I turned reality into a romantic comedy

After all, those sitting here are the elite among the primary school students who have made it through the preliminary and final rounds of the exams. Therefore, the word count requirement set by the organizers is directly aligned with the level of middle school students. The familiar requirement of no less than 800 words made Chen Junqian feel somewhat emotional.

Compared to the meme he saw on the internet before his rebirth, "I said a lot of things against my conscience just to get closer to you," writing has never been difficult for Chen Junqian from elementary school to university. Let alone 800 words, he can often fill all the squares in his essays if he has enough time. Sometimes he even writes outside the lines, and he always feels a little unsatisfied after finishing.

After he started his internship and began working, his skills became even more refined. Faced with the editor's requirements for sample manuscripts, he could often submit several manuscripts with very different styles within a week.

But as it turns out, just like in a Chinese exam, writing more words doesn't necessarily guarantee a higher score, sometimes diligence can't make up for a lack of talent. As a result, for a long time, Chen Junqian did many other odd jobs to make a living through the introduction of his university teacher. In addition to the teaching and training work and museum cultural and creative work mentioned earlier, he also tried writing copy for WeChat public accounts and Douyin.

However, unlike the previous additions that required a certain number of words, these platforms all required a subtraction of no more than a certain number of words. The boss's requirement was often that the number of words could be clearly read within one or two minutes, which took Chen Junqian quite a while to adapt to.

"There are too many words."

Chen Junqian not only received this evaluation from them, but also from the child readers he most wanted to have countless times. Whenever he tried to show his manuscript to the children of his relatives, hoping to get the most honest evaluation from them, he would often hear such words from them.

Perhaps this kind of evaluation would be more frustrating for him than watching it and saying it wasn't good. He even feels that everyone has secretly transitioned from "I've read the original work, which means I've read the whole book" to "I've watched the TV series/movie/animation adapted from the original work, which means I've read the original work" and even "I've watched 'XX TV series/movie/animation' in one go, which means I've read the original work."

As Chen Junqian twirled his pen, letting his thoughts wander aimlessly through the essay topic, Zhu Wenyun, sitting on the other side of the classroom, seemed to have already decided what to write, and wrote her opening on the paper:

I once read a sentence like this in a book:

The best way to entice children is to get them to read.

In this way, even if they encounter terrible things, they will know that there is a backup little world, a backup of dreams, a backup of tranquility, a backup of poetry, and a backup of themselves, so that you may suddenly realize that there are so many familiar souls in the world, dancing with you as you read.

Loneliness doesn't drive us to embrace books, nor do books make us lonelier; there's no causal relationship between the two. After all, replacing the latter with televisions and computer games wouldn't cause any problem.

As she wrote this, Zhu Wenyun's once-flowing pen suddenly paused on the paper, but in the end she didn't write the next sentence onto the manuscript, since this time no one was there to add, delete, or revise it for her.

She simply read aloud the answer she had prepared in her mind:

On the contrary, reading only makes people want to share with others, and when one lonely person tries to find another lonely person, the desire for love arises.

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

Chen Junqian had no recollection of what he had written until the bell rang, signaling the end of the writing time. However, it didn't matter, since he was only there to go through the motions. So, he immediately went to find Zhu Wenyun to inquire about her situation.

"It went pretty smoothly. The essay topic wasn't too difficult, and there were many angles to approach it from. I don't know if my approach will impress the judges, but I have no regrets about submitting the paper. Now I'll just wait for the results."

It's clear that Zhu Wenyun is quite relaxed, even looking rather refreshed. She must have performed well, at least avoiding the embarrassing writer's block she used to experience.

"That's good. Let's go. It will take some time to get back to Guoning from Xuancheng. If we are delayed any longer, we will have to have dinner on the road."

"Well, actually I ate quite a lot for lunch, and I still have some leftover bread and biscuits in my bag. If all else fails, I'll just make do with this."

Since the results of the essay competition weren't released on the same day, there was no need for the group to wait there; they could simply wait for news at school.

However, due to the little incident on the way there, even on the return trip, the five students in the van naturally split into two distinct factions. However, Chen Junqian and Zhu Wenyun didn't care. They even saved themselves the inconvenience of having to send messages face-to-face on their phones in the morning and sat there quietly chatting about today's essay topic.

In fact, Chen Junqian was secretly hoping that something like in an old-fashioned urban campus novel would happen, where the other party would suddenly propose a bet, like "Let's see who wins this essay contest." But as it turned out, even elementary school students wouldn't do something so stupid in real life, which left him a little disappointed.

After all, he wanted to see Zhu Wenyun, whom he had nurtured for so long, perform a "pretending to be weak while actually being strong" act, which was the so-called satisfaction of nurturing someone. Watching her dominate the battlefield was, in a sense, fulfilling his dream. Moreover, she had indeed said that she would help him write the story later.

Because Chen Junqian could indeed sense a talent he had never possessed in his past or present life from Zhu Wenyun. If his current expectations for Xu Youwei and Lin Mu were for their mental health and safe growth, then his expectations for Zhu Wenyun were much higher.

He wanted to see her talents blossom, to see her shine, and now all he had to do was polish this fine rough stone little by little, making her dazzling and radiant.

Zhu Wenyun could clearly sense this fervent expectation from Chen Junqian. Rather, it was precisely because of this burning recognition that she first had the strong feeling that 'I am different from them. This is something only I can do for him, and something only he would ask me to do.'

However, she did not think that Chen Junqian's mentality was some kind of wolf king dream, because the other party was never a stupid bird that would lay an egg and force it to fly, nor was he a busy bird that would just leave the egg there and then disappear without a trace. He was the one who would give all his tenderness and care to an egg and incubate his own egg with his grandmother.

However, compared to her grandmother, who was already shorter than her and would visibly grow shorter in the future, Zhu Wenyun was willing to believe that Chen Junqian would grow taller than her in the future. Just looking at the growth rate over the past two years, the other party was much taller than her, and girls always develop earlier than boys.

Therefore, Zhu Wenjun wouldn't grumble like Lin Mu about not being too much taller than her, nor would she tell Xu Youwei that she must grow taller than her in the future. After all, from the day they met, it has always been about who is taller than the other.

This is probably also a kind of expectation for the future.

After all, if that day really comes, it means they will definitely be a few years older than they are now.

Physical growth always brings about psychological changes.

Zhu Wenyun recalled a line from "Girl's Diary":

The growth of the breasts is a girl's first badge of honor as she becomes a young woman.

She hoped that Chen Junqian's attitude towards her back then would change accordingly because of her height, instead of intentionally avoiding it or ignoring it as he does now, which even Zhu Wenyun can now slowly look at and formally accept as her medal.

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

One day in June, close to summer vacation, Chen Junqian welcomed Lin Mu to his home again.

Chen Junqian remained remarkably relaxed, just like his childhood sweetheart who seemed to know his way around his house and room as easily as if he were home. He lay on the bed covered with a straw mat, showing no intention of moving at all, and even asked Lin Mu, who came in from outside, to bring him a bag of chilled bayberries from the refrigerator.

"Here, move over."

Even though there was an empty chair in front of the desk, Lin Mu still made Chen Junqian, who was lying on the bed reading, roll over to the wall. Lin Mu kicked off his shoes, sat down next to him, and threw the iced bayberry over while taking apart the three-colored cups he had taken out.

"Damn, it seems like my family only got five three-color cups this time. Mu Mu, you've already used up three in just three visits."

"Ha, as if you're saying that every time you come to my house you destroy fewer torches, Qianqian. If we're talking about price, mine is actually more expensive than yours."

"Of course you can't compare them like that. The three-color cup is the most expensive item in my refrigerator, but the big torch isn't the most expensive item in your refrigerator, so the prices aren't equal."

"quibble--"

After rolling her eyes at Chen Junqian, Lin Mu raised her left leg, which was only covered by capri pants, again and gently touched his stomach:

"Hey, how's that thing I told you about last time?"

"I do plan to go to Tangshan with my mom this summer, but it's different from going to the Shanghai World Expo last year. I mainly want to see my dad. Besides, Tangshan is much farther than Shanghai. It takes more than ten hours by train. It's exhausting to go there and back. There's really no need for her to come along."

However, Lin Mu didn't pay any attention to the dozen or so hours of train time mentioned by Chen Junqian. Instead, he asked with great interest:

"If it's more than ten hours, do I need to buy a sleeper ticket? I've never ridden a sleeper train before. I used to fly to Beijing."

"...So you're really going, huh?"

"Otherwise what? Didn't I already tell Qianqian? We'll go to Tangshan to see Uncle, and then go to Qinhuangdao next to it for a trip. I've already bought summer clothes, and it'll definitely be a lot of fun to travel by sleeper train. Whether it's sleeping in a bunk bed with Qianqian or on the same floor, it'll be really interesting."

Seeing his childhood sweetheart already lost in his own fantasy, Chen Junqian could only roll his eyes back at her.

"What about your uncle and aunt? Do you think they'll agree?"

"So I followed Qianqian's example and made a bet with them. If I improve in this final exam, they will grant me one wish, and then I can tell my parents about it later."

"Um, can it really improve?"

"That's why I'm here today to learn from Qianqian."

Do we look like we're studying?

Feeling somewhat helpless, Chen Junqian got out of bed. Faced with Lin Mu, who was finally determined to study hard, Chen Junqian realized he should put in a little more effort.

"Alright, take out the notebook of mistakes I asked you to do before. Ask me anything you don't understand. After you finish the math, practice your English handwriting and memorize the model sentences I gave you. If you finish everything, it shouldn't be a problem to raise your score by 10 or 20 points."

"Uh-huh."

Lin Mu nodded with high spirits, but his mouth was still full of ice cream, so his words sounded a little muffled.

"I tried my best!"

However, this state of confidence only lasted for ten minutes.

"...Actually, I think even if I don't improve in the exam, my parents would still agree."

This was Lin Mu's self-consolation as he lay sprawled on the table, looking utterly hopeless.

"if not?"

Chen Junqian reached out and took the glass bottle filled with little stars and origami cranes that he had received from Lin Mu two years ago, and waved it in front of her:

"Didn't you already know when you gave this to them? If you have any wishes in front of them, just say them directly. You don't need to wait until your birthday, New Year, or exam results, and you don't need to fold a thousand origami cranes."

Yes, it is.

Lin Mu smiled with satisfaction.

"I think Qianqian treats me the same way."

"What's said may not be true."

Although Chen Junqian tapped the tip of Lin Mu's nose with the bottom of a glass bottle, Lin Mu still wore a smug expression.

She wondered if it was just her imagination, but in the reflection of the sunlight streaming into the room from outside the window, she always had a vague feeling that there were some blurry words on the glass bottle she had given to the other person.

Chapter Sixteen: I Want to Praise (Part Two)

Before the summer of 2011 arrived, Chen Junqian chose to register a personal account on Bilibili, which was just emerging at the time.

However, this doesn't mean he suddenly had the idea of ​​becoming a video creator; he simply wanted to find a more suitable platform to talk to people about topics he couldn't discuss with anyone in real life.

As a newcomer and mysterious anime enthusiast who has been steadily following and catching up on anime since January 2010, Chen Junqian's anime watchlist has long since expanded from romance anime to include any work that he finds appealing in the current season.

But just as Zhu Wenyun, who had read many books but had no one to confide in, wrote in this essay competition, reading and watching a work does indeed create a desire to share and communicate with others who have also read it, especially for excellent works.

However, Chen Junqian clearly couldn't find anyone like that around him.

He could chat with Xu Youwei, who had stopped watching cartoons at some point, about the second standalone book of Charlie IX, "The Terrifying Witch Mask," which was just published the month before last. He could also listen to Zhu Wenyun, who had only ever watched various family dramas with her grandmother on TV since she was a child, instead of cartoons, complain about "The Temptation to Go Home," which just aired this February.

Lin Mu still follows the trend and watches popular anime and cartoons for girls. He expects to have a long talk with Zhong Yu when "Sweet Princess" airs in a few months. Zhong Yu talks to him mostly about "Super Beast Force", "Dragon Warrior" and "Armor Hero Xingtian", which just started airing this year. Chen Xi is currently engrossed in another rare historical animation, "Qin Han Heroes", and uses it as an opportunity to learn about that period of time.

Chen Junqian certainly didn't dislike these works, and he never thought that watching them was too childish or outdated. After all, in his previous life, he had also enjoyed watching all of these works once or even several times, and he was always happy when chatting with them.

But something was always missing.

Of course, he also wanted to talk to people about his experience watching "Puella Magi Madoka Magica," which aired in January of this year and still leaves a deep impression on him; he wanted to discuss "Steins;Gate," a half-year anime that aired in April of this year and is still ongoing but already exudes the aura of a masterpiece; and he wanted to share his joy at seeing the second season of "Baka and Test" air again in July of this year.

Whether it's the imagination and wonder of "Nichijou" or the insert song in the ending theme of "Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day," or even just someone listening to him fiercely criticize "Infinite Stratos," which contributed a lot to the system's list of idiotic achievements, would be fine.

Unfortunately, the system that was best at discussing these topics with Chen Junqian had been dormant for a long time. If it weren't for the occasional achievement trigger, Chen Junqian would probably think it had gone back to some kind of Time and Space Administration to report for duty.

However, Chen Junqian couldn't simply imitate the mysterious social media posts of his relatives' children that he had seen before his rebirth on his own QQ space, creating a post like "My CN (nickname) is xxx, my profile picture is custom-made, I'm doing xxx, I'm promoting xxx, and I'm interested in xxxx," and then list a whole bunch of things that were just slang within his small circle, like reciting a menu.

However, he would never randomly grab someone in class and ask, "Have you seen xxxx?" That would be like some kind of strange salesman.

It's more like just thinking about it makes me feel embarrassed; I feel like I could dig a whole three-bedroom apartment out of the ground with my toes.

That's why Chen Junqian chose to turn his attention to the internet once again. After all, there are far more people online than in real life, and even in the smallest circles, you might meet like-minded people.

Anyway, Chen Junqian didn't really intend to become a famous blogger or video column creator. At most, he would just be active in the comment sections of various videos, and then use it as a social platform like QQ Space to share his feelings and experiences when watching, catching up on, or following anime, and occasionally do some summarizing and organizing of new anime information.

After all, he has been given superhuman learning abilities by the system. Compared to his past state of eagerly waiting for the translation group to update, Chen Junqian has now started to try to learn some Japanese-related knowledge himself. After all, compared to the various translated resources, the raw (untranslated) content is still the easiest to find on the Internet. Sometimes you have to force yourself to read it.

So, out of personal interest, Chen Junqian simply translated the latest trailer PV for the October anime "Haganai," a film that seemed like a stereotypical romantic comedy and probably occupied several entries in his list of unreleased achievements—a film that was directly copied from a Japanese website by someone else—and casually added the prefix "[Personal Amateur Translation]" before posting it. Then, he prepared to log out of his personal account.

After all, Lin Mu often came to his house to play computer games with him, so he really needed to keep his rather niche hobby a secret.

To Chen Junqian's surprise, shortly after he posted his comment, someone left a smiley face and a simple "thank you" below it, and he also got an extra like.

Of course, Chen Junqian was already used to such comments as "May the poster live a long and peaceful life" that appeared frequently. After casually glancing at them, he closed the webpage, logged out of his personal account, stood up from the computer, and stretched.

Although he wasn't a big fan of anime and manga in his previous life and didn't have any knowledge about it, as an outsider, Chen Junqian still remembered a few works that would become popular starting next year.

By then, I'll be a junior high school student.

Maybe I'll have the chance to meet someone who shares my interests and can talk about these topics with me?

With this wish in mind, Chen Junqian returned to his room.

Since his father went to work in Tangshan, he has been spending significantly more time alone at home. After all, his mother is busy playing mahjong and doesn't care about anything else. In her words, he is someone she can trust completely, so he can be home alone all the time.

Just as Chen Junqian returned to his room and lay on his bed, preparing to take a comfortable afternoon nap this weekend, his phone, which was under his pillow, suddenly rang. When he picked it up, he saw that it was a text message from Zhu Wenyun.

The content is very simple, just one sentence:

I won an award for my essay.

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

For Zhu Wenyun and Chen Junqian, this was undoubtedly even more exciting news than the upcoming summer vacation.

Of course, for Chen Junqian, the homeroom teacher who teaches both Class 3 and Class 4, and for the school itself, having a student win first prize in a provincial essay competition is a highly prestigious honor and an excellent opportunity for publicity.

Moreover, Zhu Wenyun herself possesses many qualities and strengths that school leaders feel are worth exploring and promoting.

The left-behind children who live with their grandmothers still persist in reading and writing despite the hardships of life. Their articles have not only been published, but they also received commendation from the city last year. This time, they won first prize in the provincial essay competition. By combining these achievements, a perfect news article is already halfway done.

It can only be said that this time it is different from the last stampede incident. Without Chen Junqian to help share the pressure, Zhu Wenyun is the only one who is in the spotlight. Faced with the school's determination to report and publicize the incident, Zhu Wenyun agreed readily this time, which even surprised Chen Junqian.

However, just like the mysterious monologue in his current phone ringtone, "Because seeing you makes me feel safe," Zhu Wenyun still invited Chen Junqian along on the day he was interviewed by city reporters.

"I thought you would make excuses again this time."

"Because it feels like it's not a good thing to always make excuses, and besides, Grandma and you will be happier if you do it this way."