I placed the down comforter I was going to give to Jane Wei on her bed, and then stood beside her. Looking at the tablet she was holding, I asked, “What are you looking at?”
Jane Wei, fidgeting with her hair, looked pained as she replied, “This tablet has a password set on it, and I can’t open it. Is this really my tablet? If it is, why do I feel like there’s something connected to me inside? But why can’t I remember so many things? I really feel like a mentally broken, useless person!”
I looked at her in surprise. Only then did I realize that the tablet was still on the password input screen, while Jane Wei’s expression was growing more painful. At that moment, I realized she truly hated how incomplete her memories were. She wanted to live in this inherently fragmented world with every memory from her past.
Not wanting her to feel so distressed, I softly comforted her, “Don’t think too much about it. Whether you open it or not isn’t important. Maybe it just contains some trivial daily records, nothing worth digging into deeply… Perhaps, when you stop caring about it, you’ll suddenly remember the password one day!”
Jane Wei, in a gloomy mood, threw the tablet onto the bed and lay back down without saying a word. Obviously, she was still upset about not remembering the password. I didn’t know whether her decision to dig out this tablet today was just a whim or an inevitable occurrence. Either way, she had truly started to investigate everything that had been recorded in this tablet.
Her state worried me, so I called Yan Yan, hoping she could come over for the night to keep Jane Wei company and help ease her mind. After all, the past Jane Wei was trying to uncover was precisely the source of her pain.
Finally, I spoke up again, “Oh, by the way, Dr. Mo will be returning next week. Did he tell you about it?”
Jane Wei sat up from the bed, asking with some joy, “Really?”
“Yeah, he contacted me this morning… He said he wants to return to do a follow-up check on your health condition.”
“But why did he tell you and not me?” Jane Wei asked, frowning slightly.
I hesitated for a while before replying, “He… He probably wants to give you a surprise.”
Jane Wei didn’t take my explanation as an excuse for not understanding the situation. She accepted what I said and then smiled, replying, “This time when he comes back, I can accompany him around Suzhou city. Before he left last time, I promised him we’d walk together along Pingjiang Road.”
I felt a strange emotion inside and responded to her with a smile after a while. Then I turned to look out the window, calculating in my heart how much longer Yan Yan would take to arrive. But at this moment, Jane Wei seemed to have already stopped obsessing over the tablet she couldn’t open. Her gaze remained fixed on the wall calendar, making my act of calling Yan Yan over seem unnecessary.
…
On my way home, I drove fast. The city lights barely had time to pass by my windows. Amid the roar of the engine, the car sped like a runaway horse across the city’s overpasses and past the train station filled with farewells…
Only after entering the bustling Guanqian Street did I slow down. The blurred world gradually came into focus again in my vision. I parked the car by the roadside and walked to Pingjiang Road, not far from Guanqian Street. It had been a long time since I last bought a cup of handmade yogurt on this street filled with artistic atmosphere…
Perhaps it was because Jane Wei mentioned she would come here with Mo Zishi, that I remembered this road again, and how much I used to enjoy buying yogurt here. Because during those lonely nights, I often drank too much, and drinking some yogurt made me feel better… I remember one time I forgot to bring my wallet, and the beautiful shop owner let me play the guitar and sing a song in exchange. I happily sang “With Whom in Taiyuan Did I Pretend to Be Sad” for her, and ended up making her cry. She cried as she made yogurt for me… I had never seen such an emotional woman before!
Later, she married an executive from a software company and stopped selling yogurt. Her yogurt shop was transferred to a young couple who had just graduated. After that, I went there less and less often because, no matter how hard the young couple tried, they never quite matched the shop owner’s yogurt-making skills…
I admit that during that emotionally vacant period, I had a brief moment of affection for the beautiful shop owner because she had been moved to tears by my singing! But these fleeting feelings never drove me to do anything. I simply came every day to buy yogurt and occasionally sang a song to relieve her fatigue… Perhaps, if there had been an old house connecting us, giving us frequent opportunities to interact, Mi Cai wouldn’t have appeared a year later… However, I have never regretted this, because sometimes the fate between people is like this—a fleeting moment, a brief encounter, and missing it means missing it for a lifetime. If I must say there is any regret, it would only be the regret of insufficient fate!
I came back to the yogurt shop again and coincidentally met the shop owner. By now, she already had a little girl who could talk, who must have been her daughter…
At the same time, she also noticed me standing outside. We hadn’t seen each other in many years. She smiled at me like an old friend and said, “Hi! Guitar boy, it’s been a long time!”
“Yeah, Yogurt Girl…!” I said, making a funny face to entertain the little girl she was holding. The girl giggled, and my heart nearly melted from her adorable smile, wishing I could kiss her.
The shop owner laughed along with the little girl and happily told me, “This is my daughter. Isn’t she adorable?”
“Yeah.”
“How about you? How have you been all these years? Are you still sometimes broke, unable to afford yogurt?”
I smiled with a sigh, but didn’t like talking about these years because it would make me inexplicably sad. Eventually, I just replied, “Everything is fine, no lack of troubles… Yogurt Girl, it’s such a coincidence that we met again in your old shop today. I wonder if I can still have a cup of yogurt made by you?”
“Of course, but you have to sing another song for me with your guitar. That’s our little tradition!”
“Then wait a moment. I’ll go get my guitar from the car.”
…
When I came back with the guitar, she looked at me in surprise and said, “Was that Q7 just now your car?… Looks like that poor guitar boy from back then won’t be coming back anymore!”
“The car is mine…” I paused, unsure how to define my relationship with Mi Cai. After a moment, I continued, “Actually, it’s my fiancée’s car.”
“Haha, no wonder it’s red!…” she exclaimed and then asked curiously, “You still haven’t answered me. Will that poor guitar boy ever come back again?”
I smiled and replied, “I probably won’t be so broke that I can’t afford yogurt anymore!… But I still like pretending to be sad!”
“Alright then… This time, I won’t give you a chance to pretend to be sad. Sing ‘Little Donkey’ for my daughter. No more sad songs this time!”
Looking at her, I found it amusing and silently asked myself: What the hell is life? Life is: The first song I ever sang for her was ‘With Whom in Taiyuan Did I Pretend to Be Sad,’ but years later, the last song I sang for her turned out to be ‘Little Donkey’… But isn’t that okay?
Of course, it’s good. Because pretending to be sad is more despicable than rape. Happily, I can now sing ‘Little Donkey,’ a song completely free of the stench of life, without any burden…
On this night, the meaning of my guitar’s existence was simply to entertain a cute little girl. Of course, her mother rewarded me with a delicious cup of yogurt. Then we said our goodbyes on Pingjiang Road… In this lifetime, we probably won’t meet again. Because Suzhou is so big, and it’s been over three years, yet we only met by chance tonight.
At the moment she was about to turn away, I finally asked, “Can I at least know your name?”
“Ai Mu. What about yours?”
“Haha, I won’t tell you!”
After Ai Mu left with her daughter, Pingjiang Road suddenly felt deserted. I sat on a stone bench by the riverside and lit a cigarette. I didn’t want to feel sad about the past anymore. Because whether it was Jane Wei or Ai Mu, as long as they found happiness on their own life paths, that was true happiness. Whether their memories included a man named Zhaoyang wasn’t important at all. After all, no one becomes happy because of the past, nor does anyone living happily look back at the past. The two most important words in life are “understanding.” Only by understanding can one claim to be a master of life. As for those who fail to understand and are left with only pain, one can only say: That’s what they deserve!
Based on this, I seemed to see: One day in the future, Jane Wei and Mo Zishi walking along this Pingjiang Road, laughing and chatting happily… Whether or not Jane Wei and I would end up together had long ceased to be our destiny.
…
On the day Mo Zishi returned to China, our company’s mobile game “Empire of Another World” officially launched and went into operation. On this day, I and the company’s senior management all stayed at the data center, waiting for data feedback from different time periods.
Led by Tongzi, the game development team had discovered a bug in the game “Dragon Soaring the World” a week earlier—a bug that allowed players to infinitely farm training pills. They were exploiting this bug to farm massive amounts of training pills… Then they posted the method of exploiting the bug to farm training pills on the largest external forum of Dragon Soaring the World. Soon, players started exploiting the bug to farm massive amounts of training pills. By the time Dragon Soaring the World noticed, many players had already farmed enough training pills to severely disrupt the game’s balance… Dragon Soaring the World immediately issued an emergency announcement that the game would be taken offline for a day to fix the bug.
The players’ emotions were completely ignited. By afternoon, it had already escalated into an uprising. Those players who had heavily invested in the game were extremely dissatisfied because this bug had ruined the game’s balance. They demanded Dragon Soaring the World provide an explanation. If their demands were not met, they threatened to pursue legal action to reclaim all their investments in Dragon Soaring the World.
At this point, under my instructions, our company’s PR department posted an explosive message on Dragon Soaring the World’s external game forum: “Dragon Soaring the World’s top player ‘Tianya Commander’ will live-stream the complete deletion of his game account on this forum after the game restarts, to express his dissatisfaction with Dragon Soaring the World.” The news quickly spread, once again pushing Dragon Soaring the World to the center of the storm. At this time, many high-spending players had already stated that as soon as Tianya Commander deleted his account, they would follow suit and delete theirs…
In the following days, the entire incident’s development completely fell into our control. Cao Jinfei deleted his account, worth millions, after the game restarted and announced that he would invest 1 million RMB into our game… At this point, Cao Jinfei’s influence began to show. First, his guild members in the game followed him to our game. Then, other high-spending players, after hearing that our game was highly playable, also started registering accounts in our game and making large in-game purchases.
On the second day after the game’s launch, our registered user base had astonishingly reached 60,000. It must be noted that this was achieved with minimal promotional expenses. We successfully lured nearly half of Dragon Soaring the World’s high-spending players. Their terrifying spending power caused us to achieve our one-month sales target within just three days of the game’s launch. Our team indeed created a small miracle in the mobile gaming industry through event-based marketing. With the continuous surge in our user base, we might recover our initial investment costs within two months.
Afterwards, investor Zhou Zhaokun gave our company full recognition. I discussed with him the plan to use 5 million yuan of the recovered investment costs as employee bonuses. All senior management would receive a car worth 300,000 yuan, while other employees would receive varying amounts of cash rewards… This generous act further motivated the entire team’s work enthusiasm, and the company quickly entered a virtuous cycle of development… This success also pushed me to a higher position in the business world, making me a typical case analyzed by certain financial magazines. Indeed, I now have a respected artistic path and a highly profitable game company, achieving a good balance between brand reputation and profitability.
…
While I was advancing triumphantly, Fang Yuan’s moves were even bigger. I heard that Wansen Group’s initial investment in building an online mall had already reached several billion yuan, and the industry highly praised their entry point into the e-commerce field. Currently, they only sell high-end luxury goods on their online platform, a targeted approach that effectively avoids a large portion of market competition. This strategy benefits from the foundation and reputation accumulated by Zhuo Mei. Therefore, after investing heavily in promotion, they attracted a large number of high-purchasing-power consumers. It was even said that in a recent event, they achieved nearly 100 million yuan in sales in a single day. For an online mall in its early stages, this was an absolutely historic miracle!
Fang Yuan had already reached the peak of his life!
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