Chapter 16: Don’t Be Deceived by Bad Emotions

“Shall we fight?” Wang invited Tao Fangyi for the thirteenth time.

“But you can’t beat me.” Tao Fangyi didn’t understand why Wang was so persistent. After all, Wang couldn’t even retaliate once he started attacking. This wasn’t a fight—it was a one-sided beating.

Wang’s breathing grew heavier. “Or you could open your barrier and keep suppressing me, so I can see if I can break free from this restraint.”

“That’s no fun.” Tao Fangyi was scrolling through his phone.

Wang noticed Tao Fangyi was reading text, the kind that could be turned page by page. “Are you reading a novel?”

“No, I’m looking at the potential future development paths of these two children,” Tao Fangyi said. “Every decision they make will affect their futures. I didn’t use to look at this, but after that mishap with Li Yao, I think I need to understand more, so that if something like that happens again, I won’t be at a loss.”

Wang let out an “Oh” and leaned over to watch for a while. As he watched, he grew irritated. “What is all this stuff?”

“Possible future outcomes,” Tao Fangyi explained.

“It says here that Li Yao will marry a boy she meets in high school, then move to his city, and there’s even a certain probability that the guy will cheat on her?” Wang was shocked.

“That’s just an extremely low-probability event.” Tao Fangyi reassured Wang. He flipped back a few pages. “Look here. It says she’ll join a company with great growth potential at age 25, then steadily climb to the peak of life and meet an excellent partner.”

Wang reached out a finger and swiped on Tao Fangyi’s phone. “Oh… and then she and her partner have a neglected child who picks up a bunch of bad habits, and she and her partner spend the rest of their lives being tormented by that kid.”

Tao Fangyi: “…Of course, that’s also a low-probability event.”

“Can’t things just go smoothly from start to finish?” Wang said, somewhat displeased.

“Everything’s relative.” Tao Fangyi kept swiping. “If there are peaks, there are bound to be valleys.”

“Oh! Look, here’s a passage saying she’ll endure over forty years of hardships, and then on her 49th birthday, she’ll have her moment in the spotlight.” Tao Fangyi handed the phone to Wang. “She’ll found a very popular tangyuan brand.”

Wang glanced at it and covered his face.

Tao Fangyi was very interested. “This brand seems like it’ll become a top-tier label. I’m a bit curious how good it actually tastes.”

“Wait, the previous life path where she became an executive was software development, and now this one has her selling tangyuan?” Wang was astonished.

“Oh, before these two paths diverged, she made over four hundred different choices,” Tao Fangyi explained. Each different choice interwoven and stacked together created a brand-new possibility.

“Stop talking. The more you say, the more pointless it feels.” Wang found it incredible that Tao Fangyi could actually read into this stuff.

“Why?”

“Because none of these paths are any good!” Wang didn’t know how to put it. Every bit of happiness in there had a bomb buried beneath it. “Now I feel like her life is just a game of Minesweeper.”

Tao Fangyi lit up. “I’ve played Minesweeper!” He had kept up with that trend.

“How impressive,” Wang praised flatly, without any emotion.

“But that’s how it’s always been, hasn’t it?” Tao Fangyi put down the phone. “An outcome built from countless tiny details.”

“She has sixty-three life paths where she gets hit by a speeding car while crossing the street,” Tao Fangyi added.

“This file just lists every possible accident that could happen!” The corner of Wang’s mouth twitched.

“Not entirely. Behind every accident, there are countless small events pushing it forward.” Tao Fangyi thought the official equipment was quite thorough, though the sheer volume of files made it difficult for him to read them all.

“So life is just stepping into pitfalls everywhere,” Wang said.

“Isn’t it more like waiting for surprises everywhere?” Tao Fangyi countered.

“Surprises are always followed by a bunch of vexations,” Wang reminded him.

Tao Fangyi didn’t see it that way. “Vexations have surprises buried beside them.”

They started arguing, and the debate was like arguing whether a tiger is yellow with black stripes or black with yellow stripes—it would never reach a conclusion.

“When people get old, their physical functions decline. That’s the most undignified period of life. They slowly lose mobility, lose dignity, and finally die.” Wang raised his voice. “You’d be better off killing yourself before that.”

“But what if most of the surprises are hidden in old age?” Tao Fangyi still disagreed.

“What surprises are left when you’re old?!”

“You’ve never even been old!” Tao Fangyi stood up, his two round doll hands planted on his waist.

“Although people have many possible futures, no one can truly live tens of thousands of times. Life has only one path.” Tao Fangyi pointed one hand at Wang’s face. “Happiness is finite. It’s scattered throughout life, like gifts secretly hidden away. You have to carefully unwrap them.”

“What’s the point of unwrapping them? They can’t make your whole life carefree.” Wang spread his hands. “To put it bluntly, the closer these two sisters are now, the greater the pain for the one left behind when that relationship ends.”

“Pain just shows how happy they were along the way,” Tao Fangyi said.

“Give up that little bit of happiness and you won’t get the pain.”

Tao Fangyi fell silent.

Wang thought he had convinced him.

Tao Fangyi lowered both hands. “Pain is a very sharp form of happiness.” The description was a bit strange.

But Tao Fangyi felt this deeply. He had met far too many people. Before his breakdown, he could count the people he had feelings for on one hand.

His breakdown back then had been because he couldn’t accept separation, because of the pain.

“Back then, I couldn’t control my emotions. The pain was so bad I wanted to dig my heart out and throw it away,” Tao Fangyi said softly. “But I didn’t want to never meet the people I used to like again.” He could bear the sorrow of parting, but he couldn’t accept them ceasing to exist.

Tao Fangyi considered himself to have lived for over five hundred years, because his emotions had only existed for those five hundred-plus years. Before that, he had merely watched and listened. He hadn’t truly been alive.

Wang stared at Tao Fangyi for a while, then leaned forward. “Us meeting each other, that counts too, right?”

Tao Fangyi nodded.

“If in the future you end up liking me so, so much,” Wang said, “so much that if I were to vanish, you’d follow me in death, are you sure you wouldn’t regret it?”

“That would mean the happiness you brought me was more than my life could bear?” Tao Fangyi didn’t take it as a provocation. After thinking seriously, he gave his answer. “That would be a kind of enormous happiness I can’t even imagine.”

“You could accept that?”

“That would be wonderful!” Tao Fangyi actually rather wanted it.

“Ha, your way of thinking really is strange.” Wang waved his hand.

“You don’t want that kind of emotion?” Tao Fangyi thought it was something good.

“I don’t want that kind of loan-like emotion in this lifetime. My desires are simple, and my goals are simple.” Wang just wanted to return to the Combat Department and keep his hobby hidden more carefully.

“I won’t lose my mind and fall madly in love with anyone.” Wang thought Tao Fangyi was a love-addled fool in the making—a very dangerous one who would commit suicide for love.

“Wow! Sealing your heart and locking away love!” Tao Fangyi had seen plenty of that character archetype, of course, in all sorts of literary works.

And that archetype always had one outcome: “Be careful, or someone might breach the walls around your heart.”

“It’s not that easy. You’re the one who needs to watch out!” Wang poked Tao Fangyi’s chest. “A doll like you can easily be tricked into giving away your body and heart. Then before you know it, you’ll be trapped by love, wanting to kill this one and slaughter that one. The result would be just like that fox and that water buffalo…”

Wang stopped short, remembering the appearance of those two kids. One was gloomy and sullen, the other excessively cheerful.

“You are not allowed to reincarnate on me.” Even though he hadn’t known Tao Fangyi for long, Wang couldn’t accept Tao Fangyi ending up like that.

“You have to seal your heart and lock away love,” Wang said seriously.

“So should we form the Heart-Sealing, Love-Locking Duo?” Tao Fangyi didn’t mind emotions’ influence on him, but he wouldn’t deliberately seek them out either.

“Why does everything you say sound so chuunibyou?” Wang was baffled.

“The last thing I want is to be called chuuni by you.” Tao Fangyi felt there was no one in the world more chuuni and strange than Wang.

Wang: “You really do have a problem with me!”

Wang started shouting again, condemning Tao Fangyi while trying to brainwash him into staying away from emotions. Emotions were no good. Tao Fangyi just needed to be a tough doll.

“Emotions are complicated. They’re not something a clueless doll like you can figure out.”

They debated for a long time. Then Yang Hongling and Ren Ying returned with Ren Xinxin.

Yang Hongling and Ren Ying had gotten into a conflict because of the argument at the kindergarten. Yang Hongling felt Ren Ying was too aggressive, while Ren Ying thought his own child had been hit like this and he was already restrained by not directly attacking—why was Yang Hongling so timid?

They managed to control themselves in front of the child, but as soon as they entered their room, they started arguing.

“See? This is so-called emotion. A total mess,” Wang said.

Tao Fangyi crouched by the door crack, peering out. He saw Ren Xinxin sitting in a corner, looking somewhat lonely.

Yang Hongling and Ren Ying argued more and more heatedly, but they still remembered to cook for Ren Xinxin and apply her medicine.

After that, they continued their argument.

As Ren Xinxin waited, Li Yao returned.

Li Yao had just taken off her shoes when she heard the arguing.

She looked toward Ren Xinxin and saw Ren Xinxin opening her mouth.

Just then, her father was shouting: “Why can’t I grab her by the collar?! She slapped my daughter!”

Ren Xinxin mimicked her dad’s angry expression, continuously opening and closing her mouth, perfectly syncing with her dad’s words.

She looked like a hand puppet doll. Before Li Yao could ask what was going on, she burst out laughing.

Ren Xinxin was delighted too. She had been waiting for this moment for a long time.

Li Yao’s reaction was exactly what she’d hoped for.

“This is also emotion,” Tao Fangyi said.

He faced Wang and began shaking his head and making movements to match the tone of the two adults’ quarreling. His mouth’s range of motion was limited, but he could combine it with body language.

It was a bit like a two-man vaudeville act.

After doing it, he laughed a “hahaha” himself.

“You’re so childish,” Wang said, seemingly with disdain.

But Tao Fangyi kept mimicking expressions. He did another segment to the sound of the argument, amusing himself so much that he clutched his belly in silent laughter—after all, he didn’t dare make noise.

“Your laughing threshold is so low,” Wang was tickled by Tao Fangyi’s careful, suppressed laughter. “Like this, you can’t be a comedy performer at all. How can your laughing threshold be lower than the audience’s?”

Tao Fangyi wanted to mimic more, but halfway through, he completely lost control.

The doll clutched his stomach and lay on the floor. He was like a fish suddenly pulled ashore, flopping around for a bit before abruptly going silent.

Wang: …

After more than ten seconds, Tao Fangyi inhaled with a wheezing “Ugh.”

Wang finally realized Tao Fangyi had been laughing soundlessly the whole time.

Wang: “Pfft… hahahaha!”