Chapter 30

As long as I don’t have any morals, you can’t kidnap me.

So, what now? Is Liang Daiwen really going to print strawberries on her? There’s no need for blood to be repaid with blood to this extent, but... well, maybe? Gu Yi was still sitting on the ground, and Liang Daiwen was standing in place, his legs as stiff as steel. He didn’t squat down to kiss her again, nor did he have any intention of pulling her up. For a moment, she estimated that Liang Daiwen’s brain capacity might not be that great, and that either reason or emotions would dominate—when reason was in control, he would carry her home like her gatekeeper, but when his feelings (which were quite weak) flared up, he couldn’t even offer her the most basic gentleness toward a woman. She glanced up at him and couldn’t help but want to laugh.

Liang Daiwen’s ears turned red!

This was the first time she had seen this. If the signal was right, this self-disciplined, clean-living Liang Daiwen was actually shy because of her. She hadn’t done anything—just wore a short skirt showing her legs, a sweater with a slightly low neckline, exposing one shoulder. And there he was, completely at a loss. Usually, he would extend his hand expressionlessly, but now, he turned his face away and reached out just one hand: “Get up.”

Gu Yi suddenly had a mischievous thought. After being pulled up, she stood in front of Liang Daiwen, pretending to be unsteady and leaned in to him once more. Liang Daiwen, as expected, backed away. She had guessed correctly. The strawberry mark on his neck had triggered a chemical reaction in him—now, even the slightest touch of her hair on his body would make him retreat. This made her less nervous.

She turned her back to him: “Alright, I got it. It’s just a class. But don’t pretend to be a bartender anymore, it’s unfair to others.”

“Unfair to who, the person who got out of a taxi at the police station’s entrance?”

Gu Yi took a deep breath and gently said, “Not just her.”

She finished speaking and opened the curtain to walk out. Inside, her heart was not just racing—it felt like a deer being slaughtered. Stay calm, stay calm, don’t expose yourself now. He would get anxious, jealous... let him feel more of it. But the step back just now had left her wondering—when Liang Daiwen was close to his ex-girlfriend, did he act the same way? Was he so cautious that even a strand of hair touching him made him retreat? What would he do if they got closer in the future...?

Before her mind could finish processing, she kicked a chair and winced in pain. Liang Daiwen, a man with a priest-like quality, would instantly be punished by reality for any unrealistic fantasy.

In that case, let him come after me first.

For the next three days, Gu Yi didn’t contact Liang Daiwen first. Not only was she waiting for him to take the initiative, but her work was also driving her crazy. Jacqueline had assigned her a special feature on the Fashion Week shows, and Pony had taken over everything: watching the exhibitions, posting the texts, and communicating with clients. The vain woman fluttered around the Fashion Week catwalks, and her small video posts flooded social media for three days, but not once did she provide a proper description of the events. Gu Yi had to go through Pony’s video list and compare it with the show photos from various brands to get the posts out, only to realize she had missed one brand. The client directly reported this to Jacqueline, and before Gu Yi could explain, Pony sent an email outlining everything, accusing her of sending out content prematurely, missing the live coverage, and leaving out the client—too sloppy. Gu Yi nearly exploded seeing the email; it was clearly Pony’s fault for not answering her WeChat messages or picking up the phone, yet the client was waiting for the post...

Gu Yi gathered her thoughts and replied to the email, restating the timeline and including the photographer’s image timestamps. A few minutes later, she received another reply from Pony, who had cc’d the content and marketing departments, making the whole situation even more dramatic. At this point, Gu Yi had had enough—she could easily expose who was at fault by showing the screenshots of their conversations. But this was typical corporate behavior—work emails weren’t for communication, but for shifting blame, covering your own mistakes, and showing off. What could have been an easily completed task was unnecessarily dragged out for the whole company to gossip about. Gu Yi often thought about quitting because of such wasteful time.

By evening, she received a message from Xu Guanyue: “Want to go for some Singaporean food?”

Sitting in the restaurant, Gu Yi couldn’t help herself and bought a bottle of alcohol from the convenience store: “Who doesn’t know the exhibition is great, but how did one brand get missed? Le Fame, with so many celebrities wearing their pieces, didn’t even post a small video?” The table was small, and the noise around them was loud. The two of them leaned in close to chat, and Gu Yi frowned. “Now Jacqueline’s solution is that, since I did the push, I’m the one who needs to apologize—whether the brand accepts it or not is another matter.”

“After all, it was urgent. You guys rely on your clients for business,” Xu Guanyue said.

“It’s moral blackmail,” Gu Yi replied.

Xu Guanyue just smiled and continued eating his noodles. The scent of satay filled Gu Yi’s nose. No matter how frustrating her work was, it couldn’t compete with Xu Guanyue’s satay noodles from the company building below. She and Xu Guanyue had an unspoken agreement: whenever either of them had a bad day at work, they’d meet at the other’s building for a meal. Manufacturing Bureau’s first and second phases were just a kilometer apart, so they could easily meet for lunch or dinner. And since they were three blocks away from each other, it was rare to run into their colleagues. Gu Yi had learned this after their taxi ride together. Xu Guanyue’s company rented three buildings in a creative park, and famous celebrities often visited. The next building housed a well-known family planning agency, famous for its edgy copywriting. Xu Guanyue was the best dinner companion. Gu Yi liked to eat braised pork rice, and he’d always go for the duck leg and char siu combo from the double-person set. If she wanted pizza, they’d order a large one and some cola to enjoy on the rooftop, away from everyone else. Gu Yi hated lemongrass but always ended up trying a bite because Xu Guanyue loved it. Before, she had struggled to figure out what to eat on her own and would just grab boxed meals from convenience stores. But now, going to work each day was much more enjoyable. Especially since Xu Guanyue was great at chatting. He seemed to know everything, always offering unique perspectives. Later that evening, they went to a nearby chill bar, sitting side by side on the couch, discussing Japanese pop music. Xu Guanyue, when younger, had been a fan of X-Japan and visual kei, and even now, he occasionally bought AKB48 albums or Nogizaka 46 photobooks. Gu Yi found him incredibly interesting. When she heard that he had bought 100 albums for the total election of Watanabe Mayu, she couldn’t help but shake her head. “You really do pick stars from right around you. But in this kind of fan interaction—it’s not about love, it’s about money. I think I’ll stick with the distant ones.”

“Normally, I also enjoy free stuff, but that time when I saw her being chased for tickets by Rino, I just couldn’t take it.”

Gu Yi almost laughed until she cried. Xu Guanrui, having eaten several meals with her over the past few days, finally began to test the waters: “So, I saw it. That day in front of the police station, the man in all black, was he the one you liked?”

“Yeah...”

“What does he do?”

“He’s an accessibility designer, the kind who designs for disabled people—he does things for phones, and he does physical designs too. I don’t think there are many people in this field in the country. He’s got a lot of personality...”

Xu Guanrui raised his eyebrows: “I get it. You really like him, I can tell.”

“Huh?”

“Well, when introducing someone normally, you’d just say he’s an accessibility designer, but you kept going on and on, all the details that I couldn’t care less about, but you were still so enthusiastic about it.”

He then sniffed: “I think he’s a bit strange. It’s like he’s not quite the same as other people, hard to explain.”

Not wanting to say anything about emotional communication difficulties, Gu Yi just replied: “He’s just not good at expressing his feelings.”

“Ah.” Xu Guanrui thought for a moment: “Are you a masochist?”

“Huh?”

“Or are you just lusting after him?”

“Huh?”

“Otherwise, why would you like someone like him? Isn’t that just asking for trouble? There are so many normal people in the world, wouldn’t it be better to like someone who responds and returns feelings?”

“His inability to express himself is a kind of return too. There are always unique ways to receive signals in this world. We got close by chance, and I just found out that, even though he doesn’t express it, he’s actually kinder than others. He... doesn’t care much if he causes trouble for others and doesn’t avoid risks.”

Though she spoke with vivid praise, Gu Yi still felt a lump in her chest. Why hadn’t she mentioned to Xu Guanrui that she lived at Liang Daiwen’s place...

Xu Guanrui laughed: “I get what you mean. He’s not good at expressing, you’re good at understanding. You two are like two puzzle pieces, one is the protruding piece, the other the indentation.”

“That’s... pretty deep.”

Xu Guanrui chuckled: “I didn’t mean it like that. But why go through all the trouble of training a dysfunctional thing? Why not just find a complete one and be done with it? Do you have a thing for broken things?”

Gu Yi seemed to get fired up: “Everyone likes finished products, but aren’t half-finished products better when refined?”

Xu Guanrui fell silent. The sound of the movie La La Land played softly in the background, and neither of them spoke. Gu Yi felt awkward: “So, do you have someone you like?”

“I do. But I don’t know her well. I only know her name. She’s always so energetic, fighting against life, different from other girls I’ve met. But I think she would never like me, after all—” Xu Guanrui sighed: “I’m too young for her.”

Hearing that last sentence, Gu Yi felt relieved—”too young” wasn’t about her. She patted Xu Guanrui’s back: “The unfortunate single-love alliance.”

“Let’s celebrate it with a kiss.”

“What...”

“Literal meaning.”

“Kissing is something for people who like each other...”

“If you kiss me, will you like me?”

“No...”

“Then there you go, it’s just like single-sided love. You imagine the other person as someone you like, and just kiss them seriously. Close your eyes, the softness and warmth you feel on your lips is all that matters, who the other person is doesn’t matter.”

The dim yellow light surrounded them, and when she stared at Xu Guanrui up close, both her eyes and head ached. Xu Guanrui looked at her, his body slowly leaning closer, the scent of alcohol drifting to her cheek. He had clearly entered the scene, treating her like the woman he liked, his eyes were clean but tired, as if he had been floating through clouds for a long time to reach his ideal and was now desperately trying to land. Gu Yi couldn’t close her eyes, and the atmosphere around her seemed to change, causing pain in her eardrums. Xu Guanrui lowered his voice: “Don’t feel guilty, we’re both people who won’t change. Once the kiss happens, it’s just happiness. Maybe the torment of single-sided love will lessen too...”

The warm sensation drew nearer. Just as Gu Yi was about to close her eyes, she thought of Liang Daiwen’s flushed ears and quickly pulled back an inch, avoiding Xu Guanrui’s lips: “You almost tangled me up in your logic. After wishing on the stars for so long, it’s better to make the moment sacred and leave it for someone I actually like.”

Xu Guanrui, as if having expected this, laughed and sat back down across from her: “Just messing with you.”

Gu Yi went home but couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t because of feeling betrayed by the kiss, after all, it didn’t happen, but if kissing really could, as Xu Guanrui said, alleviate the pain of one-sided love?

She couldn’t come up with an answer for now. The ounce performance was the next thing she drew. Looking around, there was no sign of Liang Daiwen, and the bartender was still selling drinks at the bar. Gu Yi thought to herself that, whatever else, the connection between Liang Daiwen and ounce had probably come to an end.

“I’ve always been easily moved by stories about sacrifice. When I was in elementary school, there was a reading material called The Antelope’s Leap, about a group of antelopes being chased by hunters to the edge of a cliff. The hunters were ready to shoot them for their pelts and meat. A mother antelope, confused and disoriented near the cliff, was startled awake by the leader’s bleat, and they both jumped over the cliff. One stepped on the other, and half the group survived while the rest fell to their deaths. The leader ended up alone and committed suicide. When I was a kid, I didn’t understand much, but I was moved to tears, thinking ‘Wow, these antelopes have such brains and integrity, capable of surprising the hunters for half an hour.’ Now looking back, there’s something wrong with this story. The antelopes, when they reached the cliff, had so many thoughts going on—why not just fight the hunters? They might have lived. Also, some people were giving orders from below, while everyone up top was just waiting—was it really to show how moral these antelopes were?”

“Recently, I worked with some clothing brands, and the interns were born after 1998. These younger kids aren’t rebellious at all. In fact, they even tie morality to their seniors. When it comes to being honest, they’re way ahead of us.”

“Parents also say, ‘I’m a first-time parent, you need to forgive me.’ But this statement has problems. Many people, even when they’re parents for the second time, might still do the same thing. The key is to correct it. But most parents, even for the second time, still do this; maybe they’re even more casual about it.”

“A friend of mine once shared a theory: games are the pacifier for the poor, and phones are the swaddling clothes for urbanites. They might not realize there’s sand in the pacifier or lumps in the swaddling clothes. When a game has a bad teammate, you want to curse them out—’You pighead, if you can, turn on voice chat, and I’ll knock your pacifier out!’ The goal is to utterly defeat the other player, with obedience being the ultimate aim. Celebrities used to love posting on Weibo, but now, they hardly post anything except ads. It’s not because they’re worried about privacy—they don’t really have any privacy. It’s because they’re afraid of having to apologize. Ordinary people also face this situation. If you want to quickly get your account deleted online, don’t go to Weibo customer service, just go to a celebrity’s fan group and post inappropriate comments—attacking their ship or personally insulting them—and in half an hour, you’ll be wiped off the internet.”

“But people can change, and morality can shrink in the face of money. A friend of mine owns a Shiba Inu with a decent fanbase. Recently, she posted a grooming video and was criticized for a few things: the dog didn’t have that much fur, the setup was staged, the comb was wrong, and she was accused of animal abuse. She clarified every point, but her tone was too strong, and in the end, she apologized. After that, I thought she’d stop posting, but the next day she posted even more. Why? Because Douyin (TikTok) has 300 million users, with an average time of 70 minutes per user, and the recommendation system is precise. The higher the traffic, the more attention it attracts, and the more income she gets. The shop window even brings in advertising sales—income has no upper limit. She initially felt sad about the criticism, but now she feels the quicker she’s criticized, the better. Being on the trending list is the best, because traffic equals money. Morality has been bought by capital.”

“They say that law is the bottom line for human behavior, and morality is the upper limit. Gradually, one is rising, and the other is sinking. Our range of activities is getting narrower, and we’ve bumped into the ceiling. We haven’t done anything, yet we’ve been elevated as upright people. It seems comfortable; after being framed directly, we don’t have to think about how to develop further. But gradually, we realize it’s not like that. Why have I shrunk back? My actions are being limited, and even speaking or doing something requires thinking about whether it will backfire. Over time, it’s painful. How do we break this deadlock? Later, I was on the subway and saw a mother and child. The child was probably around six or seven years old, and she was standing right in front of me, waiting for me to give up my seat for her son. I rubbed my belly, as I had just eaten before getting on the subway, and I said, ‘Sis, your son isn’t small anymore, and I haven’t given birth yet. My condition is unstable, I have epilepsy.’ She quickly left when she saw me. As long as I have no morals, you can’t manipulate me.”

Recently, Gu Yi had specifically been practicing “breathing pauses”—in stand-up comedy, it’s important to enunciate clearly when taking a breath and to leave enough space for interesting punchlines, making the delivery more effective and leaving the audience with enough moments to laugh. She herself had a slight Northeastern accent, but she was trying her best to erase the stereotypes that came with it. She had discussed this with Yu Dule, and they agreed that stand-up comedy is niche in China because, overall, the quality of jokes hasn’t improved, and comedians don’t yet have the youthful energy needed to break free from traditional performances like crosstalk. The audience won’t have a distinct memory of stand-up comedy if the performers remain trapped in old conventions like “skits” and “cross-talk.”

After the performance, she saw Guan Xingxin, and just as she was about to go greet her, she noticed Lu Ming sitting nearby. Out of favoritism toward Yu Dule, Gu Yi ran over and affectionately hugged Guan Xingxin. “Uncle Lu, could I borrow her for a bit? We need to talk privately.”

Lu Ming gently said goodbye and left. Gu Yi threw a direct question: “I heard you kicked Yu Dule out of your house?”

“No, my parents came over a few days ago. I can’t let them know there’s a man in my house. My family is... quite traditional.”

Gu Yi hadn’t expected this—after living in the city for so long, she had come to assume that young people are individuals and had forgotten that some are still under their parents’ control. She couldn’t resist adding, “Yu Dule was really upset. Would you wait until your parents leave and then call him back?”

“Of course. He buys me flowers every day. If I’m willing, he would never let the flowers go to waste.”

It was still the charming smile. Gu Yi felt a flutter in her heart and quickly ran downstairs. As her figure disappeared down the stairs, Guan Xingxin’s smile remained, though it grew darker. She really wanted to be friends with Gu Yi and tell her that her parents had come, thrown away her short skirt, and brought her a marriage charm from Lingyin Temple. Her mom even reminded her before leaving, “Xinxin, you’re almost thirty. You need to find someone to marry quickly. Don’t waste time on useless boyfriends. Without Aunt Chen and Uncle Chen, how could you rent such a big apartment? The earlier you marry, the more you’ll gain. Understand?”

But she couldn’t explain who “Aunt Chen” and “Uncle Chen” were. And she knew that Gu Yi was Yu Dule’s friend, not hers. She wasn’t ready to let Yu Dule know more of her secrets.

After leaving the building, Gu Yi ran into Xu Guanyue. He seemed flustered, likely due to the events from last time, but he didn’t want to show it. “Want to grab a drink?”

“I still have to work tomorrow...”

“It’s okay, I live nearby. I’ll take you home.”

Before Gu Yi could respond, Liang Daiwen walked by with a backpack, saying to her, “You bit too hard, this strawberry mark is finally fading. Can you go a bit gentler next time?”

When he said that, some audience members were coming out of the performance venue, and Gu Yi was left standing there, being teased. Her head was buzzing—Liang Daiwen, you really have your ways.