Classmate Li Zhuangsheng doesn’t want to be reborn

Chapter 627 The Past

The company was soon filled with the aroma of thirteen spices and mashed garlic. Li Zhuang ate a few lobsters raw and then looked at the comments section of the animation backstage.

Today is the update day, and "Song of the Frontier" is scheduled. After the credits at the end of the animation, there is a preview for the next episode, which is a screenshot of "Envoy to the Frontier".

Hu Mengdie interacted with the audience in the comment section, asking them to guess which poem would be adapted next week. The audience responded very enthusiastically, and many people have even guessed it.

Li Zhuangsheng was happily browsing the comments. It was Hu Mengdie's idea to post a screenshot at the end of the animation as a preview of the next episode and interact with the audience. He had not thought of it before, but now it seems that the effect is indeed outstanding and has increased the audience's stickiness to a certain extent.

His "A Thousand Years of Huabiao" has become a hit, and its reputation has been fermenting in the past week, causing many official media to spontaneously promote it. At present, the number of online followers has already exceeded one million. There is even news that many primary schools have regarded watching "A Thousand Years of Huabiao" as a summer homework.

After all, at this time, domestically produced 2D animations with such exquisite pictures are a dimensionality reduction attack.

"Why don't you eat after eating a few?" Hu Mengdie walked into Li Zhuangsheng's office and said with a smile.

"Oh, I'm a little carsick and don't feel like eating. You guys eat, don't worry about me."

"'Climbing the Leyouyuan' was completed yesterday. Did you take a look at it?"

Hu Mengdie smiled and placed a bowl full of lobster tail meat in front of Li Zhuangsheng.

"I took a look, but I didn't bring my computer, so I didn't have time to take a closer look. I was just about to take a look." Li Zhuangsheng's eyes were attracted by the shrimp meat in front of him, "This is..."

"I noticed that you seemed to be feeling a little uncomfortable, so I peeled it for you." Hu Mengdie smiled, "I poured some thirteen-spice sauce on it, you can eat it."

"Hey, eat it yourself..."

Li Zhuangsheng licked his lips and smiled. He was touched and ashamed, and he almost couldn't hold back his fake smile.

"Okay, don't be polite to me." Hu Mengdie patted Li Zhuangsheng on the shoulder, with a little bit of anger, "There are still many outside!"

Seeing that Li Zhuangsheng was still hesitating, Hu Mengdie pouted slightly: "Eat quickly, I'll tell you good news after you finish eating!"

Seeing this, Li Zhuangsheng had no choice but to pick up his chopsticks.

"You should eat a little at least." Li Zhuangsheng said vaguely.

"Just leave some for me."

Li Zhuangsheng was busy eating the lobster, being very careful and leaving about half for Hu Mengdie.

"Okay, I'm done eating. I'll get you some chopsticks..."

Li Zhuangsheng stood up and prepared to go out.

"Wait a minute!" Hu Mengdie glared, looking a little unhappy, "Are you done eating already?"

"yes?"

"Your appetite is not that small!" Hu Mengdie picked up the chopsticks, picked up a piece of tail meat, and put it next to Li Zhuangsheng's mouth, "Here, if you are embarrassed to eat, then I will feed you. Ah——"

“Don’t do that…”

Li Zhuangsheng smiled bitterly, but seeing the chopsticks already stretched to his mouth, he had no choice but to open his mouth obediently. When Li Zhuangsheng finished eating, Hu Mengdie once again fed him seriously. Li Zhuangsheng felt inexplicably funny, somewhat happy, and also felt inexplicably ambiguous.

"Okay, okay, I'll do it myself..."

"Open your mouth - Hey, that's great, little Zhuang Sheng, eat more and grow taller..."

"Hey! Are you coaxing a child?" Li Zhuangsheng's heart skipped a beat and he slammed the table and laughed.

"Aren't you just like a child!" Hu Mengdie teased.

Hu Mengdie continued to feed him gently. Li Zhuangsheng looked at the increasingly empty bowl and finally stopped her again:
"Okay, I really don't want to eat anymore! You can eat the rest, I'll drink some water!"

As he said this, as if afraid that Hu Mengdie might not believe him, Li Zhuangsheng opened a can of Coke.

"Well, the rest is mine!"

Hu Mengdie smiled and didn't hesitate to eat the remaining shrimp meat with the chopsticks that Li Zhuangsheng had used.

Li Zhuangsheng pretended to drink Coke while secretly watching Hu Mengdie. He had already noticed that the other party had peeled the lobster very cleanly and carefully removed every shrimp thread. Humans are not plants, and he is not a blockhead.

No wonder it is often said in martial arts novels that it is the hardest to accept the favor of a beautiful woman.

"By the way, what is the good news you just mentioned?" Li Zhuangsheng lowered his eyes.

"A video website contacted us today and wanted us to be exclusive with them in the future... I said, since you're not here, do you want to contact them individually?"

"Wait a minute. Although exclusive offers can earn money, they are not very conducive to dissemination, and there are definitely other constraints. We are still in the initial stage, so there will inevitably be twists and turns and other unexpected events... For now, let's not worry about profits, and try to gain popularity first." Li Zhuangsheng thought for a while, "I'm thinking, let's broadcast steadily for two months, and then make some cultural and creative products to sell."

"Cultural creation?"

"Yes, I plan to contact a ceramic mug manufacturer in Nanjing and try to make a few finished products first." Li Zhuangsheng nodded, already having an idea. "When the time comes, we can try crowdfunding on Tieba, Weibo, and Douban to see what the demand is like."

"Well, that's good!" Hu Mengdie smiled. "However, the profit of water cups is limited. You definitely don't want to be a black-hearted businessman. You probably need to sell hundreds of thousands of water cups every year to make back your investment. And water cups are not consumables. One can be used for a long time."

"Well, of course we can't just make a profit by selling water cups." Li Zhuangsheng smiled and shook his head, "It's just a means. Besides, water cups are daily necessities as drinking cups, but if we treat them as peripheral collections like figurines, wouldn't their attributes change? If someone buys a cup with "Jiang Xue" printed on it, can't he continue to buy a cup with "Qiu Xi" printed on it? We can make it into a series and make them collectible."

"Then we need to design the cup to look nicer." Hu Mengdie put down her chopsticks and wiped her mouth with a tissue. "When are you going to do it?"

"Don't worry, we've only been on the air for two months, it's too early to rush to make money. Besides, this is just an idea I have at the moment, and it's not certain whether it will be successful... Although the two-dimensional cultural and creative peripherals have great prospects in the future. But does ours belong to the two-dimensional..."

"You are just too concerned about your reputation." Hu Mengdie took out a tissue with a smile and wiped the corners of Li Zhuangsheng's mouth.

Li Zhuangsheng then realized that he had not wiped his mouth after eating the lobster, and he felt embarrassed.

"Although I said that losses don't matter, it's best to make a profit or to have less losses!" Li Zhuangsheng coughed, "If we can still make a profit, we can continue to recruit people to expand production capacity. From the original one episode a week, we can increase it to two episodes, or even three episodes!"

"Well, we will definitely succeed!" Hu Mengdie nodded seriously, "I believe in you."

Li Zhuangsheng turned his face away in embarrassment: "I hope so too. We can synchronize the animation to YouTube in the future."

"Hmm..." Hu Mengdie nodded slightly, stared at Li Zhuangsheng's face, and said softly, "Where did you buy the lobster? It tastes pretty good."

"Oh, it's the one in front of your house..." Li Zhuangsheng blinked, "You took me there before."

"Have I taken you there?"

"She took me there." Li Zhuangsheng lowered his head.

That was when the two were dating. Hu Mengdie invited Li Zhuang to eat raw lobster. She said that the lobster restaurant tasted good and had been open for more than ten years.

In fact, Li Zhuangsheng felt that the food here was not particularly good, not as good as the log cabin lobster, nor as good as Fatty Cai. But since Hu Mengdie liked it, the two of them ate there several times. He didn't mind.

When he went back this time, Li Zhuangsheng thought of bringing lobsters for everyone in the studio, but until he got back, he hadn't decided which lobster restaurant to go to.

The two stores, Little House and Fatty Cai, might not have existed at that time, but when Li Zhuangsheng wanted to buy lobster, his first reaction was to go to the store he and Hu Mengdie used to go to.

It was not easy to find the lobster restaurant. When Li Zhuangsheng went there under the scorching sun, he found that the lobster restaurant was not in the original place. Li Zhuangsheng asked many people before he finally found the address.

There are countless lobster restaurants in their county, but Li Zhuangsheng doesn't like that restaurant. Instead, he instinctively misses the memories of the past.

Hu Mengdie said that she ran away from home when she was a child. When she walked to this lobster restaurant, her stomach growled with hunger. It was summer, and she drooled when she saw others eating lobsters. Thinking of her own situation, she couldn't help but burst into tears.

Finally, the boss felt sorry for her and called her into the store, gave her a small bowl of lobster, and contacted her parents at home.

At that time, the boss had a lot of hair on his head, Hu Mengdie said in a low voice with a smile.

Talking about the past, Hu Mengdie smiled and said that it was the most delicious lobster she had ever eaten, so she deeply felt the same when she learned "Community Opera" in junior high school.

After that, Li Zhuangsheng and Hu Mengdie ate at that lobster restaurant many times, and it was there that Li Zhuangsheng peeled shrimp for Hu Mengdie for the first time.

Li Zhuangsheng peeled shrimp for Hu Mengdie, and Hu Mengdie fed him with a smile while wearing disposable gloves. After Li Zhuangsheng finished peeling, he was already full.

I remember one time, when he was peeling shrimps, Hu Mengdie asked him with a smile, whether he liked boys or girls. Li Zhuangsheng's heart skipped a beat when he heard it, and this naked hint made him feel uneasy.

He suddenly raised his head, met Hu Mengdie's bright smile, and pretended to be calm and said, "It doesn't matter, it can be a boy or a girl. And based on my many years of experience as a son, a daughter is less troublesome!"
"Oh, by the way, are you asking this?" He asked even though he already knew the answer.

"Nothing, just asking, so you want a daughter."

Hu Mengdie shook her ponytail lightly, with a sly smile in her eyes, and blocked his mouth with a shrimp tail.

As if it was fun to tease a little virgin, Hu Mengdie rarely revealed a little devil expression, which made Li Zhuangsheng feel itchy in his heart. He wanted to kiss the corners of her upturned mouth a hundred times.

Li Zhuangsheng has been thinking about the time he spent with Hu Mengdie more and more often recently. It seems that being with Hu Mengdie was always so happy and romantic.

I felt more and more that I was being unreasonable, and I kept pushing her away in the most hurtful way. She was so nice.

When a piece of history is romanticized, it means that it is completely lost to people.

So even if you go to the same store specifically to buy lobster, it is just because you want to buy osmanthus flowers and wine.

"You mean that store..." Hu Mengdie lowered her eyes, "That store is quite remote, how did you buy it there?"

She already knew that; after all, the name of the lobster restaurant was printed on the box.

Li Zhuangsheng was stunned for a long time, not knowing how to answer, so he could only laugh dryly: "... Didn't the boss take care of you? I'll take care of his business as well. Oh, by the way, that boss is starting to go bald now, hahahahaha, he seems to treasure his hair, but I tell you, in a few years, he will accept his fate and cut off all his hair!"

When he spoke of the second half, he deliberately raised the mood.

"Did she tell you that?"

"……what?"

Hu Mengdie didn't explain, she just stared at Li Zhuangsheng: "Is it because you are taking care of her? Or is it because you are taking care of me?"

Li Zhuangsheng was stunned again: "...What?"

Hu Mengdie fell silent and slowly turned away her eyes.

She understood that all the memories of them and the lobster restaurant belonged to the future Hu Mengdie. So, Li Zhuangsheng was just missing her.

Thinking of this, an unprecedented feeling suddenly came over me. I had never thought of it before.

She felt an inexplicable jealousy, jealous of herself.

"Haha...you...aren't you alone..."

Li Zhuangsheng said cautiously.

He thought this was a tricky and even shameless statement. Whether the Hu Mengdie in front of him was the same person as her, he always "flexibly" decided according to the situation.

"Well, I'm just a little surprised how you know that store..." said Hu Mengdie.

The store had changed its address when she was a junior, and it was not in the same place they had been to before. He would only go there on purpose.

"Oh, haha, we went there a few times later..." Li Zhuangsheng touched the back of his head and did not explain the relocation at this time.

After taking Grandma Lin to the hospital, Li Zhuangsheng wandered around the small county town alone at night.

His parents and Xiu Yu were not at home, and even Hu Mengdie and Zhu Zhixue, who were once his closest friends, were not at home. He suddenly felt strange and lonely in this extremely familiar small county town.

He sat in the park, thinking about the past. He was really drunk that day, and drinking really messed things up.

"Really? The boss of that restaurant is very nice and the food is good too." Hu Mengdie pursed her lips and suddenly smiled, "I feel like I have no secrets in front of you. You know everything about me."

"Ha... sorry." Li Zhuangsheng apologized with a dry laugh.

"It's okay, I was just joking." Hu Mengdie lowered her head and stroked the Monkey King figurine on Li Zhuangsheng's desk. She didn't know when a blue bracelet was put around the Monkey King's neck, and she didn't think much about it.

"Yeah." Li Zhuangsheng nodded frequently.

"Just keep it to yourself. Don't tell anyone else." Hu Mengdie blinked. "Xie Jiangqing doesn't even know that I ran away from home."

Li Zhuangsheng looked determined: "Don't worry, I will keep your story to myself! Even if you torture me, I won't tell you anything!"

Hu Mengdie laughed: "If you really want to be tortured, then you should tell me."

They both laughed together, and it seemed that the ambiguity that was hidden in the air just now also disappeared with this laugh.

"Tomorrow... I may have to take a day off because a classmate wants to treat me to dinner." Hu Mengdie licked her lips, her eyes dark.

(End of this chapter)