Wei Zhi drove Han Yiming back home. Midway, Han’s parents called. Hearing that the two were already on their way home, they were very pleased and thanked her repeatedly. Their affectionate tone over the phone was enough to give anyone goosebumps.
Mr. Han said, “Xiao Zhi, it’s all thanks to you for bringing him back. Don’t be fooled by your Han Ge’s age; whenever he’s with Jiang Chao and the others, he always ends up crawling home, with no sense of moderation. No one can persuade him… but this time, you brought him back early.”
Wei Zhi awkwardly smiled in response.
By this time, the car had arrived at the underground parking lot of Han Yiming’s residential area. The man didn’t rush to get out. Leaning against the passenger door, he looked at her with a half-smile, listening to her politely inform the person on the other end of the call that they had arrived and were about to hang up. Her tone was exceptionally obedient.
He couldn’t help but recall Jiang Chao’s words: “Wei Zhi, this girl, is liked by every man.”
Although they never said it out loud, always joking when they did, Han Yiming knew that among their circle, there were only a few girls. Some had been spoiled by their parents since middle school, and only a handful were well-behaved…
Wei Zhi was one of them.
If he didn’t make a move, they would be eager to try.
Having had a few drinks, Han Yiming’s thoughts wandered. He thought, “Good thing I came back in time.”
Patiently waiting for her to hang up, he looked her up and down. When she struggled to lean over the steering wheel to check the rearview mirror, he finally spoke, “Did you hear my dad’s tone just now? If I don’t marry you, I’m afraid they won’t let me in the house for New Year’s.”
“Ge,” Wei Zhi’s voice was calm, “Your jokes tonight seem endless. If you keep this up, I’ll get out of the car, and you can park it yourself.”
Han Yiming raised his eyebrows, about to say that even if he were drunk, he wouldn’t need to brake ten times while parking…
Before he could speak, she slowly added, “Once you get in the driver’s seat, you’ll find ten traffic police officers waiting for you, summoned by reported calls.”
“……”
The car slowly backed into the parking space.
Han Yiming couldn’t understand why there would be a girl who threatened people in such a cute way.
So, when Wei Zhi finally completed her task as a mover, sighed in relief, and unbuckled her seatbelt, just as she reached for the driver’s door, the man lazily asked, “Want to come up for a cup of tea?”
Wei Zhi: “……”
The words sounded familiar.
In the serialized comic Wei Zhi was currently working on, the story was about a woman who traveled to another world and became a female demon, raising an ungrateful disciple. After much effort, she raised him, only to be “executed on the spot” by the disciple who surpassed her…
Their ill-fated relationship began when the young disciple, after a training session, grabbed her sleeve and asked, “Master, would you like some tea?”
…………………………………………………………
Then, the master was “brewed” like tea by the disciple.
Connecting the dots between the second and third dimensions in her mind, the author, known to her readers as “the most cunning otaku in the world,” slowly realizes that this might be a signal…
“Han Yiming, I’m not going.” She reverted to calling him by his full name, her tone cold, “If you want tea, drink it yourself.”
She wasn’t in the mood for jokes tonight.
Han Yiming didn’t quite understand whether she went to Zhangjiakou for fun or transformation as if the northern ice and snow had hardened her bones—
She had resisted him countless times tonight.
Raising an eyebrow, unable to find the root cause, he thought he might be overthinking… The man was slightly displeased but didn’t show it. He raised his hand to press his brow, patiently and gently saying, “I still prefer it when you call me ‘Ge’.”
As he spoke, he habitually reached out to tuck her stray hair behind her ear, but she deftly dodged. “Go back,” Wei Zhi said, “Ge, good night.”
……
Returning home that night, Wei Zhi was physically and mentally exhausted, yet she still had to fulfill her obligations to her readers.
She opened her tablet, first sketching the storyboard and rough drafts. The pitiful male lead finally got out of the bathtub, his “ding” not wrinkled, still as useful as ever, a pillar of strength…
Wei Zhi, with a facial mask on, expressionlessly drew the “pillar of strength.”
Her pen moved swiftly as if guided by a divine hand. Even when outlining the “pillar of strength” that would be censored, she felt no emotional waves.
Until she drew the scene where the female lead entered and caught the male lead before he could dress—
The female lead, a career-focused demoness, wasn’t shy at the sight. She asked him how he got poisoned, whose poison it was, and how he could get poisoned like this, questioning where his brain was during training…
As she wrote these lines, Wei Zhi felt the familiar frustration of the dialogue.
Thinking about it but not recalling it, she didn’t dwell on it and continued drawing.
The male lead didn’t let the female lead finish her words. He wrapped his arms around her waist, placed her on the windowsill, lifted her skirt, and buried his head…
Huh?
Hmm.
Wei Zhi’s swift pen suddenly stopped. She stared blankly at the screen for three seconds, looking at the male lead’s action of placing the female lead on the windowsill. It felt incredibly familiar, and that physiological discomfort surged again.
Expressionlessly, she clicked the software’s clear button, watching the few pages of rough sketches disappear. She didn’t feel any regret—
So the plot changed to the female lead questioning the male lead’s brain, then dragging him to bed…
The windowsill was out of the question.
Never in this life.
With a bed, they should stay on the bed.
After finishing this batch of storyboards, Wei Zhi got up to make herself a cup of coffee. While waiting for the water to boil, she sent a WeChat message to Jiang Nanfeng.
[Girl Ji: Today, under the watchful eyes and expectations of many, I went to pick up Han Yiming.]
The reply came quickly.
[Ginger Juice: No wonder my brother came back so early. Turns out their leader was taken away by you.]
[Girl Ji: The point is, I found that after having overly intimate interactions with Han Yiming, beyond neighborly friendship, it severely affected my work progress.]
Jiang Nanfeng was the only one who knew that Wei Zhi’s bank account wasn’t filled by the wind. Faced with her friend’s confession, she stared at her phone, spacing out for at least half a minute, unsure where to start—
[Ginger Juice: …………………………………………]
[Ginger Juice: Please wait while I calm down.]
[Ginger Juice: First question, you and Han Yiming went beyond neighborly friendship?]
[Girl Ji: Almost.]
Even through the screen, one could sense the girl’s gloom and calmness.
[Ginger Juice: So the second question is, almost means it didn’t happen. How did it affect your ghs? Did he take off his pants and pee in the underground parking lot in front of you?]
[Girl Ji: He hugged me.]
[Girl Ji: …Damn, am I unaware of my abnormal sexual orientation? Am I androphobic?]
[Ginger Juice: First of all, I emphasize that my sexual orientation is normal. If one day you become abnormal, remember that rabbits don’t eat the grass around their burrow (hugging myself).]
[Ginger Juice: Secondly, you androphobic? You held hands with a certain gentleman in Chongli for ten days without any issues?]
[Ginger Juice: Lastly, on the last day, you sat between a certain gentleman’s board fixers, with his “ding” above your head, holding his thighs, enjoying a 7km snowboard ride. After returning, you didn’t show any physiological discomfort. You cried because you wouldn’t see him again, and I comforted you all night.]
[Girl Ji: …]
[Girl Ji: You type pretty fast, huh?]
[Ginger Juice: I’m just reminding you not to have double standards. Han Yiming has good hardware conditions. If you don’t want him, many people are lining up to take him.]
[Ginger Juice: Don’t be so tense. Don’t think of him as a fiancé. Relax and try to get closer?]
Even though it was just typing, Wei Zhi could imagine Jiang Nanfeng’s light tone. She had seen many people and always seemed to handle men as if they were just a seasoning—
For example, on the way back, in front of Wei Zhi, she received all the photos and videos, thanked them cheerfully for one second, and deleted the guy she had called “Yan Yan” for ten days on WeChat the next.
The reason was that they wouldn’t meet again.
Who knows what the so-called “Yan Yan,” the number one scumbag in Chongli, thought about his complete downfall… Maybe he hadn’t even realized he was deleted.
Wei Zhi was pondering and comparing, marveling at how right Jiang Nanfeng was. How could she be such a thorough double-standard dog? Did she freeze her brain in Chongli—
At this moment, WeChat lit up again.
[Ginger Juice: If it doesn’t work, no matter how good the hardware conditions are, if you don’t want him, don’t. If just a hug makes you so physiologically uncomfortable that you can’t ghs, how will you handle sleeping next to him every day in the future? Won’t you go crazy?]
[Ginger Juice: Your readers’ “bedtime stories for girls” will be ruined. How tragic!]
[Ginger Juice: It’s the modern age. You won’t be drowned for refusing an arranged marriage.]
Wei Zhi felt enlightened by Jiang Nanfeng’s words.
[Girl Ji: Before Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai eloped, there must have been someone like you, an evil instigator, by their side.]
[Ginger Juice: Rest assured, butterflies symbolize pure love. The King of Hell has read Otaku Lady’s works and will never let you turn into a butterfly…]
[Ginger Juice: A dung beetle is more likely.]
[Girl Ji: …]
[Ginger Juice: Have you updated? Hurry up. Can you let the guard named “A Mo” who always watches over the female lead join in? I’ve been waiting for him to take off his pants for a long time.]
[Girl Ji: …]
[Girl Ji: Dung beetle +1?]
[Ginger Juice: Yes, even in death, it will compete with you to see who rolls the bigger, rounder dung.]
[Ginger Juice: Good night.]
The coffee was ready. Wei Zhi took a sip to calm her nerves, holding the cup as she returned to her workstation. It was already 3 a.m. Glancing at the completed sketches, she had at least 5 pages, solving the immediate crisis and temporarily easing her awkwardness… She saved the file, satisfied, and prepared to call it a night.
Before she could turn off her computer, Wei Zhi, still wide awake, casually picked up her phone and started browsing. She accidentally stumbled upon a photo she hadn’t deleted.
The photo was taken in portrait mode.
The man wore a face mask and snow goggles, making it impossible to discern his height or appearance. Only his ski suit with the “AK” logo and his snowboard covered in sponsor stickers gave him any recognition.
He stood in the middle of a crowd.
Around him were blurry figures of people coming and going.
Hanging from his elbow was a small turtle-shaped ski protector, with a patch on the turtle’s butt.
Everyone passing by would glance back at this high-end ski suit-wearing, top-tier snowboard-using guy and his newbie turtle butt pad, such a mismatched combination.
The charm hanging from her phone swayed, and Wei Zhi smiled, placing her phone under the display screen. She reopened her drawing software.
That early morning, fans of “Ji Zei’s Otaku” habitually checked the website to see if the missing author had returned. To their surprise, they found that the shameless author had indeed returned and updated two posts—
The first post: “I’m drawing, I’m drawing!”
The second post was a picture, of a blurry crowd with a man dressed in black, standing with a snowboard beside him, and a green turtle with a pink bow patch on its butt hanging from his thigh.
Within two hours, as everyone was having breakfast, the post had garnered hundreds of comments—
Most of them were not friendly.
Fan 1: “……”
Fan 2: “What is this?”
Fan 3: “This composition looks like it’s based on a photo. Impressive. Did Otaku fail to strike up a conversation with her crush at the ski resort and resort to secretly taking photos?”
Fan 4: “Why post a photo of your crush here? Is this a missing person notice?”
Fan 5: “Looking for someone here? If I click on her profile, I can see all her work. Do you introduce yourself on the street with ‘Hello, I’m Otaku, a ghs professional’? Can that work? Do I misunderstand the world, or does Otaku?”
Fan 6: “I waited eleven days, and you show me a man with clothes on?”
……
Skipping a hundred comments.
Maybe Fan 5’s vivid example was too striking. By the next afternoon, presumably when Otaku woke up, the photo-based drawing had disappeared from her profile.
……
After returning from Chongli, Wei Zhi stayed home for a whole week, barely bothering to comb her hair, living in a drunken stupor, isolated from the world.
During these days, she caught up on all her updates.
No one disturbed her; everyone seemed busy, which made her very satisfied.
On the eighth day, God created a beautiful world and decided to sleep.
And so trouble followed.
That night, around nine, Wei Zhi had just finished a batch of drafts and was leaning against the stove, holding a bowl of water to add to the pot of boiling frozen dumplings… when her phone rang. Seeing the caller was Jiang Chao, she answered—
Remembering how he had boasted in the private room, even though he was barely a brother, Wei Zhi had no patience for him.
“Get to the point.”
“Ah, it’s like this. Han Ge’s car key battery died. It will take a while to replace it at the 4S shop. He has a computer in the car with important patient data for tomorrow’s meeting. He asked if you could bring the car key to him.”
Hearing this, Wei Zhi shuffled in her slippers to check her bag—sure enough, she found Han Yiming’s car key from the night she drove him home. He must have been using the spare key these past few days.
“Why are you calling?” she asked while weighing the key. “Where is he?”
“A drunk driving accident just happened, a mess. He’s piecing someone back together,” Jiang Chao lazily replied. “Could you bring the key and some wontons? He hasn’t eaten since the afternoon.”
“Delivering car keys and a midnight snack,” Wei Zhi asked, “Did he do something good?”
“Does saving lives count?”
“……”
It does.
Damn.
Morally blackmailed, Wei Zhi, with a dark expression, threw the remaining dumplings into the pot. After cooking them, she neatly packed them into a thermal container, grabbed them, and took a cab to the hospital.
She arrived just before eleven.
The hospital was dark, with only a few nurses on duty. Relying on memory, she found the floor where Han Yiming was on duty. She asked a nurse for directions, and upon hearing “Han Yiming,” the nurse looked her up and down, taking in her thin autumn sweater, jeans, mask, and dark circles.
She was holding a thermal container, looking like a family member visiting.
But she hadn’t heard that Dr. Han had a girlfriend!
“Dr. Han’s restroom is the second to last on the right, with a nameplate on the door… He’s in surgery now, should be back soon.” The nurse checked the time, hesitated, then couldn’t help but ask, “You are…?”
“Just passing by,” Wei Zhi said. “Meituan delivery?”
Nurse: “……”
Making a face behind her mask, Wei Zhi entered Han Yiming’s restroom—
His restroom had the neat style of a Virgo doctor. Except for the bed, which showed signs of use, everything else was orderly…
Documents.
Reference books.
The office computer screen was still on, with a half-drunk cup of water beside it.
The only personal item on the desk was a photo. Wei Zhi picked it up and saw it was a childhood picture of her and Han Yiming at an amusement park…
She wore a colorful dress, with a red dot on her forehead from lipstick, smiling brightly.
She didn’t even remember when it was taken.
Feeling complicated, Wei Zhi silently put the photo back.
She found a place to sit, and soon, the door opened from the outside. A man in a white coat poked his head in, meeting Wei Zhi’s eyes…
There was a moment of silence in the restroom.
The man’s gaze shifted a hint of emotion in his dark eyes.
The fatigue between his brows dissipated a bit, and he even smiled slightly: “You came. I was going to take a cab to get the key after the surgery—Jiang Chao told me he called you, and I scolded him.”
No one cared how genuine the smile was.
Since he broke the silence first, Wei Zhi stood up, following his lead.
“Better not. What if there’s another emergency?” She patted nonexistent dust off her clothes. “I had nothing to do anyway, so it was no trouble… Oh, right, Jiang Chao said you hadn’t eaten all day. I brought dumplings. Want some?”
She held up the container.
Han Yiming was somewhat intrigued—he had been a doctor for many years, both in domestic and foreign hospitals. Women he dated often visited him at work for various reasons—
But coming late at night, when it was quiet and deserted, just to deliver a car key and a box of hot dumplings, was a first.
The girl still wore a mask, clearly in a hurry, with uncombed hair draped over her shoulders, wearing canvas shoes, looking both childish and unkempt.
Han Yiming didn’t mind, his gaze shifting to the thermal container in her fair hands. He said warmly, “I do want to eat. I’m hungry… You take it out first, I’ll change clothes.”
He turned and entered the small adjoining room.
Wei Zhi glanced at the blurred silhouette on the door, then turned to open the container—
The lid was tight from the hot dumplings. Wei Zhi struggled for a while.
Just as she was gritting her teeth, her phone rang, vibrating and spinning on the table, startling her.
Thinking it was Jiang Chao checking up on her, she answered without thinking, “Hello,” holding the phone between her ear and shoulder, still wrestling with the stubborn lid. Before the caller could speak, she said, “I’m at the hospital, stop rushing me—”
There was a few seconds of silence on the other end.
After a while, a cold, slightly hoarse voice asked, “Are you sick?”
The voice drilled into her ear, and Wei Zhi froze.
She blinked, dropped the container, and incredulously checked the caller ID—she couldn’t believe her eyes for the first time in her life—she put the phone back to her ear: “Hello?”
The man’s voice on the other end was the same as she remembered, unhurried and always with a hint of impatience: “What are you doing at the hospital?”
Cold and indifferent, it was hard to tell if he was casually asking or showing concern.
Wei Zhi’s palm holding the phone was sweating.
“No, I mean, I’m delivering something to a friend,” Wei Zhi stammered, “Is something wrong? Are you okay?”
The man listened to her rambling, then slowly said, “Nothing. We’re planning a trip to Xinjiang in a few days. Want to come?”
The invitation came out of nowhere.
Wei Zhi hadn’t even processed it when the small room’s door opened, and the man, now in a fresh shirt, walked out, seeing the girl tense, one hand on the container, the other holding the phone…
The container was still unopened.
But she was seriously on the phone.
Han Yiming raised an eyebrow, asking, “So late, who is it, Xiao Zhi?”
The mature man’s deep, slightly tired voice transmitted through the phone to the other person. Wei Zhi realized too late that covering the phone was pointless.
…And she didn’t know why she would cover it anyway.
The other end was silent, only the man’s steady breathing audible.
Feeling her scalp tingle, she hurriedly whispered, “I’ll talk on WeChat later,” and hung up.
……
Chongli.
In an old, small apartment.
Alcohol, peanuts, and chips were scattered everywhere, with a lively American movie playing in the background, but no one was watching—they were all sitting cross-legged, craning their necks, eagerly watching their boss.
The boss had just been hung up on, his face showing no significant emotion. He took a sip of his beer and announced, “She didn’t say if she’s going.”
Everyone’s faces showed a collective “that’s not the point” expression.
Shan Chong knew what they were thinking, and after a moment of silence, he added, “She was with her boyfriend, and couldn’t talk.”
A direct hit to the vital point.
The room fell silent.
After a long while.
Backstabber burped, then creatively asked, “So, should we steal her away?”