The campus was a labyrinth of lecture halls, and Liu Banxia, with his head perpetually buried in a textbook, was a master of navigating it without ever truly seeing it. His routine was a monotonous loop: class, the library, the janitorial closet where he kept his cleaning supplies, and his small, cramped dorm room. He rarely spoke to his peers, and they rarely spoke to him. He was a phantom on campus, a boy who existed only in the margins of their vibrant lives.Then came the dissection competition. It was an annual event, a high-stakes test of skill and knowledge for first-year medical students. The grand prize was a coveted internship at the city's top hospital. For Liu Banxia, it was more than just a prize; it was a lifeline, a potential escape from the grim reality of his future. He spent weeks preparing, practicing his cuts on donated specimens with a precision that bordered on obsessive. He worked late into the night, long after the other students had gone, his hands moving with a practiced grace that belied his inexperience.
On the day of the competition, the lecture hall was a beehive of nervous energy. The students, all dressed in pristine white lab coats, chattered excitedly. Liu Banxia stood off to the side, his own lab coat, a hand-me-down from a kind senior, looking slightly worn in comparison.
He was assigned a station next to a student who seemed to embody everything Liu Banxia was not. His name was Wei Chen. He was tall, confident, and had a look of effortless arrogance about him. His lab coat was brand-new, and he had a complete set of gleaming, state-of-the-art dissection tools arranged meticulously on his tray. Wei Chen glanced at Liu Banxia and scoffed. Lost, country boy? he said, a condescending smirk on his face.This is a competition, not a village butchery contest.
Liu Banxia ignored him, his focus absolute. He took a deep breath, his mind clearing, and he began. While the other students hesitated, their hands trembling, Liu Banxia's movements were fluid and decisive. He had an innate understanding of the anatomy before him, a spatial awareness that was almost supernatural. He didn't just see the organs; he felt their connections, the subtle web of nerves and vessels. Wei Chen, who had been working with a careless efficiency, suddenly stopped. He was struggling with a particularly complex dissection, a tangled mess of nerves that he couldn't differentiate. He was growing frustrated, his arrogance quickly turning into panic. He glanced over at Liu Banxia, expecting to see a similar struggle. Instead, he saw a mesmerizing display of quiet competence. Liu Banxia's hands, the same hands that mopped floors, were moving with a surgical precision that made Wei Chen's look clumsy in comparison. The lines of his dissection were clean, the structures he was identifying were perfectly separated, a testament to an understanding that went beyond mere memorization.
After the competition, Wei Chen found Liu Banxia in the hall, alone and packing up his things. The smirk was gone, replaced by a look of genuine surprise.
"How did you...?" Wei Chen started, then stopped, searching for the right words. Your technique. It was flawless. You were like a machine. Liu Banxia simply shrugged. I've practiced a lot. Wei Chen looked him up and down, his gaze settling on Liu Banxia's worn clothes and cheap shoes. He saw not a rival, but an enigma. He couldn't reconcile the boy's appearance with his immense talent. It was an intellectual puzzle, and Wei Chen, a scion of a powerful family, was used to having all the answers. My name is Wei Chen, he said, extending a hand. You're Liu Banxia, right? The scholarship student. I've heard about you. Liu Banxia hesitated for a moment, then took his hand. Nice to meet you. Wei Chen didn't let go immediately. You're a genius, you know that? And a mystery. I want to know how you do it. A friendship was born not of shared backgrounds or social circles, but of a shared respect for intelligence and a mutual curiosity. Wei Chen, with his extensive connections, saw a talent that deserved to be nurtured, a diamond in the rough. Liu Banxia, for the first time, had a peer who didn't look down on him, who saw him not for his poverty, but for his mind. The city was no longer just a shadow; it was now a place with a single, unexpected ally.