The sky is deep blue with a little gray hanging in it.
It looks as though it might rain, yet there are no clouds.
Only after returning to his room does Shen Li discover that choosing tonight’s date is not as simple as he imagined. It is not a matter of sending a text or filling out a form and stating who he wants to ask.
A tablet has been placed on the table in every room, and the screen is already displaying a questionnaire.
Shen Li gives the questions a quick look and nearly dies on the spot.
So Shen Li spends almost ten minutes thinking himself dry and manages to neatly complete only the first three questions:
【1. During the first day’s production activity, which guest in the house gave you the most favorable impression?】
【Answer: Li Weiwei】
【2. During the first day’s production activity, which guest in the house gave you the least favorable impression?】
【Answer: Yang Zhiqi】
【3. Would you choose to go on a date with the guest who gave you the “most favorable impression”?】
【Answer: No】
【4. Who better fits your standards for a partner: your ex, or today’s “favored guest”?】
【(Unanswered)】
【5. Compared with today’s “favored guest,” what shortcomings does your ex have?】
【(Unanswered)】
【6. Compared with today’s “unfavored guest,” what characteristics does your ex share?】
【(Unanswered)】
【7. Which guest would you like to invite on a date tonight?】
【(Unanswered)】
……
How is he supposed to answer this?
Only four little questions remain.
Yet they feel like the watershed of his entire life.
Shen Li stares fixedly at the sky, expression blank, looking slightly melancholy.
He thinks and thinks but still cannot figure out what he should write so that Qian Xingzhi will not get angry when he sees it, even though Shen Li himself does not know whether thinking this way has any meaning at all.
They are already divorced.
Even if Qian Xingzhi drunkenly said “I want to remarry” last night in a muddled state, Shen Li truly has no reason to consider his feelings to this extent because of a few words.
And yet when faced with questions like these, Shen Li’s first instinct is still to preserve his “husbandly virtue.” It is ridiculous beyond words. But the memories replaying in his mind are crystal clear, fluid and sharp, each frame stabbing into his heart. After all, Qian Xingzhi can practically be described as a “walking vinegar jar.”
A small jealousy episode every three days, a major one every five.
Despite being more than 1.9 meters tall, whenever he got jealous he would silently sprawl over the dining table, his amorous peach-blossom eyes drooping with grievance, the corners sagging, the rims and whites reddened as he stared at Shen Li coming to the kitchen for water, waiting for Shen Li to voluntarily “pick him up” and carry him back to the bedroom. No matter how Shen Li teased him, he refused to speak.
Cute.
Only when Shen Li said, “I’m not on duty tomorrow,” would his eyes finally brighten a little, and then he would grab Shen Li around the waist and immediately try to pounce on him.
That is why for a very long time Shen Li could not figure out whether Qian Xingzhi was genuinely jealous or using jealousy as some kind of bedroom play.
Even though he knew Qian Xingzhi’s original intention was probably just wanting Shen Li to spend time with him.
But there was truly nothing Shen Li could do about work. There were only so many hours in a day. So he could only compromise as much as possible in the areas where compromise was possible.
For this, Shen Li gave up his principles again and again—even parts of his bottom line.
He was not someone who compromised easily, yet Qian Xingzhi was the only person in Shen Li’s thirty-five years of life he had ever tried to please.
And Shen Li still could not hold on to him.
Qian Xingzhi was too much like the wind, changing direction constantly. Even if Shen Li thought until his brain split, he could not understand what Qian Xingzhi was thinking.
Later, Shen Li also began to wonder: were they truly suitable for each other?
Even if he did not have as much time for companionship as an ordinary person, he had already spent every holiday with Qian Xingzhi.
He learned to say sweet words. Even those kinds of videos he personally found very difficult to accept, he later tacitly allowed Qian Xingzhi to make however he liked—what more exactly was he supposed to do before Qian Xingzhi would be satisfied?
“Does he really expect me to quit my job, stay beside him every single day, become a little shadow or a caged canary before he’ll be satisfied?”
Near the later stage of their relationship, Shen Li actually began having thoughts like this.
It was not a healthy relationship. Qian Xingzhi demanded more and more from him, almost wanting to remain stuck to Shen Li twenty-four hours a day. Sometimes he was even more absurd and proposed sleeping with himself still buried inside Shen Li for the entire night.
Shen Li rarely cried.
But after that, there were several times when Qian Xingzhi fell asleep and Shen Li turned his back to his lover, silently shedding tears.
He could not adapt to a relationship like this.
It was too suffocating.
Reason forced him to face reality. He knew separating from Qian Xingzhi was only a matter of time, because the facts had already proven they were not people walking the same road and could not build a life together.
Yet emotion dragged him into enduring again and again. Qian Xingzhi’s starting point was simply that he liked Shen Li. What if both of them adjusted? Could there be a better way for them to be together?
Through repeated trial and error, Shen Li gave ground again and again. Even when he finally exited the relationship, he never completely understood what kind of love Qian Xingzhi actually wanted.
Only after the divorce did Shen Li know with complete clarity that he truly needed an emotionally stable life partner who could act as his support. Qian Xingzhi was extraordinarily unsuited to him.
But why…
Even though he had thought it through so clearly, why did a single sentence from Qian Xingzhi about wanting to remarry still make his heart race painfully?
Why, now, whenever he imagines Qian Xingzhi watching from in front of a screen, does he still instinctively want to make choices that fit what Qian Xingzhi wants?
Shen Li stares expressionlessly at the sky. Finally, reason defeats emotion.
The reason they reached this point before was entirely because Shen Li was too passive, allowing Qian Xingzhi to do whatever he wanted step by step.
He once thought that as long as he behaved that way, they could last forever. Yet the facts proved otherwise. Two people with their own ideas and personalities had already harvested today’s bitter consequences. They could not repeat the same mistakes merely because they had forgotten how bitter the fruit was, all because of one irresponsible feeling.
Before their problems were resolved, if Shen Li once again followed Qian Xingzhi’s wishes completely and remarried simply because Qian Xingzhi said so,
what would their future look like?
Character determines fate.
No person can change easily.
Once Shen Li thinks this through, he stops struggling.
He very quickly answers the remaining questions according to his true thoughts. The System displays that matching is complete and says his matched partner will arrive within three minutes to invite him.
Three minutes later.
Someone knocks on Shen Li’s door, and Shen Li turns to look.
In the camera feed, Shen Li’s eyes widen slightly as he says with mild surprise:
“…Why is it you?”
The person answers:
“Shouldn’t it be me? Who else did you want to date?”