We Should Break Up with Dignity

Complete

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Shu Xiangyang broke up with his girlfriend, Yan Cuo, after six years together.

But everyone thought she'd come out ahead.

Yan Cuo was the only child of a Haicheng family, 173 centimeters tall, beautiful, and a PhD student at one of the country's top universities. She was kind and considerate, too.

And there was one little-known fact about her: behind her icy expression, she was a long-suffering office drone, constantly posting comments in her head. A cool-faced, adorable little dog with an inner monologue that never stopped.

That was exactly Shu Xiangyang's type.

All things considered, with a girlfriend like that, those six years had been a win for Shu Xiangyang.

On the day they broke up, they made three agreements. In keeping with the principle that "breakups should be graceful," they decided:

"We can still be friends."

And what happened?

The cool-faced office drone started taking a detour every day to get coffee at Shu Xiangyang's shop, claiming she was "supporting a friend's business."

The shop's hypocritical female manager started timing things so she could bake bread every day and give Yan Cuo the freshest, tastiest loaf, claiming, "I'm just afraid my friend will starve to death in the lab."

Their actual friends couldn't stand it anymore. "If you care about each other so much, just get back together already."

"We're just friends!"

A few months later, when their friends spotted the matching rings on Shu Xiangyang's ring finger and exchanged strange looks, the people involved were still basking in their happiness, grinning like fools.

"Didn't you say you'd be friends?"

"You kept asking if I'd get back together with her. Now that we actually have, you're unhappy?"

Theme: Time apart can't wear love away. It only shapes it into something that fits better.