Ever since returning from the military district, Ji Yunsheng’s life went back to its usual routine: going to work every day, then coming home to stream and play League of Legends. Months passed this way until September, when he received a wedding invitation from one of his closest childhood friends. Remembering the old days, he recalled how he and Lao Deng and other playmates used to make plans to hang out, and during their school years, they would occasionally skip class together to go to internet cafes, billiard halls, and arcade centers. By high school, some of those childhood friends stopped going to school and went away to work in other places, while others went to different schools, and they grew much less connected. Time flew by, and before they knew it, they had grown up. He never expected that after all these years, Lao Deng, one of his closest childhood friends, would be the first of them to get married.
On September 19th, Ji Yunsheng went as promised to the county seat to attend his good brother's wedding. Arriving in the county, Ji Yunsheng felt a twinge of emotion—his good buddy was actually getting married. He remembered that although Lao Deng’s mother and stepfather had provided the financial backing for him to open a hot pot restaurant, among all their old playmates, Lao Deng had always seemed the most carefree. When he reached the wedding venue specified by Lao Deng, he saw many people he hadn't seen in years. Whenever acquaintances came up to greet him, he responded and chatted with them. Once the wedding ceremony began, he watched Lao Deng and the bride exchange their vows. The bride looked very lovely, and she was moved to tears during the vows. After the vows, relatives and friends in the audience warmly congratulated the newlyweds. When Lao Deng and the bride came over to toast the family and friends and sat down at the table, everyone was chatting with them. In the middle of the conversation, Lao Deng teased, "Old Ji, aren't you planning to find a wife yet?" Ji Yunsheng could only awkwardly reply, "It's still too early, and besides, I don't have the money for it. Since I don't even have a place to live right now, finding someone would just be holding them back." Everyone laughed and steered the conversation elsewhere, dropping the subject since Lao Deng was the star of the day.
With everyone chatting and laughing away, as the wedding banquet was drawing to a close, Lao Deng spoke up again, "Don't you guys rush off when this is over; we're heading out to the club right after!" Seeing this, the others chimed in, "You got it! We won't be happy until we get you completely plastered tonight." By the time the wedding banquet ended, the sky was already growing dark, and the group headed off one after another to a KTV club to keep drinking and dancing. Once Ji Yunsheng arrived at the KTV and sat down, he didn't even know what to say. He simply watched the others dance, occasionally clinking glasses and drinking with them. After all, the music in the club was extremely loud, making it hard to hear conversation clearly, and Ji Yunsheng didn't know how to dance anyway—he only knew how to sing in the KTV private room. After sitting around drinking boredly for a couple of hours, Lao Deng got thoroughly drunk, and with that, the day's events finally came to an end.
The day after returning from Lao Deng's wedding, Ji Yunsheng resumed his routine of going to work and then streaming League of Legends after getting off. Days ticked by, and his time stationed at the checkpoint was also coming to an end. He remembered how, while working shifts at the checkpoint, he and the other militia members would occasionally chat about patriotism, sometimes even declaring, "If Japan ever starts a war again, we have to go to the battlefield and fight those Japanese." By December, pandemic restrictions underwent a major shift, and the checkpoints were successively dismantled. Ji Yunsheng had even harbored thoughts that if he ever won the lottery one day, he would have the means to pursue the person he liked. During his months at the checkpoint, he had started buying a lottery ticket every single draw. Once, he missed winning five million by just a single digit—being off by a mere number just slightly larger. Yet the heavens did not favor Ji Yunsheng; after all, the odds of winning the grand prize in the lottery were simply too low for it to happen just because he wanted it to.