I turned reality into a romantic comedy

What about the saying "ripe plums become bitter" and "unrequited love becomes sour"? There's also a saying that "companionship is the longest confession of love." I should have liked you a long time ago.

What she initially wanted was a real relationship where she could hold the other person firmly in her grasp. But as time went by, Xu Youwei became more and more understanding of the marital blessings she had once scoffed at, and she began to care more and more about auspicious phrases like "May you have a long and happy marriage" printed on all sorts of items that were found in the house.

Hsu Yu-Wei now wants a long-term, stable relationship.

Just like the brand-new confession she prepared a year in advance: "I want to accompany you from this lifetime to the next."

However, this is actually a euphemism. She certainly didn't read those articles in "Fireworks" for nothing. In essence, she might still hold the same thoughts. Just like that "confession" she said to him a year ago that was never heard, it would probably sound more like a curse to others.

Will Qinqin be willing to stay with me until the day I die?

Hsu Yu-Wei has never been shy or afraid to talk about death.

Because on the other side, her closest relatives were waiting for her.

However, for Chen Junqian, even death is no longer an option; he must have a next life after this one.

----------------------------------

To be honest, Xu Youwei's doomsday plan and actions on the night of December 21st were never as secretive as she thought. Rather, apart from one sister who was genuinely unaware of the situation, the other four girls were all fully aware of it.

Lin Mu and Zhu Wenyun were naturally affected by the cancellation of club activities, but neither of them seemed to mind. The former was simply being herself, while the latter had been incredibly busy lately.

The year-long serialization period has come to an end. The novella "When Green Plums Are Too Ripe, They Are Bitter; When Unrequited Love Is Too Long, It Is Sour" by the pen name "Wen Yun" and serialized in "Firework" for a year has finally come to a close at the end of this year.

Although the work's performance fluctuated slightly in July and August, as Zhu Wenyun adjusted her own condition, she still won the favor of readers who had been following the story all the way through the ending, and once again topped the readers' poll for the month. The popularity was enough for the editorial department to consider publishing this story as a standalone physical book, which was the first thing Zhu Wenyun had to do.

The second thing is that she had mentioned to Chen Junqian before that Zhu Wenyun, a teenage idol writer, has now gained a foothold in the magazine and accumulated popularity through her serialization this year. In fact, compared with other candidates, her biggest advantage is her face.

After all, there has never been a shortage of female writers with good writing skills in "Fireworks", but it would be very difficult to find a girl who is both young and good-looking.

After all, he is a so-called 'idol writer'. Idol even comes before writer. Han Han and Guo Jingming were also quite good-looking. These days, having a good-looking face is indeed very important. Zhu Wenyun, who was recognized by the system as having an A-level appearance adaptability, easily met this standard.

Besides these, she also had to take care of her studies and club work, so she really didn't have much time to pay attention to Xu Youwei. Rather, she never thought that Xu Youwei was anything special. If someone were willing to have a discussion with her about heroes over wine, she would probably say that Xu Youwei was afraid of losing her life for great things but would forget righteousness for small gains. Xu Youwei was even less threatening than the seemingly harmless Mu Mu.

Indeed, for Zhu Wenyun, before Shen Nianqiu's sudden appearance, Lin Mu was always the biggest threat. After all, she made her name by writing stories about these two people, and the more she learned, the more she realized that although they were childhood sweethearts in name, there were indeed differences between them.

To be honest, the two families are almost like family, especially after they started cooperating in their businesses and sharing interests, which has deepened the bond between the adults and children.

Unlike Lin Mu and Zhu Wenjun, who had a peaceful mindset.

The other two girls actually tossed and turned in bed on the night of December 21st.

One of them tried sending messages and making phone calls, but all they received was the signal that the other party's phone was switched off. Youyou is always an expert in this regard.

The other one, however, was already counting the remaining days on his fingers.

She was counting down the days until winter vacation would officially begin.

I'm figuring out when I can officially move in.

2012 has come to an end.

P.S.: Thank you for reading and subscribing.

Chapter Twenty: Memories That Classical Piano Cannot Play (Part Two)

Chen Junqian was already quite adept at taking care of his relatives' children. It was simply a matter of taking them to places their parents wouldn't normally allow them to go and introducing them to foods their parents wouldn't normally let them eat. This made it easy for him to gain the favor and affection of his peers.

For example, the girl sitting in front of him right now, waiting for her food to be served.

For most of the children in Guoning, the biggest event of the 2013 winter vacation was undoubtedly the long-awaited KFC, which they could only eat on TV or in Xuancheng before. It finally landed in Guoning, allowing them to say goodbye to the history of eating fried chicken, hamburgers and other junk food at Dicos or even more miscellaneous Western fast food restaurants, and finally get some authentic food.

However, KFC has made quite a few localization improvements. Chen Junqian rolled his eyes at those burgers that were clearly localized for the sake of localization. They were just two slices of bread that could be filled with anything, right?

To be honest, he actually tricked Guo Ning a bit in the KFC matter, since in the previous timeline, Guo Ning's first KFC franchise store should have officially opened last year, 2012.

But Chen Junqian, who already knew that this thing would definitely make a profit in Guoning, was of course not going to let it go. So he directly intervened from the beginning and forcibly took the franchise rights from the original contractor ahead of time. After the delay, the first KFC in Guoning opened two months later than in the previous life, during the winter vacation of 2013.

So theoretically speaking, the KFC restaurant that he and Chen Xi ate at so many times during the winter break was actually their family's property. After all, the big money for this franchise was all invested by both of them. If they wanted, they could drink one cup of cola and throw it away, and eat one piece of chicken nugget and throw it away. There was no need for Chen Junqian to try to fool them with those three-plus-two gummy candies anymore.

However, probably because she ate too much, after the initial novelty wore off, Chen Junqian's sister became desensitized and no longer showed the enthusiasm she had for these things when they first met. So, when faced with her brother bringing her out to play again tonight, Chen Xi decisively chose to give up KFC and turn to the embrace of a roadside food stall.

Just like there's always one food stall near a school that sells the same fried skewers and three-flavor chicken strips, children's enthusiasm for fried food and barbecue is also timeless. So, lamb skewers are definitely in their favorite food category.

However, unlike those small stalls where you can buy things for 50 cents or a dollar, the biggest problem with this stuff for kids is that it's not sold individually. In his previous life, Chen Junqian had asked a roadside barbecue stall owner if he could get three skewers of lamb with three dollars in his hand.

Although Chen Junqian wasn't the type to always offer an umbrella to someone after getting caught in the rain, he wouldn't go so far as to tear off his own sister's umbrella. So when he heard that she wanted to eat this, he immediately made arrangements, since he himself hadn't had it for a while.

Sitting on a food stall chair that would later be turned into a ward-specific seat by a mysterious Devil May Cry player, Chen Junqian relaxed and leaned back slightly. The night wasn't too cold, and the stall owner had set up a shed to block the wind, so the two of them sat outside, where they could see the clear night sky and the moon on the horizon.

"Brother, the lamb skewers are ready."

Whether it was because he was getting older or for some other reason, Chen Junqian was a little bothered that his younger sister had changed her way of addressing him from the reduplicated "brother" to the single-character "ge". However, he felt that asking her directly would be making a mountain out of a molehill, so after thinking about it, he didn't say anything. After all, his sister would grow up eventually.

"Well, you eat too."

As one of the emotionally stable female protagonists whom Chen Junqian identified as being similar to Lin Mu and collectively known as An Muxi, the winter vacation spent with his sister was indeed one of the few times Chen Junqian could relax during this period. After all, there were too many things to do at the end of the last semester, and some planned tasks were not even completed.

Just then, Chen Junqian's phone dinged again. He glanced at it and saw that a new email had been sent to the email address he used to receive submissions. He glanced at it briefly and then put it aside, letting out a slightly helpless sigh.

"Is it still about your literary society's journal?"

"Yes, I've already relaxed the requirements a lot, and I've almost personally taught them how to revise it, but the result is still weird."

Last year, they said they would finish the first issue of the journal before this summer vacation. Xu Youwei and Zhu Wenyun both completed their tasks on time and in full. However, the whole project failed because of the quality of the manuscripts. Chen Junqian originally thought that the first batch of miscellaneous manuscripts was just a coincidence. Later, he realized that he had been spending too much time with Zhu Wenyun and had almost forgotten what real junior high school students' essays looked like these days.

Although it hasn't regressed to the rigid, formulaic level of the imperial examination system, thanks to the various strange and wonderful all-purpose openings, divine endings, advanced vocabulary, mindless templates, and divine transition sentences that have emerged in the teaching materials market in recent years, Chen Junqian has a real headache when faced with a situation where he has ample time to prepare, rather than improvising in the exam room.

To put it simply, in about seven or eight manuscripts, he could see no less than a dozen or twenty almost identical modifiers and sentences such as "remembering the past," "looking at the present," "don't you see," "can you see," "let's see our generation of youth," "quietly reflecting and feeling again," and "the sun rises in the east, its path is bright, the wind is strong and the tide is surging." Coupled with the endless stream of self-composed and self-created famous quotes, it was almost like he was causing mental pollution.

Moreover, the subject matter is clearly campus life, so where did all these grand, macro-level discussions come from? They're either about my dream, the Chinese dream, or about Mother Earth's ecological destruction and the greenhouse effect, or about how building a civilized city depends on everyone. Tell me, did you just submit the same essay you wrote for the "Striving to Create a Civilized City" essay contest that we held on campus not long ago?

"It's so hard."

While eating lamb skewers, Chen Xi patiently listened to her brother's long-winded complaints. Since it was just the two of them, the girl's eating manners weren't very elegant. She would bite her teeth and pull her wrist slightly to eat a skewer of meat. In no time, a small stack of skewers had already piled up next to her.

"I also encountered a very strange thing on the internet a few days ago."

After eating more than a dozen skewers to slightly satisfy their hunger, Chen Xi also slowed down. She took a transparent disposable plastic cup from the side and poured a cup of herbal tea for the two of them before taking the initiative to bring up her own business.

"What's wrong? I remember Xixi has been reading at home since winter vacation started. Have you finished reading '1587, A Year of No Significance' that I asked you to buy last time?"

"It's about this book. I read online that 'Those Things About the Ming Dynasty' is only good as a stepping stone to understanding Ming history. To truly understand it, you need to read professional academic works. That's why I asked you to buy it for me. It is indeed very good. After I finished reading it, I was just about to go online to chat with people or look up some analysis when I came across some very strange comments."

"Well, what's wrong?"

"Mmm, you must have read this book too, right?"

"Yes, I've seen it. What's wrong?"

Chen Junqian, who is well-versed in both literature and history, already had a certain foundation in history in his previous life. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to write copy for various museum cultural and creative products or Douyin public accounts. Moreover, after being reborn, he did not waste the extraordinary learning ability given to him by the system and has been constantly learning and improving himself.

"I saw people online shipping Zhang Juzheng and Qi Jiguang as a couple."

"Oh."

Although this was indeed a shocking scene for his younger sister, who was only now slowly stepping into the world of history, Chen Junqian, who was well-informed, was already used to it. He just didn't show it on his face and continued to listen to his sister's shock while resting his chin on his hand.

"Zhang Juzheng and Qi Jiguang did work together very well, but that person actually said something like, 'When I think about how I was a loyal dog of the anti-Japanese general and national hero, I want to give my Taiyue baby...', bah bah, what kind of words are those?"

"If you don't like it, then let's have less contact. If Xixi really wants to chat, you can come and talk to me. At least for now, my reading volume can still surpass yours, and even if there are books that you've read but I haven't, I'm still very willing to listen to you tell me."

It's fortunate that his sister, whom he's raised for so many years, didn't fall into the mysterious little circle called "historical fujoshi" (female fans of historical fiction). Rather, normal people would find these nonsensical terms baffling. History may be a girl who can be dressed up however one wants, but it's not a girl who can lie down and be manipulated at will.

"Yes, it will be much more convenient after I move."

Speaking of moving, Chen Xi again brought up Gu Linguo, who had moved there before her at the beginning of the winter break:

"Actually, I had invited Lin Guo tonight, but she has to go to her tutoring class, so I couldn't."

After all, even the longest winter and summer vacations of the year don't necessarily mean a complete break for students. Rather, it's precisely because they're long that they're more suitable for tutoring. Among the girls around Chen Junqian, except for Zhu Wenyun, almost all of them are attending tutoring classes. Even Chen Xi herself attends classes during the day and can only go out to eat with him in the evening.

"Well, I know."

Chen Junqian nodded. Actually, this matter was also related to him. After the factory accident in the second half of last year, Gu Lingguo's father, Gu Yong, actually benefited from the misfortune. He not only received a considerable amount of compensation, but his job was also transferred to an easier position.

However, sometimes, improved conditions do not necessarily mean that everything at home will improve as well.

On the contrary, it can sometimes rekindle the wolf king dream that was secretly suppressed in the past and temporarily abandoned due to insufficient conditions.

Gu Linguo's new tutoring class is piano.

----------------------------------

A brand-new electric piano worth 3,700 yuan is now placed in a corner of the room, along with piano lessons costing 200 yuan per session.

Every time Gu Lingguo had a piano lesson, her mother would sit beside her. This wasn't because she wanted to keep an eye on her daughter's safety all the time—after all, the teacher was a gentle and refined middle-aged woman—she was simply immersed in the atmosphere, an atmosphere she herself couldn't even name.

She was already quite old when she gave birth to Gu Linguo, so if you look closely, you can see that this middle-aged woman, who was already aging, had mottled black and white hair.

The black and white piano keys under the daughter's hands, the black and white hair on the mother's head—just these two images alone could probably inspire Zhu Wenyun to write an essay praising maternal love from a small perspective. However, Gu Lingguo had no such thoughts. After all, whether it was the piano in front of her or the lessons she was taking, the source of the money should be attributed to her father's fingers, which had been injured for a hundred days, and to Chen Junqian, who had pressed the emergency stop button at that time.

However, Gu Linguo still did not object to this, even though her father had unusually told her mother that if she was unwilling, she should not force her to learn this kind of thing. But when the choice was put in her hands, Gu Linguo still chose to agree.

She didn't know why her mother suddenly made her learn piano. Was it to make her look better? Was it to give her another skill? Or was it because of something from the past that she didn't know?

Gu Lingguo was unaware of her mother's intentions, but she was very clear about her own.

In "Anime Fever", I once wrote an analysis of the piano girl type of character using Touma Kazusa from "White Album 2" as an example.

People always assign meaning to all sorts of things, transforming them into so-called images.

Therefore, the piano is a symbol of skill, a medium of emotion, and a symbol of psychological trauma, and ultimately it will return to a kind of cute consumption.

But setting aside the inherent elegance and untouchability of this skill, and the female protagonists who are often portrayed as lonely geniuses in stories, Gu Lingguo only pursues one thing.

The girl's aloof shadow was cast by the lamplight onto the snow-white wall, like a bare branch under the moonlight.

On the fair and nimble fingers, the rounded and neatly trimmed nails gleamed under the incandescent light. It was a pair of very beautiful, slender hands, as if they were born to dance on the black and white piano keys.

For her, three words are enough to sum it up.

That is [attraction].

A unique attraction.

Chapter Twenty-One: Chen Junqian, the Man of the Agreement (Part Two)

The Spring Festival in 2013 was on February 10th, the Year of the Snake in the Chinese lunar calendar.

At the same time, this year was also Chen Xi's birth year in the Chinese zodiac.

"Yes, my mom bought me a lot of red socks and underwear."

It can only be said that this person does not treat Chen Junqian as an outsider. However, considering that they will most likely continue to sleep together on New Year's Eve this year, it seems that there is nothing wrong with it. It feels like unless one day the two of them suddenly grow up and become complete adults, they will still be children in the eyes of their elders.

"Although it's my birth year, I'd rather not choose the snake. If I had to choose my own zodiac sign, the rat would be a million times better than the snake."

As in previous years, Chen Xi and Chen Junqian were helping Wang Hongling run the shop. While doing their winter vacation homework by the electric brazier at the front desk of the chess and card room, Chen Xi took the initiative to chat with her brother about the Chinese zodiac.

"I remember your aunt wanted to buy you a zodiac jade pendant before, but you refused. Is that why?"

"Yeah, I don't want to wear a snake around my neck, it's too scary."

As one of the kids who would immediately change the channel whenever a snake appeared on Animal World, it's not fair to say that his sister is timid. After all, the fear of snakes is indeed ingrained in the minds of most human children and even adults. The only snake-themed animated character that Chen Xi could accept in the cartoons she's watched in recent years is probably Green Pepper, the venomous snake from Steel Armor Kakalong.

Well, the main thing is that this thing is less like a king cobra and more like a walking green poop. Its first transformation is turning around, and its second transformation is simply pulling its leg back and kneeling down. It's the kind of thing that even a child like Xixi, who is terrified of snakes, would only laugh at.

"Brother, do you think Guoning also has snakes?"

"Yes, I once caught a water snake when Youwei and I were fishing for crayfish in the countryside. She thought it was an eel at the time."

"...If you keep saying that, I won't even be able to eat eel anymore."

"It's alright. As long as you don't go into those wooded areas, you shouldn't run into snakes. Besides, people are afraid of snakes, and snakes are afraid of people too."

As a small mountain town in southern Anhui, Guoning does indeed have snakes. You can always find snake molts in the corners of walls in the countryside, and occasionally you can see the remains of small snakes that did not follow the rules of stopping at red lights and going at green lights, which were directly sent to another world by trucks. However, most of them are non-venomous snakes like the water snakes he caught. The only venomous snake here should be the bamboo viper, after all, there is a lot of bamboo in Guoning.

"That's what they say... Anyway, I don't want to run into bad luck in my birth year. My mom says that bad luck comes in your birth year, which is why you have to wear red to ward off evil. I hope my bad luck isn't in that way."

"There's no need to worry now. Besides, it's the dead of winter. Even if there were snakes, they would all be hibernating in their burrows. Otherwise, they would freeze into icicles as soon as they came out. And Guoning can't find a little mouse that can play the flute."

"Ah, this is a story from the 'Selected Fairy Tales of Ge Bing' that you gave me before, right? 'The Tears of the Snake Charmer'?"

"Yes, Xixi has a very good memory too."

"of course."

With a slightly arrogant snort, Chen Xi's grades have always been excellent, and she can visibly maintain them until middle school, because history is practically a freebie for her; she's definitely a born history genius.

“After Xixi starts middle school in a few months, she can join our club to have some fun.”

"It sounds like they're conscripting men..."

Perhaps misunderstood by Chen Junqian's busy schedule these past few days, Chen Xi subconsciously made this comment first, but quickly agreed afterward: