Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Not only was I not giving him any money, I was going to PUA him instead.

In all these years of acting without ever making it big, I’d built up far too much resentment with nowhere to vent it:

The production crews PUA’d me for not having enough fans, the audience PUA’d me for my bad acting, and my parents PUA’d me for not having a boyfriend. Just talking about it brings tears to my eyes…

But resentment shouldn’t be taken out on innocent people.

This time, I had finally found someone I could PUA fair and square-someone I could dump all my emotional garbage on.

I shouted at the hacker on Weibo:

“Hey, Raccoon Burning Incense, after seeing my photos, do you feel especially inferior?

“My ex-boyfriend had such a great body. If I were you, I’d drag my half-dead self up to do 500 crunches the second I looked at the fat on my stomach.

“Let me guess. Do you spend every day sitting in front of a computer typing code, all puffy and bloated, with your neck craning forward, a herniated disc in your lower back, and giant eye bags too?

“When you look at our beautiful bodies, do you get jealous?”

The hacker fell silent.

After a very, very long time, he finally replied:

“I have abs.”

I called him out on the spot:

“No, you don’t.

“Your previous messages were all instant replies, but this one took forever. Were you sitting there getting emo the whole time just now?

“Don’t tell me you even cried? I’m almost starting to feel kind of protective toward you…”

Netizens commented:

“Her attacks are brutal!”

“Hacker: Got called out. Awkward.jpg”

The hacker went silent again.

But then my phone rang. My ex-boyfriend was calling.

“The person you were talking about was me, right?”

For some reason, his tone sounded… delighted.

I was pretty speechless.

“Why are you so excited? It’s not exactly a good thing.”

Xu Chen laughed softly.

“We were always fighting when we were together. By the time we broke up, I thought you hated my guts.

“I didn’t expect my image in your heart to be this glorious.

“I called to say that it’s an honor to be the one who made all those people online jealous.”

I’m not the type to blush easily, but after hearing that last line, my whole face went hot. I buried myself in my long-haired rabbit plushie and rubbed against it for a long time.

Xu Chen and I met through skateboarding. Back then, we were both obsessed with practicing difficult, thrilling tricks.

We were evenly matched, and at a friend’s club, we fell in love at first sight.

We were still young then, outgoing and passionate, and whenever we saw something unfair, we were especially quick to mouth off.

We were always like two debaters, arguing over the most ridiculous things, neither of us willing to lower our heads or give in.

Neither of us knew how to maintain a relationship.

Later, I spent all my time bouncing between different production sets, playing minor roles with little chance of breaking out. His startup had just begun to show promise, and he decided to expand into overseas markets.

We spent more time apart than together, and neither of us could quite accommodate the other, so we broke up.

After our final argument, once we’d both calmed down, I started unbuttoning his shirt.

“Let’s take a set of photos.

“Would you be willing…?”

He froze for a moment, then smiled.

“The kind of photos I’m thinking of? You’re pretty bold.”

I set up the camera and the timer, and he let me position him however I wanted, fully cooperating.

We spent the whole afternoon at it.

The afterglow of the setting sun spilled over us. We both knew that this relationship had already reached its end.

I copied the photos onto a blank hard drive and handed it to him.

He didn’t take it.

At the time, my pride was a little hurt. I thought he wasn’t nostalgic at all about what we had.

On the other end of the line, Xu Chen said:

“Someone you’re destined to meet again doesn’t need photos as souvenirs.

“I’m coming back home. Will you come pick me up?”