DSYOM Chapter 39

This argument was earth-shattering and magnificent, with both the involved parties and the spectators turning the narrow hallway into a stage. Song Yuchi was thick-skinned and stood in the front row with his hands in his pockets, while the more shy Yu Jingyi stayed in the living room, listening attentively from the living room. By the time the final door slam sounded, even Jiang Yu, who had been absorbed in cartoons, came out, looking alarmed and confused.

Yu Jingyi watched Wen Di leave with a level 10 fury and come back with a fury at the billion-level range. His gaze seemed like it was about to blow the old furniture in the living room into subatomic particles. Yu Jingyi racked her brain but couldn’t find a way to calm him down, so she could only silently mourn her friend’s marriage on the spot. She didn’t know Bian Cheng well, but she had heard that geniuses can be a bit introverted, lacking in emotional intelligence, and not great at communicating…

But this was too extreme! He was practically a block of wood! A fossil! Even she, a lifelong single, could do better than him!

Wen Di was still pacing back and forth in the living room, anger mixed with despair. This was absolutely outrageous! This person had hidden the truth and subjected him to months of verbal and psychological attacks, and was emotionally disabled! He had already done everything he could to send out mating signals, yet the other side didn’t even pick up a punctuation mark!

What kind of people was he interested in!

Yu Jingyi suddenly remembered there was a carton of Wen Di’s favorite raw chocolate milk in the fridge and finally found a way to break the tension. She took the milk out, placed it on the table, and pushed it towards Wen Di. “Calm down. It’s late at night. If you get too worked up, you won’t be able to sleep.”

Wen Di grabbed the box, tearing off the straw while saying, “How can I sleep at night with that annoying guy living next door?”

Yu Jingyi recognized that look— the look of someone who had seen a ghost. Just a couple of days ago, this person was deeply infatuated, and in the blink of an eye, the neighbor had turned into a ghost? The progress was so fast? “Is he really that annoying?”

“Absolutely infuriating!” Wen Di said fiercely, “He’s annoying, his shirts are annoying, snow is annoying, and linguistics is annoying!”

“What does linguistics have to do with anything?”

Wen Di, full of righteous indignation, downed the milk, crushed the packaging box, and tossed it into the trash can. For some reason, Bian Cheng’s voice echoed in his head: Milk cartons are recyclable, but you can’t just throw them in the recycling bin without washing them first.

Ah! Will it ever end?!

Wen Di covered his ears, stormed into the bedroom, slammed the door, collapsed onto the bed, and squeezed his eyes shut, trying desperately to push both the guy next door and all the awkward memories out of his mind.

It didn’t work.

Wen Di rolled over, pulled the blanket over his head, and lay still. Whatever. Time to sleep.

He couldn’t sleep.

Yu Jingyi was right—being emotional didn’t help with sleep. Even as his back ached and his arms grew numb, Wen Di remained wide awake. He sat up and checked his phone. It was nearly 1 AM.

There were several unread messages on the screen, all from He Wenxuan. The first one read: [What do you mean by getting married?] The second: [Did you block me again?] The third: [I need an explanation. If you don’t reply, I’ll go to your place.]

Wen Di stared at the screen for a while, not wanting to deal with it. But since they shared the same high school friend group, what if He Wenxuan went around spreading rumors? He sighed, quickly typing out: [I married this person in the United States five years ago, but I was drunk and forgot. I just remembered it. So he is not my boyfriend, but my husband.]

The cause and effect flowed smoothly, fifty words encapsulating a convoluted past, and Wen Di was quite satisfied, adding: [I’m now a married person, so stop disturbing my married life.]

Well, at least tonight’s drama wasn’t without its benefits—at least it resolved the ex-boyfriend issue. He was married now, after all, even if it wasn’t legal in most of the world. But it was officially stamped and certified in the United States. And Young Master He, who had already gotten his green card, couldn’t possibly claim not to respect the US law, right?

If He Wenxuan still didn’t back off after this, Wen Di could only find a pillar to hit himself to death.

He wasn’t sure if He Wenxuan had fallen asleep or because of the overwhelming amount of information, but the other side stayed quiet for a long time. Just as Wen Di was about to roll over and try to sleep again, a sentence popped up on his phone: [Are you serious?]

Fair enough, it did sound like a lie. For a split second, Wen Di thought Bian Cheng’s logic wasn’t entirely wrong, but he quickly pushed that thought away.

Annoying guy.

Wen Di replied: [Of course I’m serious. The Las Vegas city government has our records. If you don’t believe me, go to the United States to check.]

Ah, if only he hadn’t lost his phone back then. It’d be nice to have some proof, like a wedding photo or something. Then again, if there really was something like that, Bian Cheng probably would’ve shown it to him from the start, and they wouldn’t be stuck in this mess right now.

The other side had been silent for a long time, probably believing it. Wen Di breathed a sigh of relief and was just about to lie back down when a new message popped up: [When exactly did you two get married?]

Why was he still digging for details? Wen Di vaguely replied: [Before junior year started.]

A moment later, his phone flashed with another message: [Didn’t we just break up around that time? You ran off to marry someone else just a few days later? Were you two together before?]

Wen Di stared at the screen in disbelief.

Then another message came through: [You cheated first, and you had the nerve to call me out?]

Then there was another one: [I thought I owed you an apology, turns out I was overthinking it]

Wen Di took a deep breath. What the hell?! This scumbag even tried to clear his own name?! If this person started spreading rumors in the class circle that he was the one cheating, it would be a disaster!

Wen Di called and as soon as the other party picked up the phone, he yelled, “What kind of bullshit are you spewing? When did I ever cheat? By the time I met him, we were long broken up!”

He Wenxuan let out a cold laugh, seemingly unconvinced: “You married some guy you’d known for, what, two days?”

“What does that have to do with you?!” Wen Di retorted angrily, “He’s handsome, we hit it off. Haven’t you heard of a flash marriage?”

“Do you know how long I was sad after we broke up?” He Wenxuan said. “I drank until I had alcohol poisoning, and meanwhile, you were off getting married to someone else?”

Wen Di was astounded by his nerve: “You, the scumbag who got engaged behind your boyfriend’s back, have the audacity to talk to me like that?!”

“Did you really care, though?”

“What?”

“You hit me, yelled at me, acted like I hurt you so deeply, but then you turned around and married someone else right after. You didn’t love me that much.” He Wenxuan said. “Do you really care whether I’m engaged or not? Are you just waiting for this excuse to break up with me openly, right?”

Wen Di was so furious that he laughed. He suddenly regretted the conversation they just had. He shouldn’t have engaged with this person, nor should he have tried to correct his image in his eyes. “Right,” he said, “I actually don’t love you.”

Then, he hung up.

In the stillness of the night, the world was quiet except for the rustling sound of snowflakes brushing against the treetops. Wen Di walked to the window, and looked up through the glass to see the snowflakes falling.

Suddenly, he felt a deep sense of exhaustion and boredom with life. The relationship he had once given his heart to not only ended like a joke, but after it ended, it continued to interfere with his life, and even interfere with his next relationship.

What had he been doing for those five years?

His phone vibrated again. Wen Di couldn’t be bothered to respond; it vibrated for a while before automatically hanging up. Two seconds later, it vibrated again. Wen Di slumped down, sitting on the floor and leaning against the balcony door. He stared at the mold spots on the wall opposite, trying to clear his mind and drift into a state of nothingness.

But his phone wouldn’t let him have that peace, vibrating relentlessly. Wen Di got up in annoyance and glanced at the missed calls, all of which were from the next door.

After ignoring five calls, a message came through: [Are you there?]

No, I’m asleep, Wen Di said in his heart.

Then another message arrived: [The light in your room is on.]

Wen Di’s mouth twitched. That’s the annoying thing about neighbors.

He didn’t move, but the other person started chatting to himself: [I have something to tell you, can I call you?]

Wen Di picked up his phone and replied: [No, I’m going to sleep.]

The other side responded: [I can’t sleep.]

Wen Di rolled his eyes; why does his insomnia concern him?! [Then do something else. What do you usually do at night when you can’t sleep?]

[Play the violin.]

The air seemed to freeze.

All the feelings of depression, dissociation, and confusion shattered as Wen Di shot up and immediately dialed. “You stop it right now!”

The person on the other end was stunned for a moment when he heard his voice, then heaved a sigh of relief: “Thank goodness, I thought you were never going to talk to me again.”

“Yup,” Wen Di replied, “hanging up now.”

“Wait!” The professor spoke at a fast pace as if he was trying to squeeze an entire lecture into a single second. “First of all, I would like to express my sincere apologies to you. I’m emotionally clueless—”

“You know that?”

“…I couldn’t understand your feelings…”

Wen Di didn’t interrupt, nor did he acknowledge the apology. He wanted to see just how much this man had to say.

“Secondly, you blame me for not telling you about the marriage sooner,” Perhaps realizing that he had no intention of hanging up, the tone of the other party gradually calmed down. “Actually, I have been trying to help you recover your memory, whether through listening to music, the hotel, or the photos of the Grand Canyon. I didn’t say that, besides the credibility issue, it’s also because that memory is perfect, too perfect. I hope you can find it back yourself, rather than listening to my barren words and descriptions. It’s my oversight that caused your misunderstanding.”

Wen Di hadn’t spoken for a long time, and after Bian Cheng finished his second point, he hesitated and asked, “Are you listening?”

“En,” Wen Di said, “Your words are still barren, too modest?”

“Lastly,” Bian Cheng said, “I suspect your motives for approaching me are impure. This is very foolish of me, and I…”

“Professor Bian,” Wen Di interrupted. “Are you reading from a script?”

There was a dead silence on the line. After a moment, the voice answered: “Is it that obvious?”

“The manuscript is well written,” Wen Di asked, “Who wrote it?”

“Song Yuchi,” Bian Cheng said, “but I made the outline.”

It was just like the usual arguments—when fighting, you can’t think of anything to say, but when the night is quiet, you come up with the perfect comebacks, only to slap your own thigh in regret for not saying them at the time and then trying to make amends.

And he was using a script! He even had someone else write it!

“Alright, I’ve said enough. You don’t need to apologize so many times; I can sense your sincerity now,” Wen Di yawned, “I’m tired. Goodbye.”

“Wait,” Biancheng said, “So you’re still angry?”

Wen Di countered: “Do you know why the memory of Las Vegas is so perfect?”

Bian Cheng fell silent, clearly clueless.

“Because our marriage only lasted twelve hours.”

“To be precise, we’re still legally married now, so it’s been five years and four months…”

“That’s exactly it!” Wen Di exclaimed. “We could only maintain twelve hours of peace, which is why that night was perfect. It’s not that we communicated too little; it’s that we communicated too much.”

“So…” Bian Cheng said, “what should we do after this? What should I say to you?”

“I don’t know either; you figure it out yourself,” Wen Di was about to hang up when he suddenly remembered something, “Last time when you called, you had something you wanted to ask me, right? What was it?”

At that time, Bian Cheng had told him to speak first, but once he started talking, he entered the battlefield where bullets were flying, and he ended up forgetting about that matter.

“It’s nothing; you’ve already given me the answer,” Bian Cheng said.

Wen Di felt a bit confused: “What answer?”

“I just wanted to ask if I’m just a tool for you to piss off your ex-boyfriend…”

Before he could finish his words, Wen Di had already hung up the phone, and in the background, Song Yuchi’s loud roar could be heard, “Why did you bring that up again?!”

How accurately he summarized it—they were indeed communicating too much.

Lying down on the bed, Wen Di realized that he really didn’t know how to interact with Bian Cheng now. Fortunately, the year-end was approaching, and he was about to head home soon. Once he distanced himself from the scene where the incident happened, he would have plenty of time to think about what to do next.

Wen Di closed his eyes again, deciding to leave his worries for the winter break.

Before setting off to go home, Wen Di knocked on the door next door. Bian Cheng opened it, looking surprised, as if he had just seen a creditor come to pay a New Year’s visit. “You’re not angry anymore?”

“No,” Wen Di touched his nose and handed him something from his hands, “I’m just here to deliver a New Year’s gift.”

Bian Cheng took the thing from his hand, which turned out to be a couplet.

“I bought it before we had a fight. I thought it would be a waste to leave it alone, so I’d better give it to you,” Wen Di said. “It’s not suitable to put it on my door.”

What’s so special about Spring Festival couplets that they have to be posted on certain doors?

Bian Cheng held the top of the couplet with both hands, the red paper unfurling like a flowing stream.

On the left side was the upper couplet: Heaven’s ways are geometrical; all things preserve their forms first;

On the right side was the lower couplet: Changes are infinite; the solitary heart measures with homology.

This couplet was from the Institute of Modern Mathematics at P University, which Bian Cheng had liked during his studies. He was about to thank Wen Di when he saw him pull out a slightly shorter piece of red paper from his pocket. Walking past him, he placed the red paper on the door of apartment 301. “I’ll add a horizontal inscription for you.”

Bian Cheng watched as he took out a marker, wrote on the door frame, and then slapped the red paper onto Bian Cheng’s forehead.

Four big characters were elegantly written on the paper:

Human Singularity.

 

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The author has something to say:
The couplet is from Peking University’s Institute of Modern Mathematics, and the horizontal scroll was written by Wen Di.
Terms like geometry, manifolds, automorphy, variational, and homology are mathematical concepts.
Singularity has different meanings in different fields of mathematics.
For analytic functions: it cannot be defined at that point or in the neighborhood of that point.
For differential equations: the properties fundamentally change at that point.
For topology: an irregular point.

Although ‘singularity’ has different specific meanings in different branches of mathematics, they all convey the idea of a point where the behavior of an object is highly unconventional.

 

T/N: If anyone interested in the two novels I mentioned before, here are the two novels
一诺一生 (Lit. A promise, a lifetime / A promise for a lifetime)
绰约 (raw | novelupdates)

Anyway guys, don’t forget to support the author! Please buy the chapters if you’re able to buy! And btw, if you need help with creating account or buying the jades (in-app coins) just let me know! I’ll help you!

Title is from Two Gentlemen of Verona Act 1, Scene 2. The literal translation for the title ‘越是到处宣扬爱情的，越靠不住’ would be ‘The more someone proclaims their love everywhere, the less reliable it is.’

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