CH 39

Chapter 39: Ashamed

The act of pulling up one’s pants and not recognizing people is an experience that can happen more than once and is akin to the saying ‘once bitten, twice shy’.1

The next morning, Zhou Mushi, who woke up in Jin Yang’s arms, with a not-so-serious face and no work to do, ordered a delivery guy to bring the appropriate batteries and went out.

Even though his psychological preparation was clearly not strong enough, he still had to make enough effort on the surface.

With this experience, in the future, Zhou Mushi will have plenty of times when he pull up his pants and not recognize him.

Jin Yang called out to him from behind, “Come back and live here. After all, the house is also half yours.”

Zhou Mushi turned around with great confidence and replied, ‘I’m not short of those small amount of money.”

The implied meaning is that he’s not going back.

After he finished speaking, he walked straight ahead, feeling so ashamed that he wanted to bite his tongue and suffer in silence.

No one’s money is earned easily. Zhou Mushi, who has experienced the hardships of the common people, also empathizes with them. It’s not cheap to stay in a hotel, and it’s more comfortable to live in a proper house.

Pouting, he shouted in his heart, ‘Call me back, call me back. If you beg me again, I’ll go back and live there.’

However, things were not at all as he had imagined. Jin Yang had no intention of trying to persuade him to stay, and just let him go like that.

The wind was a bit chilly. Zhou Mushi walked with his head down towards the hotel, silently cursing himself for being so spineless. He shouldn’t have acted on impulse last night…

After all, it was just a casual fling that could come to an end. Let it go, he thought.

Encountering Jin Yang always made him feel so emotionally confused.

On Saturday morning, Zhou Mushi lay on the bed holding his phone and playing games. There was a lipstick mini-game on Weibo, and he had been playing it all morning.

Without a girlfriend, he didn’t need lipstick at all. He was purely killing time. Otherwise, he really couldn’t think of anything he could do now. He couldn’t just be idle. Whenever he was free, he always thought of the absurdity of last night.

At lunchtime, he had a serving of pork and preserved egg porridge, a teriyaki chicken patty, a boiled egg, and a small dish of pickled vegetables. He now paid a little more attention to his diet and basically avoided spicy foods.

His stomach had never been good since he was a child. His stomach had been through a lot due to the immense psychological pressure he had faced in the past, which had caused his internal organs to become not functioning properly.

A perfectly healthy person suddenly can’t stand the smell of food and feels nauseous even at the slightest scent. They constantly have a bitter taste in their mouth, causing them insomnia and have no appetite during the day, making them look very haggard.

The body is always more honest than a person’s mind. Even if they think they have nothing to be sad or upset about and keep comforting themselves that they are living a good life, they still can’t control their long-term insomnia accompanied by vomiting, reflux of gastric acid and bile.

This kind of reaction is either caused by a very serious stomach disease or by excessive mental stress.

When Zhou Mushi first had these symptoms, he went to get a medical check-up, and fortunately, it was the second reason, and not a problem with his physical health.

If there is something wrong with the internal organs, medical treatment can be sought to treat it. But if the problem is excessive mental stress, what can you do to treat it?

Emotions are harder to control than anything else. Who can simply recite ‘I’m happy, I’m very happy’ and change their overthinking emotions?

He dragged on for several months like that, even if he set a reminder on his phone to sleep and wake up early every day, and went for a run or exercised, it was all in vain.

What really solved his state was the large red packets of money sent by his dad and brother on his birthday.

‘The only way to relieve worry is to get rich’ may sound like a joke, but it’s actually true. For someone who was living a comfortable life but suddenly felt economic pressure and dissatisfaction with their life, there is no better way to lift their mood than with money.

From that time on, Zhou Mushi developed a habit of hoarding things.

At first, he hoarded biscuits and instant noodles, buying boxes of them. Looking at those things gave him an indescribable sense of satisfaction, and he felt that at least if something happened one day, he wouldn’t immediately starve to death. He would have food to survive for a while.

Later, he also started hoarding underwear, socks, and now even mineral water.

Of course, he didn’t hoard an exaggerated amount. In any case, no matter where Zhou Mushi is, his backup food and supplies can at least last him a week.

This seems like a quirk, but it’s difficult to change. For those who have been caught in the cycle of constantly calculating their money and worrying about when they can no longer afford to live, there is always a lack of security in terms of material possessions.

Starting to accumulate wealth came after that. After all, in the past, Zhou Mushi was a typical person who had a lot of spending money because he did not have to worry about the source of funds. Although he still doesn’t have to worry now, and whenever he is short of money, his father and brother will certainly give him some, but it seems different now.

The distance between the hotel and the takeaway is only five or six hundred meters. The delivery guy arrived very quickly, and when he delivered it, the porridge was still hot, a little too hot to eat. The warm porridge that rolled into the stomach gives people a feeling of extra happiness and satisfaction.

Time is a very strange thing. A 25-year-old man is still considered young, but Zhou Mushi has a feeling of getting older every day.

It’s not an obvious aging that can be seen from his face, but a change in his mentality.

Zhou Mushi don’t know when it started, but he began to drink less cold Coke, started wearing long johns in winter, otherwise he couldn’t stand the joy of exposed ankles. He began to not understand the popular vocabulary on the Internet, and began to prepare a thermos to brew wolfberries…

He brought a basin of hot water, sat at the end of the bed, played with his phone, and soaked his feet. Perhaps he should find a foot therapist to press on the acupuncture points on his feet. Zhou Mushi lay on the bed, thinking.

After searching through what he wanted to see, he simply put down his phone and kept his feet in the footbath, half-lying on the bed like a corpse.

The events of last night rushed into his mind like a flood, and he couldn’t help but close his eyes, but the scene became clearer and clearer.

Even though everything was indistinct in that dim light, it was precisely because of the indistinctness that his sense of touch became more pronounced.

The scorching kiss, imprinted on him over and over again, the hands with thin calluses, tracing inch by inch over his body. The warmth and tremble of skin pressed together, the intertwined gasps and the scent of Jin Yang on his body, all lingering in his mind, unable to be shaken off.

There are no extra words, only the purest form of physical and sexual love. Yet, he always remembers when that person whispered in his ear, “Don’t be afraid, I’m here.”

Perhaps it’s his own fault for not being capable enough. After all these years, he’s still fixated on that one person. In this moment of tranquility, there’s no one else to think of or reminisce about, except for him.

End of Chapter 39

1 the phrase suggests that after going through a significant change or experience, a person becomes unrecognizable to their previous acquaintances, but the experience also allows them to become more familiar with themselves and their abilities. The phrase emphasizes the importance of learning from experience and adapting to change. ↵