Even I felt a little displeased as well.

Five minutes later, the two of them were sitting in the pavilion in the residential compound, at a round stone table with four stone stools. Two motorcycles were parked beside it, as though the pavilion had been turned into a garage.

Seated on the stone stool, Zhang Pan asked, “A date, here?”

Liu Xiaomei stared at him with bright, crystal-clear eyes. “What else would this be?”

Zhang Pan said, “Shouldn’t a date mean dinner first, then a movie, then finding some place... Why does that whole routine feel so familiar?”

Liu Xiaomei laughed. “Finding some place to do what?”

Zhang Pan pointed at the tabletop. “Find a place to play chess, just like we’re doing now.”

The stone table was carved with a chessboard. Liu Xiaomei looked at it and laughed. “You’re a bad boy. Not well-behaved.” Then she went on, “Her Majesty the Dowager Empress has summoned you to present yourself tomorrow. You don’t need to buy anything. She asked me what you like to eat so she can prepare.”

“Huh?” Zhang Pan thought it over. “What kind of rhythm is this?”

Liu Xiaomei pointed to herself. “For a rare, pure, peerless beauty like me, of course my mother can’t just hand me over to some cat or dog. Don’t you think so?”

Zhang Pan said, “Fine. I’ll move in with your family.”

“Really?” Liu Xiaomei said. “You said it yourself. No taking it back.”

“What’s going on here?” Zhang Pan was startled, then lowered his voice. “Your mother wants me to live there?”

“Of course. My mom says you’re from out of town and making a living in the provincial capital isn’t easy. You only make six thousand a month anyway; it’s better to save that money and use it to buy me gifts. So you can live at our place.” Liu Xiaomei smiled.

“Her Majesty the Dowager Empress... has quite a personality,” Zhang Pan said after pondering it for a while. “What do you think?”

“If you move in, I’ll move back home, and we can see each other every day.” Liu Xiaomei said, “That’d be nice too. We’d see each other every day, and after a year we’d probably get sick of each other, so there’d be no need to get married.”

“What kind of mentality is that?” Zhang Pan asked. “Can’t I just not move in?”

“Do you think just anyone can live in my house?” Liu Xiaomei said. “Because I get along with you, my mom wants to give you a full evaluation. Well? What do you think?”

Zhang Pan replied, “I’m too shocked. Shocked in the same way as the idea that you could like me.”

“Who says I like you? So full of yourself.” Liu Xiaomei looked down at the chessboard. “Let’s play a game.”

Zhang Pan said, “Please wait, my lady. Allow me to leap onto the board.” As he spoke, he made a show of preparing to get on.

Liu Xiaomei laughed. “There you go, taking advantage of me again.” Then she said, “I think we should meet often, sing together, dance together, and during holidays go see the sea and take flights together. What do you think?”

It was the kind of question that didn’t require an answer. First of all, Zhang Pan had been pursuing Liu Xiaomei. Although Liu Xiaomei firmly refused to yield and would not admit to being his girlfriend, everything from the moment they met showed that she absolutely had feelings for him, and that he occupied a very important place in her heart.

As for living together, the beauty had already made three suggestions. The first was to rent a place together. Later it changed to the beauty paying to buy a house, with one room each. Now there was a third: her mother directly inviting Zhang Pan to live in their home.

Did Zhang Pan want it? Of course he did. He wanted every one of those proposals to come true. But he couldn’t.

After hearing Liu Xiaomei speak of what she hoped for, Zhang Pan said, “I do too.”

Liu Xiaomei blinked. “What are we doing tomorrow?”

Zhang Pan said, “At all times, awaiting the leader’s summons.”

“It’s settled then. Come to my house tomorrow.” Liu Xiaomei said, “I’ve always wanted to watch melodramatic romance shows with my boyfriend, mocking them all the while. Will you?”

“Of course I will.” Zhang Pan answered loudly.

Liu Xiaomei smiled at him. “Then let’s go. Take me home. Tomorrow morning just go straight to my place.”

Zhang Pan asked, “Not going back to the dorm?”

“Not going back.” Liu Xiaomei stood up and started walking out.

Zhang Pan hurried after her, but after only a few steps, Liu Xiaomei gave a soft exclamation. “No, tomorrow I still have to entertain Lin Lan.”

Zhang Pan asked, “Then am I still coming to your house tomorrow?”

“If even I’m not going back, what would you go for?” Liu Xiaomei asked. “About those three things they mentioned today, what do you think?”

Zhang Pan answered, “Your thoughts are my thoughts.”

Liu Xiaomei smiled. “Then refuse them all.”

Zhang Pan said, “You really are something. You turned them down so lightly, so calmly. For other people, those would be opportunities.”

Liu Xiaomei said, “I don’t need that kind of opportunity.” Then she added, “Come on, let’s go home.”

By home she meant the dormitory. The two of them strolled back to the eighth floor. Zhang Pan went into the room, drank a glass of water, and listened to Liu Xiaomei sing a song. Only then did Liu Xiaomei mention the real matter: “About that thing you said, making an animated film, I feel that even if it turned out well, it would only be an ordinary story. On the other hand, a web drama has more to offer. It also has real potential.”

Zhang Pan said, “The animated film was something I came up with on a whim. What I’m thinking is that a company can’t exist on just one web drama. The one about the two big dogs has depth and substance. It can raise the company’s quality.”

“If that’s the case, you could find a few students from a music school to help you. Pay them five or six thousand a month, and there should be people willing to do it.” Liu Xiaomei asked, “You don’t have anyone available, do you?”

“The company hasn’t even been founded yet,” Zhang Pan said. “We’re renting an office at Xinyuan. These next few days I’ll see about getting the paperwork done, then recruit a few students to do the grunt work.”

Liu Xiaomei said, “The school has a digital media arts program. If you can settle it, I can help you hire people.”

“Digital media?” Zhang Pan asked. “A fancy way of saying animation?”

Liu Xiaomei laughed. “Pretty much.”

Zhang Pan said, “A music academy opening a dance department is already impressive enough. Now they’re even opening an animation program. The school leaders really have ideas.”

Liu Xiaomei laughed. “If there are students who want to study it, then why not open it? Besides, it’s not just our music academy that does this.”

Zhang Pan asked again, “Anyone who can afford to come to a music academy and study this major can’t be poor, right?”

Liu Xiaomei said, “The tuition isn’t cheap.”

Zhang Pan said, “Then that’s a relief. I can just set the pay however I want.”

Liu Xiaomei smiled. “What a heartless capitalist.”

The two of them chatted for a while longer. After nine o’clock, Zhang Pan took his leave, rode his bicycle home, and wrote stories.

Tomorrow was Sunday. Zhang Pan planned to finish the book he was writing now tomorrow and bring it to a close.

Then he would begin another story from scratch, another story capable of drawing readers in.

When writing normally, one inevitably encountered moments of blockage, but now that he was writing the ending, a kind of unstoppable flood had finally arrived. His fingers flew over the keys, and before long he had filled a whole page.

He wrote straight through to two in the middle of the night. Hearing the door open, he got up to look. It was Fatty and the others returning. Fatty walked over to Zhang Pan with a grin. “No luck for you. Guess where we went?”

Zhang Pan said, “Where else could you have gone?”

“The Bright Moon Palace.” Fatty said smugly. “Damn, it was incredible. All the girls were in uniform, those uniforms were sheer and revealing, slit all the way up to the waist, with two long legs on display. Damn, you couldn’t even look enough.”

“The Bright Moon Palace?” Zhang Pan looked back. “Who treated you?”

“Wang Kun,” Fatty replied.

“That bastard still dares come back?” Zhang Pan’s eyes widened. “Where is he?”

“Don’t get so worked up, okay?” Fatty said. “He came back planning to apologize to you. He wanted to call, but was afraid you’d curse him out, so he asked us to say a few nice things to you first.”

“Nice things?” Zhang Pan gave a cold laugh. “Fine, go on.”

Fatty said, “Wang Kun used to be pretty rotten...”

Zhang Pan sneered. “Pretty rotten? He sold you out, and you forgot?”

Fatty smiled. “How could I forget?”

“Even if you don’t forget, you can still be bought off?”

“It’s not being bought off,” Fatty said. “Wang Kun is right. We should look ahead. This time he brought back money and wants to do something in the provincial capital, looking for a few brothers to help.”

After a pause, he added, “I’m telling you, there’s no one else in his eyes, only us few. He named us all: you, me, Sissy, Turtle, Bandit, Old Meng, and himself. He said he wants to start a company, and in the beginning it’ll just be the few of us holding things up. Once it develops well, then we’ll bring in those guys from Sixth Son’s crowd.”

Zhang Pan laughed. “So what you mean is, he thinks the six of us are worth something?”

“Whether we’re worth something or not is another matter. At the very least, him even looking at us that way is already not bad.”

Zhang Pan laughed. “One trip to the Bright Moon Palace and he bought you off?”

“Damn, do you know how much we spent tonight? Thirty thousand! Just went there to sing, and it was insane.” Fatty said, “The princess taking song requests was ridiculously pretty. Full kneeling service, too. And those outfits were practically nonexistent. The girls were all tall with long legs. If you wanted, they’d even change clothes for you, like stockings and all that. You could touch them however you wanted, really, just however you wanted. I found one who looked just like the campus beauty from the film academy, and she was unbelievably open. Damn, compared with them, the girls we used to call over... there’s no comparison.”

Before Zhang Pan could answer, Fatty continued, “Wang Kun said that as long as the company develops well, we can go once a week in the future.”

Zhang Pan gave a cold snort. “What a man with stories.”

Fatty said, “Wang Kun wants to see you. Tomorrow’s Sunday. Want to meet him?”

“Whoever,” Zhang Pan said. “Just don’t say I didn’t warn you. If anyone dares bring him here, we’ll have a proper talk.”

Fatty was silent for a moment. “All right then. Sleep.” He went back to his room.

Sissy came over and said, “Actually, you two... have always gotten along pretty well... good night.”

The sentence was broken into three pieces, because Zhang Pan’s expression never changed, cold and unreadable.

After locking the front door and turning off the lights, he returned to his room and kept writing the ending of the story, not going to sleep until after three.

He got up at seven in the morning and kept writing. Doing nothing else, just typing, he wrote until two in the afternoon and finally finished.

He checked it over, posted it online, set the time for publication, and let out a long breath. Another story had come to an end.

But a story could end; life had to go on. In the life that lay ahead, there would still have to be new stories.

He went for a walk around the compound. Rarely feeling this light, he watched old women taking their grandchildren out for a stroll, watched a few children gather and play, watched the busy residents coming and going, watched the security guard at the entrance... and for some reason he felt that everyone else’s life was real, was busy. Why did he seem like nothing more than a bystander?

He liked this feeling, yet he could never quite become part of it. Thinking and thinking, he suddenly smiled. This was what home felt like.

He went to the little shop and bought two bottles of beer, a sausage, and a bag of peanuts, then went back to sit alone in the living room and drink.

No one was at home. Fatty and the others had gone to find Wang Kun. Not only the people who had gone out singing last night, but also Sixth Son, Big Wu, and some others; they said there would be a big gathering at noon, and they still hadn’t come back.