"She was crying and drunk. Isn't it normal to send her off?" Liang Daiwen said in a serious tone, not allowing any rebuttal. "Don't worry, I'm much safer than you think—my ID card and mobile phone number were all registered with you when I signed up. I can't run away."
Yu Dule opened the map and filled in the information for him to see. Liang Daiwen carried Gu Yi on his back and left. The other actors looked at each other in surprise. "Does this guy say whatever comes to mind? He's so straightforward."
"Is it safe..."
"It's safe... He definitely likes Gu Yi. Do you think this could be one of those long-lost reunion stories where the ugly suitor gets rejected, changes his identity, undergoes plastic surgery, and finally pursues his love in the end?" The speaker was Zihao, a young actor born in 1997.
"Cliché." Yu Dule looked at his watch and said, "I'll go back to Ounce to sober up and order some food."
Half an hour later, Liang Daiwen stood downstairs in the community with Gu Yi, who was drunk and unconscious, hanging on him. He realized he had forgotten to add Yu Dule's WeChat. He wandered around the old community with more than a dozen buildings for a long time before finding Lane 51. He went up to the fifth floor and stood at door 509. Liang Daiwen nudged Gu Yi and asked, "Is this your door?"
The other party didn't respond. How much did you drink to get like this?
There was no password, so he could only knock on the door. It was her male roommate who answered. The roommate looked at the man in front of him, then moved his head to look at Gu Yi behind him. He was very sleepy, but suddenly an unknown excitement flashed in his eyes. He said to Liang Daiwen, "Friend? Just leave her with me, I'll help her inside."
Liang Daiwen looked at the male roommate expressionlessly. "Do you rent together?"
"Yes, I'm in the master bedroom. It's too late; you should go back and rest. Don't worry, we have a good relationship."
The roommate's hand touched Gu Yi's shoulder. He was about to help her in, but when his eyes met Liang Daiwen's, he hesitated and withdrew. The smell of fumigated Chinese medicine drifted out with the hot air, and the living room was like an alchemy furnace. Liang Daiwen scanned the indoor environment, moved his eyes to the elixir in front of him, and silently forced him to retreat.
Then he turned around and walked away. Gu Yi was thrown off balance by the inertia, and the person behind him said, "Where are you going? We're already home!"
After carrying her for so long, his legs were weak. They almost fell down the stairs. Liang Daiwen stood still. He noticed a light from the corner of his eye—someone behind him was looking at their phone. Just as he was about to speak, the phone screen went dark, the person lowered their head, and the sensor light went out.
Damn it.
Liang Daiwen rushed out of the community, called a taxi, and stopped at Xiangyang North Road. He knocked on the door of Ounce. Yu Dule, who was still drunk, opened the door and saw Liang Daiwen carrying Gu Yi, her hair a mess, and wondered how this man could be so powerful.
Liang Daiwen, panting in front of him, maintained his composure. "The joke about her roommate being unreliable was no joke. I saw it with my own eyes—it wasn't good. Let her move out when she wakes up."
The top of her head felt like it was split open by an axe, and her whole body felt as sore as if it had been stepped on by an elephant—a hangover, the source of all sin. She picked up her phone and sent her location to Yu Dule to confirm where she was. Oh, Ounce. The familiar smell of the sofa and alcohol, the bookshelves, and the lounge in the distance gave her a warm feeling, warmer than at home. After thinking for a long time, she came to her senses and realized that she had drunk too much with Yu Dule and the others.
Don't mention alcohol. Don't mention alcohol.
But why was she still in the bar? She clearly remembered meeting Liang Daiwen, who had an expressionless face, before she blacked out. But now she was in the bar? She got up and touched her phone. Her roommates were probably at work by now. She could sneak back, take a shower, and still make it to the morning meeting at the company. She went out and looked at the shared bikes. She still unlocked her own bike. She carried the bike back herself and had to ride it back to her original place with tears in her eyes. She put on headphones and called Yu Dule. "Why am I in Ounce? Did you drink too much yesterday?"
"Yeah, we were all drunk. The money I just earned from 'Tonight's 80s' was gone before I even got it."
"We all drank a round, and each person owed 800 yuan. If we had known earlier, we should have bought some wine and drunk on the roadside. We wouldn't have to pay the boss for the performance, and we wouldn't have to pay him back."
"Oh yeah, what's wrong with your roommate? Last time I heard you talking about cremation and burial, is the living environment not very good?"
"A little bit. I have a roommate who is always... maybe he wants to find a girlfriend or he is too horny. Seeing that I always come home late and drink, he always makes fun of me."
"No wonder. Liang Daiwen sent you home yesterday, then brought you back again, and told you to move out quickly."
Gu Yi urgently stopped on the side of the road. "What did you say?"
"We ran into him last night. You were drunk and passed out on him, so he sent you home. I went back to the bar to order some goods. He brought you here more than an hour later, interrupting my order. I went back quietly at dawn and was almost kicked out by my girlfriend."
The joke last night came true—Liang Daiwen said that throwing herself in the bar was a risk transfer, and she took real action. Gu Yi stood where she was, thinking that she could no longer make up stories in jokes, and directly projected reality.
"I think he really likes you. It's hard for him to send you home. A normal person would probably just turn around and leave, but he can see the clues. At least he has good insight—much better than the guy named Xu you met before."
He was talking about the stone in the joke. But Gu Yi didn't want to talk about this topic. "You know, my mother doesn't say this to me."
"Your mother is an alcoholic, and I am a normal urban person."
"It's hereditary. I can't do anything about it. Believe it or not, my mom is also having a headache at home right now."
Her phone vibrated a few times. It was a message from her mother. She had been drinking all night and now had a headache. Twenty years ago, mother and daughter lived together in a small house, so poor that people and gods could not help but hate them. Twenty years later, Shanghai and Northeast China are 1,300 kilometers apart, and the mother and daughter's cranial cavities are resonating at the same frequency.
Headache. Yu Dule's teachings didn't stop: "Let me summarize it for you. He was particularly sexy when he knocked on the door. Didn't you say that if you can extract the keywords 'virtuous,' 'honest,' 'duty,' and 'stable' from a random screenshot of life, it can't be called love? Only sexiness can be called love."
"The usage scenario is wrong..."
"You're obviously so happy. A woman in this situation—what else is she waiting for if she doesn't open every pore of her body to welcome love? Are you going to use it to dissipate the alcohol?"
"Yu Dule, I don't want to be a woman, I want to be a human being, a decent human being. Now not only can I not make people laugh, but I have also lost face."
Her clothes were filled with cool breeze. She stopped at the intersection and saw herself reflected in the window. The sun was shining on her face. The thin air force jacket was blowing in the wind. There was a big bump on her back, as if something inside her body that she hadn't noticed was blown out.
After taking a shower, Gu Yi saw a note that her roommate had posted on her desk: "Someone sent you home last night, and you were willing to go with someone else, so why didn't you want to sleep with me?"
Schrodinger's door lock was sometimes working and sometimes not. Her roommate found out and wrote a note to scare her. Gu Yi was angry and sad. It was just a rented house. Why did she have to live in fear?
Why did she have to live in such constant fear?
When Gu Yi arrived at the company, she carefully reviewed the photos her mother had sent. The old house where they once lived was now a horror scene: blood smeared across the walls, the bed in shambles, and the door wide open with onlookers gawking. It was a shocking sight. The previous tenants, a violent couple who often fought, had left behind a half-broken kitchen knife, making the place look like a crime scene. Her mother, standing there with the knife in hand, seemed more concerned about the money spent on the walls than the bloodstains themselves. The bed had collapsed, and they’d need to build another before the place could be rented out again. Gu Yi quickly transferred 3,000 yuan and messaged her mother: "It’s okay, it’s just tidying up the place for rent. No destruction, no construction. Stay strong, Mom."
Just yesterday, she’d blown 800 yuan on drinks, and now the thought of moving to a new place seemed impossible. With the exorbitant rent and deposit required in Shanghai, even if she could manage 4,000 yuan a month, she wouldn’t have enough to cover the four-month lease when her current rent expired.
She would never touch her emergency fund, but she knew she couldn’t afford to waste money anymore. She needed to buckle down and focus—not just for herself, but for her mother too. Her mother, who still ran a small, struggling dry cleaning shop in a small city, could barely afford her own living expenses. Gu Yi felt a deep ache in her heart as she held her phone. She might be broke, but she still had her pride. Not to mention that, despite everything, Liang Daiwen supposedly liked her, at least according to Yu Dule. Yet, she’d never made him laugh during her stand-up shows. Sent home by random men and stuck with a creepy roommate who thought her late nights and love of drinking were character flaws… There seemed to be no way out for her.
As she waited for a meeting in the conference room, her roommate kept texting her: "Back for a shower? You had a great time last night."
Gu Yi snapped her phone shut just as the content director walked in, startling her. The director, Jacqueline—Zhang Junjie in her official capacity—was known as the "big devil" behind her back. But in reality, she was a capable 34-year-old woman with the air of a Hong Kong socialite, her fair skin and slender frame accentuated by her love of sports. Rumor had it all her ex-boyfriends were young men. She settled into her chair with an iced American coffee, her makeup-free face still stunning as she reviewed the public account stats on the screen. The department’s two profitable accounts, with a headline ad fee of 200,000 yuan, were Jacqueline’s golden geese. Gu Yi, caught between journals and public accounts, spent most of her workday getting scolded.
“What clients are lined up for the top stories on the official account next week?” Jacqueline’s tone was low and even, but her words carried more weight than a shout.
“The Yingrun domestic cosmetics line, the Mijia smart desk lamp, and a reading app. I’ve scheduled them from Tuesday to Friday. On Monday, I wrote an article about young people, targeting potential consumers.”
“And what’s the theme? What overarching message are you trying to convey with these products?” Jacqueline’s voice was soft, but her words cut deep.
“The New Consumption Outlook for Today’s Youth…”
“Too ordinary.” Jacqueline flipped through the pages with a rustle. “We’ve got so many first-tier print media outlets above us, and this title isn’t high-end or memorable enough. With all the new magazines the company puts out each month, you’ve got a wealth of material to work with. How did you come up with a title that’s just ‘an outline’?”
There was no change in her tone, but her words stung more than any sarcasm. Gu Yi would have to go out again to come up with better topics. As she lowered her gaze, a new text message flashed on her phone: "China Merchants Bank’s Flash Loan Newcomer Exclusive, 10% discount coupon, annual interest rate as low as 5.04%, apply successfully at 10 a.m. every Monday!"
After meetings that stretched into the evening, Gu Yi had no desire to go home. Instead, she found herself wandering to the Hongkou Football Stadium, standing outside to watch the game. The teenagers on the field, bursting with energy, couldn’t stop running. Tired from her high heels, Gu Yi sat outside the field, lost in thought, her phone in hand. Her thoughts drifted with the whistle and the players’ shouts, like a soccer ball flying through the air. She imagined the ball’s perspective: accustomed to the force of kicks and the rush of wind, it covered more ground than any human, its movements five times that of a normal person, exuding the scent of leather, sweat, and a hint of grass. If the ball were a person, it would be goal-oriented, never wasting a step, and the moment it crossed the line and scored—whether a goal or an own goal—would be its highlight. It would be the type of guy who women don’t like very much.
Gu Yi often felt disconnected from life, unable to fully immerse herself in anything—not even kissing. Once, at Fudan University, she was the only student in her class to notice the scratches on tree roots caused by cats. She would question everything as soon as she opened a textbook, driving her teachers crazy with her philosophical musings. She frequently viewed things from other people’s perspectives, filling her mind with metaphors. Though her dating experience was limited, she had already analyzed every type of man thoroughly. With her exposure to countless open mics, there was no type she hadn’t encountered. Living alone, she constantly “switched perspectives,” unable to rest.
"Aren’t you going home?"
“There’s no real home in the world. After living somewhere long enough, even a rented place starts to feel like home. Unfortunately, the house I’m renting is practically a haunted house.” Gu Yi looked up, her eyes sliding from her knees to her upper body, as if she could see her own high blood pressure. “Why are you here?”
It was Liang Daiwen, dressed in black sportswear with a bag slung over his shoulder, his hair still wet. “I’m here to play squash.”
“With friends?”
“I don’t have many friends.”
A lonely game. Gu Yi stood up, her back and waist aching from the heels. She was right at eye level with Liang Daiwen’s jawline. His skin was flawless, and there were three moles on his neck, forming a line. His earlobes were so small.
Liang Daiwen was studying her too, his expression the same as Jacqueline’s when discussing topics. Gu Yi shook her head. “I heard you sent me home yesterday, and dropped me off at Ounces…”
“A calculated risk.”
It was like a joke! Gu Yi sniffed. “Did I do anything strange…”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“You wouldn’t wake up when I asked for directions, and then you got up and started writing jokes on my back when I carried you.”
Gu Yi checked her phone and saw she’d indeed had an idea at 2:30 in the morning: “Being moved means quickly determining that the other person brings sexual attraction to you in a short period of time. Don’t underestimate your body’s conditioned reflexes. When it comes to seeking a mate, humans are very skilled at it.”
When she looked back up at Liang Daiwen, she felt even more embarrassed. He hadn’t moved, standing just a step and a half away—close enough for her to leap into his arms. Gu Yi’s blood pressure and heartbeat spiked as her gaze flitted over his neck and chest. She blurted out, “You have good stamina.”
“Just in case.”
Look! The truth was out. She realized this was a tactic she could use in certain situations. It was vulgar, crass, and full of ulterior motives. There were even those who pretended to be gentlemen the first time around, with the girls behind them willing to fall for it. She couldn’t let herself be trapped. Liang Daiwen really had no friends. He even stood on the court, chatting with her. “I took you home after drinking. Are you embarrassed?”
“No.”
“Then why are you chasing after me?”
“I don’t know you and I don’t have your contact information. How could I pursue you? This is just a coincidence. If you hate me, feel free to leave.”
Liang Daiwen turned and started to walk away. Gu Yi was stunned. People still didn’t understand implied meanings these days? Or did they just not understand what others were saying? She quickly reached out and grabbed his arm—solid and strong. The lights from the stadium shone on his face, making his skin look even more pale. He had to break the awkward silence, so Gu Yi asked, “Since we’ve run into each other, let me ask you—why don’t you ever smile?”
“So many people aren’t smiling. Why are you so fixated on me?”
“You’re my audience! And you were sitting in the front row.”
“Just because someone smiles doesn’t mean they’re truly happy. Do you smile when you’re dealing with your boss or clients?”
“I do.”
“But inside, I’m cursing.”
“…”
His expression didn’t change as he added, “Don’t get me wrong. I don’t like you.”
Gu Yi’s heart skipped a beat, and when she looked up, she bumped into his chin. He winced, then frowned when he felt the pain, but it was a reflex—his face still devoid of any real emotion. It was frustrating how someone so handsome could keep the same blank expression all the time. Gu Yi’s back was aching from standing so long, so she leaned against the railing by the gutter. "Whether you like me or not doesn’t matter," she said, "What I care about is if my jokes are any good."
"Just average."
Her irritation flared. "Could you be more specific? Where exactly am I falling short?"
"Does it matter?"
"Of course it does. Just like a chef cares about how the food tastes, a comedian cares about whether their jokes land."
"Your first set was just okay—not very funny, just some clever lines. The next two shows were better, and you’re improving overall, but you’re still far from being a great stand-up. I’ve seen Dave Chappelle, and that level is something else entirely. But I could tell you were really into it, and that made a difference."
His critique was delivered with that same blank expression, and it left Gu Yi momentarily speechless. She wasn’t one to hold grudges, and his words made sense, but it was hard not to feel annoyed by his cold, analytical tone—like one of those people online who love to stir up controversy with their critiques.
No amount of good looks could make up for that kind of aggravation.
The field was buzzing with the shouts of teenagers playing soccer. Gu Yi turned away, realizing how strange it felt to be having this kind of conversation next to a football field. It was too much like a couple’s spat, and she wasn’t about to jeopardize her comedy career over some guy. But Liang Daiwen wasn’t done yet. "I’m not trying to criticize you for the sake of it. I’m just direct. Not laughing is my problem, not yours. I’m sorry if I upset you."
Before she could respond, a loud thud from the protective net startled her. Gu Yi nearly jumped out of her skin, twisting her ankle and getting her heel caught in the gutter. A junior high kid had taken a wild shot that missed, sending the ball crashing into the net just half a meter from Liang Daiwen. The wind from the impact ruffled his hair, but he didn’t even flinch.
Gu Yi clutched her chest, trying to steady her breathing, while Liang Daiwen stood there, calm and unbothered, his expression as blank as ever.
"Not laughing is one thing," she thought, "but how are you not even scared?"
NEXT
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