Chapter 51: Exclusive to Jinjiang 1/2

Song Fuzhi felt that he had never encountered such a bizarre thing in his life.

But he had undeniably seen a spectacular number of cosplay costumes in Shi Zhang’s room, and two pieces hung conspicuously, characters Song Fuzhi was familiar with, seen cosplayed by more than one person at conventions.

Even if he only looked for a second or two, it was hard to be mistaken.

Song Fuzhi sat on the sofa, his brain going blank.

Although objectively seeing is believing, it was still hard to accept rationally.

Shi Zhang, the esteemed professor, is collecting so many cosplay costumes at home.

He even felt like he might be hallucinating.

Song Fuzhi subconsciously looked at the door he had just closed, feeling a magnetic pull from there.

At this moment, this door emitted a gravitational force far higher than the center of the earth, making Song Fuzhi eager to get closer and take another look inside.

Song Fuzhi knew that Teacher Song was a person with a sense of boundaries, respecting others’ spaces, disliking being intruded upon, and not wanting to intrude on others.

But now he was itching to do it, wanting to make an exception.

Shi Zhang hadn’t locked that door, and he had never said not to go there, so perhaps it was permissible to enter?

At least Shi Zhang wouldn’t mind being seen; he knew Song Fuzhi would come frequently to feed the birds, and if anything was needed, any room might be entered.

Song Fuzhi chanted apologies in his mind: sorry, just one more look, just one look.

Despite his inner struggle, Song Fuzhi opened the door again.

This time, Song Fuzhi stood at the door for a long time, just looking at the clothes filling the entire room—enough to shock him for half his life.

After a pause, Song Fuzhi mechanically took a step inside.

Just this one step, not any further.

Song Fuzhi looked directly at the closest hanger to him, and that outermost set of clothes was too familiar to him.

Black light armor, two black belts around the waist, and beneath the clothes, there was a silver wig neatly stored in a transparent sealed bag.

Why was Song Fuzhi so familiar with it? Because this was the character Teacher Zhang cosplayed at the last convention he attended.

Song Fuzhi stood in front of this set of clothes for an even longer time.

He didn’t reach out to touch, not even take a step closer, but his keen eyes allowed him to read a small label hanging on the hanger.

It contained three lines of information.

The first line was a date.

The second line was the character’s name.

The third line was a sentence: “At the Deep City Comic Con, unless something unexpected happens, this will be my last time cosplaying. Gatherings and partings have their time, and I have no regrets on this journey.”

Song Fuzhi also remembered the date in the first line; it was the day of the convention.

For some reason, Song Fuzhi suddenly thought of the glacial period in geology, where ice and snow covered vast continents and the entire Earth was frozen.

Song Fuzhi now felt like an eternal ice cap.

But at the same time, he felt the deep interior was swelling, magma surging, scorching, and burning, as if it were about to erupt.

Song Fuzhi took a deep breath, but it took a long time to exhale.

He shifted his gaze to the second piece of clothing hanging on the nearby side. If he remembered correctly, it was also a piece Teacher Zhang had posted on Weibo.

Song Fuzhi silently took out his phone, opened the long-unused Weibo app, and clicked into Teacher Zhang’s profile that he hadn’t carefully reviewed for a long time.

Scrolling backward from the latest works, for every Weibo post Song Fuzhi read, he could find the corresponding clothes on the hanger in order, five or six in a row, until the clothes in the front were covered.

By now, there was no need for further speculation.

Arranging all the clothes by date, neatly and securely stored—this was indeed something Professor Shi would do.

Song Fuzhi shifted his gaze to the other side, where the clothes hanging were obviously more dated. Some were even faded or had subtle deformations.

The set of clothes at the very front on this side looked very simple and extremely worn out, almost to the point of being ragged.

Unlike a complete outfit bought directly, it seemed someone had manually added many details to it, making Song Fuzhi realize that this was the costume of a character from an old series over twenty years ago.

The label on this piece of clothing was yellowed, and the words on it were handwritten with a black water pen, elegant and beautiful but with a hint of childishness between the strokes. Over time, the handwriting had become somewhat blurred.

The first line indicated a distant year, and Song Fuzhi felt a moment of confusion looking at the date.

After calculating for a while, the math teacher finally figured out that at that time, he seemed to be in junior high school.

At that time, Shi Zhang was probably just graduating from junior high school, and the culture of two-dimensional animation was still very niche in China.

Song Fuzhi stood at the door of the room, feeling the waves of time and a more intense, indescribable emotion.

After just a few steps in the room, Song Fuzhi didn’t need to go any further. Regardless of whether he believed it or not, regardless of how shocked he was, reality was already in front of him.

No wonder Professor Shi had such a perfect figure; no wonder his friends needed brushes and makeup; and no wonder shortly after his marriage to Shi Zhang, Teacher Zhang announced his retirement from the online community.

The fact proved that Song Fuzhi’s initial perception was correct, and the seemingly incredible story had happened in a way that was heartbreaking.

Song Fuzhi closed the door of the room and sat alone on the sofa.

He carefully examined Teacher Zhang’s works again, from his face to his body, not missing any details.

He had never connected these two people with such distinct qualities and dimensions, so it didn’t feel like it.

But now, knowing they were the same person, the more Song Fuzhi looked, the more real it seemed, and he felt like he must be visually impaired. How could he not see this? How could he not recognize his own husband?

Probably because Shi Zhang had a soft appearance with no prominent features. Yet, it was precisely this lack of distinctive facial features that made his face highly malleable.

Through makeup and a small amount of retouching, the characters could be almost perfectly recreated, making it difficult to see his bare face.

However, now, as Song Fuzhi observed carefully, the charm in the corners of his eyes and eyebrows was hard to erase. The more he looked, the more he felt that this was the real Shi Zhang.

As for why Shi Zhang didn’t tell him about his years of cosplay, it was not hard to understand. After all, they initially just wanted to live together with no emotional demands.

Moreover, people in their thirties might be afraid that their partners wouldn’t accept this kind of youthful hobby, so he chose to retire directly and immerse himself entirely in the three-dimensional world.

Song Fuzhi sighed, unsure if he felt regret or thought fate was playing tricks on him. After a while, he laughed again, propping his head with his hand.

The rain outside gradually stopped, and the little falcons resumed their cheerful chirping.

Song Fuzhi had an impulse; now, he wanted to scream along with them.

He thought that if he were someone who wasn’t particularly interested in two-dimensional culture, someone who neither liked nor disliked it, upon opening his husband’s room and seeing a room full of cosplay clothes, his first reaction would probably be shock. Then he might get angry, wondering why the other person spent so much money on this.

But Song Fuzhi had silently loved two-dimensional culture since he was young. What’s more frustrating was that Teacher Zhang was a colleague he had admired for a long time, purely because of his good figure.