I am not Ximen Qing.

Every day I handle large sums of money, I breathe in the taste of money, money truly has a magical existence. It seems that the world is an illusion, while money is the truth. The world is appearance, while money is the essence, the supreme breath, the taste of money, money is the true soul.

Zhongguancun is truly the place where wealth is created, giving many entrepreneurs the opportunity to change their destiny. They seem to have become immune to money; this is true spirit and mindset. Starting a business in Zhongguancun elevates and elevates one's understanding. The greatness of Zhongguancun lies in its fairness, freedom, openness, and inclusiveness, providing a grand stage for aspiring entrepreneurs and those with a Chinese dream—whether workers, farmers, or explorers from all walks of life—to experience the academic spirit of Zhongguancun, the Silicon Valley spirit, innovation and entrepreneurship, the risks of multinational capital, and the lucrative opportunities of venture capital and unicorns.

The entrepreneurs who come here are no longer their former selves, but the reality of life seems to present a contradictory and cruel side. There's the trouble of Oujin, the disillusionment of Lüxi'an; the men are like Fausts in their studies, encountering Nephrite in the glittering world—the most human of devils. Even the all-powerful archangel's understanding of money is superficial; the concepts of rebirth, reincarnation, and death are equally illusory. All their confidence has been shattered by the house, losing its soul. Like a transformation, no one dares to laugh at Kafka anymore. Whether it's a castle or a transformation, they've suddenly returned to reality from the illusion of money-driven intelligence. Perhaps the world has gone mad; everyone is taking out loans to buy houses because in big cities, a house is the identity card of a castle.

In this seemingly tangible city, houses are symbols of status, symbols of castles. It's a simple truth, and every entrepreneur in Zhongguancun shares the same experience: constantly moving every year, like a message in a bottle adrift at sea. Construction sites are everywhere in Beijing—Huilongguan, Shangdi, Qinghe, Huoying—a hive of activity, with tower cranes everywhere. Zhongguancun entrepreneurs have a crazy passion for all forms of real estate, a fervent enthusiasm, having genuinely experienced the pain of renting apartments and shops.

The process of buying a house in Beijing is remarkably user-friendly. You queue up to pay the down payment to the real estate developer, then you need proof of income, company documents, household registration, and a temporary residence permit. The rest seems irrelevant to the buyer; it's just a matter of queuing and signing countless agreements until your hands are sore. Bank loan approvals are incredibly fast because the entrepreneurs in Zhongguancun are considered high-quality clients, high-quality assets, and high-risk businesses. The boom in real estate and the boom in Zhongguancun arrived almost simultaneously. The most beautiful dream is "Long live houses, long live money!" This dream is all thanks to Zhongguancun's excellent entrepreneurial environment. Zhongguancun is Haidian's Zhongguancun, China's Zhongguancun, the world's Zhongguancun—a Zhongguancun of academic innovation, creation, freedom, and openness.

Wang Xiaolin's girlfriend and he spent a romantic night together at the Shangdi University Student Apartment. Women from Huangshan are indeed passionate. Zhang Sheng has met too many men and women from Huangshan. Wang Xiaolin's girlfriend is particularly concerned about his future and insists on experiencing the struggles of Zhongguancun with him. Xiaolin even advised his girlfriend that he should spend a day at the University Student Apartment, doing his laundry and cleaning. Wang Xiaolin's girlfriend didn't dare to be honest; she was already disgusted with working as a cleaner. Wang Xiaolin was both uneasy and surprised, anxiously asking if she had quit her nursing job. His girlfriend, mature and more experienced than him, said absolutely not. Wang Xiaolin said that since she hadn't quit, experiencing the struggles of Zhongguancun was pointless. He couldn't understand the magic of Zhongguancun—the best place to start a business, the auspicious land of Haidian, where China's great unicorns are born. Here, without entrepreneurial capital, imperial ambitions, and willpower, one is wasting time and youth. This is the path to a golden age. Wang Xiaolin understood Zhongguancun. He repeatedly explained to his girlfriend that it wasn't just about the work; the work there was much harder than nursing. He even tried to scare her, saying that he understood it was different from just going to a regular job and coasting along; there was a future here, something she simply didn't understand, so she shouldn't come, not to come, not to come. But his girlfriend clung to a naive, hopeful mentality, insisting on seeing what Wang Xiaolin's work situation was like before she could feel at ease. Undoubtedly, she was disappointed.

Seeing Wang Xiaolin bustling about in the Zhongguancun supermarket, looking almost like a vegetable market vendor, one could sense the dejection in his eyes and realize that he must be starting to doubt whether Zhongguancun is a myth or a legend. When Wang Xiaolin graduated from teachers' college, he met her at the hospital during an operation and they quickly fell in love. They had been on and off for several years. He was a young man pursuing his dreams with lofty ideals and a life of continuous learning, while she had graduated from nursing school early and started working as a nurse in a large hospital. The young man in her dreams was still that innocent young boy, while the woman had become worldly and mature. His girlfriend felt that Wang Xiaolin's description of Zhongguancun was too exaggerated and unrealistic. Perhaps he was completely disappointed the moment he stepped into the student apartments rented by the entrepreneurs. So he moved to a larger apartment of fifty or sixty square meters, which had a bathroom and a shower room. But the typical characteristics of such apartments were that they were unusually cold and drafty in winter, and unusually hot in summer, like a sauna. Spring and autumn were the most suitable seasons to live in these so-called simple student apartments.

The friendship between men isn't like the kind of friendship between Ximen Qing, Ying Bojue, Sun Guazui, Shi Changjie, and Hua Zixu—just about eating, drinking, chasing women, and having fun. At least the brotherhood between Zhang Sheng and Wang Xiaolin is genuine, not superficial. It's been tested, it's about fighting together in youth, it has a Spartan feel, and they wouldn't betray their brotherhood for a woman. We rarely see the kind of talk from *Water Margin* now, but it's gone too far, lacking the spirit of the *Analects*. The kind of chivalrous brotherhood where a scholar dies for his confidant is only found in the tragic story of Jing Ke and Prince Dan of Yan by the Yi River, and Gao Jianli playing the zither on the banks of the Yi River—the chivalrous brotherhood of the Yan and Zhao lands by the Yi River. Men's friendship has nothing to do with money, but it is related to women. Zhang Sheng often thinks that perhaps only Marx and Engels could be considered to have this kind of friendship.

In transcending the boundaries of womanhood, Huang Taiji truly succeeded. He used Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang's beauty trap to gain access to Hong Chengchou's brilliant strategies in the Ming Dynasty. History has been drastically altered by women, which is why works like *Water Margin*, *Romance of the Three Kingdoms*, and *Journey to the West* portray women too harshly. The Liangshan heroes are fiercely opposed to women, and Sun Wukong in *Journey to the West* is a nemesis of beautiful women—one of the reasons Tang Sanzang was dissatisfied with him. Liu Bei and Cao Cao in *Romance of the Three Kingdoms* almost universally despise women. Only Ximen Qing could be manipulated by Pan Jin's words, becoming fickle and unpredictable. However, Ximen Qing is a more humane figure, much like the sexually active men and women in real society.

Zhang Sheng and Wang Xiaolin both chose to forget their unpleasant past experiences, remembering to try their best to keep strangers out of their lives and the world. The seemingly gentle and beautiful girls are actually wearing masks; these masks can make men sell their souls and betray their will. Not all men hate women as much as Nietzsche did. Women are men's distant horizons, their poetry, their dreams and ideals. Thinking about it, the friendship between Zhang Sheng and Wang Xiaolin truly resembles the pure brotherhood and camaraderie of Achilles and Patroclus in the Hippocratic Odyssey.

From Qinghe to the basement of Yongtai residential area, struggling and starting a business in Zhongguancun, Beijing, there has never been an easy time. Working in a huge vortex of money, money is both a source of inspiration and power, and everywhere there are monsters and machines that devour it. Wang Xiaolin affectionately called him, "Big Brother, forever Big Brother. According to our Southern custom, even if my own sister gets married, if I fight with her husband, she'll fight me to the death."

"What do you mean? Would an older sister beat her own brother?"

"Yes, that's right. It's very normal in the South. My sister has already married her man, and I hope that my future woman will be like that and won't betray me."

"Go and spend time with your girlfriend, and treat her well."

“She betrayed me; she has a man.”

“You must stay calm. At the very least, you can’t let her get into trouble in Beijing. It’s better to part amicably. At least she still cares about you. Women need real warmth and companionship, which you can’t provide right now. And she has her own job; she’s a nurse.”

"Brother, I thought she would still be the same as before."

“You were a college student back then, very innocent, but she was a nurse at a hospital.”

"But I've been writing letters to her for the past few years, and I didn't realize that she had changed her mind long ago."

"Beijing is a strange city. It can drive people crazy and insane, but in the end, it can make them rise from the ashes. Nowhere else can do that. Only here in Beijing can. You should be happy. It's not your cup of tea."

Zhang Sheng smiled at him again, quite relieved. "She didn't lie to you about anything when she came to Beijing. She still cherishes you in her heart; you're a beautiful presence in her life. She's disappointed in her current boyfriend, and she's actually a million times more miserable than you because she has no way back. But why not see it through to the end? You can be considered a bargaining chip in her hands. At least she needs your presence to prove that she needs you to defend her value, her value as a woman, right?"

"That man was like a mad dog, constantly making phone calls."

"Then stop acting like a mad dog. Even though she's taking advantage of your kindness, you're not losing out. After all, love is beautiful and fairytale-like. She can't forget that she once loved you, and she still loves you now. Zhongguancun is a nice-sounding name, China's academic center, a place with cultural and historical significance, like Silicon Valley. You should understand that what she sees is just a market selling jewelry, luxury goods, shoes, and clothing, all kinds of shops, general stores, and chain stores—nothing different. Just as she doesn't understand the inner workings and essence of Zhongguancun, you're still stuck in the past as a college student. She's already someone who doesn't understand you anymore. She's just unwilling to accept it, clinging to curiosity and romance, nostalgic for a past love that can't be rekindled. You and she are now in two different worlds. Xiaolin, you should be happy. She simply doesn't understand this place. That's all she can think of. There's nothing she can do; she can't go back. The you she sees is no different from the you observed here. She can only be more disappointed in you. She's completely desperate because the love that came with love is dead."

In reality, Zhang Sheng still urged Wang Xiaolin to remain rational. This was no longer the romanticism of his student days, yet he remained trapped in an unrealistic fantasy. Since arriving in Zhongguancun, he lacked the ability to foresee its future, its prospects, and its secrets to wealth—that was precisely its allure. She couldn't see the limitless potential of Wang Xiaolin standing amidst this surging tide of people, and she couldn't bear the pain and hardship of the struggle.

A woman's judgment can sometimes be clouded by instinctive realism. She can sense the allure of money; it's a woman's instinct that money makes men shine, with a dazzling brilliance like diamonds. It seems that Xiaolin has been having sex with the same woman for almost several years. In just these few days, Zhang Sheng has come to understand that when men date girls, they truly shed and devour the worst aspects of their nature. Girls always leave something indelible on men—their burning desires. They are their other side, the flames of Eros and the whirlpool of unrestrained lust, like the enchanting siren song, like the elastic curves of Venus, alluring, prominent, white and tender, with breasts like cream, a slender waist like a willow, a flat and fair figure, an elastic abdomen deep in the rose bush below the navel, lifting elastic thighs, releasing the whirlpool of lustful love as they stand. The girls sat with their bodies arched back, twisting their fair, tender buttocks, openly blooming, releasing their desires. They were on the grass, under the shade of trees, by the stream—all places where they indulged in romantic fantasies. They gazed up at the lights of desire, their naked bodies shimmering with colors that intoxicated all male instincts. Their flesh was a rainbow, bringing a mirage-like, mesmerizing pleasure. Their bewildered eyes, the fleeting, ephemeral beauty of dreams, their breaths rising and falling. Their rose petals, like the mouths of koi fish in the water, devoured the primal instincts of men, holding onto their love. Their dream of love grew ever tighter, releasing waves of passionate desire.

"You still lack love. Give up, and she will give up on you too."

“I let her live alone in the apartment.”

"That's right, let's go to Volcano Disco together, Volcano Night is so great. Xiaolin, I used to be a fool, just like you, rejecting girls who threw themselves at me because I was pursuing some kind of perfect love. Have you heard of it? It's a bit like some ancient philosophy. I'm not a handsome man, and I'm not that narcissistic. Then God started playing tricks on me. Back then, I didn't know that there were devils in this world, and that devils existed in our bodies. Goddesses started playing tricks on me. The poetess made fun of me like a clown. She's the embodiment of Jane Eyre."

Who is the female poet?

"The campus poet, let's not talk about her. Actually, the poet was a wild girl. She could scream louder than any other girl in bed."

"Why didn't you say so sooner?"

"I would selectively remember things, that would be too painful."

While Zhang Sheng and Wang Xiaolin were drinking and eyeing the sexy women on the dance floor, looking for an opportunity to join them, Chen Guangyuan called to ask where they were. Chen Guangyuan also said he had brought two girls, absolute daisy angels. He claimed that when a man is in love with multiple women, a chemical reaction occurs, creating a unique chemical substance that makes the girls addicted. The different fragrances of love and hormones remaining on the man's body produce a unique orchid perfume, a hallucinogen, a new type of love potion. What a breathtaking midsummer night! Does such a perfume, capable of instantly making girls fall in love, even exist?

Two girls appeared at the bar counter that Zhang Sheng and Wang Xiaolin had booked. It was a relatively quiet spot, making it easy for them to have some gossip. Chen Guangyuan introduced them quite naturally, saying, "This is my girlfriend, and this is my girlfriend's best friend, Bai Hua."

Zhang Sheng had already drunk quite a bit, thoroughly enjoying the intoxicating state of Dionysus; at least this kind of intoxication wouldn't make him a fool like Hamlet. Under the neon lights, Bai Hua's bright eyes, clear as a spring, seemed to penetrate her entire heart. The summer heat made Bai Hua's body sensually radiant, her delicate skin and contours, her face glowing with a pearly luster, her eyes sparkling with desire.

"Don't treat me like an idiot like Ophelia, okay?"

"How could Ophelia be a fool?"

Having drunk far too much vodka and cocktails, Zhang Sheng became rather daring and immediately ordered a large flower basket of lilies and daisies for Bai Hua. The fragrance of orchids emanating from the lilies and daisies made the girl, who supposedly didn't consider herself Ophelia, seem even more appealing.

"I don't drink alcohol, thank you for the flower basket."

"Pomegranate juice, apple juice, or fresh orange juice, as well as grape juice and watermelon juice."

Zhang Sheng, holding Bai Hua's hand and arm around her slender waist, led her to the massive bar—a pretext, really. Let Old Chen and Xiao Lin, his so-called girlfriend, enjoy a Midsummer Night's Dream together!

"How about a pomegranate juice, please?" Zhang Sheng and Bai Hua sat together like an intimate couple. Zhang Sheng kissed her rose-colored lips passionately, and she didn't refuse, though she was a little nervous. The dim lighting was the perfect mask for their secret tryst. "You've drunk too much. Are you drunk?"

"What do you mean? This cocktail won't make you drunk."

"No, this wine smells quite nice."

In the brief moment between darkness and light, he kissed her passionately, his lips red and teeth white. It seemed as if only Bai Hua and Zhang Sheng existed in the world. This was the real spark of love under the intoxication of the Dionysian state.

Lying on the enormous bed before me, this is a dream, this is Baihua's love and passion, this is the red rose of summer.