Under Mi Cai’s insistent request, I returned to my room to fetch the race car I had traded for, and held a flashlight in my hand, acting as a spotlight, creating a grand sense of a grand entrance.

Mi Cai sat up from the bed, her face full of anticipation as she looked at the gift wrapped in newspaper.

I waved the flashlight around, coughed pretentiously a couple of times, and then said in a mysterious tone, “Now, witness the miracle…”

Mi Cai watched attentively, the anticipation on her face deepening.

Suddenly, I turned off the flashlight and said in a casual tone, “Guess what it is.”

Mi Cai bit her lip, glared at me angrily, and then threw a pillow at me from the bed, shouting, “Can you stop being so boring? You’re wasting my emotions!”

“If I’m not boring, I’ll die…”

Mi Cai seemed genuinely angry, she lay back down on the bed, wrapped herself in the blanket, and turned her back to me, not saying a word.

“Hey… I was just teasing you, isn’t that a bit too much?”

“It is too much. I’ve never seen anyone as unserious as you. Being with you is a waste of emotions.”

“We’re both unserious, okay! You forgot how you were hugging me just now, and my dad saw it.”

“I became unserious because of you… You’re in the late stage of unseriousness, beyond cure!”

“So you mean, you can still be saved?” I asked, following Mi Cai’s words.

“Of course, as long as you stay away from me, avoid the pathogen, I can still be saved.”

This wasn’t a particularly funny statement, but when it came from Mi Cai, I inexplicably wanted to laugh. After holding back my laughter for a while, I nudged her and said, “I have no problem staying away from you, but are you sure you don’t want the gift I gave you?”

“I don’t want it. You can’t give anything serious anyway.”

“That’s not necessarily true.”

I unwrapped the newspaper, took out the race car, and started it. The powerful engine sound immediately filled the room, and the smell of gasoline spread.

As expected, Mi Cai sat up from the bed again and stared at the race car for a long time…

“How about it, pretty cool, right… It’s for you!”

“Zhao Yang… You really bought it!”

“You don’t have to be too moved, just like it.”

Mi Cai reached out her hand to me, and I felt a pang in my heart. Was this a hug of gratitude? I couldn’t accept this kind of hug! After all, deep down, I’m still a serious man.

Suddenly, Mi Cai urged me, who was struggling, “Give me the remote control.”

I felt like a bucket of cold water was poured over me. After a while, I said to Mi Cai, “The room is too small to play, and the smell of gasoline is too strong!”

“Then let’s go out and play.”

I turned off the race car and said to Mi Cai very seriously, “Give up on that idea for tonight, drink the ginger soup right now, and then get a good night’s sleep.”

This time, Mi Cai surprisingly complied. She picked up the ginger soup from the bedside table, drank it in a few gulps, then quietly lay back down on the bed and looked at me without saying a word.

I felt a bit guilty and asked hesitantly, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“This race car must have cost all your money, right?” Mi Cai replied softly.

“Not all of it. I traded my own race car and added some money to get it. I still have plenty of pocket money.” I quickly explained, fearing that she would give me money. That would make the gift meaningless and make me look like a freeloader.

“You traded your own car?”

“Yeah, I traded it, no big deal. I was bored with that car anyway.” I said with a smile, but my heart ached. I remembered how I had bought that car with the money I won from the lottery in a moment of despair. It was like a whip lashing my soul, judging my life… Now that I’ve traded that car, I’d rather consider it a new beginning in my life.

Mi Cai didn’t say anything more, and I left the room with the bowl she had drunk the ginger soup from. After washing up, I stood on the balcony in the cold wind and habitually lit a cigarette for myself.

In the haze of smoke, I couldn’t help but reflect on the days since I returned to Suzhou. It seemed that I had fallen in love with Mi Cai in this short period of time, but I felt that love was irrational, and I was even more afraid that this love was superficial. After all, a woman like Mi Cai has a beauty that men can’t resist.

What is love, and where does it come from? I couldn’t figure it out. Perhaps the so-called love is just a colorful butterfly. It looks beautiful, but you can never get close to it. If you really want to hold it tightly in your hand, it will struggle, and in the struggle, it will rub off all its colors and become pale.

I seemed to understand why I was so cautious. I was afraid that I couldn’t touch her soul, but I would rub off that beautiful color!

With a helpless smile, I looked up at the sky, finding the moonlight tonight exceptionally beautiful. Its radiance seemed to narrate a million-year-old love story. I was so immersed in these colorful tales, yet they gradually lost their vibrancy in the flow of time.

So, it’s better to numb all desires and take everything lightly! Even without a lover, I can still sing to the moon…

I took a deep puff of my cigarette, then extinguished it, finally reining in my emotions. I went to Mi Cai’s room again to tuck her in, she was already asleep. At this moment, I didn’t want to take anything from her, I just wanted to be a man who silently gives, protecting her colorful wings.

…

The next day when I woke up, Mi Cai had already left early, not giving me a chance to prepare breakfast for her. However, she left behind the jacket she had taken to the dry cleaners for me.

I remembered: she had spent the entire day in Shanghai yesterday, which meant she had taken the jacket to Shanghai to be dry cleaned. This made me somewhat pleased, after all, she was taking my matters to heart.

So I comforted myself, not to demand anything. These little joys she gave me were priceless treasures.

Around noon, Mr. Ban, as he had said yesterday, bought a lot of groceries and came to our place to prepare lunch. He asked me if Mi Cai would come back for lunch.

I was also very concerned about this, so I immediately called Mi Cai. She was in Suzhou, but she didn’t want to come back for lunch. She said she was embarrassed to face Mr. Ban, but she didn’t want to miss the lunch he made. So she asked me to bring her a portion after I finished eating.

I tried to persuade her, explaining that Mr. Ban wouldn’t look down on her because of her clinging to me yesterday, but she stubbornly refused to come back. She said: after all, she was a girl and didn’t have as thick skin as me.

This puzzled me even more. Why did she care so much about Mr. Ban’s opinion of her? It was as if she was the daughter-in-law of our Zhao family who hadn’t yet married in.

…

A moment later, while I was still on the phone with Mi Cai, Mr. Ban suddenly took out the photos I had stolen from Mi Cai’s office. He curiously asked me, “Zhao Yang, is the girl in these photos Mi Cai?”

I quickly covered the phone and whispered to Mr. Ban, “Where did you find these?”

“They fell out of a book when I was cleaning your room. You should put them in a photo frame, they’ll fade if you keep them in a book,” Mr. Ban said, returning to the room with the photos and enthusiastically looking for a frame.

I was stunned for a moment, then heard Mi Cai’s cold voice on the phone, “Zhao Yang, you stole the photos from my office drawer, didn’t you?”

“Don’t falsely accuse me!”

“Heh, besides you, no one dares to touch my stuff in the office. I’ve suspected it for a while… Zhao Yang, are you even a man? You have the guts to steal, but not to admit it!”

Hearing Mi Cai call me less of a man, I got angry and immediately admitted, “So what if I stole them? They’re just some photos of you pouting and glaring, looking like you’re poisoned!”