Smile Code (Lost Laughter) 失笑 - Zhu Le 祖乐

24

Your sense of direction in love is worse than a robot vacuum cleaner.

After the focus in the elevator and the hostility in the escape room, Liang Daiwen displayed a third expression-dazed. It was always subtle, so subtle that if you weren't spending every day with him, you'd never notice. A car drove past the roadside, and the neon lights on the ground jumped up with the splashing water, just like Liang Daiwen's fluctuating emotions.

Still trying to figure out how to wrap things up, Liang Daiwen swirled the silk scarf around his thumb and said, "Is this what it feels like to have the umbilical cord wrapped around your neck?"

...Why don't you try stand-up comedy?

Gu Yi stood on stage, recalling this moment, and couldn't help but toss the microphone directly to Liang Daiwen in the audience. She had originally thought that moving out might hurt his feelings, after all, they had spent so much time together. But every time Liang Daiwen spoke, it only made her feel like he was made of stone. Now, when she saw him at ounce, she could treat him like a decoration-laughing like a lucky cat, an unshakable mascot, a hidden master of subtle attacks and insults. Originally, there was no performance for Gu Yi today; she was suddenly pulled in to help. It was just as well, since she also had something to say. In the three days of work, she had already heard rumors about herself, which she overheard in the smoking area outside the office, where male colleagues were chatting. Among their laughter, Gu Yi was branded as a woman looking for a man. One of her colleagues, finishing his cigarette, laughed and said, "God, what a so-called 'independent woman.'"

"Hello everyone, I'm Gu Yi. How was your New Year? Looks like everyone's doing well, judging by this big brother in front who's looking a little plump. Been pressured to get married? Ah, I can tell by your frown that things aren't going too well. Take a good look around today, there are a lot of girls at ounce, and they match very precisely-funny, love to freeload, hope you can find the right person."

"I haven't been to ounce recently. I've been busy riding roller coasters and going through escape rooms. I'm afraid of heights and terrified of the dark, so my life can be summed up in four words-pitch black. I wanted to share with you all my 'suicide mission' experience, but I've heard some news recently, too shocking not to share-guess what, I heard I've been kept as a mistress."

"This started from a joke I made about living together being like a funeral. At that time, I didn't mention it to my roommate, so my colleagues speculated, with furrowed brows and words unsaid, that I must be kept by someone. I was really puzzled. When your mom looks at you with a frown, is it because someone outside found you a new dad?"

"People really love gossip. The spread of gossip is faster than that of contagious diseases. My college roommate had an appendectomy, was absent for a week, and some of the boys in our class immediately started gossiping about her. An appendix surgery, a minor operation, didn't have any spreading value. The appendix, an organ that's kind of useless in the body, is not important. But when it's about a kid, it's full of gossip-who with, where, are they married? Unmarried? Too bad. Men gossip so fast, things that women may only find out in person, men already have in their WeChat group forwards. Don't believe me? I'll say three words-Uniqlo."

"Back to being kept. I was the last to know that I was being kept. The reason is that I stayed at a male friend's house because I was too poor to pay rent, so I must be a kept woman. But I think it's all just rumors. Why not reasonably deduce from the existing conditions? A single man living in the city, good-looking, has a great job, and his life is so stable and affluent-if he's keeping a stand-up comedian, then I must be beautiful, hot, and have had my voice poisoned. It's like the plot of a TV drama where the hardworking and pitiful female protagonist will always attract the attention of a wealthy heir or elite CEO. But this kind of story, let me tell you, doesn't exist in real life. If you wrap yourself up like a gift, tie a bow around your neck, the CEO would just say, 'Are you imitating the umbilical cord wrapped around the neck?'"