I will always love the you before my eyes most.

For two consecutive weekend days, whenever Sheng Sui closed her eyes to sleep, she would repeatedly have the same dream.

She dreamed of that winter in the hospital ward, where she retracted her foot about to step out the door frame, turned back, and asked word by word: “Excuse me, may I know your name?”

She dreamed that at fourteen, every night walking home from school under the bright moon and sparse stars, she would stop at the building entrance, turn around, and seriously bow in thanks to the young man who had followed far behind her all the way.

Then Sheng Sui dreamed of sixteen-year-old her declaring with certainty she would apply to Shanghai University, and on the day she received her acceptance letter at seventeen, excitedly running toward the young man who had waited for her at the school gate for so long, throwing herself into his embrace.

She even dreamed that at twenty while working summer jobs, she would sneak glances when the boss wasn’t looking, waving through the transparent floor-to-ceiling windows at her lover outside the shop who kept ordering drinks all afternoon just to wait for her to get off work, her expression joyful.

The dream scenarios were always unrealistically beautiful, making Sheng Sui reluctant to wake up.

So when Monday morning’s alarm rang, Sheng Sui frowned in displeasure at being forcibly dragged from her dreams.

Burying her head deeply, she drowsily tried to cover her ears with a pillow, but felt her face was pressed against thin muscle with an excellent texture, making Sheng Sui unconsciously nuzzle it gently twice.

The next moment, a uniquely morning hoarse, low chuckle fell down, accompanied by slightly bitter, lingering woody fragrance, awakening the sleepiness in Sheng Sui’s body.

Struggling to prop open her eyelids, she was greeted by the sight of the man’s collar wide open, exposing a large expanse of cold, white, tight chest. The already loose collar had been further opened by two silver buttons due to Sheng Sui’s earlier movements, creating a highly stimulating visual of being about to reveal but not quite.

“……”

Sheng Sui knew she slept poorly. In the past, she would often wake up with her pajama hem rolled up to her chest.

Since marriage, Zhou Shiyu worried about her catching cold, so he would hold her waist while sleeping every night, quickly becoming the next victim—often waking up disheveled with messy collars.

Even so, waking up buried in his chest like this morning was a first.

Looking up as their eyes met, Sheng Sui awkwardly greeted: “…Morning.”

The handwritten letter’s aftereffects were too strong. Sheng Sui had been crying so much these past two days she was like a broken faucet, not only making her voice hoarse but also causing her eyelids to swell slightly.

“Morning,” Zhou Shiyu kissed her eye corner, his voice still gentle. “Last night I heard you crying and laughing. What did you dream about?”

Sheng Sui thought for a moment and summarized concisely: “I dreamed I was dating you from ten years ago.”

“Mm, and then?” Zhou Shiyu’s restless hands gently caressed her back, curving his lips as he said in a low voice, “So you laughed because you fell for the young me, and cried because dreams must end and you didn’t want to face your aging, faded husband?”

This was simply unreasonable. Sheng Sui looked up, finding it incredible: “You’re even jealous of this?”

“Appearance is also one of the important competitive advantages in mate selection.”

The man got up from bed to prepare breakfast, reasonably refuting in a slow voice: “Zhou Shiyu from ten years ago loved you no less than now, but his face was genuinely younger.”

Before leaving, Zhou Shiyu leaned down beside the bed, smiling as he kissed the corner of Sheng Sui’s lips, his tone light: “Naturally I’d worry.”

“What if I can’t compare to my past self and get abandoned?”

“No,” Sheng Sui gripped the man’s left hand wearing the watch, her watery eyes full of seriousness. “Sheng Sui will like Zhou Shiyu from every moment—past, present, and future.”

“But I’m different,” she paused slightly, then smiled with curved brows, “I will always love the you before my eyes most.”

On the subway to school, Sheng Sui couldn’t help taking out her phone again in the crowded car to check the latest developments in Lin Xi’s situation.

Everything was as Zhou Shiyu had predicted. The leaked video was removed from all platforms Friday night, the paparazzi who came for money released no new material, and even deleted related Weibo posts at the height of the controversy.

But this didn’t mean attention on Lin Xi’s situation decreased.

In fact, because there had always been rumors that Lin Xi had been an underground mistress to some business tycoon for years without official recognition, the suddenly appearing “special needs child” Zhou Yi received much attention.

Since then, Lin Xi’s side had made no response.

Sheng Sui didn’t care about gossip, but seeing various speculations about students along the way inevitably stirred anger in her heart.

She wasn’t good at hiding her feelings. Not only did colleague Qi Yue notice her bad mood, but even two or three students in class ran over to hug her.

“Teacher Sui Sui, were you crying?”

“Teacher Sui Sui, don’t cry, don’t cry.”

“……”

Reminded by the students, Sheng Sui immediately reflected that she shouldn’t bring personal emotions into teaching. She curved her lips in a smile and gently explained she just hadn’t slept well and wasn’t crying.

Today’s lesson was teaching students to learn numbers 1 to 10 and match them with corresponding Chinese characters.

Still using differentiated instruction, Qi Yue worked with weaker students to help them find number blocks with assistance tools, while Sheng Sui guided higher-ability students to independently place number blocks next to correct Chinese character stickers.

Zhou Yi was the first student to complete the task.

The handsome boy holding his old doll sat silently at his seat, always keeping his head down, until Sheng Sui stopped in front of his desk and her shadow fell on his head. After pausing for several seconds, he slowly looked up.

A major characteristic of autistic children is social interaction difficulties, showing indifference to people and things around them. So seeing Zhou Yi initiate eye contact, Sheng Sui couldn’t help feeling surprised and delighted.

She smiled and bent down, wanting to take the opportunity to talk more with Zhou Yi: “Yiyi, did you complete this puzzle? Very good—”

Before she could finish, Zhou Yi unexpectedly reached out his hand, not too gently touching Sheng Sui’s face.

The boy’s hand came straight toward her eyes. Sheng Sui’s heart jumped and she was about to dodge when she felt Zhou Yi touch under her eyes.

Autistic children do indeed have aggressive and destructive behaviors. Amid colleague Qi Yue’s alarmed cry, Sheng Sui forcibly suppressed her dodging motion, tensing her spine and letting Zhou Yi continue his actions.

The boy just repeatedly and clumsily touched her eye corners, his dark, clear round eyes staring straight at her.

—Zhou Yi was wiping away her tears.

The moment she understood the boy’s actions, Sheng Sui’s eyes stung. She let Zhou Yi wipe around her eyes, finally unable to resist crouching down and hugging the boy tightly.

She didn’t know how Zhou Yi had gotten through these past two days. With autistic children’s perception of the outside world, he would most likely remain indifferent to incomprehensible exposure.

Or even if he was affected, autistic children’s language development disorders meant Zhou Yi couldn’t express his thoughts.

But Sheng Sui was certain that Zhou Yi—and her other autistic and all special needs students—were angels fallen to earth, just like all children in this world.

Seeing Sheng Sui’s low spirits, during lunch break, several close teacher colleagues specially asked someone to watch their classes, proposing to take Sheng Sui out of school for a good meal to improve her mood.

Unable to refuse their kindness, Sheng Sui reluctantly agreed, but just as they left the school gate, three or four entertainment reporters who had been waiting outside surrounded them.

To grab headlines for attention, these shameless people quickly surrounded them from the street-side trees, followed by staff holding recording devices or cameras.

“You’re the teacher who handed the student to Lin Xi in the leaked video, right? Are your student and Lin Xi parent and child? What’s their private mother-son relationship like?”

“What kind of students does your special school admit? What specific category is Lin Xi’s child?”

“Does your student always ignore people? Is he autistic or intellectually disabled?”

“……”

The overwhelming questions and inescapable cameras reminded Sheng Sui of that year’s medical incident.

During that period, no matter where she went, “well-meaning people” would jump out from time to time, asking her to recount her father’s evil deeds and specific details from that day at the hospital.

She was too young then, resistant but not knowing how to refuse. Each time she accepted an interview, days later she would see herself pixelated or just her voice on online media or local news, with her words mostly edited and pieced together.

So she knew all too well that today, if she said even half a word wrong on camera, or even if she spoke after careful consideration, these media outlets would definitely edit the video into whatever they wanted or whatever netizens enjoyed watching.

Lin Xi had remained silent until now. Whatever Sheng Sui answered to any of these questions would only push this mother and son back into the storm.

She shouldn’t speak.

She should remain silent like Zhou Yi, like Lin Xi, waiting for malicious speculators to lose patience, waiting for harsh negative voices to gradually disappear, and this matter would be turned over.

Helpless, but this was indeed the choice most minority groups made when facing mainstream society’s judgment—regardless of good or ill intent, right or wrong, silently enduring became most people’s choice.

Just as Sheng Sui wouldn’t explain to blind date men who said her illness came from not taking care of herself that type 1 diabetes resulted from immune system collapse with many triggering factors, Lin Xi also made no explanation about Zhou Yi’s special situation.

Because it was too shameful.

Because the burden of constant public judgment was far heavier than temporary slander and misunderstanding.

But has it always been this way, so is it right?

Making people already suffering physical and mental illness bear additional socially imposed stigma—is this socially accepted phenomenon that has existed until now necessarily correct?

“Excuse me.”

Sheng Sui wasn’t pulled away by her anxiously hurrying colleague, but calmly looked at the man who asked first:

“When you just asked these questions, what did you consider my student to be?”

“A tool for grabbing attention, a laughingstock to be pitied and discussed, or gossip material for netizens to point at and discuss over tea?”

Faced with usually soft Sheng Sui suddenly attacking, everyone around, including colleagues, was stunned.

Especially the targeted man, who first blushed, then loudly retorted: “What grabbing attention, pity, and gossip material—I never said that.”

The man laughed coldly repeatedly: “I think you look down on your students first, thinking they’re inferior, so you’re making a big fuss over a few questions like someone stepped on your tail!”

“Because it’s you—you people who first led the topic negative and maliciously guided my answers.”

“I just want to tell you this behavior is very disgusting,” Sheng Sui stared expressionlessly at one of the cameras, saying icily, “I hope when you become a vulnerable group someday, you won’t regret your actions just now of exploiting underage children for traffic.”

After speaking, she took out her phone and dialed the security office, her tone steady: “I’ve recorded our conversation, and my colleague filmed video as evidence.”

She looked up, meeting the man’s eyes and seeing the guilt within: “I’m not a public figure, and my students aren’t either. If you maliciously edit today’s conversation in any way, or induce my students to accept interviews, violating their right to life, health, and privacy, I will immediately pursue legal accountability against you.”

“I mean what I say.”

That was enough.

As an utterly ordinary person, Sheng Sui knew clearly that what she could do was very limited.

But she naively thought that as long as every ordinary person like her could clearly and directly tell others when they showed malicious speculation toward vulnerable groups that such behavior was wrong, that would be enough.

“……”

The school’s final solution was to give Sheng Sui the afternoon off to go home, avoiding other media finding her.

Civilians weren’t like celebrities. Especially since special school parents and students didn’t want excessive targeted attention, even though the leadership agreed with Sheng Sui’s words, considering the bigger picture, they could only have her avoid the spotlight temporarily.

Sheng Sui had no objection to this.

However, with the afternoon that should have been busy suddenly becoming a free holiday, Sheng Sui found herself with nothing to do.

At noon when the sunlight was best under clear skies, she bathed in spring light walking unhurriedly along the street, first taking a taxi to the ramen shop colleagues had originally planned to try with her.

The shop had good business. After taking insulin, she returned to her seat and several times picked up her phone wanting to call Zhou Shiyu, but finally put it back on the table.

Thinking carefully, it really wasn’t worth specially bringing up.

After eating, she wandered aimlessly along the street, planning to walk to the next bus stop and head home, but first passed a two-story tattoo parlor.

The exterior decoration showed the tattoo shop’s extraordinary style—cool pure black paint, punk-style decorative elements, and work portfolio displays posted on the leftmost floor-to-ceiling window.

From birth until now, Sheng Sui had always been well-behaved and followed rules. Words like “tattooing” and “body art” representing rebellion and being different had never appeared in her life.

However, at this moment, she suddenly stopped.

Taking out her phone to research tattooing principles, the explanation was “professional tattoo needles penetrate the skin’s dermis layer, then plant vegetable pigments under the skin’s dermis layer to achieve tattooing effects.”

So there was an art form in this world based on wounds, then adding artistic creation.

Sheng Sui looked down at her snow-white, flawless left wrist, suddenly feeling extremely moved, walking toward the shop door without any hesitation.

Just before pushing the door to enter, her phone vibrated first.

It was Zhou Shiyu calling.

After the call connected, neither spoke immediately, as if waiting for the other to break the sudden silence caused by unexpected circumstances.

Sheng Sui thought Zhou Shiyu must know about the interview incident at noon.

Under the blazing overhead sun, golden light beams reflected off the smooth tattoo shop wall panels, making her squint.

Sheng Sui couldn’t help squinting slightly, softening her voice: “Zhou Shiyu, at noon I did something I never dared to do before.”

“I was brave for once,” she saw her unstoppably curving lip corners reflected on the pure black wall panel, her tone unable to hide the joy within, “Won’t you praise me?”

After she spoke, a low, indulgent chuckle came through the receiver, followed by Zhou Shiyu’s gentle praise:

“Mm, our Sui Bao has always been very brave.”

Hearing this, the smile in Sheng Sui’s eyes deepened, and for the first time she actively asked the man for a gift:

“Then may I have a reward?”

Zhou Shiyu answered without hesitation: “Of course.”

Sheng Sui looked down again at her still smooth, flawless left wrist interior, saying clearly word by word:

“I want a watch.”

“The same as the one you’re wearing today would be fine.”