I turned reality into a romantic comedy

Seemingly hesitating about something, after a long while, Chen Junqian heard the other person ask him a question, as if tentatively:

Will you go to the Shanghai World Expo next year?

Chapter 32: Localized, but not fully localized

Shanghai World Expo.

When he heard the other person utter that word, Chen Junqian was also unconsciously a little dazed.

For children born in the millennium, the impression of the 2010 Shanghai World Expo is actually deeper than that of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. After all, they have a better chance to experience the latter firsthand. At least in Chen Junqian's memory, several of his classmates from elementary school went to the Shanghai World Expo during the summer vacation next year.

However, Chen Junqian is not one of them.

Just as the Children's Palace was merely a place in elementary school math textbooks for him for a long time, the Shanghai World Expo and its mascot Haibao were only seen in news and animation on television, seemingly within reach but actually still somewhat distant.

Qiu, on the other hand, was unaware that Chen Junqian had already gone through such a long process in such a short time, and immediately continued:

"I might go to the Shanghai World Expo with my family next summer, so... so if the timing works out, it would be great if we could meet up there and visit the Expo together."

Chen Junqian remembered that he seemed to have received an invitation from the other party in his previous life, but he refused quite decisively at that time. Unlike his classmate Zhong Yu, who could get along with anyone, he always had doubts about interpersonal relationships in real life. He even felt that if online friends met offline, they would no longer be just online friends.

This time, however, he decided to agree.

"I'll ask Mom and Dad later. After all, the World Expo doesn't officially start until May next year, so there's still plenty of time. If possible, I'll tell you what I think, sister?"

"Ah."

It was probably just because Chen Junqian didn't refuse on the spot that she was surprised. She could tell that he was quite satisfied with his answer. After that, they started chatting about the venues they wanted to visit when they got there.

In fact, given the limited knowledge of elementary school students, unless they grew up watching football with their fathers and had some familiarity with the various small and remote countries on the globe, especially in Asia, Qiu would only know a few well-known countries such as the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.

This is normal, after all, during Chen Junqian's reborn elementary school years, there was a period when he kept wondering why he couldn't find the country of the 'former Soviet Union' on the world map. Its mystery was comparable to the 'famous' in literary history and the 'Chinese pop stars' in music history.

"I wish I could go shopping with you, my little brother."

Before their conversation ended, the other person repeated something again, clearly showing how much they cared. Chen Junqian could only respond with:

"If I could, I would definitely go."

In fact, his family is not the kind of poor household that you see in "Transformation" living deep in the mountains. They definitely have the assets to go on a trip, especially since his father will be promoted and receive a raise this year. When Chen Junqian graduated from elementary school in his previous life, he went to Xi'an with his parents. That was the farthest trip he had taken from home since he was born, and also the last trip he took with his parents.

As for how to achieve this goal, the best bargaining chips for children to use when they go to their parents to ask for what they want are their academic performance and how well-behaved they are.

Frankly speaking, Chen Junqian is quite satisfied and gratified with his parents in this respect. After all, even two thousand years later, many parents are not willing to follow the agreement between them and their children, just like in the story of Zengzi killing the pig in the Spring and Autumn Period. The level of trust between them has gradually collapsed.

After thinking it over, Chen Junqian took the initiative to propose such a bet to his parents during dinner that evening.

"Dad, Mom, if I get first place in my grade in both the midterm and final exams this semester and next semester, and I get the 'Three Good Student' award at the end of fourth grade, can you take me to the Shanghai World Expo next summer?"

Faced with their son's sudden words, Chen Jun and Wang Hongling were momentarily at a loss for words. After all, Chen Junqian rarely made similar requests or negotiations with them before, and even when he did, it was mostly related to buying books.

Moreover, although their son's grades were indeed always among the best in his class, his mouth was number one in the grade, and he had been number one in the grade for two consecutive semesters, which made the two of them subconsciously feel a little surprised.

However, after exchanging a glance, the couple still expressed their support for their son's "ambition." After all, thanks to his excellent performance over the years, if there were a credit score between parents and children, Chen Junqian's score would undoubtedly be in the highest tier. Even if he didn't take the initiative to propose such a bet, they would most likely agree if he simply asked for it.

"The Shanghai World Expo... it's good to broaden your horizons, and I remember it runs from early May to the end of October, so it's easier to make arrangements if it's a long time. As for your grades, son, just do your best and don't ruin your health by thinking too much about them."

"Uh-huh."

After finishing his conversation with his parents and having dinner, Chen Junqian returned to his room. He sat on the edge of the bed, staring blankly at the five Fuwa stickers that he had put on his bedside table two years ago. The stickers together spelled out "Welcome to Beijing."

People always hope to witness and participate in major historical events that will be included in textbooks. Just like how he heard the legend of Liu Xiang, the Asian sprinter, since he was a child, but when he turned on the TV for the first time three years later at the London Olympics, he was a little nervous and watched it with his own eyes, but could only see the desolate scene of him falling down after the start. Even though the Olympics and the World Expo will continue to be held every four and five years, there are only two major events held in the country closest to us.

After all, the level of publicity is different. In Chen Junqian's memory, CCTV would produce and broadcast corresponding animations to promote the Beijing Olympics and the Shanghai World Expo before their opening. He had seen both "Fuwa" and "Haibao is Here" before the former.

Perhaps that's why, as people grow up after their childhood, they feel more and more regretful. Although they haven't reached the point where they are trapped for life by things they couldn't have in their youth, there is still some regret.

Therefore, even without the other party's invitation, he did want to go and see for himself.

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

The remaining weeks were mostly uneventful routines. Apart from a certain young lady who kept her promise and actually provided breakfast for him for a month, Chen Junqian's life was quite stable, and he studied hard and exercised diligently.

At noon, I would accompany Lin Mu to the after-school care center, watching cartoons and chatting. After school, I would stroll around the city with Xu Youwei. During breaks, I would talk to Zhu Wenyun, who was still experiencing writer's block but was slowly making progress, about the books she had recently read. Occasionally, on weekends, I would also encounter a random younger sister and a fixed older sister.

Before he knew it, the seven-day National Day holiday had arrived. On the first day of this longest holiday of the year, excluding winter and summer vacations, Chen Junqian unusually took a break and slept until the sun was high in the sky before slowly getting out of bed. He yawned, washed up, and then casually cooked a bowl of instant noodles for breakfast and lunch.

Just as he sat back down at his desk, preparing to finish all his homework on the first day of his vacation so he could have a good time in the following days, the system, which had been quiet for a while, seemed to have been fully charged again, or perhaps it had completed the localization process.

"Although only some functions have been adapted to the laws of this world, it's still better than having nothing at all before."

Compared to the embarrassing situation when it was first reborn and only had a rating function that was essentially a hindsight assessment, the system now speaks with a rather arrogant air, as if to say, "Let me show you what I've got today, kid, and show you the style of the countless classic romantic comedy male protagonists that I've nurtured and supported across the myriad worlds."

"Don't worry, after following you to China for so long, I'm already part of the Chinese system. Those Japanese terms you don't understand, like 'Yamato Nadeshiko,' 'childhood friend,' 'ghost club member,' 'school festival,' and 'student council president,' definitely won't appear anymore, but!"

At this point, as if to emphasize its dignity as a romantic comedy system, the system deliberately stressed its words and paused:

"Even in reality, we should create a decent romantic comedy. Even if it's not for my KPI performance in this world, I'll still help you out as much as I can, considering that I helped you reincarnate according to your wishes. Anyway, I definitely won't treat you unfairly."

Although the other person's tone softened considerably the next second.

"So what are you going to do?"

"As I said before, if we compare a romantic comedy to a play, given the harsh reality of the stage setting, the requirements for the actors and the script must be raised accordingly. You've already found enough actors to fit into this stage, so it's time to start working on the script."

As he spoke, Chen Junqian heard the other person proudly declare:

"However, in terms of plot, our romantic comedies have never lacked classic scenes and iconic moments featuring beautiful girls with rich character designs and adorable attributes!"

"Although, given the real-world setting, it's not realistic for you to replicate many of the plots. After all, I can't just change the rules of this world that doesn't belong to me to whatever I want, like Saiki Kusuo. Putting aside everything else, where am I supposed to get my colorful hair and eye-colored beauties back? Or should I send you abroad to study and create a reverse IS, letting international students from other countries come and act in it?"

It's fair to say that Chen Junqian is once again unable to understand the technical terms in the other person's speech. However, since he has nothing else to do today, he doesn't mind listening to the system's rare moment of clarity and its rambling complaints.

"The hot girls from the girls' school next door are waiting for me at the school gate to invite me to sing karaoke. There are karaoke places here, but after the hot girls from the girls' school next door are localized, they become the 'spirited girls' from the vocational high school next door... Can you accept that?"

"No."

"When you're taking a shower at night, you bump into your sister changing clothes in the bathroom; when you fall, you land precisely under her skirt and your hands are on her sensitive areas; during a school trip, you accidentally wander into a women's bath and have to hide... No matter how you localize these feelings, they'll all be included. It's best to delete them all."

"Yes."

"When I went back to my hometown in the countryside, I met a cute cat demon and a fox shrine maiden at the shrine. When I climbed the snow mountain, I also met a snow woman who had been lonely for a long time and longed to be in contact with people and feel warmth... Sigh, you have a saying here that you can't become a spirit after the founding of the People's Republic of China. Delete it, delete it."

Although he really wanted to complain that his rebirth and the existence of the system already broke this statement, Chen Junqian really didn't want to be localized by the other party into a yellow weasel seeking a title and then turning into a 1.55-meter-tall cat-like loli, so he also chose to keep quiet.

"After some deletions and revisions, there's basically nothing left. So even though it still seems quite difficult to complete, it's already considered very reliable. Look, here's what I've compiled of your achievements so far."

As the other party spoke, a familiar light screen simultaneously appeared before Chen Junqian's eyes, and the first thing that caught his eye was several golden characters:

Childhood friends (or childhood sweethearts): As we all know, a childhood friend is always an indispensable character in romantic comedies. Since it's become a fixed trope that the childhood friend easily loses to the newcomer, having the childhood friend consistently win becomes a subversion of that trope?

(Condition for achievement: Successfully establish a childhood friendship with a female protagonist who is suited for romantic comedies)

A promise (約束, Yakusoku): A childhood promise is one that one of the people will gradually forget over the years. At the same time, all of the other person's past will fall into the black hole of time. Every word and every sentence, the memories you cherished, will be nothing but the bones left by time when only you remember them, worthless.

Of course, they usually reappear at some point as the last straw or the last boomerang that a drowning person grasps at.

(Condition for achieving this: Make an important childhood promise with a female protagonist who is suited for romantic comedies)

Looking at just these two items, Chen Junqian would even think they were quite normal. But when his gaze swept over the achievements that had not been lit up, meaning that he had not yet achieved them, he realized the meaning behind the other party's words that "it seems quite difficult to complete."

The Miracle of Cherry Blossom Manga

In fact, the objective constraints of underdeveloped communication often deepen misunderstandings between men and women. However, it is precisely because of this that the feelings of not knowing whether the other person will keep the appointment but still being willing to wait in the same place, and not knowing whether the other person will still wait but still being willing to brave the snow to go there, feel particularly sincere.

Conditions for achieving this: When you almost miss meeting or reuniting with a certain heroine due to various unexpected circumstances, you still manage to meet her in the end through the efforts of both parties.

A fireworks festival where sound disappeared.

If confessions could be delivered so easily, the suspense and tension in romantic comedies would undoubtedly be greatly reduced. Therefore, the various unexpected events that occur when deciding to confess are an essential element to appreciate in romantic comedies.

Condition for completion: The female protagonist confesses her love to you while fireworks are being set off, but her voice is drowned out by the sound of the explosion.

Below that, there are a whole bunch of other examples, such as "the telepathic connection in the library" where the protagonist and the heroine touch the same book three times at the same time, "the secret of the sports warehouse" where the protagonist and the heroine are accidentally locked in an indoor space that they cannot leave temporarily, "the essential bento box" where the protagonist receives homemade food from the heroine, "the scarf entanglement incident" where the protagonist shares half of his scarf with the heroine in winter, forcing them to walk close together, and so on and so forth.

It can only be said that Chen Junqian initially wanted to refuse.

But then he saw a list of rewards that could be redeemed after achieving the goal.

[In excellent health]

As the male lead of a romantic comedy, the most important thing is naturally an extraordinary physique. You can get it for free by completing ten romantic comedy achievements! After redeeming it, you'll be faster than Liu Xiang, taller than Yao Ming, have a great appetite, and be in excellent health—

Okay, he actually liked it too.

Testimonials

I was exposed to online novels very early on. I started reading a lot of online novels when I was about eight years old. But at that time, the most popular online novels were classic fantasy novels such as Battle Through the Heavens, Douluo Continent, and Panlong, or supernatural urban novels such as School Beauty's Personal Bodyguard, as well as traditional online game novels that are now basically no longer written.

The first rebirth novel that left a deep impression on me was Xiang Tingsheng's "Rebirth: Waiting for You to Grow Up" when I was in junior high school in 14. It was a story about being reborn in 2003. If we go back further, the male protagonist should have been born in 1984, which is definitely a generation older than me.

But I have to say that even though we are separated by an era, I still felt what the rebirth novel wanted to convey to readers from that book, even though there were many things in it that I didn't understand or have never experienced. For example, the first major event in the book was SARS, and I was only a few years old at that time.

Around that time, I started actively looking for rebirth novels, and there were indeed a lot of high-quality rebirth novels on the internet in those years. But the more I read, the more I paid attention to the issue of the era, or rather, I simply wanted to read a rebirth novel that fit my childhood and youth memories.

But it's obviously a bit difficult. After all, people born in the 80s and 90s can say the same thing. You 00s kids are so young and you're already thinking about being reborn. It just seems to be true.

So there's no other way but to write it myself. After all, I'm the type of person who writes when I can't find a story I want to read. My previous fanfiction about a fan was also created based on this idea.

The process of creating this book was like a story that vaguely emerged in my mind after looking at a lot of old Chinese-style pictures or videos. What exactly did we eat, drink, play, see, hear, and feel back then? And what do we feel now when we think back on it?

Of course, another reason for the creation of this book is also related to my attempt last year in children's literature creation, which is exactly the same as the protagonist Chen Junqian in the book. After all, it was because of this that I reread the stories I read when I was a child.

To be honest, when I saw readers in the book review section a couple of days ago saying that my writing wasn't childish enough, stupid enough, or funny enough, I felt a bit PTSD, because at the same time last year, most of the drafts I submitted received almost the same feedback from the editors.

I apologize for this. After all, if I really knew how children of that age think and speak, I probably wouldn't have sheepishly withdrawn from children's literature again. I have indeed lost a certain childlike innocence and childlike wonder. Many plots in this book, compared to childhood, are essentially setting the stage for the later romantic comedy of youth, so it's only natural to feel this discomfort.

Then comes the issue of grades.

First of all, it should be noted that this book performed very poorly. Hedgehog Cat's advancement criteria only consider one metric: the number of times the book has been read. This book's reading rate was already quite precarious during the first round of trial promotions, barely passing the first round on the last day. In the current second round of reading, the number of times the book has been read has even decreased, placing it fourth from the bottom among the thirty works published in the same period.

In response, my fellow authors all expressed their desire to write original works.

But there's no way around it; you have to walk the path you chose, even if you cry.

To reiterate, the reason this book was published on Hedgehog Cat is quite simple: firstly, it's not an ordinary urban rebirth novel, but a light novel that incorporates a lot of elements related to anime-style romantic comedy, making it inherently more suitable for the Hedgehog Cat platform.

Secondly, I think that compared to other websites, Hedgehog Cat's readers are closer in age to me and are more likely to enjoy reading my book.

Having discussed the achievements, let's talk about some specific aspects of this book.

First, there's the issue of slow pacing. It's quite difficult to distinguish between daily life writing and rambling narratives. I'll try to address this by updating more frequently in the future, since forcibly deleting outlines to speed things up feels like putting the cart before the horse.

Of course I understand everyone's desire to see bloodshed firsthand, but the biggest difference between original works and fan fiction is that the characters appearing here don't have preconceived notions about their character images and personalities. As the first volume is where the female protagonists make their debut, I definitely need to write more details myself.

Otherwise, watching two original female characters you barely recognize, whose names you can't even distinguish, start pulling each other's hair is just not very interesting.

If I could, I would definitely like to follow the example of that popular crossover anime childhood sweetheart story on the site, starting from kindergarten all the way to high school before it's even published, and then having a happy romantic comedy segment. But that would directly deviate from my original intention of recreating those childhood and youth years. Secondly, the female characters would also leave a very faint impression, since this isn't a crossover anime world (laughs).

Of course, the pace of this book will definitely get faster and faster. For example, the content of the second volume will definitely be less than that of the first volume, and the time jumps will also increase. In fact, just like the domestic game "Student Era" on Steam a while ago, around the third volume, the junior high school volume, some of the more popular plots will gradually unfold. That's why that volume is called "Accompanying You from One Lifetime to One World".

Actually, you can tell from the way I wrote the first few hundred thousand words that I intended to write this as a long novel from the beginning. If possible, I hope to write it as a memoir that condenses all the childhood and youthful things and memories of children born around the turn of the millennium from 2009 to 2018. I hope that everyone can see their own shadow in some paragraph or element.

Finally, it will be officially released tomorrow at 12 o'clock. I hope everyone can support it. I will also try my best to update it and pay back the rewards I owe.

Thank you all for your continued reading and support.

If possible, I hope to witness this story to the very end with everyone.

Chapter 33: What kind of childhood sweetheart is this? (Seeking first subscription)

After finishing all his homework and spending the rest of the precious first day of the National Day holiday thoroughly studying all the unlocked achievements of his self-proclaimed localized, embarrassing system, Chen Junqian still felt compelled to complain that the localization was far from complete; it was at least superficial.

Considering that he is currently closest to Lin Mu, Chen Junqian's first focus was on the un-unlocked achievements related to childhood sweethearts, which were a jumbled mess of mysterious anime references that he couldn't understand at the moment.

After all, even setting aside the fact that he and Lin Mu are in a close relationship where they can hang out anytime, just considering the other's simple-mindedness—so simple that he can walk a hundred or two hundred steps while playing a puzzle—it shouldn't be a problem for them to complete some achievements together.

But Chen Junqian could only admit that he was too naive.

Because this system's understanding of childhood friends, or childhood acquaintances, is clearly still at the level of a Japanese romantic comedy.

Just like their nonsensical conversation during their first meeting, where the system rambled on about what TOYOTA was, the achievements related to childhood sweethearts are basically all related to this.

For example, the first T, which stands for Tonari (next door), has several achievements that leave Chen Junqian speechless. The other party even thoughtfully stated that they had specially removed the requirement that, in the classic childhood friend genre, not only do the two people have to live next door, but their rooms must also be separated by a narrow passageway between the two houses, so that they can talk to each other without leaving their rooms after opening their windows.

Chen Junqian said, "Then I really have to thank you."