Ding Zhitong’s confidence wasn’t baseless. While planning the wedding, she and Gan Yang had joked about how dramatic it was for people to cry at weddings.
They disliked overwhelming flower walls, sentimental music, and fairytale-style themes. They repeatedly emphasized to the planners and emcee: no emotional manipulation. They even asked relatives to keep the door-blocking tradition brief, preserving only essential ceremonies for a simple wedding.
Song Mingmei’s thoughts aligned with Ding Zhitong’s.
A few months after finalizing her divorce, Deng Baiting remarried. The newlyweds, likely due to the bride’s pregnancy, skipped the banquet and only shared a professional wedding photo – white shirts against a red background. Some busybody forwarded it to Song Mingmei, probably hoping to gauge her reaction.
Song Mingmei, however, remained unfazed. Only today did she confide in Ding Zhitong: “Now, I just want a simple relationship.”
“So, it’s happening?” Ding Zhitong smiled knowingly.
Song Mingmei nodded.
“Who made the first move?” Ding Zhitong probed.
“Can’t remember, we both felt it,” Song Mingmei feigned ignorance, her smile betraying her.
Ding Zhitong felt proud as if she’d successfully pitched a project. “Isn’t the ‘expert’ I introduced you to amazing?”
Song Mingmei paused, then replied, “You know, I’ve said I’m attracted to capability, but after spending time together, I realized what truly moved me wasn’t how impressive he is.”
“Then what was it?” Ding Zhitong asked curiously.
Instead of answering directly, Song Mingmei began discussing GameStop.
For her video on the topic, she interviewed several Wall Street veterans with decades of experience, no less seasoned than Qin Chang.
Initially, the internet buzzed with “retail investors defeating Wall Street.” Then came a wave of criticism, mocking this simplistic view and suggesting institutional manipulation. Later, when brokers restricted trading to selling only and Reddit forums were taken offline, causing the inflated stock to plummet, some claimed the capitalists were sore losers, acting as both referee and player, controlling even the sideline reporters.
However, the veterans saw a different reality.
One of Song Mingmei’s interviewees, a secondary market specialist, explained it as a typical short squeeze meeting the gamma effect.
The trading restrictions, forum shutdowns, and Bloomberg’s professional whitewashing weren’t just to protect short-selling institutions. Like in 2008, it was about preventing a domino effect – the “too big to fail” logic that never grows old.
Similar events had happened before and would happen again.
Another interviewee, a former G Bank colleague specializing in macroeconomics, told her this retail vs. institutional battle reflected a societal issue. He gossiped that since the pandemic, New York office MDs and partners had been working from home – some in East Hampton vacation homes, others as far as Florida, posting photos of empty beaches and skies.
The distance between people had grown to life-and-death proportions. Those infected were essential workers who had to leave home daily; those dying were the uninsured poor. That’s why so many retail investors, armed with stimulus checks, went all-in against Wall Street. But what’s the use? In such volatility, even professional traders lacked certainty. The real winners were unlikely to be inexperienced retail investors.
Was this a collapse of humanity or a moral distortion? A failure of brokers’ risk control or a market-wide loophole? In the end, a minority profited while the majority footed the bill.
Similar events had happened before and would happen again.
Sure enough, within two months, the experts’ predictions came true. The day before Ding Zhitong’s wedding, another major incident occurred.
A Korean named Bill Hwang, trading Chinese stocks through a Japanese brokerage with high leverage, faced a chain reaction of margin calls when Chinese concept stocks plummeted, setting a record for the largest single-day loss by an individual investor in human history.
“What did Qin Chang say?” Ding Zhitong expected her mentor to offer more insightful commentary after others had dissected the incident.
Song Mingmei smiled, seemingly recalling the moment: “He understood the logic, but he still chose to believe in the future.”
Ding Zhitong hadn’t expected such a simple answer.
For a moment, she remembered the homeless man crowdfunding a time machine in the New York subway years ago. The dreadlocked Jamaican had approached her, saying, “You’re right, the future isn’t good.” She had thought the same then.
“Don’t you think it’s foolish and naive?” She recalled Qin Chang’s self-deprecating words.
Song Mingmei paused, then shook her head, looking at Ding Zhitong: “Maybe the old me would have thought so, but now, I feel that maintaining innocence after understanding everything is the most precious quality.”
Ding Zhitong was captivated by these words.
She had once regretted they hadn’t met earlier. Now she finally understood – they had met at the most suitable time; there was no early or late.
Time flowed by, and the essential wedding procedures unfolded: fetching the bride, blocking the door, and the tea ceremony.
The once-quiet apartment bustled with activity, filled with familiar yet strange faces greeting her.
Yu Lin, tasked with serving tea at the door, ran around wearing an Ultraman mask.
Someone teased Yu Lin with an internet meme, asking, “Do you believe in light?”
Yu Lin mimicked this, running around and asking others, “Do you believe in light?”
Many gave him the standard online response: “There’s no such thing as Ultraman in this world.”
Only the groom crouched down and said, “Of course, I believe in light.”
He then called over a groomsman, asking Wang Yi to explain the principle of least action to Yu Lin, saying that the universe is composed of photons.
Wang Yi asked the bride’s family and friends, “Do you have any scratch paper? I’ll draw a diagram…”
Ding Zhitong thought Yu Lin would probably never look at Ultraman the same way again.
She finally saw Gan Yang again, wearing an impeccably pressed tux, holding her bouquet. He looked his best, making her feel like the only one out of place in the room. She maintained a composed exterior, pretending to be calm while just trying to get through the day. Her only remaining concern was that she hadn’t finished writing her vows.
When Gan Yang carried her out of the house and into the elevator, she realized her wedding dress was quite simple, with a modest skirt. Still, he didn’t let anyone else in, telling those behind, “No more room, take the next one.”
As the elevator doors closed, she noticed his hands trembling. He whispered in her ear, “I’m so nervous…”
Ding Zhitong sighed in relief, hugging his neck and laughing softly, suggesting, “Should we run away?”
Gan Yang shook his head firmly, holding her tighter, “Don’t even think about it. I still have things to say to you.”
Ding Zhitong thought, “Oh no, he’s prepared, but I still haven’t written my vows!”
Otherwise, everything went smoothly, each part of the ceremony unfolding simply as they had requested.
The ceremony took place at dusk. Ding Zhitong had finally drafted some cliché phrases in the restroom, memorizing them haphazardly. But as she walked arm-in-arm with her father towards the floral arch, hearing the guitar strains of “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” she saw Gan Yang standing there, gazing at her. He suddenly turned away, wiping his eyes. She almost broke down too, silently hoping the makeup artist had heeded Song Mingmei’s advice and used waterproof eye makeup.
It was a short song, a brief walk. She reached him, taking his hands in hers.
“Ding Zhitong,” he said, looking at her, “Do you remember when we first met?”
She nodded. The surrounding music, lights, and guests seemed to fade away, leaving just the two of them face-to-face.
“We were so different then, hardly knowing each other,” he continued, smiling with misty eyes. “I didn’t understand anything back then, just kept asking if you wanted to go running with me. Thankfully, you didn’t mind and agreed. Since then, we’ve learned to love, to compromise, to live together. I’ve always wanted to tell you, that meeting you and being with you is the luckiest thing in my life.”
She smiled back, her eyes also glistening.
“Later, we separated, because of capitalism, and because I wasn’t strong enough,” he said self-deprecatingly, his smile fading. “After that, I often longed for the past, wishing to go back. Until I met you again, got to know you anew, and reflected on the years I spent alone, I realized you had never really left. Though we were apart, we became more alike. This past year, we’ve faced challenges, realized our dreams, and fulfilled our promises. We’ll surely encounter more in the future, but I want you to know that we now have enough strength and faith. I just want to keep running with you, on and on.”
“Gan Yang,” Ding Zhitong responded, squeezing his hands, forgetting everything she’d written in the restroom. She just spoke what came to mind, “When we first met, I always felt most people in the world were incapable of love. You patiently pulled me out of that shell, teaching me to love myself, to be loved, and to love others. Later, we separated, both making many wrong decisions. But until I met you again, got to know you anew, and reflected on the years I spent alone, I realized you had never really left. Though we were apart, we became more alike…”
She echoed his words, and they both laughed, tears in their eyes once more.
“This past year,” she continued, “we’ve faced challenges, realized our dreams, and fulfilled our promises. We’ll surely encounter more in the future, but I want you to know, I’ll keep running with you, on and on.”
As night fell and the wedding banquet’s clamor subsided, they sat in a corner of the hall after the guests had left.
“It’s over just like that…” Gan Yang mused, feeling a hint of nostalgia for the wedding he had expected to be awkward.
Ding Zhitong felt the same but was also tired, leaning on his shoulder and saying, “We can finally go home.”
Gan Yang asked, “Whose place?”
“Rock, paper, scissors?” she suggested.
The winner was decided in five seconds.
Gan Yang complained, “How do you always win?!”
Ding Zhitong laughed, “Don’t you know you always go scissors then paper?”
Gan Yang sighed, suddenly remembering, “Oh no, I didn’t wash the dishes this morning…” He stood up and carried her out.
“How can you be such a sore loser?!” Ding Zhitong protested, but hugged him tighter, laughing.
At first, she genuinely found it funny – after all these years, how could he still be like this? Then she felt touched – after all these years, in some ways, he was still the same as before.
At that moment, she remembered the Jamaican man in the New York subway. If the time machine crowdfunding had succeeded, if she could go back in time, she would want to return to Ithaca in 2007 and tell her past self to love bravely. She also wanted to go back to 2008 and tell herself sitting in the subway that the future is very good.