all top-tier students, gold medalists in major competitions. The Main campus was for the regular academic stars like David Hayes and Edward Price, the largest group. Yulin was all art students, like Henry Clark and Olivia Lane, most of whom came straight from the affiliated middle school.

Brian Brooks wasn’t a direct admit, and his schedule was different from Henry Clark’s. Zongshan had classes Monday through Saturday, with only half a day off on Sunday, and even then, they had to go back for evening self-study. Even during winter and summer breaks, Brian Brooks was usually at competition training camps. Yulin was basically free-range. So, over three years of high school, there was actually a lot of information gap between them. Otherwise, Henry Clark wouldn’t have really thought he was dating Olivia Lane.

So, Brian Brooks didn’t know much about what happened with Edward Price. But hearing Henry Clark talk about it, he did remember playing a basketball game with David Hayes—and David Hayes really did have trouble controlling his emotions.

That was during the second-year basketball league: No. 1 High vs. Lecheng High.

Both were top provincial schools, pretty evenly matched. But that year, No. 1 High had won a lot of competition awards, so Lecheng wanted to take them down a peg on the court. Their play style was always aggressive and rough, and with the referee making blatantly biased calls that day, Lecheng’s players acted with impunity, committing dirty fouls over and over. Brian Brooks’s team swallowed their anger and played through half the game, falling far behind in points, with several players injured. The girls in the cheer squad on the sidelines were shouting in distress, begging Brian Brooks’s team to just quit.

While the cheerleaders were fighting it out on the sidelines, the players on the court were surprisingly calm, completely ignoring the other team’s taunts and focusing on discussing tactics and strategy during halftime.

That was the charm of No. 1 High’s students. They had their own conflicts and rivalries in private, but their sense of collective honor was especially strong. When it came down to the wire, no one cared about hogging the spotlight—they trusted each other completely, coordinated their tactics, and there was always someone to catch the ball wherever it went.

David Hayes only played half the game before being ejected by the referee. Both Brian Brooks and the team captain had varying degrees of foot injuries. Because David Hayes was out, the two of them only got to rest for ten minutes each, but they still managed to turn the half-dead game into a blood-pumping battle. In the end, they pulled off a comeback, and Brian Brooks clinched the championship with a buzzer-beating three-pointer.

It was a narrow victory, and the whole crowd was in tears of excitement. But then, out of nowhere, David Hayes suddenly rushed over and, without a word, punched the opposing team’s captain to the ground. Brian Brooks and a few teammates had just sat down to catch their breath—there was no time to stop him. The scene was instantly drowned in the boys’ roaring and the girls’ hysterical screams.

That year, their team was disqualified, and Brian Brooks and several teammates ended up with busted feet, wearing casts for a month after the game. Because of David Hayes’s lack of self-control, they didn’t even get a ranking in the end.

……

“Even now, no one can say for sure if he did it on purpose. Edward Price said David Hayes loves the spotlight. When he got ejected, you and the captain stole all the thunder, so of course he felt unbalanced. He knew fighting would get the team disqualified, but he still rushed in—either he’s stupid or just plain bad. And if he hadn’t been scrambling for rebounds, would your foot have gotten hurt?”

Henry Clark said this as the two of them had already gone inside. He came out of the bathroom, searching the place for a lighter while declaring to Brian Brooks with absolute certainty.

As the person involved—the one who wore a cast for a month—Young Master Brooks wasn’t nearly as indignant. He grabbed a chair with one hand and set it in the middle of the living room, planning to change the lamp he’d just bought a couple days ago. But after standing on one foot and taking a look, he gave up. The lampshade was packed with the corpses of mosquitoes and flies, and the previous tenant must have been a heavy smoker—the metal screw cap on the lampshade was covered in thick, grimy tar, making it impossible to even start.

The living room light was dim, flickering, struggling to burn out its last bit of brightness, looking like it was about to give up at any moment.