Chapter One Hundred and One: A mind without censorship sees nothing censored, but a censored mind finds censorship in everything it beholds

What a plain and uneventful day.
Not exactly—today was the Gaokao, one of those big, solemn days.
But it had nothing to do with Bai Qingming’s little “egg business,” just a casual aside.

Dumb Little Sister had gone out to buy groceries, and Bai Qingming was home alone, bored to the marrow.
He wondered whether Douyin’s recommendation engine had simply gone haywire.
Lately it had hardly suggested any black-tights content to him.
He searched manually and found Electric Mouse had been blocked again.

After some trouble he found other influencers who liked black tights, but the moment he saw the first one, a pair of thick black-tights-covered legs flashed through his mind—that was Wang’s old “baby.”
In a split second, all his interest drained away.

At that very moment, he noticed that Old Wang had just added him to a chat group.
The group was called “Expert Driver Lane,” and what a name that was—enough to tell you exactly what it was.
As expected, every moment he peeked inside, explicit images were flying and video links kept coming without pause.
Of course, once opened, many were heavily censored.

“Posting this kind of stuff—what if a minor catches it? Isn’t that harmful?” Bai Qingming muttered, suddenly full of moral virtue.
They say it’s true: if your mind is clear of censorship, nothing is censored; if your mind is censored, everything is.
For the health of minors, he watched every single video to the end.
As he watched, he gave running commentary out loud.

A wife alone at home, a boss and subordinate in the office, a woman teacher lecturing her students—
the plots were terrible; from the start you could tell where they would end.
By the time they were over, he felt only boredom.
The stories were poor, the positions dull, the heroine’s acting duller still; the fake smile of joy was obvious at once, and in the end the women looked ordinary enough—nothing stirred desire.

He couldn’t hold himself back.

In the group he typed:
“This is what you’ve got to post? It made me drowsy just reading the titles. Do you have anything even slightly better?”

He waited, but no one paid him real attention. Everyone was busy with their own chatter:
“Good men be safe forever, thanks for sharing.”
“Let’s go, everyone, gogogo!”
“Check-in. See you guys tomorrow.”

Reading those messages, Bai Qingming was speechless.
“A pack of amateurs—don’t even know what quality looks like.”

Then, just then, a friend request arrived from the group owner.
He had no idea why the man had found him, but curiosity got the better of him, so he accepted and sent back a question mark.
The reply came quickly:

“Bro, there are so many in the group, but only you can tell what’s good. Those clips are weak. I’ve got a batch of collector editions, stuff you won’t find online. Want some? Not free—thirty yuan, all together.”

Bai Qingming stayed silent.
“Think it over, bro. Really worth every coin.”
No reply came, so the man pressed again.

“Then tell me, do you want to sell or not? Final price, ten yuan! I’ll take the lot.”

Bai Qingming stared at the screen.
His own material was even rarer than collector’s editions, pure limited-edition, and this guy was trying to buy it for ten?
Who in this world finds anything that cheap?

So he stopped bothering with him and looked back at the Expert Driver Lane group.
With the authorities cracking down hard on pornography lately, a group like this would be shut down sooner or later.
He made up his mind: stay in the group and wait for the moment it got closed.
Yes—done and decided.
He could swear he hadn’t remained for the content, only because he had never seen what a real soon-to-be-shut group looked like.

At worst he’d stop speaking from then on and just keep watching. That should keep trouble at bay.
If anything happened later, he wouldn’t even be blamed—he could always say he had no idea when he joined.
A fine escape route. Very clear-headed.

Not long after, Dumb Little Sister came back from shopping.
The moment she walked in, she set down the vegetables and meat in her arms by his side.
“Come look, come look—I've got something good.”

She pulled a plain notebook from her bag and held it up.
Just an ordinary notebook, the kind every stationery shop sells.
Bai Qingming stared at it for a while, puzzled.
A torn old notebook like that, and this is a “good thing”?

“Were you poor as a kid and couldn’t afford a school notebook?” he teased.
“Don’t you dare underestimate it,” she replied.

She suddenly put on a mysterious face and went on:
“On my way back, I passed a second-hand stall. Everything used there was sold for ten, but this notebook was fifty, so I asked why. The owner said it was a magic notebook.”

“How magical?”

“He said the magic is on the last page,” she said. “He refused to explain more; once he said it out loud, it wouldn’t be magic anymore. I had to buy it and read it myself. But he warned me: after bringing it home, don’t open it for two hours, or something terrifying would happen.”

She said this with such seriousness that Bai Qingming felt genuine interest.
It sounded like fantasy.
He was eager to see what the last page contained, but she stopped him—two hours hadn’t passed yet.

So they waited.

Second by second, those two hours stretched like two years.
At last the time came.

Bai Qingming was the first to open the final page.
In the next instant—

He sucked in a breath, eyes wide open, face changing at once.
Whether it was shock or surprise, he looked downright strange.

His sister, who did not understand, frowned in confusion.
“It’s been two hours already—nothing scary should have happened. Why that face?”

“What’s written there?” she asked.

“You better not look,” Bai Qingming said, as he finally regained his composure.

The air suddenly turned heavy.
His serious expression only made her more curious.

“I’m going to read it anyway!”
Curiosity kills cats, and there’s no worse thing than making you do the one thing you’re told not to.

She snatched the notebook from his hands and turned to the last page.
After reading what was there, she went still—no, she went completely blank.

In neat little print it said:

“Suggested retail price: two yuan.”