Chapter 4: All the beautiful things are dreams. I dare not open my eyes. Hope is mine...
Gao Xing had a dream in which everything from yesterday was an illusion. When she woke up, her life returned to normal:
The man downstairs disappeared, and the house belonged to her alone. She passed the hospital exam and got a job, freeing herself from her family's control. Her novel was published and made into a movie and TV series, earning her a ton of money...
When she opened her eyes and looked at the unfamiliar plaster carvings above her head, she couldn't tell whether it was a dream or reality.
She sat up suddenly and rushed downstairs without even having time to put on her slippers.
“Patta, patta—”
The footsteps stopped abruptly. At the corner of the stairs, Shen Xingjian was sitting leisurely in the restaurant eating fruit. The morning light gilded him with a layer of gold, and even the movement of turning the pages of a book revealed an elegant and annoying grace.
Well, cruelty is reality, and beauty is just a dream.
His happy face drooped in an instant and he prepared to go back upstairs in disappointment.
Hearing the noise behind him, Shen Xingjian glanced back. He recalled the "clacking" sound on the floor last night and frowned unconsciously.
"Can you please stop running upstairs in slippers?" Shen Xingjian complained. "It's like you're playing a clapperboard."
Her dream was shattered. She was already in a bad mood, and now he was picking on her. She rolled her eyes when she heard that.
Shen Xingjian saw her leave without looking back, and he was choked with anger. Did she not hear it, or was she pretending not to hear it?
"Hey, what's your attitude?"
The only answer he got was the slam of a door upstairs, which shook even the green plants in the yard.
After returning to the room, Gao Xing washed his face to clear his mind, then sat down at the desk and began to make plans.
Recruitment exams for major hospitals in and around southern Beijing will be held in succession over the next few months. After the rent exemption, the money she has left will barely cover her expenses. So she plans to give herself a two-month buffer period to focus on exam preparation. If she still doesn't get in after two months, she will find other work to support herself.
Of course, she will not live off her savings during this period. As long as she keeps updating her novels in sufficient quantities, she will not starve to death even if she cannot find a job in the short term.
After making the plan, I happily opened the computer document that I hadn’t touched for a long time and started typing.
Gao Xing is an online novel writer, or more precisely, a writer of small H-novels. Her debut work, Feng Yue, once won the first place in popularity on the forum when it was serialized, and it was almost published.
However, having experienced the last time that the work could not be published because it was too explicit, Gao Xing summed up the experience and lessons and wrote some clean works for a while, but unfortunately, it all failed.
She reflected on it for a long time and came to the conclusion: Maybe it was because she had never been in love, so her mind was blank when she wrote about the illusory love. But it was different when it came to color, she only needed to describe it!
On one side, there was failure, and on the other side, there was account suspension. Gao Xing was caught in the middle. For the sake of money, he could only choose to skirt the line.
So, she is now a player who is skirting the line of online novels!
When Gao Xing was busy rubbing at the novel document, there was a sudden crisp sound downstairs, as if something was broken. She hurried downstairs to check.
Not far from the stairs, the door of Shen Xingjian's room was wide open, and the body of an alarm clock was shattered beside the door.
“It seems that it’s not an alarm clock…” Shen Xingjian moved his legs and got off the bed.
In order to find the pattern of overlapping time and space, he has copied everything he did yesterday one by one, but it still doesn't work.
"What on earth is the reason?" He muttered to himself with a frown.
Gao Xing stood at the door, watching him muttering and looking a little mentally unstable, and couldn't help but think of the general character of people like him in novels: disabled legs, gloomy personality, moody, a pure villain!
Shen Xingjian was immersed in his thoughts, and when he looked up, he met her disgusted gaze, and his face suddenly fell: “What’s the matter?”
Gao Xing certainly couldn't say that you didn't look like a good person, so he just made up an excuse: "Is the air conditioner controller on the second floor wall broken? It's always 26 degrees, and there's no response when I press the temperature adjustment button."
Shen Xingjian snorted when he heard this: “Didn’t you say this is your house? You ask me?”
Without waiting for her response, he put on a science-fiction lecture again: "Scientific research shows that setting the air conditioner to 26 degrees Celsius in the summer is the most suitable temperature for the human body, and it's also the most scientific and energy-saving... Hello? Where are you going? I haven't finished yet! This is the second time!"
How rude!!
Shen Xingjian cursed a few words in his heart, slammed the door shut, and picked up the scattered pieces of the alarm clock on the ground.
On the bedside table just a few feet away, there stood a wooden photo frame with a slightly yellowed photo inside.
In the photo, Shen Xingjian is wearing a school uniform, holding a pot of saplings tied with ribbons with a bit of impatience but still cooperating. Next to him stands an old man with gray hair, wearing a navy blue Zhongshan suit, and his back is straight.
Over the years, he had thought countless times, if time could go back, if he had not made such a hasty decision, would the ending not be so tragic?
Since God has given him this opportunity, he must change this time!
…
In the afternoon, Gao Xing was woken up by the heat.
She has been woken up by the heat several times since she moved in yesterday. The difference from the previous times is that it was slightly hot before, but now it is extremely hot. The room is like a steamer, and it is almost steaming people to death!
She fanned herself with her hands and quickly walked to the air conditioner controller, only to find that the controller, which could be turned on and off, had suddenly shut down for some reason, and the air conditioner on the ceiling, which was supposed to be blowing out cool air, had also stopped.
She naturally recalled the suspicious look on the man downstairs' face when she asked about the air conditioner that morning. She immediately rushed downstairs, put her hands on her hips, and asked in a questioning tone, "Why is the air conditioner off?"
In the living room on the first floor, Shen Xingjian was drinking ice cola on the sofa, fanning himself. When he saw her coming down angrily, he pretended not to hear and continued drinking his own.
Seeing that he was still pretending to be dead, Gao Xing became even angrier and took a few steps closer: "I say, why is the air conditioner turned off?"
She repeated, her voice rising.
After ignoring her twice, Shen Xingjian raised the corners of his mouth and picked his ears like she did yesterday: “The power is out, can’t you see it?”
Gao Xing looked up and saw that it was indeed dark all around.
It was already evening, the sun was setting, and the room was no longer illuminated by the lights, leaving only a few rays of orange afterglow coming in through the window.
Maybe it was because the first floor was not exposed to direct sunlight and the temperature was lower than upstairs. I stood downstairs for a while and the heat and stuffiness in my body gradually dissipated, and I felt less irritable.
She calmed down and controlled her temper: "When can I get a call?"
"How should I know?"
Shen Xingjian looked as if it had nothing to do with him, as if the power outage only made him happy.
It's not that Shen Xingjian is deliberately arguing, but he really doesn't know when the electricity will be back. He had called the power company an hour ago to ask, but the customer service said that there was no power outage in his area and the circuit breaker at home was not broken, which was also strange.
At this point, he suddenly sat up straight with suspicion: "Could it be...that there is a power outage here?"
"What do you mean?" Gao Xing didn't understand.
Although time and space folding occurred, there seemed to be no changes in Shen Xingjian's home. Except for the presence of one more person upstairs, even the placement of things remained unchanged. Is this reasonable?
Is it true that there is no change, or have they just not noticed?
Following Shen Xingjian's guess, Gao Xing called the resort property with doubt, and the answer she got was that there was a power outage here because the resort was undergoing line reconstruction.
Shen Xingjian immediately showed an expression of "I knew it" and imitated her tone like a drama queen: "When can I call you?"
Joy was speechless, but she put her phone down and replied, "...tomorrow morning at six."
When he heard that the call would not come until tomorrow morning, Shen Xingjian immediately covered his heart exaggeratedly: "Do you know how many degrees it is in Jingnan today? Forty degrees! The call will not come until six o'clock, do you want to kill me with heat?"
I'm so happy that I've seen someone with a face that looks so annoying for a punch. I really want to punch him every time he says something.
"Forget it, there's no point telling you this. There are mosquito coils and candles in the storage room on the first floor. Go find them."
He began to order people around as if it was his duty. "Don't look at me like that. Do you know how poisonous the mosquitoes on the first floor are? Don't you see who I'm suffering because of?"
Gao Xing took a deep breath, silently repeated "Don't argue with an idiot" three times, and turned to walk towards the storage room.
The storage room on the first floor was right next to the bathroom. Gao Xing pushed the door open and walked in. As soon as she entered, a long-forgotten smell accompanied by choking dust hit her face. She instinctively raised her hand and waved.
It's so dirty, how long has it been since it was cleaned? Did he do it on purpose?
Gao Xing covered his nose and coughed a few times, trying to find mosquito coils and candles on the dusty shelf.
Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a well-maintained speed bike hanging on the wall. Gao Xing paused, approached with a puzzled look, and gently turned the pedals—it was still working!
She immediately became wary: Wasn't he in a wheelchair? Why was there a bicycle at home? Could he be completely disabled?
There were several red boxes placed right under the bicycle. She opened one at random and was stunned.
It was a thick stack of certificates, the gilded lettering gleaming faintly on the dull, yellowed paper. It wasn't just this box; the boxes next to it contained the same items. Most surprisingly, one of the boxes even contained an admission letter from Tsinghua University.
Gao Xing was so surprised that her eyes widened like bells. She picked up the admission letter for computer science from Tsinghua University and looked at it left and right, trying to find evidence that it was a fake.
Is this true or false?
Back in the living room, Shen Xingjian complained impatiently: "It takes so long to find something? Even if the candles and mosquito coils were produced from the source, they should be in my hands by now, right?"
Gao Xing looked at his harsh expression and found it hard to connect this matter with the gifted child mentioned in the admission letter.
She rolled her eyes, put the box of mosquito coils and candles on the coffee table, and asked, "Is it okay?"
"Wait a moment--"
Gao Xing wanted to ask what was wrong, but then he took out a plate of mosquito coils and two candles from the box and handed them to her: "I am a very fair person. This is your hard work fee."
There was a power outage today, so mosquito coils and candles were indeed useful. Gao Xing tried hard to ignore his offensive tone and was about to raise her hand to take them when her stomach suddenly growled.
Happy: “…” Damn it!
Shen Xingjian glanced at her sideways and snorted, “If you’re hungry, go eat. If you don’t know, you’d think there’s a concert going on in your stomach.”
After being verbally attacked by him again and again, Gao Xing could no longer tolerate it. He snatched the things in his hand and turned away, thinking to himself, who is the reason why I still can't eat?
“The kitchen…I’ll lend it to you.” Shen Xingjian’s slightly awkward voice sounded behind him.
Gao Xing paused, wondering what this meant, when the doorbell suddenly rang, sounding particularly harsh in the dim light.
The two of them froze at the same time, looking towards the door warily...
The author has something to say:
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A male protagonist with a strong desire for revenge, but a righteous heart [evil smile]
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