I am not Ximen Qing.

Song Yu and his beloved lay on the mountain, under the apricot trees with blooming white flowers, the air filled with their fragrance. They closed their eyes, hoping to forget the hustle and bustle of the world forever.

Spring's gift, peach and apricot blossoms lining both sides of the mountain road, rekindled their old flame. But not as lovers, but purely for illicit affairs. The "darling" wavered between Song Yu and her husband. Her husband was very busy with work, and they had over a million yuan in loans, with monthly mortgage payments alone exceeding ten thousand yuan. As Song Yu said, cruel women require a man to buy her an apartment in her name. Those who can live together aren't necessarily together for love or romance—this was a statement directed at men. Men seem to be driven by sensual desires; as long as they like her, they don't care about her past relationships. If a woman can give him the impulse and motivation for love, she is a goddess in his heart.

What a beautiful world! She opened her eyes and looked through the gaps between the white apricot blossoms. The sky was a deep blue, dotted with scattered white clouds. The sunlight, like Apollo, radiated from the handsome man, painting the vegetation, flowers, trees, pavilions on the mountains, and lakes and fields below with the colors of spring.

On the exposed rocks beside the tree, there's a carving of Song Yu and his beloved, their happy farewell. Unlike those who play pranks by carving their parting vows on the blue bricks paving the mountain path, the Qin and Han dynasty bricks and tiles are part of the culture. The exposed rocks under the apricot tree are creations of nature, but unfortunately, stones don't possess much spirituality; otherwise, they could record what they were talking about under the tree.

My darling doesn't like her love life with her husband, so she bought him a Japanese doll, which Song Yu imported from Japan. They just lay quietly on the grass under the blooming apricot tree, smelling the unique floral fragrance of peach blossoms and apricot blossoms wafting from not far away.

An hour ago, they were overcome with love again, rekindling their old romance. They went up the mountain to smell the flowers, their love was at peace, and they were able to listen to the birdsong and the fragrance of flowers.

"Go find a girlfriend." My darling could sense that he hadn't experienced love or romance for at least a few months.

"What can I do? Like I said, it's practically a curse."

"Sorry. I shouldn't have said that."

"It has nothing to do with you. I was just thinking about having fun."

"I'm planning to go to Shanghai for a while."

What are you going to Shanghai for?

"Take care of your health."

"Sorry, impulsiveness is the devil."

"Stop talking, don't you think I was pretty cruel to him?"

"That was the price he paid for marrying you, wasn't it? I can't give that to you."

"I don't feel guilty at all, he just likes me anyway."

"Yes, he is also a mirror for me." Song Yu said something inexplicable for some reason.

"I wanna go."

"I did not mean that."

"I just want to leave and have some peace and quiet, okay?"

"You still think..."

"I'm heartless, aren't I? But what can I do? I want to live with you, but that's not what you want. For you, I've sold my soul again and again..."

"It's my fault, I get impulsive whenever I see you."

"It was me. I shouldn't have reached out to you first. I didn't control myself either."

"I think I can't get rid of your presence, so I decided to go to Shanghai for six months. Don't hate me. Sometimes I wonder why God let me meet you, you rotten guy. But I just like your carefree nature. Maybe this is the true face of love. God's punishment for me is enough. Now I have no other thoughts. I want to take care of my body and have a child for him. Why are women so realistic? Because women's physiology is different from men's. What women cannot escape is having children. If you can't become a mother, then you are not a real woman. I love you, but I have to have a child for him because I am his wife. I can feel that you still love me. You have not deceived me emotionally. Time will smooth everything over. In the face of time, everything will vanish."

After Da Baobei broke up with Song Yu, she sent him a text message. Song Yu was filled with regret. Why did he have to break Da Baobei's peaceful family life again? He could tell that Da Baobei was feeling quite depressed. He didn't know when this lingering connection would end. They had only originally planned to have coffee together.

"Who seduced whom?" he wondered to himself.

"Aren't we seducing each other?" he comforted himself with this thought.

"She's still the same, doing whatever she wants. I'm so glad I didn't become her man." Now Song Yu is also glad that he didn't become Da Bao's slave.

Whenever Meng Liang asked curiously, "Why do girls like you so much?"

"What can I do? The more I do this, the more they like me."

What exactly are you like?

"Girls are naturally attracted to being flirted with. The more shameless and roguish you are in flirting with them, the more they will go crazy. Even though they know he might be a jerk, they still like men who are jerks to the end."

"Why can't I do it?"

"But why do you only look for older women? It's the same principle. You're showing that you're a scumbag who seeks pleasure. They may seem annoying on the surface, but it's the same as men looking for older women and women looking for lovers."

"Then I might as well sell my body and put a price tag on it."

"Yes, but you don't dare, you coward."

"That's absolutely right, I wouldn't dare."

Song Yu's flirting skills have recently reached a new level. He's pursuing a woman who's returned from overseas—a woman with an extraordinary air about her. Her mother sent her to study in England when she was very young, making her feel like a princess from a fairytale. Now that China is developing so well, she's had enough of that fairytale princess life and wants to experience ordinary life, especially dating. "But my mother is too strict with me; I have to be home by 8 pm every day."

Of course, Song Yu has been busy with his love life with the woman who returned from overseas lately. It's quite interesting; he'll have some coffee, mix some foreign liquor, and then go to an old-fashioned dance hall to dance—a graceful waltz, of course.

"She is indeed a lady from a prominent family."

How did you figure that out?

"It's an aristocratic air; you can't fake that."

Yang Wanli particularly enjoyed listening to Song Yu boast about his romantic escapades. The reason Yang Wanli couldn't embark on a love affair like Song Yu was because he was already married and a father of a daughter. He was a staunch defender of old-fashioned morality, yet even he blushed when listening to Song Yu's romantic tales.

"Stop keeping me in suspense and just tell me."

"I attended a fashion show, and there was a piano on the stage, like an advertisement for a sponsor."

"A piano sponsor?"

"No, it was when she went up and sat down at the piano and played a Schumann piece. The atmosphere was incredibly lively because of her outstanding performance, which caused a sensation. How could that be fake?"

“There are tons of girls who can play the piano at the eighth level these days. My daughter can only play a tenth-level piece. So what if you can play the piano? Does that make you lose your mind? How long have you two been dating? Tell me.”

"It's been about half a year."

"Don't tell me you two are just holding hands like in a fairy tale, how beautiful and romantic!"

"Yes, I also want to try this kind of love game of holding hands."

"Wait a minute, I think there's something online about overseas returnees who can play the piano and dance. They don't ask for much, they just want to take their infatuated men to bars to mix drinks for 200-300 yuan, and then go to coffee shops to drink coffee for 100-200 yuan, making about 500-600 yuan a day. And they always go home at crucial moments, right?"

"Yeah, how come I didn't notice?"

"I always felt that you had met a female con artist in love."

"What does she want?"

"It would be so nice to just flirt, dance, drink, and play the piano. An idiot loves her lies, it's just holding hands."

"So all of us men are idiots?"

"You're tasting stupidity for the first time; break your rules."

"Yes, if you don't go to bed for a week, it's goodbye."

The overseas-educated woman played a romantic prank on Song Yu for half a year. Perhaps it was her darling that made him lose his usual rationality; he treated her like a Persian cat. That overseas-educated cat kept bothering Song Yu, and a month later, it completely disappeared from his world.

"You knew Mom wouldn't let me stay out past eight o'clock, so why did you drink with me until three?"

"But you didn't agree."

"It would be so much better if things were like they were before."

After a month of repeated conversations, numbering in the thousands, with the overseas returnee, Song Yu finally received an angry warning from her one day: "Sir, can you please be nicer to women? You know what? You're the smallest fish I've ever caught, tasteless, lacking manners, a complete scumbag and a cheapskate."

“You’re a girl from the primeval forest, how about you recite a shamanic passage for me?” After that, Song Yu recited a long passage from the American Declaration of Independence.

"Give me a song, even the 'La la la la' from Friends will do, okay? You play the piano, and I'll play the guitar."

When Song Yu told Yang Wanli, Gu Feng, Meng Liang, and Zhang Sheng his love story with the overseas-returned woman in the tatami room where Jiang Tai was eating Japanese food, these friends almost all vomited up their tuna.

"These friends are still the best of friends."

"sorrow."

"Shameful."

"We didn't even see a hair."

"Zhang Sheng said, how about the alluring sea turtle woman recite a poem, like the Ode to the Goddess?

"Praise for her plump buttocks, praise for her large breasts."

Everyone started drinking some Japanese sake and making a ruckus. Then, one of the gentlemen accidentally ate too much wasabi and sneezed loudly. "The ghost of that overseas returnee woman is coming! Be careful, she might eat you alive!"

"If she dares to come, we'll turn her into a female body feast and have her eat raw fish slices from her body."

"I remember she came out of an alley, wearing a dress, using a parasol to shield herself from the sun, her beautiful eyes sparkling, her slender waist swaying gracefully."

"You want to take action?"

"No, I wisely stood behind them. Her butt wiggled and perked up, and she spoke in a mix of English and Chinese from time to time. I learned a lot of English from her; she's much better than Dr. Henry."

“If you dare mention Dr. Henry, he says you’re not the one he wants.”

"What? Dr. Henry isn't the one I want either."

She said I was a gentleman.

"That's right, you were so smitten with the woman that you paid for her 500 yuan bill."

"What kind of order is so expensive?"

"Coffee."

"A ruthless character eats meat in tiny increments."

"Zhang Sheng, take out your work and read it; you're a future great writer."

"Zhang Sheng, don't listen to him. Why be a writer? Playing word games is too tiring for your brain."

"Who said that? Bai Juyi was a romantic and dashing man his whole life, and he even became the emperor's tutor."

“That’s my fellow townsman, but you’re not Bai Juyi.”

"My surname is Zhang. Maybe if you check the family tree, I'll even be a character from The Romance of the Western Chamber."

"What about his 73rd generation descendant?"

"I'm not going to be a pushover."

"I stood in the Wangfo Pavilion, gazing at the distant mountains, the sky a clear blue." Shuxiang Temple was right in front of me.

"An old fool, so scary you wouldn't dare go in."

"The old man couldn't stop my devout heart, so I lit a lotus lamp for the document."

"And then you became brothers with a dog."

"Don't listen to his nonsense. It's a dog's karmic connection to Buddhism from a past life. There's a dog in the temple that's more devout than a person."

Why mention dogs?

"Because we have the happiest dog in the world next to us."

How many sons did Lennon have?

"There are nearly a hundred of them. It's a lecherous dog, having mated with at least a dozen female Golden Retrievers. It's not worried about its DNA anymore."

"We should learn from Lennon; he had countless descendants."

Zhang Sheng began to read aloud with deep emotion the love story of a girl who used her "big baby" persona as a cover.

“Sure, maybe one of us will go down in history.”

"Don't even think about running away. Zhang Sheng has already recorded your romantic escapades like the King of Hell. They're all files on your love affairs and your womanizing, all meticulously documented."

"And Zhang Sheng, please don't write it as a long and rambling erotic essay. David, Venus, long white legs, black grass—these are all your habitual literary terms."

“We must respect future writers, so that we can live forever. Thousands of years from now, scholars and experts will study the novel like they studied Jin Ping Mei, to find out who is Ximen Da Guanren and who is Wu Dalang. Think about it yourselves, who is Dalang?”

"I will be Wu Song and kill Jinlian."

"Zhang Sheng, tell me who is the incarnation of Jinlian."

"The girls' current status isn't high enough to reach the top."

"What? Everyone, think back, how many female confidantes do you all have in total?"

"How many female confidantes do you have?"

"It's a little more than that, but it's not even a fraction of what Ximen Qing got."

"You shameless bunch."

"I've heard that only suffering can inspire writing."

"Who said that? Does living have to be suffering?"

"We live for eating, drinking, and having fun. Only when we feel love can we write. The Decameron is one example, as are One Thousand and One Nights and The Flowers of Evil. Without the love of women and the nourishment of romance, it is impossible to write great works. Writing novels is about the love between men and women. So, like the heroes in the Records of the Grand Historian, who were born as women and died as women, and Oedipus, Dante, Faust, Emperor Wu of Han, and the emperors of the Tang Dynasty who went to hell to find their wives."

"And Mr. Cao from China."

"That's too aristocratic. You can't build a garden in Suzhou like Sheng Huaixuan, and then have three wives and four concubines, spending all your time surrounded by a bunch of women."

"That's a man who truly understands life."

"Who wrote the best about their first love?"

"Dante's Rhapsody: If you love one goddess, you can find her at the throne of God in Hell and Heaven."

"That's not as great as Bai Juyi's Song of Everlasting Regret. It was written specifically for his first love. Bai Juyi poured all his love for his first love into the Song of Everlasting Regret."

"Don't even fantasize, be careful, it's a pity you might not even have a first love."

"That's right, I didn't have a first love, it was all unrequited love."

"Thus, Nietzsche's tragedy was born."

"So you desperately seek revenge for the unrequited love that rejected you. Think about Zhang Sheng and Bai Juyi, right? They went all out and ended up with three confidantes."

"How did you know?"

"Who here doesn't know? He's dating three at once, what a crazy lover."

"Wrong, I am their victim, aren't I? How could I know there was more to their adultery? In their eyes, I was practically nonexistent. Their abandonment of me only proves the greatness of the epic. Helen was still the queen of Menelaus in the Odyssey. I want to read the epic, and in the end, not a single man is an exception. Those who left home returned home. Men have no home at all, no place to belong. It's all an illusion, and in the end, it's all for nothing."

Who is the greatest figure in the epic?

“The great King Priam, the greatest father, I swear that all of you here are illusions from the epic, and one day you will understand.”

"Have you finished reading?"

"I dare not read any further. The epic is about the tragedy of men, a group of humans controlled by the gods, who kill and set fires for Helen. Will our fate be like that great castle, eventually turning into ruins in the fireworks?"

"Alright, Zhang Sheng, stop being so sentimental. You'll get drunk if you drink too much sake."

"What should I do? Sometimes when I close my eyes, I see three female ghosts. They are all ghosts."