Du Dan Dan's casual mention of a bad guy piqued everyone's curiosity in the dorm, and they bombarded her with questions, each more curious than the last.
"Alright, alright, I don't know either. I'm a beauty, how could I possibly know so much?"
Du Dan Dan, her head throbbing, shouted in exasperation.
"Oh..."
Her own curiosity sparked, Du Dan Dan quickly sat up.
"I have a childhood friend who's always loved fighting and stuff, he really admires this guy. I'll ask him, he'll know everything."
Seeing everyone nodding, she immediately added, "My phone card's out of credit, can I use yours?"
It was 1992, pagers were just starting to emerge and were still a rarity, while mobile phones, costing nearly twenty thousand yuan each, were considered incredibly stylish. College students relied on public phone booths or the card phones in their dorms for calls.
Li Luo Ran, pretending to be completely nonchalant, pulled a pink phone card out of her bag and tossed it over, eliciting another round of gasps from the girls.
"嘟嘟" The phone call connected quickly, and after a few pleasantries, Du Dan Dan went straight to the point.
"You said you met Little Red Robe? You even had dinner with him? Dan Dan, I've been good to you, haven't I? When you were little, anyone who bullied you, I was the one who got your revenge. Remember when you wet your pants in third grade..."
"Shut up!" Du Dan Dan, flustered and angry, could only see the others trying to stifle their laughter, making her hate Cao Ge on the other end of the line.
"Just tell me everything you know, seriously. Or I'll never talk to you again."
The call was long, and Du Dan Dan's mouth grew wider and wider as she listened.
Towards the end of the call, the guy said he had nothing else to say, but specifically requested an introduction to Su Ping Nan. Du Dan Dan managed a few evasive replies before hanging up, feeling completely overwhelmed.
She had been raised in a greenhouse, sheltered from the world. This was the first time she had heard such a dramatic, bloody, and eerie story about the underworld, and it completely shattered her worldview.
As Du Dan Dan recounted the story, the entire dorm fell silent.
When she mentioned Su Ping Nan's solo raid on the Happy Forest, Tong Xuan, the girl with the largest chest in the dorm, muttered softly,
"A real man."
Du Dan Dan abruptly stopped talking. She had called Su Ping Nan a bad guy, but secretly, she wasn't sure she disliked him. She wasn't certain if what she was about to say wouldn't scare Li Luo Ran, so she paused.
"Go on, what happened to Jiang Men Shen later?" The girls, feeling like they were watching a martial arts movie, were impatient with the silence and couldn't help but urge her to continue.
The lights in the dorm suddenly went out. It was time for lights out.
In the darkness, Du Dan Dan's voice drifted over: "Later, Jiang Men Shen and his thirty-six men, all died in an accident."
At the same time Du Dan Dan spoke, Su Ping Nan had already boarded a plane for Tian Du, with Han Bing in tow.
Su Ping Nan had failed to secure a ticket for the flight, so he was surprised when he got on the plane in the 1990s to find that he could smoke. (This is true. In the 1990s, it was actually okay to smoke and drink on airplanes, and they even offered it. It was my grandparents who told me this.)
As Su Ping Nan sat there enveloped in smoke, he felt a sense of disorientation. He hadn't flown in the 1990s either.
Upon arriving in Tian Du, Su Ping Nan smiled at Han Bing and said, "You know, in a few years, the Celestial Empire will have its own planes."
Han Bing could only smile back. Though Su was young, and clearly accomplished, perhaps he was a little too confident.
As Su Ping Nan got off the plane, he didn't know that Li Luo Ran's dorm was utterly silent. Li Luo Ran lay in bed, her heart fluttering, as if floating in mid-air. She had always been a good girl, never doing anything out of line. This was the first time she had encountered a man with such a powerful aura, leaving her completely flustered.
In the dim light, Zhao Xia said seriously, "Luo Ran, I think a person should live life to the fullest. This guy is totally my type. If you don't feel anything, I'll drop my current boyfriend and go chase after this Little Red Robe."
For some reason, Li Luo Ran, who was still awake, remained silent.
Han Bing arrived in Wu Cheng and was startled by the way Su Wen Wen and the others greeted Su Ping Nan. Three black SUVs and nearly a hundred men in black suits were waiting respectfully outside the station. When Su Ping Nan emerged, they all bowed deeply, not a single sound being uttered during the entire process.
Han Bing looked at Su Ping Nan with a mix of emotions. He realized that everything Su had said in the private room about that unbelievably beautiful girl was true, not just bravado.
Su Ping Nan was speechless. He was just trying to do business seriously, but after only a few days out, his subordinates had turned him into some kind of strange character.
Li Ming Yi was also among the crowd at the station. Seeing the sea of black-clad figures bowing, including even the usually composed Zhang Li Hua, with fire in their eyes, he couldn't help but smile warmly. He bent deeply as well, welcoming the sole emperor of their commercial empire.