After they sat on the sofa and watched a few episodes of TV, Ban Sheng picked up the keys on the table and drove her home. The car sped along, and the night sky passed by the car window like a shooting star.
The car stalled downstairs of Lin Weixia's house. She unbuckled her seat belt and leaned over to open the door. Ban Sheng suddenly grabbed her hand and asked her:
"Do you have any plans for Christmas?"
Lin Weixia took out her cell phone, pretended to open the memo, and said in a drawn-out voice: "I seem to have something to do that day, but if you want to ask me out, then I will do it with reluctance—"
A sly look flashed across the girl's eyes. Her fair cheeks were suddenly pinched, forcing her to meet his gaze. Ban Sheng chuckled, his chest trembling slightly, and he responded in a low voice:
"Well, I want to date you. Do you agree?"
Lin Weixia coughed lightly and said softly, "Okay."
Two days later, on Christmas Day, the weather report said that today's heavy snow would turn into light snow. The number of people traveling today is expected to increase tenfold compared to previous days. Citizens traveling are requested to pay attention to safety in rainy and snowy days.
Lin Weixia sat at the dressing table, carefully drawing her eyebrows and putting on makeup. She also took a plum-colored lipstick and lightly applied it to her lips, making them shimmer.
When changing clothes, Lin Weixia's clothes were mostly simple in color. She specially picked a dark green cloak today, which made her skin look whiter than snow. Under the black beret were a pair of crystal clear eyes, and a pair of cherry earrings hanging from her ears swayed gently, blending well with her soft long hair.
The face looks simpler and more beautiful.
Lin Weixia and Ban Sheng made an appointment to meet at the cinema. The classic movie "Love Actually" was re-screened this year, and the two agreed to watch it on Christmas Day.
Lin Weixia arrived early. She took her ticket and sat on a bench waiting for someone. There were many people in the cinema today, including couples, husband and wife, and a family of three. Everyone had a happy smile on their face.
For some reason, this was not the first time Lin Weixia had met Ban Sheng, but this time she felt inexplicably nervous and her heartbeat was abnormal.
This, she thought, was a new beginning.
Lin Weixia looked down at the time. There was still half an hour left before the time they agreed on. She was expecting Ban Sheng to arrive, but he didn't show up.
After waiting for another half an hour, no one showed up. Lin Weixia withdrew her gaze from the door. Her legs were a little sore from sitting there, and her dark eyelashes drooped. She didn't know what she was thinking.
After a while, a standard female voice sounded in the theater: "Dear audience, the ticket check for the 8:10 show of "Love Actually" will begin now..."
The people sitting on both sides of Lin Weixia stood up one after another. Most of them were couples. The girls were holding popcorn in their arms, and the boys were queuing with tickets in their hands.
The phone in her pocket vibrated. Lin Weixia took it out and saw Ban Sheng's number popping up on the screen. She was moved and immediately answered the call: "Hello."
"Xia Xia, it's me." Ban Sheng's voice was cold.
"Sorry, I have something urgent to do and can't come." Ban Sheng took a deep breath, and he seemed to be standing in an empty ventilation corridor, and the sound echoed.
Lin Weixia was silent for a while, her arm holding the phone was sore, and she came back to her senses after a while and replied, "Okay."
There was a sudden scream from the other end of the receiver. Ban Sheng held the phone away, paused, and said with fatigue in his voice: "I will make it up to you next time."
After hanging up the phone, Lin Weixia put the phone back in her pocket. The hall was noisy. A couple was arguing one meter away. The girl was a little angry: "I told you to buy tickets earlier, but you didn't listen. What should I do now?"
The boy scratched his head and said, "What about the 11 o'clock show?"
The girl hit the boy on the shoulder with her wallet: "Look at you, you idiot, did you forget that the school has curfew? It's so annoying, it's all your fault."
The girl felt more and more wronged, and the boy was at a loss. When they were about to quarrel again, Lin Weixia walked over, handed them the tickets, and said, "Here you go."
"You don't want to watch it anymore?" the girl asked in surprise.
Lin Weixia shook her head, a faint smile appeared on the corner of her lips, and said, "No more watching, the person I'm waiting for didn't come."
After saying that, Lin Weixia stuffed two tickets into the girl's hands, put her hands in her pockets, walked through the crowded crowd, and walked out in the opposite direction of the crowd. A girl's voice came from behind: "Thank you, wait a minute, I haven't given you the money for the movie tickets yet-"
Lin Weixia didn't turn her head back, but stretched out a hand and waved it backwards.
Compared with everything that happened before this time, Lin Weixia's mood didn't seem as heavy as before. Maybe she had experienced more and her threshold for tolerance had become higher.
On Wednesday, after Lin Weixia finished her clinical psychology class, she and her classmates came out of the teaching building. A strong wind blew, blowing up the sand and dead leaves on the ground.
When passing by the Beijing University bulletin board, a group of young college students stopped there to watch and started a lot of discussion. My companion was a person who loved to watch the fun, so he pulled Lin Weixia into the crowd and said with a smile: "Make way, thank you."
The book in her arms inadvertently slipped down. Lin Weixia tightened the book and glanced at the bulletin board, where her gaze paused.
A piece of white paper was posted on the bulletin board, which should have been printed out anonymously by a student. The remarks on it were directed at Ban Sheng from the Class 1 of the School of Biomedical Engineering, saying that he was suspected of taking illegal drugs and relying on drugs to complete laboratory projects and research beyond his normal level. This was unfair to the majority of students, and the school was requested to investigate.
The other party said that Ban Sheng relied on drugs to complete the experiment, which violated the rules and was unfair. His words were indignant and extreme, and he tried to get ahead of others by saying that the school was covering up for him.
"Is this true? The guy from the engineering school is from Pennsylvania University, that's impossible." someone asked.
"Maybe she is like this at Penn. She always has a lot of fun abroad." A boy guessed with a smile on his face.
A tall girl interrupted coldly: "Some people believe this kind of statement without any factual basis. I believe that he is hated by others and they are eager to bring him down. Ban Sheng is too good and can do everything to the best, but he failed here."
"Ha, human hearts are really interesting."
The onlookers all held their own opinions. Lin Weixia remained silent. Her fingertips unconsciously clenched tightly, and her knuckles turned white. As the discussion snowballed,
A fair hand reached out and directly tore off the piece of paper on the bulletin board. Lin Weixia's eyes were filled with alienation and indifference. She crumpled the paper into a ball and threw it into the trash can in front of everyone.
Lin Weixia didn't go to the library to review. Instead, she started looking for such anonymous notices on all the bulletin boards in the school, and then tore them all up. It took her a whole afternoon.
The next day, Lin Weixia ate alone in the cafeteria. She only ordered two dishes, one was stir-fried green beans and the other was stir-fried beef with celery.
She was eating slowly when a cup of hot cocoa suddenly appeared on her left hand. The fragrance of jasmine perfume wafted over. When she looked up, it was Li Shengran.
Li Shengran appeared in front of her in an exquisite outfit. She was holding a mobile phone and a box of Wrigley chewing gum in her hands, which looked like she was using it to clean her mouth after smoking.
"You are actually in a good mood to eat now? Aren't you going to find him?" Li Shengran habitually retorted to her.
Lin Weixia put down her chopsticks, crossed her arms and said, "What else? Are you going to cry? I called him, but his phone was turned off."
Ban Sheng is already very familiar with playing missing.
After finishing speaking, Lin Weixia picked up the chopsticks again, lowered her head and began to chew the rice, saying in a cold tone: "I still want to eat."
It means she can go.
Li Shengran understood Lin Weixia's attitude very well. As a girl, she stood on her side and thought that Lin Weixia had the right to lose her temper, or even to ignore it.
But she has treated Ban Sheng as her own brother since she was a child, and watched how he survived until now.
Suddenly, she remembered the time at Jiujia Mountain and his bottle of "stomach medicine" without a label. Lin Weixia had tried to probe him many times but he had rejected her as if nothing had happened. She was startled and asked, "Is he sick? Is he suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder?"
Li Shengran took out a stack of reports from his bag and handed them to her: "More than that, you are a psychology student, so it should be easy for you to understand these. These reports are part of his case records from the past few years."
After Lin Weixia took it, she flipped through it quickly, her brain taking in information quickly. With a "pop", a chopstick fell off the blue-edged dining table.
Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, 24 items for evaluation: anxiety, cognitive impairment, sleep disorders, hopelessness... A score greater than three points indicates severe depression.
The SSI suicide ideation scale score showed that the patient had a strong desire to commit suicide... The more I looked, the more I saw one name on it - Ban Sheng.
Lin Weixia's fingertips couldn't help but tremble. The nouns that she knew by heart in class suddenly appeared before her eyes.
Everything felt strange to her.
"He was going to look for you that day, and he happened to have something to call his dad about. Ban Sheng hadn't been in touch with that family for two years, but when he called, his dad had changed his number. Then he had another attack, was forcibly sent to the hospital, and his phone was confiscated."
Li Shengran took a breath and said, "You probably don't know that Ban Sheng has been suffering from depression for many years. In the past two years abroad, it has developed into severe depression and moderate anxiety."
As the two were talking, the phone on the table made a "ding" sound. Lin Weixia clicked it and saw that it was an announcement issued by the school on the official website. It said that Ban Sheng, a junior exchange student from the Engineering College, was caught up in a public opinion storm. In addition, the school continued to receive reports that Ban Sheng had violated school rules and regulations. After comprehensive consideration, the school had suspended Ban Sheng's ongoing project until the results of the investigation came out.
What does this mean? It means that all the hard work that Ban Sheng put in day and night in the laboratory is likely to be wasted.
"Beast." Lin Weixia couldn't help but say, and a crystal tear dropped onto the phone screen.
She was cursing the person who reported Ban Sheng and maliciously dragged him into this trouble, asking why he treated her like this.
"Taking antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs can also be said to be taking them; drugs, in this world, with just a mouth, anything white can be turned into black." Lin Weixia said coldly.
She glanced at the beef and celery on Lin Weixia's plate and sighed, "It was the same on the winter solstice. I saw you bought celery. Do you think he likes beef and celery very much? In fact, he doesn't like celery at all. He made the same dish as you in high school just to accommodate you. He ate it because you liked it."
"What?" Lin Weixia was confused.
"I lied to you about the tattoo. He got the butterfly tattoo because of you. He got it after the college entrance examination because he didn't want to forget you," Li Shengran said calmly. "The most important thing is that he changed his major in college because of you. He was afraid that you would never hear of him again."
After the college entrance examination, Ban Sheng was locked up at home. Then one day, he slipped out. Ban Sheng found a friend he knew in No. 7 Middle School. That person was in the same junior high school as Lin Weixia. He told Ban Sheng everything he knew about Lin Weixia.
He told Ban Sheng that Lin Weixia's ears were originally fine. It seemed that when she was very young, she had a high fever and her drunk father gave her the wrong medicine. After Lin Weixia took an overdose of drugs such as gentamicin, she suffered hearing loss in her right ear.
Later she wore hearing aids.
"After entering junior high school, she was different from everyone else. People in the class tore up her homework books, called her a bitch, and isolated her. This was not the worst. A group of students molested Lin Weixia after school and blocked her in an alley. She was probably bullied too much. Lin Weixia resisted and bit one of the boys' hands. She almost bit off the flesh on the boy's arm. The pain was so severe that he slapped Lin Weixia's left ear more than a dozen times on the spot. The boy slapped her so hard that her ear bled before he let her go. Later, she had hearing problems in her left ear, but the matter was never resolved."
She was slapped in the left ear by someone who bullied her, which caused the hearing on the other side to be not very good, so Lin Weixia could not hear too noisy sounds, and sometimes she would get stressed. When she spoke, her reaction would be a beat slower than others.
After the other party finished speaking, he looked at Ban Sheng and asked tentatively: "Mr. Ban, are you okay?"
It was the first time he saw Ban Sheng like this. With a face full of injuries, he came to inquire about Lin Weixia as if nothing had happened. After listening, the young man in black leaned against the wall, with veins bulging on his forehead, as if he was trying hard to endure something.
Ban Sheng leaned against the mottled wall, his face expressionless, his hands unconsciously clenched into fists as if they were about to bleed.
It was the first time he saw Ban Sheng’s eyes so red.
The young man's mind is full of forbearance.
After the college entrance examination, Liu Qiang had nothing to do, so he whistled and ran back to school alone. He was wandering around and was about to find a barbecue stall to have a midnight snack when a rolling thunder sounded in the sky, followed by a heavy white rain.
Liu Qiang hummed a little tune, jumped over puddles and walked into the alley to avoid the rain. He was feeling happy when he was suddenly hit on the back of his head with a dull punch. He was immediately knocked to the ground covered with puddles.
"Fuck your mother, you are looking for death."
Liu Qiang spat on the ground, supported himself with his elbows and was about to hit someone when a dark shadow came down and hit Liu Qiang on the sternum with a club, causing him to scream.
The rain kept falling, and the slanting raindrops splashed on Ban Sheng's face. His expression was grim, and with a "bang", the stick was thrown to the ground.
Two figures were cast on the damp, mossy wall. One figure was thin and tall, with a hat on his head, revealing side lines as sharp as a knife, and a face as cold as a Rakshasas.
One of the shorter figures was beaten continuously, and finally he bent over like a shrimp, his face turned purple, and he finally could not hold on and knelt on the ground.
Liu Qiang was beaten badly. He kept begging for mercy: "Brother, I was wrong. How did I offend you-"
Liu Qiang felt so much pain all over his body, as if his internal organs were broken. Finally, he lay in the muddy water. Ban Sheng squatted down slowly, his face splashed with dirty water, and the wound on his brow bone was exposed. He stared at Liu Qiang, and suddenly a folding knife flew out from his palm, and the sharp blade flashed coldly under the light bulb.
"Which hand hit her?" Ban Sheng asked slowly.
Seeing Liu Qiang looking confused, Ban Sheng gave a hint: "Butterfly."
When Liu Qiang heard this word, he immediately thought of Lin Weixia, and he shuddered and kept shrinking back. At the beginning, he just touched her face, and when his hand was on her waist and just touched her breast, Lin Weixia's mother bit him like a chaste woman.
Of course he had to slap her to teach this ignorant woman a lesson, but he didn't expect that Lin Weixia's hearing in her left ear would also be affected.
She almost became completely deaf.
Thinking of this, Liu Qiang swallowed nervously, turned around and wanted to run, but Ban Sheng stepped on his hand, and the latter immediately let out a scream like a pig being slaughtered.
Before he could react, a sharp knife was placed at his ear. Ban Sheng's cheek twitched slowly, and he pushed the blade in his hand forward with a little force. Liu Qiang immediately felt warm liquid rushing to his ear, and he screamed again in fear.
"I changed my mind." Ban Sheng looked at his ears expressionlessly.
This mad dog might really cut off his ears as an apology to Lin Weixia.
Liu Qiang immediately struggled to sit up, holding onto Ban Sheng's trouser legs and begging for mercy, while kneeling on the ground and slapping himself hard:
"I was wrong, I was wrong! Brother, you don't have to do anything, I will slap myself."
Ban Sheng stood up and looked down at him. Liu Qiang slapped himself repeatedly until his ears were red and swollen and he could no longer hear the sound. The sound echoed in this narrow, empty alley. He slapped himself and shouted:
"I am sorry to Lin Weixia, I am sorry to Lin Weixia, I deserve to die..."
With a "clang", the stick was thrown to the ground and the footsteps of the young man in black faded away.
And the rain is still falling.
After returning, Ban Sheng looked up a lot of information, all about the hearing-impaired people.
Previously, Lin Weixia's ears were bleeding after Zheng Zhaoxing forcibly pulled out her hearing aid at school. When he took her to escape, Ban Sheng asked her if she was comfortable wearing it, and Lin Weixia said she was used to it.
Lin Weixia looked as if she was born to endure so much. At that moment, Ban Sheng felt distressed and wanted to do something for her.
Later, Ban Sheng saw an article on the Internet that mentioned the design and prospects of cochlear implants. The implantation of a cochlear implant can improve the voice of deaf patients by 30-70 percent.
However, because all cochlear implant manufacturers in the world have their own speech processors, and most domestic laboratories do not have access to them, China has been continuously researching its own platform and continuously developing and updating the speech coding for Chinese tones.
After reading a long list of information, Ban Sheng learned a lot. He was afraid that when Lin Weixia got older, her hearing would decline or be affected by other factors due to age or other external factors, and she would have to have a cochlear implant at that time.
After these things happened, Bansheng hoped to do something for her—
Allowing her to hear every sound in the world more clearly all the time.
His daughter shouldn't have to suffer so much when she came into this world.
She should be happy and worry-free.
Protecting Lin Weixia is Ban Sheng’s secret.
So when applying to foreign universities, Ban Sheng gave up his beloved astrophysics major despite everyone's opposition and resolutely chose biomedical engineering.
Lin Weixia kept echoing Li Shengran's words as she ran to find Ban Sheng. She stood on the busy roadside, waving for a taxi, her face anxious.
After getting in the car, the driver was shocked to see the girl in the back seat crying her face off. He asked her if she was okay, but she shook her head again.
"I didn't like you when we were in high school. He was obsessed with you, but you took advantage of Ban Sheng and got his dad to beat him up. After he was sent abroad, his depression worsened."
"I helped him test you and stimulate you before, it was all my own behavior. I just couldn't stand you. Do you know what the funniest thing is? He didn't care about anything that happened in high school. He is still afraid that you like Liang Jiashu. For so many years, he only sees you."
The boy's sincerity is honest and firm. It only happens once in a lifetime and is only given to you.
Once given, it was never taken back.
"I don't know if you've noticed the wound on his arm. I've seen him get angry too many times. He doesn't lose his temper with you on purpose. He can't control himself. Every time he hurts you, he feels regretful and guilty, and then he punishes himself by burning his arm with cigarette butts."
Li Shengran didn't need to elaborate on the recurrence of severe depression. Lin Weixia also knew that the incident at Jiujia Mountain was when Ban Sheng's illness was at its worst. He didn't want Lin Weixia to see him in such a miserable state, so he deliberately said harsh words to drive her away.
Ban Sheng had thought countless times about telling Lin Weixia about his story. How could he, a proud person like him, tell her? He was in the dark, and the glory he showed in front of others was fake. Sorry, the person you like is actually a psychopath.
He loves you very much, but he thinks about dying all the time.
Lin Weixia's heart felt like it was being cut by a blunt knife. It turned out that the scar on his wrist that she felt at the B&B that night was caused by this.
As a psychology student, when the two of them were together, Lin Weixia thought Ban Sheng had post-traumatic stress disorder when she saw him react so strongly to the wind chimes at Jiujia Mountain last time, so she had been trying to guide Ban Sheng to open up his heart.
Lin Weixia always thought that Ban Sheng was punishing her and testing her feelings because of his inconsistent attitude towards her. She lost her rational judgment when facing Ban Sheng because of her concern.
The car arrived at the hospital after driving for more than half an hour. Lin Weixia opened the car and ran towards the hospital immediately. The driver behind her kept shouting that he had not paid.
Lin Weixia hurried back, took money out of her pocket and gave it to him, then disappeared from the driver's sight without even giving the change.
Arriving at the inpatient department, Lin Weixia registered at the nurse's front desk, then turned left and subconsciously looked for room 4817. The walls here were a cold light blue, and although there was sunlight, the atmosphere was eerie.
As she passed by rows of wards, Lin Weixia heard hysterical screams and cries from time to time, accompanied by the nurses' whispered soothing voices.
The atmosphere was oppressive and disorienting.
I came to a yellow-white door, pushed it open, and a ray of sunlight shone in.
Even though they hadn't seen each other for a few days, Lin Weixia felt like a century had passed.
He stood on the terrace with his back to her in his hospital gown. Outside were spreading bare green hills and half-melted snow. From time to time, he could hear the sound of patients taking a walk downstairs. From the next ward, he could hear the sound of patients smashing cups and crying in despair. All the sounds were intertwined together.
Ban Sheng was very tall and thin, and his whole body was enveloped by a sharp sense of depravity, as if he was only supported by a skeleton with only bony bones. His hand was resting on the crotch of his trousers, and the back of his hand was black and blue, with many needle holes of various sizes.
"A Sheng." Lin Weixia called him. She tried hard to control herself, but her voice still trembled.
Ban Sheng's tall and thin figure froze. The sunlight cast on the ground lengthened his shadow. He stood in the sun, but seemed to live in the shadows. He turned his back to her, still without turning back, and chuckled:
"I don't want you to see me like this."