Ask him
On Saturday evening, Zhuang Yu'an prepared dinner in advance and then rushed to the airport.
It was already 10pm when the airport pick-up arranged by Luffy took him to his hotel. To his surprise, Luffy was waiting for him in the lobby.
"Come out with me for a couple of drinks."
Seeing that he had become noticeably thinner and more haggard, looking frail, Zhuang Yu'an advised, "Don't drink anymore. You don't look well."
"I'm fine," he said. "I just can't sleep at night without drinking a little."
The two walked into the tavern and sat side by side at the bar. They each ordered a special cocktail. Luffy finished it in two or three sips and ordered another.
"We've been to this store before, remember?" Luffy said with a smile.
Zhuang Yu'an nodded.
This is an old shop. The owner is a deaf-mute who has run the shop for more than ten years. He is the only one who looks after the shop, mixes the drinks, and cleans the place. He closes the shop in the middle of the night when the customers leave.
He still remembers his first visit to the pub six years ago.
That was a turning point in their lives.
At the age of 19, Zhuang Yu'an entered a top university in China, majoring in management at the School of Economics and Management. During his sophomore year, he began working part-time for a senior colleague at a strategic consulting firm, gaining experience while also earning extra income.
That weekend, he had just met with his senior in a cafe and was working on a plan when someone suddenly splashed water on him from behind.
That's how I met Luffy. The one who splashed the water was Luffy's girlfriend—who at that moment became his ex-girlfriend. She grabbed the cup in anger, but Luffy dodged it, causing him to suffer for no reason.
Luffy's major in journalism was completely foreign to him. This guy, who clearly had plenty of friends, took a special interest in him and quickly became his confidant. Even his new girlfriend had to ask for his opinion on which school to choose between ABC.
It didn't take long for Zhuang Yu'an to see that Luffy was a hollow man. He seemed to have a rich life, a wide range of interests, and a lot of personal charm, but inside he was empty, with few aspirations and no passion for anything.
He knew there were people like him. They were born with everything, everything readily available, so they had nothing to strive for. Furthermore, they might have experienced something growing up that prevented them from developing a sense of self-worth and meaning in life. They didn't know where they were going or who they wanted to be, and they hadn't found anything that ignited their passion.
From a management perspective, such people seriously lack self-motivation and need to be asked to voluntarily undertake moderately challenging tasks, provide immediate and specific positive feedback, and let them see the external value of their own efforts, so as to gradually reconstruct their sense of self-worth and meaning.
Zhuang Yu'an treated him as a test subject. From asking him for small favors, to leveraging his connections to help complete research projects for corporate managers, to getting him involved in a charity project raising funds for rural primary schools... He gladly accepted and more or less found some enjoyment in it.
Friendships are built through interaction. Before he knew it, Luffy had become his best friend.
In the summer after his junior year, Luffy invited him to his home. It was then that he realized that his friend was from a wealthy family and was not as wealthy as he thought.
But does growing up in such a family mean there are no worries? Not really.
That night, Luffy drank a bit too much and talked a lot. From his parents' troubled marriage, to the clan's infighting and the chaotic fighting, to the clan members' busy pursuit of so-called careers, every one of them bored him to the point of numbness.
More than anything else, his negative feelings stemmed from a sense of meaninglessness within himself. He felt like everything was dispensable, something he could do or not do, nothing he absolutely had to do. Even continuing to live didn't seem that important.
For this reason, he went to see a psychiatrist once a week and tried to seek excitement from different girls, but he felt more and more that life was a boring game.
"One night, it was raining outside... I suddenly felt that life was so boring..."
At that time, Luffy drunkenly stretched out his left arm, showing him two shallow, barely recognizable scars on his wrist.
"I filled a tub with hot water and lay in it to try it out..." Luffy smiled, then stretched out his right index finger and gently scratched his left wrist. "It didn't hurt. But I was scared, so I rolled out and called an ambulance."
He lowered his hands, turned around and smiled at him, "Life is boring, and I don't have the courage to die. Tell me, are most people in this world as despicable as me?"
At that time, Zhuang Yu'an was so shocked that he couldn't speak, but Luffy ignored him and continued drinking.
"Boring, really boring..." After a while, he shook his head and said, "Zhuang Yu'an, actually I envy you... You always know what you want to do and where you want to go. You're like a perpetual motion machine! I even doubt that if you die one day, you'll still be able to keep jumping around, just like that green-haired zombie..."
At that moment, Zhuang Yu'an suddenly realized that he was much luckier than Luffy.
His luck comes from "hard work" in the secular sense, which is also a kind of luck that most people are born with.
This is because most people rely on external goals to propel their bodies forward and to enrich their spirits. Studying, earning money, getting married, having children, caring for family… When people are forced to rush around for these things, their time and attention filled with these unavoidable tasks, they don't easily feel inner emptiness and boredom.
At the same time, the goals people pursue constantly provide a sense of meaning and motivation. For example, getting into a better school, creating a better life for their families, climbing into a higher social class... Society and culture have long endowed many things and behaviors with meaning, and the process of pursuing them itself carries a sense of meaning.
Each of us is a tiny boat on the vast ocean of fate, and a sense of meaning is the North Star hanging in the sky. Without it, life is lost. And those like Luffy, without tasks to fulfill, goals to pursue, and concerns to fulfill, are like being exiled to a wasteland of meaning. He must search for the source of meaning from scratch, or turn within—and this is precisely the most difficult. Ultimately, human existence itself is a matter of chance. The biological probability of a particular individual being born is only one in a trillion. How can one extract meaning from such random events?
Therefore, he, who grew up in a broken family and had to constantly work for his livelihood and family, was much luckier than Luffy, who seemed to be born in Rome and had no worries. He couldn't help but feel deep sympathy for his good friend.
So he asked, "What are your plans after graduation?"
Luffy raised his lip: "Inherit the family business?" Suddenly he slammed the table, "Fuck it! I'm not staying in this damn place!"
Suddenly, an idea struck him: "Zhuang Yu'an, let's start a company? Don't you want to make a lot of money to support your sister? Let me help you!"
That evening, at the tavern, Zhuang Yu'an shared his long-planned business plan, explaining why and how he wanted to start a pet toy and supplies company. The two immediately agreed to launch the business that fall, with the goal of taking the company public. Luffy also offered to give Zhuang Yu'an a larger stake and veto power.
It was this one decision that paved the way for their lives for the next six years. And now, the goal set six years ago is about to be achieved.
"What are your plans after the company goes public?" Zhuang Yu'an asked.
"Haha!" Luffy laughed heartily, "As expected of you, your words are exactly the same as before, except that you changed graduation to listing. And your expression when you speak is exactly the same as before."
"You have a good memory." Zhuang Yu'an said with a smile.
Luffy took a sip of his wine and looked at him intently: "What are you worried about?"
Zhuang Yu'an also took a sip of wine and said, "I'm worried that you'll recklessly cash out and affect the company's stock price."
"Isn't there a one-year lock-up period? I'll personally commit to an additional year, okay?"
"Okay, I'll draw up a contract tomorrow."
"screw you!"
Luffy pushed his shoulder, drank the wine silently for a while, and suddenly raised his eyes and said:
"Don't worry, I have a new goal."
Looking at the other person's serious and meaningful eyes, Zhuang Yu'an's heart sank, and he suddenly had a bad premonition.
He lowered his head and looked at the remaining liquid at the bottom of the glass. "What is it?"
Luffy paused and continued, "Last month, the day before my sister's birthday, the old man suddenly got better and called me to come back. He was in particularly good spirits that day and was very talkative. He talked a lot about my childhood."
He lowered his eyes, bitterness in them. "He said I've been a sensitive child since I was young, and it was originally a gift. But unfortunately, because of my parents, this gift became a burden, and even a pain. He felt guilty because he realized it too late..."
Zhuang Yu'an gripped his wine glass, listening quietly. The warm yellow light from the overhead chandelier illuminated his hands and the objects they held, casting silent shadows on the table. In his peripheral vision, Luffy was staring intently at him.
"He told me that I needed to heal myself from an intimate relationship and rebuild my ability to love and be loved. Coincidentally, my psychiatrist said almost the same thing. Maybe this is what they call seeing things from the sidelines."
He smiled slightly: "So, I have a goal for the next stage, which is..."
Luffy's calm and gentle voice seemed to be permeated with a core as hard as iron that could not be bent. He said:
"I want to build a happy family with the woman I love."
The wine in front of him seemed to shake, and then the originally soft and quiet light became dazzling, making Zhuang Yu'an feel confused.
"Very good." He tried to lift the corners of his lips, "Did you find it?"
"I found it." Luffy said softly, "Will you help me?"
Zhuang Yu'an couldn't answer. He drank the remaining wine at the bottom of the glass, feeling only bitterness in his mouth, and his voice was also bitter when he spoke.
"How can I help?"
Luffy placed his hand on his shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze.
"Don't do anything, just fulfill my wish."
The next day, after attending the memorial service, Zhuang Yu'an did not stay for long and booked the nearest flight.
When he returned home, the setting sun slanted in through the window. In the dreamy warm orange light, his sister and Zuo Xiao were laughing side by side on the sofa. Everything seemed to be the same as when he left yesterday evening.
"Brother, you're finally back!" The younger sister stood up and went to the door to greet him. "We're both hungry. We almost wanted to go order food first..."
Zhuang Yu'an put down his travel bag and said as he changed his shoes, "I can go out in five minutes, you guys should get ready too."
This was the first time Zuo Xiao had gone out since he was injured. Both girls were very excited and chattered all the way.
The car stopped at the entrance of the mall. Zhuang Yu'an sat upright in the driver's seat and turned around and said, "You guys get out first. I'll find a parking space. See you at the restaurant later."
Zhuang Jinghao was stunned for a moment before reacting: "Oh, okay."
The car door opened, and Zuo Xiao got out with the help of a cane. Zhuang Jinghao took out a walker from the trunk, pushed it in front of her, and helped her sit on it.
Zhuang Yu'an looked at the person in the rearview mirror and thought: She seemed to no longer need him.
That's good.
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