Rebirth 04: Starting from Taking an Unconventional Approach

Han Fei opened the door and let Zhang Qiming and his wife in.

"Brother Qiming!" Han Baohua called out, seeing Zhang Qiming standing at the door.

Zhang Qiming walked in, placed the gifts on the floor, shook hands with Han Fei, and hugged Han Baohua. Zhang Qiming's wife smiled at Han Fei. Han Fei returned the smile and nodded, feeling her gaze constantly observing him.

After exchanging pleasantries, Zhang Qiming pulled Han Fei aside and took his hand, asking, "Han Fei, how did things go with that matter from last time?"

"Thanks to Uncle Zhang's help, things are progressing very smoothly."

"That's good, that's good," Zhang Qiming said, laughing heartily. "Uncle Zhang has something else I'd like you to do me a favor for. I wonder if you..."

"Uncle Zhang, please speak up," Han Fei said, a sense of foreboding washing over him.

"It's like this, my daughter Ruiyi is still in the car. She woke up late and didn't have breakfast. Could you take her to get some breakfast?"

"Want some breakfast?"

Han Fei arrived at the parking lot and walked towards the black Mercedes. He hesitated for a moment, thinking that Zhang Qiming and his wife were obviously over fifty years old, and their daughter should be an adult by now. Why did she need someone to accompany her to a meal?

Han Fei knocked on the car window and looked inside, his eyes meeting those of a face without makeup and black eyes.

"Zhang Ruiyi?" Han Fei said, guessing that she was probably still a student. "Uncle Zhang asked me to take you to breakfast."

She didn't seem particularly keen to go.

"Thanks, I'm not hungry. And why should I go with you?" She lay down on the seat and stretched her legs out onto the window.

Han Fei reached for the car door handle and found the door unlocked. He opened the door, and before Zhang Ruiyi could react, her feet slammed onto the seat.

"If you don't go, how am I supposed to explain myself when I get back?" Han Fei said.

Zhang Ruiyi reluctantly sat up after some effort, quickly glanced at Han Fei, mumbled something about a nagging old man, and then stared out the window.

"Then go buy me a cup of milk tea," she said after a while.

"Milk tea can't be eaten as a meal, right, Ruiyi?"

"Classmate?" Zhang Ruiyi laughed, looking at Han Fei. Her tightly knit eyebrows made her look like an adorable little elf. "You talk like my homeroom teacher. How old are you?"

"You are as old as you feel," Han Fei said. "So I think I'm probably eighty years old."

Now she looked at Han Fei with more curiosity in her eyes.

"I'm a little bored," Zhang Ruiyi suddenly said. "Take me out to play, and then you can treat me to breakfast."

Han Fei took a breath: "If you don't want to get out of the car, then I'll go find Uncle Zhang to get the car keys and drive you there."

"Forget it," Zhang Ruiyi said. "I could yell and scream that you're harassing me, but do you want people to watch?"

Han Fei ignored her and turned to walk back. Suddenly, Zhang Ruiyi shouted "Pervert!" causing a person carrying a lunchbox who was passing by Han Fei to stop abruptly, splashing soup on Han Fei. Han Fei turned around, and Zhang Ruiyi took a breath, preparing to shout again. Han Fei had no choice but to raise his hands in surrender.

"Okay, okay, where do you want to go? How about the City God Temple?"

"The City God Temple?" She rolled her eyes. "You're really getting old. Only middle-aged people and foreign tourists go there. Let's go to Jinjiang Amusement Park. Do you have a car?"

Han Fei shook his head. He had returned the Land Rover after dropping Wen Jie off last night.

"Take a taxi," he said.

"Tch, how boring." Zhang Ruiyi put on her shoes, jumped out of the car, and said, "Let's go, Uncle."

Han Fei looked helpless and said, "My name is Han Fei."

The taxi stopped in front of the Jinjiang Amusement Park gate, and the two people got out.

Han Fei shielded his eyes with his hand and looked towards the amusement park. Although it wasn't the weekend, the line in front of the ticket hall was still over a hundred meters long.

Zhang Ruiyi extended her hand, and Han Fei looked at her with a questioning gaze.

"I have no money," Zhang Ruiyi said.

Han Fei took out his wallet and handed it to Zhang Ruiyi.

They moved slowly forward in the queue. Zhang Ruiyi asked Han Fei what he wanted to do later, and Han Fei replied that he would just sit in a chair and wait. Naturally, this drew criticism from Zhang Ruiyi, who said that he was really old.

More than an hour later, they finally entered Jinjiang Amusement Park.

Han Fei looked around. The last time he came to Jinjiang Amusement Park was probably in the early 90s. But apart from the new red bricks paving the main road, the brightly colored cartoon-themed ticket booths, and the one or two more brightly colored giant facility skeletons in the distance, it seemed as if time had stood still here.

The air was still filled with the smells of fried food and melting syrup; the metallic scraping of roller coasters as they sped by; and the laughter of the crowd; spilled drinks left dark marks on the cobblestones.

"Look at that!" Zhang Ruiyi exclaimed, pointing. "Have you ever jumped from that height?"

Han Fei squinted and saw a diving platform standing above a swimming pool under the clear blue sky, resembling a black and white T. It was ten meters high.

"No," Han Fei said.

"Not even once?"

Han Fei sensed disappointment in Zhang Ruiyi's tone.

"Jumping from that height would kill someone."

Zhang Ruiyi rolled her eyes: "That's water down there! Do you even know what diving is?"

"Are you going to jump?"

"Uh..." Zhang Ruiyi said, "I didn't bring any clothes with me today."

"I see." Han Fei laughed a few times. "You're just too scared, aren't you?"

"What are you laughing at?" Zhang Ruiyi raised her voice. "One day, I'll make you watch me bravely jump down!"

"OK."

Zhang Ruiyi snorted and turned to leave.

"Where are you going?" Han Fei asked.

Zhang Ruiyi went to ride a roller coaster.

Han Fei sat on a bench under the shade of a tree, smoking, his fingers tapping on the armrest. Yesterday, he had read an article discussing "time dragging on like a year," and now it truly felt like time dragged on like a year. It was like waiting for midnight on New Year's Eve, or waiting for the trigger to be pulled on the execution ground.

He tapped his fingers harder.

Han Fei looked up at the roller coaster and saw it resemble a giant steel dragon, tumbling at high speed on its twisted tracks before plunging down at an astonishing pace. All the screams, cheers, and piercing music blaring from the loudspeakers seemed to be coming from that direction.

Next to the roller coaster was a cotton candy stall. Several children, who had just finished playing water rides, stood shivering in the shadows in front of the stall, wearing their soaked swimsuits.

It was past noon when they left Jinjiang Amusement Park.

Zhang Ruiyi had to quicken her pace to keep up with Han Fei. She panted and told Han Fei to slow down.

Han Fei slowed his pace and saw the sunlight shimmering in the beads of sweat on Zhang Ruiyi's forehead, her honey-colored wet hair also glistening slightly. At the same time, he felt as if he saw a satisfied and joyful smile on her face. This smile made her a different person, more human, approachable, and childlike. It reminded Han Fei of gardenias covered in dew on a summer morning, fresh, real, and unguardedly unfolding.

"Can we go eat now?" Han Fei said. "I'm starving. I'll take you home after we eat."

Zhang Ruiyi looked up at him, her happy smile gone.

"don't want!"

Han Fei took a breath: "Your parents will be worried if they can't find you."

Did they call you?

No, not at all.

"Yeah, why not?" Han Fei thought to himself.

Zhang Ruiyi smiled again: "That's settled then. Let's go to the Bund!"

Han Fei and Zhang Ruiyi walked side by side on the viewing platform of the Bund, the dampness carried by the river breeze gradually seeping into their clothes. Here they were deep in the "World Architecture Expo", and the surrounding smells, sounds and tourists made them almost forget that they were in China in the early 21st century. The kebabs they were eating also made them almost forget the taste of the spiced beans from the City God Temple.

A tour group walked briskly towards us. The tourists were wearing matching red vests with the words "Sunset Glow East China Tour" printed on their chests, and sun hats with the travel agency's logo on their heads.

At the back of the group, a little boy skipped along, a point-and-shoot camera hanging around his neck and a small red flag in his hand. Han Fei remembered someone on TV saying that major travel agencies had started offering "patriotic education tours."

The little boy gave them a bright smile and walked past with light steps.

"Why don't you want to go back?" Han Fei asked, looking at the glistening, fragrant meat skewer in his hand with suspicion. He had only bought one "Shanghai-style Cumin King Skewer" with Zhang Ruiyi, and was somewhat reluctant to go back. Zhang Ruiyi described this kind of grilled meat skewer as "XJ lamb meeting Guangdong honey sauce meeting Shanghai-style rich, dark sauce."

"Can you tolerate being controlled every day and not being able to do anything you want to do?"

"You mean Uncle Zhang, the one who's in charge of you?"

"It's more than just controlling; it's practically surveillance. What time I come home, who I go out with, where I'm going to play, what clothes I'm wearing, what I say... It's like he thinks I'll always be that little girl who needs him to hold her hand and take her to kindergarten."

Han Fei remained silent, watching as a strand of her hair was blown by the wind and brushed against her cheek.

"You know what?" Zhang Ruiyi said, kicking a small pebble at her feet. "When I was filling out my college application, he insisted that I apply to the finance department, saying that it would be a stable job in a bank. I secretly changed to journalism, and he only found out after I received the acceptance letter. Then he was furious and didn't speak to me for a whole month."

"But he eventually compromised," Han Fei said.

Zhang Ruiyi chuckled, looking at the ground, and skipped a step to synchronize their movements: "Yeah, what else can we do but compromise? He treats my life like a blueprint he's already drawn, forcing me to simply follow the lines. But I won't!"

Han Fei smiled and said, "Have you ever thought about why he would do that?"

A deep, resonant whistle sounded from the river.

The two stopped by the flood control wall and watched a ferry slowly sail towards Pudong. A banner with the words "Develop Pudong, Revitalize Shanghai" was hanging on the side of the ship, and the red cloth fluttered in the river wind.

Han Fei recalled an article in yesterday's Xinmin Evening News, which said that this riverbank would be completely renovated next year. The cast iron lamps and French plane trees would be preserved, but for safety reasons, the railings would be replaced with higher ones.

"Because he's a control freak." Zhang Ruiyi paused, lowered her eyes, and brushed a strand of hair aside. "Or maybe it's because... he's too busy, too busy to really understand me, so he can only use the simplest and most brutal way to set rules and demand obedience to prove that he's still fulfilling his responsibilities as a father."

Han Fei carefully observed Zhang Ruiyi: "Then why don't you try talking to him?"

"Chat?" Zhang Ruiyi gave a mocking smile. "To him, that's called giving orders. In his eyes, all my ideas are naive, immature, and need to be corrected."

Han Fei swallowed the last bite of roasted meat, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and then looked around for a trash can.

"Actually," Han Fei began, throwing the bamboo skewers and tissues into the trash can, "many people don't understand what I'm doing now. They cling to traditional publishing ideas, thinking that literature has to be highbrow and that declining sales are because readers have poor taste, not because of the magazine. I think they're old-fashioned, and they think I'm frivolous."

Zhang Ruiyi turned her head to look at Han Fei: "And then?"

"Later I figured it out. It's not that they don't understand the market, but that they're unwilling to compromise. They feel that the dignity of words and the style of publishing are more important than short-term sales. And I'm not necessarily smarter than them, I'm just more willing to take risks and break the rules."

"Then who is right?" Zhang Ruiyi asked.

"There's no right or wrong, just different times, different problems, and different choices. My father's generation experienced an era of both material and spiritual scarcity; for them, perseverance was a matter of principle. Our generation, on the other hand, lives in the most rapidly changing era, and adaptation is the instinct for survival. No one is more noble than anyone else; it's just that our experiences from different eras cannot be fully shared."

Zhang Ruiyi waited silently.

"Your dad is the same way," Han Fei continued. "He rose through the ranks from deputy director of the publicity department at the post office to vice president at the mobile company, taking each step carefully and cautiously. He's probably seen more storms than you can imagine, which is why he subconsciously uses his proven experience to protect you. But what he doesn't know is that this protection is actually a constraint for you."

Zhang Ruiyi gazed thoughtfully at Han Fei, her lips slightly parted. She wasn't wearing lipstick, and her narrow lips looked somewhat pale and serious.

The summer heat vanished for a moment. Steel-gray clouds quietly hung low over the city. After the sun disappeared behind the clouds, the river wind howled with great force, swirling dust and scraps of paper, as if setting the stage for the heavy rain predicted in the weather forecast.

"I'm hungry!" Zhang Ruiyi suddenly exclaimed. "Treat me to a meal!"

Han Fei glanced at his watch. 6:15. He suddenly remembered his last meal, which was the bowl of mixed noodles from last night. In the past twenty-odd hours, he had only eaten that one Shanghai-style cumin skewer.

"You're finally hungry," Han Fei said. "What would you like to eat?"

"casual!"