I turned reality into a romantic comedy.

"Senior brother?"

Amused by his younger sister's answer, Chen Junqian reached out and patted her head. In fact, she wasn't wrong. When he was in college, that's how he addressed his seniors in the same department. However, when it was said by a primary or middle school student, it sounded like he was imitating a fantasy drama, but it was still quite cute.

With two junior sisters on his left and right, Chen Junqian experienced the feeling of Araragi Koyomi with his two younger sisters in "Nisemonogatari". However, in reality, it was not as strange as in the story. Neither of the two sisters he was holding hands said to their older brother, "Don't become mature on your own because it will be boring".

After all, Gu Lingguo, who knows this line, might be longing for his mature and reliable side, while Chen Xi, who has the right to say this, is completely unaware of this and is simply enjoying the pampering and recognition from his family elders.

They're going out to see a movie today.

The 2012 Chinese New Year film season was not a suitable time for children.

Although the classic film "Let the Bullets Fly," which can still be enjoyed many times even after more than a decade, was released and won the championship of this year's Spring Festival film season, Chen Junqian certainly would not choose to take his two children to see such a film. Therefore, he could only settle for the usual Lunar New Year film of Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, namely "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Happy Dragon Year," which is related to the Year of the Dragon this year.

"...But it's so boring."

As a loyal viewer who had supported the previous Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf movies in theaters, Chen Xi made this comment as soon as she left the cinema, and then turned to Chen Junqian and said:

"I won't watch it next year. I feel like it hasn't been as good since 'The Tiger's Might'."

"really."

Chen Junqian nodded in agreement.

2012 was indeed a very important year, as the TV version of Boonie Bears, which took over the ecological niche of Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, officially premiered that year. The series will release an experimental New Year's short film called "Boonie Bears: Chinese New Year" next year, and then officially hit theaters in 2014 with "Boonie Bears: The Treasure Hunt". In 2015, the Year of the Sheep in the Chinese lunar calendar, it defeated Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf head-on with "Boonie Bears: Snow Daze". With a large number of fixed audiences, it has since become the gatekeeper of the Spring Festival film season.

As for why Chen Junqian knows so much about these films, it's because for many years afterward, he would bring his relatives' children to the cinema during the Lunar New Year to watch these kinds of movies.

After watching the movie, Chen Junqian first took his younger sister home, and then arranged to have dinner at their house again around the Lunar New Year's Eve. Only then did he turn to Gu Lingguo and ask:

Is anyone home at your new house today?

"Yes, my mom is cleaning there today."

There was a sense that Gu Lingguo hesitated subconsciously for a moment when she said those words.

"That's perfect."

Chen Junqian simply nodded, then took her hand and squeezed it tighter.

"After all, they're our new neighbors, so we should definitely give them a visit."

"Didn't Lin Guo just ask me what job I should be in?"

"Now I can tell you, I'll be an Actor in a little while."

Chapter 49: This is the only place I can cry (Part 2)

Of course, Chen Junqian's confidence in saying such things at this time was also based on his own strengths. Besides the fact that his current appearance would easily pass muster with the parents, another source of confidence came from the third milestone reward he had just unlocked a few days ago:

【versatile】

To win over the hearts of heroines with different tastes and dreams, the male protagonist of this romantic comedy naturally needs to possess the talent of being a jack-of-all-trades, master of none, and helpful in every aspect. This talent can be obtained for free after unlocking a total of forty achievements, helping the host master the basic skills of various talents including singing, dancing, photography, drama, and writing.

Actually, in terms of the number of achievements, Chen Junqian has not yet successfully unlocked forty achievements, but he has achieved several repeatable achievements that are relatively easy to obtain two or three times, such as feeding play and head pat. In addition, Mu Mu's scoring efficiency during last summer vacation has brought the total to forty, which helped him unlock the reward for this third milestone.

At the same time, the reward for the fourth milestone also appeared before Chen Junqian:

The will of the world will protect you.

The world of romantic comedies is always a gentle fairy tale world, where the characters surrounding the male protagonist always end up happy. So if there is a world will, it must also hope for this. If not, then there must be something wrong with the world itself, and we just need to correct it.

Each successful completion of a romantic comedy achievement will help the system correct the progress of this world. After eighty completions, the system will receive partial favor from the world's will, allowing the host to take another step towards becoming the true male protagonist of a romantic comedy.

To be honest, the new milestone is not only mysterious, but also looks a bit like a cryptic advertisement from Pinduoduo offering to help you cut the price if you're a brother. However, compared to the former, the system is quite generous in providing specific numbers, doubling the previous forty to eighty.

Judging from the fact that he has only managed to complete forty milestones in the two and a half years since his rebirth, he probably won't reach that milestone until high school.

However, if the girl next to him is included in the system, it's hard to say what will happen. After all, the two of them have already reached a relevant agreement, and Chen Junqian himself doesn't even dare to imagine how fast they will be able to rack up achievements.

As for the third milestone reward, versatility, Chen Junqian was quite satisfied. After all, although the description only mentioned the 'basic skills' of various talents, many skills are difficult to master, and often just the basic skills are enough to surpass many of his peers.

Anyway, Chen Junqian is definitely more confident about going to karaoke with Mu Mu someday. He can drag Lin Mu to sing a duet and then do a rating, which will surely raise the score for childhood sweethearts.

The Actor-related abilities and skills he just mentioned to Gu Lingguo are actually included in this. Combined with the appearance, physical fitness, and learning ability he unlocked earlier, it feels like he could easily debut in the entertainment industry. However, Chen Junqian himself really has no interest in this area.

"I'll go back first, brother, please come back in a few minutes."

When it was just the two of them, Gu Linguo habitually switched back to calling him "brother".

It can only be said that Chen Junqian already had a vague premonition that this kid would probably greet him with "Onii-chan" or something similar, just like in a romantic comedy, even before his real sister Chen Xi. After all, the other party had already pranked him with the term "senior" when they met today.

"Okay, let's say that."

After deliberately separating from Gu Linguo in front of the residential area, Chen Junqian slowed down his pace and began to think about the specific scenarios that would follow.

To be honest, whether in his previous life or after his rebirth, he had never truly faced such parents before. Even though Shen Nianqiu's parents were equally important, he had never met them before, and his understanding of them was limited to snippets of information from Shen Nianqiu herself.

Gu Linguo's situation was even more different from Shen Nianqiu's, because at least Chen Junqian only got secondhand information from his sister, but his understanding of Gu Linguo's mother was only thirdhand information from Chen Xi and his own mother (the two had met during the renovation).

As for why he didn't ask Gu Lingguo directly.

That means that even though they had only been in contact for less than a month, Chen Junqian already felt a sense of unease, a premonition that if he wanted to get any information from Gu Lingguo, he would end up with an even more distorted description.

So you still need to see it for yourself.

In Chen Junqian's current view, the relationship between this mother and daughter might be a bit like a line from the movie "Claw Machine" released more than ten years later. He even really thinks that one day in the future, this line will be spoken by the other party's mother, and it is this very line that ultimately led to the tragedy of his previous life.

"You think I control your life? You control our lives too!"

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Gu Linguo has always liked a line from CLANNAD: "The only places you can cry are the bathroom and your father's arms."

But that's just a line from a work of art, because Gu Linguo himself couldn't actually do that.

The bathroom at home is very small, so the noise can be easily heard outside, and it's the same at school.

As for the latter, it's even more impossible.

Rather, she would say that she thinks the ability to cry in front of her parents is an amazing skill in itself, one that she simply cannot learn and has no time to learn.

It was as if the mother had expressed all the emotions of the family, leaving the remaining two women, the father and her, to feel ashamed to express their feelings. The entire family revolved around the mother, like a single star, and her connection with her father was equally weak.

But it's not entirely absent.

At least Gu Lingguo was very clear about one fact: the fact that she could still play computer games and watch anime on weekends and save up one anime magazine after another with her allowance was because of her father's support. However, under the premise of her mother, this action was always kept secret.

As for the topic of crying, in Gu Lingguo's own memory, she had probably only cried once in front of her mother.

That happened when she was in first grade. She couldn't quite remember the initial reason, but she remembered her mother's reaction very clearly. Her mother had also lost control of her emotions and cried and shouted at her for a long time.

For Gu Lingguo herself, that was probably the first time she felt a sense of guilt. Every part of her body was plunged into a vague and dull pain, making her feel that she was a worthless person and that she should have knelt down and begged her mother for forgiveness.

From then on, she dared not cry in front of her mother anymore.

Because her mother only responds to her tears with her own, but Gu Lingguo's psychological defenses will be breached before her mother's, and she will eventually crumble.

Then one day, on his way home from school, Gu Lingguo saw a stray mother cat who had just given birth to kittens. She seemed to be starving to death, lying in the shadows of the alley, barely able to move.

She quickly fed the other person the bread she hadn't finished, and her mother, who was picking her up from school, didn't stop her. Instead, she patted her daughter's head and comforted her.

"It will definitely survive."

"Ah."

"Even for the sake of the kittens next to it, it has to struggle to survive."

Gu Lingguo fed the mother cat two more times. The mother cat, who was so thin that she was practically skin and bones, seemed to be a little better. The kittens next to her, who looked like they had just opened their eyes, huddled together and eagerly nursed.

Then, she heard her mother's comments:

"I just don't know if the little brat will remember this good thing about his mother when he grows up."

Later, Gu Lingguo discovered that her mother thought in the same way not only towards her, but also towards her husband.

Over the years, whenever the two had disagreements, they would always invariably steer the outcome of the event in the same direction.

Every time, her mother would treat her the same way, falling into a state of never apologizing or speaking, only watching the other person suffer and desperately torturing herself and the other person, to the point that even her father couldn't tell who was at fault in the first place, who was the real culprit, or what the two of them had been arguing about in the first place.

In fact, before Chen Junqian faced the absurd question of "if your mother and your girlfriend fell into the water at the same time, who would you save first?", Gu Linguo had already experienced many similar questions, except that the questioner was his own mother.

It probably started when her mother read her the story of filial piety, "My mother used a stainless steel bowl for my grandmother, and I followed suit and successfully persuaded my mother to change her mind." Since then, the other person has never given up on this issue, but the focus of their attention has been completely different.

Will you dislike your mother when I get old?

When watching that public service advertisement about an Alzheimer's father who still remembers his child's favorite food, the mother would turn to her and ask:

If I develop Alzheimer's disease in the future, what will you do to me? Will you send me to a nursing home and just abandon me?

When watching that ad where "grandma answers the phone and learns her family isn't home, leaving her alone with a table full of food and a TV that won't turn on," the person on the other end still asks:

Will you let your mother become like this in the future?

Although it was a question, Gu Linguo always felt that her mother's tone was half prophetic sorrow, as if she had foreseen her own end. So even though she would answer no seriously every time, her mother would only show a subtle smile, as if she was trying her best to show that she would still love her even though she knew she was lying.

The other half is a kind of cruel voyeurism. She wants to know her daughter's thoughts, and she wants to know her daughter's thoughts every moment, as if she is using tweezers to peel back the skin of a certain part of her body bit by bit, until she sees the inside out, and she is unwilling to miss any inch.

In fact, Chen Junqian's judgment of Gu Linguo was completely correct, because in the other person's mind, any confusion, doubt, pain, or relief could be answered with four words, and these four words could naturally follow any question or any answer.

For Gu Lingguo himself, it was a more effective magic weapon than four-character phrases like "since we're already here," "it's the New Year," "it's just a child," and "the person is dead."

So why is that?

Because, because...

She is my mother.

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"Hello Auntie, I'm Chen Junqian, who lives next door. I just officially moved in these past two days. Please accept this little bit of wedding candy."

If we were to say that Chen Junqian's first impression of Gu Lingguo's mother wasn't bad, she wasn't the kind of woman often described in literary works with high cheekbones, thin lips, and narrow eyes. She was just an ordinary-looking person with ordinary clothes, like someone you'd glance at and forget about among a group of parents picking up their children after school.

"Hello, I've heard about this from your mother before."

"Even if I didn't hear it from your mother, I've heard your name. You were first in your grade for three consecutive years, a model student for three years, and you even received a banner for your act of bravery. When I was chatting with your mother before, I told her that everyone in our workplace area envies her for having such a good son like you."

Although it seemed like a perfectly fine exchange of pleasantries at first glance, Chen Junqian still keenly noticed the problem. He reasoned that the other party's stance on his act of bravery during the stampede should have been the same as his aunt and uncle's, since he had genuinely saved their daughter.

However, Gu Lingguo's mother didn't mention it at all, which can only mean that either Gu Lingguo didn't tell her mother at all that she almost got involved in the stampede, or she did tell her but her mother didn't care at all.

Regardless of the method, one can actually glean a lot of problems from just a glimpse.

"Please sit down, I'll get you some water."

She said this politely, and as soon as she turned around, Gu's mother turned back to call her daughter: