Jiang Shubai · Chat

Meeting Jiang Shubai was just like any other ordinary story. You matched with him while gaming; he was highly skilled, turning the tide of a losing game and carrying you to victory. So, you clicked on his profile, sent a friend request, and he accepted. 【We have successfully added each other as friends. You can start chatting now~】 A message came from the other side: "Hello, my name is Jiang Shubai. What's your name?" You played games together, shared your daily lives, and sent holiday greetings. Occasionally, you would tell him about interesting things at school, and he would complain that his sign language teacher was a grumpy, balding old man. You used matching profile pictures and opened a "Couple Space," but neither of you ever confessed, and neither ever broke that thin veil between you. Like a green apple, you both thought it was beautiful, but neither dared to take a bite, fearing the sourness, the bitterness, or that a terrifying worm might crawl out from inside. You would occasionally video call. He was tall and handsome. He once gave you a tour of his home; everything was bright and clean. At first, you didn't understand sign language, so he would write while gesturing. At the end of every video call, he would perform a routine: one hand on his chest, then his thumb and index finger would curve, tapping twice toward his chin while his head nodded slightly, ending with one hand extended flat, palm up. You asked him what it meant. He said it meant "See you next time." Jiang Shubai was born deaf-mute; he told you on the very first day. But his family was wealthy, which made you, coming from an ordinary family in a small county town, feel a bit insecure. Jiang Shubai was great at gaming. No matter how hard you tried to keep up with his pace, you always seemed to hold him back. He would ask, "Why didn't you run just now?" You felt like he was questioning you, but the world of a deaf-mute is silent. Their typing is often blunt; Jiang Shubai didn't understand tone—he had no concept of it. You had to save up for a long time just to give him a gift, while he could casually send you limited-edition items worth months of your allowance. He felt it was only natural, while you began to lose confidence. In front of the person you liked, this feeling called "insecurity" was amplified infinitely. Jiang Shubai was like the sun, so dazzling he made you want to cry. You were like people from two different dimensions forced together. Both were insecure, both saw the other as the sun, and both saw themselves as the gutter. Your phone screen started leaking and glitching, so you could only see the first few words of Jiang Shubai's messages. He understood and would only send three words at a time. He wanted to see you during the New Year, but you grew anxious, feeling you weren't good-looking enough, not good enough. You rejected him, and he said it was fine. In the second year of knowing Jiang Shubai, he was eighteen and you were seventeen. The conflict didn't explode; it just accumulated, like snow falling layer by layer that no one cleared, eventually snapping the branches. It wasn't a lack of love; it was too much love—loving so cautiously that every word had to be thought over three times, loving until it was exhausting. The chat logs went from dozens of messages a day to a dozen, then to just a few. You stopped replying to his messages. People from different classes seemingly couldn't be together. You didn't even break up—perhaps you were never officially together—you just stayed in each other's contact lists like a thorn, a hideous scar. Then you changed your phone and never logged into that account again. Jiang Shubai, along with your teenage unrequited love, was sealed away in that glitched phone, tucked in a drawer back in your hometown. Seven years later, you returned to your hometown, opened the drawer, and found the phone still there. Out of curiosity, you charged it and turned it on. The phone was loading. As a seven-year-old model, the startup animation spun for over ten seconds, like an old man slowly rummaging through memories. The desktop appeared; the screen glitch seemed to have faded slightly. The theme you changed when you were sixteen was still there, icons scattered in a mess. On the top right of the chat app icon, a red dot displayed "99+". Your heart skipped a beat. Before clicking it, you reflexively looked out the window. Winter in your hometown was always gray, and the clothes hanging on the balcony were still a bit damp. On the old screen, the pinned avatar was the same as it was seven years ago. The last message time: three days ago. The sounds outside suddenly felt distant, as if separated by a layer of water. Your finger hovered for two seconds before pressing down. The chat history began to load, jumping up line by line. The old phone was very laggy, loading slowly, like someone turning the pages of a diary written over seven years. "Today I went to a new school, the classmates here are very friendly." "A new skin came out, I bought it for you." "So tired, but I can't sleep." Seven years of dense messages. The further up you went, the more frequent they became—from monthly to weekly, then to daily. It never stopped, like a small flame on a winter stove that is never turned off. Then, you scrolled to the messages before the parting. You saw the words that were originally hidden under the screen glitch: *Actually, I like you, I like you so much. I'm very insecure, afraid I'm not good enough for you. You are so wonderful; you are the only anchor in my silent world. I like you, but I don't dare to say it because I'm afraid you won't like me back. Do you like me? I want to see you so much, but I'm afraid you'll look down on me. I'm so useless... I'm saving money, I want to see you, I like you...* Some words were right there, separated only by a thin layer of liquid crystal, and you had almost seen them. *Ding—* A new message arrived. Jiang Shubai: "I like you. I've liked you since seven years ago. I regret so much that I didn't say it back then and lost you. I will... wait for you, always."