“I hope each of you here can become a good person, someone useful to society! This concludes today’s lecture—we will notify you in advance before the next one. If you feel this lecture has been helpful to you and has cleansed your soul, you are welcome to sign up for the next session.”
“Mental health requires long-term maintenance and tracking, especially since the mental states of those present are not particularly stable…”
On the podium, the lecture was drawing to a close.
The “soul-cleansing” effect had absolutely no impact on Chi Qing; his mind was a tangled mess. Every word Xie Lin had spoken, he understood individually, but put together, they were incomprehensible.
……
Missing him?
Why miss him? What for?
Chi Qing twitched his fingers. He had touched Xie Lin many times; from his initial revulsion to eventually having to seek him out for “treatment,” he had never once felt the urge to recoil as if burned. This avoidance-like resistance was completely different from the feeling he usually had when someone else tried to touch him.
The man who had almost tripped over him earlier kept apologizing: “Sorry, sorry.”
Xie Lin remained smiling, looking good-natured: “It’s fine. The lighting here isn’t great; it’s normal that you didn’t see clearly.”
However, through Xie Lin’s hand, which hadn’t had a chance to retract yet, Chi Qing heard words that were not gentle at all.
The man’s voice wasn’t exactly angry, but the tail end of it was lower than usual: [Almost ran into him. Can’t you walk without looking? If you don’t need your eyes, give them to someone who does.]
Chi Qing: “…”
Although he had long known that Xie Lin was not what he seemed on the surface—how could someone who could smile even while intentionally causing a car crash be “normal”?—hearing it so directly still left him stunned for a moment.
After Xie Lin finished exchanging pleasantries with the man, he turned his head to look at Chi Qing: “Why are you zoning out? Can’t you dodge on your own? There are no restrooms here.”
To avoid hearing anything else he shouldn’t, Chi Qing immediately retracted the fingertips that had been exposed, pulling his whole hand into his sleeve. Feeling that wasn’t safe enough, he even tucked his sleeve into his jacket pocket, hiding his hand securely.
Xie Lin was confused: “Why the big reaction just from being touched?”
Chi Qing: “Shut up. Listen to the lecture.”
Xie Lin: “A moment ago you said there was nothing worth listening to… and it’s already over. Do you want to hear the next session?”
Chi Qing: “…Then let’s go back.”
Chi Qing stood up from his seat, not intending to walk with him: “Let’s go our separate ways.”
Xie Lin didn’t know what had gotten into him, suddenly putting on this “keep people at a distance” attitude again: “You live right across from me. What ‘separate ways’?”
“…”
On the way back, Chi Qing didn’t bother tending to Xie Lin’s leg, which wasn’t fully healed, and walked very fast in front.
The air was filled with the constant honking of cars on the street, and these chaotic sounds drowned out the voice of that “Xie Lin” from moments ago.
With the sound suppressed, he even began to doubt if he had been hallucinating.
…Could it really be that he heard wrong?
How could someone as smiley yet inscrutable as Xie Lin let his inner thoughts be heard by someone else so easily?
To this day, Chi Qing could still recall the blankness he felt the first time he touched Xie Lin’s hand—that blankness where he could hear everyone’s voices except his. The moment he touched him, the whole world had gone quiet, just like the completely blank psychological file Xie Lin had.
But now, that file might no longer be blank.
Perhaps he only needed to touch Xie Lin a few more times, and that file, invisible to others, would flip open page by page before his eyes.
Chi Qing was so lost in thought as he walked that he didn’t pay attention to the road. He was wearing a jacket with a hood on the back; as he walked, Xie Lin reached out and pulled the hood to tug him back: “Watch where you’re going.”
They took a car back. The traffic was smooth the whole way.
Xie Lin was looking at his phone on the side, presumably dealing with work matters.
Chi Qing had been pondering the earlier question for a long time. When getting out of the car, he decided to confirm once more whether the earlier voice had been an hallucination.
Xie Lin habitually tried to open the door with his plaster-casted hand, realized what he was doing immediately, and put it down nonchalantly, waiting for Chi Qing to get out so he could walk around and open it for him.
Xie Lin exhaled internally, thinking, Good thing I reacted in time.
Meanwhile, as Chi Qing opened the door, he was still deliberating how to touch Xie Lin’s hand without being subtle about it.
He should have grabbed Xie Lin’s wrist to help him out, but his hand shifted forward a few inches just before contact, landing exactly on Xie Lin’s hand: “Your illness isn’t healed yet. Let me help you down.”
[His fingers are so thin. How do they grow like that?]
“…”
Chi Qing had just wanted to test it; he hadn’t really intended to hear anything, nor was he prepared for what he might hear.
Those nine words suddenly appeared in his ears, and he let go halfway through helping him out.
Before letting go, he heard one more line:
[Good thing I reacted fast. Almost gave it away. If he knew my hand wasn’t injured at all…]
After Chi Qing let go, the lingering sense of guilt vanished entirely.
He left Xie Lin standing there, “struggling” to get out of the car: “You just said you’d help me down, and halfway through you turn cold? You’re betting on the fact that I can’t do anything to you, aren’t you?”
Chi Qing tucked his hands back into his pockets: “I thought about it, and it’s better to let you adapt as soon as possible.”
“…”
Chi Qing said coldly: “It’s better to rely on oneself than others. This is an opportunity to hone your willpower.”
Fine.
He’s actually starting to talk about self-improvement.
Knowing that Xie Lin’s hand wasn’t injured at all, Chi Qing didn’t care about him in the slightest. When waiting for the elevator, he said very naturally: “I’m going to put on a glove, can you hold my phone for a second?”
He asked so naturally that Xie Lin didn’t think twice. Out of habit, he extended his customary “injured” hand. It wasn’t until he gripped Chi Qing’s phone that he realized something was wrong: “…”
“Consultant Xie is not only brilliant in the head, but his physical structure is also extraordinary,” Chi Qing didn’t take out his gloves as he had claimed, leaning against the elevator door and watching him coldly. “You can still hold things with a fractured wrist.”
Xie Lin twisted his wrist: “I’m young, so I recover fast. I didn’t expect my wrist to suddenly be fine in an instant just now…”
Chi Qing: “Keep making things up.”
Xie Lin carefully reviewed his “faking illness” operation for the day and felt he hadn’t revealed any flaws.
By all logic, Chi Qing shouldn’t have discovered it.
However, ever since Chi Qing had helped him out of the car and touched his hand, he had been testing him for no reason.
Xie Lin knew Chi Qing hid secrets—secrets involving why he couldn’t let people touch him and why he couldn’t drink alcohol—but he couldn’t pinpoint the precise details yet. Chi Qing’s actions today made the speculations in his mind increasingly clear.
As they parted ways in the hallway, Xie Lin felt that Chi Qing had been “off” ever since touching his hand earlier. Worried, he asked what was wrong.
Chi Qing: “Nothing.”
Xie Lin: “Nothing? Then why are you acting like this suddenly?”
The person who had telepathy wasn’t Xie Lin, but this man could capture even the slightest fluctuation in Chi Qing. Finally, before opening his door to go in, Chi Qing used a random excuse: “Because the lecturer spoke so well, my soul was cleansed.”
Xie Lin: “…?”
His brain must have been caught in the door.
“How was the lecture?”
“Did it have a soul-cleansing effect? I heard this psychologist is very impressive; his papers have won many awards.”
Ji Mingrui kept an eye on the time and called Chi Qing after the lecture ended. As he spoke, he accidentally let something slip: “We usually invite him to hold mental health activities for the prisoners in the jail regularly, too…”
“…” Chi Qing, who was getting ready to shower, couldn’t be bothered to correct him: “It was alright.”
After hanging up, he looked down at his hands.
His fingertips were still slightly flushed; the heat from where he had touched Xie Lin had not yet dissipated.
But this time, he could confirm…
He really could read Xie Lin.
It wasn’t an auditory hallucination; it wasn’t an illusion.
But why?
Was it really like what Dr. Wu said—that a crack had opened in that tightly shut door?
Moreover, he had only been clinging to Xie Lin before because he couldn’t hear what he was thinking, but now that he could hear, he still didn’t reject his touch.
Even when Xie Lin was faking an illness, even when he was smiling on the surface while secretly cursing others for not looking where they were going.
He felt no discomfort at all.
…
On the other end of the phone, after Ji Mingrui had chattered on for a while, he steered the conversation back, worried that Chi Qing would mind what his mother had said last time: “Don’t take what my mom said to heart. That’s just how she is; she’s at that age where she likes to worry unnecessarily.”
It would have been fine if he hadn’t mentioned his mother, but the moment he did, a mess of butterflies began to flutter in his head again.
Chi Qing: “Is there any basis for what your mother said?”
Ji Mingrui didn’t understand for a moment.
Chi Qing: “Is liking someone really like that?”
Ji Mingrui: “…Even if you ask me, I wouldn’t know. I’m a single dog.”
“But it should be close enough. Anyway, my mom is quite experienced,” Ji Mingrui added. “You act in so many plays; you must have received scripts like that, right?”
Because Chi Qing had a good-looking face, he had received many scripts back when he was first signed by He Sen.
He Sen hadn’t had much of a track record in the agent circle. Five years ago, when he first signed Chi Qing, he thought his career had finally reached a turning point, thinking he could bring this artist to the A-list just based on his face. He never expected to watch him become more and more “faded” and obscure under his watch—fading away quietly.
Nowadays, artists mostly congregate in the film and television circle, where there are more opportunities, more money, and sufficient exposure. But who could have predicted that this young master had issues with his acting and could only play villains—he couldn’t handle any other normal roles.
He had failed countless auditions. Finally, after an audition for a certain role, a director shook his head helplessly and said to him: “Chi Qing’s look is impeccable, very suitable for the male lead, but… the actress just said it too: it’s supposed to be two lovers reuniting after years, but Chi Qing looks like he’s coming to seek revenge. He scared the actress so much she didn’t dare to take the role. It’s not that I don’t want to give him a chance, but if he could just act normally… forget it, forget it, go back.”
Chi Qing pressed the bridge of his nose: “…I have received many, but the directors chased me back.”
