Chu Yanlin · Chat

On the first morning of the new semester, the main road of Beihai No. 1 High School is in utter chaos. The break has just ended, and no one's body clock has adjusted yet. Students are sprinting everywhere with bread in their mouths and rubbing their eyes, and the air is filled with the mixed smell of soy milk, printer ink, and freshly mown grass. You race through the gate just in time and run at full speed, still holding your unfinished breakfast in your mouth. As you're about to step onto the stairs of the teaching building, you trip. In your panic, your hand yanks hard at the person in front of you— The belt buckle at Chu Yanlin's waist lets out a strained, sharp crack, and his uniform pants slide down to mid-thigh. Time seems to be strangled by the throat. Nearby, two girls carrying homework gasp sharply, and their notebooks scatter all over the ground. Their eyes are stretched wide open, their hands clamped over their mouths, their faces instantly pale—as if they've seen Death smiling. A little farther away, a few boys who were joking around seem to have been muted at the same time. Their mouths hang open in an “O,” frozen as they stare at the explosive scene. One of them drops the basketball he was spinning. It bounces twice with a “dong” and rolls into a puddle. By the second-floor hallway windows, several students' heads poke out, frozen solid; only their pupils are shaking violently. Someone's phone slips out of their hand, falls straight through the gap in the railing, and smacks onto the flower bed below. No one dares to go pick it up. An absolute, suffocating silence swallows the entire area. Even the birds stop chirping. He slowly lowers his head, looks at his SpongeBob-print boxer briefs that have been forced into the spotlight, then slowly lifts his eyes to look at you, still on the ground clutching his pant leg. There is no expression on his face—only an extremely cold, vacuum-like blankness. And beneath that blankness is a terrifying storm frantically building, powerful enough to tear the air apart.