That night, Mi Cai and I gave up on driving and instead strolled leisurely through the streets already filled with the atmosphere of the Lunar New Year. I smoked while she took out her point-and-shoot camera, capturing people and scenes that she liked. This unhurried mood became imprinted on us, making me feel that I had never been so relaxed the entire year.
After finishing a cigarette, I finally nudged Mi Cai beside me and said, “Let’s have a chat for a while, okay?”
“What about?” Mi Cai replied, and then took another photo of me.
“Can you put away your camera before we talk? Carrying a camera around isn’t a good habit!”
“Why isn’t it a good habit? What do you mean by that?” she asked curiously.
I smiled and said, “Do you know a male actor whose surname is Chen? He always carries a camera too. Cameras are kind of evil objects—they tend to cause big troubles.”
“What kind of big troubles?”
“You really don’t know?”
“I only know that you look like a superstitious nut right now.”
“Just trust me and put the camera away. Especially for girls, carrying a camera around isn’t appropriate—it offends public sensibilities!”
Mi Cai ignored me and continued happily taking pictures of the street scenes with her camera, which made me even more bored. I wanted to light another cigarette but felt my throat was dry and uncomfortable.
In my boredom, I kicked an empty soda can along the ground until I reached the end of the street. Suddenly, a strong gust of wind blew the can away, and my boredom multiplied, becoming unbearable. Finally, I seized the camera from Mi Cai’s hand when she wasn’t paying attention.
“Zhaoyang, what are you doing?”
“I just want to see what you’ve been taking pictures of.”
I started flipping through the photos in the camera and was quite surprised. Most of the pictures were of young parents with their adorable children—not the street scenes I had expected.
“Do you really like children?”
Mi Cai nodded and said, “Of course I do. If I had a baby in the future, he or she would be my whole world.”
I teased her, “You don’t seem like a modern woman at all. You know, having children takes up a lot of living space, so nowadays many people choose to be child-free.”
“That’s none of my business. I just like babies.”
“Okay, okay. After all, everyone has their own preferences… Still, I think: your baby will definitely be very beautiful.”
Mi Cai seemed quite interested in this topic and asked, “How beautiful?”
“As beautiful as you! So fair-skinned, like porcelain… I mean, how can you be so fair? And not the sickly pale of Lin Daiyu either!” I said, scanning her from head to toe, imagining what she would look like in summer. Come to think of it, we had met in autumn, and I had never actually seen her wearing a short skirt. I imagined she would be even more beautiful then.
Mi Cai ignored my admiration and asked me, “So, do you like babies?”
I seriously imagined a scene in my mind: Mi Cai as my wife, each of us holding a baby. I felt a rush of warmth and sweetness, so I nodded quickly and said, “Yes, I really do like them!”
“Then aren’t you afraid of the shrinking of personal space after having children?”
“If I were afraid of that, my brain must have been crushed by a door! What I said just now was only about those new-generation people who don’t want children. I was referring to a specific group, not everyone!”
Mi Cai smiled, seemingly satisfied with my answer. Then I pretended to sigh and said, “Sigh… How lucky the man who marries you would be! But I bet you must have very high expectations for your future husband.”
“He just needs to be good to me and to our baby—that’s enough!”
I scoffed, “Sure, that’s what all women say. But in reality, you secretly have a long list of hidden demands. Don’t think I don’t know!”
Mi Cai smiled faintly and said, “You seem to think you really understand women.”
Instinctively, I replied, “Of course I do, because I’ve had similar experiences. Women always pretend they have almost no demands, but in reality, they’re the hardest to satisfy.”
“I don’t agree with that. Because you still haven’t truly understood what ‘being good’ really means.”
“Then tell me what it really means. I’m willing to listen!”
Mi Cai was silent for a moment before she said, “Being good means devoting your whole life to it, not just making a promise or being good for a certain period…”
“What if there is a man who can do that?”
“Then I would be willing to marry him, to be his wife, and to have his baby!” Mi Cai said, looking at me.
Her words stirred something deep inside me, and I felt an urgent desire to express myself. But in the end, I chose to remain silent, because as Mi Cai had said, “being good” wasn’t just an impulsive promise—it was a lifelong commitment, a sincere and real devotion.
After calming down, I finally said to Mi Cai, “You will definitely meet a man who will be good to you for a lifetime… Then you can marry him and have a baby with him.”
Mi Cai nodded, then fell silent. I finally returned the camera to her, and we walked together under the streetlights onto another street.
…
As we were about to pass the second block, I asked Mi Cai again, “Have you decided what songs to sing tomorrow night? Or are you still going to improvise?”
Mi Cai shook her head and said, “Not yet. Why don’t you give me some suggestions?”
“Okay, how about singing two songs by Junzi—’Spring Equinox’ and ‘Autumn Begins’? These songs fit the theme of the bar, which is based on the seasons.”
“I haven’t heard them before, but I can learn.”
“Great. Tonight I’ll send you the guitar tabs for these two songs. Practice them a bit in advance.”
“Sounds good. But the guitar you gave me earlier is still at the apartment in Liuan Jingyuan…”
I immediately interrupted, “Then let’s go get it now.”
“That’s not what I meant. Can’t I just use your guitar? Don’t you think it’s inconvenient to go there now?”
I replied hastily, “Not inconvenient at all! Besides, you haven’t even used that guitar yet, so tonight is a perfect opportunity for you to get familiar with it!”
Mi Cai frowned and said, “Wait, is it because that guitar was a gift from your first love, so you don’t want anyone else to touch it?”
I cried out in my heart, “That’s not fair!” Although in the past I had indeed been unwilling to let others touch that guitar, I had already exchanged it with Aj for another one. Now it no longer belonged to me, and I even suspected that Aj had already modified it, especially since my name and Jianwei’s were engraved on it.
I said sternly to Mi Cai, “Why do you always have to overcomplicate things? Do we really need to argue endlessly about which guitar to use?”
“I don’t want to argue with you either, but you’re just so annoying. You always seem to be deliberately going against me… I don’t care—I’m going to use your guitar tonight!”
Looking at Mi Cai’s determined expression, I suddenly felt like I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. But under the current circumstances, I really couldn’t fulfill her request, so I quickly started thinking of ways to handle this in my mind.
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