Chapter 28

The squashed melon is not sweet, I want to eat it with sauce.

Guan Xingxin liked sitting face to face with Yu Dule in the bathtub. The loft wasn’t very big, so when they squeezed together, parts of their bodies always touched, like conjoined twins. Yu Dule found the joke boring. The woman, clearly distant, always liked to make playful jokes about being close. Guan Xingxin splashed water, and the foam in the bathtub grew more and more. Yu Dule asked, “Why do you always make so much foam? It’s hard to clean.”

“Don’t you feel ashamed seeing each other’s bodies in the water after doing that kind of thing?”

“You were the one who provoked me just now,” Yu Dule said, pinching Guan Xingxin’s waist under the water, delighting in hearing her dissatisfied pout.

“I want to cut my hair short.”

“Why?”

“My family likes it, but I actually think it’s troublesome. When I sleep, my hair gets pressed, and when I shower, I have to move it around back and forth, it’s annoying.”

“Don’t you think long hair is part of who you are?”

“I think so. That’s why I want to cut it off, like a hero cutting off their wrist.”

“Now that you’ve brought it up, why not tell me more about your family? You seem to dislike them. Do your parents control you strictly?”

“Sort of. My family is too complicated. If I tell you, it would... ruin the relationship.” Guan Xingxin poked Yu Dule’s chest. “I still want to date you, without the constraints of family.”

“But I want to date you for a long time, for marriage.”

Guan Xingxin leaned back against Yu Dule’s chest and kissed his neck. “Dule, my family... as soon as marriage is mentioned, they get hysterical and picky about people. If we don’t have a certain level of affection, bringing up marriage would just make us break up. Let’s not talk about this anymore.”

“I was joking,” Yu Dule said with a mischievous laugh. “Don’t you feel it—whenever we talk seriously, I don’t react.”

The best communication between them seemed to happen in bed. They were in sync, finding the positions that brought each other the most pleasure, and they could also find the traits in each other that attracted them, as a form of desire. Yu Dule leaned against the headboard, watching Guan Xingxin, who had fallen asleep tiredly. He seemed unable to sleep as easily, a habit formed from his long nights editing films and managing the bar, so he could have long nights to observe her. She was beautiful, really beautiful. Her skin was translucent, not a pore in sight, and her straight nose with a slightly drooping tip gave her an aristocratic air. She was fragile, too, her brows slightly furrowed as if she had been wronged by the whole world.

She was more complicated than he thought. The emotions hidden under the surface were hard to guess. He had initially thought she only wanted him as a bed partner, and in their intimacy, he had been somewhat rough. But then, seeing the marks at the door and the strange take-out deliveries—videos of their hotel room, the lingering traces of her life—he realized that she was scared, yet didn’t dare let him become her boyfriend.

This made him very sad—she was so pitiful, and he wasn’t good enough.

Guan Xingxin was someone who didn’t like talking about herself. Even when Yu Dule was curious, all he heard were superficial details—she had learned painting and the electronic keyboard from a young age, studied at a private middle school for six years, and then went to Shanghai for both undergraduate and master’s degrees. She was excellent and privileged, never worried about money. Yu Dule was more open, saying his dad worked as a civil servant and his mom ran a small guesthouse, which was considered quite prosperous in their small town. He joked often, saying that if he didn’t do well, he would return home to inherit the family business. Although he couldn’t afford a big house in Shanghai, he could make use of every bed in his family’s guesthouse. Guan Xingxin only said, “No, in a small town everyone is the same, and no one would appreciate a unique talk-show actor.” In short, everything she said was praise.

She even slept beautifully. She would apply a layer of night cream after removing her makeup, which supposedly nourished the skin and kept her perfect in front of someone she liked. Yu Dule once joked that such a deceptive advertisement made the “night cream” sound like a sensual product. But when Guan Xingxin lay in bed, exuding fragrance, she explained that she couldn’t resist the scent of flowers. Seeing her coquettish side, Yu Dule immediately softened—well, for a beautiful girl, don’t be too demanding. When she trusted him, she would naturally talk about her past. Facing a formidable adversary like Lu Ming, if he rushed, he would just be a perverted “bed buddy.”

After so many years in television, he wasn’t afraid of waiting.

Walking in the rain with Xu Guanrui, Gu Yi seemed to have her mind cleared by the rain. She was serious about stand-up comedy, cherishing every opportunity to perform on stage, and thinking about where to make extra money. She didn’t like the term “making money” because it sounded too indifferent and crude. Getting economic returns beyond dreams felt more like what she wanted.

Lying in bed, she suddenly remembered Xu Guanrui’s words before they parted. They had drunk quite a bit and were still chatting as they walked home. Xu Guanrui, who was the same age as her, worked at an internet company’s music channel, hosting performances. During his adolescence, he was a delicate rock boy and had been a music critic for ten years, listening to everything with varied tastes. But he only casually picked up stand-up comedy, initially just wanting to have some fun. When they reached the entrance of the neighborhood, Xu Guanrui frowned at her metaphor about picking stars.

“Although it sounds romantic, it’s really about doing impossible things. Even if you try, you can’t achieve them. Wrapping impossible things in a nice shell and calling it a life motto is like becoming a modern Sisyphus. Once you’ve reached the stars around you, isn’t it more practical to enjoy the light within your reach? After all, the light belongs to you. Isn’t it pitiful to be overly obsessed with things you can’t have, ignoring the people and things around you that should be cherished?”

After saying that, he turned on his phone’s flashlight and said, “Look at this star. How about this one?”

Gu Yi returned home and pulled open the curtains. At the dark neighborhood entrance, there was still a small white light. Xu Guanrui texted her: “I learned this at the One OK Rock concert in January. At the end of the concert, fans lit up their lights as a show of support—seeing the stars you can reach and knowing you can see them, that makes it easier not to get discouraged.”

Her heart pounded.

Yu Dule and Gu Yi both wrote jokes on Weibo, and their humor was on par with each other, with each post receiving a couple hundred comments. Recently, Yu Dule had been providing jokes for an online variety show, which brought in stable income and more fans. Gu Yi attributed this to his frequent selfies, which Yu Dule scoffed at. He slapped his thigh and predicted that stand-up comedy would become more popular in the coming years. Gu Yi wasn’t so sure, thinking that traditional forms like cross-talk and skits had already entered the realm of the Arts Association, but stand-up comedy, which often offends or mocks people, might not catch on.

But Yu Dule’s steady income did give her more confidence in writing jokes. After all, before that, she had been doing odd jobs at a bar, earning a bartender’s salary, and her face showed the pessimism of someone struggling through tough times. It might also be the motivation brought by love; she couldn’t resist asking, “How are things with Guan Xingxin recently?”

“It’s not that great. She suddenly became distant, and I don’t know why.”

Gu Yi quietly took note of that, while waiting for the show to start at Ounce. He saw Guan Xingxin enter with Lu Ming, and the mystery seemed to solve itself—Yu Dule, checking tickets at the door, surely noticed. But she didn’t see Liang Daiwen, and as Gu Yi sat backstage with Yu Dule, they were both a little melancholy about stand-up comedy.

When it was her turn to go on stage, she began, “Hi, everyone, I’m Gu Yi. Recently, I’ve been a little abnormal. There’s nothing I can’t say, I’ve fallen in love. Unrequited love, so I’m always acting a little crazy, spitting nonsense everywhere. A few days ago, at Ounce, I even triggered a domestic dispute. I’ve been blaming myself for days, wondering if my behavior was the problem. But then I thought, a man’s pride is like a tiger’s rear end—don’t touch it! How can the king of beasts maintain his position if his perspective isn’t broad enough? We revere tigers, and the whole animal kingdom makes way for them, with some animals even becoming tiger food. In the end, the tiger won’t let anyone touch its rear end—such a petty tiger!”

There was applause. This made Gu Yi feel a little uncertain, as there seemed to be more female audience members now. Was it possible they came specifically to see her bash men? She didn’t think she was popular enough for that yet. She adjusted her hair and continued, “The reason I keep talking about men is that I’ve developed an interest in them, love brain, you know? It might be genetic, my mom’s the same. She’s a Northeast love fool, an impossible romantic in real life. When she was a girl, she eloped to follow the trends, severing ties with her family. As a young woman, she was tricked by a man into a broken relationship, and here I am, the result of that mess. As an elderly woman, she hasn’t changed much—if she meets a nice old man, she’d probably push him down the stairs in her wheelchair for love. If anyone here designs wheelchairs, could you make a safer one for my mom? I’m afraid she’ll end up paralyzed for love.”

She added the last line for Liang Daiwen, who wasn’t there today.

“But I really admire my mom. She’s the kind of person who dares to love and hate. When I was a kid, we had nothing, not even a TV. But it wasn’t that we were poor, my dad just loved women too much and spent all our money. I remember this argument so clearly, when I was seven, my dad took the meal money I had hidden under the mattress to gamble. My mom dragged him outside, and when they came back, she bought a TV and said, ‘I sold your dad to buy us a TV.’ So I had a bad impression growing up, thinking everything could be bought and sold. Later, when I studied exchange rates, I even asked my teacher, ‘What’s the unit of measure for men?’”

She paused. “That’s off-topic. My mom is really hardworking and willing to suffer for love. When I look back, I always want to ask her, how can she be so selfish, never considering me? When I was ten, a decent man with a good job liked my mom, and they lived in an elevator building in the city, but she refused him. That night, we were out digging sour cabbage out of the barrel, and I pulled out a dead rat. In the Northeast, those barrels are kept outside. The rat was so hungry, it couldn’t eat, and neither did we. People would often hang around the entrance of our first-floor home, and we had everything at the back—sickles, axes, shovels… What’s so scary about Saw? My mom was like Edward Scissorhands. After many years, she told me her greatest pride was that she never stooped for five bushels of rice. I was really moved when I heard that, I mean, to be so devoted to love. But then she said, ‘Five bushels? No, it had to be ten!’”

“Later, I found out that she’d been seeing a guy for six or seven years. When I was in middle school and had a crush on someone, she kept it from me. On the night after my high school exams, she went to perm her hair, then wore scary lipstick the next day and went to dinner with her boyfriend. She said it felt like she’d been bound by a plague for years, and finally, she was free. I spent three months eating instant noodles, and I rarely saw my mom at home. At the end of August, she asked me, ‘What major are you filling in for college?’”

“My mom’s love story is quite interesting. The guy thought she was chasing him, said it was pointless, and refused the almonds she gave him. She told him it didn’t matter; she’d eat them with sauce. Later, when they finally got together, some neighbors gossiped about it at the barbecue shop, and my mom blocked their shop door with a cartload of sand. This is true, they even went to my mom’s workplace to complain. My mom said, ‘You can gossip all you want, but I’m going to bite back, and even two more times! What’s it to you? At fifty, my old man still buys Viagra!’ My mom finally found some happiness. When I was in college, I urged her to get married. She told me, ‘I’ll marry when you do.’ Originally, she was trying to push me into a happy life, but after these two years, she realized I was hopeless in love, so she went ahead and got the certificate herself.”

Gu Yi stuck out her tongue. The audience, mostly from the Northeast, were rolling with laughter. She felt a little melancholic. Wasn’t she just poking fun at gender conflicts? It was all her fault, talking about love so carelessly. She ended with a bleak note: “Recently, my unrequited love is going nowhere. I called my mom and asked her, ‘Will I still be charming when I’m fifty, like you?’ She very philosophically told me, ‘When one door closes, another will open.’ I said, ‘What does that mean? Should I not be too obsessed?’ My mom said, ‘You can’t figure it out? Just breathe out by the window, and then kick the door open! What door? Who gave it the face?’”

After finishing her bow, Gu Yi handed the microphone to the host, Yu Dule. As she did, she noticed Xu Guanyue sitting in the first row. Gu Yi thought to herself, this might just be how fate works—love, too, goes through cycles. Whether he’s the door or the window in my life, Xu Guanyue right now does give me a feeling of relief.

After the performance ended, Lu Ming and Guan Xingxin invited Gu Yi to grab a late-night snack. Gu Yi asked, “Isn’t Yu Dule coming?” Guan Xingxin replied, “He probably has to pick up some goods and write a script.”

Gu Yi understood—these two were playing the push-and-pull game. Just as she said this, Xu Guanyue walked past, greeting her with a smile, “Do you think we’ll meet again next time during the lottery?”

“Probably. Recently, I’ve been getting selected to perform a lot.”

“Are you going for a late-night snack?”

After a brief hesitation, Xu Guanyue quickly noticed Gu Yi’s evasive eyes: “I’ll go ahead. We’ll chat on WeChat.”

Guan Xingxin and Lu Ming, who had witnessed this exchange, both had knowing smiles. When they arrived at the barbecue shop, Guan Xingxin couldn’t help but tease, “Gu Yi, you’ve got quite the luck with romance lately.”

“It was at the building near Ounce. We’re not really close,” Gu Yi replied.

However, Xu Guanyue’s message came through: “Your joke today was really interesting. Nowadays, people like to hide embarrassing things, but you just say it out loud.”

Gu Yi, feeling guilty for not inviting him along, quickly replied: “Stand-up comedy is just a record of emotions in the moment. I recently had a phone call with my mom, and she scolded me—everyone around me has to be ready to become material.”

“Rarely meet someone as straightforward as you,” came his quick reply.

“Was it my single-parent joke that you found new? Maybe you have a happy family, so you feel sorry for me and want to comfort me.”

No further reply came from him, and Gu Yi wondered if saying someone’s family is happy could be considered offensive these days. After a few moments of confusion, her expression was caught by Lu Ming: “Look at you, chatting so happily.”

“I guarantee it’s not Liang Daiwen. Liang Daiwen wouldn’t chat like this with anyone. He’d just pretend to be a fish that’s thrown back into the sea, invisible. Besides, Liang Daiwen’s replies are always just a few words, really annoying,” Guan Xingxin sighed as she looked at Gu Yi. “Are you tired?”

“No, not at all. Besides, can’t I have other male friends? They’re all audience members, keeping it fair.”

Guan Xingxin smiled and responded, “It’s fine, they’re all just friends. No need to be in such a rush to deny it.”

Her words carried a lot of meaning: No need to explain the lack of a deeper relationship with Liang Daiwen; no need to protect Xu Guanyue from hostility; no need to define Guan Xingxin as just a friend—she really had a knack for keeping things ambiguous.

Lu Ming, who had been focused on pouring juice, seemed uninterested in the girls’ little game. Guan Xingxin quickly changed the topic, recounting funny incidents from a live stream. Recently, the company had been discussing forming a virtual girl group, and there was heated debate about whether to include Laila. Laila was the most popular of the nine candidates, with six-figure fans, and Guan Xingxin’s sweet yet seductive voice made her quite liked by male fans. But the virtual group needed to have no scandals, and Laila, with her pure, noble image, didn’t fit well with Guan Xingxin, as her joining could tarnish the dream. Guan Xingxin laughed and said, “The company really didn’t need to worry. Virtual characters have their own stories, just like an animated series. We’re only the voice actors. Fans will still choose who they like, even if the characters have stories. After all, idols eat, sleep, and fall in love too.”

“The controversy over pretty girls is probably inevitable,” Lu Ming gently smiled, “People can’t be perfect. They might have a clean past, but they can’t guarantee that the future won’t bring criticism. I still carry debt. Even though I’ve been abandoned by everyone, I have to keep facing life with a smile.”

His words sounded a bit melancholic. During their theater performances, there were often people coming to demand repayment, mocking Lu Ming for not paying the rent for the theater space. No wonder his ex-wife wouldn’t let him see his daughter. A comedian once mentioned that he had been following a friend’s investment in Hong Kong when relatives asked him to invest some money with them, hoping for a quick return. Now the money was gone, and the friends became distant. For people in his generation, tens of thousands weren’t a big amount, but even something as small as the price of a book made him think about the liquidity he’d lost. Lu Ming joked that he was someone who had a lot of things tying him down.

“I really like Uncle Lu. He’s someone I can rely on. We chat about theater every day, and I’ve learned so much. Except for Liang Daiwen, you’re the only one who wouldn’t abandon me. It’s just like a couple down on their luck. Hey, did you order the pork ribs in black bean sauce? I like those too…”

Would Yu Dule be the type to abandon Guan Xingxin? Gu Yi glanced at Guan Xingxin, her hair falling loosely to reveal her collarbone. Guan Xingxin laughed as she patted Lu Ming’s shoulder, revealing his strong muscular arms beneath his sleeve. They started talking about the set they’d be going to the next day, where Lu Ming would play a gangster, the kind of character who doesn’t talk much but gets things done.

Gu Yi felt that the two of them were a better match—Guan Xingxin and Yu Dule walking together felt like a romantic urban scene, fragile and fleeting, like a dandelion that could be blown away at any moment, not needing to be compared to her own drifting flowers.

The line outside was long, and the view changed dramatically when looking in the other direction. Gu Yi’s phone rang—it was Xu Guanyue: “Not that happy, though. I don’t have financial pressure, but my parents are divorced. My dad has been searching for the woman he loved for three years now. I can only see him in the circle of friends.”

“I don’t even know how to respond to that.”

“Why not? I didn’t make him cheat.”

Gu Yi couldn’t help but laugh. He spoke his mind, straightforward and sincere—so refreshing. Xu Guanyue even sent a cold expression emoji: “But I think if my dad wants to see the world, he doesn’t have to walk off the train. My mom and I will stay on the train. It’s not like we wouldn’t support him.”

Just as Gu Yi was zoning out, she noticed a commotion. Guan Xingxin was being surrounded by people at the next table: “What’s wrong with adding me on WeChat? Just trying to make friends. Do you think too highly of yourself? You’re just a woman. I’ve seen that video of you in bed…”

Before he could finish his words, Lu Ming grabbed the man by the arm and slammed him onto the ground. The man’s blond-haired companion rushed to grab Lu Ming’s collar, but Lu Ming twisted his arm and pushed him to the ground. A guy in a denim jacket tried to grab Lu Ming’s neck, but Lu Ming tossed him over his shoulder, slamming him onto his companions. The sound of it echoed, and it was like a scene from a Hong Kong action film. Gu Yi was stunned. Wasn’t Lu Ming in debt? Would his recent earnings even cover this?

She rushed in hastily to mediate, but before she even reached the kitchen, someone grabbed her by the back of the neck: “Come on, let’s go to the station.”

Gu Yi turned around, “Huh?”

Gu Yi and Lu Ming were shoved into the same car. The man beside her had lost his glasses, his arm was scraped, his face was bruised, and blood was hanging from the corner of his mouth. He was still panting. Guan Xingxin was in another car, uninjured, with tears in her eyes as she glanced at Lu Ming. Gu Yi understood the look—Guan Xingxin was getting an answer from Lu Ming that Yu Dule couldn’t give her.

As the car roared to life, Gu Yi suddenly felt a bit sad. Once, someone had shielded her from danger, scratching their arm and saying, “This isn’t a place for you to act out.”

At this moment, he didn’t know what he was doing.