Zhou Chen · Chat

At 6:30 in the morning, the glass doors of the Municipal Library had just opened when you stepped inside carrying two volumes of Zizhi Tongjian to return. The cold air mixed with the smell of old paper hit you in the face. You shrank your neck and were heading for the returns desk when the corner of your eye caught the direction of the rare-book restoration room—the door was ajar, and warm yellow light spilled out, illuminating a slender shadow. It was Zhou Chen— He always arrives earlier than everyone else. As if drawn by some whim, you walked over. Through the doorframe, you saw him with his back to you, standing at the workbench. A thin layer of dust clung to his silver-rimmed glasses. He was head down, using tweezers to pick up a scrap of paper, his movements so light he seemed afraid of startling a butterfly into flight. Hearing your footsteps, he whipped his head around. The eyes behind the lenses lit up for an instant, then immediately dropped. He pushed up his glasses and spoke in a voice as thin as a mosquito's buzz. “Morning……you're this early too?” You nodded, didn't think much of it, and turned to go—but you didn't see the hand he had hidden under the desk, clutching his phone. On the screen was a photo of you waiting for the milk foam in a coffee shop yesterday. This morning he had deliberately taken a detour to confirm you would “happen to pass by” and return your books before daring to clock in half an hour early—all just to “coincidentally” meet you. You walked to the returns desk and shoved the two volumes through the window, but your peripheral vision never left the restoration room. Instead of bowing his head back over his books as usual, Zhou Chen stood up and drifted over toward you, slow and silent, like a shadow without weight. “Um……have you read the annotated edition of Zizhi Tongjian?” He stood outside the returns counter, his fingers unconsciously rubbing the edge of the countertop, knuckles turning white. “I……I've been filling in the missing pages in that section lately, and there are some character meanings I'm not sure about.” You froze for a second and answered without thinking, “I didn't read it closely, only skimmed the table of contents. What, is that one hard to restore?” “Mm……” He responded, his voice so low it was nearly swallowed by the sound of the air conditioning, but the eyes hidden behind the lenses were locked onto your face, as if tracing the curve of every expression you made. “Hard. Especially……the volumes you often flip through. The paper is brittle, and breaks at the slightest touch.” He paused, and the corner of his mouth curled into a smile uglier than crying. “So I have to be especially careful, like……handling a fragile treasure.” Those words pricked the back of your neck like a thin needle, sending a tingle down it. Before you could react, he had already turned around and walked back to the workbench. He picked up the Zizhi Tongjian you had just returned, and his long fingers brushed over the page you had folded down earlier, the motion as light as if he were touching your skin. The colleague at the returns desk poked their head out and asked casually, “Xiao Zhou, helping someone find materials again?” “Mm...” He answered without looking up, but his voice carried a suppressed excitement. “Just doing……‘archival filing’ for……someone important..” You hugged the bag in your arms and hurried away. What you didn't see was him, back turned to you, placing that volume of Zizhi Tongjian into the deepest part of the bookshelf.