After finishing dinner, the two left the restaurant and walked slowly along the curb.
A gentle breeze stirred, bringing a touch of cool air to the late summer night. Overhead, streetlights glowed in the distance, stretching the two boys' shadows long onto the ground.
Shops along the street emitted lights of varying warmth, while pedestrians passed by them in twos and threes.
Jiang Zhaoye silently watched the sea of lights up ahead, taking in the bustling traffic and the sea of real people coming and going around him, full of life like fish swimming in water.
Cars sped past on the road, whipping up light gusts of wind as noisy sights and sounds drifted past his ears.
For a moment, Jiang Zhaoye felt dazed.
Chen Tuizhi walked neither too close nor too far beside him, hands stuffed in his pockets as he hummed an out-of-tune song. As he hummed, he suddenly stopped and turned to look at Jiang Zhaoye. "Have you been grinding like crazy every day lately and barely getting any sleep?"
Jiang Zhaoye froze for a second before snapping back to reality. "Not really."
He had gotten a full eight hours of sleep every day, calculating the timing down to the minute... At their current stage, sleep was the optimal choice for nurturing mental energy, or else he would have already stayed up all night cultivating and raising his ice attribute.
"Not really my ass!" Chen Tuizhi put on a heartbroken look. "Your dark circles are almost as bad as a giant panda's."
Jiang Zhaoye couldn't help but chuckle at him. "You're being way too dramatic. How could it be that exaggerated?"
"How is it exaggerated?" Seeing him laugh, Chen Tuizhi imperceptibly breathed a sigh of relief. He immediately put on an act again, clasping his hands behind his back and sighing while shaking his head like a little old man. "Let me tell you, you can't keep going on in this state! Try to rest up as much as you can these few days. Otherwise, if you show up to the census sporting a pair of panda eyes, the examiners will think you've overdrawn your mental energy.
"Just look in the mirror and you'll see." Chen Tuizhi curled his lips. Then he suddenly leaned in closer, inspecting Jiang Zhaoye from top to bottom. "By the way, have you grown taller again lately? Why do I feel like you're a bit taller than me?"
"Am I?"
"Yeah, big time!" Chen Tuizhi raised a hand to compare their heights. "You used to be about the same height as me, but now you seem almost half a head taller... You absolute animal!"
He had originally just been trying to distract his friend, but upon realizing that his buddy really had secretly grown and was half a head taller than him, Chen Tuizhi couldn't help but genuinely stomp his feet. "Did... did you secretly eat livestock feed?!"
Jiang Zhaoye chuckled evasively, and the two continued walking down the street. The night breeze picked up slightly, cool and damp as it brushed against their faces and bodies, causing their clothes to billow. It was quite refreshing, as if blowing away some of his troubles.
Jiang Zhaoye exhaled a heavy breath, his mood finally improving considerably.
"Did something happen to you recently?" Chen Tuizhi suddenly spoke up, his tone becoming much more serious.
Jiang Zhaoye paused in his steps and glanced at him without answering.
"Hey, my fiery temper!" Chen Tuizhi grew a bit annoyed, but halfway through, he took a deep breath and calmed himself down. "...Forget it! I won't hold it against you today! But let me tell you, don't just clam up every time you run into a hard question! It's infuriating! If you keep this up, sooner or later someone's going to throw a sack over your head!"
"Sometimes even I want to beat you up... But since you don't want to talk, forget it." Chen Tuizhi raised his chin. "Whenever you feel like talking, come find your brother anytime!"
Jiang Zhaoye fell silent for a moment, then let out a helpless chuckle, unsure whether he was laughing at Chen Tuizhi or himself. "Yeah, I know."
"You little punk... Sometimes even I want to beat you up..."
In the end, they didn't end up buying any clothes. Chen Tuizhi's mom called, saying something came up at home and pressing him to return.
Chen Tuizhi gave perfunctory replies over the phone while giving him sideways glances.
Jiang Zhaoye shook his head at him. "I'm fine. Go on home."
Chen Tuizhi took a deep look at him, gave his mom a promise that he would be right home, and hung up.
They walked a bit further until they reached an intersection. Chen Tuizhi stopped and pointed to the left. "I'll head that way then. Entering the compound through the west gate is closer to my house."
Jiang Zhaoye nodded calmly. "Yeah, hurry back."
Chen Tuizhi looked at him, seeming like he wanted to say more, but in the end he merely patted his shoulder. "Get to sleep early, and don't overthink things. If anything comes up, call me. Don't carry it all alone."
Jiang Zhaoye nodded and watched Chen Tuizhi turn into the night, his shadow stretched longer and longer by the streetlights until he disappeared around the corner.
He stood there for a long time before turning to walk back toward home.
...
After showering, it was the first time since testing his psionic values that Jiang Zhaoye climbed into bed so early, simply planning to get a good night's rest.
Staring fixedly at the ceiling, he listened to the chirping of insects and birds outside the window, as well as the sounds of Ms. Wen watching the news downstairs. He slowly closed his eyes, striving to stop thinking about those images, but they flooded back like a tide anyway.
Jiang Zhaoye raised his arm, placing it over his closed eyes, and softly sighed in the dark room.
The sound of his sigh echoed faintly in the quiet room; even he didn't know what he was sighing about.
Before he realized it, he fell asleep.
Jiang Zhaoye dreamt of that child—a thin, small child wolfing down the compressed biscuits that Jiang Zhaoye himself wouldn't touch unless it was a special circumstance.
Beside his own hand was a table full of steaming food: braised fish, mushroom soup, rice, and meat—so much meat. He wanted to call the kid over to eat, but no matter how he called out, there was no response, as if the other couldn't hear him.
So he carried the food over, but the plates passed right through the child's arms like illusions.
After finishing the food, the child raised his head to look off into the distance. Then, he stood up unsteadily and marched step by step toward the phantom of the distant city.
Yet his silhouette was far too thin and small. Beneath the gloomy sky and across the vast wilderness, he was as tiny as an ant, stumbling along as if walking on knife edges, resolutely marching toward hell.
Jiang Zhaoye wanted to call out to stop him, to let him eat a warm, filling meal first, to prevent him... Fear and regret washed over him overwhelmingly.
Yet since he had left that package behind, hadn't his subconscious intended for this exact outcome? To let an unfamiliar child set off alone on the road to seek survival in the city...
But could a child of seven or eight really reach the end? Could he truly survive the wilderness shrouded in hunger and bitter cold with just a small package of food?
And did that so-called destination—that mirage-like city—even exist? Or was it merely another hell?
Jiang Zhaoye didn't know. Caution and rationality kept him from carelessly entrusting his life to a stranger from another world, even if it was just a child... Yet his morality and emotions were weeping, even though he clearly knew that his current self could not bear the weight of any single life.
"Xiao Mi! Xiao Mi! Wake up!" A familiar voice sounded by his ear as a warm hand gently patted his face.
Jiang Zhaoye opened his eyes to see Ms. Wen's gentle, worried face under the dim yellow light of the bedside lamp. His mother gently called his childhood nickname and touched his cheek. "Child... what were you calling out in your dream? Why are you crying?"
Only then did Jiang Zhaoye realize that his cheeks were wet. Unexpectedly, he had wept tears all over his face in his dream.
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