Chapter 22: The Punishment for Peeping

  Last night was another rare good sleep, so good that I didn't feel any discomfort when I got up at 7 o'clock. Since Qin Ke Yi said yesterday that she wanted me to get up early, it's certain that she would come to my room very early to disturb me. Rather than being disturbed passively, I'd better take the initiative. So I got out of bed early and waited for Qin Ke Yi's call. However, after standing at her door for a long time, I didn't hear any movement inside, so I took the opportunity to toast two slices of bread in the kitchen and then went to the living room to eat while waiting. But perhaps because I was anxious in my heart, I ate the bread too quickly, and Qin Ke Yi still couldn't bear to leave her bed. So I went back to my room, opened my computer, and prepared to go to Tianya Forum to chat with those old friends.

  I used to post on Tianya with a pseudo-idealist attitude, but later I found it extremely detrimental to my intellectual growth and quite ridiculous. So I killed this foolish mindset in time. Some people always like to predict the unknown outcome of any development and at the same time fabricate and distort the current reality with hypothetical assumptions, self-made logic and other behaviors that cater to their own desires, which I call "pseudo-idealism".

  A term has been circulating among netizens called "yi yin" to describe this pseudo-idealism, which is quite apt. In fact, some netizens themselves are the most standard pseudo-idealists. According to observations, they spend a long time wandering aimlessly online, lurking in forums, doing little actual work, talking nonsense, being lazy, good at complaining, having extreme or childish thoughts, and often gathering together informally, signing joint statements, copying and pasting posts to denounce some famous male director, some young and successful writer, or even a weak island nation across the Bohai Sea, thousands of miles away, in order to make a big show of their futile efforts.

  What Chinese netizens call pursuing ideals is often just venting dissatisfaction with the injustices of life on the internet. I can understand this, but unfortunately, the outcome of such efforts is often disappointing and loses its practical significance, becoming merely a self-entertaining process. Back in reality, the stars are still the same stars, the moon is still the same moon, and all things remain true to their nature and trajectory.

  The development of the internet has brought about a group of people who are inarticulate, lack critical thinking skills, and only know how to blindly follow others. As I browse through various forums, I often see posts that contain a particularly foolish phraseology. For example, if Zhang Yimou's new film is met with dissatisfaction and criticism, the pro-Zhang faction will immediately jump out and retort to the original critic: "Why don't you make a movie yourself? It definitely won't be as good as his!" This kind of illogical thinking that parrots others' words without any thought is the most basic manifestation of not using one's brain before speaking. In fact, intelligent people only need to think for a moment to understand a simple truth: if we were all omniscient and skilled in everything, then why would we need doctors when we're sick? Can't we just diagnose ourselves by reading medical books? And why do we need lawyers when we go to court? Can't we just argue our own cases?

  So I don't know when it started, in the so-called "lurker" posture, browsing through various posts, just for fun, occasionally discovering a few valuable posts, after reading them, I deeply admire, but won't reply, because the level of such posts is too high, I won't humiliate myself by going up to show off.

  Just as I had just logged onto Tianya, Qin Ke Yi's room made a sound of opening the door. So I walked out of the doorway and leaned against the door frame staring at Qin Ke Yi. Qin Ke Yi lazily came out of the room, moved a few steps, and then fell head-first onto the sofa, continuing to rest with her eyes closed.

  Perhaps feeling the "fiery gaze" in my eyes, Qin Ke Yi lay there for a few seconds before suddenly opening his eyes to look at me. "What are you staring at me for?" he asked lazily.

  "Don't you remember? Never mind if you don't!" I said and turned around to enter the house.

  "Hey! Wait a minute! Don't help me get broadband!"

  "You still remember? Why didn't you get up early? I got up at the crack of dawn, but you're just..."

  "What I mean by 'early' is now!" Qin Keyi said, not giving in. I finally understood that Qin Keyi's sense of time and mine had a time difference, and I felt it was pointless to continue this boring argument, so I swallowed the words that were already on my lips. I made a gesture to Qin Keyi, indicating for her to lead me into her room.

  I stepped into this mysterious zone, which seemed like a forbidden land to me, under the leadership of Qin Ke Yi. I wasn't particularly excited, just a little curious about the beauty's boudoir. I remembered that in high school, I had been fortunate enough to enter the girls' dormitory several times. Before entering, my heart was extremely excited because at that time, in our minds, the girls' dormitory and the women's toilet were equally full of mystery. However, when I pushed open this mysterious door, the scene before my eyes made us greatly disappointed. The messy bed, the black floor, the scattered objects, and the clothes hanging all over the room - the only difference was that among those clothes, there were many different models of women's underwear and bras. It gave me a feeling not much different from the boys' dormitory, and many girls' dormitories were even more chaotic than the boys'. So from then on, I began to have the idea that women are just as unreliable as men, and in my heart, I planted the seed of thought that I should be self-sufficient in some aspects and not rely on women.

  Qin Keyi's room was very tidy, with a faint scent of apples wafting through the air. The decor was somewhat like that of a little girl's room, with five or six dolls of various shapes and sizes piled high on the large bed. This also reflected another side of Qin Keyi's personality to some extent. From her room, it could also be seen that Qin Keyi had not completely lost certain feminine instincts.

  I helped Qin Ke Yi plug in the router, turned on her laptop, and then started pulling out a network cable from my room. As I was kneeling on the ground with Qin Ke Yi, fixing the cable, I inadvertently caught a glimpse of Qin Ke Yi's chest through the collar of her T-shirt. Since she had just gotten up early, she wasn't wearing any underwear, and her two snow-white, ample breasts appeared before me, sometimes hidden, sometimes visible, in a fleeting manner. My thoughts and gaze were completely fixed on Qin Ke Yi's chest at that moment, while Qin Ke Yi was intently focused on securing the cable with her hands, unaware of my lewd behavior as I hammered in the staples.

  "What are you looking at? Hurry up and press!" Qin Ke Yi suddenly lifted her head and shouted at me, perhaps because I hadn't made a move for half a day. When she realized I was staring at her chest, she quickly pulled her clothes tight with both hands, blushed and glared at me fiercely before storming off to sit on the edge of her bed. Meanwhile, I frantically started pressing the drawing pins to cover up my embarrassment, but I forgot that Qin Ke Yi had taken away my hand, causing the network cable to shift position. At this moment, my mind was still replaying the scene from just now, and I was worried that my previous expression would affect my image in Qin Ke Yi's eyes, so my attention wasn't on fixing the network cable at all. As a result of these circumstances, a drawing pin ended up being pressed firmly into my finger.

  When my groaning voice spread throughout the room with the help of air, Qin Ke suddenly jumped up from bed and squatted in front of me. Looking at her tense appearance, my pain sensation was greatly reduced.

  "You're dead! You're so old, you can still get a staple stuck in your hand, what else can you do!" Although Qin Ke's words weren't very nice, the tone made me feel warm inside. As she spoke, she helped me slowly pull out the staple and then prepared to suck on my wound with her mouth.

  "What are you doing?" I subconsciously pulled my hands back, but didn't manage to break free from Qin Ke's slippery hands. My reaction was because I couldn't believe Qin Ke would make such a move.

  "Hey! Don't be so ungrateful, this nail is so dirty, it must have a lot of bacteria. I'm not even disgusted by you, but now you're starting to look down on me!"

  "I...I didn't mean that......it's just..." At this time, Qin Ke Yi's chest appeared in front of me again, and I started to speak incoherently.

  "Your hands are already like this, but you're still not honest!! No one is taking care of you anymore!!" Qin Ke once again realized that I was sneaking a peek at her after she had been injured, and she fiercely pinched my wounded finger, then stood up and stormed out of the room, leaving me alone, kneeling on the ground and groaning in pain...