Chapter 16
Cheng Shi often thinks about this question: How do these neighbors living in Central Park, such as "Good Guy", Hu Yu, Xie Yiling, and other male and female neighbors, spend their boring suburban weekends away from the glitz and glamour of the city?
Cheng Shi thought and thought, and then a scene appeared in his imagination: the women wore makeup as overly exquisite and stiff as Xie Yiling's, and CHANEL suits that looked like work clothes. They sat in the living room exchanging ideas about outdated fashion and their experiences managing nannies; while the men dressed like Hu Yu: well-tailored three-piece suits and Italian handmade leather shoes. They sat upright together discussing work reports and Xiaomi SU7. In short, both men and women had an old-fashioned style, as fake as living on TV.
But Cheng Shi didn't want to think about that scene anymore, because he was afraid that Sun Pengfei would sincerely ask him, "Xiao Cheng, have you ever tried using DeepSeek to make work reports?"—Then he would really be transported into the scene he had imagined, which was terrifying.
So here, Chengshi first needs to ask himself a question: How does he view his job, which others see as a "high-level white-collar job that earns US dollars," but which he himself sees as "the most boring job you can imagine"?
Regarding work, Cheng Shi has said to people he knows more than once: "Work is the most insignificant thing in my life. My life mission is definitely not just 'work,' so I don't even want to mention the word 'work.'"
Fearing the night would become boring, and worried that Sun Pengfei would bring up some ridiculous work reports, Cheng Shi decided to strike first. He took a big gulp of Hetao wine, then leaned forward slightly and raised his voice to let everyone know he was about to speak!
"Have you noticed? The Beverly Hills incident is a classic story that would happen in our Central Park! What a fascinating story! A young man gets into a fight with the police in front of his own house, shouting and smashing things, while everyone in Central Park is completely unconcerned, still immersed in the festive atmosphere of the Lunar New Year, enjoying the joy of family reunions, or even indulging in the boring Spring Festival Gala! A woman's mentally unstable only son travels thousands of miles and suddenly bursts into her house on the third day of the Lunar New Year, carrying heaven-speaking pain and guilt, while this woman is still busy with the trivial work of buying and selling houses, busy giving her neighbors a smile and a plastic box of who-knows-what stuff! Isn't that ironic?"
"Xiao Cheng, you should write this story down. The title should be 'Central Park'! Only you could write such a wonderful story!" Suningna said, looking at Cheng Shi with admiration.
"Actually, what I want to say is just one fact: decadence." Cheng Shi became more and more excited as he spoke, even launching into a passionate display of erudition. "Yu Dafu wrote a novel in the 1920s called 'Decadence.' The story is about a young Chinese man studying in Japan who suffers from severe depression and is discriminated against and oppressed by the Japanese. His fragile soul is tormented by extreme melancholy and pain, and he cannot escape the sexual frustrations of his adolescence. So he fantasizes about female seduction, indulges in masturbation, peeping at girls bathing, eavesdropping on couples having affairs in the bushes…" Then came self-blame and fear. He was unwilling to succumb to despair, yet powerless to escape, and finally committed suicide by jumping into the sea. Through this novel, Yu Dafu voiced the shared inner needs of his generation of intellectuals. A hundred years have passed; what are the inner needs of our generation? After listening to Nana's story about Grandma Xie's family, the word 'degradation' came to mind. I want to know just how far a society can degrade. This is the most insane and incomprehensible aspect of our time. You see, Freud's disciples were actually born in our era! This is the source of our ridiculous culture! Ha, a madman is coming! Quickly call the police, take him away and lock him up before the neighbors find him! Out of sight, out of mind! When problems arise that need to be solved, we just need to close our eyes and everything will be fine, ha! In this era, it seems everyone has tacitly reached a consensus: we all live in self-deception, we need to whitewash the situation! Let reality go to hell! We only want those beautiful villas, no matter how inconvenient it is to live there; we want double-door refrigerators! We want 18-burner dishwashers! We want smart toilets! We want Mercedes, BMWs, Xiaomi, and Teslas! Let us sing the praises of consumerism! Let us send rockets to the livestreamers! We want to raise our children immersed in rampant hypocrisy—Dad is an excellent man because he works and earns money to support the family; Mom is an excellent woman because she is elegant in public, skilled in the kitchen, can fight off mistresses, and can beat up thugs. And if reality accidentally reveals its true face, then we quickly lower our heads and get back to work, pretending nothing happened!
Normally, an impromptu passionate speech like Cheng Shi's would always elicit applause, and at least Su Ningna would look at him with admiration and say, "Xiao Cheng, what you said is absolutely right!" However, this time Cheng Shi's speech didn't go well. Perhaps the three people had drunk too much alcohol earlier, or perhaps they simply couldn't understand the pedantry and sarcasm Cheng Shi was spouting. So, after listening to Cheng Shi's brilliant speech, they all looked blank and stared at him dumbfounded.
Under such awkward scrutiny, Narumi had no choice but to get up, pack up her glasses, and then hide inside DK.
When they first viewed the house, it was the enormous LDK (living room, dining room, and kitchen) design that immediately captivated Huang Ruoyu. With Xie Yiling's encouragement, Cheng Shi and Huang Ruoyu signed the contract for the villa just one day later, without considering many other details. However, before moving into No. 5 Napa Valley, when Cheng Shi and Huang Ruoyu viewed the house again, they felt that while the LKD design looked grand, it might not be practical for daily use. Ultimately, they added a frosted glass door to separate the living room, dining room, and kitchen – one of the few renovations they made to the house. Xie Yiling was indeed telling the truth; the previous owner had fully furnished the villa but never lived in it, thus saving them a significant amount of money on renovations.
At this moment, Narumi irritably opened and closed the double-door refrigerator repeatedly, rummaging through the food on the island, then tossed used wine glasses into the dishwasher—making quite a racket. Then Narumi saw his face vividly reflected in the dark frosted glass door of the DK refrigerator: swollen and weak. He stared at his reflection with hatred. At that moment, something shocking suddenly occurred to him, an idea that seemed to appear immediately after that startled face. But the face on the glass door now seemed to be a prophecy, not just a reflection of reality—the frustrated and helpless face in the shadow had transformed into a rational face with a bitter smile. The face on the glass door nodded to Narumi, so he opened the wine cabinet, picked out a bottle of red wine, took four clean wine glasses, and hurriedly returned to the card table in the living room.
“I just remembered something,” Cheng Shi announced as soon as he returned to the card table. Everyone looked up at him and heard him say, “Tomorrow is my birthday.”
"Really? Happy birthday!" Sun Pengfei and Su Ningna congratulated him in unison, their voices carrying a hint of drunkenness and fatigue.
"I'll be 35 tomorrow, I can't believe it."
“Yes.” Sun Peng nodded dismissively.
Sun Pengfei is 40 years old this year, while Su Ningna is 4 years older than him, making her 44. Therefore, these two people, both well past 35, didn't have any particular feelings about Cheng Shi's reflections on turning 35.
“What I mean is, it feels really strange to think that I’m already middle-aged. When I was a kid, I always thought that people in their 30s were old, but now that I’m almost 35, I don’t feel old at all. But…” As he spoke, Cheng Shi raised his glass, nodded to the three of them, and then downed the glass of red wine in one gulp. “But I still feel like an era has ended.”
Narumi knew he was getting drunk, and he knew perfectly well that he couldn't mix drinks. In fact, he knew he was already drunk; he knew he was about to say something even more foolish, and that he would repeat it over and over again. Narumi knew himself. And it was precisely because he desperately knew himself that he said even more.
"Birthdays, birthdays, the funny thing is that every time you look back and think about them, they all get mixed up, and you can't tell which year is which. But I remember one birthday very clearly: it was my 18th birthday—that day was the first day of the college entrance examination. The exam was Chinese in the morning, and I was the first one to hand in my paper in the whole exam room. I thought the exam was too easy! Sure enough, I became the top liberal arts student in Shenyang that year!"
Then Chengshi launched into a long, animated account of his college entrance exam experience. But as he spoke, Chengshi suddenly realized that he had told the same story to Sun Pengfei and his wife, using almost the same language. Then, in despair, he remembered: he must have said those words to them on this day a year ago, when he was about to turn 34.
Sun Pengfei and Su Ningna laughed politely a few times, and then Sun Pengfei tried his best to pick up his phone and look at it.
But at this moment, what hurt Cheng Shi the most was Huang Ruoyu's gaze towards him—filled with pity and weariness.
That night, as Cheng Shi slept alone in his bedroom, just like the previous two days, Huang Ruoyu's gaze haunted his dreams; the next morning, after breakfast, as he drove his secondhand BMW X1 to the subway station, Huang Ruoyu's gaze still lingered in his mind; and as he boarded the subway to go to the company, Huang Ruoyu's gaze remained inescapable.
Cheng Shi suddenly felt that this subway train heading to Guomao was like a very slow, painless death train. This train would carry him, young and healthy, to the end of his life without ever looking back, and he, Cheng Shi, was like a frog in warm water, completely unfazed by it.
In that instant, Narumi truly felt that she had entered middle age.
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