Black Hole

Not long after, Yu Mao logged back on for one last quick check, confirmed that the constables had already come and taken the person away, and finally relaxed. She shut down the computer and got ready to leave.

She didn’t know she had cut off a possible future crime by Zhao Xuan in advance, and she didn’t care.

She was in a very good mood because she had fulfilled Changgeng’s wish.

Before she set off, Lin Yan came over with a deluxe canister of milk powder, stuffed it into Yu Mao’s arms, and then handed her a bunch of bananas too.

“Dinner. Eat the bananas on the way if you get hungry.”

“Thank you, Teacher.”

Lin Yan smiled faintly, her temperament warm and calm.

On the surface, she seemed relieved; in truth, she couldn’t even be sure whether Yu Mao was truly capable of feeling gratitude.

Toward anyone other than Nan Changgeng, she was always stingy to the extreme when it came to showing emotion.

Back then, she had noticed this special child at first sight. Her efficiency, her decisiveness, and a kindness that was a little too much for an ordinary person—she hadn’t hesitated for long before deciding to step into this little trouble of a life.

It wasn’t as if she had done it to be thanked. Since she had chosen it, there was no room for regret.

And her kindness had been rewarded, too. Even if she didn’t get much emotional feedback, Yu Mao still stuffed quite a lot of money into her hands, saying it was repayment for food and care.

Yu Mao had always been excellent in school. Her ability to learn exceeded Lin Yan’s understanding. Since she had studied computer science, she was bound to be very skilled with computers, and making money would be easy.

But Lin Yan wasn’t very clear on exactly what Yu Mao did for work.

Before parting, she couldn’t help reminding her:

“When you’re out there, you have to be extra careful. Don’t go wandering all over the place, especially not into remote mountain villages. These past few years, things have only gotten more and more unstable. Another village in Riyang County has had trouble; the whole village was sealed off, and no one knows what the real reason was. Whether it was an infectious disease or something else, they’ve kept it tightly under wraps. I heard it’s also connected to those strange brain-death cases.”

Every time she talked about these things, she couldn’t help sighing. On the surface, society still seemed to be functioning normally, but deep down she always had a heavy, ominous feeling, as if a storm were coming.

“Mm, I don’t go out,” Yu Mao said.

She clearly didn’t need this kind of warning. She never went out unless it was necessary, let alone ran around traveling.

Lin Yan understood that, of course; she just wanted to vent some of her unease. She often said the same things to the students at school as well.

After saying goodbye to her teacher, Yu Mao hugged the bananas in one arm and the thermos in the other, then found a car back to the neighboring city.

She left and returned the same day. Even the director hadn’t expected her to be this efficient. By the time she got back to the building, it happened to be right on time for the program team’s newly organized afternoon activity.

The nature of this activity was roughly the same as a class gathering; the contestants from one class sat together to chat and get to know each other, a little ice-breaking event after the reshuffle into new classes.

The contestants had already been redistributed according to the first public vote, so Yu Mao, who had placed fourth, was honored with A Class status and was in the same class as Nan Changgeng.

A Class had the fewest personnel changes. Aside from the original six, only Yu Mao and Chen You had been added, bringing the total to eight.

Chen You had just barely made it over the cutoff score. As a singer-songwriter whose strengths lay outside vocal technique, her breakthrough had surprised quite a few people.

With one astonishing original song, plus the words she had used while canvassing for votes, she had even moved the audience in the venue to tears.

She said that before, she had been like a bird locked in a cage; the cage door had always been open, but she hadn’t known how to fly. By the time her wings were strong enough, she had forgotten that she had long since been able to soar away.

She was grateful to Nan Changgeng for reminding her to see the fully grown feathers on her wings, and she sincerely hoped that those trapped like her would one day finally gain freedom.

That song was called "Flying Bird"; it had been written under immense pressure during that one week. After breaking free of those mental restraints, Chen You had become unimaginably strong.

Yu Mao returned to the dorm, put her things away, and then went downstairs to the practice room, only to arrive just in time to see Deng Cheng carrying Wei Zhiyu around like some kind of circus act.

“This is our famous duo’s signature move!”

Deng Cheng treated her like a wooden pole and spun her through a big loop against her body, from being hugged in front and swung onto his back to rolling down from his right side.

Wei Zhiyu landed perfectly, then slowly crouched down and sat on the floor. Her long hair was plastered across her face, even messier than Yu Mao’s.

Although her expression was numb and her eyes were flat and lifeless, the few onlookers could clearly feel how fragile she was and couldn’t help looking at her with sympathy.

The practice room was deathly silent; only Deng Cheng stood there with his mouth hanging open, grinning stupidly in satisfaction.

“How about it? Pretty amazing, right? I figured this out after watching a circus performance recently. The performer could let a metal hoop pass from one arm, roll it over the back, and send it to the other side. It was super fun.”

“The metal hoop... did she do that willingly?” Chen You asked weakly.

Wei Zhiyu slowly turned her mechanical gaze toward her and gave a miserable smile, as if grateful she had spoken up for her.

“Metal hoop? There isn’t a metal hoop here, though.” Deng Cheng scratched the back of her head, completely missing the point.

The others didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Yu Mao stood at the door watching, her expression wooden, thinking that this seemed rather different from what the director had introduced to her.

“Oh! Yu Mao? You’re back!”

At last someone noticed her. Lin Baiyu stretched out an arm to greet her and casually stretched, too.

All of them turned to look toward the door at once. Nan Changgeng’s eyes flickered; she smiled at the girl.

“Come in quickly; it’s almost Nan-jie’s turn next. You didn’t miss a thing!” Lin Baiyu said with a sly smile.

This group obviously knew Yu Mao’s personality by now, and they all laughed at that.

Wei Zhiyu, who had originally been sitting beside Nan Changgeng, paused before moving back to the outer edge and sitting down in silence. She kept a strict half-meter distance from Deng Cheng beside her.

Disgusted, but unable to say it outright; she could only dislike her in secret.

Yu Mao walked straight to the empty spot without hesitation and sat down on the floor with the others, her gaze fixed on Nan Changgeng the entire time as she blinked lightly.

Nan Changgeng casually reached out and ruffled her hair, smiling as if she were looking at a little cat coming home after going out, somehow giving off a strangely gentle, almost maternal air.

Lin Baiyu glanced at them a couple of times, then suddenly coughed loudly. “Continue, continue. Everyone, say your first impression of Nan Changgeng and your current impression!”

Nai Lin and Nai Ye took turns saying:

“First impression: an extremely outstanding senior.”

“An unapproachable senior.”

“Current impression: a very good senior who’s helped us a lot.”

“A very easy senior to get along with!”

Nan Changgeng raised a hand to her forehead as she was called senior again and again, both helpless and amused.

“Everyone’s first impression of you was probably about the same, right? After all, before we knew you, you really did seem very distant just from your appearance,” Lin Baiyu said.

Everyone nodded in unison.

Chen You’s eyes were full of reverence. “The current impression is probably about the same too; kind, nice, very good at teaching, mature and wise.”

Everyone nodded again.

Nan Changgeng opened her mouth, then closed it.

“Kindness is really...” Lin Baiyu said. “If I mention something you probably don’t know, Nan-jie donated most of the money she earned to charity. The money she kept was only enough for her own daily expenses; otherwise, she actually wouldn’t have needed to come on this show...” At the end, she pressed her lips together and glossed over the rest.

But no one had any spare attention left for that matter; they were all stunned by what she had said.

“My God...” A little girl who treated money like her life simply covered her face in silence. Chen You’s gaze toward Nan Changgeng was starting to turn teary, as if she were looking at some unparalleled benefactor.

It was obvious that Nan Changgeng had risen yet another level in her heart.

“If before I only thought you were kind, now it’s turned into nobility,” Wei Zhiyu said with complete seriousness.

“Eh, I... no,” Nan Changgeng’s language system fell into brief chaos.

After a pause.

“You’re thinking too highly of me,” she said, shaking her head. “I donate to charity for my own sake.”

For a moment, she didn’t know how to explain it, or whether this was even appropriate to talk about on camera.

Before she had completely broken away from her family, she had been half a simple fool. She didn’t know herself very well; busyness filled every gap in her life, leaving no space for her to look inward.

She had lived very simply, with a mind that was even a little childish. She rarely thought deeply about many things around her, only single-mindedly pursuing the worldly ideas of freedom, glory, ability, excellence... Yet she had never considered what it was she herself truly wanted. She only judged which things were "good," then instinctively chased after those "good" things.

It was only during those years of muddled existence, when the frantic work vanished overnight and she couldn’t sleep through the long nights, that she began, in her torment, to dissect her own soul over and over and think more and more deeply about herself, rapidly becoming mature.

The price was that she could no longer touch the world through soft, intuitive feeling. A thick layer of rational ice had formed over the surface of all her emotions.

She knew it now; she had seen it. There was a huge hollow inside her chest. In her original understanding, that hollow had been filled with love.

Until her mother personally tore open that false curtain for her, and the stuffing that had been filling her up melted away like cotton candy in water.

At first it only hurt. The wound was exposed to the air, tormenting her at every moment. Then, once it had scabbed over, cold wind kept pouring in from the inside, freezing her so badly that she no longer wanted to live, feeling only that life was utterly joyless, barren, and empty.

She had to find something to fill it. But it seemed like there was nothing in this world that could still give her a sense of satisfaction.

She had grown up in an environment where money had never been a concern, so material desire had already been satisfied; and as for chasing fame, she had reached the summit of her career early on and stood there draped in honors.

Only...

Only love. She longed for it, yet could not obtain it.

The love she had once received was so scarce it was like a damp rotten piece of wood covered in mold; it seemed to have moisture, yet it carried a poison that made her uneasy.

After she learned the truth, that damp wood was squeezed into a shriveled dead branch; the mold, along with the love, disappeared together.

So the reason she spent so much money on charity was, in fact, that she wanted to buy a little bit of... what she believed to be clean: gratitude and admiration.

After all, love wasn’t something one could obtain through effort alone. And if others gave it to her without reason, she could no longer trust it.

What you buy with money and exchange at equal value should be safe and clean.

That wasn’t noble, and probably couldn’t even be called kindness.

She had thought about this many, many times, and she had also studied psychology in an attempt to save herself. She felt that if she had been born into an ordinary family, there would have been too many things in the world more important than love. Chasing fame and profit, figuring out how to make her life better—those would occupy most of a person’s life, and love would never become the only thing she craved.

But she had gotten everything; she had gotten it too early, too much. The box of desires for fame and fortune was already full to overflowing. Only the place meant to hold love was empty, and the bottom had been smashed through.

Once there is a collapse at one point in the universe, it will continuously draw in everything around it. The empty box with a broken bottom had become a black hole, pulling all her consciousness to gather there; her life thus kept tilting toward that place against the command of fate, leaving only a craving for love.

She had raised so many stray cats, and every single one had grown close to her and loved her.

She had spent all her money traveling through impoverished mountain regions, looking at those pure, grateful eyes, and gained brief, thin satisfaction.

And yet tragedy was such that she would forever remain unsated.

The bottomless box could only be given the illusion of lasting fullness if love flowed through it like a river, endlessly and without interruption.

She had once thought this would become the one thing she pursued all her life yet never could attain.

But Yu Mao...