I am not a literary giant

Chapter 166 Xue Baochai's Cat

"What?!" Chen Qingluo jumped up from her seat.

"Why are you reacting so strongly?" Ning Chunyan asked.

"Was my reaction excessive? Where was my reaction excessive? What kind of reaction did I have?"

Chen Qingluo revealed her fierce, almost demonic, expression, leaving Ning Chunyan speechless.

She turned to Lu Qingxuan and asked, "Was her reaction strong?"

Lu Qingxuan hesitated for a moment: "Yes... a little."

Chen Qingluo said, "How could you allow your employee to live illegally with someone of the opposite sex? And it's even marital infidelity! How could you not fulfill your supervisory responsibilities as a private business owner?"

Ning Chunyan's voice rose, sounding somewhat unsteady: "Do I have this responsibility?"

"You have it, you really do. Building a good family tradition is an integral part of building a good work style. How can we carry out self-revolution in the context of the Four Modernizations if our family tradition is not upright? How can an enterprise become a basic unit actively participating in building a harmonious society if we allow employees to degenerate? If you don't care about cohabitation with someone of the opposite sex, what if he becomes a traitor later? Will you turn a blind eye to it too?..."

"Stop, stop, stop! This is getting more and more absurd." Ning Chunyan finally couldn't listen anymore. "They're not living together. They bought a house together, so they're living together temporarily."

Chen Qingluo's eyes widened: "My God, this is even worse than cohabitation! Death penalty! Execution by cannon blast! Execute immediately!"

"Isn't it a bit too serious?"

Ning Chunyan explained it to her in detail—basically, she copied Wang Zixu's explanation verbatim. After listening, Chen Qingluo remained calm and sat there without saying a word, seemingly lost in thought.

"Does it feel easier to accept after hearing this?" Ning Chunyan asked.

After a long while, Chen Qingluo nodded.

Ning Chunyan laughed: "I had a similar reaction to you when I first heard it."

Chen Qingluo said, "What's wrong? I didn't react at all?"

"Fine, say whatever you want."

Lu Qingxuan, who witnessed all of this, exclaimed in surprise, "Seriously? You guys are too easy to fool!"

Both men turned their gazes to her, and the situation, which had just eased up, became tense again.

Lu Qingxuan said, "To give you an analogy, this explanation is like a boss who wants to change wives after making a fortune. He keeps a mistress in a golden house but is accidentally discovered. So he makes up a story on the spot that even he doesn't believe, almost as if he swore an oath by pointing to the Luo River."

Why did you give such specific examples?

Lu Qingxuan pounded the table, heartbroken: "Sister Qingluo and Sister Xiaochun, I've realized you two are too naive. You believe whatever others say. Think about it, you're living together, how can you possibly stay quiet?"

Diao Yiwen chimed in, "Yeah, if you guys keep doing this, you'll get completely fooled when you date in the future."

Ning Chunyan and Chen Qingluo looked at each other, never expecting that they would be scolded by a girl younger than themselves and left speechless.

"I don't think we're that naive, are we?"

"No, you're too naive, very naive," Lu Qingxuan said. "It's all because you're too honest and don't suspect others. If you encounter someone dishonest, you'll definitely suffer a great loss. I think we should call the woman he's living with and find out what's going on."

The idea was incredibly tempting from the moment it was proposed.

Although Ning Chunyan immediately waved his hand very casually and said no, no, although our magazine attaches great importance to the construction of family style under the background of the Four Modernizations, Wang Zixu is also an adult and he is capable of arranging his own life. We should give our comrades enough care, but also give them enough space.

After she finished speaking, she and Chen Qingluo sat in silence for a while. Chen Qingluo turned around and said, "What if he really dies? Who will review the manuscript?"

Ning Chunyan thought it made sense, and after going around in circles, she finally dialed Ye Lan's number under Lu Qingxuan's slightly disdainful gaze, and asked about Wang Zixu's recent situation in a very polite but distant manner.

Unexpectedly, Ye Lan said, "You've stumped me. Although I live with him, I've hardly seen him in the past three weeks. The only thing I'm sure of is that he's still alive."

Ning Chunyan glanced at Chen Qingluo and asked, "You live together, how could you not have seen her?"

Ye Lan said, "Don't you think it's impossible? I think it's impossible too, but that's just how it is. I can't believe it myself. There's a small bed in his workspace, so I guess he sleeps there at night. But there's no toilet there, and I've never seen him come out to use the toilet or take a shower. Once, I was really worried, so I asked him through the door what was going on. The next day, he put a note on the door, kindly reminding me not to disturb him. Can you believe it?"

"Could something really have happened?" Ning Chunyan became nervous.

"Probably not. He sends the scripts to the company on time every day, and he always leaves his takeout wrappers outside the door after he finishes eating; I'm the one who takes them away and throws them away. He's probably not dead."

"Script? What script?" Ning Chunyan asked.

Ye Lan realized she had misspoke and quickly changed the subject: "Anyway, they are alive, but you'll never know in what form they are alive unless you open the door, just like that... what was it again? Xue Baochai's cat."

"It's Schrödinger's cat," Ning Chunyan politely corrected.

"Yes, that's right. Why don't you come and visit us?"

After hanging up the phone, they found Ye Lan's suggestion equally tempting. Everyone was curious about how the cat was doing.

Lu Qingxuan asked, "Could he be autistic?"

Ning Chunyan turned to look at her: "Why are you withdrawn?"

Lu Qingxuan did not answer. Recently, she had heard some rumors—Wang Zixu had gained a certain degree of fame within the university because of the invited article from Nanjing University (albeit a very low one, his fame within the School of Literature was somewhere between Abdul-Razak Gulna and Svetlana Alexandrovna Alexievich). It was precisely because of this tiny amount of fame, coupled with his conflict with Shi Shuqiu, that he had received negative reviews within the school.

This results in more people knowing that his manuscript was rejected twice than knowing who he is.

So after thinking it over, Lu Qingxuan felt that he really had reason to withdraw into himself.

But she didn't say any of that; she only said, "If you're not withdrawn, why lock yourself in your room?"

"Yes, why?"

Chen Qingluo didn't even think it was a problem, because she often locked herself in her room. Not only did she lock herself in her room, she even locked herself in the bathroom for a week. Because there was an exhaust fan in the house, she never even noticed the smell.

In the end, they decided to go and visit him, just in case the backbone of the magazine really died at home. Diao Yiwen stayed at the editorial department, while Ning, Chen, and Lu set off for Wang Zixu's house. On the way, they bought some fruit and snacks. When they arrived at Wang Zixu's house, they were warmly received by Ye Lan.

Since entering the house, Chen Qingluo had been channeling Sherlock Holmes, using her sharp eyes to search for any trace of life around her, even trying to find the origin of a single hair that had fallen on the floor. Unfortunately, there was no hair on the floor, and Ning Chunyan was not Watson either. Instead of keeping his distance from the suspect, he was chatting with her enthusiastically.

Ye Lan led them to the door of Wang Zixu's office, pointed to the door and said, "There hasn't been a sound from inside these past few days, but he does order takeout every day at the same time. I always help him throw it out at his door, and I don't know when he takes it in. Anyway, we can't see him, it's very mysterious."

The door was a Bu Yang security door. Although it was a basic model, it was still large and heavy, separating this room from the rest of the house, exuding a cold and indifferent sense of demarcation. Indeed, as Ye Lan said, with this door separating them, if Wang Zixu died inside, no one would know.

Ning Chunyan went straight to the door and knocked: "Prince Xu! Are you in there? Open the door, it's me!"

After knocking for a while with no response, Ning Chunyan turned around and asked, "Has he always been like this?"

Ye Lan frowned: "This is rare. He usually answers when I knock."

Lu Qingxuan placed the fruit basket on the ground with a worried expression: "Has he really become withdrawn?"

Do you have a spare key?

"I need to look for it."

As everyone gathered outside the door, behind the door, in the dimly lit room, Prince Xu lay half-naked on a cot, his eyes half-closed. Light filtering through the curtains cast a white line across his face.

The blanket was twisted into a pretzel shape and draped halfway over his stomach. The computer screen was stuck on a document page, with dense text forming neat rows and columns that burst out of the screen, holding a grand parade in the room, like a tight headband that made his head ache.

No, I can't change it anymore, I can't do it.

Can't you really do it?

Someone lowered their head in the darkness, shielding their face from the light. They spoke softly, yet their voice was deafening:

You believe you have 49 more chances to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, yet you don't believe you can't correct this statement in front of you? You're so hypocritical.

The highest level of hypocrisy is being hypocritical to oneself—unkind yet believing oneself to be righteous, indecisive yet believing oneself to be strong. When one's actions cannot convince one's own will, one begins to distort the world, distort facts, and live like a maggot. This is the essence of a hypocrite.

Do you remember that young, passionate, and patriotic youth? He criticized people online for not being willing to work overtime without pay, lacking a spirit of dedication and hard work, and being unwilling to sacrifice their own interests to contribute to the company. However, after graduation, he suffered multiple exploitations from his boss. Because of salary issues, he denounced the country as rotten online, always saying that the moon is rounder in foreign countries and wanting to escape abroad.

This is what a hypocrite is. The world is neither good nor bad; what's rotten is yourself. Many things are a matter of how you tell yourself: you tell yourself you can win the Nobel Prize in Literature, but if you don't try and don't get it, what will you do? Complain about the world?

Prince Xu's gaze refocused, and the blurry voice before him vanished into thin air like morning mist. He said to the empty room, "I can. It's difficult, but I can."

The next second, his perspective soared into the air, allowing him to look down upon the earth. He saw the East Sea and the West River both covered in a continuous, sorrowful rain. The young woman at the milk tea shop wore a brown apron with a smiling face but looked numb; an old man in a Tai Chi uniform moved slowly in front of an adult store; and a young man in a plaid shirt got into a fight with a passerby over a shared bicycle.

He drifted over, floating above the West River, where he seemed to see many familiar figures: Gou Yingbiao, Lin Feng, and Shen Qingfeng. He didn't stop for these acquaintances, continuing westward to Naypyidaw, Kuala Lumpur, Bandar Seri Begawan, then to Kathmandu, Delhi, Colombo, Maldives, Tashkent, Dushanbe, Kabul, Tehran, Damascus…

He discovered he had acquaintances all over the world. In Taquia, he saw Adonis, sitting in his wicker chair, frail and aged like a living fossil; in Cape Town, John Maxwell Coetzee raised his clear eyes; in Paris, where it was bustling, Perec, Modiano, and Le Clézio greeted him, and the prince returned the greetings only to realize that Perec was already dead…

The door creaked open, and more light rushed into the room, stirring up dust particles suspended in the air. The prince squinted, trying to get up, but he lacked the strength.

"What does it smell like?" someone asked. Several noses twitched simultaneously after he finished speaking.

"Ah! He's not wearing any clothes!" someone screamed.

"Calm down, it feels like you're really dead," someone said.

"Hmm, it smells like diapers."

Chen Holmes Qingluo crouched down, examined the scene, and announced the truth. Lu Qingxuan rushed out of the room, and Ye Lan promptly handed masks to everyone.

"No wonder I didn't see him go to the toilet; he must have really gone mad."

People tend to feel sympathy for those involved when they can't see them, but after witnessing the scene, they inevitably feel disgust. Moreover, Wang Zixu's current miserable state is so unbearable that he is repulsive to both humans and dogs. His hair is tangled and his skin is pale, and he looks malnourished and somewhat dehydrated.

Ning Chunyan squatted down and patted his face: "Hey, are you alright?"

Prince Xu's soul was currently rounding the Cape of Good Hope. He quickly passed Buenos Aires and Lima, greeted Borges and Vargas Llosa, and then returned to his body in the East China Sea.

"Um, I want to drink water."

Ning Chunyan pulled an orange out of a plastic bag and waved it in front of him: "No water, but I have an orange. Do you want it?"

Prince Xu nodded.

So Ning Chunyan peeled an orange for him, feeding him segment by segment, laughing heartily as she did so. She looked up and exclaimed in delight, "I'm experiencing the joy of feeding a cat!"

Chen Qingluo ignored her. Whether Ning Chunyan wanted to raise Xue Baochai's cat or become a Pokémon Master was none of her business. At this moment, she was sitting in front of Wang Zixu's computer, reviewing the novel he had revised.

She scrolled through a few pages with the mouse and said, "It's almost finished. The progress is going very smoothly. The seclusion really worked."

Ning Chunyan stuffed the remaining half-orange into Wang Zixu's mouth (Wang Zixu choked on it), turned to look at the manuscript, and then commented: "How much was revised? Did you remove the spiritual essence completely?"

Chen Qingluo whispered, "It's been revised very well."

Ning Chunyan asked in a low voice, "Do you think I'm qualified to be featured in 'Get' magazine?"

Chen Qingluo didn't say anything.

Lu Qingxuan mustered her courage and went back into the room, whispering, "Couldn't you at least cover him up with the blanket before you chat? I really can't stand seeing this, this, this man's naked body."

Ye Lan brought in several bottles of mineral water, placed them on Wang Zixu's table, and shouted, "Get up, you scoundrel! You're even wearing diapers now. You'll have to pay me depreciation fees for using this house like this."

As she spoke, she tried to coax the prince up, but Chen Qingluo snapped, "Ignore him!"

Ye Lan was startled and turned to look at her.

"Don't worry about him," Chen Qingluo said. "Just leave it at that. Don't disturb him. He's undergoing tribulation right now. He'll be fine once he's finished making the changes."

Ye Lan hesitated and said, "But..."

"No buts, let's go."

After saying that, Chen Qingluo led the way out of the room. The people inside looked at each other in bewilderment. Ning Chunyan hesitated for a moment, then carried a few more bottles of water into the room before closing the door with Ye Lan.

Ning Chunyan had no idea that her orange and several bottles of water had saved Wang Zixu's life. Wang Zixu snapped out of his daze, finished the orange, wiped the juice from his chin, and returned to his computer to begin writing furiously.

There's one week left until the postgraduate entrance exam.

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Book Recommendation: *The Immortal Me: Speedrunning Supernatural Games*

(End of this chapter)