I turned reality into a romantic comedy.

It was during the Lunar New Year when he accompanied Chen Xi to the cinema to watch "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: The Tiger's Might" and they met up. Since Chen Junqian had nothing to do that day, he agreed. After agreeing on the specific time and showtime with Lin Mu, he told his parents and set off with his New Year's money.

Although the new year brings new beginnings, after a semester, I haven't noticed any significant changes in Lin Mu's height. The more I look at him, the more I feel that the "grown to 1.65 meters" written next to the height record ruler on my room door seems like a one-sided wish.

Perhaps because he hadn't eaten lunch, when Chen Junqian went to see Lin Mu, the other person was eating something with their head down. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a smiley face cake, a common sight in cake shops at this time of year.

As its name suggests, the product's most distinctive feature is a cute, albeit ugly, smiley face drawn with chocolate sauce on its surface. The overall shape is somewhat like a sandwich cookie, with two cake layers sandwiching a thick layer of hard cream in the middle. At this moment, Lin Mu is happily nibbling on it.

Didn't you eat lunch?

"I ate, but I'm not full."

Upon seeing Chen Junqian approach, Lin Mu continued eating without stopping, mumbling a complaint to him:

"Today I went to my maternal grandmother's house, but there were so many of her sisters, my great-aunts, that the whole house was packed with people. There was no room to squeeze in to get food, so I just asked my mom to scoop me a bowl of soup and that was it."

Chen Junqian wholeheartedly agreed with Lin Mu's point. After all, that's how it is during the Spring Festival here. Once there are many people, the table is naturally given to the adults who are drinking. The children are basically just put aside with a little food on their plates by their parents. Many children simply eat whatever they can because they find it troublesome. Anyway, they have money in their hands during the Spring Festival, and they can always go out for another meal if necessary.

"Qianqian, do you want some? I bought some others, but this might be a bit dry if you eat it without water."

As she spoke, Lin Mu shook a plastic bag in her hand at him, which contained two old-fashioned sponge cakes. Just one glance at them made Chen Junqian feel a lump in his throat, and he quickly waved his hand:

"I ate at home; not many people came to visit me for the New Year today."

"Hey, are you choking? Want to go into the movie theater and buy some Coke?"

"Let me finish eating before I go in. I feel a little embarrassed to eat the food I brought in. Last time I was watching a movie, there was an aunt next to me who kept munching on sunflower seeds, and then the staff told her off."

Perhaps not wanting Chen Junqian to stand outside in the cold wind with her, Lin Mu visibly sped up her eating, quickly finishing the entire smiley face cake. After wiping her mouth with her tissue, she checked the glass display window to make sure everything was alright before pulling Chen Junqian's hand and walking into the movie theater.

There weren't many people in the movie theater today. Besides, Avatar has been showing for over a month, and most of the viewers who wanted to see it have already seen it. So the two of them easily bought consecutive seats together for the nearest showing. After getting their ticket stubs, they sat in the lobby and started waiting.

Chen Junqian went to the counter and bought a popcorn and cola combo. He handed one of the drinks to Lin Mu, who took small sips of the straw and drank for a while before leaning back in his seat and taking a deep breath. It seemed that eating so fast earlier had made him a little choked.

"Oh, right, let me show you a little gadget I bought while I was buying the cake today. It's really interesting."

Taking advantage of the brief time before the movie started, Lin Mu pulled out a cell phone-sized object from his pocket and proudly displayed it in front of Chen Junqian.

"Weiwei brought a magnetic drawing board to school before, you know. You can write and draw on it with the magnetic pen that comes with it, and then you can slide the button at the bottom down and the words and drawings will be erased cleanly as if they were erased by an eraser. It's really interesting."

"Then today I saw this in a small shop. It's much cheaper than that one, only one yuan. Although it is a bit small, the way to play is similar, and it's more convenient. You can draw with your hands. It feels a bit like Dad's smartphone."

Looking at the small drawing board that Lin Mu was showing in front of him, Chen Junqian remembered it. This one was different from the magnetic drawing board that Xu Youwei played with. It was a pink fluorescent color, and the words or pictures written on it also had a sparkling effect.

Although the gameplay is the same—you write and draw with the included pen and then pull down to erase everything—the price is such that it usually breaks after only a few uses, and no matter how you pull, it won't clean properly.

"Oh, I've bought this before, but it breaks easily."

However, Lin Mu was not like Xu Youwei, who had studied professional painting techniques and could create decent works using a magnetic drawing board. She bought it just out of a passing interest, so she and Chen Junqian took a small pen that was about the thickness of a toothpick and had a lot of fun writing and drawing on it.

"Then let's just treat it as a disposable item... But Qianqian, when did your handwriting become so beautiful? No wonder even your Chinese teacher was willing to give your test paper a high score. Now it's not a case of 'beautiful face but ugly writing' anymore."

"I have been practicing calligraphy recently."

Are there calligraphy practice books for English?

"Ok?"

"Because Qianqian also got 100 points in English on the final exam this time, and the teacher even praised your handwriting in the composition for being particularly beautiful."

Chen Junqian could only say there was nothing he could do about it. His years of training at Hengshui Sports School in junior and senior high school in his previous life had ingrained muscle memory in him, but such skills were indeed a bit too advanced for elementary school students.

"If Mumu wants to learn, I can teach you. It's not difficult anyway. If you learn it well, at least your essay score will improve."

Knowing that the other party had always been surprisingly weak in English, Chen Junqian proactively offered this suggestion, and Lin Mu nodded in agreement.

"Yeah."

If she were asked to memorize words, learn phonetic symbols and example sentences, she would definitely hesitate and struggle for a while. But if it was just about learning how to write letters and words, Lin Mu, who had been practicing calligraphy with both soft and hard pens since childhood, didn't have any resistance. Moreover, the person teaching her was Chen Junqian.

And so, using this small fluorescent drawing board, Chen Junqian began teaching the Hengshui style of calligraphy on the spot, including the strokes of English letters, the spacing between words, and the overall direction and feeling when words are connected into sentences, until he stopped two minutes before the movie started.

Of course, the main reason is that this one-yuan toy really can't withstand such intense handling. It's clearly on the verge of collapse. No matter how you pull the scale from left to right and then from right to left, the fluorescent canvas can't return to its original clean state.

Just as Lin Mu stood up to pick it up and casually toss it into the nearby trash can, her thumb, which was holding the drawing board, inadvertently left a clear half-fingerprint on it, which immediately piqued her interest again:

"Qianqian, look, you can even put your fingerprint on this!"

As she spoke, she carefully placed her right thumb on the fluorescent board, applied a little force, and lifted it up, leaving her index finger fingerprint on the board.

"Why don't you give it a try?"

Encouraged by Lin Mu, Chen Junqian also pressed his right thumb on the fingerprint, leaving his fingerprint next to the one left by the other person. Then Lin Mu also pressed all ten of his fingerprints on the fingerprint, and then did the same thing with Chen Junqian's hands.

In the end, the small fluorescent board was covered with layers upon layers of fingerprints, making it impossible to distinguish which finger belonged to which person, like a dense collection of fingerprints intertwined with each other.

Of course, to an unsuspecting bystander, it just looks like a small board covered with mysterious lines that might trigger trypophobia.

However, Lin Mu had no intention of throwing it away again. Instead, he put it back in his pocket and walked with Chen Junqian to the theater to queue for entry. After successfully checking their tickets, they received the necessary 3D glasses from the theater staff.

Lin Mu, who was getting his hands on this for the first time, was muttering to himself that it felt like a transformation tool for Ultraman Seven, while Chen Junqian was filled with emotion.

After all, ever since he became nearsighted and started wearing glasses in junior high school, he has always had to wear two pairs of glasses to watch 3D movies. He can't watch them without either pair, which is incredibly uncomfortable. Now that he has been reborn, he can finally experience the comfort of only needing to wear one pair of 3D glasses.

They found their seats in the somewhat dark movie theater. Chen Junqian placed the bucket of popcorn he had bought in the middle of the room. However, perhaps because he had just eaten a rather large smiley face cake, Lin Mu didn't seem to want to eat any for a while, let alone reach in to take some.

However, Chen Junqian wasn't in a hurry to achieve the cinema-related achievement with Lin Mu, so he naturally stopped thinking about it and adjusted to a more comfortable reclining position, preparing to revisit this classic masterpiece that sparked a new wave of 3D movie fever worldwide.

"This director seems to be quite famous."

"Yes, they made a movie called 'Titanic,' has Mumu seen it?"

"I think I've heard of it, but I haven't seen it. Is it the one where the male and female leads are named Jack and Rose?"

Sure enough, Lin Mu's English pronunciation was still disastrous, but at least it was better than Xiao Shuai and Xiao Mei's, so Chen Junqian nodded in agreement.

"Correct."

“My parents seem to really like that movie. This summer, when our family went on a boat trip, they even took a picture of themselves at the bow of the boat. My dad was supporting my mom’s waist from behind, and my mom was standing in front with her arms outstretched.”

Seemingly wanting to show off this move to Chen Junqian, Lin Mu completely forgot that there was a bucket full of popcorn on his left. Just as he raised his arm to open his hand, he knocked over the popcorn bucket first.

Although Chen Junqian reacted with the speed of an athlete, catching the popcorn bucket immediately, a lot of popcorn still rolled out, spilling all over him and then falling to the ground.

Realizing he had messed up, Lin Mu quickly apologized softly while getting up from his seat and bending down to signal Chen Junqian to stay still, as he still had a lot of popcorn on him, and if he moved or stood up, a whole bunch of it would fall to the ground.

Then, she first picked up all the popcorn that had fallen to the ground, wrapped it in a tissue, and prepared to throw it away when she came out. Then she started picking up the popcorn that had fallen on Chen Junqian's clothes, arms, chest, and thighs and putting it back into the bucket.

Seemingly worried that Chen Junqian might be uncomfortable standing there stiffly, Lin Mu didn't forget to stuff two more into his mouth, coaxing him like a child:

"It'll be ready soon, just wait a little longer."

In no time, Lin Mu's hands were stuffed with most of the visible popcorn on Chen Junqian's body. Just as she was about to put them back, she noticed that there was still a piece of popcorn stuck in the collar of his down jacket.

There was nothing he could do; Chen Junqian was still a child, not very tall to begin with, and he had just adjusted his posture to lie back comfortably while watching the movie. If he had leaned back any further, the popcorn rain wouldn't have just hit his chest and arms, but would have pelted him head-on.

Just then, the movie on the big screen started playing. Lin Mu, who was a little anxious to quickly tidy up everything so as not to disturb the other audience members in the theater, was also a bit out of it. He was holding a handful of popcorn in each hand, but his little head was inexplicably leaning towards Chen Junqian.

When she came to her senses, she was already half-lying there, using her mouth to pick up the last piece of popcorn that had been sprinkled on Chen Junqian's collar below his neck.

Only then did Lin Mu realize what she had done, and she quickly returned to her seat, put the popcorn back in the bucket, casually swallowed the popcorn in her mouth, and reached for a tissue as if nothing had happened.

"I'll wipe it clean for you again, now let's watch a movie..."

Looking at the achievement of "Secret Contact in the Cinema" that had been completed in his mind with a single click, and feeling the other person's small hands frantically wiping themselves on his down jacket, Chen Junqian couldn't help but chuckle.

"I'll do it myself."

Although this little incident made it impossible for the two of them to concentrate on the movie in front of them for the next half hour.

But it doesn't matter, after all, Avatar will be re-released in mainland China eleven years later.

At this moment, Chen Junqian was naturally willing to believe that the two of them would come to see it again.

Chapter 53: Those adventurous dreams, I'll go crazy with you (Part 2)

If you had to sum up Chen Junqian's lifestyle in one word during the last two weeks of winter break, it would probably be "staying at home".

Aside from going to the movies with Lin Mu on the fourth day of the Lunar New Year, Chen Junqian spent most of his time at home doing one thing: trying to explore a field he had never been involved in before, but was now forced to explore due to a certain embarrassing system—the so-called romantic comedy.

To be honest, although Chen Junqian is not someone who has never watched Japanese animation, the only ones he has ever been exposed to in his past and present lives are those he watched as a child along with domestic cartoons, such as "Detective Conan", "Cardcaptor Sakura", "Digimon", "Pokémon", "Naruto", and "Dragon Ball". These were either very popular and everyone was watching them, or they were more geared towards children.

Moreover, most of them are watched passively, because most of the above are independent episodic dramas, so they just watch whichever episode is on TV.

So, actively searching for relevant resources like this is indeed a novel experience for Chen Junqian.

At that time, China had not yet entered the era of copyright protection. Apart from those popular works, most Japanese animation resources were circulated in small areas through piracy. Although finding them was not too troublesome, it was not easy either, since he still had to find the versions translated by translation groups.

As the saying goes, "Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will win every battle."

Chen Junqian was somewhat interested in the so-called romantic comedies that filled the system's achievements, or rather, the works they were based on. After all, from another perspective, they might be helpful in his future goal of racking up achievements and becoming a male protagonist in a romantic comedy.

If we narrow the timeframe to works with romance elements that have aired since 2009 and 2010... the first one that comes to Chen Junqian's eye is "White Album".

Because the numerous achievements Chen Junqian could see that were yet to be unlocked did indeed contain a lot of lines like "It's the season for White Album again," he initially opened the animation with great enthusiasm. However, after watching it all, he fell into deep thought, feeling a sense of helplessness, like someone who had downloaded resources for hours only to find out it was "Calabash Brothers."

There was nothing he could do; the system, which was still charging, couldn't possibly explain the difference between White Album series one and two to him. Feeling like he was watching a melodramatic period drama with a messy entertainment industry background, Chen Junqian could only continue searching. Over the next ten days, he watched all sorts of anime, some good and some bad, to the point that he wanted to switch careers and become a blogger on Mikufuns (which wasn't Bilibili yet) to complain about them.

However, casting a wide net did yield some results. After watching a series of works that even a complete outsider like Chen Junqian, who was new to the genre, found quite good, such as "Kizumonogatari," "Kimi ni Todoke," "Heaven's Lost Property," and "Baka and Test," which premiered this year, he gradually gained a deeper understanding of the unlocked achievements in the achievement list that clearly referenced related memes, as well as what kind of person the male protagonist of a romantic comedy should be.

And he finally understood what the 'gentle' word that the system kept repeating to him meant, because the word's appearance rate in this type of work was indeed so high that it couldn't be ignored.

In short, Chen Junqian, who was "forced" to develop the habit of watching anime on time because of a certain system, started to catch up on anime by following the timeline and following the various keywords in the achievement list to watch a series of works such as the animated film "5 Centimeters Per Second" and the TV anime "CLANNAD", stayed at home until the end of the winter vacation.

Primary school students' winter vacation is usually extended to after the Lantern Festival, and this year is no exception. Registration is on the 16th of the first lunar month, and classes officially begin on the 17th. However, since the Lunar New Year is relatively late this year, the first day of the Lunar New Year is already the 14th of the second lunar month, so the day school starts will be in early March.

For Chen Junqian himself, the first important day he had written down in his notebook when he was reborn half a year ago was drawing ever closer.

There's still one week left.

He confirmed this by looking at the calendar.

Before knowing how many chain reactions his reborn butterfly wings would bring, Chen Junqian would always keep himself on the highest level of vigilance, because the butterfly effect never necessarily means things will turn out for the better, and he had to be prepared for the worst.

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As a stampede incident that was repeatedly explained as a safety accident that happened around us during the last two years of elementary school, Chen Junqian, who was also a survivor, has a very deep memory of everything that happened that day. It can be said to be one of the most memorable events of his elementary school years.

According to the investigation results released by the school and teachers afterward, the main reasons for this incident were as follows.

Firstly, there was no staggered dismissal time system for all grades at that time; whether it was the first grade on the first floor or the sixth grade on the sixth floor, they all left school at the same time.

In other words, the moment the bell rings, most students who haven't been kept late will simultaneously crowd into the stairwell to go downstairs and leave the school building to go home, concentrating all the pressure of the crowd within those few minutes.

The second reason, which was also the direct trigger for the accident, was that after the new semester's timetable was updated, two sixth-grade classes had physical education as their last class in the afternoon. At the same time, with a large number of people going downhill, dozens of students needed to go uphill through the same stairwell to return to their classrooms.