She really likes German, and when the teacher is teaching, she listens more attentively than anyone else.
Although I couldn't hear what the teacher was saying, I listened to the class seriously. Those eyes were still there, still making me tremble, but this time I didn't run away, because she was here, the light blue that made my heart peaceful was here.
She only had the first and second classes free, and had to go back to class for the third and fourth classes. She said goodbye to me and rushed back to class. The power that made me calm disappeared. I was the only one left here, and the feeling of being scared and wanting to vomit came again. I lay on the table, thinking that no matter what, I had to get through this class.
Someone patted my shoulder and I looked up in surprise. The person sitting next to me was Dr. Jiang.
I sat in the last row of the classroom and in the corner, so no one noticed that there was an extra person next to me.
He picked up a pen and wrote on the paper: "Want to escape? Do you want me to take you away?"
"Need not."
With trembling hands, I wrote these two words.
"I found that your condition is getting worse." He continued to write, "Before, you blocked everything out of your own world. You couldn't see anything, but now you are absorbing fear. You are afraid because there are cracks in the closed world you created for yourself."
Is there a crack?
I looked at him in confusion. What crack?
He smiled at me and wrote this sentence on the paper: "She is the crack."
I closed myself off so that I wouldn't think, see or hear anything. But one day, someone invaded my world without a trace. A tiny crack appeared in my world, and some emotions drew nutrients from the crack and gradually grew into towering trees.
"She 's not a crack."
I gritted my teeth and felt them chattering. My handwriting was crooked because my shaking hands made it difficult for me to hold the small pen firmly.
"Do you want to escape? Do you want to go back to your original world? Then you won't have to be afraid, you won't have to endure pain, and you'll feel much more relaxed." He kept tempting me like a devil, "Just fill up this crack, and you won't feel any pain."
I shook my head desperately. At this time, some people turned back to look at me. Their eyes were filled with various emotions. Those gazes followed me like a flood or a beast, and would soon swallow me up.
Doctor Jiang stood up, grabbed my arm, and took my book with his other hand. He pulled me out of the classroom with force, and I could still feel that gaze - the gaze that made me tremble.
Doctor Jiang pulled me all the way back to the infirmary. He closed the door, closed the window, and drew the curtains.
I huddled in the corner of the hospital bed. I don't know where he took out a camera from, but he took a few pictures of me. I gritted my teeth and trembled as I said, "Don't take pictures... Don't take pictures..."
“If you don’t take a photo, how can you know how terrible and miserable you look now?” he wrote on the whiteboard. “It’s painful, right? This kind of pain can turn any normal person into a madman.”
He came close to me, grabbed me by the collar forcefully, and mouthed to me, “Forget her.”
I couldn't even shake my head. My whole body was almost stiff. My mind was in a mess and I couldn't think at all.
"Forget that touch of color, return to a world of only black and white, forget her voice, return to a world without sound." He spoke to me word by word using his lips. I had clearly lost control, but I could still understand what he said.
"I don't want to forget..." I forced the voice out of my throat, and said, "I don't want to forget. I finally walked out of that attic, and I finally got to know her. How can I say I want to forget now!"
"If you don't forget, you will become more and more painful, you will become more sensitive, even a glance will make you anxious, uneasy, you will go crazy, you will hurt yourself, and even hurt others ." Doctor Jiang's expression was terrible and serious. "If one day, she can no longer make you calm down, then you will never be able to go back to the quiet world you used to be in."
I bit my lip, and when the taste of blood spread in my mouth, my confused brain finally regained the ability to think.
My trembling body gradually calmed down, and Dr. Jiang loosened his hand that was grabbing my collar. He looked at me coldly and laughed sarcastically: "You are a coward who only knows how to talk big. You think you can do it, but after just a few days, you have collapsed like this."
I didn't say anything, just adjusted my breathing.
"I tell you, if you continue like this and resist others entering your world, you will become hopeless." Dr. Jiang said coldly.
"Even if there is no hope, I will not choose to forget everything." I said calmly.
Dr. Jiang's hand, which was fiddling with the test tube, suddenly stopped. He turned around and looked at me: "Can you hear me?"
I was stunned. I didn't see his lips just now, but I knew what he was saying. There was only one explanation. In addition to Nanxi, a second person's voice entered my world. This person turned out to be Dr. Jiang.
This feeling was so terrible that I pursed my lips and didn't want to speak.
"Tsk tsk, not bad, you've made progress." He said with some pride, "I told you that your disease might be curable, but it's a pity that you kept ignoring me."
I still wanted to ignore what he said, but now, he didn’t have to use the whiteboard to communicate with me, and I could hear his voice.
He seemed to be even more presumptuous. He said, "I said she was the crack. I'm not kidding you. I've read your case and almost all doctors have given up on you. You are deeply autistic. Your IQ hasn't regressed. You just hypnotized yourself. You reject all senses that may make you feel pain - color, sound, space.
"But Xu Minyou, your indestructible castle was destroyed by a girl like that. An uninvited guest came to your castle that could bring you peace. You may not even remember when she existed in your world. By the time you realized it, she had already broken a crack and came out."
He said, standing up from the chair: "Xu Minyou, you have no way out. Either I hypnotize you and make you forget all your memories since the day you met her, and you return to your castle."
"Or..." He paused deliberately, walked in front of me, and pushed me against the wall. He stared into my eyes and said viciously, "Break your castle, which has already begun to collapse, at a faster speed. Break it before the wreckage of the castle crushes you to death."
Destruction or rebirth.
There are only these two paths left before me.
I think, in fact, I had already made my choice when I walked out of that attic and into this world that I had abandoned.
I once had the chance to forget her existence and continue to stay in my little attic for the rest of my life, but I didn't. I chose to chase my sun and come here. I haven't even seen the color of the magnolia yet, so how could I forget her at this moment?
I took out my cell phone and typed a text message.
I want to ask her: Nanxi, I like you very much, I have always liked you, let me stay by your side, stay there forever, okay?
But I tossed and turned and never dared to send this text message.
Yes, I didn't dare. I was afraid that if I sent it out, she would fly away like a butterfly to a place where I could no longer see her. If I didn't say it out loud and just remained a new friend to her, I could maintain this distance and she wouldn't be scared away by me.
My finger touched the send button countless times, but in the end I put the message into the draft box. Looking at the "successfully saved", I imagined it as "successfully sent", so that I could pretend that she had received this message that I dared not send.
My text message didn't go through, but hers did. She asked, "Did the class go well today? Did you see those scary looks again?"
I didn't know how to answer her, so I ended up lying and telling her that I was fine and everything was going well.
If Dr. Jiang hadn't taken me away, I would probably have collapsed in the classroom.
Her text message came back quickly, and she said: "That's good, if you feel scared, be sure to tell me, I will definitely come to save you!"
I put the phone against my chest, and it seemed to warm me up. My heart was a black bottomless hole, and I didn't know what to use to fill it.
The next day, before I got up, Dr. Jiang came to see me and asked me for the answer.
Destruction or rebirth.
"Have you thought about it?"
He stood at the door, with light coming in from behind him. Looking at him against the light, he looked like a big devil.
I nodded gently: "Break it, even once, I want to try to break it."
Doctor Jiang clapped his hands with satisfaction. He thought for a moment and asked me, "Do you want to tell your grandfather? I think he will be very happy if he knows."
"Don't do anything unnecessary." I glanced at him and said, "I don't want him to know my decision."
Doctor Jiang didn't care about my answer and just said, "It's up to you, but you have to think it through. Once you start, you can't stop. If you fail, you might get mentally ill."
"Then you must hypnotize me before I become a psychopath and let me return to peace." I tried to curl the corners of my mouth. I don't know if I have learned to smile, but for the first time, I felt the warmth of a smile in my heart. "Then, please ."