Having declared she wouldn’t do homework tonight, Lin Shilan kept her word.

After Tan Jin left, having eaten and drunk her fill, she took a comfortable hot bath and collapsed onto her bed.

Lu Xiaorong still hadn’t come home.

Outside, thunder and rain raged together.

Lin Shilan wrapped herself tightly in her blanket, staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep.

Her mind filled with many chaotic thoughts, she tossed and turned on the bed for a while, then suddenly remembered there was a book she’d just bought today in her backpack.

Shuffling into slippers, she got out of bed, opened her backpack, and took out the book.

With the idea of using it as a sleep aid, Lin Shilan opened the book Su Ge had read while under her covers.

…

**The Shimmering Parallel Universe**

/Author: Anonymous

(1)

In childhood, beneath the town’s oldest ancient tree, incense burned continuously, and many people came there to worship.

On the hottest day of summer, my mother also brought elementary school me to the ancient tree. She said our ancestors for generations had all believed in that tree.

I saw with my own eyes someone grab a struggling chicken and slit its throat beneath the tree.

The chicken’s blood spilled on the tree roots. The chicken stopped screaming, stopped struggling.

People pressed their palms together, kowtowing and prostrating themselves, muttering words under their breath.

They were praying for rain.

I asked my mother: “Can asking the tree really bring rain?”

“It can,” my mother said with absolute certainty. “As long as you’re devout enough.”

I still didn’t understand: “Devout? I can’t see it, can’t touch it. Why would being devout make it rain?”

My mother casually picked up a small twig from the ground.

“Look, it’s like this—I’m bending this twig. You can’t see the force I’m using, what shape it specifically has. But through the twig’s bending, you can know that my force exists and can change this twig.”

“Many invisible things, like the force I mentioned, like human will… things like faith, belief, curses, vows—they have no physical form, yet they all carry energy. And energy affects the world we live in. So, being devout enough can change the original patterns of weather.”

The twig in her hand snapped in response.

My mother’s words were so profound and difficult to understand.

Elementary school me didn’t understand what she was talking about at all. I thought that after reading more books and attending more classes in the future, I might understand what she meant.

Therefore, many years passed, and I always clearly remembered these words of hers.

Also when I was in elementary school, my mother and father divorced.

The day before my mother left, she said sorry to me. She left all her savings for me, telling me to keep them safe and not let my father discover this money.

I knew the reason she said this.

If my father discovered the money, he would trade it all for bottles of alcohol.

My mother didn’t say goodbye to me. I guessed she was afraid that if she did, she would be too reluctant to leave me, and I wouldn’t let her go.

After my mother left, I was fostered at my grandparents’ house.

I rarely saw my father. A few times when he came drunk to borrow money from my grandfather, I heard his voice at the door. Later, when my grandfather couldn’t produce money to lend him, he never came again.

My mother must have had her hardships. I imagined she wasn’t having an easy life, which was why she couldn’t take me with her.

Just like my grandparents. I knew they loved me. The reason they couldn’t spare the energy to care for me was because they were already living exhausted lives.

My grandmother had been paralyzed since I could remember. My grandfather alone supported this household.

Regardless of cold winter or scorching summer, my grandfather pedaled his tricycle around the small town. He also had to take care of my grandmother.

When I was in my first year of high school, he died suddenly of illness, actually departing even before my grandmother.

My grandmother was struck by the blow and became dazed all day. When I spoke to her, she wouldn’t respond.

One night, I heard my grandmother crying. Going to her room, she had her eyes tightly shut, muttering in the local dialect: “Suffering while alive… so bitter… better to die… suffering while alive…”

After entering my second year of high school, I thought about things more frequently.

—Why is adolescence so long?

—What are people supposed to do living this long?

The house was filled with the smell of medicine. No matter how much I scrubbed, the floor couldn’t be cleaned. I seemed to always be tidying up, washing clothes, washing dishes, scrubbing bedpans, wiping down my grandmother’s body… The house got dirty faster than I could clean it.

When the money my grandfather left ran out, I started using the money my mother gave me.

Really unable to manage it all, I tried paying people to come clean. But the people who came, seeing an old person in the house, how smelly it was, how much trash there was—they looked at us with contemptuous eyes and insisted on extra money, lots of extra money, before they’d be willing to clean.

Stung by those looks, I never wanted to let anyone into my home again.

Quietly giving up on cleaning, I quietly became a little mouse.

One day, classmates smelled the stench on me. They pinched their noses and cursed me frantically. I felt very sorry to everyone, but I still couldn’t muster the energy to clean.

All the money at home was spent on caring for my grandmother. Every day I fed her and wiped down her body. As for myself, what I ate, used, or wore didn’t matter. The only thing I wanted was books. I was willing to spend money on books. Dwelling in the world of books, I felt myself clean and tidy.

Actually, if I wanted to, I could read books all day. Even if I didn’t go to school, no one would notice, no one would care about me.

Despite thinking this way, I still persisted in going to school every day.

Because in class, I could see… him.

He was different from all the other students.

He never once looked down on me.

Long, long ago, I had noticed him. He never called me by a nickname. When entering the classroom, if he happened to walk ahead of me, he would hold the door for me. And he had a small mole on his cheek—it was really cute.

My secret crush on him began during a group project.

When the teacher asked who would team up with me and no one responded, he stepped forward.

We did homework together. He sat so close to me. For a week, I talked with him, his breath right there close by.

During the group presentation, no one thought I spoke well. He came out to help me out of the awkward situation again, applauding for me.

Our presentation got fifth place in the class.

He gave me his precious prize—chocolate.

Eating the sweet chocolate, my heart beat so fast. I couldn’t help thinking: Why was he so good to me?

A few days later, the class bought workbooks. Everyone rushed to the podium to get theirs. For this kind of thing, I was always at the very end.

There was one book underneath the last two workbooks. So he also hadn’t taken his yet… I waited for him to take first. He slowly came over, took the damaged one, and left.

I pressed the intact new workbook against my chest, both moved and excited.

Did it not matter that he used the damaged workbook? I kept thinking about this, feeling so embarrassed.

After school, I wanted to ask him if he wanted to switch workbooks back with me.

I was too embarrassed to speak up in class, so I followed him all the way. He went to play basketball on the field, so I sat in a corner to watch.

His basketball happened to fall at my feet. He also spotted me. Our eyes met. I was so nervous I couldn’t move. He smiled at me and continued playing his basketball.

I kept interpreting the meaning of that smile, my face burning red.

Clearly feeling he was different toward me, I became bolder and started actively testing the waters.

I borrowed an eraser from him. He directly lent it to me and didn’t even ask for it back. Secretly, I used a ballpoint pen to draw a heart on the eraser he gave me.

During the third mock exam, I knew my chance had come.

To motivate everyone, the teacher would rearrange seating after the exam. According to ranking from high to low scores, students could choose who they wanted to sit with. So as long as I did well enough on the exam, I could sit next to him and take our relationship a step further.

After the college entrance exam, he probably wouldn’t stay in this tiny town anymore. This was my only most important opportunity.

To seize this opportunity, I chose to cheat.

Unfortunately, I was caught red-handed by the teacher in the exam room.

Cheating—failed.

All the world’s heavy rain fell on me.

In the teachers’ office, the teacher kept pressing me for my parents’ contact information. I truthfully told her those two phone numbers I knew by heart.

She dialed them. One phone didn’t connect, the other was disconnected.

The teacher was furious with me: “Without an adult from your family coming, the cheating matter won’t be considered resolved, and you’re not allowed to come back to school. Who in your family can take responsibility? I don’t believe it—there’s not a single adult who can manage you? Your cheating must be made known to them!”

Yes. I thought the same: Even if just one person would come find me, care about me…

Even if just one person would be good.

The school’s students drove me away with mocking gazes.

I no longer had the face to sit in the classroom, so I slipped out of school.

Slipping back to my trash-filled home, slipping to the side of relatives who wouldn’t talk to me, I shut the door tight before feeling safe.

I stayed like this for a month.

One day, my grandmother’s thin, withered palm turned ice cold. I stubbornly placed it on top of my head.

My grandmother’s hand weakly dropped. I called to her again and again.

Her eye sockets were sunken, her body emitting the smell of decay.

I knew she was gone.

But I had no way to lose my grandmother.

Leaving my grandmother at home, I locked the door and for the first time went to find my father.

My father’s home was at the end of an alley without lights. When I found him, he was drunk. I called him “Dad,” but he didn’t recognize me.

I followed behind him. His eyes were glazed, humming a song from his mouth.

“Dad, can you come home once?” I persisted.

My father’s steps were unsteady. He turned around and told me to get lost.

I continued: “Dad. Grandmother died. What should I do?”

He finally looked at me.

Seeming to know who I was, he heavily pushed me and cursed: “Damn it, you just have to ruin my mood? You little tramp, announcing a death, huh? Want to ask me for money? Let me tell you, no money, get lost…”

My father was too much.

All these years, I had never resented him. I thought I wouldn’t get angry at him.

But I would.

Just like how he treated me, I also heavily pushed my father, pushing him entirely into the dry well.

Afterward, I sat dazed by the well, as if sitting for a century.

—Why is adolescence so long?

—What are people supposed to do living this long?

I began again, laboriously thinking about these two questions.

I thought that the boy in my class and I were fated.

When I desperately needed a reason to live, that reason appeared.

He held a basketball in his hand, wearing casual summer clothes.

I didn’t know when, but the college entrance exam had already ended.

I so desperately wanted to be kept by him that I used an intense confession method.

Even if he had just a little favorable impression of me? He surely did, right? I wanted to get a response from him, wanted to know it wasn’t all my wishful thinking and presumption. I so wanted to grasp this lifeline…

But he clearly rejected me.

“I’m sorry, I already like someone. I misled you—I apologize.”

Because I couldn’t think of answers to those two questions at all, I didn’t plan to endure through this rainy season.

Life like a mustard seed—I lived like dust, insignificant.

This is my story.

I decided to leave my story in the hollow of the ancient tree.

After my mother left, it seemed those people who liked worshiping trees and killing chickens all left too.

The altar abandoned, the old tree withered—that place became my secret base.

If, as my mother said, human will carries energy, then even if not here, I still sincerely believe: Somewhere in the universe, at some moment, someone will discover me, discover the traces of my existence.