I turned reality into a romantic comedy

"...It seems there really isn't one."

After a moment's recollection, Chen Junqian shook his head. He really didn't have a nickname growing up. If you really wanted to count, his grandparents called him "Xiao Bao" when he was very young, but that couldn't really be considered a nickname, it was just a pet name.

"Then I'll get one for you right here. If you feel embarrassed, then we can just use it when we're alone together, okay?"

Chen Junqian initially thought that Xu Youwei would also use the reduplicated word "Junjun" to address him, just like Lin Mu did. However, he did not expect that although she used a reduplicated word, it was not the answer he had in mind.

"How about Qinqin? This is the same as my nickname, both lines are from the Book of Songs, 'I have not seen my lord, and my heart is filled with worry.'"

"You've actually read the Book of Songs?"

"It wasn't me, it was my mom. She had already prepared a whole bunch of names before I was even born... Hmm, look, the second character of your name is the 'Jun' in 'gentleman,' so what do you think?"

"what ever."

Having said all that, Chen Junqian really couldn't refuse. Although he really wanted to complain that the previous sentence might sound like "kiss," he ultimately didn't say anything. Instead, he and Xu Youwei, whose interest had been rekindled, started writing his new name, which he had acquired that evening, in the air.

After playing for a while, even though Xu Youwei had brought two bundles of sparklers, they were all used up. The other party rummaged around and pulled out a big one.

These are fireworks that look like long sticks. They're called "skyrockets" here, but in other places they're called "flower tubes" or "magic bullets."

Unlike most firecrackers that you have to let go of immediately after lighting the fuse, this is a handheld firework. When you play with it, you just point the muzzle at the sky, and the projectiles inside will be launched continuously at intervals of about three seconds, blooming one after another in the night sky, giving you a great sense of accomplishment.

"So why is it just one?"

"Because this thing is too long, it's really inconvenient to carry around. I carried this huge bag all the way here, you know."

As she spoke, Xu Youwei waved to Chen Junqian, signaling him to light the fuse and place his hand on it as well. Together, they held the same firecracker high, pointing the muzzle at the sky, watching the dazzling fireworks bloom one after another on the distant horizon.

"Hey—Qinqin."

"What happened again?"

"I just wanted to call you that suddenly."

"Am I about to be put into the Purple Gold Gourd?"

"I don't have that kind of thing, and it's not your real name, so it probably won't work?"

"But the meaning of a name is that when it is called out, people will realize that they are being called, so it should be the same, even if the name only exists between two people, right, Yoyo?"

"Ok!"

Completely ignoring Chen Junqian's teasing response, Xu Youwei simply nodded vigorously. Her small face, illuminated by the fireworks in the sky, radiated a smile that was far more fitting for the festive atmosphere of the Lunar New Year than the one she had at the New Year's Eve dinner table the previous night.

Actually, the matter of names is not as complicated as the other party described.

Because from the beginning, all she wanted was a name that was exclusive to Lin Mu, just like the one she used for him.

Chapter 52: The Flag of Childhood Sweethearts Always Stands Tall (Part 2)

Before they knew it, it was the fourth day of the Lunar New Year. Although theoretically the period before the Lantern Festival is considered part of the New Year celebrations, most of the relatives they were supposed to visit had already been seen over the past three days. So, Chen Junqian had just borrowed his father's phone to open QQ when he saw a message from Lin Mu inviting him to a movie.

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, only by knowing yourself and the enemy can you be victorious in 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."