Chapter 94: Li Songwei's Farewell

  Looking at Qin Ke Yi's unexpectedly firm and determined gaze, I suddenly felt very scared. I really didn't dare to imagine how Qin Ke Yi would react if she knew that I had been expelled.

  "Let's talk about something else! This topic is a bit heavy!" Qin Ke suddenly said softly to me.

  "Alright! What shall we talk about?" Qin Ke Yi's words were exactly what I wanted to hear, and at this moment, I really needed to chat with Qin Ke Yi about some light topics to alleviate my already gloomy mood.

  "Shall we talk about the house we'll live in in the future?" Qin Ke suddenly stood up from the sofa, sat on my lap, wrapped her arms around my neck, and said to me with a naive and romantic expression like a little girl playing house, although it looked a bit childish and laughable in my eyes, but I still enjoyed playing this game with her.

  "Wait a minute? When did I ever say that the mistress of my future house would be you? Do you think I'd let someone like a female hoodlum barge into my private space and affect my life again?" I feigned a terrified expression.

  "It wasn't me! I'll break your leg!" Qin Ke narrowed his eyes, as if he wanted to pounce on me and bite my neck artery fiercely, a human's instinctive reaction to defend one's life. At this moment, I tightly grasped both of his hands.

  "What's the tension for? Don't be tense! I'm so gentle and easy-going, and I won't bite you!" Qin Ke suddenly seemed to realize something from my subconscious reaction, smiling as he said, "Alright, no more nonsense! You've piqued my desire for fantasies about the future, now you have to cooperate with me! Quick, tell me how you'll decorate a home of your own in the future!"

  "In the future, my home..." I started saying slowly as I fantasized in my mind.

  "Our home!" Qin Ke glared at me with wide eyes, stubbornly pointing out the grammatical error in what I said.

  "Hmm... right! Our home! In the future, our home may not be too big at first... because we may not be able to afford a large house at first... but it must have a very large kitchen..." I gradually started to take these things seriously and began to think deeply about what my and Qin Ke's 2-person world would look like in the future.

  "Hmm! Right! Very much in line with your personal characteristics...... Continue!" Qin Ke smiled and interjected a sentence.

  "I'll also put blue wallpaper on all the walls..." I continued to fantasize.

  "I love pink!" Qin Ke interrupted me once again.

  "Blue looks eye-catching!"

  "It looks warm and fuzzy in pink!" Qin Ke said sharply back at me.

  "Then we'll mix pink and blue together at that time, come up with a color to paint the wall, so neither of us will be at a disadvantage."

  "The proportion of pink should be a bit larger! No more arguing! Move on to the next topic!"

  "I don't like decorations that are too elaborate or luxurious, I prefer a simple style..." I smiled helplessly and continued.

  "I also like...... Hehe...... Continue!"

  "We both belong to the more narcissistic type of people, and of course, we can't live without a big mirror..."

  "There's also an extremely large wardrobe for us two to store our clothes!"

  "I'm afraid it'll become your exclusive property then!?"

  "Don't worry, I won't be cruel enough to not leave you a space of your own in the closet!"

  "Right! Most importantly, I want to live on the top floor!"

  "The top floor!? Why is that? Living so high up is so inconvenient! Is it to exercise the body!?" Qin Ke asked strangely.

  "I'm going to open a skylight!" I said with a smile to Qin Ke.

  "Skylight!? What's the point of opening a skylight?" Qin Ke asked even more strangely.

  "When nothing's on our minds, let's gaze at the stars together with my wife!"

  "Replace your wife with me and say it again!! How many times have I corrected you?!" Qin Kaiyi once again "corrected" the mistake in my words, so I smiled helplessly and said it again, earning a satisfied smile from Qin Kaiyi. "So you like stargazing that much?"

  "No! It's for when I'm old and can look up at the starry sky, reminisce about those ignorant girls who were deceived by my stories of constellations under the stars, and brag to my children and grandchildren about my glorious past!"

  "Oh! No need to wait until you're old! Now, go ahead and reminisce, brag a bit, let me also understand how many ignorant girls like me accidentally fell into the fire pit."

  "This stupid and clumsy method is actually not the mainstream approach in today's society, I just couldn't think of a better countermeasure at that time, so I had to resort to this inferior plan. To be honest, I didn't have much hope for it, but... Alas... This foolish method I've only used once, and I don't plan on using it again..." I said to Qin Ke Yi with a helpless expression, the final result was that the urge to bite me that had been buried deep in her heart suddenly burst out and put into action..."

  After struggling with Qin Ke on the sofa and barely escaping from her clutches, I looked at my watch to find it was almost 4 o'clock. We stopped our wild speculations about the future and started bustling around in the kitchen.

  Since we made up, Qin Ke Yi has been showing a strong interest in everything in the kitchen. I don't think this is a result of being with me for a long time and being influenced by some of my good qualities. Although I hope to train Qin Ke Yi into a girlfriend who is skilled in cooking, so that I can experience the happiness of eating food made by someone I love, which modern men rarely get to enjoy. But I don't want this to be a sign that she's about to become a typical housewife, which also reflects the contradiction a man faces when he has a beautiful wife.

  Ma Ke appeared at our doorstep around five o'clock, ringing the doorbell. Having seen him follow Guo Cheng like a court servant every time he made an appearance, seeing him arrive alone today made Qin Ke and I feel unusually concerned and unaccustomed.

  "She has a performance outside today, she'll be back later..." Marco broke the doubts in our minds and started standing at the kitchen door with an intoxicated gaze admiring our every move in the kitchen.

  "What are you staring at? Go wait in the living room!" Qin Ke said strangely after seeing Ma Ke's infatuated expression.

  "Ah! What a touching and warm scene it is......" Marco stood at the entrance, let out a sigh of intoxication, then turned around and silently walked into the living room. His back revealed a sense of helplessness and despair about life, as if he was singing a song of his unfortunate life to me and Qin Ke Yi.

  "What... what's wrong with him?" Qin Ke asked me with a terrified expression after seeing Ma Ke's crazy behavior, she obviously didn't realize that Ma Ke was pulling off an extremely high-level nonsense at this time.

  "Ah......, you have to understand the huge psychological gap caused by the intense visual impact when a person who has been enslaved for a long time sees a warm and happy scene... It's just like the old society's serfs seeing the smiles of happiness on the faces of the new Chinese people, they can't bear it either!" I helplessly analyzed to Qin Ke how Marco felt at this moment.

  "No way! Qin Ke also has a gentle side...". Qin Ke had an expression that was hard to believe.

  "I couldn't accept it at first, but after seeing Marco's performance today, I've also started to quietly try to accept that this is the reality! Who would have thought we'd coincidentally arrive in the era of feminism?! Alas, what a miserable fate for our generation of men!"

  "Poor thing...... dear...... add two more pieces of meat, look how thin he is......" Qin Ke's words were accompanied by a gaze filled with pity......

  Not long after, Li Songwei and Zhao Lijia appeared hand in hand at the door of my house, while Zhang Wei coincidentally followed behind them and walked into the room. As soon as Qin Ke saw Zhao Lijia enter the house, she affectionately pulled her hand and walked into the room, also giving me a moment of peace in the kitchen.

  "Let me help you!" Zhang Wei said as he walked in, perhaps unable to bear seeing me take on such a huge project alone.

  "How are you and Wang Li now? Are you still on bad terms?" I asked Zhang Wei with concern.

  "She's much stronger than before, previously she wouldn't even answer my calls, now she can listen to me say a few words on the phone before scolding me harshly and hanging up." Zhang Wei said with an attitude full of hope for the future, leaving me speechless after listening, only able to silently wish him well. Li Songwei also walked into the kitchen to help me out, so a group of men were busy in the kitchen while the women chatted about past and present in the living room, this peculiar scene of the new century reappeared in my kitchen once again.

  "Kang Jian... I'll be leaving Ha city in a few days!" Li Songwei said to me while washing vegetables.

  "Where are we going?" Just as I hadn't reacted yet and was about to ask, Zhang Wei had already taken the lead and asked out the question that I wanted to ask in my heart.

  "Dalian! I saw a newly established network technology company recruiting online, so I sent them my resume. They replied to me the day before yesterday and were very satisfied with me. The treatment is also good. I plan to go there in a few days..."

  "This is great! Just in time for us to celebrate today!" Zhang Wei again spoke out the lines that should have belonged to me.

  "Brother, I knew you'd make it! You've mixed with the IT white-collar workers!" I excitedly hugged Li Songwei, and while genuinely happy for him, I couldn't help but think of my own uncertain future, and suddenly felt a pang of melancholy.

  "What about Zhao Lijia? What's going to happen to her? Are you two prepared for a long-distance relationship?" I asked Li Songwei with some concern, not wanting either of them to get hurt emotionally as someone who considered himself one of their brothers.

  "For now, we can only be apart in two places, but she said that after working for a couple of years, she will quit and find a job in Dalian. After all, being a flight attendant is a young person's job, and those who leave the airline are still very popular, so finding a job shouldn't be difficult! Moreover, she flies to Dalian once a week, so we still have chances to meet!" Li Songwei said casually.

  "I understand you, I know you're serious about feelings. Zhao Lijia may seem careless sometimes, but she's actually very meticulous about emotions too. Although the outcome of long-distance relationships is often unbearable, I have faith in you two!" I encouraged Li Songwei.

  "Thank you..." Although Li Songwei, who was not good with words, only said two simple words to express his gratitude, the emotions revealed in his eyes could not be summed up in a single sentence.

  "When are you leaving! I'll see you off!" I said with some sadness.

  "What's wrong?! Don't be like that! You're making it sound like we'll never see each other again! I'm afraid I might cry later! I will come back to visit you guys often!"

  "Are we here to pay tribute to Zhao Lijia regularly?" Zhang Wei said with a flattering smile, instantly causing Li Songwei's pale face to flush red.

  "Kang Jian! You're also a senior now, you should be busy finding a job and writing your thesis. The workshop should disband too, it's not going anywhere, especially since I and Teng Da have left, Ma Ke is also looking for a job...” Li Songwei chuckled and ignored Zhang Wei, reminding me instead. Suddenly, he ruthlessly pulled me back to reality, making my original plan to survive on the workshop's income shatter instantly. The workshop's income may seem considerable in students' eyes, but when you step into society, considering supporting your family and preparing for a series of indispensable things in the future, you realize how insignificant that amount of money is. Li Songwei's words once again made my heart feel pressured under extreme depression...