Zhou Shiyu repeatedly had the same dream in cycles.

In the dream, he and Sheng Sui were trapped in the school activity room. The square windows were blocked by sunshades, and tables and chairs were arranged in disarray.

This was originally an abandoned storage room that had been reopened for club activities. Even so, the yellow light cast by the old hanging lamp overhead illuminated tiny dust particles floating in the air.

In the enclosed space empty of others, Zhou Shiyu leaned against the wall, silently watching Sheng Sui in the corner who was lowering her head and carefully examining the chocolate mousse cake on her lap.

The door was locked from the outside, trapping both of them inside.

More precisely, only Sheng Sui had no choice but to stay behind.

At least, Zhou Shiyu had never thought of leaving.

Fortunately, the girl was completely unaware of this, focusing intently on the small cake for a while, like a bewildered kitten being fed, her long lashes blinking lightly as she carefully tore open the transparent plastic packaging.

As rustling sounds arose, Zhou Shiyu stared intently at the girl’s full, soft lips parting slightly.

Red lips and white teeth—after taking a bite, her soft lips were stained with chocolate powder and cream-white cream, then licked clean by her nimble pale pink tongue tip, leaving glistening traces of moisture along the corners of her mouth.

The scene seemed deliberately magnified, the lens slowed and extended. Zhou Shiyu only saw Sheng Sui eating very seriously, clearly seeing the small protruding bone at the back of her neck when she lowered her head. The loose blue and white school uniform wrapped around her slender body, unable to hide the girl’s lovely adolescent development.

Zhou Shiyu watched silently as Sheng Sui finished the cake, also seeing her lick away the stains from her lips again and again, only for them to accumulate more futilely.

Like the filth accumulating in his heart at this moment—even with deliberate cleaning, it would only increase day by day.

Clearly having no further inappropriate thoughts, yet every morning after dreaming about the girl with increasing frequency and waking up, Zhou Shiyu’s self-disgust would deepen by another degree.

The sound of pattering water echoed in the spacious bathroom. The bone-chilling cold water slid across his skin but couldn’t penetrate the scalding blood boiling within. Zhou Shiyu pressed his head against the tiled wall, his handsome brows slowly furrowing.

The image of that figure sitting in the corner floated through his mind again—extending her tongue, gently licking away the stains from her lips.

“……”

Cold water couldn’t solve his predicament.

After so many times, he should have known by now.

For a long while, a suppressed low sigh echoed in the bathroom.

His mind blank, Zhou Shiyu’s mist-covered black eyes grew slightly unfocused as he placed his right hand under the shower, watching the flowing water wash away the filth, a mocking smile curving at his lips.

He felt none of the satisfaction typical of adolescent boys after release.

He only felt disgusted that even the only clean thing remaining in his dirty life had been defiled by his own hands.

Self-loathing emotions were like a flood control dam in disrepair for years, constantly on the verge of collapse, now finally bursting.

Zhou Shiyu was like a trapped beast binding itself in a cocoon, hitting walls everywhere within the iron fortress he had built: during the day at school, watching Sheng Sui rest completely unguarded by the shaded flower beds from afar; in the deep quiet of night, unable to suppress pulling her into his dreams.

Even in dreams, Zhou Shiyu only ever watched from a distance, never once truly approaching.

He vaguely realized that he might unconsciously be beautifying Sheng Sui privately, like someone imprisoned for years, accustomed to darkness, who would steadfastly regard even scattered fragments of light piercing through cracks as the sun.

Zhou Shiyu was reluctant to let go.

Especially after that man who called himself his father broke into the Zhou family estate several times and swung his belt in the locked bedroom to prove his unshakeable paternal authority, Zhou Shiyu began dreaming of Sheng Sui even more frequently.

For quite a long period, Zhou Shiyu experienced days where reality and dreams alternated indistinguishably.

After spending an entire day at school, he could only remember fragments related to Sheng Sui. After falling asleep at night, his brain would cycle through the day’s events again and again.

Qiu Si always asked him whether he had too much money with nowhere to spend it lately—otherwise, why did he pay out of his own pocket to buy food and drinks for all club members at every club activity?

The boy joked teasingly: “Something abnormal must have a cause—or is there a girl in the club you like? Are you planning to pursue her?”

Sheng Sui didn’t even know his name, so pursuit was naturally nonsensical.

Carrying the guilt of privately defiling her, Zhou Shiyu simultaneously tried to maintain the tenuous connection between them that was so thin as to be negligible, while deliberately keeping his distance, retreating from the wall to the corner where farming tools were stored. During weekly meetings, seeing Sheng Sui lowering her head to focus on eating the small snacks he bought, smiling serenely despite the injuries on her hands, the long-absent suffocating feeling could always be relieved for a moment.

This wasn’t compassion born from shared suffering, but a desperate seventeen-year-old boy attempting self-rescue.

Zhou Shiyu observed silently, gazing long at the wounds that Sheng Sui’s wide sleeves couldn’t conceal—bruises winding tortuously across her snow-white skin—yet never found them frightening.

But why was it that when he returned home and stood before the bathroom mirror, every time he looked at the crisscrossing scars on his shoulders and back that could never fade, he felt nothing but nausea?

Half-tormented and half-intoxicated, Zhou Shiyu peacefully passed the entire spring.

Until that afternoon in late spring, when the woman suddenly died.

Grandfather Zhou had long disapproved of his son’s actions. With an iron hand, he transferred Zhou’s father overseas and decided to give Zhou Shiyu’s mother a path to freedom.

Ironically, even seeing his own mother required Zhou Shiyu to be “permitted.”

However, “mother” to him was merely an adjective existing in books and others’ words—ethereal and insubstantial, even more foreign than the birds that would perch on the branches outside his window each morning.

Before getting out of the car, Grandfather Zhou handed Zhou Shiyu a photograph, sighing that the woman’s features really resembled his.

Zhou Shiyu couldn’t see the resemblance. He walked alone toward the villa that had imprisoned the woman for nearly twenty years, with Grandfather Zhou’s melancholy sighs behind him.

The woman looked even more pale and frail than in the yellowed photograph. The paper-thin figure leaned against the doorframe, and just seeing Zhou Shiyu approach from afar made her eyes turn completely red.

The woman’s strength was surprisingly great. Zhou Shiyu was held so tightly he couldn’t move, thinking his bones were creaking.

When mournful sobs crashed into his ears one after another, he suddenly felt somewhat numbly confused about whether he should cooperatively shed a few tears.

The woman held his hand and led him into the resplendent living room, attentively serving a fruit plate with cut pear pieces. The pears were crystal clear and translucent—biting into one, the sickeningly sweet juice stuck in his throat.

Zhou Shiyu silently listened to the woman’s self-absorbed chatter.

“…Time really flies. You’ve grown so big now. I still remember how clingy you were as a child—you wanted to be held for everything, and would start crying the moment you were put on the bed…”

Moved by her memories, the woman lovingly grasped Zhou Shiyu’s hands, her eyes full of reluctance: “I’m sorry I haven’t been by your side all these years.”

Zhou Shiyu let the tearful woman grasp his hands without struggling or offering comfort, his black eyes calmly watching his own faint reflection in the woman’s eyes.

He was born without the ability to empathize and had never cried.

From his earliest memories, crying only represented weakness and incompetence—behavior that required paying a price.

Zhou Shiyu never did meaningless things.

He just silently finished the pear pieces in the fruit plate, and when his tongue was cloyingly sweet, he quietly wondered: So this is maternal love?

He truly didn’t understand.

Grandfather Zhou didn’t give them too much time alone. Half an hour later, he knocked on the door, having something to discuss privately with the woman.

The woman hesitated for a moment, reluctantly releasing Zhou Shiyu’s hand. Before getting up to leave, she suddenly asked him a question.

“Would you… be willing to call me ‘Mom’ once more?”

Zhou Shiyu didn’t speak.

“…It’s natural for you to resent me. After all, I haven’t been a competent mother for even a single day. But being able to see you grow up like this with my own eyes, I have no regrets.”

What exactly happened that night, Zhou Shiyu couldn’t recall completely even long afterward. His memories were fragmented into pieces, each fragment reflecting crimson blood.

First, he passed by the study and overheard the conversation between Grandfather Zhou and the woman, learning that the woman was allowed to “regain freedom” but would have to wait until Zhou Shiyu came of age next year before they could meet again, and she was forbidden from interfering in any of Zhou Shiyu’s affairs.

Then, before dinner, the housekeeper’s scream pierced through the roof, and everyone rushed into the bathroom attached to the woman’s bedroom.

Police, emergency medical personnel, more and more people squeezed sideways into the already cramped bathroom. Crying, questioning, and arguing voices all pierced Zhou Shiyu’s eardrums like needles.

As the first person to rush to the bathroom after hearing the scream, he had the broadest view of the entire scene. With his already exceptional memory, he naturally didn’t miss even the smallest details.

The woman sat with her eyes peacefully closed in the overflowing bathtub, the blood surrounding her body making her skin appear even more snow-white.

Zhou Shiyu stood calmly against the wall, consciously making way for police and medical personnel, looking down at his pants hem stained with blood.

The blood-stained hem clinging to his ankle felt very much like the taste of that plate of pears the woman had served—very uncomfortable.

“…The person who reported said you’re the deceased’s son?”

The steady, serious adult male voice pulled back his wandering thoughts. Zhou Shiyu, rarely sluggish, stared blankly for several seconds before slowly raising his head.

He answered irrelevantly: “Is she already dead?”

“…Yes, she stopped breathing some time ago,” the uniformed man seemed to realize his tone was too harsh and softened it.

“Please accept my condolences. I was just carrying out routine duties.”

“It’s fine,” Zhou Shiyu shook his head calmly, no longer glancing toward the crowded bathroom, nodding and saying quietly,

“She… is my mother.”

Regarding the woman’s death, Zhou Shiyu couldn’t claim to be heartbroken.

In his memory, there had never been a concept of the woman’s existence. She was just someone he had never met who completely disappeared from his life, leaving no lingering thoughts.

It was simply that from today onward, he would never have a mother again.

The two words “mother” finally gained unprecedented reality at the moment of the woman’s death—before Zhou Shiyu could understand what “maternal love” was, this image and the emotions it represented had been forcibly drained and hollowed out from his body.

Faced with the tragedy, even Grandfather Zhou sighed repeatedly on the way back to the old estate. From beginning to end, the most composed person was only Zhou Shiyu.

He sat silently in the back seat, turning his head to look at the rapidly retreating scenery outside the window, occasionally glancing down at his left wrist, suddenly remembering the day he bought medicine for Sheng Sui, when the handle had left red marks on his wrist.

—So similar to the woman’s snow-white wrists in the bathroom.

Grandfather Zhou, worried he might be traumatized, specially ordered someone to brew a pot of warm red date and pear soup with blood-nourishing and nerve-calming properties.

Zhou Shiyu drank that bowl of pear soup, the familiar sickeningly sweet broth sticking in his throat as overwhelming suffocation swept over him.

That night, he vomited in the bathroom until the world spun. The next morning, he was rushed to the hospital for treatment due to severe dehydration.

The ambulance’s siren was sharp and piercing. Zhou Shiyu lay on the stretcher with an oxygen mask, only thinking hazily: what if he had agreed to the woman’s request then?

What if he had obediently called out “Mom” at that time?

There was no point discussing these things anymore.

He no longer had a mother.

Zhou Shiyu wearily closed his eyes slowly, his eye corners dry, unable to shed a single tear.

From his earliest memories, he had never shed a single tear—because he knew crying would represent weakness and incompetence.

Zhou Shiyu never did meaningless things.

—

Red marks began appearing frequently on Zhou Shiyu’s left wrist.

At the woman’s rather simple funeral, he remained calm throughout. Regarding the scars on his left hand, he only claimed they were accidental. Finally, Grandfather Zhou, still worried, called for the family doctor.

Soon, Zhou Shiyu was diagnosed with severe depression, and medicine bottles took over his bookshelf.

Zhou Shiyu only felt they were making a mountain out of a molehill, because he knew best that he had never experienced melancholy or grief—he just occasionally had hand tremors and palpitations, and very rarely, would hear the dead woman talking to him.

One week after leaving the hospital, Zhou Shiyu returned to school.

The day he returned happened to be Thursday. At lunchtime, Zhou Shiyu waited until the usual time and went to the corridor but didn’t see that familiar slender figure.

Even in the small grove, he couldn’t find Sheng Sui.

Even the fixed Thursday club activities had fallen apart due to Zhou Shiyu’s two absences—those who came left, those who scattered scattered, and the large activity room couldn’t gather even five people.

“You’ll get used to it. After all, I made it clear on the first day of joining that coming and going was free.”

With only two people left in the room, Qiu Si saw Zhou Shiyu sitting motionlessly at the round table with an indiscernible expression, not knowing what else to say: “If you insist on staying here, that’s fine too, but usually a first-year junior is responsible for locking up. If she comes to lock up later, remember to speak up.”

Zhou Shiyu made a faint sound of agreement in his throat. After the person left and it became completely quiet, he got up and walked to the door, locking it from the inside.

He hadn’t found her all day today.

So would there come a day when Sheng Sui would also disappear forever from his life in a different way, yet reaching the same destination as that woman?

Zhou Shiyu sat down on a plastic chair by the door, closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall, not delving deeper into this question.

After an unknown amount of time, the door handle was turned several times from outside.

Then, the quiet room suddenly echoed with knocking sounds. Zhou Shiyu frowned with some impatience and was about to respond when a soft female voice slipped through the door crack:

“—Excuse me, is there still someone inside?”

The voice was somewhat muffled through the door, but Zhou Shiyu immediately recognized it as Sheng Sui.

His fingertips moved slightly. He opened his eyes and sat up straight without showing any emotion, turning to the side and saying heavily: “…Someone’s here.”

Hearing his voice, Sheng Sui outside seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, her worried tone relaxing considerably: “Um, I’m the one responsible for locking up every day. May I ask how much longer you’ll need to stay inside—”

Perhaps feeling her words were rude, the girl outside hastily added: “I, I don’t mean to rush you! I just want to confirm if you need any help.”

—She was worried, afraid that something might happen to him alone inside.

Zhou Shiyu was surprised by Sheng Sui’s keen perception of emotions, as well as puzzled by her instinctive reaction.

His throat rolled lightly. Only when Zhou Shiyu spoke this time did he realize how hoarse his voice was: “Why do you think I need help?”

Outside fell silent for several seconds again. Sheng Sui’s voice moved closer, apparently leaning against the door: “Because you sound very sad.”

“So I want to confirm if you’re okay inside.”

“……”

Long silence surrounded the two of them. The old door had poor soundproofing, and Zhou Shiyu could clearly hear the occasional voices of passing students outside.

Sheng Sui didn’t know who he was, just silently and patiently waiting for his answer.

“—My mother passed away.”

After a long while, Zhou Shiyu heard his hoarse, dry voice speak. He lowered his head, using his hand to pick at the just-scabbed wound on his wrist:

“I don’t have a mother anymore.”

“I think I should feel very sad.”

“……”

After his words fell, there was another long, difficult silence on the other side of the door, so long that Zhou Shiyu thought Sheng Sui had been scared away by his words, when her gentle voice finally came hesitantly.

“…I’m sorry, I’m not very good at comforting people,” Sheng Sui didn’t mention the woman again, her voice particularly gentle,

“But whenever I’m sad, I secretly eat a little sweet food.”

The girl’s voice carried some childish innocence yet was somewhat cheerful: “This way I can tell myself that no matter how difficult things are, there are still sweet things in this world.”

She indeed wasn’t very good at comforting people. Zhou Shiyu smiled lowly, his mind conjuring the treasuring expression Sheng Sui had whenever she ate cake.

He asked again: “Do you often eat sweet food then?”

“Occasionally. My health isn’t very good, so bitter food suits me better than sweet,” Sheng Sui laughed lightly outside, self-deprecatingly,

“Maybe it’s precisely because I can’t eat it that sweet food tastes even sweeter.”

Even without using his eyes to see, Zhou Shiyu could effortlessly imagine what expression the girl had now, how her eyes curved in a smile, with her dimples charmingly visible at the corners of her lips.

“Also,” Sheng Sui spoke gently again, “if you’re in the agriculture department, you can participate more in group activities next time—sometimes sweet food is distributed, and eating it might improve your mood.”

This time it was Zhou Shiyu’s turn to chuckle. He leaned his head against the door frame, searching for the girl outside through the door crack:

“Tested and proven effective?”

“Yes, tested and proven effective.” Sheng Sui’s tone was no longer heavy, suddenly changing the topic, “If you want to come out, just tell me anytime, and I’ll walk farther away—I’ll also pretend I didn’t hear what happened just now, so you can rest assured.”

Zhou Shiyu knew the girl was trying her best to protect his dignity and not let him appear in a disheveled state. He said in a low voice:

“I’m fine now, thank you.”

“It’s okay, I’ll come back to lock up in five minutes.”

Before leaving, Zhou Shiyu heard Sheng Sui’s footsteps walking away then returning. A few seconds later, a hesitant voice came: “My words might not be useful, but I want to say that I’ve also had a very difficult period, so I might be able to empathize a little with the pain you’re experiencing.”

“…It will get better,” when speaking, the girl’s confidence was clearly insufficient, “During the most difficult times, even if it’s self-deception, you have to tell yourself this.”

“Maybe after deceiving yourself long enough, one day it really will get better.”

“Alright, I believe you,” Zhou Shiyu responded obediently, his black eyes filled with gentleness, “Someday it will get better.”

For some reason, the moment those words left his mouth, he suddenly wanted to recklessly push open the door and pour out all the emotions that had accumulated in his chest for too long.

“It definitely will.”

Sheng Sui’s words interrupted Zhou Shiyu’s impulse, her tone light and cheerful:

“—When you’re truly better someday, let’s get to know each other again, okay?”