Chapter 48: The Blue Enchantress

The young man, upon seeing Xu Qinning and Su Yuxi, immediately tried to flee back into the bar, one part fear for Xu Qinning, and one part shyness towards Su Yuxi. This boy was none other than the Huang Xiaoqi that Li Ling’er had mentioned.

Huang Xiaoqi’s real name was Huang Luyang, but being the youngest among his close group of friends—seventh in the order—he was called Huang Xiaoqi. He was a second-year student at Gezhi Private Academy. His family’s company had many business dealings with Xu Qinning’s family, making her someone he couldn’t afford to offend. Furthermore, the terrifying memories she’d left him with in elementary school were indelibly etched in his mind. So now, every time he saw her, his first instinct was to run.

As for the girl he secretly liked, Su Yuxi, he didn’t even have the courage to meet her gaze. He found this reaction odd himself. To build up his confidence, he’d once pursued the most beautiful girl in their school. He’d enlisted someone to write her a love letter, waited at the school gate with 999 roses, causing a sensation throughout the campus. He even waited outside her house every day to walk her to school. Eventually, his persistence moved her, and she agreed to go out with him for a date that weekend. Yet when he saw the school beauty all dressed up, he felt nothing but boredom. After dinner, he made up an excuse and left early.

After that, he never contacted her again. There were later rumors at school that he’d been rejected by the school beauty, but he didn’t bother to deny them.

This experience convinced him that girls were actually easy to pursue, so he mustered up his courage, dressed himself up, drove his Porsche 911, and with great effort, managed to get 99 blue enchantress roses air-shipped from Japan, all to confess his feelings at Fudan Affiliated High School.

Some might wonder why anyone would need to import blue enchantress roses from Japan, or might think that 99 roses is too small a gesture for a rich kid. But in truth, to get these authentic blue enchantress roses, Huang Xiaoqi pestered his elder brother relentlessly. It was only after much nagging that his brother finally agreed to try and see if he could obtain them.

His brother, Huang Ruijun, was the head of the International Trade Department at their family’s listed company, the Huang Group, a well-known figure in Shanghai. He could only secure 99 of these roses by calling in a favor with a close friend, the Chinese ambassador in Japan.

These were genuine blue enchantress roses, not the artificially dyed blue roses found in the market. Commercially available “blue roses” are actually white roses or white garden roses dyed with a harmless coloring agent and fixative. For the better quality ones, the dyeing process begins while the flower is still growing, allowing the color to be absorbed evenly, giving a more natural appearance. Many vendors, however, simply dip cut white roses in dye, resulting in an unnatural color that easily fades. These are all fake blue enchantress roses.

Despite over 5,000 years of rose cultivation and more than 2,500 varieties, there had never been a true blue rose. The rose genome lacks the “flavonoid 3’,5’-hydroxylase” necessary for producing the blue pigment delphinidin. Thus, blue roses were thought impossible, and in English, “blue rose” has come to mean “the impossible.”

Many have dreamed of developing a blue rose but failed. Scientists tried hybridizing varieties and suppressing red pigment to achieve a bluish hue, but these still lacked true blue pigment and thus weren’t real blue roses. Traditional breeding methods produced roses with a purple or grayish tint, derived from red or orange pigments, not the vibrant blue of dreams.

Finally, Japan’s Suntory Corporation invested three billion yen in the quest, beginning in 1990. They extracted blue pigment genes from blue clovers (pansy), used gene recombination technology to rearrange the genetic makeup of roses and successfully expressed delphinidin, resulting in blue petals. The world’s first transgenic blue rose was thus born. Its blue was not as dazzling as imagined, closer to periwinkle, pure and delicate beyond words. The petals were nearly 100% blue and it was named “Suntory Blue Rose.”

However, large-scale cultivation and commercialization of blue roses remains unachieved; they exist only in laboratory research, far from meeting market demand. Only a handful of people have ever seen a true blue enchantress rose, much less owned one. Such a flower cannot be bought with money. (The genuine blue enchantress debuted at the 2008 International Flower Exhibition and has never been mass-produced. All blue enchantress roses available for purchase are dyed, though there are grades: the cheapest are poorly dyed by unscrupulous local sellers; the better ones, imported from the Netherlands, are grown with special dyes. Don’t bother dreaming of the natural kind—they’re unobtainable.)

Huang Xiaoqi sat in his car holding the bouquet, waiting outside Fudan Affiliated High School. For the first time, he felt nervous. He didn’t expect his confession to succeed; this was merely the opening salvo in his pursuit of Su Yuxi.

Yet when Su Yuxi, carrying her schoolbag, walked out of the gate and passed by him and his blue enchantress bouquet, he still couldn’t bring himself to hand her the flowers or utter the words that weighed on his heart, “Su Yuxi, I like you.” Huang Xiaoqi trailed after her for a few steps, watching her tall, slender figure recede, a sense of helplessness gnawing at him.

Unlike the other girls who exited the gate and pointed or whispered about him, Su Yuxi never spared him a single glance. In her eyes, he saw himself, but realized, sorrowfully, that he was nothing more than a tree, a stone, or a weed she passed by.

In the end, he threw the blue enchantress bouquet into the Huangpu River, his feelings sinking with that flawless bouquet to the riverbed.

As Huang Xiaoqi tried to escape, Xu Qinning grabbed his arm. “Huang Xiaoqi, why are you running? Seeing an old classmate and not even saying hello?”

Helpless, Huang Xiaoqi turned around, not daring to look at Su Yuxi and fixing his gaze instead on Xu Qinning’s sunglasses, feigning surprise, “Who are you? Ning-jie?” He nudged Li Ling’er, “Kitten, why didn’t you tell me Ning-jie was coming?”

Li Ling’er, nicknamed Kitten because her online handle was “Sexy Wildcat,” was unfazed by Huang Xiaoqi. Tugging his other arm, she said, “Enough talk. Yuxi-jie is here; aren’t you going to arrange our seats?”

At the mention of Su Yuxi’s name, Huang Xiaoqi’s face flushed crimson. He didn’t dare say another word, leading the four beauties inside.

Huang Xiaoqi had brought along two boys and three girls, and they sat at the club’s largest and best booth, directly facing the stage—a booth with a minimum spend, but for regulars of high-end bars like Nirvana and Legend, this was pocket change, not even enough for a single bottle of top-shelf liquor.

They wouldn’t usually come to a bar like this, but one of Huang Xiaoqi’s friends was chasing a girl who insisted on coming here, so they reluctantly agreed, planning to move on to Nirvana after hearing Guilty Crown perform. For them, nightlife only truly began at eleven.

Once at the booth, Huang Xiaoqi asked his friends to clear the central seats for Xu Qinning, Su Yuxi, and their group, then called a waiter to order drinks. He didn’t have the courage to suggest alcohol, or even to sit at the same table with them. He was so uneasy he worried his hair wasn’t styled well enough, or that his clothes were too flashy. Sitting there, he didn’t know what to do with his feet or hands; for someone usually so confident, he was uncharacteristically awkward.

The largest booth in Forest of Lights could seat a dozen or more people without feeling crowded. With four slender girls joining, it was still spacious. Huang Xiaoqi’s friends recognized Li Ling’er and Tang Wenqian, but it was their first time meeting Su Yuxi and Xu Qinning. The two guys and three girls were stunned—such beauties were rare enough one at a time, but two together? No number of eyes could do them justice. The girls Huang Xiaoqi had brought were attractive enough, but beside Su and Xu, they were like fireflies next to the bright moon. The contrast was so great, no one felt jealousy—only admiration.

Xu Qinning texted Cheng Xiaoyu to say they were seated, and started timing her.

Cheng Xiaoyu had just finished doing makeup with Xia Shamo and was about to take the stage.

Tonight, Xia Shamo wore a heavily embroidered black-and-white maid outfit paired with white stockings—a little personal fetish of Cheng Xiaoyu’s—but once Xia Shamo put it on, Cheng Xiaoyu started to regret it; such beauty was a shame to show others. Watching Xia Shamo’s enchanting smile, Cheng Xiaoyu felt a pang in her heart.

As the performance was about to begin, Tang Wenqian messaged, but Cheng Xiaoyu, preoccupied, simply replied “received” and put her phone on silent.

When Xia Shamo, made up in a sweet Japanese style and dressed as a maid, walked on stage, the atmosphere in the bar immediately reached its peak—applause, cheers, and whistles erupting one after another.

Xia Shamo took the stage and gripped the microphone stand with both hands—a habit and her signature gesture, signaling her transformation was complete. She was gradually getting used to the bar’s atmosphere; even without holding the mic, she was no longer so easily flustered.

Cheng Xiaoyu bent toward the mic on her keyboard and said, “Thank you for staying with Forest of Lights at nine o’clock. Thank you for supporting Guilty Crown. We hope the next few songs will bring you something new. Here’s a new song, ‘Until the End of Blooming.’ We hope you enjoy it.” Cheng Xiaoyu used a synthesizer for the arrangement; otherwise, three instruments couldn’t support such a rich musical background.

Apart from Cheng Xiaoyu, who could banter a little, the other band members were the silent type. As Cheng Xiaoyu spoke, Xu Qinning leaned over to Su Yuxi and whispered, “Not bad! I heard your brother wrote and composed all the songs? He’s pretty talented!”

Su Yuxi didn’t turn to look at Xu Qinning, who was leaning against her, and replied, “He’s certainly better than you, a girl who does nothing but dress up and flaunt her figure, all boobs and no brains!”

Xu Qinning was long used to Su Yuxi’s barbed tongue. She grinned, slipped her hand into Su Yuxi’s padded coat, heading straight for her chest, and teased, “Well, how is it you have both brains and such a great figure?”

Su Yuxi grabbed Xu Qinning’s roaming hands, annoyed. “Listen to the music and behave.”

Xu Qinning wrapped her arms around Su Yuxi’s waist and sighed. “Pity your brother isn’t good-looking. If he were a bit more handsome, I could settle and be your sister-in-law. Then we’d really be family, and I’d have an excuse to stay at your place every day.”

Su Yuxi scoffed, “Don’t, Xu Qinning. My house is too small for a big Buddha like you. Go be someone else’s disaster. And anyway, does looks matter so much? When will you ever change your shallow view of life?”

Tang Wenqian chimed in, “Ning-jie doesn’t need a rich guy—no one can outdo her family anyway. She might as well find a handsome one!”

Xu Qinning frowned. “Now that you mention it, Wenqian, I wonder why I never thought that guy was handsome. Could it be I’m into girls? I just love you little beauties.” She hugged Tang Wenqian and planted a kiss on her cheek.

Li Ling’er squeezed in, cupping Xu Qinning’s chest. “With a body like yours, it’s a waste on any man. Why don’t we get a room tonight, and I’ll study how you grew these?”

Xu Qinning shot a glance at Li Ling’er’s rather flat chest. “If you had even a bit, we could mix and match. But feeling you is like touching a guy—what’s the point?”

Unfazed, Li Ling’er braced her hands under her chest and stuck it out. “Who says I don’t have any? Try it yourself!”

This scene left the handsome guy passing by for the restroom wide-eyed. Glancing at Xu Qinning, he immediately got a nosebleed.

The four girls burst into laughter, slapping the table in mirth.