Chapter 1

There are so many people around her, but she doesn’t feel embarrassed at all. Right now, she’s walking forward with the back wheel of her bicycle off the ground, sweating as she goes. She saw this bike at Gate 1 of Jiangwan Sports Stadium earlier—three years ago, it was stolen from under the building of Fudan University’s Fourth Teaching Building. Now, three years later, it appears at the subway entrance, with its lock replaced but everything else unchanged, even the scratches on the front frame and the rear seat from when it carried props for a “Top Ten Singers” performance. The battle scars remind her that she had some bad luck riding this bike back then, and for a moment, she feels a little nostalgic.

Her overtime had already drained her, and she stood in place for a while, adjusting the bike, then lifted the rear wheel and walked with it. Today, she was going to take this bike home, no matter how cold the wind was. She couldn’t bear to take a cab, so she walked with the bike for two kilometers to Huangxing Road, only to be stopped by a traffic assistant.

She was prepared. She took out her phone confidently and said, “Officer, this bike is mine. It was stolen three years ago, and except for the lock, everything else is mine. I bought it in my senior year, I have the purchase record from Xianyu, I have photos of the scratches on the bike—this is definitely my bike. Please don’t stop me, I’m taking it home today.”

She said it all in one breath, and the traffic assistant looked at his notebook: “Who said it’s not yours?”

“Then why are you stopping me?”

“You’re not walking on the sidewalk, that’s a fine.”

“...”

“You’re not walking on the sidewalk, that’s a non-motorized vehicle lane.”

“I’m walking with the bike, that’s not wrong, right?”

“Look again. It’s your feet walking on the road, and the wheels aren’t turning, isn’t that still you walking?” The assistant persisted, “Give me your ID.”

Was he looking for trouble? She was already tired from walking, but she took out her ID card and let the cold wind dry her sweat on the roadside. She thought to herself that maybe it was a blessing in disguise when the bike was stolen, and now she was stuck with it again.

“Gu Yi... Did your mom pick this name on purpose?”

“How would I know?”

“Fifty yuan fine.”

What was going on? So walking with a bike on the non-motorized vehicle lane in the city center was enough to get fined? The sidewalks were full of bikes, and people were walking back and forth. Wasn’t she being considerate by walking on the non-motorized vehicle lane so that other pedestrians wouldn’t be blocked? This was Shanghai, a city known for its considerate citizens, and now she was being fined for being considerate? Was kindness supposed to come with a price now? She got angrier and stared at the officer for half a minute, then said:

“Thirty.”

The officer was stunned: “What are you doing? Haggling?”

“I got fined twenty last time for cycling the wrong way, why fifty this time?”

“Wrong way cycling, not using the sidewalk, it’s all fifty. Don’t try to pull tricks.”

“Thirty-five.”

“Keep going like this, and I’ll take you to the station.”

Gu Yi stared at the officer in front of her, her anger rising. The two most annoying types of city workers in Shanghai were traffic assistants who fined people for cycling the wrong way and the parking attendants who collected fees by the side of the road. They seemed to appear out of nowhere to collect money, and no matter the amount, it was enough to make people feel upset. It was like they only came out to collect money or just to annoy people. Today, Gu Yi decided to stand her ground and got angry at the officer: “Thirty, or I won’t leave.”

The assistant looked at her and said, “Do you still want the bike?”

After paying the fine and receiving the receipt, she continued to carry the bike. Gu Yi felt that she had overpaid. She stopped by a convenience store and drank some cold water. While browsing on Baidu, she found that fines for cycling the wrong way and walking on the non-motorized vehicle lane ranged from five to fifty yuan.

A toothache. Even drinking cold water seemed to be the cause of it.

To cope with this uncertain mix of celebration and frustration, she called her friends to drink. No matter her mood, she could always drink. After a few drinks, she convinced herself that it was worth carrying the bike back, and the bike had now become a more valuable item, worth four hundred and fifty yuan, up from the two hundred and eighty she had originally paid. She sighed deeply and drank more.

Drunk, she stood up to say goodbye. The night was about to begin, and her work was starting. The term “night shift” sounded vague and ambiguous, filled with insinuations. She tugged at her canvas shoes and sniffed, glancing at her sleeveless wool vest—it was so masculine.

After walking for a quarter of an hour, every cell in her body screamed hunger. With her bank card balance at six thousand five hundred yuan, she passed by a store, and a cold wind swept past her. It felt like the universe knew she was hungry, and it had provided her with a gust of northwest wind.

She set herself some short-term life goals: stop drinking, never mess around, earn more money, and tonight, make everyone in the room laugh. Walking into the bar, she saw Yu Dule standing at the ticket check, thin and tall, wearing glasses, shivering in the cold wind, draped in a long, mediocre-quality coat. At first glance, he looked like a stand-up comedy bouncer in a raincoat.

An audience member recognized her: “Gu Yi!”

She greeted them with a cheerful smile.

“Did you drink too much again?”

“Don’t slap me in the face,” she said, hunching her neck and entering. The audience knew her persona—the drunk girl. There was another persona she’d slip into as soon as the show started, one she’d always do in three lines.

Outside of her work, she was a stand-up comedian. Tonight, she was the second to perform. Her material had been written earlier in the week, but she hadn’t had time to memorize it. On stage, she would probably not follow the script anyway. Yu Dule had summarized her stage style: go with the flow, adapt, seize the moment, enjoy life.

Her crowd was similar.

“Ounce,” the bar’s name, was a small pub located on the second floor of a little house on Xiangyang North Road. The first floor was a poorly managed yet well-decorated vintage bookstore, relying on its sale of alcohol to support a bilingual stand-up comedy open mic. The name “Ounce” came from the owner’s poetic idea that those who drank were highly sentimental, and the almond-shaped part of the brain that lightens the soul might only be an ounce in size. The second floor was a cozy sofa bar, with a stage like a living room, bookshelves full of books, and a real window from which music and laughter drifted outside. During the warm-up period, lounge music played—casual, relaxed, and romantic, just like the mismatched sofas and high stools that gave visitors a sense of ease as soon as they entered. The bar was always busy, and stand-up comedy was more like a background sound. Whether it was Gu Yi or other performers speaking in Chinese or foreign languages, as soon as they stepped on stage, the audience would only respond with laughter, creating the vibe of the urban night.

Gu Yi waited backstage, peeking through the gap to scan the audience for potential interaction. The front row was always filled with people who enjoyed interacting, some even coming prepared to provoke the performers. To the right, there was a handsome guy sitting, staring at the bookshelf, looking as if he were mesmerized—at least that’s how it seemed from a distance. The lighting was dim, but the warm yellow lights illuminated his face, sharp and defined, even under a low-key appearance. He was the type who couldn’t hide his good looks.

He didn’t notice anyone staring at him from between the bookshelves. Gu Yi wasn’t particularly obsessed with looks, but she couldn’t ignore a handsome guy—wasn’t it a waste of social resources not to take a second look? He had straight brows, a slightly curved nose, beautiful lips, and a slightly squared jaw, but his overall features were not harsh, probably softened by his round skull. Especially paired with his pitch-black eyes, his curly hair pulled back to reveal his forehead—he looked a bit artistic and a bit melancholic. She was easily drawn to someone who seemed to have a story, and of course, being handsome, he attracted more than just her attention.

Yu Dule, standing behind her, asked, “Are you looking at the handsome guy in the first row?”

“How did you know?”

“There have already been at least ten girls asking him for his contact information.”

“Really that popular?”

“There are a lot of handsome guys, but this one’s not too greasy and has an icy vibe—quite rare. I get a lot of random people trying to flirt, but who doesn’t have a desire to ruin a rare flower like that? Want to try?”

“I’m not qualified,” Gu Yi said with self-deprecation, wearing canvas shoes and looking disheveled, definitely not a strong competitor.

“Very self-aware.”

“But I’m funny!” Gu Yi spun her hands in the air, casually brushing her bangs, and walked out with a confident aura.

“Hello, everyone, I’m Gu Yi, and I’m back.”

A sparse round of applause greeted her, but she was used to it.

“Is anyone here for the first time?” Seeing more than half of the audience raise their hands, Gu Yi laughed, “Looks like Ounce is a place without many regulars.”

The laughter started right away. Gu Yi often chatted for a while to ease into her material, and of course, she didn’t miss the chance to interact with the handsome guy: “Hey, handsome, did you come here alone?”

The handsome guy nodded.

“Why come to a stand-up show? Is this your kind of leisure activity?”

“I just won the lottery for the ticket.”

“Oh, I see. Usually, when you win, you can bring a friend. They do it to give single people a chance. Why waste this opportunity? Do you not have many friends?”

Insulting people was a trademark of stand-up comedy, but the handsome guy didn’t seem bothered: “I didn’t think about it like that.”

“For those sitting in the back who might not see clearly, he really is quite handsome and actually single by choice.” After a round of laughs, she smoothly returned to her topic: “As my friends know, misfortune is a part of my daily life. But this morning, something good happened. I found the bike I lost three years ago, with a new lock, at the subway station.”

Her other persona was that of a disaster magnet.

“I even checked to make sure it was mine. The scratches on the crossbar hadn’t been repainted. I was so mad at the time. If you don’t even bother maintaining your bike, is it just a means of commuting? I’m different—this scratch was from when I carried props for the ‘Top 10 Singers’ event on it.”

“I’m taking it back now, claiming it’s mine, and I’m the one who will take care of it, through thick and thin. But then, a cop stopped me on the sidewalk and fined me fifty.”

She continued, her words sending the audience into a fit of laughter while the handsome guy in the front row remained expressionless. Gu Yi continued: “Shanghai’s winter is really brutal, and after carrying the bike for a while, I was tired. An old lady even stopped me and asked, ‘Oh, little girl, you opened the lock?’ She didn’t know, but there’s a Mr. Li around here who’s really good at lock picking. So I went to him, and he charged me 120, even more ruthless than the cop. But I paid him, because at least it looked better than carrying the bike around, which didn’t exactly improve my image. But I don’t care. I don’t care if I have a boyfriend. All I care about is whether my bike is still good and whether it can be stolen. Once the paint’s fixed, I’ll sell it—how much can I get for it?”

Laughter filled the bar. She glanced at the front row and found it absurd; the handsome guy’s expression seemed like he hadn’t heard a thing. Everyone else was laughing, but he wasn’t?

The show must go on. “Carrying a bike on the street isn’t something to be ashamed of, but if my friends heard about it, they’d lecture me about why I’m still single. When I was in college, the guys came up with 101 reasons for why I’m single. For example, one morning I skipped breakfast and attended five classes in a row, and at lunch, I finished a bowl of noodles in two minutes before going back to buy a bowl of wontons. The noodle vendor who swiped my meal card asked me, ‘Did you spill your noodles?’ Or like this time, my bike was stolen, and after three years, I saw it at the subway entrance. When I carried it away, I got fined fifty... Before coming here, I’d already had a drink and been teased for it. I’ve been through so much with this bike over the years. But I thought, of course, this was unfair—I needed to make up for the delayed justice and fairness. God probably decided I should keep getting unlucky to solidify my persona as the funny and unlucky one in stand-up, earning more money. But every time I see my performance fee, I sneer. Turns out, my precious unlucky persona is worth 350 bucks. But that’s okay. I know many people are waiting to see me mess up, but I—have endless jokes to tell.”

Laughter continued to roll in. Unable to hold back any longer, Gu Yi pointed at him and started interacting: “Hey, handsome, is your hearing okay?”

The man seemed to be startled, confusedly pointing to himself. Gu Yi nodded. “Yes, I’m asking you. Everyone else is laughing, but with you like this, I really thought you couldn’t hear.”

The man replied, “I can’t laugh.”

“Wow, be careful or I’ll add you on WeChat after the show and chase you. I’m someone who easily gets triggered by competition. Especially since you’re quite handsome.”

The audience burst out laughing, but the man remained expressionless. Someone shouted “Next,” and Gu Yi immediately responded, “No, I must get him to be awkward. We need to have a result here today.”

“Together!”

She gave him a thumbs-up. “I’ll call you when I’m officiating our wedding.”

Gu Yi, who only began to truly live for herself at twenty-four and adapted to a young person’s lifestyle by twenty-six, had gotten used to drinking, reading, playing games, and easily making friends. She didn’t crave anything in particular in life. Now, her excitement hadn’t yet faded. She looked through the bookshelf gap at the man on the right in the front row. The rhythm of the music during the intermission hit her chest like a hammer, the tinkling of wind chimes disrupting her thoughts as the beat messed with her heartbeat. She really wanted to know the name of this song, just as much as she was curious about the man’s name. When taking group photos, she walked over, looking at the man who hadn’t smiled. She sat directly in front of him on the stage, thinking to herself that at least this could count as a group photo, and she could follow up later.

When she received the photo, she sighed. The bartender, standing in the middle of the stage, had taken it. Her face happened to block the man entirely—how one views something can directly affect the outcome.

At the end of the show, holding the microphone, she provocatively teased, “Hey, handsome, if you have the guts, come back next time and see how I make you laugh.”

The man turned around, stiffly pulling at the corner of his mouth, which was the closest thing to a response. Whether he would come back or not, he didn’t say.