My 26-year-old female tenant: Gufan on the Island

Robben did not agree with what I said, but he did not deny it explicitly either. He just changed his sitting position to be more comfortable, and then smoked one cigarette after another. After a while, he said to me, "I don't know if she won the lottery... But in my subconscious, I never thought that she was a woman who was very short of money... Do you know what I mean by not short of money? It's not that you are not short of money just by taking out a stack of money from your pocket... But it's a person's words, deeds and demeanor... Really rich people can put 90% of the world's universal worries out of their cognition and not pay any more attention to them... But they will also suffer, and this kind of pain can no longer be solved with money, so it will make them very weird, and then there will be some behaviors that others can't quite understand..."

I also lit a cigarette, took a puff and replied, "If you say so, I think you are quite rich... You carry a briefcase and squeeze into the bus all the time, and you don't like instant noodles... Even your career is unconventional. You are a rock musician, but you actually switched to the funeral service industry... You are not a super rich second generation who came here to experience the sufferings of the world because you are bored, right?"

Robben suddenly stopped moving, with only the cigarette between his fingers still in motion. After a while, he said to me, "I was just pretending..."

"Then tell me, can the issue of showing off be included in the scope of gender equality?"

"Yes, as long as it is behavior, men and women can be equal."

I spread my hands to indicate that his previous remarks were self-defeating.

Robben put out his cigarette and sighed, "Well, just treat it as a fart!"

……

After the verbal victory, I had a drink, and after a brief silence, I asked Robben again: "Did she tell you why she wanted to open a coffee shop in Luoyang?"

"They said that you could watch the sunrise in the morning and the sunset in the evening in that pile of waste... I just couldn't understand it. It was just that broken sun. It was so hot in the summer and so sluggish in the winter. What was there to see?"

“This is forced art.”

"I think it has nothing to do with literature and art. It's just a woman's mind, the kind of mind that men will never understand... It is said that every woman trapped in love has a ruin in her heart... Women are good at destruction, but they are more eager to rebuild and regenerate than men... Maybe this is what she really wants to tell me."

I picked up the glass again and fell into silence again.

Robben didn't seem to expect me to say anything. Instead, he was lost in what he had said and was stunned for a long time. Then, the instant noodles that he hated were inevitably sent to him by the proprietress. It was like he was haunted by a nightmare. He didn't even have the chance to compromise, because it was not the elastic noodles he wanted at all.

When he came to his senses, he was dominated by resentment. He seemed to want to fight back, but in the end he said in vain: "I won't eat it soaked, I'll chew it dry."

I replied, "Once it's in your stomach and soaked by gastric juice, it's just instant noodles, right?"

Robben suddenly stiffened.

I tore up the instant noodles and threw them into the soup pot, then said, "Don't struggle. Everyone has their own destiny... Sometimes it's wise to accept your fate."

"Expand and talk..."

While stirring the instant noodles in the pot, I talked about the problems I had recently encountered with Chen Qianyu and her brother. I went to Robben to talk about this because I didn't get the answer I wanted from Fang Yuan, and I needed another perspective; although this perspective already existed in my heart, I still wanted to hear it from another person.

I even told Robben about my lottery winning; I said that if I wanted, I had the ability to help Chen Bailu escape from the prison, but I was full of concerns.

……

Robben listened to the whole thing with a frown on his face, and spoke to me after a long while: "Zhaoyang, no matter what advice I give you, I feel like a dog-headed military advisor... This matter is really unsolvable... Because no matter what you do, someone will definitely get hurt... No, to be precise, in this matter, no matter what you do, no one can avoid being hurt..."

"So, no matter what I do, the end result will be a tragedy, right?"

Robben seemed to be worried about me. He lit another cigarette, smoked half of it, and then said, "If I were you... I would still choose to quit... I watched a movie recently, so I'd like to talk to you about it... The story structure of this movie is actually quite simple... It's about a rich man who got into a car accident and became paralyzed for life... His fiancée chose to abandon him because she saw no hope of recovery in him... These two kinds of despair completely destroyed the rich man's mental will... So, he chose to end his life by euthanasia six months later..."

After a short pause, Robben turned to me and asked, "Do you think this rich man will eventually end his life as he wishes?"

I thought about it and replied, “Since it’s a movie, there must be some variables.”

"There are variables, of course there are variables... However, after six months, this rich man resolutely chose euthanasia... From the audience's point of view, this ending is unacceptable... Because, later in the story, a cheerful and lively female nanny appeared, who was a perfect match for him in spirit, and in these six months, so many things happened between them that redeemed each other, and in the end they fell in love with each other... How could they not be together?"

I asked the same question: "Yeah, how can they not be together?"

“But this is just the audience’s wishful thinking… The audience is just the audience, they cannot replace either the male or female protagonist… If the male protagonist chooses to give up euthanasia… In the end, the male and female protagonists still need to live together… They are both very young, but the male protagonist is paralyzed for life and will never be able to fulfill the responsibilities of a married life… Don’t act so noble and say that this can be tolerated… What if it takes decades to tolerate… This problem is scary to think about… Therefore, unlike those audiences who curse on the street, I think this is a romantic ending because of reality… Love is not necessarily possession; love is not selfish; love is not impulsive… Love is a consideration that transcends the length of time… There is no such thing as destroying both sides, only defending to the death…”

I was a little breathless, but after thinking about it over a period of time, I accepted the outcome.

At this time, Robben said to me again: "In this world, what is the difference between being poor and losing sexual function?"

"You can't assume responsibility for their lives just because they admired you... Besides, Chen Qianyu doesn't have no other choice besides you... The only difficulty lies with Chen Bailu... He will feel sorry for his sister for the rest of his life... For a boy who is not mature enough and can't express himself, this is probably the greatest darkness and pain in his life... Unless Chen Qianyu can really be together comfortably with that old man... But this is unpredictable, so everything can only be left to fate and the unknown to decide."

After saying that, Robben finally picked up a piece of noodles that were almost cooked from the pot and put it into his mouth.