Chapter 4

Whether you like me or not doesn’t matter. What matters is whether my jokes are funny.

“She was crying and drunk. Isn’t taking her home the normal thing to do?” Liang Daiwen’s tone was serious and left no room for argument. “Don’t worry. I’m much safer than you all—I’ve already registered my ID number and phone number when I signed up for the event. I can’t run away.”

Yu Dule opened the map, filled in the information, and showed it to him. Liang Daiwen hoisted Gu Yi onto his back and walked off. The other comedians exchanged glances.

“This guy—does he just say whatever’s on his mind? So straightforward,” someone remarked.

“Safe, huh…”

“Safe, I guess… He’s definitely into Gu Yi. Do you think this is one of those ‘long-lost reunions’? You know, where the ugly suitor who got rejected back then reemerges with a new identity after a makeover for a ‘chasing wife in the crematorium’ plot?” said Zihao, a young actor born in 1997.

“So cliché,” Yu Dule checked the time. “I’m heading back to Ounce to sober up and restock.”

---

Half an hour later, Liang Daiwen stood at the entrance of an apartment complex with Gu Yi, who was completely passed out and draped over his back. He realized he had forgotten to get Yu Dule’s WeChat, so he wandered around the maze of identical buildings in the old complex before finally arriving at building 51. He climbed to the fifth floor, stopping in front of Unit 509. Gently, he nudged Gu Yi, “Is this your door?”

No response.

How much did she drink to end up like this?

Without a password, he had no choice but to knock. A male roommate answered the door. The man glanced at Liang Daiwen, then at the unconscious Gu Yi slumped over his back. Though he looked sleepy at first, a spark of unexplained excitement flashed in his eyes.

“Friend?” the roommate asked. “You can leave her here. I’ll help her inside.”

Liang Daiwen stared at the man, his expression blank. “You’re roommates?”

“Yeah, I’m in the master bedroom. It’s late. You should go home and rest. Don’t worry, we’re on great terms.”

The roommate reached for Gu Yi’s shoulder, intending to help her inside. However, as his hand brushed her, it hesitated and retreated under Liang Daiwen’s silent and sharp gaze. The air smelled faintly of herbal medicine mixed with heat, making the living room feel like a makeshift alchemy lab. Liang Daiwen scanned the room, his gaze settling on the roommate, silently forcing him to step back.

Then, without a word, Liang Daiwen turned and walked away, causing Gu Yi to sway precariously from the sudden movement.

“Where are you going? This is her place!” the roommate called after him.

After carrying her for so long, Liang Daiwen’s legs were starting to give out. He almost tripped while navigating the stairs, nearly sending both of them tumbling. Finally, he stopped, standing still as he noticed a faint light from the corner of his eye. The roommate had returned to the doorway, phone in hand, scrolling. Just as Liang Daiwen was about to speak, the light from the phone dimmed, the roommate’s head drooped, and even the motion-sensor light in the hallway went out.

What the hell?

With renewed determination, Liang Daiwen strode out of the complex, hailed a taxi, and stopped at North Xiangyang Road. He knocked on the door of Ounce. A still-drowsy Yu Dule opened the door, surprised to see Liang Daiwen again with the drunken and disheveled Gu Yi slung over his back.

This man… How many arms does he have?

Breathing heavily, Liang Daiwen spoke clearly and concisely. “She mentioned in her jokes that her roommate isn’t reliable. From what I’ve seen, that’s true—when she sobers up, tell her to move out.”

---

It felt like someone had cracked open her skull with an axe, and her body ached as if it had been trampled by an elephant. The aftermath of a hangover—the ultimate source of misery. Picking up her phone, Gu Yi sent her location to Yu Dule for confirmation. Oh, she was at Ounce. The familiar scent of the sofa and alcohol, the bookshelves and bar in the distance—all felt warmer than home.

After pondering for a while, she came to her senses. She had been drinking with Yu Dule and the others, and things had gotten out of hand.

Don’t Mention Alcohol, Don’t Mention Alcohol.

But why was she still at the bar now? She distinctly remembered the last scene before blacking out—it was encountering the stone-faced Liang Daiwen. And yet here she was, back at the bar. She sat up and grabbed her phone. Her roommate was probably already at work by now. If she snuck home to shower, she could still make it to the morning meeting at the office. She stepped outside and spotted a shared bike but decided to unlock her own bicycle instead. Since she had dragged it back herself, she’d ride it home, tears and all.

She put on her headphones and called Yu Dule: 

“Why am I at Ounce? Did I drink too much last night?” 

“Yup, we all went overboard. I just earned some royalties from Tonight’s Post-80s, and they disappeared before I even had the chance to spend them.” 

“I thought everyone only had one round? Yet we still managed to rack up a bill of 800 per head. If I’d known, we should have bought drinks and gone to drink by the roadside. That way, we wouldn’t have to pay the bar owner’s performance fees, and we wouldn’t end up owing money.” 

“Oh, by the way, what’s the deal with your roommate? Last time you joked about burial methods, is your living situation not great?” 

“A little. One of my roommates seems to either want a girlfriend or has an insatiable appetite. He always makes jokes about me coming home late or drinking.” 

“No wonder. Last night, Liang Daiwen took you home but then brought you back, saying you should hurry up and move.” 

Gu Yi suddenly hit the brakes hard by the roadside: 

“What did you just say?” 

“Last night, we ran into him. You were so drunk you collapsed on him, so he took you home. I went back to the bar to restock, and over an hour later, he brought you back and interrupted me midway. At dawn, I sneaked back home and nearly got kicked out by my girlfriend.” 

That joke from last night had actually come true—about abandoning her at the bar as a form of risk transfer. Liang Daiwen had acted it out in real life. Gu Yi froze in place, thinking she’d better not make things up in her stand-up bits anymore. Reality had a way of projecting her words into a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

“I think he really likes you. Just getting you home would’ve been hard enough, and most people would’ve turned back and left. But he noticed the problem, and at least his powers of observation are sharp—way better than that Xu guy you dealt with before.” 

The “Xu guy” referred to a proverbial stone from her routine. But Gu Yi didn’t want to continue this topic: 

“You know, my mom doesn’t even say stuff like this to me.” 

“Your mom’s a drinker; I’m a normal city dweller.” 

“It’s genetic; I can’t help it. Believe it or not, my mom’s probably nursing a hangover at home right now too.” 

Her phone vibrated a few times—a message from her mom, lamenting over drinking too much the night before and now dealing with a headache. Twenty years ago, mother and daughter had clung to each other in a tiny apartment, so poor it evoked pity. Twenty years later, separated by 1,300 kilometers between Shanghai and northeastern China, their cranial cavities were still in sync. 

Headache.

Yu Dule’s lecture hadn’t ended: 

“Let me summarize. When he knocked on your door, it was unbelievably sexy. Didn’t you once say that if you can freeze-frame any moment in life and extract keywords like ‘wholesome,’ ‘honest,’ ‘dutiful,’ and ‘stable,’ it’s not love—it’s only love if it’s sexy.” 

“The scenario doesn’t match, though…” 

“You’re clearly overjoyed inside. For a woman in a situation like this, if you don’t open every pore of your body to welcome love, what are you waiting for? To let the alcohol evaporate?”

“Yu Dule, I don’t want to just be a woman; I want to be a person—a dignified person. Right now, not only can I not make people laugh, but I’ve completely lost face.” 

The wind filled her jacket as she stood at the intersection, looking at her reflection in a shop window. The sun lit her face, and her thin bomber jacket billowed in the breeze. A large backpack weighed on her shoulders, as if the wind had stirred up some undiscovered burden within her. 

After taking a shower, Gu Yi finally noticed a note taped brazenly to her desk by her roommate: 

“Someone brought you home last night. You’re willing to go with someone else, but not willing to sleep with me?” 

The Schrödinger’s lock on her door, sometimes working and sometimes not, had apparently been figured out by her roommate, who used it as an opportunity to scare her. Gu Yi felt both angry and upset. It was just renting a place, so why did she have to live in fear? 

At the office, Gu Yi carefully looked again at the photos her mom had sent. Their once-cozy old house was now splattered with blood on the walls and bed. The door was wide open, with a small crowd gathering outside. The scene was shocking. Apparently, the previous tenants were a violent couple who enjoyed fighting each other. Similar in temperament to her mom, they had left in a rush after one last big fight, leaving behind a broken knife and a crime-scene-like mess. Gu Yi could already picture it: her mom holding half a knife, staring at the bloodstained walls, more distressed over the few hundred yuan it would cost to re-plaster them. The bed was broken, too, and would need to be replaced before renting out the place again. 

She transferred her mom 3,000 yuan with a note: 

“It’s okay, just clean it up and rent it out again. No pain, no gain—go, Mom!” 

Last night, she had blown 800 yuan on drinking. With no hope of moving out, and considering Shanghai’s one-month-deposit and three-month-rent payment system, she wouldn’t even have enough money to move when her lease ended in four months. Even at 4,000 yuan a month, she’d need 16,000 yuan upfront, which she absolutely didn’t have. 

Her emergency savings were untouchable. There was no choice—no more reckless spending on alcohol. She had to focus on work, be a responsible person, even if not for herself, then for her mom. Her mother was still running a shabby dry-cleaning store in a small town, with declining business and barely enough money for her own drinking. Clutching her phone, Gu Yi felt a pang in her chest. Though she had no money, she still had her dignity. Setting aside Yu Dule’s claim that Liang Daiwen liked her, the fact remained that she had never once made him laugh during her stand-up performances. Being casually sent home by a man, living with a pervy roommate who assumed her late hours and love of drinking made her... what? Her public persona was beyond repair. 

While waiting for the meeting to start, her roommate’s texts kept coming: 

“Did you come back and shower? Wild night last night, huh?” 

Gu Yi slammed her phone down, just as the content director walked in. 

The director’s name was Jacqueline, though her real name was Zhang Junjie. Behind her back, people called her the Demon Queen. At 34, she was a sharp and capable woman with a Hong Kong-style elegance: fair skin, slender figure, and well-defined bone structure. An avid amateur athlete, she was rumored to exclusively date younger men. Holding an iced Americano, she sat down and immediately began examining the public account’s analytics on the projector. 

The department had two profitable public accounts. Their headline ads brought in 200,000 yuan, making the director’s “money tree” flourish. Gu Yi split her time between their magazine and public accounts, focusing on content but spending most of her work hours writing or getting scolded. 

“What clients are lined up for next week’s headlines?” Jacqueline asked. 

“A domestic beauty brand’s hydrating skincare line, Xiaomi’s smart desk lamp, and a reading app,” someone replied. “I’ve scheduled them for Tuesday through Friday. Monday’s article is about young people—it’s targeted at potential consumer clients.”

“What’s the theme? These collected products need to align with a defined theme.” Jacqueline’s tone was always low and subdued, but her authority far outweighed someone yelling at full volume. 

“‘The New Consumption Trends of Today’s Young Adults’...” 

“Average.” Jacqueline flipped through the sample publication, the sound of rustling pages sharp and clear. “We’re under the banner of so many top-tier media outlets. This title doesn’t carry enough sophistication or leave a strong impression. The company releases so many new magazines every month, lets you freely browse competitors’ works, and even allows you to go out for inspiration. How could you still come up with such a basic and unimaginative title?” 

Her tone remained emotionless, yet it was more painful to hear than outright sarcasm. Another round of pavement-pounding to brainstorm ideas was clearly in store. As I lowered my head, a text message popped up: 

“Exclusive Flash Loan Offer for New Users at Zhaoyiha Bank! Discounted annual interest rate as low as 5.04%. Grab the deal every Monday at 10 a.m. sharp!” 

After meeting with clients late into the evening, Gu Yi had dinner but didn’t feel like going home. She wandered to Hongkou Football Stadium and stood outside watching a game. The young soccer players were in their prime growth years, their steps unrelenting as they dashed across the field. Her high heels had worn her out, and she sat outside, zoning out with her phone in hand. She opened the file transfer app, her thoughts floating away with the whistles and shouts, imagining herself as the soccer ball soaring through the air. 

From the ball’s perspective, it must be accustomed to the force and wind it encounters. It likely travels more steps and miles than any human, with an hour’s worth of motion equal to five times a normal person’s exercise. It exudes the scent of leather and sweat, occasionally tinged with the freshness of grass. If personified, the ball would be a goal-oriented type, every step deliberate and never wasted, especially during that decisive moment of crossing the goal line, whether it’s a success or an own goal. And as a category, it would be the “straight guy” type, not particularly favored by women. 

Gu Yi often had these moments of detachment from life, finding it hard to immerse herself fully in tasks—even kissing. Back when she was at Fudan University, she was the only one in her class to notice scratch marks near tree roots caused by cats. She would also question textbooks to the point of exhausting her teachers. Philosophy discussions turned her brain into a perpetual motion machine. She was constantly seeing things from others’ perspectives, her mind brimming with metaphors. Though her dating experience was limited, she had already categorized and analyzed different types of men during her short life. With her exposure to open mic audiences, she felt there wasn’t a type she hadn’t encountered. 

Living alone, her habit of “switching perspectives” kept her mind endlessly active, always imagining scenarios. 

“Not going home?” 

“There’s no such thing as home in this world. Stay long enough, and a rented place becomes home. Too bad the place I’m renting is practically a haunted house.” Gu Yi lifted her gaze, scanning upward from her knees as if tracking her own rising blood pressure. “Why are you here?” 

It was Liang Daiwen. He was carrying a backpack, dressed in black athletic wear, with water droplets still clinging to his hair. “Here to play squash.” 

“With friends?” 

“I don’t have many friends.” 

A lonely game. Gu Yi stood up, her high heels making her back and waist ache. She was just at the right height to see Liang Daiwen’s jawline. His skin was so smooth, with three moles forming a line on his neck. And wow, his earlobes were so small. 

Liang Daiwen seemed to be studying her, too, with an expression similar to Jacqueline’s when critiquing her ideas. Gu Yi shook her head. “I heard you dropped me off at home last night and then went back to Ounce...?” 

“Risk transfer.” 

Just like a joke! Gu Yi sniffed and asked cautiously, “Did I do anything weird...?” 

“Yes.” 

“What?” 

“When I tried to wake you up to ask for directions, you didn’t respond. Then, while carrying you, you woke up and started jotting down jokes on my back.” 

Gu Yi checked her file transfer app and indeed found an entry from 2:30 a.m.: “Attraction is when your body instinctively determines that someone triggers your sexual interest in a short time. Don’t underestimate your physical reflexes. In the realm of courtship, humans rely on practice and instincts above all else.” 

When she looked up again at Liang Daiwen, Gu Yi felt even more awkward. He hadn’t left and was still standing a step and a half away—close enough to leap onto her if he wanted. Her blood pressure and heart rate felt off as her gaze flitted between his neck and chest. Almost involuntarily, she blurted out, “You’ve got good stamina.” 

“For emergencies.” 

See that? He gave himself away! This was the first time Gu Yi realized how “emergency preparedness” could sound so lewd and suggestive. A true trap. Some men pretend to be gentlemen at first, luring girls to fall for them willingly. She wasn’t about to fall for it. 

Liang Daiwen, still devoid of any expression, remained at the field chatting with her. “I drove you home after you drank. Are you embarrassed?” 

“No.” 

“Then why chase me all the way here?” 

“I don’t even know you, nor do I have your contact info. How could I chase—this is just a coincidence. If you hate me so much, why not just leave?” 

Liang Daiwen turned around and left. Gu Yi was stunned. Were there still people in this day and age who couldn’t read between the lines? Or worse, who couldn’t even understand basic conversation? She quickly grabbed his arm to stop him, her hand landing on his firm, upright bicep. The stadium lights illuminated his face. He... was really fair-skinned. 

Trying to break the awkward silence, Gu Yi asked, “Since we’ve bumped into each other, let me ask again. Why don’t you smile?” 

“A lot of people don’t smile. Why fixate on me?” 

“You’re my audience! Sitting in the front row, no less.” 

“Those smiling might not actually be happy. When you’re talking to your boss or clients, do you smile?” 

“I do.” 

“But deep down, you’re cursing them, right?” 

“...” 

The man’s neutral tone gave away no satisfaction. “Don’t get the wrong idea. I don’t like you.” 

Gu Yi’s heart skipped a beat. She looked up, accidentally bumping into his chin. His pained expression made him frown, but it was a purely physical reaction, devoid of emotion. Handsome guys always wore the same expression. It wasn’t very interesting. 

Gu Yi’s back ached, so she leaned against the railing by the drainage ditch. “Whether you like me or not doesn’t matter. What matters is whether my jokes are funny.” 

“Average.” 

Her temper flared. “Tell me exactly where they’re ‘average’!” 

“Is it that important?” 

“Of course! A chef cares if their food is tasty. Men care about... whether they measure up.” 

“The first session was average—not very funny, mostly small clever tricks. The latter two sessions were more interesting, and the overall quality improved, but it’s still far from good stand-up comedians. I’ve watched Dave Chappelle and think his content is better. But your emotions were good; it’s clear you genuinely enjoy this.”

The long string of words was delivered expressionlessly, leaving Gu Yi momentarily stunned. She wasn’t one to hold grudges and could see the truth in his words. But then she thought, what kind of critic is this, jumping in with a full-on rational analysis? He sounded like those argumentative commenters online, and it only made her more annoyed.

No matter how handsome he was, it couldn’t offset her growing frustration.

On the soccer field, boys shouted as they played. Gu Yi turned around, feeling that discussing such topics outside a soccer field felt too much like what couples would do. She wasn’t ready to ruin her stand-up comedy career over a handsome guy. Liang Daiwen hadn’t finished his remarks yet. “I wasn’t trying to nitpick—I just tend to speak bluntly. If I didn’t laugh, that’s my problem, not your fault. If you’re upset, I apologize.”

Before he could finish, there was a loud crash behind her on the protective net. Gu Yi jumped in fright, her heart pounding as though it might burst out of her chest. The force was so strong that she twisted her ankle, her high heel landing in the drainage ditch. An overenthusiastic middle schooler had kicked a wild shot that smashed into the safety net, still reverberating ten meters high.

The ball had hit the net less than half a meter from Liang Daiwen, ruffling the hair at the back of his head with the air current, but he remained motionless. Clutching her chest, Gu Yi rolled her eyes. Meanwhile, Liang Daiwen stood there, unfazed, calmly scrutinizing her.

Not laughing was one thing, but being immune to shock?