The Ferrari carrying Mi Cai quickly turned the corner, heading towards another road beyond my line of sight. At this moment, standing in the vast expanse of Zhuomei Plaza, I felt like a clown abandoned by the world, enduring the mocking gazes of passersby amidst my pain.

How I wished I had a mask to hide my shame at this moment.

I was truly tired, yet I kept asking myself: where did I go wrong? Why must I repeatedly experience the sorrow of love, with Jian Wei before, and now with Mi Cai?

A sense of defeat seemed to freeze my blood. I walked stiffly to my car, and in a daze, let it become a gust of wind, sweeping through the city, sweeping through illusions…

Returning to the old house at 11 o’clock at night, I didn’t smoke or drink; I just silently started packing my luggage. Because when Mi Cai pushed me away and got into Wei Ran’s car, I felt that it was over between us. As for the words “breaking up,” not saying them was the last gift Mi Cai gave me, allowing me to retain a shred of dignity.

I quickly finished packing my luggage. As I was about to leave the old house, I felt as if I had been dreaming, for I never imagined that our conflict would escalate to this extent.

Thinking about it, life is like a dream, full of uncertainties. No one has the power to make the world develop along the path they’ve planned, so it’s not worth fretting over this unpredictable world. Eventually, we who are played by fate will learn to accept it; I just learned a little later than others.

…

The guitar Mi Cai gave me, I really wanted to take it with me, but I had no face to do so. In the end, I left it in the old house.

The moment I closed the door, I finally lit my first cigarette since returning, took a deep drag, and then carried my luggage down the stairwell.

With each step I took, I finally reached the third floor, only to suddenly hear the sound of high heels tapping on the ground from the first floor. The sound was especially clear in the dead of night, and I recognized the rhythm of those confident steps; only she could walk with such assurance.

So we met each other on the second floor. But she, who walked with such confident steps, looked so haggard and weary under the dim light.

We had to stop in our tracks, as I, laden with luggage, blocked her way up, and she blocked my way down.

She looked at me, then at the luggage I was carrying, and her eyes suddenly moistened.

“Where are you going?” she finally asked me.

“In such a big city, is there a fear of not finding a place to settle down?”

She remained silent…

“Could you please step aside and let me pass?”

She stood still, not moving an inch.

I tried to push past her, but she reached out and grabbed the railing, still unwilling to leave her spot.

Suddenly, I had an illusion that she had become the me when we first met, and I had become the her from that time. My heart, set on leaving, wavered slightly, unrealistically fantasizing that she would embrace me and beg me to stay with tears.

Finally, as if she had made up her mind, she asked, “Does leaving here mean you want to break up?”

I remembered the scene of her pushing me away to get into Wei Ran’s car and finally gritted my teeth and said, “I’m sorry… I just can’t learn the calm and rationality you want… Please, let me pass, okay?”

Mi Cai slowly moved to one side, her head bowed, making room for me to leave.

I looked at her, not wanting to leave, hoping she would embrace me, yet I was controlled by an inexplicable force, stepping down to the next flight of stairs.

I walked down step by step, each step heavier than the last. I felt suffocated, out of control, crazily wanting to drop my luggage and hold her tight, then kiss her in this flickering stairwell. But that force still drove me downwards… until I felt the spring rain falling outside the stairwell.

This unexpected spring rain seemed to freeze my heart. At that moment, I cast aside all distractions, threw my luggage into the trunk of the car, and without looking back, got into the car. I started the engine and became a gust of wind in the rain, instantly leaving the neighborhood where we met and fell in love.

…

Opening the car window, I, driving wildly, no longer wanted to view our love rationally amidst the harsh rain. At this moment, there was no material disparity, only two people hurting each other.

I suddenly wanted to listen to a fitting song, so I turned on the car’s player and found Stefanie Sun’s “Bad Weather.”

“We don’t want to separate, so why do we have to perform a play of indifference here? We should talk about more than just the weather. Unable to resolve the deadlock, if we have the strength to hurt each other, why not try harder? Love makes people get too close, forgetting to leave some space, childishness, in fact, I just can’t afford to lose…”

This was truly a fitting song, each word seemingly narrating the story of Mi Cai and me tonight.Perhaps neither of us wanted to part, yet in the corridor we performed a play of indifference. We had once been so close, so close that we forgot to leave any room for ourselves, which is why we cared so much when the other was with someone of the opposite sex.

But if we had the strength to hurt each other, why didn’t we make the effort to understand and draw closer to one another?

Looking back, all of this was just our childishness playing tricks on us. Because we couldn’t afford to lose, we forgot the story of the gardener and the flower, the oil-powered race cars, the rocking horse that swayed with us, and the guitars we gave to each other…

I slammed on the brakes, got out of the car, and sat on the rain-soaked curb, finally crying, sobbing uncontrollably in the pouring rain… Lying on the ground amidst my sobs, I then took out the bank card from my pocket, the one with 500,000 on it.

And then I laughed, a self-deprecating laugh… If she was willing to understand me, shouldn’t she be happy for me?

I struggled on the fringes of society for years, and finally, with some luck and effort, I made this money that was like sending charcoal in snowy weather for me… Shouldn’t she really be happy for me?

Why? Why? Why isn’t she happy?

Because to her, this mere 500,000 is worth nothing, so all she could see was my entanglement with Jian Wei, yet she failed to see the effort I put into researching Jingding Real Estate all night for the last negotiation.

So there I was again, caught in the pettiness of childishness in the storm… Preferring to die in this storm rather than return to that old house.

I took out my rain-soaked phone from my pocket, found Mi Cai’s number, and finally sent her a message: “I don’t understand you… and you understand me even less!”

———

No matter what I write, there will always be readers who read with their hearts and understand me; that is my motivation to keep writing. To be frank, those who truly understand this book will find that “My Exceptional Girlfriends” is not even on the same level as this one. This is not me belittling “Exceptional Girlfriends,” nor is there any need to, after all, they are both books written by me.