I Cried (I Was Faking It)

The Ji family went bankrupt. On the day Ji Zhou fell from his pedestal, everyone waited to see him make a fool of himself, while reporters crowded around his home. Frowning, he took a drag on his cigarette. The smoke curled in front of his solemn face. Then he showed up at a malatang shop. "Boss, one bowl of malatang. Make it as spicy as you can." The media soon found him. The once dazzling young man looked haggard and down on his luck as he ate a bowl of roadside malatang. A reporter asked, "How are you feeling right now?" A chili had just gone down the wrong way. Ji Zhou looked at him with red-rimmed eyes and rasped, "What did you say?" Shang Qiyan and Ji Zhou had grown up together. The words Shang Qiyan heard most often as a child were, "Why can't you be more like Ji Zhou?" He especially hated how Ji Zhou always seemed so calm and indifferent, as if nothing mattered to him. But that night, Shang Qiyan watched the trending video over and over. Was Ji Zhou... crying? Ji Zhou: "I told you, I was crying because of the chili. Do you believe me?" Theme: To be added