Chapter 48: Let's Go See a Movie Together (Monthly Votes Appreciated)

Right now, they were in the beverage section.

The shelves were fully stocked, and under the spotlight, brightly colored tin cans stood lined up before Gu Qiumian.

She had been staring intently at the cocktails for quite a while. A few minutes ago, she had asked if they should buy a few cans to drink with your friends at noon.

She seemed like an old hand at this. Zhang Shutong asked her if she drank often, like when she went to KTVs with that group of her little friends, and she said it was alright, she would drink a little sometimes when she was in a good mood.

Zhang Shutong had never seen her slightly tipsy, but he definitely wouldn't see it today, because the plan had changed.

"So?" Gu Qiumian asked.

Zhang Shutong suspected that Gu Qiumian could tell he wanted to look cool, and she actually cooperated by asking that—if only she weren't trying to suppress her laughter.

He put away his phone.

"So now it's just the two of us."

"What about the other two?"

"They are on standby at all times."

"What do you mean?"

"Classified," Zhang Shutong said with a smile.

Gu Qiumian glared at him again, saying that if he didn't keep people in suspense, it would kill him!

Zhang Shutong had no way to explain. Who asked the operation's codename to be—Operation: Goddess of Fate in Charge of the Young Miss's Future.

This mission was not only to protect the young miss's life, but also to protect the young miss's mood.

Both were indispensable; if even one wasn't achieved, Zhang Shutong wouldn't consider it a success.

Gu Qiumian tossed her hair and walked away. Zhang Shutong pushed the cart to follow and asked, "Where are you going?"

"Didn't you say it's just the two of us left?"

"So?"

Zhang Shutong still couldn't connect that statement with her turning around and walking away.

"So from now on, you follow my arrangements."

As she spoke, she walked forward without looking back, her hands behind her back, taking small, effortless steps.

Zhang Shutong felt as though she had suddenly turned into a tiger, exercising patience, patience, and more patience toward the prey right in front of her. Once the prey's little companions scattered in all directions and only one remained, the tiger finally parted its lips, revealing its fangs and a triumphant smile.

This was even a tiger that ate people; it was truly terrifying.

If he didn't want to be eaten, he had no choice but to push the cart and follow closely behind her. But the wheels of this cart were stuck on something, making a squeaking noise, and it took some effort to get it back on track.

However, with Gu Qiumian walking in front, he had the time to check his phone. Now the iPhone's battery was down to just 35 percent. Zhang Shutong turned on Low Power Mode; last night at Gu Qiumian's house, charging hadn't been an option. Although he didn't usually use his phone much, he couldn't help playing a bit of Angry Birds this morning, and even achieved a failed ending.

He instinctively wanted to clear his background apps, but he had heard that iOS had a unique tombstone mechanism, suitable for lazy people.

Zhang Shutong didn't know the exact principle, but he knew that reality wasn't a game, the culprit wasn't a pig's head, and aside from this unique mechanism in the phone's operating system, he didn't want to see anyone's actual tombstone appear before his eyes.

Old Song had just come out of the police station. The person on the other end of the phone said, "We're still missing one culprit."

This arson was a meticulously planned operation. Just as Li's mother had said, those people were indeed all relying on the shops on the commercial street for their livelihoods. They were anxious yet terrified of being betrayed, and even the recruitment of manpower had been conducted in secret.

Through some special method of contact, they first scouted a certain circle of interested individuals, followed by a small dark room where a paper was laid out with the time and location written on it. Whoever was willing to go pressed a thumbprint on the paper.

Originally there were six people, but when things came to a head, one was missing last night.

No one knew who the absent person was.

Zhang Shutong explained this matter to his best friends.

Qingyi was the sharpest: "Who planned it in the first place?"

"The interrogation is finished, it wasn't those five."

"So it's the one who didn't show up?"

"Exactly, the true mastermind."

"Was he deliberately trying to use those five as scapegoats while having another plan of his own?"

"Maybe."

"That sounds really dangerous. Shouldn't we just call the police?" Ruoping chimed in.

"The police force is already stretched thin, and now there are five more arsonists. We can't count on them," Qingyi explained.

"Then I think we can just go straight to the police station and stay there? Right now, and stay until the people from Gu Qiumian's family come back. At noon, let Dukang bring us food; I want to eat your family's rice noodles."

Ruoping's suggestion was much safer, but it was unanimously rejected by the three boys.

"No way!"

"You three, stop acting on impulse all of a sudden! (Anger)" Ruoping was losing her mind.

"It's not an impulse. Today might be the only chance to drag that mastermind out. He can only make a move while Gu Qiumian's house is empty," Zhang Shutong explained.

"My family doesn't make rice noodles right now," Dukang also explained.

"All wrong," Qingyi delivered the final verdict. "Could you guys please take a careful look at my operation codename?"

"What do you mean?" the three asked simultaneously.

Qingyi directly sent a voice message: "Operation: Goddess of Fate in Charge of the Young Miss's Future—meaning that actually, words like 'young miss', 'future', and 'goddess of fate' can all be ignored. The key word is *operation*!"

"So?"

"Since it's an operation, there's never been an operation where the girl spends the whole day in a police station. That would be very unromantic."

Qingyi said faintly.

At that moment, he felt as though he had been possessed by Old Song, resolute and resonant.

Handsome!

For once, Zhang Shutong agreed.

"So everyone, from now on, the entire operation has three objectives—"

Zhang Shutong typed rapidly; chuunibyou or not, momentum was the most important thing right now:

"First, confirm who the mastermind is. Second, gather evidence. As for the third..."

—Beep, beep, beep.

Zhang Shutong paused, stopped his fingers, and looked up to find he had followed Gu Qiumian all the way to the supermarket cashier counter.

She said next she wanted to look around the clothing store on the third floor. Zhang Shutong complained he was tired, but she countered that he had just promised her to follow her arrangements today.

Did he promise her?

Autumn Rain Lingering deployed "Playing Dumb"!

Zhang Shutong skipped this turn!

"Are you sure you want this much stuff?" Zhang Shutong looked at that pile of snacks, feeling that it would truly drag down the Goddess of Fate.

"Then we'll just check them in at the service counter." The young miss didn't know about the boys' operation, and even if she did, she wouldn't care right now; she was currently engaged in a frantic shopping spree operation herself.

"Fine, fine. Your wish is my command."

At this moment, all he could do was sigh.

Glancing down at his phone, he hadn't finished typing the third objective earlier, but someone else had filled it in for him:

"What is there to be shy about? It's just accompanying Gu Qiumian and playing the role of a knight protecting a flower, what else could it be," Ruoping said with disdain. "Otherwise why would he say earlier that she should listen to his command? He can't get away himself, so he can only command from his phone."

"So that's what 'the plan has changed' meant!" Dukang finally understood, and his enthusiasm for this sort of thing was second to none. "So our mission now is to find that person?"

Zhang Shutong sent a thumbs-up emoji, then tagged Dukang: "You free right now, birthday boy?"

"Your orders," Dukang replied readily.

"I need to ask you to go out."

"Saw that coming."

"It's very cold outside."

"I'll dress warmly."

"It's also a long way."

"Is that little bit of effort going to stop me?"

"Then ride your bike over to Gu Qiumian's house first."

"Uh..."

It was now 10:33. Zhang Shutong checked the time and encouraged him: "Pedal hard!"

After that, there was no sound from Dukang; he was probably going to change clothes.

Qingyi immediately followed up: "What about me and Ruoping?"

"Stand by for now. Wait for my signal here."

"Copy that."

"I really give up on you guys. If you haven't figured it out, you haven't figured it out. Can you please stop making 'just wandering around' sound so mission-critical?"

...She hit the nail on the head.

In the span of a few sentences, his phone battery dropped by another one percent. Zhang Shutong tucked his phone away.

The snacks were packed into two large bags, one for him and one for Gu Qiumian. The two of them stored their belongings and took the escalator up to the third floor.

Zhang Shutong held onto the handrail. As they slowly ascended, a huge vertical banner hung down from the ceiling, probably announcing the upcoming opening of some store.

In front of the banner floated balloons, looking like a celebratory festival wishing the success of their combat operation. Amidst the lively and joyful atmosphere, Zhang Shutong asked Gu Qiumian, "Why doesn't your dad open a cinema?"

She thought about it and said she had heard her dad mention it once; it would be built next year, though there wouldn't be much point in going even if it were built, since the scale was very small.

"If you're going, you go to the one in the city." This girl took out her phone again, swiping the screen with a slender finger. She tapped around until they reached the entrance of the third floor before looking up, almost losing her footing: "Hmm, let me see... I checked this week, there's nothing good playing."

Were you actually planning on going?

Zhang Shutong thought with worry, silently thanking the island's underdeveloped commercial infrastructure for the first time, otherwise his schedule today would definitely be packed to the brim—

Spending the morning shopping with large bags in hand, eating lunch at a high-end restaurant approved by the young miss, spending the evening watching a movie while holding a giant bucket of popcorn... and it wouldn't even end there. When the movie let out, they'd probably have to find a park with a view of the moon and sit on a bench for a while.

Just imagining that scene gave Zhang Shutong a headache, so he said it was just as well there were no good movies, they could just wander around the island instead. But Gu Qiumian was thinking about something else. She was walking ahead of Zhang Shutong, then suddenly turned back and said:

"Let's wait until next week..."

She always liked to arrange things in advance; it was like that when she went off the island with her crew, and this time was no exception. The terrifying part was that she kept talking more and more, slowly overlapping with Zhang Shutong's envisioned schedule—from which street had the newest clothes and bags, to which place had a good restaurant, followed by which KTV had a nice environment and where the cinema seats were very soft... Before she could even finish, Zhang Shutong no longer knew how to respond.

He didn't know whether, in the original timeline, she had ever entertained such thoughts at this exact moment. Perhaps she had, since she had mentioned wanting to watch a movie at home just this morning.

Zhang Shutong had once asked her if she played games. She was a digital idiot; how could she possibly understand those? Forget Angry Birds, even Talking Tom Cat felt like a novel gadget to her. While browsing the supermarket just now, Zhang Shutong had taught her how to download it, and she kept holding it in her hand talking to that silly cat, laughing uncontrollably and insisting that Zhang Shutong listen to it too. Sometimes he would give a speechless comment, which only provided new material, and the two of them plus the cat acted thoroughly foolish.

From this it was evident that she was an absolute outsider to games. Gu Qiumian said she usually liked watching movies. Although her house had a dedicated projection wall, it ultimately couldn't compare to the size of a cinema. No matter how wealthy a family was, they couldn't outrun time—meaning that no matter how rich she was, what played in her home theater were always old movies, repeating countless times before her eyes.

Zhang Shutong had already been to that projection hall. It was no longer the mysterious place he and his best friends used to call "the castle"; he had spent the night in that castle last night and could be said to have had his eyes opened. But once he actually went there, he realized that no matter how luxurious the so-called underground projection hall was, or how massive its floor area, it was ultimately just a hollow space built from concrete and steel.

Therefore, he could imagine that in countless days of the past, as light and shadow flickered across the screen in the dim space and the progress bar reached the halfway point, the girl wrapped in a burgundy silk bathrobe would curl up on the sofa, watching until her head drooped, using her finger to tap her phone to schedule a weekend trip to the city with her friends.

That was a weekend that could never be reached. Zhang Shutong didn't know what she had been thinking back then, or what wishes she had made... Looking up, he saw Gu Qiumian holding up her phone again, talking to that Talking Tom Cat.

She asked crisply, "Shall we go see a movie next week?" And that stupid cat foolishly replied, "Shall we go see a movie next week?"...

What was there to "shall we"?

Zhang Shutong suddenly thought with irritation, why plan things so far into the future—so far that you never even lived to see them?

Yet there was nothing worth looking at right in front of them either. The clothing styles were rather old-fashioned; the shopping malls in the city were already starting to sell spring clothes, while this place was still clearing out winter stock. Gu Qiumian put away her phone, occasionally asking him if a certain hat looked good, or if a scarf was stylish. From Zhang Shutong's perspective, they all looked old, but she took endless pleasure in it.

Finally, they stopped at a shop selling small accessories.

Zhang Shutong shook his head, grateful to his mother for the inspiration. For the sake of his upcoming operation, he decided to buy a mask and a hat here.

"This one is so ugly, try it on." Gu Qiumian handed him a pink Mickey Mouse baseball cap.

Déjà vu.

Thanks to Mickey Mouse as well, his mood suddenly lightened a bit. Gu Qiumian didn't know, but Zhang Shutong was all too familiar with this item. It was this damned baseball cap again. He had heard that Disney's legal team was fiercely aggressive—why didn't they hurry up and sue this store out of business?

"Why would I try it on if it's ugly?" Zhang Shutong was reluctant.

"I want to see." As it turned out, Gu Qiumian was even more domineering than Disney's legal department. Smiling, she took out her phone, getting ready to take a picture.

"Put your phone down."

"Once you put it on, I won't take a picture," she threatened.

Zhang Shutong had no choice but to put on the hat, feeling as though he was once again reliving the terrifying years of being dominated by his mother... Wait, why did he put it on anyway? He clearly hadn't agreed to it.

He quickly took off the hat, but Gu Qiumian had already feasted her eyes. She tapped her chin and said with satisfaction:

"Just as I thought."

"What do you mean?"

"Look at the Mickey Mouse pattern on the hat. Even though it's pirated, doesn't it look a lot like the real one? And you look so silly wearing it..." Her threshold for laughter was really low.

Zhang Shutong reflected for a moment, feeling that even as a lackey, he had a duty to steer the young miss back from the path of error; he couldn't always spoil her.

He pulled out his phone with one hand. Unlike Gu Qiumian, he wasn't a digital idiot and knew where the iPhone's camera shortcut was. Then he swiftly slapped the hat onto Gu Qiumian's head and hit the shutter button.

*Click.* Her startled expression was frozen in the frame.

"You really do look silly," Zhang Shutong glanced at the screen and curled his lip.

Autumn Rain Lingering instantly went wild.

Zhang Shutong paid for his things and bolted. With his long legs and fast pace, he walked away feeling needles at his back.

Time for the next step.

Zhang Shutong took out his phone and sent the second message in the group chat.

*(Note from the author: Actually, I made a mistake about something yesterday. The bonus chapters for monthly votes should be for 900 votes, but I calculated based on 1000 votes. At one chapter per 200 votes, that should be five chapters. But in my haste, I blurted out 10 chapters.)*

*(There's no helping it since I already said it; I'll fulfill all 10 chapters.)*

*(So, please vote!)*