When I gave Yang Sisi those shoes, I hoped that she could walk each step of her life well after changing her living environment. So now that she tells me that the shoes have been lost, I am actually quite concerned.

I immediately texted her, asking, "What happened? How could you lose your shoes!"

"I was playing at the beach, and I took off my shoes to walk on the sand... When I came back, I found that my shoes were gone."

"Look again carefully, who would want your pair of shoes for no reason?"

“I’ve searched inside and out… I think it must have been stolen, or it was swept into the sea by the tide.”

I was speechless, but I still replied, "You really don't appreciate the things I gave you!"

"I cherished it and planned to clean it thoroughly in a few days, but who knew I would lose it at the beach."

"Telling me won't help, I can't fly over there to help you find it."

"I just wanted to tell you that I'm in a really bad mood right now... I have to go home barefoot!"

"Why don't you go steal a pair from someone else too..."

"I'm annoyed, can you please not come up with such terrible ideas?"

"Then I really have no choice... But foreigners certainly have some strange tastes, they even steal shoes!"

Yang Sisi didn't reply to the message, and I fell into a brief silence. I was concerned about Yang Sisi losing her shoes, but I didn't really take it to heart. In my mind, I didn't think Yang Sisi would care much about these shoes. After all, they were just shoes, not jade or gold.

...

After finishing her milk tea, it was almost 11:30 PM; just then, Yang Sisi sent another message: "Haha, I found the shoes..."

"How did you find it?"

"A naughty little foreigner buried my shoes in the sand... It feels so good to get them back!"

I smiled and replied, "It's good that you found her, but can you not act like the sky is falling over something so small? I thought you had lost her."

"I just like to be startled, what can you do about it?"

"You don't like to be startled, you just like to seek attention."

This time, Yang Sisi replied after a moment: "I was afraid you'd forgotten me..."

A strange feeling welled up inside me. Sometimes I felt she was far away; other times, I felt she was right beside me. I don't know how I truly feel about her, but I would never forget her as she said, because half of my memories of Dali are from her. Her youthful vivacity brought me a lot of trouble, but also a lot of joy.

I jokingly replied, "Maybe one day I'll really forget about you."

"Wait until the day you die, okay?"

"Ha ha……"

"What are you laughing at? Stop laughing!"

I didn't reply. After putting my phone aside, I focused my attention back on the e-sports magazine I hadn't finished reading. It wasn't that I was particularly interested in the content; I just wanted to kill time. Tonight, I had to stay up until 1 a.m. because a couple of guests from Chongqing wouldn't arrive until then. I needed to settle them in before I could sleep myself.

...

"We're closing up shop, hurry up and get out."

Cao Xiaobei banged on the table loudly. I looked up at him and asked, "It's not even 12 o'clock yet. Aren't you shutting it in a bit too early?"

"Is this my shop or yours? It's none of your business when I close down."

"There are no shops in this old town that close before midnight. If you're in business, you need to have some professionalism, okay?"

"Who the hell are you? Do you think you can lecture me?"

“It’s late at night, getting angry can easily make you irritable. Why don’t we sit down and chat for a while? You don’t seem like someone who likes to go to bed early. Let me try to talk you out.”

"Roll the ball!"

While cursing, Cao Xiaobei took back the milk tea I had only drunk half of; in the end, he even took the e-sports magazine.

I sighed and said, "Okay, I'll find another place to sit first. I'll come back tomorrow night if I'm free."

Cao Xiaobei shoved me outside the door. Before I could even stand up straight, he had already closed the door from the inside and gone back to playing games on the computer. It seemed he didn't really want to close the door; he just thought I was in his way... Come to think of it, I'm quite popular with the opposite sex, but I'm really not popular with the same sex.

For example, the recent unpleasantness with Tie Nan is giving me quite a headache.

...

A person wandered from one side of the ancient city to the other, and then back again, finally stopping under a street lamp with a bench underneath. He habitually lit a cigarette, and looking at the vast throng of tourists, he felt like a reptile ignored by the world, slightly disoriented and lost.

Actually, I envy those couples who can hug each other. Regardless of whether they are truly in love, at least at this moment, they feel comforted.

I took my phone out of my pocket, selected a blurred background, and took a blurry street scene photo. I looked at it from left to right, but ultimately didn't post it on my WeChat Moments. Although I really wanted to express my feelings at that moment, I chose to give up because it seemed pretentious. After all, there are many people in this world who are more lonely than me, and at my age, I should have long since adapted to loneliness, instead of treating loneliness as an adversary and showing others the result of such hostility.

...

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