Nobody ever said writing a web novel comes with a performance review. I frantically pounded out 100,000 words in three days, only for the editor to reject all of it, saying it didn’t meet the requirements. I was furious, but since the other party was my editor, I choked down the urge to curse them out… There are only five hours left until the deadline. Panic, panic, panic! Sad, sad, sad!
There is a super-duper fat cat in our neighborhood. At first, Miss Y thought it was a stray and went to feed it every day. Later, while out feeding the kitty, she ran into its owner. The owner said the cat had figured out how to open the door and sneak out on its own.
She hadn’t even realized it until yesterday when she put the cat on the scale and found it had gained five pounds—even though she had been trying to put it on a diet lately! After checking the security cameras, she discovered the cat was sneaking out every day to forage for food. She asked Miss Y not to feed it anymore if she ran into it, as being too fat isn’t good for a cat. Miss Y nodded repeatedly in agreement. In the end, it was a world where only the fat little cat got hurt.
Ever since I got together with Miss Y, I have never eaten a whole apple by myself. Whenever Miss Y washes fruit, she will casually peel the apple, cut it into pieces, and poke them with a fork. She always feeds me the very first bite before taking the second bite herself. When we first started dating, I wasn’t used to it and would try to let her eat first. But after being together for so long, it became a habit.
If Miss Y doesn’t give me the first bite, I’ll even throw a little tantrum and pretend to be upset. Sometimes Miss Y teases me on purpose; she will make a show of taking the first bite herself while I just stare at her. I know for a fact she will definitely give me a bite, and she knows exactly what I’m thinking—she knows the first bite is absolutely meant for me. Love is truly a wondrous thing. It makes a person spoiled and tsundere, yet brings our hearts so close together, making the two of us completely inseparable.
During work hours, Miss Y sent me a photo with a caption:
“You got to have such a beautiful person, you lucky devil. I’ll be waiting for you tonight in Room 5201 at the Red Romance. Be there or be square~” — matching her inner drama queen.
I replied, “My husband is at home tonight, it’s not convenient for me to go out.”
Miss Y immediately shot back, “Sister-in-law, I truly love you. Stop being with my brother. I can give you a home too.”
“Alright, Sis. Tonight, as soon as your brother gets home, I’m getting a divorce immediately.”
Miss Y sent me an OK emoji, and I sent back a beckoning finger emoji. Looking at our chat history, you’d honestly get the feeling that the two of us didn’t meet through conventional means.
My urge to shop flared up, and I bought a bunch of flashy but useless things on an app. While sorting through the packages with Miss Y, we unpacked a $70 times 120text{ cm}$ mirror. Looking at this French vintage carved Baroque vanity mirror, Miss Y fell into a deep silence. She asked me if I possessed human aesthetics and whether the soul inside my body belonged to a modern person. I looked left and right, refusing to answer. Miss Y then asked how much I paid for it, flashing a single finger. Miss Y patted her chest and said with relief, “One hundred yuan is acceptable.” Then she caught my guilty expression and realized it was actually one thousand. She promptly told me to take the mirror and roll right out of the house.
While eating out with Miss Y, right in the middle of our meal, someone suddenly came over and asked if I was So-and-So. Internally, I was ecstatic—had the novel I was writing finally gotten this popular? Was my long-awaited stroke of insane fortune finally arriving? I nodded and replied, “Yes, that’s me. What’s up?” Ahhhhh! They got super excited and said they were my readers, that they absolutely loved my novel, and that they had even gone to my offline fan meeting before—which was my very first fan meeting.
I asked what their online screen names were. “Invincible Tyrannosaurus,” “Harem Long Aotian,” and “Octopus Loves Wearing Maid Outfits.” Great names.
I asked if they wanted an autograph or a photo, and they said both were fine. Miss Y helped take a few photos of us, asked the waiter for a notebook and paper so I could sign my name for them, and after chatting about the novel’s plot for a bit, they left.
After seeing them off, Miss Y teased, “Look at you, Great Author, casually encountering readers even while having a meal!” “Keep it on the down-low, it’s nothing major, I didn’t even display a ten-thousandth of my true power.” Just like that, the two of us chatted away, laughing and joking. Running into readers who want an autograph while dining out is just pure bliss; I fell asleep that night with a smile on my face.
I wanted to drink milk tea but was too lazy to go out and buy it. Since Miss Y was about to get off work, I texted her to help me buy two cups. Miss Y asked what flavors I wanted, and I sent over the names of two signature drinks. During the time spent waiting for the milk tea and Miss Y to come home, I finished making tonight’s dinner: fried pork cutlets and curry potato chicken rice, which Miss Y had specifically requested last night.
Seeing some shrimp at the bottom of the fridge, I casually fried up a plate of shrimp too. The door clicked open. I called out to Miss Y from the kitchen to go wash up and change her clothes. By the time I brought the food out, Miss Y had just changed out of her clothes and come out of the bathroom. The milk tea I asked her to buy was on the dining table. I reached out and touched it.
“How come it’s hot?”
“Your period is coming up soon. Drinking cold stuff will give you a stomachache.”
“I didn’t even remember it myself, yet you did.”
“Of course,” Miss Y said with a proud face, hands on her hips as she looked at me.
“Alright, let’s eat. Try this fried pork cutlet, it’s super crispy.”
“Delicious!!!” Miss Y gave me a big thumbs-up while enjoying the food. Haha, watching Miss Y eat the food I prepared always fills my heart with an indescribable sense of pride. I suppose this is the joy of having a lover.
I once bought a reversible sequin sweatshirt. When I first bought it, I genuinely thought it looked good and was incredibly cool. One time when we went out and I wore it, Miss Y judged me the entire way.
Miss Y was wearing a black halter-neck evening dress with a high slit down the skirt, her feet slipped into a pair of 7cm black ankle-strap high heels. Beside her, my outfit consisted of a reversible sequin sweatshirt, jeans that had been washed countless times, and a pair of sneakers.
Miss Y walking hand-in-hand with me looked like a mother sending her child to school, complete with the urge to remind them, “Don’t wipe your runny nose on your clothes during class.”
I was typing away in the study while Miss Y sat next to me reading a book. The clock ticked away, accompanied by the rustling sound of turning pages and the clack-clack-clack of my fingers tapping the keyboard, unexpectedly forming a symphony in the study.
Submerged in the world of literature, I finished writing and turned my head to look out the window, realizing the sky had already gone dark. Sensing a gaze, I looked back. Miss Y was resting her chin on one hand, looking at me with a beaming smile, her eyes shining like stars.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Are you some kind of big superstar? Am I not allowed to look?”
“You are, of course you are.”
I lowered my head to shut down the computer and heard Miss Y say, “I love you~” Her tone was very casual, yet from that casual tone, I could hear the love hidden deep in her heart.
“I love you too.”
On an ordinary afternoon, the two of us passed the time quietly, softly confessing our feelings. I wanted to tell you how much I love you, only to realize that the word “love” cannot be expressed in concrete terms. And so, over and over again, I say I love you, I love you, I really, really love you.
I am used to carrying a backpack. Miss Y bought a ton of bags, but I wasn’t interested in a single one of them.
Every time Miss Y saw my elementary-schooler fashion sense, she wanted to give me a punch. But she would glance at my face, silently lower her fist, and help me put together a new outfit instead. One time we were in a rush to go out, and Miss Y left first.
On the way, she was walking ahead of me.
She turned back to see me in a sweatshirt paired with black pants, sneakers, and a blue backpack slung over my shoulders. She squeezed her eyes shut. I walked up and asked why she stopped walking and if we had arrived.
Miss Y kept her eyes tightly shut and said, “If it weren’t for your pretty face, I wouldn’t even want to admit I know you. You’ve been with me for so long, how is your sense of style still so terrible?”
I shamelessly replied, “As long as you’re around, it’s not a big deal.”
“Sigh, you’re not allowed to buy sweatshirts anymore.”
“Why? If I don’t buy sweatshirts, what am I going to wear?”
“From now on, you wear whatever I buy.”
“Deal.”
There is a super thick, massive rug in the living room. When I feel like spacing out in the afternoon, I like to lie on the rug and contemplate things. At night, I’d even bring out the pillows and blanket to lie on the rug with Miss Y to ponder life. Miss Y didn’t like lying on the hard floor herself, but just to keep me company, she endured lying on it for a whole week.
Eventually, Miss Y couldn’t take it anymore and asked me if she could sleep on the sofa instead, as she wasn’t used to sleeping on the floor.
At that moment, my mind snapped back into my body, and I realized how childish and wrong my behavior had been.
That very night, I went to sleep in bed with Miss Y. After a comfortable night’s sleep, I woke up the next morning with my dear wife in my arms and a soft, big bed underneath me. Thank you, Miss Y, for tolerating my unreasonable demands.
It turns out there really is someone in this world who loves your childishness—someone who, despite not understanding it, accompanied me on a hard floor for a week.
I grabbed a piece of paper to play Gomoku (Five in a Row) with Miss Y. Miss Y always wins; she would win four out of five games, and the remaining one was only won because I played dirty. After we finished, I went online to play against a bot, only to lose even more miserably.
While chatting with Miss Y in bed that night, Miss Y called me a dummy. Hearing that made me a bit unhappy; my eyes welled with tears and I pouted at her. Seeing this, Miss Y’s affection overflowed.
She pulled my head into her chest, stroking my hair and telling me how cute I was. I thought Miss Y was very cute too—soft and sweet-smelling. I secretly stole a kiss without her noticing. In truth, Miss Y hadn’t cuddled me to sleep for several nights because she was always looking at her phone. I couldn’t outlast her, so I pulled this trick tonight. Completely satisfied, time to sleep. Goodnight.
Lately, Miss Y has fallen in love with steamed egg custard mixed with rice, ordering this dish every single night. After eating rice with her for half a month, I started to miss noodles. Tonight, I cooked a single serving of noodles alongside the rice, and made a plate of stir-fried tomatoes and eggs, a plate of garlic-sauce yanchoy (oil seed rape), a plate of braised pork belly, and the steamed egg custard mixed with rice that Miss Y had specifically requested.
The two of us cleared every single plate tonight. Miss Y immediately started ordering the steamed egg custard mixed with rice again for next time. I teased her, saying that chickens wouldn’t even be able to survive in our household.
When going out with Miss Y, I’m used to holding her hand or linking arms. Holding onto her arm gives me a great sense of security. Though I don’t really know why, it’s probably because of Miss Y’s reliable aura. Near her, I always unconsciously lean on her, and whenever we run into trouble, she is always the one to step forward.
In the beginning, I used to worry if my over-dependence would cause her trouble, or if escaping whenever I faced difficulties would put pressure on her. Fearing I would become a burden to Miss Y, I started making her link arms with me instead, and tried to solve more difficulties on my own.
Seeing my changes, Miss Y actually seemed a bit unhappy instead. She told me she liked my reliance on her; letting her handle things when I ran into trouble made her feel needed. It was only after meeting Miss Y that I realized love could actually look like this.
Miss Y took me to buy snacks. I picked out a bunch of potato chips, soy products, and yogurt, while Miss Y grabbed a ton of candies and carbonated drinks. I thought the snacks she chose were unhealthy, and she thought the snacks I chose were unhygienic, both of us utterly disapproving of the other’s choices. But after getting home, we opened bag after bag of the snacks the other person bought. I guess that’s what it means to say one thing but do another.
Lacking inspiration, my whole being felt withered and drained. Spotting this, Miss Y bought me fresh little gadgets every time she came home to spark my inspiration. I really loved an hourglass she brought back. The hourglass was pink, designed with a rainbow shape and a moon inside
. Every time I watched the sand run out and flipped the hourglass over again, I felt as if my soul was being purified. An entire afternoon slipped away just like the sand flowing through the hourglass.
When Miss Y came back, what she saw was me still sitting in the chair studying the hourglass, and dinner hadn’t even been made yet. Miss Y couldn’t bear to let me strain myself, so she took me out to get burgers and pizza from a shop I had been following for a long time.
The shop was packed with people, and Miss Y and I waited for ages before it was finally our turn. The two of us ordered five burgers, a pizza, and two Cokes. The warm yellow lights shining down created a very cozy atmosphere. Witnessing this scene, inspiration suddenly struck out of nowhere.
Lacking a pen and paper, I began typing furiously on my phone. Miss Y watched me write intently; even though the fast food had already been served, she didn’t start eating. Instead, she waited for me to finish writing and capture the inspiration.
The burgers and pizza had already gone cold. Seeing me turn off my screen, Miss Y knew I had finished writing. She asked me if we should take it home to eat, adding with a playful wink that popping it in the microwave might make it taste even better. I smiled warmly and said, “Okay.”