Winter Time Rendering

Meng Qingyi wasn’t having a much better time either.

He was currently out buying ice cream with Ruoping.

Why eat ice cream on such a cold day?

It was a question no man could answer.

"Where should we wander around next?" Ruoping asked, licking her ice cream.

"Don’t ask me. It doesn’t matter what I say, we’ll end up doing what you want anyway."

"I wish you would just listen to me," Ruoping said, dissatisfied. "You’re just waiting for a message from Shutong. The second he texts, I bet you’ll take off."

"It’s a matter of life and death." Meng Qingyi laced his fingers behind his head. "I think finding that person quickly is what really matters right now."

"What were you two talking about just now? You already have a lead? Don’t keep me in suspense."

"Not really. Think about it: six minus one. Who knows who that ’one’ is? Right now, we can only narrow it down to a certain area. At least we know it’s someone on the shopping street."

"So, are we heading to the shopping street?"

"We’ll wait for his message."

"Have you noticed Shutong’s been acting strange lately?"

"Ah, yeah, a little," the boy replied lazily. "But a man can grow up overnight..."

Before he could finish, Ruoping stomped on his foot.

"Be serious."

"What do you want to ask? About his relationship with Gu Qiuyan?"

Ruoping pouted and said nothing.

"I think it’s fine. It doesn’t seem like he likes Gu Qiuyan *that* much. You’re not jealous, are you?"

"Who’s jealous? It’s just that..."

Ruoping thought for a long time before continuing, a little dejected:

"I just feel like our group used to be the closest, but now someone has a new favorite. You know, I have a cousin... we used to be really close. She went to our junior high, but she’s seven or eight years older. When I was little, I’d always follow her around and we’d play. I was wilder than the boys. Then she got a boyfriend. One time after that, she took me into the city. My cousin still doted on me like she always had, and her boyfriend was nice, but... but I just couldn’t get that old feeling back."

"So you’re worried?"

"Something like that," Ruoping mumbled. She wanted to kick a pebble, but they were inside a mall, and there were no pebbles to kick. Even the ice cream in her hand was melting.

Meng Qingyi stopped talking about "being a man" and said seriously:

"You’re too close to the situation to see it clearly. Or maybe you girls just don’t get guys... Hiss—stop messing with my hair! I’m trying to give you a serious example. You’ve played computer games, right? It doesn’t matter if you haven’t. I’ll make up a story for you right now. You’re a warrior sent by the king to save a princess kidnapped by an evil dragon. So you put on the best gear and set off. You carve a path through rivers of blood, and finally, you chop off the dragon’s head. Sound a lot like what we’re doing?"

"Oh, so by your logic, we’re just the companions the warrior meets along the way? He defeats the dragon, and then we’re out of the picture? Are we supposed to throw a party for the warrior afterward to celebrate him finally winning the princess’s hand?" Ruoping said, looking at him sideways, a bitter taste in her mouth.

"Wrong. The real point I want to make comes next," Qingyi said, shaking his head. "On the surface, it’s a game about a warrior saving a princess. But think about it. This warrior slays monsters the whole way. Is he enjoying the fun of grinding and leveling up, or is he enjoying the act of saving the princess itself?"

"Are you saying Shutong is the warrior, and Gu Qiuyan is the princess?" Ruoping asked, stunned.

"Something like that. The feeling I get from Shutong is that he’s here on some kind of mission. He has to complete a certain task, and the person at the center of it just happens to be Gu Qiuyan," Qingyi analyzed. "Even my example isn’t perfect, because this isn’t a game about grinding and leveling up. Do you think Shutong really enjoys solving cases every day?"

"I guess not..."

"Exactly. That’s why his behavior seems so awkward. You and I are different in that way. I can treat catching culprits and solving cases like a hobby. But he’s not like that. He doesn’t like Gu Qiuyan as a person, and he’s not very interested in investigating. He’s doing it to complete a mission. Let me give you another example. If his situation with Gu Qiuyan is a case of a hero saving the damsel in distress..."

"You guys are so full of yourselves," Ruoping couldn’t help but laugh.

"Don’t interrupt. Just go with the story. After the hero saves the damsel, what’s supposed to happen? Their relationship should progress, right? Today he catches the killer, tomorrow they go on a date... Let’s just say that’s the script. But if we’re talking about Shutong, what do you think he’d want to do the next day?"

"Sleep in, then roll out of bed without even washing his face and go fishing. He’s always like that," Ruoping said with a snort of laughter.

"But he wasn’t even that into fishing that day," Qingyi said unexpectedly.

"...Are you worried something’s wrong with him?"

"Something like that. Look, we all want something. For example, right now I want to hurry up and find the culprit, so I’m racking my brain trying to figure out who it could be. Du Kang is just waiting for his birthday on Monday, he can’t even sleep properly. And you’re frantically licking your ice cream... Stop poking my ribs! What I mean is, at least for this recent period, I haven’t been able to figure out what it is that Shutong wants."

"Then what should we do?" Ruoping started to worry too.

"Who knows?"

Qingyi shrugged:

"Right now, he’s facing that dragon. The princess is behind it. He can’t think of anything but slaying the dragon, so he probably has no time for anything else.

"You told me not to use analogies about ’being a man,’ but I really think every guy encounters a dragon he has to defeat. Before you defeat it, you don’t even know why you have to. It’s just because the dragon is blocking your path, and someone just so happens to have shoved a sword into your hand. It roars at you, so you draw your sword against it. It’s a life-or-death battle. If you lose, you’ve well and truly lost. But if you win, maybe you can overcome that hurdle. You might not know what you want even then, but at least you’ll finally have the free time to think about it."