Frankness

"Of course I remember."

Jiang Ran filled his glass.

How could he ever forget?

Back then, it had only been a few days since high school started. Nobody knew each other very well, and Jiang Ran and Qin Feng hadn't even spoken.

But during one PE class, a middle school classmate who had bullied Qin Feng before came looking for trouble again, shouting from a distance, "You're a kid with no dad!"

Jiang Ran couldn't stand it and went over to confront him. Before long, they were fighting.

Afterward, of course, they got chewed out by their teacher and had to write self-criticisms.

But that incident was also how Qin Feng met Jiang Ran and Cheng Mengxue, and the three of them gradually became close friends.

Sometimes, that was just how fate worked.

Wonderful encounters came without warning, and sudden farewells came without a sign.

"It was such a small thing."

Jiang Ran looked at his glass.

"You don't have to keep bringing it up."

Qin Feng picked up the bottle and poured himself a drink too.

"To you two, it might really have been a small thing."

Beer gurgled into the glass, bubbles rising to cover his memories with a layer of sorrow.

"You and Little Xue have been kind and helpful since you were kids. I'm sure you've helped lots of people and done plenty of good things."

"But to me, from my point of view... after all these years of being bullied, you two were the only ones who stood up for me. All these years, you were the only ones who defended me and protected my dignity."

"You're exaggerating," Jiang Ran said.

"Not at all."

Qin Feng shook his head.

"Before I met you two, more people bullied me, and what they did was worse."

"To keep from causing trouble for my mom, I always swallowed my grievances. In the end, I was the one who apologized."

"Because I was afraid the teacher would call my mom in. The other kids' parents all lived in the city and could get there quickly by car. But my mom was back in our hometown, working all sorts of jobs. She wouldn't even let herself sleep because she was trying to earn enough to support us... How could I ask her to come to school?"

"Of course, my mom spoiled me too. If she knew I was being bullied, she'd drop everything and come to school to stand up for me."

"But..."

He gave a helpless smile and shook his head, his eyes full of powerlessness as he faced the past.

That was right.

These days, he could earn over a million with a single message.

With the Positron Cannon in hand, he had an infinitely bright future.

Maybe he couldn't get everything he wanted, but he could make 99% of his wishes come true.

But still.

What good were all his present and future triumphs when it came to the mother who had borne the burden of supporting their family all by herself?

"But after she came to school to stand up for me, what then?"

Qin Feng continued:

"When she went home, she'd still have to deal with one mess after another and a mountain of work she could never finish. She might even lose the job she'd worked so hard to find."

"Besides, our hometown was far from the city. My mom would never have been willing to take a hired car. She'd have taken the bus, swaying along for ages, there and back."

"So, many times before, just like in high school, I humbly apologized to them, trying to make big problems small and small problems go away, so the teacher wouldn't call my mom to school too."

Jiang Ran listened quietly, without saying a word.

In fact, Qin Feng had told him these things many times over the years.

That was why Jiang Ran had felt so guilty these past few days.

Their miserable life together had begun when the family's breadwinner died.

His mother worked herself to the bone for her son, and her son worried about her. She didn't want him to suffer, and he didn't want her to wear herself out... They had fallen into a vicious cycle with no way out.

Actually, before he met Jiang Ran and Cheng Mengxue in high school, Qin Feng hadn't been an exceptionally good student.

With a mind as brilliant as his, he could have easily gotten perfect scores and ranked first.

But... to "avoid trouble," "keep a low profile," and "not put extra pressure on his mother," Qin Feng deliberately held back on every exam, keeping his grades precisely around the middle of the class.

That was something the young Jiang Ran had never understood.

If he came first, the teachers would treat him like a prodigy. So why hold himself back?

But later, Jiang Ran gradually understood.

[Children from unhappy families are careful about everything.]

After his father died, everything Qin Feng experienced taught him that it was better to avoid trouble than invite it.

"So, to get back to your question from earlier."

Qin Feng's voice interrupted Jiang Ran's thoughts.

He lifted his full glass of beer and looked at him.

"How could I ever hate you?"

Qin Feng's eyes were clear.

"Never."

"From the moment you two stood in front of me to defend me, from the moment you helped me pick up my dignity... I'd decided you were my friends."

"[You two are friends I'd protect with my life.]"

Clink.

The glass mugs collided.

Jiang Ran and Qin Feng clinked glasses, then downed a big gulp of beer.

The chill went straight down his throat.

The bitterness stayed in his heart.

Jiang Ran felt that being a person was hard.

If he didn't bring up Qin Feng's father, he felt guilty, as if he'd wronged Qin Feng.

But if he did bring it up, he felt like a real piece of trash, unwilling even to save his good friend's father.

Emotion and reason clashed fiercely, neither willing to yield, neither able to coexist.

Still.

At least.

It was good to get what was weighing on their hearts out in the open.

After a few drinks and an honest talk between good friends, they could finally put the matter behind them.

"Wang Hao sure is taking his time..."

The empty bottles on the floor kept piling up, while Wang Hao kept saying on WeChat, "Almost there," "On my way," "There's a bit of traffic," and "The bus is so slow."

"Looks like Wang Hao really is strapped for cash lately."

Jiang Ran urged him along on WeChat while complaining.

"Come to think of it, have we been spending too extravagantly lately?"

They each had hundreds of thousands in their pockets.

College students didn't buy cars, houses, or luxury goods... It was actually hard to spend all that money, giving them the illusion that no matter what they did, it would never run out.

Their classmates took the subway or bus whenever they went out, but the two of them had gotten into the habit of taking a taxi every time.

"This little bit of extravagance isn't a big deal."

Qin Feng said unconcernedly:

"Who can blame us... when we're gods?"

He was obviously referencing a joke.

A line from the play they'd performed that day.

"You're really going to keep milking that joke, huh?"

As the playwright, Jiang Ran felt embarrassed.

"You made that joke on the cruise too, and now you're doing it again... How much do you like the script I wrote?"

"I already told you. I like it a lot."

Qin Feng seemed interested.

"Because I feel like the worldbuilding you came up with is actually pretty realistic."

"Especially now that we have the Spacetime Bulletin. It really does feel like we can control history and steer fate."

"Heh."

Jiang Ran let out a dry laugh.

"I doubt anyone else would praise me like that. As I recall, the setting guide I wrote back then got me plenty of ridicule from my classmates. They all said I was daydreaming and losing my mind."

"I wish you'd been my classmate in middle school... If you'd encouraged me back then, maybe I'd have become a webnovel writer. I'd probably be a top-tier author by now."

"I wish I had been."

Qin Feng leaned back in his chair.

"To be honest, I've read the script you wrote for the Film Club several times in my spare time lately."

"You must have a lot of free time."

"Don't say that. It was the first movie I acted in, after all. I've read the script several times, and I've watched the finished cut Xu Yan gave us several times too."

"Oh, that one. I haven't watched it yet."

Jiang Ran remembered.

Xu Yan had given them a USB drive on the sports field, saying it had the edited movie on it and asking them to watch it and give her some feedback.

But they'd been so busy lately. When would he have had time?

"So, how is it? Did it turn out well?"

Jiang Ran took a sip of beer.

"I haven't had time to watch it yet. Though maybe I have, but since I don't remember anything from after the Worldline changed, I wouldn't remember even if I had."

"It's pretty good."

Qin Feng agreed.

"We did a good job, the shots looked good too. I don't think it'll have any trouble winning an award at the College Student Film Festival."

"But... while I was watching it, I kept wondering about something."

"Back then, you named the story Genius Playground, and said it was a game played by eleven geniuses."

"But in the movie script, the game itself isn't really described."

"I've always been curious. How does the game work? What's its ultimate goal?"

He looked up at Jiang Ran.

"So, could you tell me..."

"[What kind of game is Genius Playground, exactly?]"