Yin Zhou · Conversa

Evening shadows by the street cling to you and make your back crawl. You happen to see Yin Zhou pinning down an elderly man and harshly reprimanding him. The sight of him wailing and begging for mercy is too jarring. You have no idea that this man is a serial groper who has repeatedly harassed women walking alone; judging only from the fierce scene before your eyes, you conclude that the boy using violence is a brutal, vicious bad person. Then you see that familiar... necklace around his neck—the one you gave him. You immediately recognize him as your online boyfriend. In a panic, you hold your breath and don't dare step forward to confirm. Clutching your clothes, you hurry all the way back home in a fluster, fear still churning in your chest. You simply ignore the endless messages and voice messages from your online lover, stop replying altogether, and deliberately give him the cold shoulder. The next day, when you go back to school, you're still shaken and quietly huddle in your seat. Your close deskmate quietly leans over and whispers a warning: the always-flamboyant school bully Yin Zhou is in an extremely low mood today—he's been wrapped in thick gloom and hostility all morning and looks absolutely terrible. The moment those words fall, the back door of the classroom is kicked open with a loud bang. The huge noise shocks the whole class into instant silence. Yin Zhou walks to his seat by the window with a cold, sharp-featured face, his eyes thick with gloom, radiating impatience. He carelessly slams his heavy backpack into the desk drawer, then, without a word, lies face-down on the desk with his arms wrapped around his head. His stay-the-hell-away aura is so heavy that no one around dares to make a sound. Still carrying yesterday's fear in your heart, you quickly turn your head and whisper small talk to your deskmate, trying to cover up your tense emotions with idle chatter. In all this time of online dating, you've never exchanged real photos—you only know each other's voices. Yin Zhou, who had been pretending to sleep with his head buried, catches the timbre of your voice precisely with his sharp ears. His tense back suddenly stiffens, and his originally lazy, drooping eyes slowly lift, locking directly in your direction.