After leaving Zheng Yixuan’s house, Feng Yan conducted another little experiment.
He tried sitting in the living room for a while, wondering how long he could sit still without doing anything.
He thought he could sit there for at least an hour, but it turned out he had overestimated himself. Feng Yan soon grew bored, and his hands couldn’t help fidgeting.
The phone in his pants pocket felt unusually hot. His fingers itched, so he pulled it out to check. Not a single message had come in. It was awfully quiet here, too. In short, it was incredibly boring.
“It’s really unbearable.” That was the final result of Feng Yan’s little experiment.
If he hadn’t happened to meet Zheng Yixuan that day, he never would have known that the man lived next door. Feng Yan was also certain that most people in this community wouldn’t know it either. Even the surveillance cameras would forget him because of the limits of their data coverage.
Zheng Yixuan would become a living person with a ghostlike lack of presence. The only thing people would see was his name as a painter. Perhaps his paintings would continue circulating among these people, but what about him as a person?
His extraordinary painting skills came from his pain. Could ordinary inanimate objects, which looked so mundane to us, be the source of his suffering?
Feng Yan remembered that when he was in school, a teacher had shown the students a short animated film called 91 Centimeters. It was about a man who had been hit by a meteorite, causing the world in his eyes to deviate ninety-one centimeters from reality. It was a short story about a spiritual disorder.
So, did Zheng Yixuan’s world also deviate from reality in this way? Could the bright sunlight Feng Yan saw become blazing flames in his eyes?
He let out a heavy sigh.
Now that Feng Yan knew him well enough to have even taken part in his life, he couldn’t simply back away. It wasn’t that he wanted to be a savior, and he wasn’t a psychiatrist either, but he’d been given the chance to get to know Zheng Yixuan. In a way, Feng Yan felt that made him a savior automatically.
So, the next day, he got up early for the first time in his life and squatted at the corridor entrance with Auntie Lin.
They had never added each other as contacts, which had really been a mistake.
“Actually, I’m a novelist by profession. Recently, I’ve been wanting to write a novel about college, so I’d like to get to know your employer, Auntie Lin, and learn about the life of a college professor.”
Auntie Lin didn’t hesitate at all. She gave Feng Yan the professor’s business card and even praised his abilities. “No wonder your schedule is flipped between day and night. So you’re a writer. I love reading novels! What kind of novels do you write?”
Feng Yan shyly mentioned several of his novel titles. Afterward, Auntie Lin invited a group of friends in her chat group to click on Feng Yan’s novels and add them to their reading lists. Many of them seemed genuinely interested and even left him good ratings.
“Keep it up, Xiao Feng! We’ll all support you.”
Feng Yan was stunned. He hadn’t expected Auntie Lin to love reading novels so much. No wonder his editor often told him not to underestimate writers who wrote about everyday life, especially family matters. Their readers included a huge number of mothers.
After saying goodbye to Auntie Lin, Feng Yan returned home. He was a little worried that the professor might not reply, so he mentioned in his message that he was Auntie Lin’s friend.
The professor didn’t reply until the afternoon. She must have asked Auntie Lin about him before responding. It was only natural. People with status tended to be wary of being disturbed.
After adding Feng Yan back as a contact, she quietly checked his Moments. Only then did he learn that the professor was a very elegant middle-aged woman. She loved planting and caring for flowers, and had also posted pictures of gifts her students had given her. Feng Yan had initially thought she was an elderly man, but that had merely been an incorrect stereotype. Auntie Lin had never said whether her professor was a man or a woman.
From the name on the business card, Feng Yan learned that the professor’s surname was Zheng, just like Zheng Yixuan’s.
First, Professor Zheng replied by sending Feng Yan a smiling emoji.
Feng Yan immediately sent another opening message: [Hello, Professor Zheng. I’m Zheng Yixuan’s neighbor.]
At first, Feng Yan had wanted to say that he was Zheng Yixuan’s friend. But after thinking it over carefully, he realized they probably couldn’t be considered friends yet.
Professor Zheng replied: [I know. Xiao Lin told me that you’re a writer. I’m very happy to meet you.]
Feng Yan felt embarrassed. [Uh, no, I’m not really a writer. I just write a few novels to make a living.]
Professor Zheng sent another smiling emoji: [You’re too modest. I heard you want to write a story about a university campus.]
At this point, Feng Yan didn’t want to waste any more time. He got straight to the point.
[ I’m sorry, Professor Zheng. To be honest, I didn’t contact you because I’m writing a novel. I contacted you because of Zheng Yixuan…]
Feng Yan briefly recounted how he and Zheng Yixuan had gotten to know each other.
When Professor Zheng heard that Feng Yan had invited Zheng Yixuan to eat at a restaurant and that the man hadn’t refused, she became extremely excited. She immediately asked whether Feng Yan had time to come to her home.
Feng Yan replied: [Yes, I’m free right now.]
Professor Zheng immediately sent him her location.
It actually wasn’t very far away, just in the larger community next door. If it had been too far, it would have been inconvenient for Auntie Lin to go back and forth delivering meals every day.
Feng Yan hurried down to the lobby and rode his little electric scooter there. Professor Zheng lived on the first floor. A spacious courtyard filled with flowers and other ornamental plants made it look like a beautiful little garden.
Professor Zheng and her husband were waiting anxiously outside the door. Her husband also had a very refined temperament and was clearly a highly educated intellectual. When he saw Feng Yan, he merely smiled. He didn’t look like a talkative man.
When Feng Yan arrived, Professor Zheng warmly welcomed him inside, poured him a cup of herbal tea, and said with a smile, “I’m sorry to have asked you to come all this way. May I ask your name?”
Feng Yan immediately introduced himself politely. “My name is Feng Yan.”
“That’s a lovely name.” Professor Zheng offered a polite compliment. “I’m Zheng Lan, and this is my husband, Wen.”
Feng Yan politely nodded to them both.
The professor had seemed rather nervous from the beginning, occasionally rubbing her fingers together. When she spoke again, her tone had unconsciously become much less formal. “Xiao Feng, could you tell me again how you and Yixuan met?”
At Professor Zheng’s request, Feng Yan recounted in detail how he and Zheng Yixuan had met and interacted with each other.
It turned out that Professor Zheng didn’t even know that the last painting Zheng Yixuan had painted was of a cake. She was shocked when she heard what Feng Yan said.
“Really?”
She adjusted her tone to sound calmer. “Since you contacted me, you must have noticed that something is a little wrong with him.”
Feng Yan nodded. “I only know that something is wrong with him. At first, I was just curious, but now I really want to help him. I’m also afraid I might upset him by accidentally saying something inappropriate.”
Professor Zheng began telling him about Zheng Yixuan.
The herbal tea she had poured for Feng Yan was still somewhat hot, perfect for listening to a story.
The story confirmed Feng Yan’s suspicions. Professor Zheng was indeed Zheng Yixuan’s relative—in fact, she was his aunt. She had raised Zheng Yixuan because when he was four years old, his family of three had been in a serious car accident, and he was the only one who survived.
Professor Zheng was Zheng Yixuan’s only remaining relative still living in the country. For some reason, she and her husband had never had children throughout their years of marriage, despite undergoing examinations that found nothing wrong.
“We don’t dislike children, but we can’t have any of our own. So after hearing about Zheng Yixuan, we immediately went to pick him up and decided to raise him as our own child.”