Living in Tokyo, all I want to do is laze around.

“櫂? The character for wood plus the character for pheasant? That’s really rare. There is a line in the Chu Ci that says ‘桂櫂兮兰枻’ (gui zhao xi lan yi).”

Uesugi Kai was surprised that the other person knew the character "櫂" in his name, which meant he was a well-educated person.

Upon hearing his name, Wen Yinlin turned around, rummaged through his clothes for a while, and finally found a consumable item with social attributes. He took out a pack of Zhonghua cigarettes, opened the cap, and asked, "Brother Shangshan, would you like one?"

“No, that’s not necessary,” Uesugi Kai waved his hand in refusal. “I don’t smoke.”

"Oh, I see." Perhaps feeling that he had nothing to offer him, and with the things in his hands looking rather shabby, Wen Yinlin's expression became somewhat awkward, and his movements became much more restrained.

It was still snowing, and it was already past 7 p.m.

It gets even colder at night.

"Fine, I'll take you to get some ramen," Uesugi Kai said after hesitating for a moment.

"Oh? I... I'm so sorry... I don't have anything to give you..."

"I don't need you to give me anything. A bowl of ramen costs no more than 1000 yen, which is a small amount of money for me." Uesugi Kai tried his best to appear as a wealthy person to reduce the other person's burden.

"Well... thank you..."

Wen Yinlin blushed a little at accepting someone's kindness for no reason, but he knew now was not the time to worry about saving face. He had been hungry for two days and the guesthouse he was staying at had expired.

Uesugi Kai led Wen Yinlin to the privately-run ramen restaurant they had passed earlier.

The ramen shop has counter seating, and the space has a small, Japanese feel to it, but it's not cramped at all. Instead, the combination of lighting and the aroma of ramen makes it feel very cozy.

There was an elderly woman busy in the shop, and a young employee, presumably the woman's grandson, helping her out.

Uesugi Kai ordered a tonkotsu ramen for Bun Eun-rin, and then sat down next to him.

"Brother Uesugi, aren't you going to eat?"

"Not now."

Wen Yinlin is actually a very shy person. Most of the time, he likes to keep his thoughts to himself. But after traveling thousands of miles away from his hometown to Hokkaido, a place where he knew no one, and wandering between many towns for half a month, he not only spent all his savings, but also ran out of phone bills.

He didn't understand Japanese yet, and everything was a mystery to him when he arrived here.

Now that he's met someone who speaks Chinese and even treated him to ramen, he pours out all his pent-up grievances like a long-awaited floodgate opening:

"I first met her in a bar."

"Your...wife?" Uesugi Kai asked, watching him wolf down his noodles.

"Let's still call her my girlfriend... She just accepted my proposal, she's not my wife yet... To be honest, I feel like I'm not good enough for her."

The steam rising from the ramen noodles fogged up Wen Yinlin's glasses, making him look like a down-on-his-luck scholar.

"Sometimes I feel like I'm a stupid donkey. I used to believe those nonsense things on the internet, saying that women are all wild beasts, that they demand hundreds of thousands in dowry, that they only eat after marriage, that they have princess syndrome, and that they don't do any housework... But in reality, the guys who say these irresponsible things actually have incredibly happy family lives."

"My viewpoint changed after I met her."

"She's a singer, a small-time singer, performing in bars, earning less than a hundred yuan a day. The first time I met her, she was playing her guitar in that dark corner, the chaotic neon lights not reaching her face, and I remembered her at first glance... Guess how I first struck up a conversation with her?"

Kai Uesugi thought for a moment: "Did she play a song you like? Or did you request a song she likes?"

"No," Wen Yinlin said with a smile after taking a bite of noodles, "I lost a game with my classmate and was forced to take a dare, so I went up to her and started talking to her."

"..."

Indeed, everyone's first encounter is quirky and diverse.

Wen Yinlin recalled in a nostalgic tone: "Her name was Zhai Weiling... The goal of the dare was to get a girl's WeChat. In a bar, it would be most appropriate to ask for WeChat on the dance floor, because most girls would give it to you. But I wasn't very confident and I was too embarrassed to ask those girls who seemed very open, so I went to her, who was not very noticeable."

"The process was very simple. I asked for it, and she gave it to me. That's how our relationship started."

After finishing his ramen, Wen Yinlin picked up the fragrant pork bone broth and drank it.

After a while, he put down the bowl and said to Uesugi Kai:

"We've known each other for three years. It started when we often went to bars with friends to greet each other, and then we got to know each other better. We started chatting and talking about life... Through her, I learned about my past world... I'm a college student aiming for a PhD, and studying is my everything, while she's a singer whose goal is simply to survive, and life is everything to her."

"Surprisingly, we all share a common dream: to open a coffee shop."

Kai Uesugi: "......"

"Before I met her, I felt like a learning machine. But because she was by my side, because of her smiling and playing the guitar for me, I felt like the world had been painted with vibrant colors... Uesugi-kun, I wonder if you can understand that feeling?"

His expression was complex, and although his tone was calm, his words were filled with memories of longing.

Kai Uesugi could understand that feeling. Hanabi Hanabi ran and laughed in front of him, her white dress flowing warmly in the sunlight, and she turned back to look at him with a sweet smile, which gave him the same feeling.

“We planned everything together, the next five, ten, thirty years, even our whole lives! But just when we were ready to move on to the next stage, and I was about to propose to her, she… disappeared.”

Seemingly recalling something he didn't want to remember, Wen Yinlin grabbed his hair with both hands.

"Gone?" Uesugi Kai asked, somewhat taken aback. "Wasn't there any warning sign?"

"It wasn't without warning... Our small coffee shop, which we'd risked everything to open, caught fire. It was a sudden fire, and a lot of things were gone. She was also blinded in one eye by the smoke... At the time, I was taking the preliminary exam for my graduate studies in political theory. By the time I heard the news and rushed over, she was already in the hospital, her eyes bandaged, unconscious..."

"I...I...I can't imagine what she was facing all alone. She must have felt so helpless and desperate as she desperately tried to put out the fire. She must have been hoping someone would help her, hoping someone would help her prevent all the hard work she had painstakingly built up from being consumed by the flames... But what was I doing? I was taking an exam, my phone was off, and I had no idea how desperate she was. I was even feeling smug because I had done well on the exam..."

"Because of this incident, I didn't attend the remaining subjects of my postgraduate entrance exam this year. I planned to give up my studies and take care of her... But just the day before I was ready to accept everything, pick her up from the hospital, and propose to her... she... suddenly disappeared!"

As Wen Yinlin finished speaking, he stared at the empty soup bowl in front of him for a long time, and then sighed softly.

“I have never looked down on her, and I am willing to accept her as she may be in the future. If I had told her earlier and made her understand this sooner, maybe things wouldn’t have come to this.”

Kai Uesugi listened to the short story.

Apart from the uncles next door eating ramen and discussing drinks, the atmosphere fell silent.

He could understand Wen Yinlin's feelings; every word he uttered reflected the unspeakable pain in his heart.

Kai Uesugi now understands why this person was willing to abandon everything and come to other countries to find people even when he was penniless.

It's just that one word.

After paying for his tonkotsu ramen, Uesugi Kai looked at him and thought back to when he first saw him: a young man who looked particularly lonely, huddled on a bench on a snowy street in the dark, hugging his knees, head down, holding a dead cell phone in his hand, the snow in a foreign land soaking his entire body.

Perhaps she was moved by his sincerity, or perhaps it was because they both dreamed of opening a coffee shop.

Uesugi Kai was a little worried about this guy who knew nothing but had come to Hokkaido.

Wen Yinlin chuckled awkwardly and turned to look at Shangshan Kai: "I often think, I wish I were more handsome."

Why do you think that?

"Because she often told me that she liked handsome guys... During the months she was gone, I kept thinking, if I were more handsome, would she be less willing to leave me?"

Kai Uesugi interrupted him: "That's probably not what she meant. She was probably just joking with you or something."

"Probably..." Wen Yinlin lowered his head again, his face and eyes filled with dejection.

This is a really big blow.

Putting herself in Hanabi's shoes, if she suddenly lost an eye to a fire and then quietly disappeared from her side, Uesugi Kai couldn't imagine how she would feel in the days to come.

Given her low self-esteem, Uesugi Kai was genuinely afraid she might commit suicide.

She's such a considerate girl, yet she's not treated kindly by God...

Kai Uesugi didn't know how to describe that feeling.

Wen Yinlin, who came to Hokkaido from China, probably felt the same way.

Kai Uesugi patted his lonely back and said, "Where there's a will, there's a way. As long as you keep going, there will be hope someday."

"Thank you... Brother Uesugi. I understand. I can't give up. If even I give up, who else will care about her? Her family, her parents, her younger siblings all died in that great earthquake more than 10 years ago... I can't give up, and I shouldn't give up."

"Kai-kun".

Outside in the darkness, at the wooden entrance of the ramen shop, Hanabi Hanamaru, wearing a trench coat, stood under the light. She wore her usual beret, and the scent of snow emanated from her. Her shoulders and hair were also covered with snowflakes.

Kai Uesugi turned around at the sound.

"Hanabi, what are you doing out here?"

Hanabi Hanabi walked in and came to Kai Uesugi. The first thing she noticed was the stranger sitting next to him. Out of politeness, she nodded slightly to him as a greeting.

"Kai-kun, what's this?"

“Brother Uesugi…” Wen Yinlin was stunned, not for any other reason than the girl in front of him with a face so beautiful that it was almost impossible to find fault with it, and those bright purple eyes that anyone who saw them would find lively.

“I just met him, Wen Yinlin, a Chinese man. You can call him Wen Sang.”

"Hello."

Black fireworks are also somewhat different from regular fireworks.

She is much more outgoing when she is with strangers.

Correspondingly, they will become much more indifferent and less friendly.

At least in Wen Yinlin's opinion, she was a beautiful foreign girl with a rather cold demeanor.

Hanabi Hanabi looked at Kai Uesugi with a slightly reproachful look: "Kai-kun, why didn't you answer my calls?"

"what?"

Kai Uesugi then took his phone out of his pocket to check.

Good grief, sixteen missed calls.

"Kai, sir." The tone was questioning.

"I accidentally muted it," Uesugi Kai said, turning the phone screen towards her with a smile.

Hanabi Hanabi turned her head away in dissatisfaction, then said to him, "Mom and Ai are already at the restaurant. If Kai-kun is free, come and have dinner soon!"

After saying this angrily, the girl's figure disappeared through the doorway.

Kai Uesugi could sense her anger. Well, what girlfriend... no, wife, would not be angry after sixteen phone calls? Even Hanabi would be angry, let alone Kuro Hanabi.

Wen Yinlin finally had a chance to speak, and he asked, "Brother Uesugi, that... was it?"

"My wife."

Wen Yinlin was even more surprised. He hadn't expected that such a young and beautiful woman he had just met was already married: "You're married?"

"Ah."

However, upon seeing Uesugi Kai's handsome face, as well as his expensive silver watch and clothes, Wen Yinlin no longer felt that huge difference. Instead, the appearance of the beautiful girl, who, although he couldn't understand her, clearly seemed to care about him, reminded him of his girlfriend whom he was about to marry.

He was once just as happy... someone cared about him, someone called him out for dinner at night...

He looked out at the vast, snowy night, dark yet dotted with lights, and felt even more melancholy.