Chapter 337 Zhu Shiwenxin 1
After consulting with Zhu Shi about issues related to early pregnancy, I haven't updated him on the progress. However, it's only right that I summarize and report on my own progress.
Since she was willing to talk to me about interpersonal relationships to help me relax, I cooperated, hoping to reassure her. Besides, I do have some troubling issues I'd like to consult her about, and I wanted to hear her perspective as a woman.
Before long, I explained my progress and the obstacles I had encountered in detail.
"Hmm, I see, I see. Ma already knew your real purpose in pestering her, which was because of her jinxed constitution... And not only did she not hate you, she even formed a better relationship with you and regarded you as a unique and important person..." Zhu Shi said excitedly, "You did a great job, Senior Brother Zhuang!"
“But I still have some questions…” I said.
"How exactly does Asa see you—right? She might just see you as an irreplaceable good friend, but not necessarily as a romantic partner, while you have those kinds of feelings for Asa..."
As he spoke, Zhu Shi suppressed his joy and revealed a strange expression: "To be honest, Senior Brother Zhuang, I still think that your pursuit of a girl as young as Ma Zao is a bit... no, maybe not so perverted?"
"Asaho also said that she spent an unknown amount of time in the post-apocalyptic era. Maybe it looks like that, but it's actually still legal..."
She first hesitated and whispered, then looked up at me for a long time before finally sighing as if giving up.
“…Fine, I’ll support you then,” she said resignedly.
I said to myself in surprise, "I thought you would nag me a little longer."
"Thinking about it carefully, Asahi's ideal partner is indeed none other than you," she said.
Xiao Wan seems to have said something similar.
I'm truly confident about this. Besides me, who else could accept everything about Asao? No one, absolutely no one, how could there be? If there were, I'd secretly eliminate them. Therefore, I'm completely flawless.
"At least I can't imagine that after missing you, Asaha would have the chance to be so lucky as to meet another person who can accept all of her good and bad. As for the age issue, it won't be a problem in a few years. You and Asaha are only five or six years apart. If it's another ten or twenty years, it will be even less of a problem."
Zhu Shi seemed to have convinced himself, and continued, "So, let's get back to your question... Hmm, isn't this question easy to solve?"
"Easy to solve?" I asked, puzzled.
“Yeah, why don’t you just be direct as always?” she said matter-of-factly. “Just confess to Asaho and ask her directly if she likes you too, or if she can accept your feelings…wouldn’t that make everything clear?”
“Wait, wait, this is completely different from Xiaowan—and the other one you mentioned,” I said. “Mazao really dislikes men who like little girls like her. She may have seen some rather horrific scenes during the apocalypse, so she abhors such things.”
"If we don't break the ice now, there might still be room for negotiation. Once everything is out in the open, we might really lose that opportunity. Rather than that, it's better to do what you just said, wait a few years, and confess when it's no longer a problem..."
Zhu Shi cut to the chase: "Senior Brother Zhuang, can you really wait until then? I'm not doubting your patience, but since your wish is to pursue a magnificent adventure where you don't know when you might die, is a long-term plan measured in years really in line with your temperament? You yourself don't think you can postpone it for several years, do you?"
It seems that Zhu Shi is a radical, unlike the moderate Xiao Wan.
"So, if, as Xiaowan said, a hasty confession results in failure..." I said.
"Hey, what does that little girl know about love! She hasn't even graduated from elementary school yet. You still have to listen to my love strategist, Zhu Shi!" Zhu Shi said confidently. "I'm a proper female college student, and I've read hundreds of romance novels. From high school to college, I've witnessed my friends and their friends' friends getting into relationships and breaking up one after another. I've witnessed countless love stories and hates. I have a wealth of experience!"
No, you are "that kind of girl" too.
Besides, you clearly have no romantic experience, so where do you get the right to call yourself a love strategist? Even Xiaowan (a popular online personality) is more qualified in this regard. Does reading hundreds of romance novels count as dating experience? Although you claim to have witnessed countless love stories, those are all stories involving your friends and friends of friends.
Before those tactless words could escape my lips, my attention was drawn to something else.
"You actually read romance novels?" I couldn't contain my curiosity and asked.
"Yes, I just don't have romantic feelings... or rather, I'm just unable to feel romantic feelings for others. It's not that I can't understand what love is. Maybe it's because I know I've lost love that I'm curious and want to know what love is like in other people's eyes." Zhu Shi analyzed herself. "In reality, if others find a story sweet, I'll find it sweet too; if others find a story heartbreaking, I'll feel heartbroken too."
"I don't feel that 'losing love' would prevent me from empathizing with the characters in the story or with the audience outside the story when faced with such situations. If I hadn't actually never been attracted to any member of the opposite sex, I might even doubt whether I have really lost love... It's also possible that the concept of love is a product constructed and created by civilization, so even if I lose such feelings, I won't encounter any problems in life."
"Some friends even come to me for advice on relationship problems, and my suggestions sometimes do help!"
For example, me? Actually, Zhu Shi suggested I be direct with Ma Zao last time, and I did succeed. Does this mean that people without romantic experience are more insightful when it comes to handling romantic matters?
"In other words, while you can experience love through empathy in a story, you can't do it when it's your own turn..." I said, "Your symptoms sound like those of people who are overly addicted to virtual characters and unable to feel anything for real people online. I think they're called 'two'..."
"No, no! It's not like that!" Zhu Shi quickly waved his hand to clarify, "I can also empathize with romantic feelings from my friends in real life. Like when your relationship with Ma Zao deepened, I actually felt a little... uh."
She reflexively shut her mouth as if she'd revealed something, while cautiously observing my expression. Did she mean that if I were dating Asahi, she'd feel like she was dating too? Was she dating Asahi from my perspective, or from Asahi's perspective? Or both?
Could the romantic feelings she imagines, which she believes she experiences without any prior romantic experience, be merely her imagination, and not the same as real-life romantic relationships? Many have said that real-life love is vastly different from the love depicted in romance novels. Before truly falling in love, who can truly understand the taste of love through mere imagination?
Zhu Shi has questioned whether humans are truly born with the emotion of love. While I don't believe love is entirely fictitious, in modern civilization, the concept of love inevitably contains many acquired and cultural elements, making it overly complex and leading to a wide variety of definitions. And if love were completely deconstructed, it would easily be interpreted as a mixture of reproductive desire and a cooperative spirit, which would no longer be the love people speak of.
Thinking about this, I suddenly realized a critical problem.
Ma Zao might be even less able to understand what romantic love is than Zhu Shi.
Growing up in a post-apocalyptic era, she may not possess the modern view of love. Or rather, the environment she experienced in the past lacked the fertile ground for constructing the concept of love. Before coming to the modern world, she may not have even heard of the word "love," and even if she had, her understanding of this "unique emotion between men and women" might be a deconstructed interpretation, a mixture of the desire for procreation and the consciousness of cooperation.
Now that we're already inseparable partners, if I were to express my true feelings to her on this basis, would she just think I want to do *that* with her?
I remembered her reaction when I hinted at my true feelings to her in the past... She seemed very nervous at the time, and subconsciously compared her body shape to that of an adult woman, feeling that she wasn't voluptuous enough, etc... Could it be that she directly associated it with that?
“...Actually, there’s another very important issue,” Zhu Shi said. “Before you confess to Ma Zao, I need to make things clear to you.”
"Are there any other obstacles?" I asked.
"It's hard to say whether it's an obstacle or not, but this problem doesn't concern Ma Zao, it concerns you." Zhu Shi looked at me intently.
"Is there something wrong with me?" I wondered.
Zhu Shi stared at me for a while, and then asked a question.
A question I had never thought about before.
"If one day, Asahi loses her jinx constitution..."
"No, let me rephrase my question. If one day you encounter an opportunity to help Ma Zao get rid of her 'jinx' constitution—"
Will you help her?
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com