Before opening the post, Tao Ling had already thought that perhaps the beautiful girl he had encountered before had come to see Wen Qingying again. Sure enough, after the wailing in the first post, the next one revealed a photo.
The photo was a bit blurry, as if taken from across the street, showing Wen Qingying’s tall and slender figure inside the flower shop, accompanied by a well-proportioned woman.
Several pictures were taken, all showing the two facing each other and talking. It wasn’t until the last one that it became clear: the woman was clutching Wen Qingying’s wrist, and he seemed to be frowning.
Someone below said, “What can a few photos prove?”
On the fifth floor: “Looks like a little couple having a quarrel?”
Sixth floor: “Is upstairs stupid? The owner can’t speak, so what’s the argument about?”
Eighth floor: “Can’t speak? Is he deaf and mute, or just doesn’t speak? Fuck! HiqHDUGQ亅；odhYE! (Due to extreme heartbreak, the above message is automatically sent by the phone)”
Ninth floor: “He is deaf and mute, I’ve bought flowers from him before.”
…
15th floor: “Girls always argue like this on their own, right? The guy automatically blocks you out, but you still keep talking.”
16th floor: “The guy upstairs has a severe case of straight male syndrome.”
20th floor: “15th floor is definitely in the closet, been accompanying us through the floors for a long time. I’ve seen your ID, if you like the owner, then just say it.”
The floors strayed further and further from the topic, and the original poster who disappeared after posting the pictures finally showed up again on the 37th floor: “It’s true they were having a conflict. That day, when they were arguing, I was across the street, and it felt like the owner had run away from home. Besides being boyfriend and girlfriend, there’s nothing else between them. If you’ve seen them in person, you’d understand. They’re just perfect for each other! The girl is definitely a beauty, and my heart has been shattered into pieces.”
Tao Ling: “…”
After browsing for a while, his mind felt like it had crashed. Without waiting for himself to think it through, he began registering for an account.
In the registration process, when prompted to choose an ID, he hesitated for half a minute on the interface. Tao Ling glanced outside, lowered his head to type, and registration was a success.
A minute later, the newest floor appeared in the building’s thread—
A user with the ID named “first_window_of_the_left_hand_side” said, “You guys have too much free time, is there any meaning to this? It’d be better to read a couple books instead of focusing on strangers’ lives.”
51st floor: “Is upstairs crazy? We’re focusing on a handsome guy, not you. I think you’re just seeking attention because you don’t get any, right?”
Several floors in a row were filled with criticism, and someone said, “The ones upstairs should calm down. And the one on the_left_hand_side, looking at your ID, are you still stuck in your chuunibyou1Japanese colloquial term typically used to describe early teens who have grandiose delusions, who desperately want to stand out, and who have convinced themselves that they have hidden knowledge or secret powers. phase? You’re muddling in the wrong forum, go back to your homework.”
Tao Ling: “…” The tone he used just now was a questioning one, not taunting. He hadn’t intended it that way, thinking he was engaging in discussion, but to others, it seemed like he was picking a fight.
The thread quickly filled up, and after a long pause, “first_window_of_the_left_hand_side” spoke again: “Excessively focusing on others’ lives is a manifestation of possessiveness. Is it not a bit abnormal to harbor possessiveness towards strangers?”
Fuck your new user verification code, full of unfamiliar characters, can’t even read it properly.
Tao Ling immediately exited out after sending this sentence.
He pocketed his phone and headed downstairs. Halfway down, he suddenly felt like he was losing his mind.
Crossing the road to the flower shop, the previous customers were nowhere to be seen.
Seeing Tao Ling, Wen Qingying smiled as usual, revealing his two sharp little tiger teeth, adding a youthful charm to his handsome face.
Although there was a slight discomfort in his heart just now, it had mostly dissipated by now. However, Tao Ling hadn’t yet noticed the change in his mood.
Wen Qingying lowered his head, exposing his clean forehead and brows to Tao Ling without any defenses. He typed on his phone: “Sir, I just squeezed some juice. It’s ready to drink now. Would you like to try it?”
“Sure,” Tao Ling nodded and followed him into the shop.
The table behind them had been cleared, and in the center was a juicer, alongside a coffee pot emitting a fragrant aroma of coffee.
Wen Qingying washed a cup and poured juice into it while Tao Ling typed on his phone, not showing it to him until the cup had been poured: “Can I have coffee?”
Wen Qingying lowered his hands, responding: “The coffee’s already cold. It was brewed at noon.”
“It’s okay,” Tao Ling replied, taking an empty cup.
Seeing this, Wen Qingying suddenly lifted the coffee pot and placed it on the top shelf, then turned around as if nothing had happened, continuing to pour juice.
Tao Ling: “…”
Pushing the cup in front of Tao Ling, he typed again: “It’s not that I don’t want to give sir any, but it’s already six, if you drink it you wouldn’t need to sleep tonight.”
Tao Ling smiled, but what he said was: “I can’t sleep anyway, so it doesn’t matter.” He took a sip of the juice, immediately pursing his lips and furrowing his brows. He raised his head to see Wen Qingying’s innocent expression, then still ended up swallowing it down with difficulty.
The sourness was almost unbearable, causing his eyebrows to twitch involuntarily.
After observing him for a moment, Wen Qingying suddenly laughed, a mischievous glint flashing in his eyes.
Tao Ling: “… is this revenge?”
He said this out loud, and Wen Qingying pretended to not understand his meaning, typing: “The juice sir bought back last time didn’t have any sugar, so I thought you liked it sour.”
Tao Ling had dug himself a hole and had nothing else to say. He lifted his eyelids, giving an eyeroll that didn’t seem like an eyeroll.
Wen Qingying laughed more and more, almost to the point where Tao Ling became annoyed, before he collected himself and retrieved a jar of honey from the cabinet, and added sweetness to Tao Ling’s cup.
“You’re also not easy to bully, just like Tao Jun. An eye for an eye, huh?” Tao Ling muttered to himself.
After sitting for a while, Tao Ling remembered why he came here today. He took out a schedule for the first-year graduate students from his bag and handed it to Wen Qingying. Normally, graduate students all have unique schedules that they just need to look up on the system, but this one was handwritten by Tao Ling at noon.
His class was scheduled for Friday evening, starting at 7:30 p.m.
Wen Qingying took the schedule with both hands, pressed his index finger against it, and skimmed from Monday to Friday, finally stopping at the name “Tao Ling,” looking at the person opposite him with a questioning gaze.
With such a look, Tao Ling suddenly realized that, despite knowing each other for so long, Wen Qingying didn’t actually know his name. His name was on Tao Jun’s tombstone, but the letters were small and somewhat obscure, so Wen Qingying probably never noticed.
With this thought in mind, he nodded.
Wen Qingying typed on his phone with a smile: “Is this why sir likes chrysanthemums? Xiegongshan stays unchanged, the chrysanthemums can still remain.2谢公山不改，陶令菊犹存, a line from an ancient poem from the Tang Dynasty. 谢公山 Xiegongshan is a mountain named after a person, Xie Gongshan (literally thanks public mountain lmao). The chrysanthemums are Tao Ling’s namesake, 陶令菊 (Tao Ling chrysanthemums), named after a person who liked the flowers so much.”
Seeing these poetic lines, Tao Ling was somewhat surprised. Wen Qingying didn’t seem to be trying to show off, he gave a thumbs up in approval and responded: “I don’t care too much about them, it’s my brother who likes them. I actually don’t like autumn that much.”
Wen Qingying had a piece of paper at hand. While Tao Ling continued drinking juice, he buried his head, comparing the schedule and writing something.
Watching his hands move on the paper, Tao Ling suddenly thought of the post he had just read, and in an instant, everything in front of him seemed dull and tasteless.
With his elbow resting on the table, he absentmindedly touched the ring on his left middle finger. Unconsciously, he took off the ring halfway and pushed it back to the base of his finger. If it went up, he would spin it leisurely in circles for a while before taking it off again, repeating the cycle.
This was his habitual action when lost in thought. Glancing up at his face, Wen Qingying’s gaze eventually shifted down and landed on his hand.
Before Tao Ling snapped out of it, a customer arrived outside, prompting Wen Qingying to get up and greet them. Finally, Tao Ling collected his scattered thoughts and grabbed his bag as he headed out of the shop.
On the table, the schedule and the paper still lay there. Half of the courses had already been transcribed onto the paper, and in the corner, another line of poetry was written that Tao Ling hadn’t noticed: “Tao Ling’s sincerity abounds, from his face yearning vanished at the bounds.3陶令多真意，相思一解颜 also a line from a poem. The context is that the author of the poem gave a gift to their friend, Tao Ling. And the moment Tao Ling received the sincere gift, all of Tao Ling’s feelings of missing the author friend vanished from his face.”
The author has something to say:
【Note】 “Xiegongshan stays unchanged, the chrysanthemums can still remain” is from Huangfu Ran’s poem “”Returning to the Old Residence of Zhong Cheng with the Grace of the Emperor””;
“Tao Ling’s sincerity abounds, from his face yearning vanished at the bounds” is from Ling Yi’s poem “Reply to Chen, the Prefect, on Receiving His Gift on the Boat”.
Sorry for the delay today! m(o_ _)m
