Chapter 62

Act VIII: The Cat Who Wants to Become Human (6)

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Xiang Cai repeatedly seek clarification: "Did you read that right? This sentence really means 'I like you'?"

The girl kept nodding: "This is my mother tongue, how can I be wrong?"

"..."

The schoolgirl's attitude was so determined that it led to a mess of confusion in Xiang Cai’s mind.

He didn't give up, hesitating slightly before asking, "Could it be that I wrote a stroke wrong, so that this sentence changed from ‘friends forever' to 'I like you'?"

The girl did not speak, but looked at him with a pitying, regretful, and somewhat emotional gaze.

They both knew that Xiang Cai’s repeated questioning was nothing but self-deception.

He stared at the signature paper in his hand. Those words seemed to have grown wings moving closer to him and changing by itself, and finally forming a girl's round, smiling face.

He remembered stepping into the classroom for the first time five years ago, when Qi Ji handed him the dried fish; he thought of how she had brought himself into the world of online dubbing; he thought of them secretly chatting during their morning exercises.

Those clues that had been ignored by him suddenly became so evidently clear.

When she had her lipstick confiscated; her hug downstairs in the bedroom; the day she transferred schools, when she laughed and said they would be lifelong friends...

The confession, which was five years late, was finally received by Xiang Cai today.

Xiang Cai had also experienced the hopeless of unrequited love, so he knew how difficult it was to have an unrequited love.

Many thoughts lingered in his heart, like ... it was like a seemingly neat bundle of yarn. It was not until he took it apart that he found that it was a complete tangled mess.

Xiang Cai didn't know how to deal with the shocking news of ‘his best female friend actually secretly had a crush on himself’. He wanted to talk to someone, but looked around at a loss, not knowing who to talk to.

Xiang Cai tried to discuss with Cen Manchuan.

"Well ... have you ever encountered this kind of thing?" Xiang Cai asked, "When you have a very good female friend, and they suddenly say they like you?"

Unexpectedly, Cen Manchuan tilted his head and said in amazement: "I don't know any female friends who don't think of me that way...All the girls who appear within three meters of me will confess to me at some point.”

Xiang Cai: "..."

Cen Manchuan asked: "Are you investigating my relationships? Don't worry, I haven't contacted them since I broke up with them!"

Until today, Xiang Cai had no idea that, Cen Manchuan was originally chased by girls. It was only Xiang Cai that he was in love with at first sight and took the initiative to pursue.

Xiang Cai didn't feel jealous, just a little curious: "Then why did you break up with them?"

"I don't know," Cen Manchuan said doubtfully. "Every time, they inexplicably break up with me. I asked them if we could continue to be friends after breaking up, but they all blocked me without exception."

"..."

Hearing this, Xiang Cai felt very distressed for those girls.

...

In the evening, after Xiang Cai returned to his bedroom, he couldn’t help but open Chen Ziran’s WeChat.

In high school, the three of them were the closest. Chen Ziran was a ‘fine person’. Xiang Cai suddenly wondered, at that time, would Chen Ziran have known Qi Ji’s thoughts?

[T/N: fine person/human spirit (rén jīng) = an observant, calculating, or shrewd person.]

guess: are you there? Ziran.

guess: I have something to ask you.

He estimated that Chen Ziran was probably busy with announcements, and his reply didn't appear until Xiang Cai was about to sleep after washing.

Face genius Chen Ziran: This minute I’m here.

Face genius Chen Ziran: But I might be gone in the next minute.

Face genius Chen Ziran: My female partner who was raised by money is simply mentally retarded. Bring me a parrot casually, and they will read lines better than her!

Face genius Chen Ziran: In this kissing scene, the script clearly says that she dies in my arms and blocks the knife for me. Before dying, I cry and kiss her, how abusive! How abusive is this!!!

Face genius Chen Ziran: As a result, the woman laughs during the first kiss, and laughs again during the second kiss, causing me to NG eighteen times in a row.

Face genius Chen Ziran: This dear laozi's mouth is peeling, was this f*cking intentional??

Before Xiang Cai could say anything, Chen Ziran snapped and said a bunch.

Nowadays, being a small fresh meat was not good. Chen Ziran’s tofu was eaten by an actress in vain, and unable to vent, he could only complain to Xiang Cai.

Originally, Xiang Cai sought him out to ask about Qi Ji’s matter, and didn’t think that in the end, confusingly, their roles were switched. Xiang Cai became Chen Ziran's trash can, collecting all the bitterness that he poured out.

After Chen Ziran had vomited enough black mud, he was refreshedly called away by the director, and Xiang Cai wasn’t able to ask the question in his heart.

The last solution left was to ask the other party directly ...

But as Xiang Cai quietly opened Qi Ji’s WeChat, and looked at the energetic chubby face as the girl’s avatar, he hesitated.

Since Qi Ji had transferred to South Korea, the frequency of contact between the two had decreased. Xiang Cai was a little sad at the beginning, and didn't understand why their once close friendship drifted further and further apart. He could only comfort himself: Qi Ji has gone to South Korea and must devote all her energy to her studies and work hard to integrate into the local people's group. She must not have as much time for old friends ...

...Now, in retrospect, this was actually Qi Ji’s intentional alienation.

Their chat history stayed since two months ago. At that time, Qi Ji saw the promotion of his graduation drama from the circle of friends, so she left a message wishing him a successful debut.

At that time, Xiang Cai replied:

guess: Thank you!

guess: How are you doing?

guess: When you graduate, are you coming back to China to develop or staying there?

But the girl did not reply.

Xiang Cai was so busy rehearsing that he quickly forgot about it.

Now when he re-read those conversations, he felt a taste of something else in his heart.

Qi Ji was too much like him—Qi Ji’s negative attitude was like Xiang Cai’s from five years ago.

They were so stubborn, they pushed away the people they cared about.

...

Because of this incident, Xiang Cai lost his sleep.

He had only slept for a few hours, and woke up before dawn.

He touched the mobile phone under his pillow and read it: five o'clock, he hadn’t gotten up so early in a long time.

University was not the same as the academy. There were no hard and fast school rules that required ‘all students to do morning exercises early at 5:30’. Xiang Cai was a young man after all, and he would inevitably get tired of this after going to college, but he still insisted on going to the dance room for training one hour in advance before the main classes every day.

It was only five o'clock ...

Xiang Cai hesitated for a little while, then quietly got out of bed and maneuvered out of the bedroom in the dark.

Since it was graduation season and cultural class examination week, the dance classroom was empty.

Xiang Cai wore summer practice clothes and leaned against the railing to form plies. It was a hot summer, so he was already sweating in only a few moves.

He rolled the cuffs of his white t-shirt up his shoulders, revealing beautiful muscular arms. His slender, straight legs stretched out of his shorts, in perfect proportion. When they were tense, no one could look away from those legs.

These five years had left many traces on Xiang Cai’s body. He grew taller, from a slender and weak boy to a tall and thin adult. Every inch of muscle on his body was full of strength, but it didn’t look cumbersome; his temperament was between boy and man, the fusion just right.

Xiang Cai looked at himself in the mirror and couldn't remember what he looked like five years ago.

The classroom was quiet, devoid of deafening music and distinctive metronome.

But the notes were in his heart.

He took off - his hands extended to the distance and his feet wide open - and he jumped high enough that his body formed a magical stagnation in the air, falling lightly to the ground after the arc was complete.

His feet were scarred, but he was used to dancing with the pain.

He danced silently for half an hour in the quiet morning sun. He had no partner, so he was his own partner.

Male step, female step. Ballet, Rumba.

Xiang Cai was squandering his strength, hoping to consume all those endless and crazy thoughts deep inside.

He didn't stop until he was exhausted.

It was as if he had just been fished out of the water, his clothes were so soaked with sweat. But the mess of thoughts in his head still didn't make sense.

Those thoughts were like weeds. He thought they were gone, but when the environment was right, they grew up again from the depths of the soil.

He was thinking about Qi Ji, and he was also thinking about himself five years ago.

Thinking of the confessions that neither one of them could expressed.

Thinking of the ways in which they avoided the other party for five years.

Xiang Cai picked up his phone and refreshed it mechanically, but when he turned to the contact list, he found no one to talk to.

… In the end, he opened Weibo stupidly, logged into his account that had been idle for a long time, and posted his second message this year.

@Xiang Cai V: If only everything in this world could be as simple as dancing.

This Weibo was accompanied by a photo he had just taken - he was sitting on the ground, and clicking the shutter casually towards the mirror of the dance classroom. There was no special angle or pose, he was just recording a brief moment in his life casually.

Xiang Cai’s Weibo was still registered for work, and there were almost no active fans. It was still not yet six in the morning, so he wasn't expecting anyone to see it.

He treated this Weibo account purely as the means for talking to himself, maybe he would just throw it into the trash when he sobered up.

But what he didn't expect was - one minute after his Weibo was posted, his WeChat rang.

A name, even until now, he had been unable to face, appeared in the dialog box.

Yiming Qingyun: I saw your Weibo.

Yiming Qingyun: Have you encountered anything?

Yiming Qingyun: If you can't solve it, I can give you some ideas.

Xiang Cai: "..."

He thought he was dreaming and panicked, looking through his Weibo contact list.

It turned out that - he didn’t know when - he was actually friends with Tan Yiming’s business’ Weibo!

Xiang Cai thought that pretending to be invisible at this time was the best way out.

But his hand seemed to have its own thoughts, and he clicked on Tan Yiming’s circle of friends.

The latest post was released a few hours ago: Tan Yiming stood with a few others, and a huge poster of the New York Game Show hung on the background wall behind him, covering him with sunshine.

guess: ... Are you in the United States now?

Yiming Qingyun: Well, Blizzard Entertainment is going to push the latest expansion of The Realm of Questions at a game show, and they’re calling all the voice actors over to perform.

It was five thirty in the morning.

Xiang Cai stayed in the dance classroom; Tan Yiming was on the East Coast of the United States.

They had a time difference of exactly twelve hours between them.

... It was as if everything moved back to five years ago.

Xiang Cai leaned on the mirror. Maybe it was that he slept too little and his mind was too dizzy; maybe it was that he was worn out from dancing and his body was too tired; maybe it was that he was thinking too much and his mental state was too fragile...

Anyway - at that moment, Xiang Cai was letting go, back to five years ago.

He became a 17-year-old again, and at that time, he was talking to his idol.

guess: Do you have time now?

guess: I encountered a problem and don't know how to solve it.

guess: Can i call you?

Yiming Qingyun: Yes, the event has not started yet.

Yiming Qingyun: Just wait for me to go to a quiet place.

Yiming Qingyun: What is the problem?

guess: Relationship.

Yiming Qingyun: ...

...

Thousands of miles away, Tan Yiming greeted the staff and then picked up his mobile phone, walking out of the guest lounge.

"Old Tan, where are you going?" George, who was smoking in the smoking area, saw him and asked this curiously.

After graduating, George stayed in the United States. After two years of interviews and introductions, he jumped onto Blizzard as a programmer and happened to be responsible for the development of the project The Realm of Questions. He also came along to this game show, and when the old friends met, things were naturally warm.

Tan Yiming raised his mobile phone and gestured: "I'm looking for a quiet place to make a call. A child I know wants to ask me a relationship question."

"Ha ha ha ha." Now George, who had a wife, two children, and three dogs at home, laughed out loud. "You haven't even started with love. He’s still asking you to help with relationship issues? Isn’t that too cruel?"

"..." Tan Yiming smiled bitterly. "Yeah, he really is cruel."

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The author has something to say: Now there are three feelings in front of Cai Cai.

Which one is love?

***

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