Click. The darkness illuminated. The TV screen flickered, and an image began to appear.
The faculty dorm was located in the building crammed into the furthermost corner of this centuries-old university campus. Placed out of the way, it was where the school mostly sent their young and sprightly teachers. The exterior was gorgeous—all red brick and white steps, with delicate ivy vines encircling the old Western-style building. No passerby would be able to resist taking a lingering gaze, but only those lucky enough to become a teacher and enter it would realize that, under its beautiful facade, this building had undergone many rounds of repairs. The interior walls were mottled and layered, like an aged face caked with countless layers of makeup. The dorm was so old that it didn't even have digital televisions; the ones here were cable TVs that could only be described as antiques.
"The Yangtze Plain is experiencing several torrential rainstorms in succession..."
A young man walked past the corridor as the sound of the TV program filtered through the cracked glass window of the receptionist's office. Usually, the old lady on shift would stop him and shout, "Hey, little student, dontcha know? This is a faculty residence for teachers. You're a student, you can't keep coming here."
But today, the receptionist didn't scold him. Perhaps it was because she was staring off into space, or that her eyesight was failing in her later years, but she didn't notice him pass by in the dark night.
He walked directly up to the third floor and knocked on a familiar iron door.
It opened with a creak; the woman inside poked her head out. "It's you?"
"Xie-laoshi," the young man said softly.
It was quite late, and he was an unexpected guest. But the woman was his teacher, as well as the person closest to him in the entire school. After a moment of surprise, she welcomed him inside.
She brewed a cup of tea and added some sliced ginger, It was raining outside, and she could feel that the youth was soaked and cold; hot ginger tea could drive out the chill.
Xie-laoshi placed the steaming cup down on the tea table before her student, who was standing uncomfortably in front of the sofa. "When did you get back?"
"Just today."
"Please sit down," Xie-laoshi said.
Only then did he sit, his hands curled over his knees. He was stiff and reserved, and didn't touch the tea.
"Why didn't you let me know that you were coming back? Are there even buses this late?"
"...Mm."
"How did things go with your family?"
The youth was quiet for a while, then lowered his head to pick at the rip in his jeans. "My mom still wants me to drop out..."
Xie-laoshi fell silent.
He was already a university student; if he chose to drop out, the school didn't have much to say in the matter. Even so, she had spoken with his mother and promised to lower the tuition fees due to their financial difficulty in hopes that his mother would allow her son to finish his studies at the university he worked so hard to get into.
But his mother had shrilly refused.
"What studies?! Studying Chinese? Who doesn't know how to speak Chinese? You're all just pulling a scam!"
Xie-laoshi had patiently and gently tried to explain, "Your son is very bright. Look, he's already in his second year. wouldn't it be a waste to give up halfway? Plus, once he graduated, it'll be easier for him to find a job. He told me he wants to be a teacher. With his grades, he'd have no trouble getting employed as one. This is your son's dream, and teaching is a stable job…"
"He could never become a teacher! It's not like you haven't seen his face!"
The mother's words were like a dull blade cleaving right down the middle of an invisible current.
Xie-laoshi was furious, but she didn't know how to respond.
"I want him to come back to work right now! Our family is broke! He needs to stop wasting time! With that…that face… What can he do even if he studies! What school would want this kind of teacher?!"
So what was his face like?
She peered at her student, his face dimly illuminated by the weak incandescent lamp in her room.
Xie-laoshi had already grown used to his features, but everyone who saw him for the first time would gasp. Due to some unknown disease, half of his face—from forehead to neck—was covered in purple blotches, as if concealing rotting flesh.
It was a horrifying sight, undisguised in its abnormality.
"Freak!"
"Stay away from him, it might be contagious."
"Hey! Half-and-half!"
Having grown up with this face of his, mockery and ridicule followed him like a shadow.
Because he had a disease, and moreover because he didn't have the sense to cover up his ailment, his ugliness, he was shunned wherever he went. No matter how hard he studied, no matter how gently he interacted with others, he was like an evil dragon flying through a clear sky: conspicuous and frightening. He could never receive any equal treatment.
People like Xie-laoshi, who could see that the unblemished half of his face was very lovable and gentle, were a rarity.
He would always gently and numbly bear everyone's mockery. Sometimes, he too would laugh along, as if he had actually done something wrong.
But what exactly had he done wrong?
Xie-laoshi noticed it all. When studying, he'd always be the most focused; he'd dutifully do his part and silently take on the most work in group projects. When people bullied him, he would just endure it without getting angered or saying much.
"It's fine, Laoshi, I'm already very happy that you'd chat with me.
Back in my village, everyone would cross the street as soon as they saw me coming. There's never been anyone like you, who would listen to me so attentively. The other students are very nice too. At least no one's thrown bricks at me."
His words were calm, but his head was forever bowed, his shoulders hunched. Years of humiliation had caused his spine to bend, deforming from the pressure.
Later, she said to him, "If you'd like, you can always come to me for private tutoring after the evening self-study session. If there's anything you don't understand or you need my help with, just let me know."
He smiled in deep embarrassment, the blush of shame appearing on the unblemished half of his face.
In the two years she'd known him, she'd grown used to opening her dorm door after he had knocked to see him standing there with his stooped posture. He would be carrying the papers, prose, and even poetry that he wrote, having come to ask her for pointers.
These days, many people liked to curse, but very few liked to write poetry.
But he persisted, even as other students mocked him, calling him an ugly freak who wrote ugly things: So rancid, even more rancid than your rotten grape face.
He would smile a little and just keep writing.
Now, he didn't even have the right to do that anymore.
As these thoughts filled Xie-laoshi's mind, she felt a pang of sorrow and gazed with pity at the boy in front of her.
"Laoshi, this time, I came to say goodbye," he said. "I'll be leaving tomorrow."
"You're going back home?"
"…Mm, more or less."
He paused. "Laoshi, if my disease weren't on my face, if it were somewhere people couldn't see, people would be a little nicer to me. How nice would that be."
The rims of Xie-laoshi's eyes reddened. She'd already done everything she could, but she wasn't his kin; she didn't have the final say, nor could she save him. His family situation was worsening by the day, and his mother regretted letting her child leave home to study, especially since she had a healthy second son who was still in junior high school. If they called the sick child back home, they could let the healthy one take his place.
Xie-laoshi didn't blame his mother; having to weigh the pros and cons of the family situation, she was being quite fair.
"The…the essay that you left with me, the one you wanted me to look over, I'm not done editing it yet—" Xie-laoshi hastily changed the subject, feeling that soon she wouldn't be able to hold back her tears anymore.
"But I read through the first parts very carefully. Why don't you start the academic withdrawal process a little later? Wait until I've edited the entire thing…"
"No." He shook his head with a smile. "I must go when morning comes."
She felt so remorseful; why had she always thought that there was still time?
Why hadn't she stayed up all night to edit his essay?
And why had she gone out to shop and chat and attend those long and meaningless meetings?
Her student's dreams were about to shatter, and his heart about to give out. As his teacher, she couldn't even offer up a bouquet of flowers to bid his dream farewell.
"I'm sorry…"
"It's fine," he said. "But I wrote one last poem. Can I give it to you?"
She readily nodded.
He took a piece of paper out of his backpack and handed it to her. The paper was thin, almost weightless.
She read every word. It was an adoring love poem, searingly passionate yet tentative and careful. She'd read the works of many masters who spoke of romance, from the "when will the moonlight in our bed dry the tears on our faces" of the past, to the "my eyes are more beautiful because they have you in them" of the present. Yet at this moment, it seemed like none of them could compare to this sheet of paper that her student had presented to her.
He didn't put anything out in the open, as if doing so would spoil the meter of the poem.
This young man was a poet. He knew that if the love between two people from different social statuses lost its poetry, all that would be left was embarrassment.
"It's a memento for you."
Tenderness was written all over his face—both on the grotesque and ordinary halves.
"I'm sorry, Laoshi. I can't afford to buy you any gifts."
"There's nothing better than this." She turned around, suppressing her sobs. "You…you should eat something. I'll find you some snacks to go with the tea."
In a bid to keep her emotions in check, Xie-laoshi rummaged through her cabinets. She picked up a tin of butter cookies and placed it on the table.
He thanked her politely. Under Xie-laoshi's gaze, he finally touched the teacup tentatively, only to pull back instantly. Softly, he said, "It's so hot."
Xie-laoshi touched the cup. "Huh? It's lukewarm."
Nonetheless, she added some cold water to the cup. Her student chewed on his favorite cookies and slowly began to drink. By the time he finished the cookies and the tea, the night was still young.
"Laoshi, can I stay here for a little while longer to read?" he asked.
"Of course."
He smiled again, slightly sheepish. "I'm inconveniencing you so much, even when I'm about to leave."
"It's fine, you can stay for as long as you'd like… Right, give me your address—I'll send you a copy of all the good books I see. Given how clever you are, even if you only study on your own, you won't do too poorly." Xie-laoshi could only offer some words of comfort. "If you need any help with anything, you can contact me on WeChat."
He looked at her. "Thank you." He paused. "If only everyone were like you, then perhaps…"
He lowered his head and didn't continue.
Her dorm had no shortage of books. With his undisguised disease, his grotesque appearance made him the center of attention every time he went to the library. Thus, she invited him to the faculty dorm and lent him her own books to read.
In that same spirit, he spent the whole night reading inside the faculty dorm, as if he wanted to bring all the words back to his hometown using this night.
He rarely acted so selfishly. In the past, he would never stay too late, worried that he'd disrupt his teacher's routine. But today was an exception. Xie-laoshi didn't blame him for this final willful streak. She stayed up with him, but into the latter half of the night, she grew tired. Without realizing it, she drifted off to sleep at her desk.
In her hazy unconsciousness, she heard her student suddenly say, "Xie-laoshi."
She blearily made a noise of assent.
"There's one more thing. I want to apologize to you. Those thefts in our class that you got criticized for… When those students kept losing their belongings and couldn't find them no matter what… Actually, I was the one who took their things."
Shocked, she stirred from her slumber, but her body was too tired, too heavy to get up.
"But I didn't keep any of those things. I didn't take any of their money," he said sorrowfully. "When they mocked me, I really hated them… I threw all their bags into a pile of straw and burned it all. They suspected me, but you chose to vouch for me without question. But in truth, I was the culprit. I didn't have the courage to admit it. Only in one person's eyes have I ever been a normal person, or even a good person—that's you. Laoshi, I'm very vain, aren't I?" He paused. "I wouldn't know what to do if you were disappointed in me. You're the only person who has ever acknowledged me."
His voice trailed off.
But his gaze was clear, almost transparent, as if a weight had been taken off his shoulders.
"This is the one thing I regret the most… Xie-laoshi, I'm truly sorry.
My disease seems to have metastasized from my face to my heart. If there is a next life, I really want to be a normal person… I don't want to be so sick that I don't even have the right to be loved. Xie-laoshi…"
Wind rushed in through the window, making the papers on the table flutter, like soul-summoning flags.
Then silence returned.
The tea on the table cooled.
When Xie-laoshi woke up the next morning, she found that she'd slept the night away at her desk. Her room was neat and tidy. Her student was always polite, but this time, he hadn't said goodbye to his teacher before packing up his things and leaving.
Unable to suppress a twinge of melancholy, she rose sleepily and went to the living room. When she looked down at the tea table, her eyes flew open, as if a basin of ice water had just been poured over her head.
The tea she'd made for the youth had frozen over, but how? The room was clearly 27 or so degrees Celsius!
Her dark eyes wide, she looked around the room only to be plunged into even deeper shock. Last night, she'd clearly seen her student eat the butter cookies, yet not a single one was missing from the tin. The tea which had frozen into ice was untouched, and finally…
That veiled love poem, the contents of which she still sheltered in her heart, the paper farewell he'd gifted her…
It had disappeared.
Or, perhaps it was more accurate to say that the paper had never existed in the first place.
She was almost shaking. Suddenly, her phone alerted with a ding, causing her to jump in fright. She grabbed it immediately, only to find that it was a spam message. She let out a breath of relief, but then, as if struck by a thought, as if waking from a dream, she quickly dialed the student's number.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Her heart pounded with every beat of the mechanical tone.
"Hello?"
The call had gone through.
On the other end of the line was the familiar voice of a middle-aged woman. It sounded coarse, but right now, it was also nasal with tears. Xie laoshi exchanged a few words with the young man's mother.
Her heart sank into a pitch-black hole, careening downward.
After a pause, she heard a flurry of accusations—"It was you people! You again!! I haven't had time to come for you, yet you actually called us first!"
Xie-laoshi couldn't remember what she had said at the beginning anymore; her mind had blanked out. All she could hear was the miserable shouting at the other end, like a bludgeoning wake-up call. "He's dead! Dead!"
Blood froze in her veins.
Dead?
"It's all your fault!! He got into an argument with me and ran out. There was a torrential storm outside, and the police said a section of an electric cable was exposed…"
Xie-laoshi's ears were ringing.
Amid the intense castigation and mournful sobbing, she could barely make out a few words, ghostly and ghoulish, like an otherworldly farewell.
The woman on the other end of the line gave an ear-splitting shriek.
"Why bother calling? Why bother?! Yesterday was his seventh day!!"