because i'm pretty

Li Yikai said to pick up someone, but was called to a meeting before he got off work, and he had to use a Bluetooth headset to make calls while driving.By the time he arrived, the crew had dispersed.

A mess of props and waste was piled up outside the factory building. Yuan Zhiming was sitting on a wooden box with a large schoolbag on his back, wearing headphones and staring at somewhere in a daze, like a left-behind child waiting to be picked up.

It is a luxury to be in a daze after adulthood, Li Yikai's breathing slowed down, and he wanted to prolong this time when he was close.

Until Yuan Zhiming saw the figure beside him, he took off his earphones, raised his head and smiled at him.

"Have you waited long?" Li Yikai asked.

"It's okay." Yuan Zhiming stood up unhurriedly, "I don't know either."

Faced with people who have almost zero sense of time, and feel less guilty for being late, Li Yikai smiled more relaxed unconsciously.

"Come on," he said, "have you eaten yet?"

"No, but they bought a lot of snacks this afternoon, and I'm not too hungry." Yuan Zhiming got into the car and hurriedly looked through his schoolbag, and took out two masks... which seemed to have a very complicated structure.

Li Yikai, a person with such a heavy burden of idols, looked at them and remembered his childhood nightmare, and asked, "For me?"

Yuan Zhiming's tone was full of eagerness to share: "I checked a lot, and I said that this kind of filter has the best effect. You have one, and I have one. If it's useful, I'll give you another box."

"You're not allergic to respiratory tract, don't you need it?" Li Yikai took it, but didn't want to take it apart for the time being.

Yuan Zhiming had fastened the strap on the back of his head, demonstrated the switch of the breathing valve to Li Yikai, and said in a low voice, "I'll wear it with you. It's a bit strange for one person to wear a gas mask, but it's fine for two people."

So the pet hospital ushered in two customers who at first glance thought they were robbing cat food.

"They are all recovering well, and they can be taken home after half a month's stay." The doctor took them to the incubator, where the five kittens curled up together, breathing quietly.

Yuan Zhiming leaned over to look at it, with his hands tucked into his sleeves. From Li Yikai's perspective, he felt that his head looked like a sixth one, and it was all messy and fluffy anyway.

"They are really..." Yuan Zhiming said softly, "It's kind of ugly."

The doctor laughed: "It's too small, and the hairs stick together after applying the medicine. It will look much better after taking a shower in a few days."

Yuan Zhiming put away his phone: "Then wait a few days before taking pictures of them, so that they look better."

"Yes," said the doctor, "it's easier to be adopted if it looks good."

Li Yikai asked: "Can you help find it?"

"It should be possible. After all, you paid all the expenses for vaccination and sterilization. This is the easiest way to be adopted," the doctor said. "When the time comes, the information of the adopters will be sent to you for screening, and we will return to visit regularly."

"Thank you," Li Yikai said.

The doctor waved his hand: "I should thank you. It's rare to see people who are so responsible like you. Many people save stray cats and just throw them to the hospital. They don't care about it later. The hospital has too much burden and is powerless. We kill some adult cats. With a sterilization mark, they can only be returned to the community."

Yuan Zhiming raised his head: "It's good to be willing to save."

"Yes." The doctor looked at Yuan Zhiming and always smiled kindly, "Especially because you are all allergic, it's not easy, you are all very kind people."

Yuan Zhiming was embarrassed by the praise, and quickly stepped back and grabbed Li Yikai: "I didn't do anything, it was him, and he was very nice."

Li Yikai coughed twice and pulled the mask on his face.

The doctor calculated the cost for Li Yikai again, and gave a very low discount. Yuan Zhiming wanted to pay, but Li Yikai ruthlessly refused, so he ordered five cat bags and toys from the hospital, and they could send them together when he found an adopter.

Before leaving, the supper ordered by the nurses arrived, and the fortress gave Yuan Zhiming a box of fried chicken and cakes.

Yuan Zhiming sat in the car with a full load, and the smell of fried chicken filled the whole car.

Li Yikai put on his seat belt and glanced at him several times, but fortunately Yuan Zhiming kept it upright.

Noticing the other person's eyes, Yuan Zhiming asked, "Do you want to eat?"

It is impossible for Li Yikai to eat in the car, so he laughed twice and said, "I just think it's very interesting, are you so popular everywhere?"

Yuan Zhiming is also not modest: "Yes... many people like to give me food."

Li Yikai smiled deeper silently, turned the steering wheel half a turn, and asked: "Then I will treat you to a meal too, what do you want to eat?"

"No need," Yuan Zhiming hesitated, "Will it delay your business?"

He noticed that Li Yikai's phone had been on since just now, and after thinking about it, he knew that the other party must be a busy person.

Li Yikai said steadily: "It's okay, even if I work overtime, it won't exceed 10 o'clock, and it's been 7 minutes now."

As he said that, he took off the black mobile phone from the holder and replaced it with a private one, and solemnly introduced: "No one from the company with this mobile phone number knows."

Yuan Zhiming silently thought it was cool, and hoped that one day he would be able to be so cool.

But he didn't know that Li Yikai subconsciously drove to the downstairs of Hongda shopping mall on the grounds of finding a place closer to Yuan Zhiming's residence.

The shopping mall was closed at night, and the restaurants on the street were a bit bleak. Yuan Zhiming was thinking about the fried chicken cake in his hand, so the two found a Korean restaurant that looked very authentic. Yuan Zhiming kept saying that he was not hungry. Not at all ambiguous.

Li Yikai waited for him to finish eating, then pointed out the window, the darkened shopping mall across the street - "When I was in elementary school, this was the busiest place in Jinghai City."

Yuan Zhiming looked over while drinking honey grapefruit tea: "Is this the shopping mall project you were working on during my interview?"

"..." Li Yikai froze for a moment, "You know?"

"I asked Zoe when I finished the interview." Yuan Zhiming looked at Li Yikai: "It's not that you said that I didn't know the background of the project when I drew the things myself."

There was no complaint in Yuan Zhiming's tone, but Li Yikai inexplicably felt as if he was sorry for him, and even forgot the prepared lines.

"At that time, I just thought that there is no university that does not teach business design," Li Yikai explained with a helpless smile, "and your postgraduate school pays so much attention to practicality."

"Why do you know everything..." Yuan Zhiming sighed.

Li Yikai didn't answer, just said: "You didn't study hard, right?"

"My grades are very good..." Yuan Zhiming whispered, "It's just that I haven't cultivated in this direction."

"Well, then what have you cultivated?" Li Yikai was like a persuasive teacher.

"Comics, installations, graffiti, art reviews..."

Li Yikai smiled: "It's just that there is no serious class."

"This is my business," Yuan Zhiming said seriously.

Li Yikai asked him: "Then you never thought about it, did you not find a job after learning this?"

Yuan Zhiming bowed his head and refused to answer this question.

Unable to pry open his mouth, Li Yikai continued to implement the original plan, got up and paid the bill and asked him: "Want to go there for a walk? Let me introduce to you what we practical people are doing."

Yuan Zhiming couldn't ask for more.

The main entrance of Hongda Department Store is arched, a popular style in the 90s and [-]s, with cylindrical decorative pillars on both sides, surrounded by red and green advertising signs on the bottom.

Li Yikai took Yuan Zhiming to the main entrance and introduced him to the general background.

"That's too out of harmony," Yuan Zhiming said after listening to it, looking up at the four big characters "Hongda Shopping Center" in traditional characters.

"Yes, many times when we get requests, we feel that these are whimsical," Li Yikai said while walking, "But we can't say that in front of customers. As long as their goals are not particularly unreasonable, it will be like a waste of money for us to directly reject them." Not capable enough, or not doing enough.”

Yuan Zhiming asked: "Then how can we do our best?"

Li Yikai said: "One way is to do it strictly according to the needs. If it is implemented well and can achieve 70% to 80% of the goal, it can become a qualified Party B; or it may not follow their ideas and find other ways. But we can achieve 100% or even exceed the target, so that we can become trusted advisors to our clients."

Yuan Zhiming asked, "Which one do you usually choose?"

"It doesn't matter which one you choose," Li Yikai smiled, "but I will basically exceed my goals."

His tone couldn't hide his pride, but it was completely convincing. The stars in the night sky shone with their own light, and he didn't feel guilty at all.

Yuan Zhiming looked at Li Yikai, his eyes were also bright, but soon he blinked self-deprecatingly, and said: "So the people I work with are under a lot of pressure."

"You yourself are under a lot of pressure," Yuan Zhiming told the truth, "You still think about work so late."

Putting all his pains into the bottom of the lake, Li Yikai thought that I was not planning for you.

However, Yuan Zhiming was very good, and soon asked humbly for advice: "What about this time? Have you already figured out a way?"

Li Yikai lifted his feet and led him, walked around from the main entrance, passed through a hidden passage on one side, and arrived at the back entrance of the shopping mall building.

If the main entrance and that street are the bleakness after the bustling, this place is completely desolate.

Facing an abandoned railway in the distance, the railway is higher than the horizon, blocking the view further away. Only some old residential buildings can be seen from the side. From the residential buildings, weeds extend here until the approach Under their feet was an empty concrete floor.

Yuan Zhiming quickly understood, turned around and looked at the wall behind him: "Graffiti here, the atmosphere is just right."

"Well," Li Yikai said, "and it's not just graffiti, this open space can be used to build outdoor installations, and the whole place is a photo and check-in area."

Yuan Zhiming frowned, Li Yikai seemed to know what he wanted to say, and explained: "It won't be the kind of place where Internet celebrities check in, I think it's better to continue this atmosphere and make more mysterious packaging, like... the city The Forgotten Corner or something."

Yuan Zhiming looked into the distance—there might be a bustling downtown area behind the railway, the railway used to pass trains all day long, and that residential building could be regarded as a high-end residential area back then... Now they have become unknown , and share a more unknown corner together.

He asked Li Yikai: "How did you find this place?"

Li Yikai took two steps forward, and pointed to the piece of wild grass where there was a faint low curve: "It used to be a small road leading to residential buildings. I lived in that community when I was young."

Yuan Zhiming walked over, stood in the middle of the concrete floor, and asked, "Was this place so desolate before?"

"Basically, in the past, only people in the residential area knew about this small road, and would take a shortcut to shop here," said Li Yikai, "But there were trains back then, so it wouldn't be so quiet. I often came here to watch the trains."

Yuan Zhiming painted such a picture in his mind, and he said sincerely: "I think the forgotten corner has a lot of stories."

"It's still far from the business plan," Li Yikai smiled, "The tone of this theme is a bit dark, and business centers don't want to make themselves a forgotten place, even if they are really outdated."

Yuan Zhiming stared into the distance, digesting what he said, and suddenly said after a long while:

"What if it's a secret?"

"Huh?" Li Yikai waited for him to continue.

"Forgetting is passive, while secrets are active." Yuan Zhiming slowly organized his words, "I don't want people to know about secrets, but maybe they will reveal them when they meet someone who understands them. Most people can only see shopping malls. In the front, but cool people... anyway, it's people like that who can discover this place."

When Li Yikai had an occupational disease, he didn't leave any room for romance, and quickly asked: "Will it be too personal? I mean, it seems that the relationship with places like shopping malls is a little weak."

Yuan Zhiming came back to his senses, scratched his head and smiled: "I don't know how to come up with a phrase to describe it...but I think secrets don't necessarily belong to people. Cities have their secrets, and shopping malls and grasslands also have their secrets. They are given by man."

He tried hard to find an analogy: "It's like when you came here when you were a child, you always think of something that you can't tell anyone, and that is the secret that belongs here."

Li Yikai looked at the person in front of him, and there was a sound of wind in the night. A certain string called reason in his heart was silent, and another string made a loud "thump", and the echo did not subside for a long time.

The dark night covers the old side of the city, and secrets are born in the dark corners. This place used to be facing the busiest street, but now there are only the wind and tree shadows, and two young people chatting in low voices.

Everyone has secrets.

There are many secrets in this city, but today's Li Yikai doesn't want to talk about secrets anymore.