I am not Ximen Qing.

Many unbelievable things happened in the past, and Yang Dalei did indeed pay a high price for the school beauty's love. But he didn't care about the price; what he cared about was the pure experience of love. He pretended to be stupid, but he knew that this was the only way he could enter the world of the goddess-like school beauty. He truly gained a great experience of love from her. That was enough. This was Yang Dalei's decisive and ruthless temperament. Yang Dalei had acting skills like Zhang Fei. He seemed hot and spicy, but he knew he was performing a comedy about pursuing a beauty on campus. He had to make the school beauty understand that if she didn't accept his love, he might become a degenerate hoodlum. The school beauty was kind-hearted and goddess-like. She was beautiful and could sing Peking Opera. The opera excerpts she sang had almost captivated Yang Dalei, making him lose his soul. This was all Yang Dalei's acting to attract the school beauty's attention. Yang Dalei made a fool of himself at every turn just to attract the school beauty's attention and sense of presence. Pretending to be stupid for a beauty—what's that? At least it's much better than the farce performed by Don Quixote and Shang Qiu. Shouting about the non-existent Dulcinea, Yang Dalei had one good thing about him: he dared to spend money. He knew his father had some resources, and he figured that taking money from his father's savings account and throwing it at the beauty would spark a flame of love. This was the violent aesthetics of love!

The school beauty, a goddess studying in London, England, witnessed firsthand what true high society, a true noble gentleman, a true billionaire, and the luxurious life of Downtonian capitalism were all like. Chinese school goddesses easily enter high-class social circles abroad. Life's opportunities are truly strange; when a school beauty goes abroad to study, she no longer wants to look back on her foolish, naive love. She's determined to say goodbye to that fool's infatuation. Trying to win her love is impossible; it would destroy her pure love and romantic dreams. Xiang Hua even developed a kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder related to love, similar to Song Yu's obsession with love. How could she have encountered such a twisted man? It seems she couldn't experience this feeling in China's school beauty society. Upon arriving in London, England, I increasingly felt that Yang Dalei was an ugly monster of love. The contrast in his mentality was too stark. Yang Dalei's fantasy of the school beauty returning to China for a grand wedding to make him proud was just like the promise he made to his parents. He vowed that he would definitely win over the beautiful school beauty and make her the daughter-in-law of the Yang family. He even boasted to his face-conscious grandfather that the Yang family's graves would be emitting auspicious smoke, that he would marry the school beauty and make her his future wife, and that they would have the most outstanding children with the best DNA—twins, quadruplets, quintuplets—all of which would be telepathically connected. No wonder the school beauty was so frightened that she wanted to escape Yang Dalei's foolish idea. It turned out that he was still stuck in the feudal mindset at heart. All talk of love and money was a hypocritical lie. Yang Dalei's approach was to use money to hurt the beauty's body and feelings. To give him a true kingly experience, the school beauty in London sees Yang Dalei as a perpetually immature brat, dreaming of quintuplets and octuplets. We can understand her feelings; it's not that she's heartless, but she simply doesn't want to continue this kind of childish, unrealistic relationship. Love and affection should be the enjoyment of love after the passion. If love doesn't involve pain and tragedy, it's not love, is it? This boy doesn't understand this; he seems to only care about the old-fashioned ideal of a wife, children, and a warm bed. This will have terrible consequences for the modern school beauty. Now, the female instructor isn't suffering for love, but for this boy. She's never giving up on him, even desperately providing him with living expenses abroad. What is this? What is this money? Does he think I'm a woman who can be bought with money? No, I truly pursue freedom, free love with knowledgeable and educated girls. Da Lei kept saying he was afraid the school beauty wouldn't dare spend money abroad, so he kept sending her money. Back then, Yang Da Lei did something unprecedented—he showered money on the beauty. It was quite absurd love. The school beauty had no shortage of suitors, but she was considered an absurd young man from Northeast China who only knew how to pursue love by throwing money at her. Reality is touching, I'm moved. Yang Da Lei's calf-like style of pursuing love reminds me of Da D, who was also blinded by love back then. He kept throwing money at her, spending seventy or eighty thousand yuan a week on beautiful women. Actually, whether she's older or younger, throwing money at the most beautiful girl isn't necessarily wrong; it's just a kind of... flair. Da Lei thought that this would secure his love and make the school beauty in London obediently return to China to marry him. Marriage is everything! Da Lei's thoughts are actually quite pure and innocent. All he wanted was to marry a pretty, educated girl. Think about Da Lei; to win over the beautiful campus belle, his passion for her remained unchanged for almost four years of university. That's unwavering devotion, but it only fueled the belle's desire to escape. She knew she didn't love this guy who was showering her with money, even though her female roommates all said he was such a kind and caring guy.

"But do you know what? He's a little kid who doesn't understand what love is,"

"Oh my god, you didn't really provoke him like that to his face, did you? Calling him a love-struck brat?"

"Of course! He's been so good to me, how could I say that? So good it scares me! Aren't you scared? Too scary! I'm scared. What will happen to him if I give up? I know he's a good boy, but I need a nobleman. There's only one way: go to graduate school and study abroad. That will actually motivate the kid to improve. Anyway, he's a crazy lover, so this is the only way. Otherwise, someone will die."

At least the school beauty didn't let Da Lei fall into a bad habit on campus. To keep up with her progress, even though he didn't get into graduate school, his graduation grades were still excellent. He successfully entered a profitable state-owned enterprise, China Railway, where the salary was quite good. After getting a stable job, Da Lei felt more confident. When the school beauty learned she had to go abroad, he offered to pay her tuition, but she refused, only saying she wanted to study abroad. Later, Da Lei went to Zhongguancun and bought a computer from his relative Zhang Sheng as a gift for the school beauty. After their breakup, Da Lei, driven by love, announced his marriage. His announcement of breaking up with the school beauty was most shocking to his proud and vain mother, Zhao Mengzi, and his arrogant father. His hot-tempered grandfather dared not tell her, as it was too embarrassing for the Yang family. Zhao Mengzi couldn't understand why her son, Yang Da Lei, was dumped by a school beauty studying in London. His son is handsome, has a house, and a car. His salary isn't low either. So what's the problem? Perhaps he can only conclude that, like his brother's dream—why did he choose a sister-in-law whose legs were mismatched? Sometimes love is just that strange, not entirely based on appearance. Even a handsome boy like his older brother could fall for an unattractive woman. That makes him feel better. His second aunt said Da Lei's wedding was the most grand and luxurious ever, with hundreds of tables. However, Zhao Mengzhi and her husband felt their son had been a complete freeloader. He'd been tormented by a female college student for five or six years, and then she'd dumped him. It was so unfair, so shameful, so humiliating. It affected their family's dignity. The couple thought about the exorbitant cost of their son's foolish love. He trembled with anger. This was a lesson learned from rushing into love. The couple discussed that they couldn't let the tragedy repeat itself in the next life, so they had to change their way of life. They couldn't be like their son, Da Lei, in the past in front of their new daughter-in-law. They had to respect family rules. Think of how much effort Zhao Mengzhi had put into her older brother's one-legged-one-legged relationship. The second aunt had suffered a lot of torment from Zhao Mengfan when she was young, even going from Jilin City to the Linhai Forestry Bureau seeking warmth. Zhao Mengji found warmth and love in Zhang Hongying, but the damage her sister-in-law had caused her couldn't be erased by time. Only time can heal these wounds. Zhao Mengzhi did have some tricks up her sleeve. Yes, sister-in-law, Zhang Hongying's past methods weren't just for the London beauty queen, but also for Yang Da Lei's Beijing wife, Zhao Mengzhi, and her husband, to demonstrate the power of modern mother-in-law and father-in-law. It greatly enriches her understanding of traditional Chinese culture, especially the traditional Chinese concept of filial piety. She was filled with motivation, enthusiasm, and understanding because she didn't want her once-weak son to repeat her mistakes. She wanted to become a cultured in-law. And it turns out, Zhao Mengzhi's methods were quite effective. Through his own efforts, his cultural refinement, and his understanding of traditional culture, he had reached a certain level and truly understood his daughter-in-law. She was very terrified of her in-laws' family values. This Beijing daughter-in-law had a deep-seated fear and dread of her Northeastern in-laws because they had exploited her weaknesses. She had been pampered since childhood and was always the boss at home. Her parents never dared to discipline her. Zhao Mengzhi boasted to her sister-in-law Zhang Hongying in Beijing that a family must have rules, and a family without rules cannot be happy. What? Da Lei's daughter-in-law is so well-behaved at home, never daring to argue with him. Now she's even learned to do housework, wash clothes, and cook. She didn't know anything at first, but now when these two in-laws come to Da Lei's house, they act like they're the bosses. Upon hearing this, Zhang Hongying quickly hung up on her sister-in-law, because Zhao Mengzhi was alluding to Bao Yu's wife, and her son's wife. Zhang Hongying is a high-level white-collar worker in a multinational corporation. She wanted to say, "An ugly wife is a treasure at home," to retort to her sister-in-law. Her brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Zhao Mengzhi, really caused Zhang Hongying, this thrifty and capable sister-in-law, a lot of trouble when they were young. Thinking about it, Zhao Mengfan, the big drunkard, always causes trouble for his brother Zhao Mengji, whether in the Forestry Bureau or the forest farms below, and it's all because of his sister-in-law. She should help Zhao Mengfan find a capable Shandong wife, otherwise he'll be a bachelor for life. Think about all these years, this sister-in-law, who's even better than my own parents, has endured so much pressure for the Zhao family! Zhao Mengqi's great-grandfather is Zhang Hongying's father-in-law. He's been involved in all sorts of trouble, from Jilin City all the way to the Linhai Forestry Bureau, constantly berating his eldest son for being unfilial. Zhao Mengqi is so good to her own father; there's nothing she can do. When her father-in-law starts acting up, his excuses are always about being drunk. He's a real old drunkard. It seems that in those days, "drunkard" wasn't just a derogatory term; the three northeastern provinces were all about one word: cold. That kind of cold really chills you to the bone, like turning into an ice gourd. The snow is falling heavily, the wind howls. A silver-clad world, like three dancing silver snakes, like wax figures stretching across the plains. Anyone who has lived in the mountains of Northeast China knows that snow is like a vast, endless expanse of white clouds, stretching as far as the eye can see, almost everywhere covered in snow tens of meters deep. Tree branches and twigs, the entire forest, are completely covered in snow—that's the true essence of snow. Let the holly trees stand, let the red pine forests stand, let the birch forests stand. Let the elm forests stand, let the log forests stand. Back then, in the vast snow-covered forests of the snow country, all you could hear were the cawing of crows and the squawking of pines. The feeling of searching for holly in the snow-covered forest, the crunching sound of footsteps on the snow, was simply wonderful. Back then, there were still hunters among hunters, their homemade cannons used for hunting bears. But by then, Peach was no longer foolish, no longer shivering and hiding indoors. Wild boars were rarely seen. Although the forests were near the sea and the trees were still lush, the Siberian tigers had all fled to Siberia. Where was the real blood and fire? The real snow country is in the great forests of Changbai Mountain, in the Changbai Mountain range, in the vast primeval forests of the Greater and Lesser Khingan Mountains. That is the true snow country, and even now, no writer has captured the beauty of this snow country. Why? Because of the cold of Northeast China. Blizzards have chilled all literature and poetry. Therefore, the allure of fine wines and vodka is also a reason why the snow country lacks its poetic charm.