After the breakup, I was taken in by a group of trendy young women.

At the corner mala tang shop, two pots were steaming hot outside the door.

Lin Ye pushed open the door, and the wind chimes hanging on the door frame tinkled once.

There are only three or four tables in the restaurant, and it's not lunchtime yet, so one of them by the window is empty.

He walked over and sat down, and seven girls filed in one after another, dragging the plastic stools with a creaking sound.

"Help yourself to eat whatever you want."

Lin Ye pointed to the freezer by the door.

Bai Xiaojing was the first to rush over, pushing open the glass door and shouting, "Huatui, come here and help me check if these lotus root slices are fresh!"

Huatui walked over, pinched the edge of the lotus root slice with her fingernail, clicked her tongue and said "not bad". Then the two of them squeezed in front of the freezer, throwing skewers into the plastic basket with all four hands, the bamboo skewers clattering against the side of the basket.

The tattooed man didn't go to get the food.

She sat opposite Lin Ye, pushed her sunglasses up to her forehead, took out a cigarette case from under the small fan, put one in her mouth, but didn't light it.

She leaned back in her chair, looked at Lin Ye, and swirled her tongue around in her mouth.

"You must have suffered a lot of grievances when you were with her, right?"

She spoke in a very calm tone, not like she was gossiping, but more like she was reviewing a war that had already ended.

Lin Ye was unpacking disposable chopsticks. When he broke the chopsticks apart, one of them was not broken completely, and there was still a bit of wood shavings connecting the two chopsticks.

He tore off the wood fibers and aligned them with the tips of the chopsticks on the table.

"fine."

"What does 'thankfully' mean?"

Bai Xiaojing returned carrying a full basket of skewers. She slammed the plastic basket onto the table, causing the bamboo skewers to bounce. She pulled out a chair next to Lin Ye, sat down, and tilted her head to look at him.

"Brother, tell us the truth, did Zhang Qian cost you a lot of money?"

"Why are you suddenly asking this?"

"It wasn't sudden."

Hua Tui returned with a basket, sat down next to Hua Bi, and moved a plate of wide rice noodles closer to the pot.

"Just now at the mall entrance, she said you were stalking her. Stalking her? Who does she think she is? A woman who complains about you being poor even after paying rent, and she still thinks you'll stalk her after we broke up? Is she out of her mind?"

"That's right, that's right."

Green Hair squeezed through the crowd carrying a basket, his green hair almost falling into the plate of tripe.

"Brother, tell us how she treated you before. We want to know."

Pinky nodded vigorously beside him, not even noticing that he was holding his chopsticks upside down.

Qi Liuhai sat quietly at the corner of the table peeling a quail egg for Wangcai, but his eyes drifted toward Lin Ye.

Shen Qing hesitated for a moment while holding the basket, then Hua Tui pulled her down to sit next to him.

Seven pairs of eyes stared at Lin Ye.

Lin Ye placed the chopsticks in his hand on the table.

He looked at the pot of boiling red oil soup in front of him, the peppercorn shells swirling on the oil, the chili pepper pieces flipping over from being pushed up by the bubbles, and the steam rising up mixed with the numbing and spicy aroma that made him want to sneeze.

"Nothing special."

He began to speak, his tone as if he were telling someone else's story.

"We were together in college, and after graduation we rented an apartment together. We earned a little over 5,000 yuan a month, and after paying rent and utilities, we still had a little over 3,000 yuan left. She said she had to use good skincare products, a set costing 1,200 yuan; she said she had to buy brand-name clothes, costing 700 or 800 yuan a piece; and she said that all her colleagues carried those kinds of bags, and she couldn't carry anything too cheap."

"And then you bought it for her?" The man with the tattooed arm raised his eyebrows.

"I bought it. I saved up two months' salary to buy her a bag that cost 6,800 yuan, but she said the color was wrong and it's been sitting in the closet unused."

"Hold."

The tattooed man cursed, took the unlit cigarette from his mouth, and slammed it on the table.

"And then?"

Bai Xiaojing asked.

Her voice was lower than usual, and her dark brown pupils shone strangely behind the steam of the hot pot.

"Later, when I couldn't pay the rent, she said I was useless and that a man who couldn't even pay rent didn't deserve to marry her. On the day we broke up, she sent me a message and left."

As Lin Ye finished speaking, he suddenly found it a little funny, not because the content was funny, but because he realized that he felt no emotion at all while he was saying these things.

Yesterday, when I was thinking about these things, I felt a tightness in my chest. Now, talking about them feels like reciting a passage that has nothing to do with me.

"That's it?" The tattooed man stared wide-eyed.

"That's it."

"You spent so much money on her, did she give you anything back when you broke up?"

"They broke up, so what's the point of all this talk?"

The tattooed arm remained silent for a full three seconds.

Then she stood up, slammed the beer bottle on the table, and the bottom of the bottle hit the plastic table with a dull thud.

"Dude, you're fucking too gentle! You should have dumped this kind of woman long ago, and you've put up with her for three years?"

She picked up her beer glass, tilted her head back, and downed half of it in one gulp. Beer foam clung to the corner of her mouth, which she wiped away with the back of her hand.

"If it were me, I would have broken up with her long ago. No, I would never have spent three years with someone like that."

"that is,"

Bai Xiaojing placed the freshly cooked lotus root slices in front of Lin Ye into his bowl, tapping her chopsticks twice on the rim of the bowl.

"It's good that we broke up. That kind of woman doesn't deserve me."

She emphasized the words "not good enough".

"Come on, everyone, drink up!"

The tattooed man poured himself another glass, held it up, and gestured to the girls at the table.

"I'm so happy tonight! Celebrating my brother's escape from this hell! Celebrating that Zhang Qian is finally gone!"

"Cheers!"

Green Hair and Pink Hair raised their glasses at the same time, and the rims of the glasses collided, spilling half a glass of beer onto the table.

"Dry."

Huatui tilted his head back and took a big gulp, his face turning slightly red when he put the cup down.

Qi Liuhai picked up the cup and took a small sip. It was so spicy that he squinted his eyes, but he still took another sip.

Shen Qing silently picked up her glass and touched the rim of Lin Ye's glass. She didn't say anything, but her eyes said it all.

Lin Ye also picked up his cup and took a sip.

The beer was ice-cold, and the foam slid down his throat with a slightly bitter malty taste, mixing with the spiciness of the hot pot, like setting a fire in his stomach. But the fire burned comfortably.

After a few beers, the atmosphere warmed up.

The woman with the tattooed arm began to recount how she used to work in a factory, where the workshop foreman withheld their wages. She then led three female workers to confront and berate the foreman in his office.

She spoke with such enthusiasm that she almost flicked the beef she was holding with her chopsticks onto the ham hock.

Flower Leg interrupted, starting to tell the story of the rose on her leg. It wasn't a memento of a broken heart; it was a design she drew herself on her eighteenth birthday. She found an apprentice to tattoo it for free. The apprentice's hand was shaking badly when he was tattooing it, and the petals were a little crooked. She said, "So what if they're crooked? They're still my flower."

Green Hair and Pink Hair started telling each other how they met. They were both sneaking samples at the same supermarket when the sales clerk kicked them out. They looked at each other at the door and then became friends.

At this point, the two of them stood up at the same time, raised their glasses, and drank a toast in perfect unison, as if looking in a mirror.

Qi Liuhai, having had a few drinks, became quite talkative. Holding up Wangcai, she said she picked the cat up from next to a trash can. When she found it, it was smaller than her palm, but now it's so fat it has a double chin. Wangcai meowed, as if protesting this description.

Shen Qing's face turned red after drinking, but she also became more talkative.

She said she used to work at a bubble tea shop, and the manager touched her inappropriately. In response, she threw a cup of bubble tea at him and was fired.

When she got to this point, her tone suddenly became very soft, and she said that she actually cried for a long time that night.

The tattooed man patted her on the shoulder without saying anything.