I Have Decided to Go Look for My Father

Friday came quickly.

Gu Xi went over to CYC Center after school that afternoon.

Many others were there checking out the venue at that time.

Among the crowd, Gu Xi, given her age and the fact that she was wearing her school uniform, really stood out.

Gu Xi had already felt that she stood at out the venue.

Lo and behold, there was someone else who stood out even more than she did.

From the other end of the venue, someone with an ugly green fish headgear quickly attracted a lot of attention to himself, albeit the fact that he tried to cover up his headgear with the hood from his sweatshirt and keep his head as low as possible in order to attract less attention.

The headgear was ugly in such a “creative” way that it was difficult not to notice it, especially the protruding sexy yellow fish lips.

Gu Xi could hear others discussing around them.

“What is going on with that guy?”

“Is he really here to check out the venue? He looks like he was here to be a clown.”

“Just for the attention, maybe?”

“It’s not a talent show. Is that necessary?”

There was contempt in their voices.

But different opinions surfaced quickly.

“Don’t say that too soon. You just might have your face slapped,” said someone in a low voice.

What do you mean?

“He might be some very talented person to make his appearance like that.” That could be true too. With a competition like this, there could potentially be a lot of talented person hidden within. There very well might be someone equivalent to “monk who was responsible for the sweeping duty”.

The way the others looked at the fish-head man became quizzical.

Gu Xi, too, looked in that direction when she overheard the discussions. She still found that comical.

***

On the other side, some 20 or so meters away from her.

Through the headgear, Sheng Xiuyan noticed Gu Xi in the crowd for the first time.

Seeing the last person that he wanted to run into, Sheng Xiuyan got a little nervous and reflexively wanted to run away.

The next second, however, Sheng Xiuyan stopped himself. Not even his own father could recognize him with this headgear on. Why would he need to run?

With that thought, Sheng Xiuyan calmed down all of a sudden and looked away pretending that he had not noticed Gu Xi at all.

Sheng Xiuyan’s very confident and even somewhat complacent attitude lasted less than 2 minutes when a voice from behind him ruined his hopes.

“Sheng Xiuyan? When did you get here?”

The voice belonged to Gu Yanlin.

Sheng Xiuyan’s neck stiffened when he heard Gu Yanlin calling out to him and he cussed to himself. “Dang!”

How was he able to recognize him in this disguise? Did he have x-ray for eyes?

What Sheng Xiuyan didn’t know was that Gu Yanlin didn’t really recognize him per se. He only found that he looked familiar from behind as did the sweatshirt so he thought he would try and called out to him.

After he had called out, Gu Yanlin pulled out his phone and was about to call up the other two on the phone.

When his phone rang, Sheng Xiuyan hung up reflexively and, with a glitch of his brain, started running in the opposite direction.

“I guess I was right.

“But where is he running to?” Gu Yanlin looked surprised with his phone still in his hand.

“Hey, Sheng Xiuyan. Over here!” Gu Yanlin called out to Sheng Xiuyan as he walked toward the same direction.

***

Over on this side, Gu Xi, who was looking at the map for the display booths, paused a little.

Did she just hear someone calling out “Sheng Xiuyan”s name?

“Did Sheng Xiuyan join this competition too?” Gu Xi mumbled to herself. And, the voice that she had just heard was somewhat familiar too.

Gu Xi looked in the direction where the voice came from. Unfortunately, there were too many people there and Gu Xi did not find any familiar faces when she looked around.

Regardless, everybody were talking and it was so noisy that she would not be surprised if she had misheard.

As she thought about it, Gu Xi looked back ahead of her and followed the others in line as they walked into the next exhibition area.