S went through a breakup. The funny thing is, he broke up less than a few days after getting together with his partner. I originally wanted to say some comforting words, but immediately held them back when I found out he had bought the girl an 800-yuan gift gun right before the breakup.

"Damn, you really are an evergreen tree among clowns, a pillar among simps," I teased.

S looked flat, ignoring my mockery, but his irritable voice revealed an inner state not as calm as his appearance. "Hurry up and think of a way. I called you over to discuss how to win her back." Hearing this, my expression stiffened, and I looked at him as if looking at a fool.

"Isn't it obvious you got dumped after she finished farming you for gold? Listen to my advice, just treat it as paying tuition for your love-brain."

"F*, are you never going to stop?" S got riled up by my words and shoved me hard. Caught off guard, I stumbled a few steps, and my face darkened.

"You f*ing borrowed money from me so many times for this woman. You couldn't even bear to order a meat dish at the cafeteria for yourself, yet you spent eight hundred on her without blinking. I bet you, at most, you're just one fish in her pond."

After saying that, I ignored him and walked straight away. I can't wake up a person who is pretending to be asleep, nor can I empathize with him.

Less than three days later, S sent a message to apologize to me. He said, "Bro, you were right. That girl went official with another guy." I was long used to this kind of situation, but out of humanitarianism, I still kindly comforted him, saying at least they had been together.

It would have been better if I hadn't said anything. Once I did, he immediately sent a long voice message, his voice sounding a bit choked with sobs.

"Actually, when she confessed to me before, she had had too much to drink. After sobering up, she denied it. I thought she was just waiting for me to take the initiative. After all, I don't know how many nights she and I have chatted over the past two years. But that night, after she accepted the gift, she only said a few sentences to me before going back to her dorm. Her excuse was that wearing pajamas outside at night was too cold."

I was dumbfounded. "Meeting you while wearing pajamas—isn't it obvious she didn't want to hang out with you? If it were me, even if I didn't like a certain girl, if she came all this way, I wouldn't leave her hanging. Wait... that means she specifically waited until after her birthday to go official just to receive your gift, right? I really don't believe she and her current partner just locked eyes and fell in love in two or three days." S had probably already thought of this layer of reasoning and fell directly into silence, no longer replying to me.

I still remember his confident statement when he went from Changzhou to Nanjing back then. That day was the girl's birthday. S was full of lofty sentiments, stating he wanted to give her a surprise. If he had known then that he was just a pastime for when she was bored, I wonder how he would have felt.

Heh, I revealed a bemused smile. Truly dark humor.

At night, S posted a sentimental caption on his Moments. Upon seeing it, I replied to him with a line of lyrics. "Anyway, feelings nowadays are all ambiguous."