"Last night, Fang An An said so many unpleasant things in front of me and scolded me severely!" The tide of Chen Wenhai's emotions surged as he said impassionedly, "She dazzled me with those remarks! Her audacity shocked me! I didn't even dream that she would be so aware of my every move in Shiyan, Hubei! She was so vocal and justified in lecturing me! In her eyes, I was worthless! I was shocked and reminded of the 'cyber war' that came 10 years ago! I never thought that 10 years later, a woman would come to lecture me so recklessly in my hometown! Again, it was a war without smoke! After she left I kept thinking: was it all by chance? Wasn't there an inevitable connection between the two? Could Fang Anan's behavior have been isolated?"
"Of course it's not isolated!" Luo Xiaoling was similarly heartfelt, as if she was delivering a speech in a square in front of thousands of viewers, "This war of words today is a continuation of that 'cyber war' from ten years ago! Actually, when you think about it, what happened last night is not surprising! The era we live in today is one in which communication tools are highly developed; everyone has a cell phone, and your every move is widely disseminated through it! Nowadays, transportation is also very developed, if someone wants to come to our Shanghai to harm you, it is not a difficult thing! Maybe there's someone in a dark corner of Shanghai right now! It would be too easy for them to harm you!"
"I really admire you in particular! Your performance last night was fantastic!" Yang Xiaolan raised her thumbs towards Chen Wenhai, her excitement overflowing.
"I just don't want to die in the hands of a bad woman like Fang Anan, and I don't want to die in Shanghai for no reason!" Chen Wenhai said with full of pride, "I still have a lot of important things to do, my career is in a critical period, how can I fall down at this time?"
"They just want to ruin your career!" Wang Fang frowned with both eyebrows, "They are so despicable and shameless!"
"They even make this kind of underhanded tactics, it shocks me!" Liu Juan yelled, "What's the difference between them and those ruffians in old Shanghai?"
"This Fang Anan is indeed too detestable!" Chen Xiaomin hemmed and hawed, "She thinks: the current Shanghai is still the same old Shanghai of the past! In my opinion, Fang Anan is at best a small punk on the Shanghai Bund! A flirtatious woman who has made her way to Shanghai! A shameless little whore!"
"My father came from that era!" Chen Wenhai said, "In that semi-colonial and semi-feudal old Shanghai, in that red and green, intoxicated 'Ten Mile Ocean Park', my father was very familiar with those singers and dancers! At that time, my father was a man of great talent, he was suave, and he was a man of the world! My father was so talented!"
"In that particular social environment, your father must have lived a very dashing life, right? There must have been a lot of modern women pursuing him, right?" Liu Juan said, "In your blood flows the blood of your fathers, so it leaves the imprint of your fathers in your genes! In many ways you resemble your father!"
"I adore my father! My father was originally a farmer's son, he came from Chongming Island to the Shanghai Bund when he was 12 years old to make a living, and after a few years of hard work, he finally gained a firm foothold on the Shanghai Bund! If he didn't have an extraordinary ability to adapt to society, how could he have established himself in Shanghai? As you all know, Shanghai at that time was the 'Adventurer's Paradise', the 'Ten Mile Ocean Park' with its red lights, wine and gold! My father had an adventurous spirit and pioneering ability! He often said to me: 'If I had been educated, I would have made a big career in Shanghai and become a famous capitalist on the Shanghai Bund! I suffered from the lack of culture!'" Chen Wenhai became more and more agitated, "And I am different, I am educated, I am highly educated, this is the place where I am superior to my father! Therefore, my father often said to me, 'If you have the chance to return to Shanghai again in the future, you must make a name for yourself! Don't be so untalented like your father!' So, I especially want to go back to Shanghai! I want to make a big career in Shanghai! I want to realize the value of my life in Shanghai!"
"Do you want to be a big capitalist in Shanghai?" Liu Juan joked with Chen Wenhai.
"I don't want to be a big capitalist! I am not that material!" Chen Wenhai said.
"Then what do you want to be?" Liu Juan asked. Liu Juan asked.
"I want to be a big writer! I just want to make myself a big writer like Mao Dun, and write a heirloom like Ziyou!"
"But, Fang Anan doesn't understand your ambition!" Yang Xiaolan said.
"Last night must have been especially hard for you!" Luo Xiaoling said, "I can even imagine that when you faced this Fang An An, you really wanted to yell at her, 'What do you know? You don't understand anything! You can never understand me! You are a shallow and ignorant woman!'"
"That's what I was thinking, but I restrained myself!" Chen Wenhai told the girls around her:
"Last night Fang Anan said to me, 'You're impractical, you're over-ambitious! You can't even teach elementary school side subjects well, but you're whimsically trying to become some great writer who will be immortalized for the rest of the world and write some stone-cold heirloom! You are a fantasist! A ridiculous fantasist! Why are you so stupid? Don't you have a college degree? How come you can't even teach elementary school subs! I still don't understand how you can willingly teach elementary school! Don't you have any self-respect? If it were anyone else, you'd have killed yourself long ago! Why are you so thick-skinned?'"
"My God!" Yang Xiaolan was furious and stormed, "How dare she say that about you! Did she have a hard time living? You really should have slapped her at that time!"
"This is really unheard of!" Wang Fang took a breath of cold air, "What does she want? Does she still have elders in her eyes?"
"She dared to insult your character like that!" Liu Juan said, "Why didn't you scold her at that time? You are too weak and incompetent!"
"You can't say that about Chen Wenhai!" Luo Xiaoling said, "This is not weakness and incompetence, this is exactly what makes Chen Wenhai valuable! Chen Wenhai doesn't want to intensify the conflict!"
"Still Luo Xiaoling can truly understand me!" Chen Wenhai said, "Don't I want to scold her? I even have the heart to kill her!"
"You showed amazing calmness last night!" Luo Xiaoling said, "I think: they must be very frustrated right now! They had thought you were dead this time, but they didn't realize that you didn't fall for their trap! They had wanted to use Fang Anan's hand to get rid of you, but their plan fell through! Their evil plot has fallen through! However, from what we can see, this fight is not over, because you are still in Shanghai, you will be there for a while, they will definitely look for all kinds of opportunities! More serious struggles lie ahead, and Fang An'an's provocation of you last night was just the beginning!"
"You analyzed it so profoundly!" Chen Wenhai said, "You can totally be my confidante!"
"What about me?" Yang Xiaolan asked, "Am I your confidante?"
"Both of you are my confidants!" Chen Wenhai said.
"Let's go to the Bund? Do you guys want to go?"
"It's a long way from here to the Bund, right?" Chen Wenhai asked.
"Not far not far!" Wang Fang said, "We can take a shortcut, we can go through the Ancient City Park."
"Where is the ancient city park?" Chen Wenhai asked.
"How dare you not even know where the Ancient City Park is!" Hearing Chen Wenhai ask this question, Wang Fang couldn't help but let out a "pfft" laugh, "The Ancient City Park is on this street, don't you know?"
"I knew it when I was a kid!" Chen Wenhai said, "So many years have passed, I have forgotten! I left Shanghai for too long ah!"
"It doesn't matter if you've forgotten, we can all take you there!" Wang Fang said, "The Ancient City Park is right in front, let's walk a few steps forward along this road and we'll see the back door of the Ancient City Park! Go in through the back door, walk through the Ancient City Park, and then walk out through the main gate of the Ancient City Park. Standing at the main gate of the Ancient City Park, we can see the skyscrapers of Lujiazui across the Huangpu River!"
"You're so wordy!" Liu Juan said, "Why are you so detailed? Why don't you just ask Chen Wenhai to come with us?"
"Then let's get going!" Wang Fang said, "From the main gate of the Ancient City Park to the Bund you have to pass through People's Road and cross Zhongshan Dongdong Second Road."
"You must be familiar with Shanghai by now?"
"Can't say I'm very familiar. You are from Shanghai, you must be more familiar with it than I am."
During the time that Chen Wenhai left Shanghai, Shanghai has undergone drastic changes! Chen Wenhai came back this time with a sense of strangeness towards Shanghai! Shanghai now is completely different from the Shanghai of his childhood, and now he wants to reacquaint himself with Shanghai. Walking through the streets of Shanghai, he often reminisced as he walked, and he often sighed: Time really flies! In a flash, decades had passed! In these decades, he called Shanghai countless times in his heart! One day, Feng Baoyu once said to Chen Wenhai, "You just can't forget Shanghai Bund!" Chen Wenhai said, "I grew up drinking water from the Huangpu River!" Chen Wenhai often said to others: "Shanghai is my hometown, is my soul!"
Chen Wenhai recalled the scene last night, can not help but feel a lot of emotions. Last night, Fang Anan said to Chen Wenhai: "You say to all the people that you love Shanghai you miss Shanghai, and you are not afraid of people's resentment towards you!" Chen Wenhai said, "How can I say that to all people? I'm just showing my friends what I really think, is that wrong?" Fang Anan sneered, "Do you have friends? You are alone all day long, where do you have friends? You are treating all people as your friends!" Chen Wenhai said, "How can I take all people as my friends? What's wrong with my brain? Those who have cared and helped me I will never forget!" Fang Anan sneered again, "Who would care and help you? They are even afraid of avoiding you!"
"How can she say that about you?" Yang Xiaolan's eyes sparked, "This Fang Anan can't even be considered a human being!"
"Every word I say she has to push back!" Chen Wenhai became more and more angry as he spoke, "There could be such a woman in the world! What an eye-opener for me!"
"She did it on purpose! She just wants to piss you off alive!" Yang Xiaolan threw up her arms and waved her fists, "If this bad woman were standing in front of me at this moment, I would definitely beat her up severely!"
"Over the decades, I have suffered so much on my life path, why doesn't this Fang Anan have any sympathy?" Chen Wenhai said, "Fang Anan's behavior last night shocked me! If she were a man, I would have beaten her severely! I mainly look at her as a woman and don't want to get on her bad side!"
"Didn't you get angry once last night?" Liu Juan asked.
"I only got angry once!" Chen Wenhai's eyes were filled with tears, "She forced me to answer a question last night which involved my privacy, that's why I couldn't stand it!" Chen Wenhai told the girls around her:
"When I was lashing out, Fang Anan actually said this to me: 'How dare you lash out in front of me! No one has ever dared to get angry in front of me! Are you living out of your mind? If you get angry again, I'll call the police and have them arrest you!'' I said to her, 'Go ahead and report it! It's better if the police come! Let's see if the police come and arrest me or you! Invading someone's privacy is a crime! Do you want to go to jail?' Fang Anan hemmed and hawed and sneered twice: ''So you know the law too! It's hard to see! I originally thought that you would only bury your head in books, a nerd who can't do anything but read to death! Now you can!' I said, 'Don't be so gloomy, okay? I'm warning you: if you ever dare to invade my privacy again, I'll make sure you go to jail! Do you believe me?' Fang Anan said: ''I believe it! How powerful you are! You're a college student and a writer, who dares to mess with you? However, people like you will never have friends! I heard: once, your mom went to your school to ask you a question, and you furiously shouted at your mom, saying that your mom shouldn't have invaded your privacy, and that you were going to go to court to sue your mom! If you're like that in front of your own mom, who dares to make friends with you? I'm kind of convinced that you're so unsympathetic!'' I said, 'Everyone is equal before the law! Even if the king of heaven breaks the law, he is equally subject to the law!'"
"This Fang An An is just too ignorant, she doesn't understand anything!" Luo Xiaoling said, "The best way to deal with such a woman is to ignore her! What's the point of ignoring her? Reasoning with such a woman is like talking to a cow!"
First draft September 13, 2017, revised February 7, 2021