In the gentle warmth of a fine day in rural China, nestled among rolling fields and winding dirt paths, stood a small, timeworn library. Its tiled roof bore the weight of seasons past, and the wooden walls whispered stories older than memory. Just outside, beneath the shade of a whispering tree, sat an old man in a worn wicker chair. His age hovered somewhere between sixty and seventy, though time had been kind to his eyes, which still held the sharp glint of memory and wonder. He watched the world with the patient stillness of someone who had learned that life reveals itself slowly, like the turning of a well-loved page.
One quiet afternoon, the door of the library creaked open. A small girl stepped inside, her presence soft as a falling leaf. She moved with care, her delicate fingers trailing along the wooden shelves as though she were reading the air itself. Her eyes were open, but unseeing—clouded by blindness. Yet she walked with the calm determination of someone who belonged, as if the very soul of the library had reached out to guide her steps.
She could not have been more than eight or nine years old. Her dark hair was tied with a red ribbon, and her pale hands searched gently through space, touching only what needed touching. There was a grace to her, the quiet kind that is rarely noticed but never forgotten.
Without hesitation, she made her way to the back of the room where the old man sat by the window, half-hidden in a shaft of golden light filtered through dusty glass.
"你好,约翰叔叔," she said, her voice soft and clear. Hello, Uncle John.
The old man slowly opened his eyes, a familiar warmth spreading across his weathered face. He smiled, not out of surprise, but recognition—he had known it was her the moment the door had sighed open.
"How do you always know where I am," he said with a gentle chuckle, "even when I haven't made a sound?"
A smile played on the girl's lips as she stood quietly before him, her head tilted slightly as though listening to something just beyond the edge of silence. She didn't answer right away, but she didn't need to. There was something in the way she carried herself, in the way she turned toward the light, that spoke of knowing far beyond sight.
The breeze stirred the tree outside, rustling its leaves like pages waiting to be read, as the two sat together—an old man and a blind girl, bound by quiet understanding in a library where stories came to life without ever needing to be seen.
The days had a way of slipping by unnoticed in that quiet corner of the world, especially within the soft stillness of the library. Years melted into each other like ink into old parchment, and before he realized it, John had been reading to Shen for nearly a decade.
It was hard to believe at times. She had been just a small child when she first stepped into the library, her red ribbon bright against her dark hair, her blind eyes full of light. Now, she stood taller, more confident in her movements, though the ribbon still remained—a little tradition neither of them ever spoke of, but both silently cherished.
John's POV
Hmm... ten years. Ten whole years... Time sure does fly fast. He sighed softly, watching her from his chair by the window, as he always did. The light outside was beginning to fade, casting long shadows across the floorboards. Shen was outside now, laughing as she played with a stray dog who'd made the library his second home. Her laughter—still light, still filled with joy—was the same as the little girl's who had first walked in, asking for a story.
"Hey! Shen," he called gently through the open window, his voice carrying that familiar blend of patience and amusement. "It's already evening. You need to go home before your mother starts worrying."
Shen paused, mid-laugh, her hands buried in the dog's soft fur. "Don't worry," she called back, brushing her skirt as she stood. "Mother said she's sending someone to pick me up today."
John smiled to himself. Still the same girl—carefree, but always with one foot grounded in her mother's voice.
The dog trotted over to the steps and flopped down with a huff, tail thudding against the wood. Shen followed soon after, her steps sure and measured, guided by instinct, familiarity, and perhaps something deeper. She sat beside John's chair, resting her hands in her lap.
"What story today?" she asked, tilting her face toward him.
John looked down at her. She didn't need to see him to know he was smiling—she could hear it in his silence.
"I was thinking," he began, "maybe today we don't make up a story. Maybe today we talk about that novel you've been rereading."
Shen's face lit up. "You mean the one about the illegitimate prince?"
John nodded. "Yes, that one. The boy who was born as the king's son but cast away at birth because he was illegitimate."
Shen's voice turned thoughtful. "He was left to grow up in a village, far from the palace, never knowing who he really was. And just when he found a family that loved him… demons and monsters destroyed the village."
John leaned forward, listening. "And he lost his foster parents in the attack, didn't he?"
Shen nodded slowly. "Yes. That's when he awakened his mana—when everything else was gone. That power let him survive… and later, it earned him a place at the Hero Academy."
John smiled faintly. "The boy who was abandoned… became the hope of the world."
"It's more than just his strength," Shen said. "He carries all that pain and loss, but still chooses to protect others. He doesn't want revenge… he wants to save people."
John's eyes softened. "Sounds like a hero to me."
"He's going to be the strongest in the world," Shen said confidently. "But I like how he's still kind. Like… he knows how it feels to be nothing, so he never lets anyone feel that way if he can help it."
John leaned back in his chair. "A hero not just in power, but in spirit. That's the kind of story we need more of."
Outside, the last rays of sunlight slipped behind the hills, and in the hush of twilight, the library once again became what it always was: a sanctuary of stories, a bridge between ages, and a home for two souls who had long ago stopped needing eyes to see each other.