Schrödinger has nothing to do with global warming.

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I met Old Xia on the same day I met Su Xia.

Since I was a child, I felt I had a superpower that I called "female insulation." It wasn't insulation in the literal sense; rather, I discovered that wherever I was, there would never be any pretty girls. From elementary school to junior high, others might just think it was bad luck. But I changed schools five times in elementary school and four times in junior high, and the same treatment every time led me to deep reflection. The girl next door was always the beauty of the class, and while the boys in our class were crying and screaming about how unfair it was, I didn't dare tell them it might be because of me.

Once, a girl who was beautiful enough to dazzle anyone sat next to me on a plane. I thought fate was finally smiling at me, so I smiled back. As it turned out, the girl smiled and said, "Excuse me, could you let me swap seats with my boyfriend? We were separated."

I always thought this joke was too cruel. On the first morning of high school, I pointed at the sky in a chuunibyou fashion and said, "If God really exists, I dare you to make me never meet a pretty girl for the rest of my life."

Then I met Su Xia. So I always felt that Su Xia was fate's compensation to me. Her jet-black hair was coiled into a bun, and a thin silver thread rested on her slender neck. Without a doubt, Su Xia was beautiful, so without a doubt, superficial me would like her.

There was certainly no shortage of people confessing to Su Xia. But no matter who confessed, I had the determination to fight them head-on at that time; after all, I was already convinced that this was fate's arrangement.

Except for Old Xia, a child favored by fate just like me.

Old Xia's appearance made me firmly believe that female insulation was real. Because he gave this situation the same name as I did. I can't forget the teary eyes and the feeling of meeting a kindred spirit when we talked about this topic.

So, only in the case of Old Xia's confession, I couldn't compete.

In my chat history with Su Xia, if you search for "give up," there is one record. It was the night Su Xia broke up. Old Xia asked me to help him propose to Su Xia. I asked Su Xia when she gave up on Old Xia, and Su Xia said she felt Old Xia was more suitable as a friend.

"What if it were marriage?" I pressed.

"With him? Childish, careless, and silly..." She suddenly stopped, perhaps realizing these weren't actually flaws. About ten minutes passed. I stood downstairs at Su Xia's place, watching her light flicker, and finally prepared to leave. Just as I organized a sentence to send, she said,

"And you?"

"When did you give up on me?"

I deleted the message in the chat window: "Old Xia said he decided to marry you the first time he saw you," one character at a time.

One sentence was like a time tunnel: the 4:00 AM phone calls, the hand-copied "You Are the April of This World," the changing traffic lights under the overpass, the cherry frozen in Sprite in winter, the cola brought along in summer, and watching "Love Letter" together in a dim room.

Scene after scene filled with guilt flashed before my eyes.

I felt like a prisoner kneeling in the snow before execution, suddenly recalling a lifetime of sins the moment I bowed my head. Su Xia's expressions—happy, pretending to be angry, silly, cute, sad, and most often, calm—appeared in every scene. Then she personally unfastened my shackles and asked me:

"When did you give up on me?"

Old Xia said, "Why don't you be my girlfriend? Although I'm very handsome, you're not bad either."

[The other party recalled a message]

[You recalled a message]

I brought a strawberry cake to apologize to Old Xia and Su Xia. While eating, she said, "Can you stop giving Old Xia these dangerous plans in the future?" Su Xia told me she was wearing sandals at the time and couldn't run at all. Fortunately, it wasn't completely deserted there, otherwise, tomorrow's news might have been about a high school girl being torn apart by wild dogs.

I said this had scientific backing: when a person crosses a suspension bridge while feeling nervous, their heart rate will involuntarily speed up. If there is another person by their side at this time, they will mistake the increased heart rate caused by this situation as being caused by the other person, thus developing feelings of love for them.

"You spend all your time researching these things, yet you still don't have a girlfriend. But I couldn't tell—Old Xia, who is so timid, would actually say, 'Let me run first, I'll cover the rear.' Although he looked a bit pathetic when he ran away and even lost his phone before the dog was even scared for three seconds."

"There's no need to explain those ugly moments to San'er in such detail." Old Xia walked in with a new phone, the screen showing a pair of sandals exactly like Su Xia's.

"Look, the latest model, softened, so your feet won't get scratched even if you run."

"Who wears these shoes to run?" She said, feeding Old Xia a bite of cake.

This confession wasn't completely useless, I thought to myself. Then I lowered my head to work on a physics problem about a toy car being sent onto a rough ring by a conveyor belt. I made a note next to the problem: only the energy difference between the initial and final states needs to be considered; considering the intermediate process is redundant.

On the day Su Xia started dating, I invited Old Xia to drink at a barbecue stall by the bridge.

Old Xia said he didn't understand. If being with her was a task in a game—killing monsters to level up, fetching water, and cooking—what part did I fail to complete? It was just some young kid who popped up out of nowhere, picked up a flower on the side of the road, and completed the task.

After saying that, he looked at me. "Even if Su Xia were with you, I would happily bless you both, but I don't understand why it's him. And I don't understand why you aren't hurt at all. You like Su Xia too, right?"

I didn't speak, just drank. Old Xia said the bridge was so high and the water so rapid.

I said he was drunk, and anyone who dies for love is a fool. "Do you think I'm like you, getting trapped by love so easily?"

We were both drunk that day, walking unsteadily on the empty streets. Old Xia acted like a madman, suddenly shouting, "Su Xia, I love you!" He even pulled me along, saying it would feel better if I shouted it out too.

I certainly wouldn't do something so stupid, which is also why I envy Old Xia. In my opinion, people with a few screws loose can usually find more happiness.

My tolerance for alcohol is much better than Old Xia's. I took a taxi to his house first. When he got out, he told me he had decided that after today, he would officially give up on Su Xia and sincerely bless them both.

I waved for him to leave quickly and told him not to make up his mind too early—they would break up.

I have always loved being a tragic figure, probably influenced by my adolescent chuunibyou phase, dreaming of being the one who saves the world without anyone knowing.

It's just that even someone with Old Xia's brain could figure it out; there's no reason Su Xia wouldn't know.

During the college entrance exam, Old Xia and I had similar scores, while Su Xia had twenty-something points more than us. Then she just sent me the password and told me to fill in the same choices.

Then she specifically told me that she really wanted to stay with us in college. She told me not to think about useless things.

She said I was worth loving.

She said I didn't always have to keep myself in a safe position, where naturally, if I didn't get close, I wouldn't have to take responsibility or get hurt. But she said I was worth receiving love. People who are afraid to show their true hearts to others will never perceive the true hearts of others. If you like something, you should have the courage to shout it out loud.

"I really suspect Old Xia's view on love was learned from children's books. It's not that I'm complaining, but using him to describe the emotional intelligence of a STEM guy is a smear on STEM guys. For his graduation gift, he gave me a hammer—not the Sichuan dialect kind, just the hammer he made during his metalworking internship. And a Pikachu night light, the light comes out of the eyes, the eyes! And you can adjust the color, there's red, red! Hey, San, San? Are you listening?"

I pulled my thoughts back and realized Su Xia had been complaining about Old Xia for a long time.

"Looks like your dating life is going well."

"Too childish."

"Then how about being with me? I'll steal electric scooters to support you?"

"No, I don't want a husband who spends 300 days a year in a detention center."

"Hahaha, as expected, you're not a little girl I can easily trick anymore."

"I actually quite liked your confession before."

"My confession?"

"Yeah, with Old Xia's acting skills, I knew he went to find you the moment he opened his mouth."

"Then you too, it must have been hard not to expose him after knowing."

"Well, I'm quite understanding. Speaking of which, you thought of so many ways to confess, don't you regret not using any of them on yourself during your college life?"

"Not at all, I think it's just right."

"Turns out ordinary life and dating are so different. I even prepared to buy a bunk bed when we got married—be a couple when we're on good terms, and be bunk-bed brothers when we fight. I didn't expect that, dating is really..."

"Su Xia said your view on love was learned from children's books."

"That's why I'm here asking for your advice."

"You can't always rely on me. You should be more careful. Su Xia is so smart, how could she not know you came to find me? Could it be that she's with you because you used my confession?"

"Then what should I do?"

"I saw the news today that it snowed on this day twenty-two years ago, but now the temperature is 35 degrees. Experts can't answer why, only saying it might be global warming."

"But it definitely doesn't have much to do with global warming."

"Just keep up your STEM-style romance. If I were you, I'd definitely carve her name on that hammer. By the way, that expert even said it had something to do with quantum mechanics."

"As expected of an expert, what does global warming have to do with Schrödinger?"