A Gatekeeper & The Celestial Sovereign - Chapter 2

“Should I just become a Lesbian? Should I!?” yelled Fei Bing Bing as she drunkenly downed her glass of Baijiu. Or more like the Baijiu downed her, as half of it dribbled down her chin and poured into the cleavage of her skimpy red dress.

“Fuck!” she exclaimed, “I’m all wet now!!!” ugly tears fell from her eyes causing her mascara to smear and streak her cheeks like tires burning up a highway.

One of her false eyelashes precariously sat on her left eye, about to fall off, looking like a black caterpillar clinging for life. “Screw men! I’m done with all men!! I quit trying anymore, only woman are good. Screw men! Screw him!!!” she yelled one final time before collapsing in a drunken stupor onto the bar counter.

Mao Lu’s eyebrows twitched. Had the argument been so bad this time that she had to drink herself stupid? He sighed, “Why are all my friends such dramatic messes?”

The worst part was that she had to be a dramatic mess at his workplace.

What had started as a normal evening shift at the club Roaring Tiger, had turned into Mao Lu making shot after shot, and daiquiri after daiquiri for Fei Bing Bing.

The moment he had started at 8pm she’d marched in, making a beeline for him, shouting “Zhao Detong is a bastard!!!!!” Then she ordered relentlessly and refused to listen to Mao Lu when he had told her to stop. Sadly, she was a paying customer and with his manager breathing down his neck nearby he couldn’t just refuse to serve her.

Mao Lu sighed to himself yet again. He was lucky that she had finished drinking quickly. At 9pm the club had only been open for an hour, the evening was still early and there were only a few customers dotted here and there. It wouldn’t get really busy until probably around 11 or 12pm.

“Damn, what happened to Bing Bing this time?” asked Fang Kai. Fang Kai was a lanky tall guy, he had a rather ordinary face, but he made up for it with his eccentric green dyed hair and excessive piercings. He, just like Mao Lu, was a part timer working the evening shifts at Roaring Tiger.

“Apparently she had a fight with Zhao Detong.”

“Again!” Fang Kai couldn’t hide the exasperation in his voice. Practically every shift for the last few months, he’d seen Fei Bing Bing come in and cry about Zhao Detong fighting with her.

“It’s not surprising, this always happens,” Mao Lu replied casually. Lu had known Fei Bing Bing as well as her on and off again boyfriend, Zhao Detong, since they were babies. They had been an infamous trio in school. He still remembered when Bing Bing and Detong started going out at the start of senior year in High school, they had already been a mess when they were friends and it only got worse after they started dating.

Mao Lu couldn’t help but sigh as he took out his phone and dialled Zhao Detong.

“She’s here again.”

“I guessed; she’s always running to you. Sorry for the trouble Lu.” Detong calmly apologised through the phone. “I’m already on my way.”

“What happened this time? She seems more upset than usual; she even drank herself unconscious.”

“She did?”

“She did.”

“…”

“So, what happened this time?”

“… I asked her to marry me.”

“What!” Mao Lu nearly dropped his phone. Was Detong being serious? Was this really coming from the guy that had cheated on her numerous times over the past few years and refused to talk about children or being serious?

“I realised the other day that next year I’d be turning 25. I went to visit my mother and I saw some real grey hairs on her, and that’s when it hit me. That I can’t keep fooling around like I am now y’know. I have a good woman who loves me and is good to me. If I keep treating her like this, she’ll leave me one day. I need to get my life together and be better, it’s not like I’m a kid anymore…so I proposed.”

“And…” Mao Lu scrunched his brows together.

“And what?”

“What did you do to piss her off!?”

“That was it. I swear.”

Detong sounded like he was going to cry, “Honestly. I bought a nice ring, I took her out to eat, and then on the way home I took her to our favourite place and I popped the question…and at first she was really happy but then she burst into tears and started screaming at me, asking me who the other woman was. Asking me what I was compensating for and what my angle was. She convinced herself I must have made some girl pregnant, so I was proposing to her out of guilt. Every time I tried to tell her otherwise, she just panicked more, and then she just ran away. I honestly didn’t do anything this time Lu I swear. I don’t know why she’d act like that.”

“Well I do, she’s right in jumping to conclusions considering all the shit you’ve pulled.”

“Damn. Mao Lu, god I know she’s right to think that way. I know she is, which is why I know I need to change and make it up to her… I’m here.”

“BEEP” the call ended.

A second later Zhao Detong walked into the club. He was tall and handsome. He had good skin, a tall nose, practically painted on eyebrows and an impressive jawline. All the women that were already in the club couldn’t help but stop and stare at him as he headed straight for the counter.

“Oh god! Why did you let her drink so much?” Detong angrily glared at Mao Lu.

Mao Lu rolled his eyes, “You think I could have stopped her? Plus, it’s policy not to deny a paying customer.”

“You can deny for a friend, you bastard” Detong growled as he hoisted the unconscious Fei Bing Bing onto his back.

Mao Lu rolled his eyes again, “Not if I want to keep this job.”

Detong didn’t reply and only headed towards the exit. Mao Lu watched them go, his heart twinged a little bit with feelings he thought he’d left in the past.

“Be safe on the journey back you idiot.” He shouted as Detong got near the exit.

Detong turned back and with a charming smile said, “will do” and like that he was gone.

Mao Lu stared in their direction, stuck in a slight daydream that was quickly broken as the club became busier. The music blared across the floor, the DJs on the stage screamed and danced around, and everything around him reverberated with the heavy bass. Soon enough hordes of customers were coming up to him throwing their money. He was pouring drink after drink, and quickly got caught up in the busyness of work.

_________

Mao Lu didn’t clock out until 4am. The club was near the Wanping Residential district near Fengtai, but Mao Lu lived in the Daxing suburb, so it took him around an hour to get home to his small deadbeat one room flat at 5:15. He was asleep by 5:20.

Then at 8:45 his alarm clock sounded, and he crawled out of bed like a Zombie. He yawned and begrudgingly got dressed, it was time to start work at the convenience store.

Mao Lu was 24 years old. 6’2 with a slim build, warm black eyes, good skin, a gentle soft-spoken voice, and a high nose. A classic example of a pretty boy. He probably would have been every Mother’s ideal look for a son-in-law if it weren’t for his lip piercing and the Phoenix tattoo on his left arm.

He worked 4 part time jobs, one as a bartender at Roaring Tiger, another as a sales assistant at the local convenience store, the other as a cleaner, and the last as a waiter at a popular French style cafe called Cafe Eclair.

He was always working.. He needed to, or else how could afford to pay rent for his small one room apartment, his food, toiletries, and the outstanding debts his parents had left him.