"Wait... wait a minute! Why are you crying?"
Lin Xingjie suddenly panicked, the tears that had been swirling in her eyes while talking had retreated.
"No, it's nothing..."
Xu Xiangyang wanted to wipe away the tear stains, but the warm tears once again welled up, relentlessly dropping onto the back of his hand.
"It's just..."
He opened his mouth, and finally let out a long sigh.
"I want to apologize to you."
"How can you say that..." the girl's delicate brows furrowed tightly, "No, absolutely not. You haven't done anything to wrong me, you're still the only person who has been kind and helped me. You're the one person who can't apologize to me, there's no such reason."
"I'm apologizing for the things I said in the past," Xu Xiangyang covered his forehead, his face flushed with warmth as he remembered the things he said after he'd fainted, "Knowing nothing about you, yet acting all high and mighty, saying those words..."
"No, I think what you said was correct." Lin Xingjie shook her head vigorously, "Besides, it's normal that you don't understand me. It's merely because... I never gave anyone the chance."
The girl knew clearly that "not wanting to drag others into her own troubles," "fearing to burden others," and all such reasons were just excuses.
Even if the adults couldn't help her, if she had made more friends at school, maybe things wouldn't have turned out so bad.
The real reason was nothing more than her being a coward, scared of being deceived, and thus never daring to take that step; she was just like a hedgehog that curls up tightly, its spines facing the outside world, afraid of hurting others and of being hurt; until she was truly desperate, frantically seeking help, only to find that she was already isolated.
Fortunately, she was no longer alone now.
"It doesn't matter anymore. I even feel lucky that the first real friend I made was you, and not someone else. If it hadn't been for you, I might really have given up on myself..."
Lin Xingjie had thought about her future more than once, wondering if it would be better to be less stubborn.
After all, there was no escaping or hiding. Perhaps not thinking about anything would be more relaxing. To stop resisting, to accept whatever came, to accept whatever others wanted to do to her rather than stubbornly resisting; to learn to smoke, drink, sing, and dance like those people, until she either graduated or was simply expelled. If she wanted to continue living in this neighborhood, she could either work odd jobs for meager wages or immerse herself in a life of debauchery, making a living by selling her body until her youth was gone and she aged; then carelessly having children with an irresponsible man, and letting the child repeat her own tragedy, possibly even worse...
She'd heard countless tragedies that befell girls living at the bottom of society and never felt immune to them.
Lin Xingjie poured out the thoughts that had kept her tossing and turning on countless nights to her friend, setting aside the sensitivity and pride of a teenage girl, laying bare her heart without any concealment.
"You think about a lot..."
Xu Xiangyang was somewhat surprised. Although he occasionally fantasized about his own future--as does everyone--the way she tried to outline such overly realistic and pessimistic future lives without a shred of hope was unique. Since it's fantasy, shouldn't it be innately more positive?
On second thought, he felt he could understand. Unlike himself, Lin Xingjie's situation was not just difficult, but better described as fraught with crisis. She lived in constant anxiety and tension, dreading the arrival of tomorrow, with no anticipation.
"Because I have nothing to do, there's no home to return to, and I spend all day hiding in places with no people, taking naps, and thinking about all kinds of messy things... Sometimes, I really wish this city I live in would just be destroyed, everyone says the end of the world is coming, right? I genuinely hope that day will come, so I wouldn't have to worry about a future that has no hope."
Xu Xiangyang fell silent.
The future she described filled his heart with the bitterness of reality. As if without him, if none of these changes had happened, this girl would only slide into the abyss, living a life beyond redemption...
But he felt that wasn't the case.
"I think, you would definitely not become like that."
"Xu Xiangyang..."
"You're not that kind of person. Even if there's only a slight chance, you wouldn't give up, right?"
"...You seem to have more confidence in me than I do."
"I don't know how you see yourself, I'm just talking about how 'Lin Xingjie' should be in my eyes. Besides, you now have Xiao An."
"That's true." She nodded, "Actually, was I being too heavy just now? After all, I have this superpower, and even my mom's violent boyfriend isn't really a problem anymore... But then again, thinking about it, the situation could be even worse, right? If I had awakened my superpower in that kind of situation, I probably would have gone crazy, even to the point of killing people in rage. In the end, if it wasn't for getting caught by the police, then it would be—"
Lin Xingjie, as if remembering something, said seriously:
"Like you said, really joining some Dark Organization."
The tear marks on Xu Xiangyang's face were still not dry, but he couldn't help but laugh out loud.
"That does sound pretty bad."
Lin Xingjie joined him, laughing for a few moments, but her gaze still quietly rested on him. Her lips curved slightly, like a crescent moon.
"Hey, aren't you crying anymore?" The girl scraped her cheek with her finger and teasingly said, "Even though you're a boy, it's kind of embarrassing."
"I, I could always cry, just like when reading emotional scenes in a novel would make someone cry, that's normal, right?"
Is that so? She was surprised, having always thought that he was a cold-faced top student.
"Aren't you embarrassed?"
"What's there to be embarrassed about." Xu Xiangyang snorted, his guardian certainly never taught him the likes of "real men do not cry easily," "When you want to laugh, laugh; when you want to cry, cry. The truly pitiable ones are those who can't even do this."
"You make a good point," Lin Xingjie agreed, "but still, there are times when you can't either cry or laugh."
"That's why when you can, you should do so to the fullest." Xu Xiangyang said firmly, "If you want to cry, you can let it all out right now, and I promise I won't laugh at you."
"I was indeed about to cry from what I said," the girl used the nail of her little finger to wipe the corner of her reddened eyes, shaking her head with a light chuckle, "but you distracted me so much that I can hardly start crying now."
She pointed her finger at the television.
"Might as well watch together..."
Before Lin Xingjie could finish her sentence, a piercing scream suddenly came from the television. Not until that moment did the two, who hadn't been concentrating on the movie until just now, subconsciously focus their attention on the screen.
It turned out that the movie had reached a scene where the residents in a building encountered a ghost.
Accompanied by eerie background music and the flickering light on the screen, the atmosphere was quite chilling. There were no lights on in the room, and the two on the chairs were completely enveloped in the dim night that flowed in through the window.
All that met the eye were murky silhouettes. The curtains swayed in the wind as if someone were hiding behind them.
Xu Xiangyang and Lin Xingjie looked at each other.
"Wait, didn't you say it was a comedy?"
"Uh... I'm pretty sure the movie I put on was a Stephen Chow film..."
Right at that moment, the following scene played on the television screen: A few people cautiously entered a room where an old person's funeral had just been held, fumbling around in the dim living room.
Just then, the room's television suddenly lit up with the gloomy face of an old lady—it was the recently buried elder! As everyone was startled, the television started to move as if the spirit of the old lady was attached to it, driving its actions—
"Bang!"
And almost at the same instant, the television in reality also violently shook.
The two of them were startled greatly.
"Snap."
The image that was playing on the screen disappeared, replaced by static and the "crackling" sound of electricity.
"Wha- what's happening?"
Lin Xingjie's face paled slightly, her voice trembling a bit.
"Uh, I have no idea," Xu Xiangyang said, wiping his eyes and clumsily wiping the tears stains on his face. He stood up and walked over to the living room's light switch pull cord, planning to turn on the light.
"Huh? Strange..."
However, despite several attempts, the light did not come on.
"Did the electricity trip?"
Lin Xingjie followed suit and tried the lights in the bathroom and bedroom, which also would not turn on.
Xu Xiangyang and she looked at each other.
"Should we check outside?"
Lin Xingjie suggested.
Xu Xiangyang nodded, moving toward the door.
He unlocked the chain, pushed open the front door, and had only taken two steps up the stairs when he suddenly turned around, rushed back in, relocked the door, hung up the chain, and even grabbed a chair to prop against the door from the inside.
"What are you..."
Lin Xingjie was taken aback, but before she could ask, she saw Xu Xiangyang put his finger to his lips, looking extremely tense as he shushed her.
The girl noticed with sharp eyes that his hand was shaking.
Xu Xiangyang pointed to the nearby window, gesturing for her to come over.
Lin Xingjie swallowed hard. Aware that something was amiss, she tiptoed to the window ledge, pressed her face against the glass as directed by Xu Xiangyang, and tried hard to look to the side—
A tall, thin old man dressed in a dark Zhongshan suit was standing at the entrance of the alley.
...Who was that?
Before she could ask the question, in the blink of an eye, the figure of the old man had swiftly moved across the distance of three or four houses, still standing silently in the night.
Behind him, the streetlights and the lights inside the windows all went out one by one, leaving nothing but an all-enveloping darkness where not even a hand could be seen before one's eyes.