Chapter 5: So the Moon Exists in the Mortal World

 The gentle sounds of teasing still floated in the air. Yun Li had always dreaded situations like this one. She raised her eyes quickly and found his gaze already on her. Her hand moved without thinking to touch the corresponding spot on her ear.

In that instant, she understood — or nearly did. From the way he looked at her, she sensed nothing predatory in it. No advantage being taken.

She tilted her body slightly and leaned her other side toward him, tentative. He moved closer at the same moment, stopping about three centimeters from her ear. His breath hovered there, barely perceptible, as he recited in a low, unhurried voice, "When Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara practices the profound Prajna Paramita, he illuminates the Five Skandhas and sees they are all empty, thus overcoming all ills and suffering."

Silence, on Yun Li's end.

He had apparently spoken at that careful pace to make sure she caught each word.

His good intentions did not find their mark.

Yun Li had not understood a single word of it.

To be entirely frank with herself: sitting here having heard nothing was producing exactly the same result as having heard all of it.

What was this? A Buddhist sutra?

She stood there, not moving.

Zhibuliao, waiting nearby to receive the relay, saw her expression and couldn't hold back a short laugh. "What's that face for?"

She didn't answer. There wasn't time. Before the words dissolved completely, Yun Li half-guessed and half-invented a sentence that preserved approximately the shape of what she'd received, cobbled it together, and passed it on.

When she saw Zhibuliao's expression register the same confusion, something in her relaxed.

She probably hadn't broken the chain, at least.

With the tension released, she finally had enough presence of mind to watch how the others were playing. She noticed that some people were also using their right ear to listen — which meant they faced away from the group while the message was whispered to them. A natural position.

She had been too conscious of her right ear, as if using it were a declaration. But someone who hadn't thought about it at all wouldn't notice which ear another person chose, just as no one tracked which foot you stepped forward with first.

Thinking this, she glanced sideways at the man.

When they had done the virtual skydiving earlier — had he already noticed then that her left ear couldn't hear?

And if he had, he had chosen not to say so. He had simply adjusted.

He wasn't looking back at her. He had his phone out and was absorbed in a single-player game. The number 1024 sat in the corner of the grid. He was playing 2048.

The relay reached its end.

He Jiameng was the last in the chain. Under a roomful of expectant eyes, she announced with full confidence: "Guanyin Bodhisattva wants to eat jackfruit."

A beat of complete silence.

Then the room came apart laughing.

He Jiameng looked around. "What? Isn't that it?"

"Little He, how did a line from the Heart Sutra end up there?" Fei Shui wiped his eyes. "I was confused at the start because it seemed to move so fast. I thought the other side had sent something short."

Xu Qingsong laughed and admitted it readily: "I couldn't remember it. I just passed on — the first paragraph of the Heart Sutra, recite it if you can."

The next several people had been struggling not to laugh for some time: "Same. We did the same thing."

The original message had ended with the man. Once people established the source, the topic moved on without dwelling on it — someone who had simply memorized the opening of the Heart Sutra was not unusual enough to occupy the room for long. The other table finished their relay shortly after, winning by a single word.

After a few more exchanges, people began gathering their things.

Yun Li went back and forth several times before she managed to speak. "Um—"

He paused and looked up from his phone.

His eyelashes were long and fine, his eye sockets slightly deep. Thin double eyelids, the outer corners turned naturally upward. Without expression, his eyes carried something sharp and difficult to read — the kind of stillness that made people uncertain whether to continue.

"Just now, when you asked me to lean closer—" She was already regretting starting this sentence but couldn't stop. "Did you know—"

Did you know I can't hear with my left ear?

The moment she heard herself about to say it plainly, she stopped. She looked at him and waited.

He said nothing.

"Why aren't you saying anything?" she asked.

He looked at her steadily. "You didn't finish your sentence."

Yun Li tried again from a different angle. "Why did you ask me to lean closer?"

Their eyes met.

Around them, the room continued its noise. For a moment that didn't quite belong to the surroundings, neither of them moved. Yun Li thought he was about to say something true.

The man slid his phone back into his pocket and said, "Rules. No third person should overhear."

---

Xu Qingsong appeared to hold VIP status at the nearby KTV. They were led directly to a party room without a reservation — large, split across two levels by three steps, easy enough for more than ten people.

Drinks arrived, then snacks, then fruit platters arranged with slightly too much care.

Several people who needed no encouragement had already seized microphones and were performing with conviction. The song selection screen stayed continuously occupied. The rest divided themselves into small groups — cards at one end, a dice game somewhere in the middle.

Yun Li sat at the side with a small cluster of people, half-listening to whoever was singing.

Seven or eight at her table, most of whose names she hadn't caught. Xu Qingsong held the comfortable center, smiling as he clinked glasses in every direction. The man who had come with him was not in the room.

She looked at her phone. Then she looked at the room again without particular purpose.

A woman across the table — Du Gefei, who He Jiameng had mentioned earlier as someone who had tried to collect the contact information of nearly every man present — rested her chin in her hand and said in Xu Qingsong's direction, "Mr. Xu, where did that good-looking friend of yours go? Shouldn't he be here paying his forfeit?"

Yun Li's attention shifted toward the conversation without her deciding to let it.

Xu Qingsong looked resigned. "He's not feeling well. Give him a pass."

Du Gefei tilted her head. "Is his girlfriend keeping tabs on him?"

Xu Qingsong gave nothing away.

"I didn't even get a chance to ask for his contact," Du Gefei continued.

Xu Qingsong appeared to hear this as a separate piece of information rather than an invitation. "That's a shame," he said, sounding genuinely commiserative.

Du Gefei blinked.

Someone at the table covered their mouth.

Yun Li pressed her lips together. Something about it was faintly funny. But after the amusement settled, her mood dipped in a way she couldn't quite account for.

It arrived from no direction in particular. Like a plant that closes when the temperature drops, leaf by leaf, for no visible reason.

Like a coin aimed at a wishing well, landing just short.

After a while, He Jiameng appeared at her elbow. "Teacher Xian Yun, do you need to use the restroom? I'd rather not use the one in the room."

Yun Li came back to herself. "A little. I'll come."

The corridor outside was low-lit, the overhead fixtures covered by some kind of fabric diffuser. A few steps along was the public restroom, which by contrast was properly bright.

When Yun Li came out to wash her hands, He Jiameng was already at the mirror and turned to look at her. "Why is your ear so red?"

Yun Li looked.

He Jiameng leaned in. "Only the right one."

"I don't know," Yun Li said, noticing it herself for the first time.

He Jiameng giggled. "Could it be because that guy was too close when he was whispering to you?"

"No, it's not that."

He Jiameng clearly did not believe her. "He seems like the total iceberg type. You saw how no one could really get through to him today. And then he apparently decides to actively flirt."

Yun Li found she couldn't produce a useful rebuttal and changed direction instead. "Do you know him?"

"No. I think it's because I've been at headquarters and haven't been here much." He Jiameng lowered her voice. "A colleague mentioned seeing him at the store this morning. He's a friend of the boss — been helping out for a few days. Apparently he'll be at EAW going forward." She brightened. "I'm honestly lucky. When he took off the mask earlier, even with the boss right there, I felt a little dizzy for a second."

A pause.

"But I'm actually a little worried."

"About what?"

"Don't you think he seems hard to work with? Connection hires usually don't put in much effort," He Jiameng said. "And he's quite — I don't know, closed off. A bit intimidating."

Yun Li heard herself say, "Mr. Xu mentioned he wasn't feeling well. Maybe he just didn't want to talk."

He Jiameng considered this. "Oh, right. I forgot about that."

---

Most people had early flights. The gathering ended at a reasonable hour.

Back at the hotel, Yun Li finished her shower just past midnight and lay down with the blanket pulled close, wanting nothing more than to stay horizontal for a very long time.

Group outings were genuinely draining.

She remained vague on how she had ended up at the KTV.

After a while, lying still in the quiet, she raised one hand and touched her right ear.

It wasn't warm anymore.

---

In the morning, she told He Jiameng there was no need to book a return flight — she wasn't going back to Nanwu in the near future.

He Jiameng extended the hotel stay for another week without needing further explanation.

Yun Li had nothing scheduled. She ordered in, and after some thought, sent Deng Chuqi a message asking when she might be free for a meal.

Deng Chuqi called back within seconds. "I'm eating right now, too lazy to type. When are you going back to Xifu?"

"I probably won't go back."

"What? Why?" A short pause. "Aren't you supposed to report in at the end of the month?"

Saying I left home out loud felt awkward in a way that made it hard to start. "There's not much to do if I go back early. Might as well come here and get used to the place."

"Okay. Do you want to stay with me for now? My roommate's nice, room's a bit small though."

"It's alright, the hotel's paid up for the week. I'm also thinking about renting a place — I've been looking at listings and found one that seems decent. Could you come with me to check it out?"

"Of course! This weekend? I'm free."

Yun Li smiled. "Perfect."

"Are you going to live in the dorms?"

"I will, but I need somewhere to film sometimes. I don't want to disturb whoever I'm sharing with."

They talked for a while longer before hanging up. Yun Li finished her takeout watching an old drama series.

Late afternoon, as the light outside turned amber, a message came from He Jiameng — she had sent the videos from yesterday's activities to Yun Li's email.

Yun Li replied with a simple acknowledgment.

If she was going to look at apartments, the next few days would fill up quickly. Better to edit the footage now while there was time.

She retrieved the SD card from her camera and connected it. Skimming through the clips she had recorded, she paused at the VR bungee jumping segment.

After that project ended, she had left her camera on the tripod and walked away, only remembering it partway through the next activity. The clip continued after she left — and what it had captured was this:

Du Gefei had approached the man and asked, with the particular brightness of someone who had rehearsed the opener, "I'd like to try this game too. How does it work?"

The man looked at the VR headset in his hand and said, without redirecting his attention, "Ask the staff."

Then Yun Li had returned for her camera, and Du Gefei had found somewhere else to be.

This did, she thought, match what He Jiameng had said about connection hires not always being known for their effort.

She scrolled back, for reasons she declined to examine, to the footage of him helping her with the safety harness. She watched it. He had probably just been impatient. But the feeling of having been handled differently from everyone else remained in her, not quite leaving.

She closed the clip, opened her email, and downloaded the compressed file He Jiameng had sent.

When it finished and she unzipped it, she glanced at the thumbnails to match them against her own recordings.

She stopped.

One thumbnail did not correspond to any activity she had participated in.

It was his face. Without the mask.

She clicked play.

He appeared not to know the camera was recording. He was holding a remote control, adjusting something or simply turning it over in his hands without particular purpose.

The footage moved in wide, disorienting swings — several meters up toward the ceiling one moment, close enough to show the surrounding game stations, then dropping sharply to floor level, the ground's pattern filling the frame.

Yun Li understood.

This was the drone she had watched moving through the venue.

Near the end of the clip, someone off-screen apparently called to him. He went still. Several seconds passed. The view descended from mid-air to the ground in a smooth, deliberate arc. The recording ended.

Because of that final movement, because she now had a clear image of him operating the drone — his face, his hands, his particular quality of attention — something in her memory snagged on a thread it recognized.

She opened the E-station website and found a video she had bookmarked a long time ago, then largely forgotten.

It had started as a forum post before being moved to the video section. Coverage from a National College Student Robotics Competition.

The video had been edited around one person.

A tall young man in a black team uniform, a moon-shaped badge on his sleeve. Across his back: the emblem of Xifu University of Technology. Team name: Unique.

He held a remote control, focused entirely on the robot in front of him.

When the result was announced, everyone around him erupted. People jumped. People shouted.

The young man didn't. He was good-looking in a way that made composure look like its natural state, not something achieved. He stood a little apart from the celebration. Then a teammate wrapped both arms around him from behind without warning. He frowned, resisted briefly, and then — caught off guard, unable to stop it — broke into a smile that was entirely uncontrolled.

There was something in it: the particular quality of an emotion that arrived before the person had decided whether to show it.

This young man matched the man in the footage she had just watched.

The same person. And not quite the same person.

The video had circulated for a while when it was first posted. Someone had eventually looked further and found that the young man had skipped grades — he was fifteen when he competed.

The comment with the most replies, inspired by the moon badge on his sleeve, had read: So the moon also exists in the mortal world.

Yun Li had first watched this video when she was also fifteen, just beginning her first year at the best high school in Xifu, which she had gotten into by the narrowest possible margin. Introverted, unremarkable, working harder than most of her classmates for results that were average at best — she had felt the weight of everyone around her being exceptional in ways she couldn't match.

She had wanted, badly, to be the kind of person who was simply and naturally extraordinary.

The young man had appeared in that particular moment.

He had been a brief, bright thing to admire and want to become — the kind of aspiration that was really a question asked at fifteen: Is it possible to be like that?

Years later, the internet moment had faded the way these things do. But a trace remained.

Typing into the search bar now, Yun Li found the interview that had been published after his college entrance examination results came through. Beside it, a photograph taken without much ceremony — the young man looking into the camera, still carrying something of the undefended quality youth allows before the world requires you to cover it over.

Below the photograph, a caption:

Nanwu City's 2008 Science Stream College Entrance Examination Top Scorer, Fu Shize.