Pathological

No one could ignore the spreading strangeness.

The venue, which had still been somewhat noisy just moments ago, seemed as if a curtain had been drawn over it all at once. It went silent; a faint, bone-deep chill seeped through the air, crawling up the spine like damp, writhing worms.

Everyone glanced at the girl’s slight figure, then looked back at Nan Changgeng across from her.

As the one being questioned directly, Nan Changgeng felt the oddness even more keenly. She couldn’t tell what Yu Mao meant, and she wasn’t inclined to assume the worst first.

She curled her lips in a smile, as if she hadn’t noticed the other possible meaning behind the question at all. “I just hope I never have to see him again.”

Yu Mao tilted her head and thought for a moment, then nodded with grave seriousness.

“Okay.”

She would do it.

That was easier than making him disappear outright, and it wouldn’t drain the last of her strength.

Anyone Changchanggeng disliked, anyone who made Changgeng unhappy, ought to disappear.

Zhao Xuan.

She wrote the name down in her mind. If she got the chance, she would not forget to make him vanish completely.

Nan Changgeng stared at her for a long time. The dimness of the venue made those eyes unlike their usual clear, translucent state; instead, they held a deep, murky black.

Impossible to read. Could a little cat who liked to rub against people and act cute also bare a predator’s fangs and claws?

She knew Yu Mao didn’t care at all about Zhao Xuan, including the wound on her head. The only thing she cared about was her own singing just now.

And the displeasure and anger Nan Changgeng had shown toward Zhao Xuan.

It was because she had shown low spirits that Yu Mao had reacted. Otherwise, Zhao Xuan would have been an irrelevant person to her, even if he had hurt her.

That was a little terrifying.

A girl who did not fit into the world, as if separated from everything by a thick layer of sponge, had opened up her sharp senses only to her.

It was as if, in Yu Mao’s world, she alone was the one worth caring about; beyond that, even her own existence could be ignored.

This was a very obvious mental abnormality, and by no means a good thing for Yu Mao herself.

Yet in the midst of Nan Changgeng’s shock and worry, she could not ignore the swell of emotion rising in her heart. It was like a tremor in the earth’s crust beneath the sea; heavy and slow, it lifted layer after layer of waves.

Little by little, it battered one of her defenses until it collapsed.

She knew the flaw in her own nature. She was far too willing to repay affection at any cost once she sensed it, like a foolish child astonished by a gift from heaven, losing the rational ability to weigh whether the exchange was equal and giving back everything she possibly could.

In the past, she thought she had always been loved, and she never understood why. It was like being so thirsty that one would be grateful to the point of tears for a single drop of water. Only later did she realize that she had simply been blind to her own emptiness.

That was why her shadows ran so deep; every piece of affection sent her way fell into her eyes like clusters of faint blue ghost-fire drifting toward her, trying to swallow her whole.

She feared and avoided them as if fleeing a disaster.

But Yu Mao’s actions and behavior had suddenly shattered the outermost layer of her fear alarm.

Maybe Yu Mao wasn’t really a cat, but she certainly didn’t seem human.

Pathological emptiness; pathological love.

Nan Changgeng looked into those jet-black round eyes; focused, deep, reflecting a tiny figure, as if nothing else had been stored in that body besides herself.

“Changgeng.”

Yu Mao reached out her thin little paw and placed it over the fist Nan Changgeng had clenched on her knee. Her knuckles touched the taut sinews there; it was like dry branches scraping against rough stone, a light, careful grasp that accepted the risk of being broken or hurt.

She tilted her head slightly and lifted her face a little. Her eyes emerged again from behind her hair in the light, clear once more. Her voice was soft, like clouds filled with damp mist:

“Don’t… be unhappy because of me.

“This was supposed to be a beautiful night. Don’t let Zhao Xuan ruin it, don’t let the blood ruin it, don’t let me ruin it.

“The singing was perfect; it was beautiful, it was cool and impressive, but it lacked happiness.”

Nan Changgeng parted her lips. For a moment, it seemed as if her ability to speak had vanished entirely; she only drew a soft breath.

Her brain felt trapped inside some stagnant, solid mass. Thoughts surged chaotically, yet all of them slid across a blank emptiness.

Because she kept forcing herself to think deeper, her instincts were already subconsciously avoiding it.

In truth, she knew it should be her who had spoiled Yu Mao’s good mood.

The one still clapping away with blood all over her face and thinking tonight was wonderful was not her.

The woman from the medical team was packing up the contents of the first-aid kit. She glanced at the two of them with the calm air of someone who had seen it all before, and reminded them flatly, “Stop dawdling. Get to the hospital right away. You need a tetanus shot, and that cut is pretty long; you’ll probably need stitches.”

She had only done basic disinfection and wound cleaning. The cut was a little serious, and since it had been made by metal, it had to be dealt with at the hospital.

Nan Changgeng was thus rescued from the stillness of the moment, desperate to flee the blankness imprisoning her. She took Yu Mao’s hand, pushed against her knee to stand, and pulled her up as well. “Let’s go. We’ll go to the hospital first.”

It hadn’t actually delayed for very long. From the incident to now, only a few minutes had passed, and the rehearsal was still continuing in good order.

The director put her hands on her hips and shook her head, sighing. “So unlucky. We’ve only been filming for less than two weeks, and we’ve already gone to the hospital twice.”

She was even wondering if there was some saying about it; maybe Yu Mao was boosting their show, but their show was cursing her?

Yu Mao didn’t think anything was off.

She was already a regular at hospitals; she’d even had enough random fainting episodes on the street to be rushed in by passing strangers in an ambulance to count on one hand.

Once again, staff sent them to the hospital. Nan Changgeng stayed by her side the whole time, speaking little, her expression calm, holding her hand with a guiding air.

Nan Changgeng seemed to have tacitly decided she was the one responsible for accompanying her, and even though Yu Mao didn’t resist going to the hospital this time, she still came along.

When the stitches were being done, the woman stood behind her, one hand on her shoulder, squeezing a little too hard; she was clearly nervous.

Actually, the anesthesia wasn’t very effective on her, but the pain of the needle and thread tugging at the flesh on her forehead was not as distinct as the pressure of the fingers on her shoulder.

Yu Mao closed her eyes. In a daze, she felt as if she had become a squeeze toy, held in the woman’s palm and kneaded and pressed over and over. Unable to resist the pleasure of the imagined scene, the outer corners of her eyes curved into a hooked smile.

The doctor worked quickly and neatly, finishing the stitches in no time. Gauze was applied to the wound again, and the doctor explained the precautions for applying medicine and changing the dressing.

Yu Mao didn’t listen carefully. She turned around and raised her head to look at Nan Changgeng behind her. Seeing her looking at the doctor and nodding lightly, listening attentively, Yu Mao felt drowsy from the blood loss and slowly blinked. A sudden, irresistible attachment rose in her heart.

She lowered her gaze to the long, pale hand on her shoulder. The bones were distinct; the nails were neatly trimmed and rounded, and the fingertips held a moist, translucent pale pink, like jade tinged with white and rose.

She stuck out the tip of her tongue to lick her lips, swallowed the saliva pooling in her mouth, then pressed her cheek against the woman’s forearm and rubbed lightly against it.

That arm stiffened for a moment; the hand on her shoulder tightened once, then relaxed. Finally, the woman reached over with her other hand and rubbed her head.

Her voice drifted down from above, low and gentle, carrying a touch of tentative probing:

“You’ve lost so much blood; shouldn’t you make up for it and eat something good?”

Yu Mao lifted her head. Her side profile was still pressed against the arm, the weight of her skull leaning on it; the flesh of her cheek squashed her left eye smaller, leaving one black and glossy right eye open.

“I can’t eat anything else.”

“…Why?”

Nan Changgeng could no longer stop herself from asking. Even though she had deliberately tried to avoid understanding the girl more deeply, she still kept falling into points where she had no choice but to move forward.

She was soaking in a river that kept flowing downward, gradually being invaded and numbed by it until she lost the body’s ability to resist, and could not help but be carried along.

Yet when the question was asked, no answer came. She watched confusion surface in Yu Mao’s bright eyes as the girl said blankly, “I forgot.”

“…"

The psychiatric outpatient clinic was upstairs. Nan Changgeng hesitated, not knowing whether she should simply take her to be seen.

But the biggest question that had risen in her heart at that moment was:

Should she interfere in Yu Mao’s life and find a way to make her eat normally?

She still had no answer to that question even after Yu Mao got her tetanus shot and the group left the hospital.

On the way back, Nan Changgeng sat to Yu Mao’s right. She took a wet wipe, picked up a lock of the girl’s hair, and, half-turned toward her, slowly wiped away the blood on it.

The stain had nearly dried into a scab; once the wet wipe dragged over it, it came off easily. Rewetted, it spread into a startling red across the white cloth. As the blood mixed with moisture, its smell dispersed, and a faint trace of iron filled the cramped space.

“Aren’t you thinking about cutting your hair? It’s so long. It must be hard to wash.”

Messy and wild, full of signs of unfettered growth; even if she were stuffed into some feral ritual band, it probably wouldn’t look out of place.

“I seem to be afraid of scissors, but I forgot why.”

Yu Mao turned her face slightly, her gaze sliding over the woman’s straight nose bridge and settling on the faint little mole at the tip of it. Her eyelids drooped a little, and her expression turned slightly gloomy.

That was the second time she had failed to answer Changgeng’s question. At last, she regretted why she had thrown away those memories so thoroughly.

“Do you really want to know? Maybe after I leave the show, I can ask my teacher for you.”

Nan Changgeng’s hand paused. Her brows lifted. “Teacher?”

“Yes. My teacher from elementary school. She took care of me a lot, and she knows a lot about me.”

Nan Changgeng’s lips curved faintly. Her long lashes lowered; the cabin light reflected in her eyes, casting a shadow like the world tipping toward a gray sea.

“No need.” She didn’t ask further.

She took back the wet wipe, and like folding a handkerchief, she calmly and gracefully folded it into a small square, damp with blood.

Yu Mao tilted her head and stared at her fixedly.

The cold white light overhead looked exhausted and pale; the person beneath it was pale too, like an almost transparent shadow moving through a wash of light.

Outside the car window, the deep night was closing in. Neon lights flashed and overlapped, shattered by speed into fragments across her field of vision, streaking past behind the woman like glitches in a broken screen, wrapping around her blurred, cool-colored outline.

The curve of her lips was faintly visible, a false impression created by light and shadow trading places, carrying a trace of irony, so indistinct one couldn’t tell whether it was real.

Nan Changgeng lowered her head slightly, her gaze falling on the neat little square resting in her palm. Damp blood, with an overbearing smell, occupied her senses and her nose.

Her brow rose faintly for an instant. She lowered her eyes and casually flicked it into the trash bag hanging behind the front passenger seat, where it made a short rustle and briefly cut through the silence.

So it was a cat someone had raised.

Yes; how could there be anyone in this world with no other ties at all, pouring all their heart and mind into just one person?