"That"s not cool man!"
Meng Fan watched as the "message sent successfully" notification pop-up appeared on his screen. Regretting it wouldn"t do any good now, he thought. He nervously looked at his cell phone screen.
Bzz.
The first reply came suddenly. "Bro, did you get the wrong number?!"
Closely, another followed. "Stop joking darling."
The third. "Is today April Fools?"
The fourth. "Wrong number."
The fifth. "Did you lose a game, and this is your punishment?"
Seven more continuous responses all contained the same content.
He glanced at his progress. If n.o.body rejected him, then his score wouldn"t grow. Meng Fan was desperate.
He had to give it one last try.
For the sake of progress, he would have to be even more shameless.
"I didn"t get it mixed up, I"m not joking, be my girlfriend!"
Individually, he responded to their messages. Meng Fan refused to believe with these tactics that n.o.body would reject him.
Sure enough, rejection came.
There were euphemistic ones. "It"s been a while since I"ve seen you, so you probably don"t know my situation, I already have a boyfriend, so... Thank you for your feelings."
There were straightforward ones. "I"m afraid we aren"t compatible. (Goodbye Emoji)"
And even more straightforward ones. "You"re so fat, you don"t stand a chance with me!"
Reject me if you will, but why attack my weight!
Meng Fan was... ecstatic! He saw his progress chart grew to 15. "This is efficient. How great!"
Of course, there were ones that straight-up ignored him, or else he would have more progress.
Bzz Bzz Bzz.
More responses came. Similar to the previous wave, they mostly suspected that Meng Fan was playing a cruel joke or was sending to a wrong number, with a few rejecting him upfront.
Towards the doubtful ones, Meng Fan shamelessly informed them he was not mistaken or joking, only to deceive a proper rejection from them.
"We are not compatible."
"I like someone else."
"You"re a great guy, but we can"t be together."
"I always saw you as a friend."
"Stop joking, can you even give me a bright future?"
"Uhm, I"m not into men."
"I"m not ready to be in a relations.h.i.+p."
"We are not fated to be."
"I have no feelings toward you."
"What part of me do I like, can"t I just change myself?"
"I think when girls search for men they don"t necessarily search for attractive ones, but rather a person they like... Uhm, I prefer attractive ones."
These rejections in comparison were still very gentle.
If gentle replies existed, then there were also cruel responses.
"Sorry, I want my kid to be attractive."
"Sorry, even though I am thirsty, I don"t want to eat c.r.a.p."
"Sorry, I"m afraid of grease."
"You"re too fat, I don"t want to be crushed."
"I"m not in your league, your intentions are too great... A toad trying to eat swan meat!"
"Did you know, I"m a Virgo, so I"m a bit strict, and you"re too loose."
"Crows hover over ancient trees, you"re ugly but I"m not blind."
"I"ve received your confession, but I don"t want to discuss it. There are so many other men in this world. I want to test my luck. Go home and await my news."
"GET LOST!"
If it weren"t for his rapidly growing progress chart, Meng Fan"s fragile heart would have been shattered a million times already.
And there was more.
"Meng you fatso, did you forget to take your meds? Fei Fei is right next to me, you confess to both of us at the same time, and still, you have the nerve to say you aren"t joking! Fatty you"ve changed, you used to be such an honest child. Now you have learned to cast your net so wide. Hahaha, the university is really a place of reform. Now, look at what you"ve become." This came from a good female friend from high school.
"Before I knew you were an incel, but I didn"t know you were this flirty. All four girls in my dorm received your confession. Did your cell phone get a virus or did your man parts get poisoned? How many girls do you need to cure your disease?" This came from a domineering girl from cla.s.s.
"Although there"s no law restricting relatives from dating, but as your younger cousin I think this is a little too intense! Brother, you"re so coquettish, aren"t you afraid of aunty and uncle finding out?" This was Meng Fan"s second cousin Meng Cai Tang.
"Jesus!"
This was one person he had to admit he was mistaken to.
"Wrong number? So you"re saying you have someone you like? Woo, you already confessed, are you just tooting your own horn because you succeeded, or preparing to attack? Where"s my sister in law, is she your cla.s.smate? What does she look like? Send me a pic I"ll speculate for you..."
Even after he explained, the mess he made could not be controlled so rumors started to spread.
Outside of these confessions, Meng Fan sent a solemn apology to everyone else"s response and rejection saying, "Sorry for causing trouble."
Bzz Bzz Bzz.
Not long after, a call came.
"Tang Tang is asking me if you already found a girlfriend?"
From the other end, Meng Fan heard an excited voice of a girl.
Meng Fan"s head inflated in size. "This d.a.m.n girl"s mouth is too d.a.m.n big!"
"Does this mean she"s real?"
"Fake."
"For Real?"
"For real."
"So it"s real?"
"I meant for real that it"s fake."
"Then are you for real or not?"
"Can you stop bugging me, mom? I don"t have a girlfriend."
"Oh okay... Do you have enough money to spend? Do you need me to wire you some more?"
"I have enough. Mom, I"m at the library, I"ll call you later."
"Really you have enough?"
"Yes, really I have enough."
"Aiyoo, you"ve got enough money huh, seems like you really don"t have a girlfriend."
Across the receiver, Meng Fan heard his mom"s disappointment as she hung up the phone.
Meng Fan almost spat out a mouthful of blood.
Right after his call with his mom ended, another one rang in. It was from Zhang Zhou Wei.
"You dumba.s.s! Are you sick of living? w.a.n.g Ya Nan is my girlfriend. What the h.e.l.l are you trying to do by confessing to her? Don"t you want to be bros anymore is that it?"
Zhang Zhou Wei was fuming from the other end of the phone; anger was evident in his words. Even from across the receiver, Meng Fan felt his nostrils was flaring with hot air.
"w.a.n.g Ya Nan?"
Meng Fan tapped his head and was rus.h.i.+ng to explain: "Wrong number! Wrong number! Wait, when did you two get together? Just now you were going on a date, did you successfully confess?"
"Of course, who would confess if they weren"t confident in the situation! Wait. Stop… stop changing the topic! You said you sent it to the wrong person, do you not know how to b.l.o.o.d.y recall a message?"
Zhang Zhou Wei evidently was not convinced.
"I only realized long after sending it, it"s too late to recall!" Meng Fan explained once again.
Meng Fan recalled his texts. After confirming that w.a.n.g Ya Nan didn"t respond to his first message, he found out that he didn"t send her a "This is not a mistake or a joke" or a text of that sort.
"Phew." He let out a sigh.
"It probably was a wrong message. Xiao Bai says she received his confession, so maybe it was meant for Xiao Bai."
Meng Fan heard the girl"s voice on the other end. w.a.n.g Ya Nan seemed to have believed his explanation.
Again, her voice appeared, and it was even more suspecting than before, "What? Che Che also received Meng Fan"s confession?"
"Fatty, what"s going on?" Zhang Zhou Wei"s voice rang through again. "You"ve got some serious problems man. Where are you? I"ll come and find you!"
Meng Fan hung up the phone while scratching his head.
When he sent the ma.s.s text, Meng Fan had already prepared for this outcome. After all, most of these girls knew each other in cl.u.s.ters and cl.u.s.ters. There was no guarantee they wouldn"t babble.
What could he do?
Not much.
At most, he would be known as that mischievous guy—the pervert—or the pa.s.sionate sc.u.mbag.
As those thoughts crossed his mind, Meng Fan became uneasy once again.
After being reborn, all he wanted was to be in a relations.h.i.+p, but G.o.d, he didn"t see this coming; who in their right mind would ever want to be with him now?
What did it mean for a plan to backfire? This was it.
But after seeing his total progress grow to 55, it once again felt worth it.
There were more than half of the ma.s.s text recipients who still hadn"t responded, which upset Meng Fan a bit. Was it because he was regularly such a great person that they didn"t have the heart to say no?