Chapter 97 The Universe Comes to Qiang (VI) Words Become a Prison.
It's time to get down to business.
Zhang Deng has been feeling a little resistant these days since he came back, and feels like he is unwilling to carry out his tasks. But if he doesn't urge him, Wei Yuanye doesn't seem to have anything important to do. He runs, plays games, and cooks every day, as if he is back on vacation.
Every time Zhang Deng contacted Hu Ningning, he did it himself, as if it had nothing to do with him.
Zhang Deng couldn't stand it anymore, so he announced at dinner that night: "We have to take action."
Wei Yuanye was quite puzzled: "What action?"
"The mission."
"Oh," Wei Yuanye said, "how do we proceed?"
Zhang Deng looked at him and asked, "Should I ask you about this?"
Zhang Deng felt something was very wrong: "Has your work attitude always been like this? Didn't you like working before?"
That's not right. According to the feedback from everyone at World Tree, shouldn't Wei Yuanye be a very hardworking person?
Zhang Deng asked, "Why aren't you very proactive in our mission?"
Wei Yuanye: "Do you still remember?"
Zhang Deng: “…”
Zhang Deng choked up and said, "Eh—yes, I don't remember it again."
He really wasn't pretending; he just blurted it out.
Zhang Deng was a little confused about this question. He said, "But take this time as an example. Your work attitude is not very serious."
Wei Yuanye said, "Because it's nothing urgent, if you want to start, then we can talk about it tomorrow."
"It's tomorrow again," Zhang Deng said. "Tomorrow after tomorrow, there are so many tomorrows. Can't I offer some ideas today?"
"Sure," Wei Yuanye said, "but I don't have any ideas."
Zhang Deng: "But you are the boss!"
This sentence may have really helped Wei Yuanye. He asked, "Am I the boss?"
Zhang Deng: "You need to be more confident."
Zhang Deng truly admires Wei Yuanye. He cannot accept a relationship where both parties are equally matched. The ideal types he has liked are all stronger than him in many aspects. In his heart, Zhang Deng worships Wei Yuanye and regards him as the boss. He finds that he seems to have never said this to Wei Yuanye before.
It was Wei Yuanye who always supported him, told him that he could do it, and praised him for doing a good job, but Zhang Deng rarely expressed his appreciation for Wei Yuanye.
He felt that Wei Yuanye's core was strong enough and he didn't need much recognition from the outside world.
But today, Zhang Deng's Ren and Du meridians were suddenly opened up, and he realized that he should say some nice words to Wei Yuanye occasionally.
Wei Yuanye could actually be pleased by such casual words.
Zhang Deng observed that Wei Yuanye was in a good mood all night because of such a simple sentence, and he was humming a tune while cooking. Zhang Deng had a very strange feeling. On the one hand, he felt that no matter how capable a man was, he was still very immature in nature. On the other hand, he thought that Wei Yuanye's reaction might be due to the fact that he had never heard good words in an intimate relationship.
Zhang Deng suddenly felt that he was extremely incompetent.
This is easy. Zhang Deng turned on his computer and thought, "I'm the best at saying this kind of thing."
Zhang Deng's novel entered a very slow growth period. Li Xin had secret crushes and heartbreaks in college, but neither of them was fatal. Li Xin realized through many fleeting loves that she was a girl with a very popular aesthetic. Her taste was very vulgar, and the boy she liked was always surrounded by many girls.
No one would choose her anyway. Li Xin saw herself as a tall, large, plain-looking girl with dark skin and messy hair. She thought to herself in despair, "No one will like me."
But sometimes I would fantasize before going to bed. If I really fell in love, I would buy a pair of pink sneakers and run with a boy on the rubber track. He would definitely praise her sneakers for being beautiful.
Professional running shoes are very expensive, and Li Xin is unable to spend such a large sum of money at once. This idea can only be put on hold like love.
Her roommates started dating one by one. The dormitory was always empty during the day, and they came back very late with a romantic atmosphere. Although they did not seem to show their happiness, Li Xin could still see their joy from their light words and actions.
In order not to be the only girl in the dormitory, Li Xin had to stay in the playground longer.
The teacher who introduced her said that she was very talented and asked her if she wanted to participate in some competitions. Li Xin gradually improved her professionalism. In her junior year, she participated in a competition and actually won third place and a prize of 800 yuan.
The moment Li Xin got it, he bought himself a pair of running shoes.
She was the only person wearing ordinary sneakers in the competition that day. Although Li Xin didn't feel that the shoes really affected her much, she still bought them.
This was Li Xin's first time making money.
From then on, her mentality seemed to have finally changed. She was able to make money, and the things she was thinking about and scheming for were things that her classmates did not understand.
Just as she didn't know how to insert a needle into a vein, her classmates didn't know how to run.
There are not too many mysterious things in this world. Li Xin gradually understood that if you can't do something no matter how hard you try, it actually means that you are not allowed to do it.
As Zhang Deng wrote this, he realized that this was exactly what Wei Yuanye had once told him: "Not choosing is also a choice."
There seem to be many paths to take at this time, but when you really walk down, you will find that some paths are very steep and some paths are dead, and you have to try and error on your own. Many times you don’t do it just because you can’t take a certain path.
Zhang Deng was slightly distracted, his eyes not quite focused on the computer screen. His mind was wandering wildly, and no one knew what he was thinking about, but his hands never stopped, typing away.
In the entire room of more than 40 square meters, the only sound that could be heard was the sound of the keyboard.
One night, Li Xin was leaning over the table writing in his diary.
By the second semester of her junior year, she was basically financially independent by participating in competitions and working as a teaching assistant, and no longer needed additional living expenses from her parents. She had three pairs of running shoes, a lot of sports shorts and underwear, all hung on the pegboard clothes hangers she installed for herself, neatly occupying a corner of the dormitory.
Since the beginning of the next semester, her roommates, who used to talk to her occasionally, now basically don't talk to her more than ten sentences a week.
Li Xin believes that it started when she bought her first pair of running shoes.
She earned money and bought them a box of puffs, which most girls like, but they are very expensive, more than 40 yuan a box. The head of the department jokingly asked if someone was pursuing her and gave it to her.
Li Xin said: "I came in third and won the prize."
She showed them the shoes she bought, and everyone leaned over to try them on and praised them for being pretty good.
Li Xin was very happy that she finally had a common topic with everyone. She seldom opened packages and seldom bought clothes. It turned out that when everyone gathered together to share their new purchases, everyone's eyes would briefly focus on her for a while, as if she was the protagonist of the story for that one or two minutes.
But since then, Li Xin has been busier with training, and her roommates feel vaguely excluded when they see her rushing around.
Li Xin felt that he might know why. People's hearts are dark and fickle. Sometimes even they themselves cannot explain the reasons, but they are caught by people's actions and resolutely carry them out.
As the first person in the class who could earn money to support himself and dared to order three dishes in the cafeteria, Li Xin quickly became a celebrity in the class and grade.
People who like to socialize compliment her, while those who don’t like to join in the fun stay away from her, and she has even fewer friends.
She made almost no real friends throughout college, and she wrote all her troubles in her diary.
While she was writing that night, her roommates came in one by one and passed by her. No one greeted her. They were all busy sharing what happened in class that day and their boyfriends' embarrassing stories, as if Li Xin was not in the dormitory.
Li Xin wrote: "I have a competition on the 3rd of next month, and I'm out of town. I've asked my homeroom teacher for leave. She said she admires me and asked about my plans after graduation. I'm afraid of disappointing her, so I didn't dare tell her. I have no confidence in winning, and I'm just an average talent. Sports can't sustain me forever, and the money I earn now might end up in the hospital. I didn't dare tell her these things, for fear she'd think I was tacky."
As she was writing, she suddenly felt as if she had written the same words before. She opened her old diary and looked carefully to see if she had experienced the same thing before.
She saw that the word "run" appeared in almost every entry in her diary. The frequency of this word even exceeded some commonly used prepositions. The more Li Xin read, the more magical it became. As time went by, she almost didn't recognize the word.
She found herself chattering endlessly about how running made her feel, the happiness and pain she gained from it, to the point where it seemed as if there was nothing else in her life.
It seemed as if she had placed all her weight in life on this one thing. If this thing failed, what kind of consequences would it cause was unimaginable to Li Xin.
As Li Xin watched, it seemed as if everything around her suddenly disappeared: books, roommates, everything. She seemed to be thrown onto the playground. When she was about to speak, she turned around and saw Bufa running from behind. He was so fast that Li Xin couldn't catch his hand even when she wanted to.
Li Xin was about to call him, but saw many people running behind him. These people were wearing different clothes, as if they came from different times and different worlds. Each of them was running and passed by Li Xin as if they didn't see him.
Li Xin screamed in horror, but she seemed to hear the sound of a bell or something falling to the ground. At the same time, she smelled a strange smell, which made her nose and head feel uncomfortable. Li Xin turned around, and the world seemed to be torn off in front of her. A layer of skin fell directly to the ground. She seemed to be standing on a violently shaking ground. Her vision was no longer enough. Her five senses were madly absorbing new things. The whole world under her feet seemed to be running, gasping, and fleeing.
Li Xin was very frightened. This feeling was really terrible, but she couldn't escape it. She looked around and saw that everything was pitch black. White smoke was floating in from somewhere, and the smell seemed to come from here.
Li Xin had heard that if one becomes too absorbed in something, one will enter a so-called "enchantment." Could this be happening now? But she hadn't been running just now.
She stretched out her hands to touch the smoke, but suddenly a lot of people seemed to come around her, and their eyes looked very strange when they fell on her.
Li Xin didn't know them, but he thought they were weird. It seemed that they looked at him as if he were a lowly creature that shouldn't exist.
Li Xin asked: "Excuse me, this is——"
As soon as she opened her mouth, everything disappeared.
She returned to the dormitory. Her roommate had already turned off the lights. Even the desk lamp at the small table where she was sitting was not on. The room was pitch black. She looked at the time. It was 10:15 in the evening, and the lights had just been turned off for 15 minutes.
Zhang Deng wrote until Li Xin went to bed in silence, his hands still typing very numbly, describing every brick and tile of Li Xin's dormitory in a very verbose manner, describing the flowers, plants, insects and fish in this world, as if he was in this world. He stood on the path in front of the playground, looked up at Li Xin's dormitory, and in the moonlight, the window was pitch black, and the moonlight reflected on the window, like a silent response.
Until he was pushed, Wei Yuanye said: "It's already twelve o'clock."
Zhang Deng let out an "Ah" as if he had just woken up.
"Did you call me?" Zhang Deng asked.
Wei Yuanye: “Yeah.”
He got up and went to bed, saying, "Time to go to bed."
Zhang Deng glanced at the word count before turning off the document and found that he had actually written 12,000 words tonight.
This is really a scary number. Even if a person writes at a speed of 100 words per minute without thinking at all, it will take him two hours to write.
Is it really possible to write so quickly? Zhang Deng still felt strange. He turned over on the bed, smelled the scent of shower gel on Wei Yuanye's body, and fell into a deep sleep.
——
Zhang Deng clearly felt that he was dreaming.
In his dream, he came to Li Xin's dormitory. All six people in the dormitory were sleeping, breathing evenly.
Zhang Deng looked up and saw Li Xin sleeping on the upper bunk at the door. From his height, he could just see Li Xin's face. She was tanned, and even in the dark night, one could see the shiny black oil on her face.
Li Xin is indeed not that good-looking. She has a square face, big cheeks, deep and messy eyebrows, big eyes judging from her brow bones, and a high nose bridge. Only when Zhang Deng looks carefully can he find that Li Xin's facial features are actually beautiful, but when put together, they do not match her skin color and figure.
Zhang Deng walked to the small table at the end of the bed and saw the notebook that had just been closed.
He couldn't see the words on it clearly, so he took it under the window and found in the moonlight that it was actually written clearly. The date, weather, and mood were all neatly recorded. He also found out by the light that there were indeed many "run" characters written on it.
Zhang Deng tried to stare at the word to see what was happening, but failed.
He turned to the first page again and saw Li Xin's first diary entry.
It read: "I won't post it. If I'm really bored, I can write in my diary. Anyway, I'm really bored, so I'll just write."
Zhang Deng seemed to suddenly come to his senses. He heard the sound of typing around him. Turning around, he was back in the office in an instant. Everyone around him was typing and working.
After walking a few steps forward, he saw many strangers. A man in Foxconn uniform was writing with blood on his arm in the dark workshop. After walking a few steps further, Tong Ying was writing and drawing on the poetry collection. There was also a strange man in gorgeous clothes who seemed to be writing a letter.
He saw Zhang Deng coming and said, "Are you back?"
Zhang Deng didn't recognize him and opened his mouth. The man said, "I was just thinking of writing to you, but I don't know where to send it."
"Who are you——" Before Zhang Deng finished speaking, everything disappeared.
He returned to the dormitory and looked down as if he had sensed something. A man was standing downstairs. He was in the same position as when he was standing downstairs of Li Xin's house and looking up when he was writing in his room just now - exactly the same position.
Zhang Deng suddenly got goose bumps all over his body and his scalp felt tingling.
Bufa smiled at him and waved.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
