Her butt is quite perky; I want to punch it a couple of times.
A few curses, amplified in volume, occasionally escaped from the crack in the door. The employees working at desks near the office wished they could hear everything; their hands, busy processing documents, involuntarily slowed their movements, their pupils shifting from the center to the corners of their eyes.
Through these few occasional short sentences, the employees outside the office had already conjured up a melodramatic scene in their minds.
Wen Dai remained seated at an acute angle to the table, her hands draped over Chen Sizhe's wrists. Her flushed face and rapid breathing confirmed her anger, her dark eyes fixed on him. "I'm not kidding, but you're not my colleague, are you? On the surface, you're a staunch materialist lawyer, but behind the scenes, you run a fortune-telling business... Otherwise, how do you explain why you came across my livestream? In this era of big data, if you don't understand this kind of thing, why would the platform recommend my livestream to you? I think you're just jealous that I'm more capable and have better business than you!"
Chen Sizhe, who had been holding an arrogant attitude that disdained to fight with her, suddenly pushed her hand away. He took two steps back while holding his phone, and his office chair bumped against the desk. The surprise in his eyes was fleeting, and the dark color that spread across his face swallowed his emotions.
He curled his lips into a sneer: "You really have a vivid imagination. You're standing in the mud and then you throw mud at everyone else. Since you know about big data algorithms for pushing content, why don't you know that live streams can also easily be pushed to people in the same city?"
With his hand choked, a sense of defeat welled up in Wen Dai's heart. Her hands, which had been supporting her on his desk, slowly clenched into fists as she was pulled away. Her head slumped down, the wooden surface of the desk reflected in her eyes. Helplessness, so much sadness.
Her appearance, as seen by Chen Sizhe, resembled a cat with its claws outstretched, drenched in a torrential downpour, its nails and fangs all stripped away. His heart ached inexplicably, as if those nails and fangs were embedded in the inner walls of his heart, their sharp edges piercing him.
He hated feeling out of control, but his soul compelled him to be soft-hearted towards her.
"...I can return the seven thousand yuan to you, and I can pretend I didn't see your live stream in the future; but please don't bother me anymore, and don't appear in front of me again."
Chen Sizhe chose what he considered the best solution: since meeting her would easily evoke strange feelings, he would never see her again.
He quickly opened his phone and swiped to the QR code scanning page. His indifferent gaze swept over Wen Dai, and he raised his dark eyebrows slightly to indicate, "Payment QR code."
Startled, Wen Dai raised her chin and stared at him blankly. She saw impatience slowly creep into the man's eyes, followed by a deep, hoarse voice: "Hurry up."
She pursed her lips, withdrew her hands from the table, and stood up straight. Her thin and frail body stood upright before the table, her upturned peach blossom eyes no longer displaying the complex emotions from before. Her peach-colored lips parted to utter cold words: "I'm not here for money. I just want to get revenge on you and embarrass you, and I also hope you'll stop bothering my life; I hope you'll keep your word."
The previously rogue shell spat out a person as calm as stone. Wen Dai's facial features and muscles returned to their most primitive state, like a sculpture that had been finalized and could not be deformed.
She turned around, walked to the door and opened it herself; when her eyes met Cheng Nuo's, who was waiting outside, her lazy lips twitched into a smile in a fixed pattern, the interjection at the end of her sentence seemingly just to soften the overall tone: "Thank you for your help, Sister Cheng Nuo. We've already talked things out. Goodbye."
Wen Dai left with a carefree air, her simple low ponytail swaying behind her, some strands clinging to her thin back. She was trapped in the black spiderweb.
Cheng Nuo rested one hand on the door, following Wen Dai's gaze until she disappeared from sight. She stepped into the office, her brows furrowed in a stern expression, her gaze fixed on the man standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, her questioning and warning mingling together: "What exactly happened? How did you two reach an agreement? Let me tell you, Chen Sizhe, a man who starts something and then abandons it is worse than an animal. You'd better not do something like pulling up your pants and then forgetting about it."
"Tsk. Cheng Nuo, can you stop reading so many melodramatic novels? Your imagination is really wasting your time as a lawyer. Anyway, things weren't as you think, and it's resolved now. Instead of digging into my details, you should think about how to handle your own cases. I have other things to do, so please set a good example during work hours." A sense of emptiness stirred within Chen Sizhe, and Cheng Nuo's questioning only added to his frustration. He let out a sigh, pulled up his office chair, sat down again, and waved his hand dismissively, wearily shooing Cheng Nuo away.
-
To think that dismantling and reconstructing a personality that is fearless in the face of the world is true fearlessness is misguided. The dismantled fragments themselves contain the indivisible self; and how can a reconstructed personality escape the self?
The door was tightly closed, the curtains had been drawn before leaving, and sunlight had entered the room, but—it was only "occasionally".
Wen Dai rested her head on the table, the cool surface becoming the warmth of her face, or perhaps the warmth of her face became the coolness of the table. Tears formed a small puddle, cradling her.
I don't know why, there's no reason, but I just feel like crying.
Oh, I miss my parents.
Time broken into pieces is bitter medicine. Eleven years ago doesn't seem that long ago, otherwise how could she still remember her mother standing up for her when she had a conflict with a male classmate at school; otherwise how could she still remember her father secretly taking her to the square to see the fountain late at night because she was feeling down.
"If you're being bullied, stand up for yourself and use your own principles to shatter the other person's defenses. It's best not to cry, as that will only give the other person the upper hand. Tears are useless; charge forward with your edge."
The mother, shaped by science, was often calm, but she didn't just immerse herself in the world of chemistry. She would make crystal flowers for her using borax solution and iron wire. These crystal flowers were fragile. She had just told her that crying was useless, but then added, "With Mom here, you can cry, you can be vulnerable, just like the crystal flowers. Mom will protect you."
"Many things in life are like a fountain that suddenly bursts forth, and your unhappiness is one of them. Dad only hopes that your bad moods can be like those sprayed water, which, after spraying out, fall back and turn into good moods, quietly spitting out all the impurities. Our Adele, we want to be the happiest people in the world."
The fountain and the lights, the stars in the night sky that year hadn't betrayed her, her father's face was imprinted on the starry sky, a layer blurred away—that's what she thought back then. Unexpectedly, it became a reality.
When her tears dried on her face, it felt like tape had been applied. Wen Dai propped her head up and took a wet wipe from the box next to the computer to wipe her cheeks. Her free hand was then assigned the task of turning on the computer.
As a qualified disciple of a shaman, if one wants to bring fame to the immortals behind them, one naturally needs alt accounts as backup. And alt accounts are endless.
As a qualified disciple of a shaman, one is only allowed to shed tears for ten minutes.
As a qualified disciple of a shaman...
"Wow, you're here right after I started broadcasting, Coca-Cola! What a coincidence! You actually found this backup account in my main account's following list. And I never expected you to time my broadcast so precisely! I just started broadcasting!" Wen Dai's almond-shaped eyes sparkled with a bright smile, her canine teeth and dimple on her left cheek complementing each other perfectly, radiating approachability.
[Coca-Cola is the best: Hehe, I've added your account to my favorites!]
[Win 3 rockets with the best-tasting Coca-Cola!]
[Coca-Cola tastes the best: Teacher, don't pay attention to the doubts, I think you're right]
She was the only viewer in the live stream, and the smile that Wen Dai had forced onto her face almost shattered, and tears nearly streamed down her face.
Even if she stands in a corner, someone will still see her.
Even Wen Dai herself found it strange; her first reaction wasn't that she could rely on this Coca-Cola endorsement.
This wretched world! The grass is almost dead, and now they know to water it.
Suppressing the stinging in her nose, she lowered her head, secretly moving her eyes to hold back the tears that threatened to spill out, then forced a smile onto her cheeks: "Thank you for the rocket, Cola. Ah, meeting you is my luck, thank you so much."
The live stream once again gained more viewership due to the gift "Coca-Cola is the best-tasting." Originally, there was some anxiety, fearing that they would encounter Chen Sizhe and his peers again, but this time it went surprisingly smoothly.
Beyond the curtains, the sky, once a deep blue, had turned a stingy azure, now adorned with a few miserly stars, as stingy as it is with existence on the edge of the world. This stinginess offers no dawn, no hope; it crushes them to the point of deformity before bestowing a single piece of candy, making them grateful and oblivious to the stinginess itself.
The computer screen was turned off, and the sound of it running was like a small jet of gas suddenly splitting in two, then it stopped sounding in an instant.
Inside the window, the world was so dark you could barely see your hand in front of your face. Wen Dai picked up her neglected phone. There were several WeChat messages from "Coca-Cola is the best-tasting." For some reason, she had pinned it to the top of her chat list.
[Coca-Cola tastes the best: Teacher, you can just call me by my name normally, calling me Coke feels weird.]
[Coca-Cola is the best-tasting: My cousin has run into some trouble, teacher, could you help her out when you have time?]
Coca-Cola is the best: My cousin from Lizhou says so.
I initially thought she was just a passerby and didn't add a note to her contacts, but Wen Dai couldn't explain her current state. She used to think she understood Qian Yan and Qian Tong, but now she realized it was all nonsense. You have to be on the same level as them to truly empathize; everything else is just wishful thinking.
She swiped her finger across the screen to change her nickname to Wang Tong.
[die: Okay, Tongtong~ Is that okay?]
[die: Sure! Send me your cousin's WeChat, I'll talk to her about any issues.]
After adding Wen Dai on WeChat, Wang Tong's cousin, Wei Ling, caught her completely off guard. The video call, accompanied by music, had the power to make Wen Dai's heart stop. After instinctively exclaiming "Holy shit!", she rushed over and turned on the light.
She only answered the video call after her own world had returned to clarity.
The woman flashing on the screen made Wen Dai straighten her attitude, for no other reason than—
Judging from the camera angle, the woman is currently sitting with her knees bent against the wall, her messy hair hanging down, as if she hasn't washed it in a long time, the strands clumped together. Her tired eyes droop limply, her dark brown pupils devoid of any light; her eye sockets are dark, and her forehead has a bluish-black tinge.
"Hello, Master. Wang Tong said I have to give my name. My name is Wei Ling." The four words were cut short, not because Wei Ling did it intentionally, but Wen Dai could tell that she was about to die.
Fragments of information from Wei Ling were transmitted into Wen Dai's brain. Her brows furrowed, and a stern look appeared in her clear eyes. "Stop talking. If you can't speak, you don't have to. Where do you live? Send me your location later, and I'll come over tomorrow to help you. You don't need to tell me your symptoms. It's too obvious. You're possessed by a water ghost. Your health started to deteriorate last month, right? Around midnight on the 20th of last month, you went for a walk by the lake alone, didn't you? You're really brave. It's just breaking up with your boyfriend, isn't it?"
“Master, you’re amazing. How did you know? I wanted to clear my head because of the breakup.” Wei Ling’s words were accompanied by a breath, her chin drooping and lifting, her eyelids seemingly about to close, which prompted Wen Dai to send her the Golden Light Mantra and watch her recite it.
Without delay, Wen Dai hurriedly packed the things she would probably need for tomorrow into her bag after the video call ended.
However, what she couldn't guard against was that the person who wrote the script for her was determined to play her tricks.
The next day.
The bag slung over her shoulder swayed and bumped against her back with Wen Dai's movements. As she entered the residential area, she was about to raise the invitation code that Wei Ling had sent her to scan and enter when a wall suddenly appeared in front of her—a wall of flesh.
Wen Dai, who had been cut in line, subconsciously looked up to see which rude person it was, just as the person in front of her glanced at her sideways—his dark, tousled hair fell across his forehead, and his half-hidden fox-like eyes held a haughty and aloof gaze. Being looked at by him gave her an inexplicable feeling of being looked down upon.
Her back teeth suddenly clenched, and Wen Dai raised her head to glare angrily into his eyes, "Don't you know that you're cutting in line? It's very rude of you."
The smart access control system had already opened the door, and the man standing in front of her walked in without any shame. The black bag he was carrying swayed slightly, and his deep voice, tinged with a nonchalant tone, said: "Hmph. What's the difference between first come, first served? The door's open, isn't that enough? If you want to cause trouble, at least come up with a more sophisticated reason. I'm being kind by not asking you to thank me for opening the door for you."
Hearing his voice made Wen Dai feel like she was biting into a raw lemon. She felt resentful, but her legs moved on their own, and she ran inside as soon as the door opened.
After being repeatedly thwarted by him, she couldn't accept it and argued, "Do I need you to open the door for me? Which eye of yours saw that I couldn't open the door? You really know how to flatter yourself."
There was no reply; Chen Sizhe ignored her.
She suspected there was a gas cylinder in her chest cavity; if the cylinder exploded, she would be in a similar situation.
So every step she took on the paving stones felt like she was going to crack them, and her hand, swinging with each step, had already clenched into a fist. Wen Dai stared at the back of the person in front of her. He was clearly lean, and the t-shirt hem was tied up folded with his movements; her gaze moved down from his narrow waist, which was cinched in by his trousers, and stopped at his buttocks, which were wrapped in casual pants.
It's quite perky; I want to punch it a couple of times.
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