On this night, Mi Cai and I abandoned the fast pace of the car, wandering on foot through the streets already imbued with the festive spirit of the New Year. I smoked, while she took out her card camera to capture the people and scenes she liked. Thus, a sense of leisure was imprinted on us, making me feel that I hadn’t been this relaxed all year.

After finishing a cigarette, I finally nudged Mi Cai beside me and said, “Let’s chat for a while, okay?”

“What about?” Mi Cai asked as she took another photo of me.

“Can you put away your camera before we chat? Carrying a camera around isn’t a good habit!”

Mi Cai asked in confusion, “Not a good habit? What do you mean?”

I laughed and said, “Do you know a male actor with the surname Chen? He loves to carry a camera around. Cameras are ominous objects, they can cause earth-shattering events.”

“What kind of earth-shattering events?”

“You really don’t know?”

“All I know is that you’re acting mysterious.”

“Just put away the camera, especially for women, it’s not proper to carry a camera around!”

Mi Cai ignored me and continued to take photos of the street scenes with her camera. I felt even more bored, wanted to light another cigarette, but my throat felt dry and uncomfortable.

In my boredom, I kicked an empty can on the ground all the way to the end of the street, until a strong wind blew it away, doubling my boredom and making it unbearable. I finally took the opportunity to snatch the camera from Mi Cai’s hand when she was unprepared.

“Zhao Yang, what are you doing?”

“I want to see what you’ve been photographing.”

I started to flip through the photos in the camera, but was surprised to find that most of them were of young parents with their adorable children, not the street scenes I had imagined.

“Do you like children a lot?”

Mi Cai nodded and said, “Yes, I do. If I have a baby in the future, he or she will be my everything.”

I scoffed, “You don’t seem like a modern woman at all. You know, once you have a child, your personal space will be squeezed. That’s why DINK (Double Income, No Kids) is popular now!”

“I don’t care, I just like babies!”

“Alright, to each their own… But I think: your baby will definitely be very beautiful!”

Mi Cai seemed very interested in this topic and asked, “How beautiful?”

“Just as beautiful as you! So fair, like porcelain… How can you be so fair? And it’s not the sickly pale of Lin Daiyu!” I looked Mi Cai up and down again, imagining what she would look like in the summer. We met in the autumn, and I had never seen her in a short skirt. I’m sure she would be even more beautiful then.

Ignoring my exclamation, Mi Cai asked me, “Do you like babies?”

I seriously imagined a picture in my mind where Mi Cai was my wife and we each held a baby. I felt warm and sweet, and quickly nodded, “Yes, I like them very much!”

“Aren’t you afraid that your personal space will be squeezed after having a baby?”

“Only if my head was squeezed by a door would I be afraid of being squeezed! What I just said was about those new humans who don’t want children. It’s specific, not general!”

Mi Cai smiled, seemingly satisfied with my answer. Then I pretended to sigh and said, “Ah… How lucky the man who marries you will be. But I think you must have high requirements for your future husband!”

“As long as he treats me well and treats our baby well, that’s enough!”

I sneered, “Come on! Women always say that, but in reality? They have a pile of implicit requirements hidden in their hearts, don’t think I don’t know!”

Mi Cai said with a smile, “You seem to know women very well!”

I replied subconsciously, “Of course, because I’ve had similar experiences. Women always appear to have almost no requirements, but in reality, they are the hardest to satisfy!”

“I don’t agree with that, because you haven’t really understood the meaning of ‘good’!”

“Then what is the real meaning of ‘good’? I’m all ears!”

Mi Cai was silent for a moment before she said, “The so-called ‘good’ is something that needs to be given for a lifetime, not just a promise, or just a phase of goodness…”

“What if a man can do it?”

“Then I would be willing to marry him, be his wife, and bear his baby!” Mi Cai finished and looked at me.

Her words made my heart flutter, and I desperately wanted to express myself, but in the end, I chose to remain silent. Because as Mi Cai said, “good” is not just a promise made in a moment of impulse, but a lifetime of genuine giving.After calming down, I said to Mi Cai, “You will definitely meet a man who will treat you well for a lifetime… Then you will marry him and have his baby.”

Mi Cai nodded, then fell silent. I finally returned the camera to her, and we walked down another street under the light of the street lamps.

……

As we were about to pass the second block, I asked Mi Cai, “Have you decided what song to sing tomorrow night? Or are you going to improvise?”

Mi Cai shook her head and said, “I haven’t thought about it yet. Why don’t you give me some suggestions?”

“Well, how about singing two songs by Yunzi, ‘Spring Equinox’ and ‘Beginning of Autumn’? These two songs are very fitting, considering the bar is themed around the seasons.”

“I haven’t heard them, but I can learn.”

“Good, I’ll give you the guitar chords for these two songs tonight, you can practice in advance.”

“Okay, but the guitar you gave me, I left it in the house at Liu’an Scenic Garden…”

I immediately interrupted, “Let’s go get it now.”

“I meant to use your guitar, don’t you think it’s a hassle to go there now?”

I said in a panic, “Not at all, and you haven’t gotten used to that guitar yet, right? It’s a good opportunity to get familiar with it tonight!”

Mi Cai frowned, “What, is it because that guitar was given to you by your first love, so no one else can touch it?”

I cried “injustice” in my heart. Although I indeed didn’t want anyone to touch that guitar in the past, I had already traded it for another guitar with A Ji. It no longer belonged to me, and I even suspected that A Ji had modified it, since it had my and Jian Wei’s names engraved on it.

I said to Mi Cai with a stern face, “Why do you have to complicate things! Do we really need to argue over which guitar to use?”

“I don’t want to argue with you either, but you’re so annoying, always seeming to deliberately oppose me… I don’t care, I want to use your guitar today!”

Seeing Mi Cai’s determined look, I suddenly felt like I was in a difficult position. But I couldn’t fulfill her request at the moment, so I quickly thought of a way to deal with it in my mind.

—————-

PS: I saw some people arguing about who smokes more than they read my book. Some say a pack, some say two packs, and the last badass said four packs.

Four packs, you’d be dead… Don’t brag for the sake of bragging… Please brag rationally and reliably.

Also, everyone should smoke less.