This director is vindictive.

Chapter 438 The fireworks in the world are the most soothing to mortal hearts.
People of different eras and ages have completely different feelings about this event.

For those born in the 00s, they can be considered digital natives.

According to some netizens.

"Love letters? Aren't those antiques in museums?"

Generation Z was initially confused about the event, as they were more accustomed to expressing affection through emojis and voice messages.

But when I tried writing love letters, I unexpectedly discovered the charm of retro rituals.

Another college student searched her entire dorm room but couldn't find a usable fountain pen. In the end, she used a highlighter to scribble crookedly on glow-in-the-dark stationery: "This is my first time writing a letter. The courier said the postage for this 'cash on delivery' love letter was enough to buy three years of QQ membership... but she said it was worth it!"

The accompanying picture is a huge blot of ink on a letter, with the caption: "The ink leaking from the fountain pen is just like my love—muddled and blinding."

A couple played a "retro love letter exchange challenge." The boy wrote on the back of a spicy snack wrapper: "Spicy snacks from 2003 are more addictive than milk tea from 2024." The girl replied: "Next time, I suggest using a Haidilao waiting slip; it's long enough to let you express yourself."

For those born in the 90s, it can be said that they are a transitional generation. They experienced the era of letter paper and also stepped into the digital age.

"Would the notes we passed back then be considered love letters?"

Nostalgic netizens shared a middle school note: "A 2009 note saying 'See you at the school store after school' vs. a 2024 AI-edited version saying 'Your ponytail is the fiercest wind of my youth, blowing away all my pretentious drafts'... If I had this writing skill back then, I would have been in a relationship long ago!"

These users, who grew up in the early days of internet adoption, feel both nostalgic for the event and technologically dependent on it.

Someone unearthed love letters from their student days that they never sent, and used AR scanning to bring the faded handwriting back to life, dynamically displaying the creases that led to the heart shape they once folded.

"Back then, our 'retracting message' was a physical version—we'd throw a crumpled piece of paper into the trash can by the back door of the classroom."

A working-class person dug out a note from high school in 2010 that read, "Buy me some spicy snacks after school." They rewrote it as: "Back then, spicy snacks at the corner store were a romantic treat for five cents. Now I could buy an entire production line, but I can't buy back that summer when you smiled at me with a coin in your hand." After sending it, they received a reply from their first love: "The spicy snack factory went out of business a long time ago, but your handwriting is much neater than it was back then!"

As a result, both of them received two boxes of "Spicy Strip Romance Gift Packs" sponsored by the Weilong brand for the 814 Welfare Festival!

People born in the 70s and 80s can be considered remnants of the era of letter writing.

Letters, especially love letters, are full of sentiment.

Now that they are middle-aged, they don't think like the post-00s generation that "wise men don't fall in love." They are now heads of families or parents.

This group of middle-aged people became the main force of the event and were the most enthusiastic participants.

"The smell of ink from a fountain pen is like the pheromones of our youth."

"I still keep the love letters I wrote back then. They represent my lost youth and my lost love! (Attached photo: A metal box filled with a stack of yellowed envelopes!)"

A netizen posted a picture of a yellowed love letter and a current family photo: "In 1989, he wrote 'I wish to grow old with you,' which now seems like false advertising (picture: husband's receding hairline)... But after AI changed 'growing old together' to 'sharing hair transplants,' our son laughed so hard he crowed!"

Then the family received a "hair growth product" gift package sponsored by a cosmetics brand!
An older man found the original manuscript of a love letter that he never sent in 1989: "Factory Flower: May I invite you to dance 'The Little Girl Under the Streetlight' at this social dance party?"

Then, I picked up my pen and continued writing: "Thirty years later, when I was dancing to 'The Most Dazzling Ethnic Trend' in the square, I realized that the note I didn't hand over back then was the only time I ever got stage fright and slowed down to the third beat."

His wife replied: "If you had dared to submit it back then, you wouldn't be fighting with your grandson for the TV to watch 'Sisters Who Make Waves' now."

An elderly couple copied the "voluntary marriage" part of their marriage certificate into a love letter: "In 1995, the pen at the Civil Affairs Bureau ran out of ink, and the staff said, 'Love doesn't need much ink.'"

The son complained, "No wonder we've always used ballpoint pens since I was born—we were afraid we wouldn't have enough ink."

With the start of the 814 Welfare Week, from the very beginning, a group of netizens complained that they were fooled by Chen Mo and that there was no AI at all.

However, everyone quickly said, "It's really good!"
Moreover, such activities often easily trigger a wave of collective memories, and for many young people today, it is also a rare "dating experience"!
Meanwhile, many older people have shared their stories of "love letters," which have gone viral online.

While sorting through his late wife's belongings, a university professor found an unopened letter falling from the title page of Yeats's poetry collection. The envelope bore her delicate handwriting from her youth: "To you in the future—Summer Solstice, 1989."

With trembling hands, he unfolded the letter. Faded blue ink revealed three lines written by the girl with braided pigtails from years ago: "The first time I peeked at you in the philosophy section of the library, the second button of your white shirt caught my eye / If I am no longer here when you receive this letter, please remember to water the jasmine on the windowsill every day / In the next life, I will still be your teaching assistant, but this time I will be the first to say, 'Hey, you're holding your reference book upside down.'"

Two faded movie ticket stubs were pasted on the back of the letter; they were from the night they watched "Romance on Lushan Mountain" at the open-air cinema.

After recounting his love story with his deceased wife, the old professor wept uncontrollably.

Such love stories are extremely rare in today's world.

"The ticket stub for 'Romance on Lushan Mountain' on the back of the letter is the ultimate romantic surprise! Who still keeps movie tickets from twenty years ago?"

"Where can you find such nostalgic and enviable love these days?" "It brought tears to my eyes. The love letters of our parents' generation held the essence of a slower pace of life. Now, breaking up and blocking someone on WeChat takes three minutes; even argument records expire."

"What a romantic love story! No wonder there are fewer and fewer romance movies these days, because people today simply don't understand the love of that generation!"
People today are afraid of marriage and childbirth, even saying things like "I wouldn't even date a dog." In a way, the real tragedy is that young people living in this era are finding it increasingly difficult to experience true, enduring love.

One netizen also shared a story about his great-uncle.

In an old alley on Yihe Road in Jinling, there is an inconspicuous fountain pen repair shop. The old man is a taciturn craftsman who has repaired fountain pens all his life and has handled more nibs than he has ever seen the world.

Every Wednesday, however, he would put down his work and sit by the window waiting for an airmail letter from Liverpool.

Later, out of curiosity, I asked him who sent the letter.
He showed me a photo of the other person; she was an elderly woman with silver hair who always wore a cheongsam.

I remember that there was always an old fountain pen tucked in the letter, along with a few casual words: "Old Xu, the Yong Sheng brand pen you gave me for graduation in 1956 is leaking ink again, just like the trembling voice you made when you confessed your love on that snowy night in Cambridge."

Uncle would always smile, wipe his glasses, repair the pen until it was completely dry, and then attach a note: "It's fixed. Don't use it to write long letters next time, and save the ink."

And so it went, year after year, the letters never stopped, and the fountain pens kept arriving one after another.

Until that winter solstice, a letter arrived, but it wasn't in the old lady's handwriting.

I remember that when my uncle opened the envelope, his hands were trembling.

Because the envelope contained a photocopy of a will, which stated:

“Leave all the pens to Master Xu for repair. Please give the Parker 51 engraved with ‘LSY’ to the Jinling Museum—in 1948, he used it to copy intelligence for the underground party, and I have loved it for seventy years while pretending not to know it.”

I remember that time, my uncle, with red eyes, took out that Parker 51 from the depths of the drawer; the engravings on the barrel had long been worn smooth and shiny.

He gently unscrewed the pen cap, and the nib remained as sharp as ever, as if he could still hear that trembling voice from seventy years ago in the snowy Cambridge night.

The following year, my uncle also passed away!

I once asked my uncle about his story with that old lady in the cheongsam, but he always smiled and shook his head. He has always treasured those letters and would take them out to read from time to time.

I still can't understand why they keep using this incredibly outdated way of communicating, even though they could easily reach each other with a phone call or a text message.

Two people who clearly love each other are separated by vast distances.

Perhaps this is their love story!
The warmth and comfort of everyday life are what truly touch people's hearts, and the most popular stories are those filled with the essence of everyday life.

There's a mute uncle on our old street who sells tofu. He can't speak, but his tofu is the tenderest on the whole street.

Every day after closing up shop, he would squat in the corner and write on the back of his greasy ledger with his nearly worn-out pencil stub. When he finished writing, he would fold it into a small square and tuck it under the piece of tofu he was going to give to Aunt Zhang the next day.

Everyone in the neighborhood knew about this—forty years ago, Aunt Zhang's husband died in a mining accident, leaving her to raise her children alone. At that time, Uncle Ya had just started his stall, and seeing Aunt Zhang always coming to buy tofu with red eyes, he began to slip letters into her basket.

The letter always contained only three lines:
You glanced at me more than once when you were weighing tofu this morning.

Add a spoonful of honey and two drops of sesame oil to the last of the tofu puddings.

After the demolition next month, can I still reserve the softest tofu for you at the new supermarket?

The next day, Aunt Zhang would always "coincidentally" find these notes. Sometimes they were tucked inside the plastic bag containing the tofu, sometimes they were under the scale. After reading them, she would smile and put a couple more coins on the stall to pay for the tofu.

Until the day the demolition team arrived, the workers smashed open the brick wall of the tofu stall, and a stack of yellowed paper pieces fell out of the cracks in the wall.

The earliest one is so brittle it's almost crumbling; it bears Uncle Ya's crooked handwriting from forty years ago:
"I'll give you an extra half block of tofu today / Crying too much will cause you to have too much salt, which is bad for your health / I'll save you a bowl of sweet tofu pudding tomorrow."

At the very bottom was the red hair tie Aunt Zhang used when she was young, wrapped with a note from last year:

"Don't put too much honey, your blood sugar is high / I've replaced the sesame oil with sesame paste, it's not greasy / I've already rented a stall at the new supermarket, it's the third one by the window."

Now their tofu stalls are next to each other in the new supermarket; one sells soft tofu, and the other sells sweet tofu pudding. Sometimes when they close early, you can see Uncle Ya gesturing as Aunt Zhang smiles and drips sesame oil into his bowl of tofu pudding.

The old neighbors all say that this is probably the romance of the older generation.

The unspoken "I like you" that I've kept hidden in that piece of tender tofu I make every morning.

(End of this chapter)