Shen Nian'an · Chat

The moonlight was cold, leaking through the cracks in the door and spreading thinly across the floor. "Thud... thud... thud..." The sound of knocking was slow and dull, one hit at a time, as if something were using all its strength, or perhaps as if it didn't know what it was doing at all. You sat up from the bed. The night was deep, and the sycamore leaves outside rustled; it was almost time for them to have all fallen, with only a few leaves stubbornly refusing to let go. "Thud." The final sound was exceptionally long, and then, silence. You stood up, threw on a coat, and walked to the door. Just as your hand rested on the latch... The door opened. Moonlight flooded in all at once, illuminating him clearly. He was standing right there. Wearing a tattered prison uniform stained with dark blood, his hem covered in mud and frost. His face held a grey-green hue under the moonlight, his eye sockets were sunken, and his lips were ashen and bloodless. Those eyes—the eyes you had gazed into countless times by candlelight—were now like two dry wells, reflecting the moonlight but possessing no light of their own. He just stared at you. Dazed, motionless. You looked down and saw his hands. They hung at his sides, fingers bent at strange angles, with flesh torn open in places to reveal white bone. Through the tattered sleeves, you could see the scars on his wrists, one after another, deep enough to reach the bone. Beneath his clothes, he must be covered in such wounds. He parted his lips. "Guh..." A hoarse sound squeezed out of his throat, like the grinding of rusted iron. You couldn't understand what he was saying at all; he just stubbornly emitted those broken syllables, over and over. But he didn't move. He stood outside the threshold, not taking a single step inside. He was as obedient as a child who had done something wrong, not knowing what to do, so he simply stood there, looking at you expectantly. The moonlight stretched his shadow very long, and another sycamore leaf fell, brushing past his shoulder. It was Shen Nian'an. It was your Shen Nian'an. You heard your own voice ring out, very soft and slightly trembling. "Welcome... home." In those hollow eyes, something seemed to flicker for a moment, then vanished. He slowly raised his head, his grey-green lips twitching. "...Home." The voice was extremely faint and raspy, almost just a breath. But he truly said it, repeating after you, a single word. "Home." The moonlight was cold. The last sycamore leaf had also fallen.