397: Chapter 397 It's nice to meet you

Beneath the ginkgo tree, the wind leaked through the gaps in the leaves, scattering dappled light across the ground.

Dan Yi stood there, his cap brim pushed up above his forehead, exposing his entire face to the September sunlight.

Those grayish-blue eyes stared at Lin Que, something extremely complex churning within his pupils,

as if he were handing over his most hidden weakness, waiting for the other person to either catch it or trample it underfoot.

Lin Que looked at him for two seconds and nodded unhurriedly.

He didn't give away anything more in his expression.

Dan Yi had prepared for many possibilities.

If the other person said they hadn't read it, he would withdraw the topic and pretend nothing had happened.

If the other person showed a polite perfunctoriness, he would immediately pull his cap brim back down and turn to leave.

This was the only one he hadn't prepared for.

A plain, simple nod.

Dan Yi opened his mouth, but the rhetoric he had prepared in advance all got stuck in his throat.

He took half a step back, his back hitting the trunk of the ginkgo tree.

The rough bark rubbed against his shoulder blades through his hoodie, a sensation that helped him regain a bit of reality.

After a few seconds of silence, Dan Yi spoke.

"Uh... your piece 'the steps', was using the first person at the beginning planned from the start, or did you change it halfway through?"

As he asked, Dan Yi's breathing even steadied a bit,

as if he had found a path for himself to retreat.

Lin Que glanced at him.

He didn't answer.

It wasn't the kind of silence that intentionally ignored someone, nor was he thinking of an answer.

Lin Que just leaned quietly against another tree, hands in his pockets, his gaze resting on Dan Yi's face, waiting.

Waiting for what?

Dan Yi didn't know.

But that waiting posture made something tightly wound deep in his heart suddenly loosen half a turn.

Because there was no curiosity in Lin Que's eyes.

There was no "what exactly are you trying to say" probing, nor the "I know you're beating around the bush" realization.

He was just there, not rushing, not asking, not applying any pressure.

It was as if he were telling Dan Yi:

If you want to talk, talk; if you don't, we can just stand here like this.

Dan Yi's Adam's apple bobbed.

The question about the narrative perspective he had just asked was like a thin sheet of paper pasted over what he truly wanted to say.

He could have maintained this layer for a long time, just like all the other layers he had maintained over the past seventeen years.

But Lin Que didn't puncture it.

Nor did he uphold it.

He just waited.

And so, that paper just shattered on its own.

"'the metamorphosis'."

Dan Yi's voice was low and hoarse, every word sounding as if it were being scraped from the depths of his throat.

"After Gregor Samsa turned into a beetle, his family's first reaction... do you remember?"

Lin Que leaned against the other tree nearby, hands in his pockets, his posture relaxed.

"Of course."

Dan Yi's voice dropped even lower.

"When his family found out, it wasn't fear."

"It was disgust!"

As he said the word "disgust," he pulled his right hand out of his hoodie pocket, his five fingers unconsciously clenching and then relaxing.

"But Gregor was still Gregor. His consciousness hadn't changed, his memories hadn't changed, and he still recognized his sister and mother.

He just grew a beetle's shell, so he's not human anymore?"

Dan Yi paused, his Adam's apple bobbing twice.

"Hell Dream Weaver's cthulhu mythos is the same.

Those fish-men hybrids, with the blood of Deep Ones flowing through them, their features deforming bit by bit."

"The way the townspeople look at them is like they're looking at a piece of rotten meat."

As he reached this point, his speaking pace suddenly became erratic.

The original deliberate rhythm was broken, words began to pour out, and he couldn't even steady his breath between sentences.

"But those hybrids know themselves; they are who they are.

They can think, they can feel pain, and they can remember what color the sunlight in the alleys was when they were little.

The only problem is that they look different."

By the end, Dan Yi's voice had almost crumbled into a whisper.

Then he stopped.

As if he had been suddenly yanked from behind.

His mouth closed, his jaw tightening.

The eyes under the cap brim quickly moved away from Lin Que's face, staring at a withered ginkgo leaf on the ground nearby.

He realized he had said too much.

Those words shouldn't have been spoken.

At least not in front of someone he had met only a few times.

He could have continued to press these things beneath his ribs, just as he had for the past seventeen years, pressing them down firmly without leaving a single crack.

Dan Yi's right hand came out of his hoodie pocket and reached for his cap brim.

This was a habitual movement for him.

Pulling the brim down, hiding his face back in the shadows, resealing the wound he had just torn open.

As his fingers touched the edge of the brim, his peripheral vision caught Lin Que's hand.

Lin Que was using his left hand to brush off a small fragment of a ginkgo leaf that had fallen on his shoulder.

After brushing it off, he put his hand back in his pocket, his back against the tree trunk, his gaze fixed on somewhere unknown.

He wasn't looking at Dan Yi.

This detail made Dan Yi's fingers pause on his cap brim.

Lin Que's attention was scattered somewhere completely unrelated to Dan Yi.

Dan Yi suddenly felt that the thing stuck in his throat wasn't so tight anymore.

When someone deliberately looks away in front of you, that's called consideration.

When someone wasn't looking much at you to begin with, that's called—

—Say whatever you want, I won't take it seriously, and I won't go around showing it to others.

Dan Yi's hand slowly lowered from his cap brim.

He stared at the withered leaf on the ground for three seconds.

Then he looked up.

"So whether it's a beetle or a Deep One hybrid..."

He paused, something transparent welling up in his grayish-blue eyes before he fiercely suppressed it.

"Once one's appearance deviates from the track of 'normal people',"

"they are destined to only be a monster, right?"

When the last few words were squeezed out of his throat, his voice was almost broken.

Lin Que didn't speak.

He stood there, his gaze resting on Dan Yi's face.

Sunlight leaked through the gaps in the ginkgo leaves, hitting Dan Yi's well-defined features.

A high nose, deep eye sockets, and skin two shades paler than his peers.

This face wouldn't cause anyone to take a second look on the streets of Moscow, but in a classroom of that small-town middle school, it was a nail.

Lin Que remembered the detail Xu Changge had just mentioned on the tree-lined path.

At the launch event, he was trembling all over and didn't say a word.

What the boy in front of him was doing was exactly the same as at the launch event.

He was enduring.

He had packaged all his grievances and confusion into an analysis of literary works,

wrapping it in layer after layer, trying to make himself look as if he were merely discussing characters in a novel.

But every "monster" he discussed was himself.

Lin Que spoke.

"A bird with a different feather color suddenly appears in a nest. Do you know what the other birds will do?"

Dan Yi froze, not expecting Lin Que to ask such a question.

"They will peck at it together."

Lin Que's voice was flat.

"Is it because that bird did something wrong? Or because it threatened someone?"

"It's purely because it looks different from the other birds, and birds, as animals, can only confirm their sense of security by excluding those who are different."

"The people who pecked at you are no different from the other birds in the nest."

Lin Que looked into Dan Yi's eyes, word by word.

"They exclude you not because there is something wrong with you."

"It's because your existence makes them realize how mediocre they are, and that realization terrifies them."

"Fear breeds aggression, and aggression disguises itself as justice. This process hasn't changed for a thousand years, from primitive tribes to modern campuses."

Dan Yi's breathing rhythm faltered.

The rise and fall of his chest was noticeably larger, but he held on, not letting his expression change at all.

His lips were still pursed, his jaw still tight. Not losing his composure in front of anyone was a habit he had cultivated since childhood.

But his eyelashes couldn't help but tremble.

The trembling was very light and fine; if one weren't standing within two meters, it wouldn't be visible at all.

Each tremor was extremely short, as if something were pushing outward from within his eye sockets, only to be held back by his entire will.

Lin Que saw the trembling.

He didn't offer any comforting expression, nor did he add any further definitions to that wound.

What needed to be said had been said.

The rest was for Dan Yi to digest himself.

Dan Yi's body swayed.

The movement was slight, his soles grinding half an inch against the concrete, but he quickly steadied himself.

He lowered his head, the shadow of his cap brim once again covering most of his face.

Both hands were clenched in his hoodie pockets; even through the fabric, one could see his knuckles exerting force.

The silence lasted for a long time.

Ginkgo leaves drifted down from overhead, landing on the concrete between them and being pushed half a foot away by the wind.

Dan Yi looked up.

Solemnly, he gave Lin Que a nod.

Like someone who didn't know how to shake hands, he completed a formal greeting in the clumsiest way he could think of.

Then Dan Yi turned around and started walking toward the tree-lined path.

Five steps.

Six steps.

Seven steps.

His footsteps paused for a moment.

"Lin Que, it was nice to meet you."

The words came from the direction his back was facing.

His northern accent dragged out the end of the word for "meet," sounding a bit awkward,

as if he had rehearsed the sentence several times in his throat but still hadn't found a tone he was satisfied with.

Having said that, he immediately quickened his pace.

Lin Que stood under the ginkgo tree, watching the thin figure walk away quickly.

The hoodie's hood swayed gently in the wind, and his thin shoulders pushed the fabric into two sharp points.

From that angle, he looked a bit lonely, but his back was straight and his steps were steady.

Lin Que withdrew his gaze and let out a soft sigh.

People who have their thorns pointing outward are often softer than anyone else on the inside.

However, these matters weren't for him to air out on Dan Yi's behalf.

He had to walk his own path.

Lin Que stood under the ginkgo tree for a while longer, until the figure completely disappeared into the shadows at the corner of the teaching building.

The September wind blew through the treetops, carrying a dry scent of vegetation; it was neither cold nor hot, just enough to pull one out of a heavy mood.

The phone in his pocket suddenly vibrated four times in a row, scattering the last remnants of the mood.

Lin Que pulled out his phone, and a string of messages popped up on the screen.

The moment the sender's name jumped into his view, the corner of his mouth twitched.

[Fugitive Beethoven]: [Image]

[Fugitive Beethoven]: [FrozenStupid.jpg]

The first one was a photo.

Ye Xi was wrapped in a thick-looking gray scarf, revealing only her two eyes and a tuft of wind-blown hair, with the exit of Beijing South Station in the background.

The second was a shivering rabbit emoji, with the words "Frozen Stupid" floating above its head.

Immediately following.

[Fugitive Beethoven]: "Are Beijingers really this cold-resistant? Are people who wear short sleeves at the end of September even human??"

[Fugitive Beethoven]: "The wind slapped me in the face the second I left the station, and my suitcase wheels got stuck. I feel like this city is evicting me."

Lin Que leaned back against the tree trunk and typed with one hand.

"Welcome to the capital, Southern Little Potato."

"Advance warning: there are dust storms next month. Then you can experience the Beijing 'local' specialty—a mouthful of sand."

Three seconds after the message was sent, the other side replied instantly with a bristling rabbit emoji and the caption: You just wait.

Then a fifth message popped up.

[Fugitive Beethoven]: "By the way, the first thing I do in Beijing isn't checking in at the competition venue."

[Mu Xia]: "[Confused]"

[Fugitive Beethoven]: "It's to settle the score with you!"

...