18: Chapter 18 Ten Years

The desk lamp with its slightly scorched lampshade edge stood quietly on the desk, emitting the warm light he had dreamed of day and night.

"Jiang Lin, are you up? Go wash your face and brush your teeth, breakfast will be ready soon."

Mom's voice came from outside the door.

The moment he heard those words, something in his chest contracted violently, like a piece of metal stored in an extremely low-temperature environment for too long, suddenly put back into room temperature, its internal stress redistributing, producing a barely audible, subtle vibration.

He knew this voice.

He had known this voice for too long.

During the first two years on the Wasteland, every time it was coldest at night, he would play this voice back in his mind inside his sleeping bag. It wasn't intentional; it was automatic, like some kind of thermal insulation mechanism activated by the brain in an extreme environment, warming himself with the most familiar voice in his memory.

By the fifth year, he thought he had grown used to her not being around.

By the seventh year, he thought he had worn down this yearning, grinding it into something low-intensity, persistent, like the wind of the Wasteland—always present but no longer stinging.

Now she was just outside the door, separated by a bedroom door lined with soundproofing cotton strips, her voice piercing through clearly, exactly the same as ten years ago.

Jiang Lin found his eyes starting to sting.

"I'm up."

He spoke, and it was his own voice, but the moment it came out of his throat, he froze for a second because he hadn't spoken to another person for too long.

On the Wasteland, he also spoke, lecturing on lenzs law to the inner wall of his tent, talking to himself in the potato patch, and telling the Moss on that rock that it looked pretty good.

But those words had no audience; once the voice went out, it was torn apart by the wind and swallowed by the wilderness, leaving no echoes whatsoever.

Now that he had spoken three words, the patter of Mom's slippers stepping on the tiles came from outside the door, followed by the sound of the faucet being turned on, and then the click-click-click of the electronic lighter when the gas stove was ignited.

Someone responded.

Not with words, but with actions, with sound, responding to him with the fact that she was alive, present, and currently making breakfast for him.

Jiang Lin stood in the bedroom and didn't move immediately.

He needed a little time.

He lowered his head and looked at his hands.

Just like before his return, his body was intact, without any traces left by the Wasteland.

That illness that had begun to erode his lungs was wiped to zero.

The thick calluses on his palms left by ten years of turning the soil were wiped to zero.

Having eaten coarse grains and salty bean paste on the Wasteland for ten years, losing nearly ten pounds of weight—all wiped to zero.

Now standing in the bedroom, he possessed the body of an eighteen-year-old high school senior, with delicate skin, joints free of calluses, and clean lungs.

But the person housed inside had already spent ten years alone in another world.

He raised his head and looked at the full-length mirror on the wardrobe.

The self in the mirror was naked, eighteen years old, a high school senior, with faint dark circles under his eye sockets and a few strands of hair stubbornly sticking up.

Well, after nearly ten years on the Wasteland, all the clothes he had brought over were worn to shreds.

He had transmigrated back naked.

Jiang Lin stared at himself in the mirror for a very long time.

There was no red soil on his hands, no mud in his fingernails, and his palms were smooth.

There were no calluses and scars forged by ten years of farming.

The body was an eighteen-year-old body, no longer burning with fever, no longer tired, no longer in pain.

His kidneys were intact, his lips weren't chapped, and his eyes weren't blurred.

Eighteen years old, it's truly wonderful!

He knew that face, but the way he knew it had changed.

In the past, when facing this face, what he felt was exhaustion and anxiety, that breathless weight crushed down by a grade ranking that was too low.

Now, facing this face, what he felt was a strange sense of detachment, like looking through a layer of glass at someone he knew very well but hadn't seen in a long time.

This face had never aged in the Real World because it was reset every time he returned, but the person behind the mirror had walked through ten years of wind and sun on another timeline, walked through more than four thousand sunrises and sunsets, and walked through countless nights solving problems facing a camping lamp in a small stone hut.

He reached out and touched his own face in the mirror.

The glass was cool.

He put on clean, warm clothes and walked out of the bedroom.

"Did you stay up late again last night? Your eyes are as red as that."

Jiang Lin stood at the kitchen doorway, looking at Mom's back.

She had gotten a little fatter, her apron strings digging into her waist.

Her hair was much whiter than in his memory.

It hadn't turned white all at once in the single minute he had left.

Rather, he hadn't looked closely at her hair before leaving.

"Mom."

"Hmm?"

He opened his mouth.

He wanted to say a lot.

The words accumulated over ten years had been spoken to the wind on the Wasteland, spoken to potatoes, and spoken to Sun Ming's phantom.

Now the person was right in front of him.

"It's nothing, just feeling so, so hungry."

Mom turned back to look at him, a trace of suspicion flashing in her eyes, then turned back to continue serving the porridge.

"If you're hungry, hurry up and go wash your face and brush your teeth, the porridge will be ready soon."

Jiang Lin didn't move.

He stood there, watching Mom's movements of serving the porridge.

The porridge was scooped from the pot and fell into the bowl, steam rising.

Steam like white mist—he hadn't seen it for ten years.

Dad walked over from the living room holding a teacup and glanced at him.

"Jiang Lin, why are your eyes so red? Didn't you sleep well?"

Jiang Lin turned his head and looked at Dad.

Dad's shoulders seemed not as broad anymore.

Clearly, when he was a child, they felt like a mountain that could block everything.

"Dad."

"Hmm."

"It's nothing, just went to sleep a bit late."

Jiang Lin stood at the bathroom doorway for three seconds.

A small piece of the wooden veneer on the door frame was warped, its edges worn until they shone.

Ten years ago, he went in and out of this door every day without ever noticing that warped piece of wooden veneer.

Now he saw it.

Every texture, every abrasion, every bit of stain accumulated over the years rushed clearly into his eyes.

It was as if someone had turned up the world's resolution by double.

Coming out of the bathroom after washing up, he sat down at the dining table.

The porridge was served.

A white porcelain bowl; there was an extremely fine crack along the rim of the bowl, extending inward from the edge for about two centimeters.

Had this crack been there ten years ago?

He didn't remember.

Porcelain bowl, wooden chopsticks, pickled vegetable dish, the oil stains on Mom's apron, the floating tea stems in Dad's teacup.

Every single thing was in its original place, and every single thing was older, smaller, and more concrete than in his memory.

He picked up the bowl and lowered his head to take a sip of porridge.

The rice grains melted in his mouth, and the slight sweetness of the starch spread outward from the base of his tongue.

He chewed very slowly, chewing every bite until the rice grains completely dissolved before swallowing.

On the Wasteland, he had gotten used to eating like this.

Chewing until he couldn't chew anymore, letting the food stay in his mouth for as long as possible.

It wasn't appreciation, it was saving.

"Why are you eating so slowly today? Usually you eat like you're running for your life."

"Because it's delicious."

Jiang Lin raised his head.

Mom's face was a bit rounder, and the lines at the corners of her eyes were deeper than in his memory.

Jiang Lin lifted the bowl to block his face.

The heat from the porridge rushed against his eyes, blurring his vision.

He picked up a chopstick of pickled vegetables and shoveled it into his mouth along with the porridge.

The salty taste exploded on the tip of his tongue.

He hadn't eaten pickled vegetables for ten years.

There was only salt on the Wasteland—the edible salt brought over from the Real World had a little less than half a bottle left in the first year, and then it ran out.

Ever since then, there was no salty taste in his food.

Potatoes were bland, Soybeans were bland, Pumpkins were bland, and Moss was bitter.

The salty taste was a flavor he had forgotten yet hadn't completely forgotten.

Now it was back, exploding with a boom on the surface of his tongue, rushing all the way up along his nerves, and exploding into a patch of white light in his cerebral cortex.

"Jiang Lin, pick up the pace, don't be late," Mom urged.

Jiang Lin immediately reacted, realizing he had become a bit obsessed with the comfort and beauty right in front of him.

His schoolbag was hanging behind the door, bulging, stuffed with textbooks and test papers brought back after school yesterday.

He took the schoolbag down and weighed it in his hand.

It was light.

Ten years ago, he felt the schoolbag was very heavy, carrying it up five floors every day, his shoulders left with red marks by the straps.

Now it was as light as if it were empty.

It wasn't because his strength had grown larger.

It was because he had gotten used to heavier things.

He put on his schoolbag and opened the bedroom door; Mom was standing in the entryway holding his thermos cup.

Putting the thermos filled with boiling water into his schoolbag, he sat on the entryway stool to change his shoes.

Sneakers, the shoelaces tied tightly, the insoles soft when his feet slipped inside.

On the Wasteland, he wore board shoes, but later they wore through and rotted, so he used nylon rope to tie the soles and uppers together to keep wearing them.

Later still, when they rotted so badly he literally couldn't wear them anymore, he went barefoot.

Walking barefoot on the red soil, the earth was cool, hard, with occasional gravel digging into the soles of his feet.

A year later, the calluses on the soles of his feet were thick enough that he couldn't feel the gravel anymore.

Now those calluses were all gone.

His feet were eighteen-year-old feet, soft, tender, stepping inside the sneakers as if being cradled by two hands.

"I'm leaving."

Jiang Lin pulled open the door.