Katie Wu peered over the wall that flanked the flight of stairs she was taking to her third class. A commotion below had drawn her attention. This was what it looked like: there were two girls staring frightfully at a boy who looked like his head and hair had been redecorated with fruitcake. He was frozen in his steps halfway up the steps. He was accompanied by three boys behind him.
One of the girls, the one with a low ponytail, apologised profusely as she went up to the boy hurriedly. She mumbled something else then started dusting away the cake crumbs and cream on his coat. In one quick movement, he brushed her aside like an insect, so hard that she hit the wall and crumbled in a heap on the ground. The girl started to whimper as her friend, the short-haired one, reached out to help her then told the boy off for being mean and obnoxious.
Before she even knew what she was doing, Katie raised her textbook of 264 pages over the raised wall, aimed it above the boy's head and released the hard cover book. It made contact with his head with such a loud thud she was surprised herself. She knew it was too late to take it back now so she raced down the steps just as he was recovering from the impact. He was a tall fellow so she had to leave two steps between them to meet him at eye level.
"Leave them alone, you obnoxious prick," Katie said to him matter-of-factly. He glowered at her while seething through his teeth. His head must hurt. "Your head wouldn't have hurt as much if you bothered to look up once in a while instead of down at others."
Despite his momentary concussion, the boy wasn't wavered by her words. Not a bit. At least, that was what she was thinking when he was glowering at her still. She was not expecting the next thing he did. He grabbed the nape of her neck in one hand, yanked her forward to meet him closer at eye level their noses were almost touching, and growled at her, "You've got guts." With that he released his hold on her and continued on his way.
Katie rubbed her sore neck from the death grip earlier and caught a glance of the remaining three boys who followed their leader as if nothing had happened. The last one, who looked like a daydreamer of sorts, picked up a soiled card from the floor and handed it to the short-haired girl. He said nothing and caught up to the rest, disappearing around the corner.
"Thank you for standing up for us," the short-haired girl said to her. "That was embarrassing." Katie helped her help her friend to her feet. The girl with the ponytail was still badly shaken.
"Never mind that." Katie said. "Are the both of you okay?" They nodded. She reached down to pick up her textbook and dusted off the fruitcake crumbs adhered to the bottom side of the book. "That's good. I have to go now - I'm late for class. Stay out of trouble." She started to walk up the steps again.
"Hey," one of them called out to her and she spun around. It was the short-haired girl. "I'm Dong Shancai. This is my friend, Li Zhen. What's your name?" Shancai had the most soulful eyes - the kind which Katie felt would be criminal if she rejected her offer of acquaintance.
"Katie," she said. "Katie Wu." The girls nodded, smiling.
She hurried up the steps as quickly as she could. She was a whole fifteen minutes late! Then she stopped abruptly in her steps and peered over the wall again at the girls who were attempting to pick up the remains of the ruined cake. "By the way," Katie said and Shancai looked up again with those eyes. "Who was that with the fruitcake bomb on his head?"
"His name is Daoming Si."
Katie soon found out that Daoming Si was a person of significance in this part of the hemisphere. He was heir to the Daoming Investment Group, which was ranked one of the wealthiest families and companies in Shanghai, if not all of China. Google results couldn't come to a consensus. At Ming De University, together with best mates, Huaze Lei, Feng Meizuo and Ximen Yan, they were collectively known as "F4" and dominated the game of Bridge, winning awards every year since they formed the Bridge Club as freshmen. They were basically superstars on campus and MDU's pride and joy. No one messed with them. Ever.
"At Bridge, he has a reputation for being ruthless, cunning and extremely aggressive. He never takes prisoners and never loses." Katie read his spiel in the results of her search for his student profile. "He takes his challengers down without remorse and drives them six feet under, so to speak." She raised one eyebrow at this sentence and felt herself stifle an awkward laugh manifesting as a cough. "This is ridiculous," she muttered under her breath. "No one is that good. At cards."
She didn't want to read the rest of the profiles on his friends. His alone was sickening. What a load of rubbish. She shut her Macbook and looked at her oversized wristwatch: almost time for her first class. She rose from the rust-coloured bench in the campus courtyard and walked to her locker. She put in the access code and opened it. As she reached in to retrieve her textbook, she noticed a foreign object in there which she had never seen before: a clear thin-glassed Joker card with an "F4" print incorporated on the card. She tugged it free from the ceiling of her locker and examined it this way and that, puzzled.
She then distinctively heard some quiet chatter behind her. "She's got the Joker card!" one person whispered loudly. "What did she do?" another girl wondered aloud. "She's dead, for sure." Ominous.
Wonderful, she thought. I'm in trouble on my third day. She heaved a big sigh. Well, I don't know what this means and I still have class so … She walked to the nearest bin and was about to toss the card into it when someone grabbed her wrist. It was definitely a man's hand judging by the size of it. She traced it back to its owner and he was furious.
"What do you think you're doing?" Daoming Si barked at her, his hand still wrapped around her wrist. He was taller than she imagined now that they were on levelled ground, with a chiselled face, pale complexion and that ridiculous hairstyle Katie had never seen on anyone else in her life. She couldn't even begin to describe it. "I gave you that card for a reason. How dare you throw it out? It's a privilege."
Katie saw that her hand was turning into an unhealthy shade of purple and yanked her hand out of his grasp. "That hurts!" she told him. He smirked like he didn't care. "I don't know what this card means and frankly, I don't care. If it's so important to you, here," she tucked it neatly into the breast pocket of his coat and patted it twice firmly. "You can have it back. Goodbye." She spun on her heel and walked off in the direction of her class. The day was too early for crazy.
Later that day, during lunch, Katie bumped into Shancai. Or rather, Shancai collided into Katie at the cafeteria. Shancai was on edge, not like the calm and collected person Katie met the day before. They grabbed some lunch from the cafeteria and Katie was led to a building's rooftop for "a chat". The thought that Shancai might push her off the rooftop did cross her mind momentarily so Katie made sure to stand as far away from the ledge as possible. Just in case.
Shancai was relaxed as soon as they got up there though. She started munching on her burger. "So you have it too?" Shancai asked. "The Joker card."
"Not anymore," Katie replied and sat down next to her, starting on the yoghurt cup. "I was going to throw it away but then I gave it back to him."
"Why?" Shancai was curious and confused. "How?"
"He stopped me just as I found a bin and it seemed important so I gave it back." Katie was starting to think everyone on this campus was insane. It was a Joker prop card. What's the big deal? she wondered. "Wait, he said it was a privilege. Why?"
"You don't know." Shank finished her burger and dusted her hands. "That card is an invitation from F4 to a game of Bridge with them. In this case, probably just Daoming Si because he's the one with a problem with us."
"Us?" Katie asked. "Who's us?"
Shancai pointed at herself then Katie. "I have a card too," she said. "They hand one out when they feel that someone is 'worthy'." She wagged two fingers on each hand simultaneously to emphasise the word. "Because, apparently, EVERYONE wants to challenge their power, strength, status, etc. on this campus. Or so I've heard." She rolled her eyes.
"That's ridiculous!" Katie exclaimed, finishing her yoghurt. "I don't have time for this. I'm only here for a year and I can't afford to be stuck playing mind or card games with a lunatic." She got up.
"It will happen anyway," Shancai said. "We just don't know when. It's for them to decide." She stretched her arms as far as they would go. "In the meantime, this rooftop is ours so we can curse them."
"Curse them?" Katie didn't follow. Shancai was remarkably adorable but she also seemed unpredictable. Before Katie could stop her, Shancai began yelling a string of funny and unusual curses at the F4 members into thin air, and Katie laughed along until Shancai paused because she had run out of curses.
Then, an unexpected voice interrupted them. "What else?"
Shancai and Katie gasped when they saw him. He was tall, lanky, fair-skinned and had a mob of wavy brown hair but he had the softest eyes and lips. Katie recognised him as one of the F4 members, the last one of the pack, the one who picked up the card and gave it to Shancai on the first day they met.
"H-huaze Lei," Shancai stuttered unsurely. "What are you doing here?" Her eyes shifted in all directions. Katie couldn't tell if she was scared, nervous, shy or something else.
He had a stoic face but with his supermodel good looks, it didn't matter. "This is my rooftop," he said. No emotions. "Well, it was until you showed up and started cursing my friends and I." Katie bit her lip. This was awkward. "But I'm curious. What happens after the hair in our noses grow so long they touch the floor?" He was definitely the odd one.
"I-I haven't given it further thought," Shancai replied and lowered her gaze to the ground. "Sorry you had to hear that." Then she blushed.
Sorry? Why is she sorry? Katie wondered. Wasn't she just freely cursing all of them just now? What changed? On the other hand, she could see that this Huaze Lei was no threat and she was running late for her next class so she put the rest of her lunch into her gym bag and slung it over her shoulder. "Well, it was nice having lunch with you, Shancai," Katie said quickly then looked at Huaze Lei. "Sorry about your rooftop."