Sad Man Doesn’t Cry
The matter-of-fact tone made Wen Ci laugh. “Done?”
He glanced outside. “It’s still daylight.”
Wen Sheng did not understand what he meant and stayed silent.
Wen Ci went on, “It’s still light out, so why are you already dreaming? Me, go home with you and play along with your act? Do I look that free?”
Wen Sheng smiled faintly. “Aren’t you free? You probably can’t find a job, right? Ah, I remember, you graduated from K University. So even K University graduates can’t find jobs now? What a shame.”
“Relax. Even if I were so free that I’d go help someone raise pigs, I still wouldn’t help you act. Give it up.” Wen Ci waved a hand, too lazy to waste words on him. “I already said I wouldn’t go back to the Wen family to bother you, and I won’t. You don’t have to come all the way here and put on a show. You don’t think it’s tiring, but I’m tired just watching. Hurry up and leave.”
Apparently not expecting Wen Ci to say that, Wen Sheng froze. Then the smile on his face deepened. “No. That’s your home too. Mom and Dad said so. We’re both their children, and besides, Brother, if you act like this, it won’t just make Mom and Dad sad. It’ll make me sad too. Though you should have gotten lost in the first place, I don’t want Mom and Dad to be sad because of you.”
The way he changed tone so quickly made him seem like a different person entirely, and Wen Ci gave him an interested glance.
In the novel, although he had not moved out and had even targeted Wen Sheng, Wen Sheng would not call him Brother every other sentence, nor was he this gloomy. Instead, Wen Sheng had been cold and distant toward him.
Now that he had broken away from the plot, had Wen Sheng broken away with him? Otherwise, how could his behavior be so strange?
“What needed to be said has already been said.” Wen Ci made a please-go-ahead gesture. “I usually see friends off, but there’s no need to see you off.”
“Brother’s house is so pretty.” Wen Sheng acted as if he had not heard him and looked around on his own. “Pretty enough that I want to move in too. Why don’t I go home and tell Mom and Dad I’m coming to live with Brother? I’m grown up now, and I shouldn’t keep living at home.”
Knowing Wen Sheng was deliberately trying to disgust him, Wen Ci smiled. “No. I’m only used to living with normal people. I can’t share a room with a drama queen.”
“So Brother means I’ve caused Brother trouble by coming back?” Wen Sheng frowned, looking deep in thought.
What a little punk. He was pretty good at acting.
Wen Ci looked at him with a faint smile. “You’re overthinking it. You’re Mom and Dad’s son. It’s only right that you come back. I’m not troubled, and I won’t be troubled because of you. Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Then why won’t you come back with me? Oh, I know. You’re still blaming me for coming back, aren’t you? Then I’ll pack my bags today and go back to where I was before. Brother, don’t move out because of me, okay?” Wen Sheng lowered his head, his voice growing softer and softer, looking extremely wronged. “I’ll make things clear to Mom and Dad. I won’t let Brother be wronged.”
This guy did not care at all whether Wen Ci cooperated. He just went straight into his act.
The more Wen Ci listened, the more impatient he became. Resisting the urge to smash this face flat with a punch, he grabbed Wen Sheng by the clothes, dragged him out, and shut the door cleanly behind him.
Although he had indeed moved out because of Wen Sheng, it was not because Wen Sheng had come back. It was because he did not want to be Wen Sheng’s stepping stone, or Wen Sheng’s stand-in.
Just before the door closed, Wen Sheng’s face finally showed a hint of surprise.
“Brother.” Wen Sheng was unwilling to give up. He leaned against the window from outside and looked at him with an eerie smile. “Brother, I’ll come again.”
“If you come again next time, you won’t be standing outside the door. You’ll be there.” Wen Ci motioned toward the trash can not far away with his eyes. He opened the window and suddenly laughed. “Oh, right. I’ll give you something.”
“What?”
Wen Ci extended his hand and held up his middle finger. When he saw Wen Sheng’s ashen face, he shut the window with satisfaction and drew the curtains.
If Wen Sheng could find him once, he would definitely find him a second time. Wen Ci should have recorded it just now. Next time Wen Sheng came to harass him, Wen Ci could use the recording to threaten him.
But Wen Sheng was such an actor that even if Wen Ci had a recording, it would be useless. Wen Sheng had the ability to twist things around, making others disbelieve the recording and feel even more sorry for him instead.
After thinking it over and over, Wen Ci finally called the landlord and asked if there was another place he could rent. After learning there was, he hurriedly packed his things and prepared to move.
Fortunately, he did not have much stuff, so moving was easy. In just half a day, Wen Ci had already settled into the new place.
*
The new apartment was a little bigger than the previous one. Wen Ci lay alone on the sofa, staring lazily out the window.
It was too quiet around him. Feeling awkward, he turned on the TV and watched for a while, and that finally dispersed the loneliness. In the end, he drifted off in a daze and dreamed of himself as a child.
The Wen Ci in elementary school had an exquisite, fair little face, and his eyes were big. He looked very well-behaved. Wherever he went, people praised him, and he played along by pretending to be obedient. In reality, he was not obedient at all.
For example, on the way home from school, when he ran into schoolmates bullying someone, he said nothing and grabbed a stone from the ground to slam it hard into the ringleader, not stopping until he heard the other side begging for mercy.
That night, Wen Ci took on four people by himself. Afterwards, he very coolly pulled the bullied boy into his arms, stroked his long hair, and told him, “Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid. I’ll protect you from now on.”
The person in his arms did not make a sound, but Wen Ci did not care. He held the boy’s face and kept talking to him on his own. He asked what his name was, where he lived, and why people were bullying him.
When he got no reply, Wen Ci introduced himself, peeled the wrapper off his last chocolate, and stuffed it into the boy’s mouth. Whether the boy agreed or not, he overbearingly declared that they were good friends from that day on.
The boy, who had eaten the chocolate, softly said two words. “Thank you.”
Even though those were the only two words he said that day, Wen Ci was still especially happy.
The next day, Wen Ci found that boy in the neighboring class, happily chatted with him about funny things, and beat up the classmate who had wanted to bully him.
Of course, the consequence was having to call in the parents.
The bullying student lied shamelessly and teamed up with the others to claim that Wen Ci was the one doing the bullying.
Wen Ci kept making faces at those students, irritating them to no end. Some of them even burst into tears on the spot.
In the end, the teacher believed them and called Wen Ci’s parents to school.
Mother Wen sternly told the teacher that Wen Ci would never hit people for no reason, and the boy showed the wounds on his body, asking the teacher what was going on.
The teacher, who had always deliberately ignored the boy, could not say a word.
A classmate beside them sneered that the boy had no parents and was a jinx, so it was only right that he got beaten and scolded.
Wen Ci’s eyes turned red as he listened. He grabbed the student who had been talking nonsense and started fighting him, shouting at the top of his lungs, “He’s my friend. You’re not allowed to bully him! What does whether he has parents have to do with you? If you care so much, then why don’t you give him your parents? Do you dare? Do you dare!”
The student was frightened. While crying, he shouted that he would never give up his own parents.
Later, the teacher was fired, and Wen Ci transferred into the boy’s class to act as his little bodyguard.
Wen Ci liked calling the boy by his nickname, Ah Yan. He loved that beautiful long hair of his, but Ah Yan hated it very much and had tried more than once to cut it off.
So Wen Ci, with his rather clumsy skills, tied it up for him and seriously told him it looked good.
From then on, until Ah Yan disappeared, he never mentioned cutting it again.
His hair grew longer and longer, and every time, it was Wen Ci who clumsily tied it up for him. Sometimes he would hurt him, but the boy would only frown and say nothing at all.
Wen Ci remembered that the last time he saw Ah Yan, they had even promised to go hiking together during summer break.
But after that time, he never saw Ah Yan again.
Wen Ci opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling for a while before coming back to himself.
He had dreamed of his childhood again.
He could no longer remember Ah Yan’s face, and in fact, he could not remember many things anymore.
What he and Ah Yan experienced was not part of the novel’s plot, which was strange.
Wen Ci got up, found some drawing paper, and started to sketch.
It was the scene in the dream where he had helped Ah Yan tie up his hair.
Looking at the face that ended up with no features, Wen Ci rubbed his temples.
He could not remember. The face was too blurry.
He gave up on drawing the features, carefully put the drawing paper away in the drawer, and started a livestream.
Wen Ci had only livestreamed once so far, and today was the second time. On top of that, it was already very late, so when he went live, there was no one there yet.
He queued up for a four-player squad. His teammates were very lively and kept shouting that they should jump Military Base and go head-to-head.
After following his teammates to the ground, Wen Ci was just about to pick up a gun when player one beat him to it and then opened the mic to tell him to get lost.
Wen Ci could not be bothered to argue with someone like that. When he turned to pick up another gun, someone shot him and he collapsed to the ground.
In this game, if you were knocked down, then as long as your health bar had not completely disappeared and your teammate got to you in time, you would not be eliminated.
Player one missed every shot in the duel, cursing all the while as he reloaded. He did not bother with Wen Ci at all. When player three asked him to revive Wen Ci, he just snapped, “Revive what? You’re so bad, you might as well die. You’re a burden even if you stay alive.”
As soon as he said that, he was finished off and eliminated.
There were people everywhere. Player three rushed over quickly and revived Wen Ci, nervously chanting over and over, “Don’t come, don’t come.”
Player one was spectating. Seeing Wen Ci get revived, he felt extremely resentful and kept cursing at Wen Ci, blaming him for getting him killed.
Wen Ci muted the mic and focused seriously on the game. In the end, he and the other two teammates successfully got a chicken dinner.
When he returned to the lobby, someone invited him to team up again, and it was the same player one who had been cursing the whole last round.
Wen Ci sneered and clicked reject.
Darkness Before Dawn: “The streamer actually wasn’t a side dish today. Shocked. Is this really the side-dish streamer I know?”
Wen Ci glanced at the chat and laughed. “Being a side dish is impossible.”
He started another match. This time, his teammates dropped in all over the place, and one after another they died. Wen Ci was eliminated three minutes after landing.
Little Du’s Dance Is Heavenly: “Well damn, I just ate three big bowls of rice.”
Sound of a Horn: “What a self face-slapping show. Streamer, does your face hurt?”
Wuhu Takeoff: “I want to hop in, is that okay qaq.”
Wen Ci ignored the chat messages asking whether his face hurt and opened the QR code, letting them scan it to join the squad.
After three people came in, Wen Ci started the game right away. The three of them all followed Wen Ci and jumped into P City.
Wen Ci was player one. Players two and three had their mics on, saying they had downloaded the game just from watching Wen Ci play. They were new and really bad, so they hoped Wen Ci would not mind.
Player four did not have the mic on and kept picking up supplies, occasionally marking items on the map.
Wen Ci was missing a helmet. He searched four or five rooms but could not find one, so he said into the mic, “Does anyone have a level 2 helmet over there? If you do, mark it, thanks.”
As soon as he finished speaking, player four climbed in through a window and stopped in front of him, then threw a level 3 helmet to him.
Wen Ci had auto-pickup on, so he picked it up and put it straight on his head. After realizing what it was, he immediately took it off and handed it back to player four. “You keep it. A level 2 helmet is enough for me.”
Player four shook his head and climbed back out through the window.
Wen Ci thanked him and put it on.
After that, whenever Wen Ci said over the mic that he was missing something, player four would run over and toss it to him.
In the end, they successfully got another chicken dinner.
Wen Ci got 4 kills in that round.
Someone in the chat said player four was amazing. Wen Ci looked carefully and only then noticed that player four had 13 kills.
He had not even noticed it the whole time.
“Player four really is super amazing.” Wen Ci glanced at player four’s name. It was “Sad Man Doesn’t Cry.”
It was weird, and it sounded exactly like a name only a middle-aged uncle would use.