Chapter 202: Since things have come to this, let's eat first

"Bottoms up!"

Two cans of beer clinked together, sending up a scatter of fine white foam.

It was getting close to midnight, and the overnight package had already kicked in.

Inside an internet cafe.

Not many people were pulling an all-nighter tonight—only a handful across the whole row of machines, politely spaced far apart so their trash talk wouldn't get too loud.

Yang Qiming took a sip of beer; the instant the alcohol touched his taste buds, his eyes narrowed slightly. The drink went into a troubled gut, but he still couldn't forget the humiliation in his heart.

Amid the clatter of keyboards, he let out a long, quiet sigh and couldn't help but say,

"How easily a familiar heart can change—yet still claim the heart of old is fickle."

Huang Cailang carefully cradled his beer can, took a delicate sip around the rim, and grinned foolishly.

"Bro, just let it go."

The game hadn't even loaded in yet, and Yang Qiming's face was already full of melancholy.

"True enough—out with the old, in with the new."

Huang Cailang froze. He'd told Yang to take it easy, but he hadn't meant *this* easy.

This wasn't letting go—this was building up credit.

Whatever. As long as Yang's happy.

Suddenly, the internet cafe's front door swung open, and a laugh-inducing voice rang out.

"How much for an overnight? Does it come with a Coke?"

Yang Qiming stood up and saw Li Hua, who'd come to surf the net alone. He watched him pull his ID from his pocket and haggle with the manager over a single Coke.

"Why's he here?"

"Should we say hi?" Huang Cailang asked hesitantly.

Five minutes later.

"Come on, come on, drink up, let's get in the game." Li Hua was overjoyed—coming to the internet cafe late at night without much money, and running into classmates who were treating.

Beer, ninety-nine percent a rare find, and it even comes with Coke. Damn, drink this and you're going straight to hell.

Almost mealtime again, brothers.

The three of them sat in a row, and male friendship was built at lightning speed.

Yang Qiming was too weighed down inside and just wanted someone to vent to—coincidentally, Li Hua knew how to say the right things. It was truly Cao Cao meeting another man's wife, a match made in heaven.

"Man, that's rough, Qiming." Li Hua had picked up the phrase from Jiang Nian and tossed it out casually. "If you ask me, just treat her as dead and be done with it."

"The school's so big—if you don't go out of your way to run into her, you won't see her. Stop making that funeral face. Just pretend she got hit by a car and died—hell, a happy funeral."

Li Hua was way too smooth with words; Yang Qiming's heart suddenly opened up.

"You make a fair point, brother."

Huang Cailang munched on a chicken leg on the side, chiming in with "yeah, yeah, yeah."

"I think so too."

Meanwhile.

In Xu Qianqian's living room.

She patted her little bulging belly, glanced at Jiang Nian beside her, and after a moment's hesitation asked,

"Do you feel like there's a bit too much this time?"

"Maybe," Jiang Nian said, gnawing a skewer in one hand and holding a Coke in the other, struggling to swallow the meat. "Maybe the owner's getting rich lately."

"Good people live in peace forever." Xu Qianqian was content, leaning back on the sofa to rest.

The living room lights were off; the light was dim.

The room was thick with the smell of barbecue. The projector was decent quality, casting a clear image on the screen; the picture flickered between light and dark, playing across both their faces.

The movie was a new release—some kind of adventure story.

Jiang Nian got up to clean up the leftover barbecue scraps, packed them into a garbage bag, wrapped it up layer by layer, then opened the door and set it outside in the ventilated hallway.

When he came back, he turned his head and froze.

In the living room, Xu Qianqian was wearing a blue sweater. She sat alone on the sofa hugging her knees, staring intently at the screen, her eyes shining.

Not even washing her hands, and there she is sneaking grapes.

As if I'm blind!

Jiang Nian couldn't be bothered to scold her, flopped onto the sofa, and launched his game.

With a buzz, Xu Qianqian's phone vibrated. She fished it out, glanced at it, and her expression soured.

Why is she messaging again?

Liu Ruoxin: "Qianqian, like my latest Moments post."

Xu Qianqian sighed and replied with an OK.

The other girl had been her good friend before they were split into different classes, but she'd dropped out for some reason. They'd only recently gotten back in touch, and she came to her now and then just to vent.

Xu Qianqian shot a glance at a certain someone and suddenly spoke up.

"Do you still remember Liu Ruoxin?"

"Of course—overthrow humanity's tyranny, the world belongs to the Trisolarans." Jiang Nian answered on autopilot without looking up, picking his hero in the game.

A teammate chimed in, "Got any girls? If not, I'm feeding."

Jiang Nian's temper flared. *This damn game—it's already like this and people still pick and choose. Won't play with this one, won't play with that one, throwing 'feed' around at every turn. *

So he offered kindly, 【Press 1 to resurrect your mom】.

"No, I mean Liu Ruoxin." Xu Qianqian corrected a certain someone's mistake. "She was in my class before. Her family used to live over at Chunyuan Residential Compound."

"Oh, oh, didn't she drop out last year?" Jiang Nian played his game, half-distracted. "That bastard stealing my buff—total lack of filial piety."

Xu Qianqian was a little speechless, then said.

"She had a baby."

Hearing this, Jiang Nian's fingers, which had been playing a game, paused. He looked up at Xu Qianqian.

"Liu Ruoxin is about the same age as us, right?" "Yeah."

Jiang Nian frowned, thought for a moment, then.

"So last year she dropped out not because she was sick, but because she was pregnant?"

"Possibly, the timing matches up." Xu Qianqian didn't know what to say. "She messaged me a while back, showing off her baby, it felt like—"

"Envious?" Jiang Nian asked.

"No, I just felt like I didn't know what to say." She shook her head. "I asked her when she got married, she said she hasn't yet, they're still negotiating the bride price."

"Then it's over, this year alone will probably cost at least five hundred thousand." Jiang Nian's tone was one of watching a spectacle.

Xu Qianqian was silent for a while, stared at the movie screen in some conflict for a while, then asked.

"Jiang Nian, don't you think they became adults way too fast? Just out of school, and now they have to be adults again, and take care of a baby—don't they get tired?"

"Crashed and burned, that's what." Jiang Nian had no empathy, and said it lightly. "If only they'd popped by the convenience store before taking off their pants, it wouldn't have come to this."

The words were too crude, Xu Qianqian refused to listen, covered her ears and moved a little farther from him.

With a buzz, Liu Ruoxin sent her another message.

"Qianqian, what are you doing?"

In the past, when she replied that she was doing homework, the other party would first say she was envious. Then she'd say things like how she really wanted to go back to school, if only she could return to the past, that sort of thing.

Pure regret-gushing empress, return to the past, casually destroy your paradise.

It left Xu Qianqian every time not knowing what to say, able only to stiffly offer some pleasantries like go out earlier, earn money earlier, have kids early and recover early, that sort of thing.

Because she couldn't bear to say anything that would hurt Liu Ruoxin, she was always carefully tiptoeing around the other's sore spots, which instead made Liu Ruoxin really like chatting with her.

When she got happy, she even invited Xu Qianqian to be her bridesmaid over New Year.

She actually didn't really want to go. It had been too long since they'd seen each other, and the other person had changed too much. They'd long since run out of common topics, and honestly she didn't really like other people's kids either.

Although saying so was a bit politically incorrect, she really wasn't that "baby-loving."

Compared to actually taking care of a baby in real life, she preferred watching through a screen, cyber-appreciating the cute babies of Douyin bloggers.

Rather than being forced to admire other people's ugly babies that cried all day long.

Oh look, my baby drinking milk is so cute. The color of the poop is so healthy, I have to send it to my friends to see, get them to praise my baby.

At first, she still felt a little guilty conscience, wondering if she just wasn't kind enough.

But after hearing Jiang Nian put it that way just now, she suddenly felt the words were crude but the logic held. It wasn't her mistake, so why should she have to take care of the other's feelings.

Thinking of this, she decided to set aside her reservations and replied.

"Eating barbecue, watching a movie."

The other party took half a minute to reply, asking in surprise.

"Not doing homework?"

Xu Qianqian's fingers flew, replying quickly.

"Finished it at school, at home it's pure play."

The other party was typing, and this time the gap was nearly a full minute, before sending a whole pile of sighs.

"Really regret not studying properly back then, this year I basically haven't worked at all"

Xu Qianqian didn't finish reading, and replied.

"If you don't have time to go back to school recently, next spring you could get in touch with a teacher. Ask about the single-recruitment route, you could get into a private school."

The other party didn't reply for a long time, clearly not expecting Xu Qianqian to reply so formally.

"Private schools are expensive, right? And they take a lot of time."

"Then you could look into adult undergraduate programs, or correspondence courses." Xu Qianqian didn't want to spend emotional energy, answering whatever was asked. "Those don't take up too much time."

"But those still can't compare to the credentials you guys got from the proper college entrance exam, feels like it's pointless." Liu Ruoxin sent a few cold-sweat emojis.

"And it's not good for my future career planning, once you're out in society it feels really hard to go back to school. Qianqian, what do you think I should do?"

Xu Qianqian figured she should accept that paths diverge and the world is always changing.

"Then get a late-night snack first."

This was a bad joke she'd stolen from Jiang Nian—things have come to this, let's eat first. When something bad happens, sit down and have a meal, then go to the dock and grab some fries.

Sure enough, once the bad joke was thrown out, the other party went quiet.

If the other party still refused to repent, she would toss the phone to Jiang Nian. He had plenty of bad jokes, and his manners were crude, often saying things that left people speechless.

After a while, Liu Ruoxin started up again.

"Qianqian, look at my Dong'er"

She didn't want to reply anymore, the other person refused to sleep in the middle of the night and insisted on showing off her baby. So she tossed the phone to Jiang Nian, telling him to watch it and reply perfunctorily, not to mess around.

Jiang Nian was a bit startled, he was just about to push the enemy crystal.

"Fine."

After about an hour, before they knew it, the movie had finished.

Xu Qianqian was reluctant to leave, her gaze moved away from the screen, her eyes lowered for a moment. She couldn't help wondering if she had forgotten something, what on earth was it?

Oh, right, the chat.

She reached out her hand toward Jiang Nian and said.

"Give me back my phone."

"Sure." Jiang Nian handed the phone to her.

Xu Qianqian switched to another movie and kept watching. She'd said she'd stay up until 3 a. m. before sleeping. It was only the wee hours of 1 a. m. now, she could still watch one more.

The moment she picked the film, she opened the chat app on her phone. She swiped up through the chat history, and her vision instantly went black.

"Sidong Fist—double fists smash through an empty house."

She grabbed Jiang Nian and let out an "Ah!"

"What nonsense did you post using my account?!"

Jiang Nian was dumbfounded and retorted.

"Weren't we chatting pretty happily?"

(End of chapter)