Part 2:The Angel's Mustang and the Mountaintop Pact
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Ruby knew CoCo wasn't coming.
The realization was a rusty thumbtack he'd finally, brutally, pressed into the softest part of his own heart. It hurt like hell, but it also brought a bitter clarity. The girl in Italy, her life's canvas was already filled with the brilliant colors of the Renaissance; there was no room for a murky drop of ink from a convenience store on Marin Street.
He walked off the stage, not towards his isolated "island," but straight towards the source of that solitary applause. This wasn't like him. Maybe when he fell out of the sky last night, he'd broken the part of his brain labeled "cowardice."
"Look at that weirdo, where's he going?"
"No way. He doesn't actually think that applause was sincere, does he? God, he's so naive."
The whispers around him were like a swarm of annoying flies.
Screw 'em. Ruby gave them a mental middle finger and, for the first time, chose to block out the noise.
He stopped at her table.
"Hi," he heard himself say, his voice steadier than he expected. "My name is Ruby. Thanks for the... applause."
The simplest of opening lines had just cost him twenty-two years' worth of social courage.
The girl wore a minimalist black shirt and matching high-waisted, wide-leg pants. Her shoulder-length golden hair was loosely tied back, falling in natural waves. She was a stark contrast to the try-hard "socialite" aesthetic of everyone else, yet she possessed a powerful, quiet aura that was impossible to ignore.
She looked up, and her large eyes held no pity or sympathy, but rather... a kind of focus, like a technician examining a precision instrument.
"Your vocalization is unique," she said, her voice clear with a native American accent. "That last line of the poem, 'drown a thousand years of sorrow,' your vocal cords produced an atypical resonance. A normal person couldn't shout with that effect. It was less like a sound and more like a... physical force."
Ruby froze. What kind of review was that? Was she analyzing his throat structure instead of praising his emotional delivery?
"We've met," the girl continued. "Two years ago, at the school auditorium. Farewell My Concubine. You were the cameraman, right?"
The memory clicked into place. The Beijing opera performance. He'd been roped into being free labor for the student council, running around with a camera, though his lens kept drifting to CoCo in the audience.
"My name is Jenny," she said, holding out her hand. "You can also call me Du Yi. I was on stage that day."
Du Yi.
The name sparked a faint current in some forgotten corner of Ruby's mind, but he didn't have time to process it.
"Your name... is really nice," was the only dry compliment he could manage.
"Your performance was good," her voice was as clear as a mountain stream. "I know that poem. Li Bai. A great drunk. But you gave it something new, something raw, an unpolished... rage. They didn't get it," she glanced dismissively at the chattering crowd nearby, as if they were a troop of monkeys producing white noise, "because their ears are dull."
In that instant, Ruby felt like he'd been hit. Not by Cupid's arrow, but by a precision-guided bullet from a kindred spirit. Someone had finally, in a way he'd never heard but desperately craved, translated the roar in his heart.
"You..." Ruby's throat felt dry. "Your saxophone... 'Careless Whisper'... it was amazing!"
Jenny smiled, a real, genuine smile this time, like a night-blooming cereus. "Well then, to celebrate the fact that our 'talents' haven't been completely buried by this boring world, may I invite you to get the hell out of this place?"
"Right now?"
"Why not?" Jenny's gaze swept over the gossiping crowd. "You want to stick around for their karaoke, or listen to them argue about whose annual bonus is higher than your annual income?"
With that, she turned and walked towards the exit without a shred of hesitation. Ruby scrambled to follow. Chen Meng's sharp voice lashed out like a whip: "Where do you think you're going, Mr. Poet? Flirt with that weirdo for two seconds and you're ready to elope?"
A wave of laughter followed.
Ruby stopped, turned, and looked at Chen Meng's face, twisted with jealousy. He took a deep breath and, with all his might, said the words he thought he'd never be able to say in his life:
"She's not a weirdo." He paused, scanning the stunned faces around him, and added, enunciating every word, "You are."
He turned and walked away. He could feel dozens of eyes glued to his ridiculous "NICE" track pants, but he didn't care. It felt like a hurricane had finally blown open the door to a room he'd kept sealed for twenty-two years.
Outside, Jenny was leaning against the wall, looking down at a phone that looked like it was carved from black jade.
"I was starting to think they'd eaten you alive," she said, looking up with a smile.
"Where to?" Ruby asked.
"Where do you want to go?" she countered.
It was a trap, a sweet, dangerous trap. Ruby's brain raced, searching his pathetic database of "date spots." An internet cafe? A karaoke bar? The barbecue stall downstairs? Every option felt hopelessly inadequate.
He fell silent.
Jenny saw his predicament. "Just follow me."
She led him to the elevator, pressing the button not for the ground floor, but for the basement parking garage.
"Mount Gosselin, okay?" she asked inside the elevator.
"Of course," Ruby answered decisively, though he had no idea if Mount Gosselin was a bar or a restaurant. He had a blind faith in her now, born from that single phrase: "They didn't get it."
The elevator doors opened to the smell of gasoline and rubber—a distinctly masculine scent. Jenny tossed a set of car keys to Ruby.
"You drive," she said.
He caught them instinctively. The blue and white Mustang logo dug into his palm. Following her gaze, he saw it: a steel beast, striped blue and white, lying in wait in a parking space.
A Ford Mustang.
This wasn't a car; it was a totem of American muscle, the physical manifestation of teenage hormones. Ruby felt his heart pre-detonate to the sound of its engine. This girl, who looked like a musical sprite, drove a roaring beast? That was just too damn cool.
"I... I have my license, but this thing..."
"It's fine," Jenny said, already sliding into the passenger seat. "It's a pussycat, as long as you don't piss it off."
Ruby took a deep breath, got in, and felt like he wasn't sitting in a car, but strapping into a combat-ready mech.
Jenny buckled her seatbelt and said nothing, just looked ahead.
"I'll pull up the navigation," Ruby said, trying to sound calm as he fumbled for his phone and searched for "Mount Gosselin." The map showed it was a mountain, a scenic overlook of the entire city.
He was about to ask why they were going there, but Jenny spoke first, her voice sounding ethereal over the engine's low growl. "I just needed a change of scenery. The way you recited that poem... it reminded me of something. It felt like... like a star on the verge of exploding, being forced into a glass jar."
Ruby's hands tightened on the steering wheel. He didn't know how to respond to such a metaphysical comment. He just stepped on the gas, letting the beast carry them out of the garage and into the city's bloodstream.
They didn't turn on the radio. The only soundtrack was the deep rumble of the Mustang's V8 engine. The road to Mount Gosselin was clear. Jenny watched the city lights stream past the window, painting her face in shifting, mesmerizing colors. Ruby felt a strange sort of harmony between them, one that didn't require words. They were just sharing the speed, the wind, and the road to an unknown destination.
He parked the car on the side of the road at the summit.
"We're here," Ruby said, killing the engine.
Jenny didn't get out right away. She rolled down her window, and the cool mountain air rushed in, purging the last lingering traces of the Vienna Hall's stale atmosphere.
"My family used to live near here," she said quietly, "before they turned it into a scenic park."
"Oh, that's nice," Ruby replied, another bland comment he immediately regretted.
"Ruby," she suddenly turned to look at him, her gaze serious. "Have you ever thought about where you'll end up?"
He felt it then. She had brought him here, away from that pretentious hall, just to ask this question. This wasn't a date; it was an interview. An interview for his soul.
He'd thought about it a million times, in his family's four-hundred-square-foot convenience store, on every afternoon he spent staring at the ceiling. And every time, the answer was the same: nowhere.
But he didn't want to say that tonight.
"Maybe one day, a star will need me, so I'll go keep it company," he said. It was the least "convenience store" answer he could come up with.
"What if the moon needs you?" Jenny pressed.
"I'd still go with the star," Ruby answered without hesitation. "Because there are a million stars, and they're all lonely. The moon's only got one of itself. It'll never run out of people trying to keep it company. It doesn't need me."
A strange light flickered in Jenny's eyes, as if she had just confirmed something. Silence stretched between them, but it wasn't awkward. After a long moment, she spoke again, her smile bright and genuine, like a child who had finally found her long-lost twin.
"Ruby," she said, her tone carrying a strange gravity mixed with a playful, American-style slyness, "So, can you be my bestie?"
Bestie?
Ruby looked at her, then at the deep, star-dusted night sky behind her, and for the first time, he felt that maybe, just maybe, the game was far from over.