After ending the WeChat conversation with CC, I fell into a state of waiting, a waiting filled with concern and anxiety.

I lit a cigarette to calm my emotions. Once I was somewhat calm, I began to recall certain events and scenes that I had just experienced with Mi Cai.

After filtering through my memories, the sentence that Mi Cai said to me before she left, “I took myself too seriously, I shouldn’t have forced you!” finally settled in my mind.

I chewed over this sentence, breaking it down word by word, trying to gauge Mi Cai’s emotions at the time.

In reality, when dealing with women, I wouldn’t consider myself a sensitive man. The only woman I’ve ever been in a relationship with was Jian Wei. That unforgettable love affair began and progressed naturally, with us naturally falling in love, naturally experiencing the joys and sorrows of love. But the ending was a sudden and awkward downfall.

This contrast turned me into a hedgehog, and I never fell in love again. What I liked was straightforward indulgence, which is why I had a one-night stand with Le Yao.

After careful consideration, I seemed to understand the meaning behind Mi Cai’s words. At least, she hoped to hold an important place in my heart. Thinking about it from her perspective, it also indicated that she cared about me.

But why didn’t I notice it just now? Perhaps it was because we were always arguing during our long-term interaction. This constant conflict led me to assume that she had ulterior motives when she asked me to buy sanitary pads, to embarrass me. But in reality, it was because of intimacy. With her cold personality, letting a man buy such personal items for her was undoubtedly due to intimacy.

At this moment, I understood: regardless of how we interact, the road we have to walk down still requires mutual adjustment to avoid misunderstandings like today’s.

…

I don’t know how much time had passed when the WeChat notification sound finally rang. I picked up my phone immediately, and sure enough, it was a message from CC. There was a picture of instant noodles in the WeChat message, with a line of text underneath: She’s eating.

Looking at this richly illustrated message, I hesitated for a long time, not knowing what to reply. I felt a bit dramatic. The original script for this night should have been us having a lavish dinner together and then going to the square to play racing games. But now, I was still hungry, and Mi Cai was eating instant noodles after she went home. How bitter!

After a long time, I finally replied to CC: “Don’t let her eat instant noodles. See if there’s anything else at home. Cook her something nutritious.”

After a while, CC replied: “We each had half and finished it together!”

“You really are her good bestie! Sharing both the good times and the hard times!”

CC sent a grinning emoji: “That’s right, we can share a designer bag, and we can also share a bowl of preservative-laden instant noodles.”

With CC accompanying Mi Cai tonight, I felt a bit more at ease. I threw my phone aside, lay down on the bed, and pulled the blanket over my head. I was a bit tired, too tired to think about why, and even more tired of this life that required constant guessing. It felt like I was falling back into a passionless, somewhat decadent black hole.

Half asleep, my phone rang again. I subconsciously thought it was CC, but it turned out to be a message from Le Yao.

“Zhao Yang, how’s the bar doing lately?”

“It’s being renovated, it will be open for business again soon.”

“You’ve worked hard… By the way, I have some good news. I’ve signed a new drama. I’ll pay off the bar’s debt as soon as possible. You don’t need to be under too much pressure!”

I stared at the message for a while before replying: “I always feel that your trip to Beijing went too smoothly…”

It took Le Yao a long time to reply this time: “Everyone will have their own opportunities when they’ve accumulated enough. I encountered mine this time and seized it. You should be happy for me, not worried.”

In just a few short sentences, I felt a change in Le Yao. Her words were somewhat perfunctory and assertive, which was unlike the insecure her from before. Perhaps disaster really does make a person grow. The current Le Yao has said goodbye to the past, but I really don’t know if I should be happy for her.

After a while, I replied: “It’s late, get some rest. Contact me when you’re free!”

“Good night.”

A straightforward “good night” made me unable to feel her previous clinginess and longing dependence.

“Sigh…” I let out a heavy sigh, threw my phone aside again, and wanted to pull up the blanket to continue sleeping. But I suddenly lit another cigarette and waited in the dark for the unreachable dawn.

…Time continued to move forward, and another weekend arrived. In the past four days, I hadn’t contacted Mi Cai, and she hadn’t contacted me either. I only heard some fragmented news about her from CC.

She had spent the past week in Shanghai because Zhuo Mei’s mall there was about to start operations. Of course, she would have plenty of free time to spend with Wei Ran during her days in Shanghai. Whether they maintained their original relationship or developed it further, I wasn’t sure, and CC didn’t tell me either.

The renovation of the bar was also nearing completion, and the date for the second opening was officially set for next weekend. However, I still hadn’t come up with a good marketing strategy, and I was feeling increasingly pressured and nervous.

In the sunset of the evening, I brought my racing car to the square alone, hoping to relieve some of the recent stress.

Because it was the weekend, there were many more people in the square than usual, so all the benches were occupied.

I sat down on the ground without any fuss and started playing with my racing car. About half an hour later, I saw two familiar figures, each holding a racing car. It was none other than Mi Cai and Wei Xiao.

Wei Xiao was still holding the Tamiya commemorative four-wheel drive car, while Mi Cai was holding a brand new fuel-powered racing car.

Wei Xiao grinned at me from afar, but Mi Cai completely ignored my presence. She stopped not far from me and put down her racing car.

Mi Cai tried to start the car several times without success. I finally took the opportunity to approach her and said, “Let me help you. You’re not starting it correctly.”

“Thanks, but no need.” Mi Cai said, pulling the starter cord again, but still unable to start the car.

I squatted down next to her and casually asked, “Why did you come back to Suzhou today?”

“Can’t I come back on the weekend?”

Wei Xiao interjected, “Big brother, Referee Sister came back to help Grandpa. She said I don’t have to set up a stall in the square anymore.”

Although Wei Xiao’s expression was not very clear, I understood: Mi Cai had taken care of the matter of helping Wei Xiao’s grandfather sell handicrafts at Zhuo Mei.

I smiled at Wei Xiao and said, “Little Fatty, Referee Sister and I have some adult secrets to talk about. You go play over there for a while, and later I’ll treat you to KFC!”

“Yay, more food!” Wei Xiao jumped up and then happily took his racing car to play with a group of children.

I shamelessly said to Mi Cai, who was ignoring me, “Your new car is nice. You must have spent a lot of money on it.”

“Why would I spend money on it? Do you think no one else would give me one?”

Mi Cai’s words made me feel a bit disappointed. I had gone to great lengths to give her a second-hand racing car, while someone else could easily get her a better one. This was the gap.

I hid my disappointment, took the car from Mi Cai’s hand, and said while operating, “This is a new car, it needs to be run in. The main fuel needle and the auxiliary fuel needle should be slightly rich, otherwise there will be many problems after starting. Also, don’t insert the glow plug before starting, block the throttle with your finger, and pull the starter cord a few times to pump oil into the engine, got it?”

Mi Cai finally didn’t ignore me like before. She looked at me and nodded, then asked, “You never had a fuel-powered racing car before, how do you know so much?”

Mi Cai’s question reminded me of Xiang Chen. The reason I knew so much was because Xiang Chen had a fuel-powered racing car in college, which we played with for a long time. I certainly didn’t have the spare money to buy one.

“I played with a friend’s.” I replied casually, and Mi Cai didn’t ask any further.

I helped Mi Cai tune the car, and when I got tired of squatting, I sat on the ground again. Unexpectedly, Mi Cai also sat on the ground with me, watching me tune the car with interest.

I pulled her up from the ground and said, “Aren’t you cold sitting on the ground? You just finished your period and your resistance is low. What if you get sick?”

“Aren’t you sitting too?”

“I’m a rough man, I can handle it. Can you?”

“But squatting is really tiring!”

I looked around and couldn’t find anything suitable for her to sit on, so I took off my down jacket and spread it on the ground, saying, “Sit down, this way you won’t catch a cold!”

I sat on the ground again and started tuning the racing car, but Mi Cai didn’t sit down. She was looking at me with a complex expression.

————————-

Unconsciously, I’ve written over 300,000 words, which means I’ve started. It’s necessary to say something about this book from my perspective.

Whether it’s editors in the industry, fellow authors, or readers, none have ever defined my books as “novice literature”. Since it’s not novice literature, it certainly requires a lot of thought to read and to uncover more content.

However, many readers are reluctant to follow the plot in the book, such as the scene where something was purchased yesterday. Many people are dissatisfied, but that’s because you’re reading that scene with a strong desire, hoping to quickly win over the female lead, without truly integrating the previous context…

Even funnier, some people say: “This completely contradicts the previous characterization of Zhao Yang… Who can live in one posture in real life? Only in wish-fulfillment novels will the protagonist be given a specific personality, and then conquer the universe along this personality… We live in a state of flux, any choice will change due to the environment, the people we face, this is a real person.

Some readers, besides reading some wish-fulfillment web novels, haven’t seriously read a few books. They always like to scrutinize other genres of books with that kind of vision. Once they deviate from that program, they can’t stand it and feel the plot is unreasonable.

For these readers, I sincerely suggest you give up on my book. My book requires a calm mindset to read. If you read it with a strong desire, it will only become more painful the more you read.

As I write this, I suddenly think of the Fifth Season theme bar in the book. This book is like that bar, not for the masses, but there are still readers who like to read it. I used to hope that everyone could accept this genre, but now I think it’s unnecessary. The readers who are really willing to put thought into reading are my reward for writing, because our thoughts are in sync… For some readers who can’t understand, it’s a double pain for both me and them if you try to indoctrinate them.

I’ve written three books and interacted with many readers. Some are willing to spend thousands, even tens of thousands of yuan to support this book. Whether they are satisfied or not, they still silently read and strongly support it. They even vote a lot to support me during the weekly updates, and they would tell me: “Tank, take your time writing, we’re not in a hurry. Voting for you is to support you, not to rush you to update…” There are also some readers who are dissatisfied with the plot and start to criticize. These readers have one thing in common, if you look at their past book review records, they usually don’t say anything, but as soon as they are dissatisfied with the plot, they immediately start cursing… I’m really annoyed by these people, extremely annoyed! These people are extremely selfish in real life. Because their desires are too strong, they are too eager to control others. I want to ask, do you have the ability to control others? People who truly have the ability to fulfill their possessive desires will not curse all over the place because they are dissatisfied with a book, so these people are really pitiful and ridiculous!

Looking at these two types of readers, this is such a realistic and three-dimensional world.

Back to the main topic, let’s talk about this book. First of all, I have to admit that there are definitely elements in the book that cater to commercialization. If I say it’s completely realistic, it’s a bit far-fetched, but it doesn’t mean that these plots, these characters in the book, don’t exist in real life, they’re just rare, not within your life scope.

In this book, I’m trying to break through, I want to depict a complete love story within my ability, as well as all the emotions in this love story…

Whether it’s the “Perfect Girlfriends” or the “Nerd’s Growth History”, the handling of emotions is abrupt, disjointed, focusing on the outcome but neglecting the process.. I want to make up for this in this book, so I write in great detail, but this gives some people the feeling that I’m deliberately dragging the pace… Just like before, I’m a person who takes responsibility for my own words, my books are neither plagiarized nor fabricated, I write what I want to write, I have a clear conscience!