Chapter 7: The Heartless Flirt

There are three reasons why Di Ye and Xia Fangfei don't click: being unreasonable, being delicate, and being troublesome. Di Ye hadn't noticed the first two, but he felt the third one that afternoon, because she had browsed through every shop, large and small, on Qingyun Road, trying on every kind of merchandise, but simply refused to buy anything.

"We've been walking for over two hours, my legs are about to break. Have you picked anything out yet?"

"I saw you running quite well when you were playing soccer! The things here aren't good; let's go to the Department Store Building and take a look."

"If you still can't pick anything out when we get to the Department Store Building, I'm just going to buy you a skewer of candied haws as a gift."

"Fine, fine."

The 90s were the golden age for the Department Store Building; it was an indispensable core of the commercial circle in every major city, and Yuncheng was no exception. It was teeming with visitors and extremely lively. Di Ye saw many brands or products he was familiar with from his childhood, which stirred up quite a few fond memories.

However, he was exhausted by this point, so he just took a cursory look around. Then, he found a corner in the women's clothing section on the third floor, told Xia Fangfei to go try on clothes by herself, and sat down to rest with his *Compilation Principles and Technology* textbook cushioned beneath him on the floor.

Since he had experimented in the morning and confirmed that outsiders could not see the Light Screen, Di Ye openly summoned the Light Screen while resting to check his messages. He discovered that Di Ye had sent a voice message a few minutes ago, asking if he was free for a video call.

"It's already 3:30 in the afternoon, and this guy is only just sending a message. He must have pulled an all-nighter last night."

Di Ye swiped his index finger through the air to drag the Light Screen in front of him, adjusted it to the size of a tablet, and then pressed the button on the top right of his Electronic Watch to request a video call.

A few seconds after pressing the button, Di Ye appeared on the Light Screen. Seeing his messy hair and haggard face, Di Ye teased, "How does an all-nighter feel?"

"Even worse than being drunk. I didn't go to sleep until 10 this morning, and I just woke up. I haven't even had lunch yet."

"Do you know how to order takeout?"

"Yeah, I already ordered once last night. I just ordered a KFC set meal, it'll take 15 minutes to arrive."

Hearing that he was also eating KFC, Di Ye couldn't help but laugh and asked, "What did you do all night?"

"Nothing much, just looked at industry news from 1995 to 2023. The changes over these 20-plus years are too massive! Many things are more magical than props in sci-fi movies, like mobile phones. In 1995, I never could have imagined that everyone would have one in 2023, and they'd be more powerful than computers. And things like drones..."

Di Ye was a typical tech fanatic; he rambled on and on, finally concluding, "These 20-plus years have truly been a time of great change and splendor. It's a great pity I couldn't participate in them."

"It's not too late to participate now. I see you're particularly interested in programming; you could totally self-study..."

The Department Store Building was thriving with business and many customers. Di Ye sitting on the floor talking to himself piqued the curiosity of a middle-aged man accompanying his wife shopping. He leaned over and asked, "Buddy, who are you muttering to in the air?"

"I'm praying for time to pass faster so I can end this suffering sooner."

"Haha, you're really humorous."

While dealing with the middle-aged man, Di Ye was mentally preparing his conversation with Di Ye. As it turned out, something magical happened: several lines of text appeared on the Light Screen, displaying his thoughts.

"Do you have a keyboard over there? You can actually type!"

Di Ye's mind raced, and he immediately understood what was going on. He explained via silent thought in text: "No keyboard. The Electronic Watch is bound to our souls. Since it can transmit information via voice, it can also transmit information via consciousness. Whatever I think in my heart, it will display."

"Interesting, let me try too."

Di Ye was an old-fashioned guy who hadn't been baptized by web novels and had never experienced voice-to-text input; it took him quite a while to learn.

Since he was home alone, there was no need to use this method, so he quickly switched back to speaking and inquired, "There's a guy named Zhong Zhiming who just sent several WeChat messages urging me to hurry up and choose a topic to write a draft. Didn't you graduate from university a long time ago? Why do you still need to choose a topic and write a thesis?"

"It's not a thesis, it's a script for a self-media video. I'm at the Department Store Building right now, so it's not convenient to talk in detail. Let's talk tonight."

"What are you doing at the Department Store Building?"

Di Ye pressed the button on his Electronic Watch to adjust the video angle, showed the surrounding environment to Di Ye, and explained, "I helped you break up with Xia Fangfei, and now I'm accompanying her to buy a breakup gift."

Di Ye's worldview was impacted, and he exclaimed in surprise, "You people in 2023 still give gifts when you break up?"

"There's even 'breakup sex'... never mind, I won't pollute your pure soul. The Electronic Watch Xia Fangfei gave is very valuable. I can't return it to her now, so I'm just buying a gift to return the favor."

"That's true, but I only have 200 yuan in living expenses a month. You can't buy a gift of equal value to the Electronic Watch."

"It's fine, I sold the internship spot at IBM to Shi Yucheng for 50,000 yuan this morning, so I'm not short on money now."

Di Ye took money very lightly, but he was still somewhat uneasy and said, "If my dad finds out you sold the internship spot to someone else, he'll definitely be furious. You'd better pray for yourself."

"Is your dad's temper bad?"

"It's not that his temper is bad, it's that he cares a lot about face. He's already bragged to relatives and friends about me going to intern at a big American company next semester. Now that you've sold the spot, he's lost face and will definitely be very angry."

Hearing this, Di Ye rubbed his forehead and asked, "What month is the internship?"

"March 6th to April 6th, a one-month internship."

"Then it's fine. There's a three-month buffer period; we can totally find another way to take a trip to the United States."

"It's not that easy to go to the United States."

Just then, Di Ye saw Xia Fangfei come out of a fitting room in the shop diagonally across from him, wearing a camel-colored wool coat. He said hurriedly, "Going to the United States isn't as hard as you think. I'm hanging up first, let's talk later."

"Alright, go do your thing."

Di Ye stood up from the floor, walked over with his textbook, and seeing Xia Fangfei repeatedly checking herself in the mirror, clearly very fond of it, he said, "This one is quite good, it suits you very well, let's buy it."

"Forget it, it's too expensive, it's over 600 yuan."

"600 yuan to keep my legs from being tortured is a great deal."

Xia Fangfei took off the coat, hung it back on the rack, and insisted, "It's really too expensive, don't buy it. If you're tired, keep sitting, I'll go look at something else."

After taking off the coat, Xia Fangfei was only wearing a thin sweater, which revealed her graceful figure. Di Ye glanced at her rounded, full curves and said with annoyance, "I suddenly regret it. How about we just date?"

When Xia Fangfei was with Di Ye before, she had a strong sense of insecurity and appeared quite reserved. Having had her unrequited love broken by Di Ye's words at noon, she no longer had any psychological baggage and began to let loose. She put one hand on her hip, struck a model's runway pose, and said with a smile, "Spilled water cannot be gathered; you've already missed your chance."

"That's not necessarily true."

Di Ye reached out and took the coat down, teasing, "The ancients said women are like clothes. Look, even if you hang the clothes back up, you can still take them down again."

"Hey, this is really expensive."

"It's not expensive. Let's go, I have things to do tonight, I don't have time to keep shopping with you."

Di Ye paid with the Bank Card he had newly opened that morning, then took a taxi back to school. The two didn't speak the whole way. When they parted at the school gate, Xia Fangfei carried the clothing bag and said softly, "Di Ye, I believe what you said at noon now. You're good with sweet talk and you're willing to spend money; you'll definitely be a heartless flirt in the future."

"To each their own; if you like greens, we'll just be ordinary friends. If you like radishes, come find me anytime."

"Shameless, get lost!"

Di Ye didn't return to the dormitory, but went straight to the rented apartment. Passing by the student supermarket, he went in and bought a box of instant coffee. After returning to 303, he used an electric kettle to boil a bottle of water, made a cup of coffee, and then video-called Di Ye again to explain what self-media was.

Di Ye had a strong ability to accept new things; he understood it in a few minutes and once again marveled at the magic of technology, saying, "Making money by playing on a computer at home has always been my dream. I didn't expect it to be so easy to achieve in 2023."

"It's precisely because it's easy to achieve that the threshold is low and the competition is fierce. Zhong Zhiming and I mainly do long-form knowledge-based videos. Every time we choose a topic and write a script, it takes a lot of effort, but we don't earn much; it's just enough to scrape by."

"I've seen your Bank Card; you earned over 200,000 last year. My dad has been secretly selling smuggled appliances at the Chenghuang Temple for four or five years, and he's only earned that much. You call this just scraping by?"

"Big brother, a large meat bun only cost 1.5 jiao in 1995, but it costs 2.5 yuan in 2023; the price difference is more than ten times."

Di Ye complained, then asked curiously, "Your dad has quite the connections to be able to get his hands on smuggled electronics."

"He doesn't need any special connections; they're everywhere in Guangdong Province. There's an Yifa Mall in Yangcheng that specializes in wholesaling smuggled goods, and that's where my dad gets his stock."

Di Ye only knew that many major smuggling cases had occurred in the country during the 90s, but he hadn't expected it to be so rampant. Hearing this, he was very surprised and asked a few more questions, only to discover that Di Ye only knew the surface level and didn't understand the specific situation. He then had him search online using "Yifa" as a keyword, and the results surprised him even more.

"Over 80% of the smuggled electronics in the country during the 90s flowed out of this mall, and it even gave birth to well-known enterprises like Gome, Ruifeng, and Shengmeida..."

"Interesting. Tell Zhong Zhiming that the next video should be about this Yifa Mall."