Chapter 1563: Qiao Yuansi Alone

After extinguis.h.i.+ng the fire and pulling out the key, Qiao Yuansi sat quietly in the driver"s seat for a few minutes before pus.h.i.+ng open the car door.

As she walked past the car, she lifted her hand, her fingers lightly grazing the central deformed and collapsed rear trunk. The car body was warm under the sun, with some bends very sharp, so she carefully avoided them. Her fingertips quickly gathered a layer of dust, dull and smooth, filling the textures of her skin.

The rear cover had collapsed severely, and the trunk could no longer close properly, deformed and twisted together. The remaining camping supplies inside seemed impossible to retrieve. Thinking about this, Qiao Yuansi smiled slightly, slowly retracting her hand.

Approaching the teaching building, the flow of people gradually increased. Young students played and laughed in the sun, making it hard to believe that the familiar old world had already died. Occasionally, students from her cla.s.s would greet her, and Qiao Yuansi would smile and nod, saying good morning—regardless of whether the face opposite her was normal or not.

Even if someone"s face suddenly changed in front of her, she wouldn"t be surprised. Not because she was used to it, but because Qiao Yuansi felt that she was not really here.

Her body moved among the deformed people, pressing the elevator b.u.t.ton, answering "I"ve eaten" when a faceless colleague asked, "Have you had breakfast?" But in reality, she wasn"t there.

She had detached herself from the world of the deformed, not knowing where she had gone, perhaps to a faraway place. She had been swept up and dispersed by the sea breeze, drifting between the gray-blue sky and sea.

This building, this school, was merely a mime stage for the crowds coming and going. Her ears were filled with the sounds of students" laughter, sneakers sc.r.a.ping the floor, doors opening and closing. For the first time, she realized that the school could have such a quiet, enduring day.

She hung the remaining "travel photos" of herself in the most conspicuous place in her office, receiving several compliments about their beauty. No one expressed surprise at her face in the photos; either they already knew not to show surprise, or the deformation had spread so much that there were almost no normal people left in the school. Specifically which, Qiao Yuansi found that she didn"t care much.

Before cla.s.s, she took out a small box of bird food and prepared a small bowl of water, placing them outside the window, not knowing when Manmiao would come. Manmiao, although now only able to move around her, had a wide range of movement, and had its own bird life to lead, so it might not always be by her side.

Speaking of which, the items of the apocalyptic world were truly magical, connecting the last incurable bird to her life, surviving together. As long as she lived one more day, Manmiao would live one more day.

Fortunately, she seemed to have left something behind.

Qiao Yuansi made a slight change to her cla.s.s schedule: the first task of the first cla.s.s was to write a short understanding of a subject, a few sentences to a couple of hundred words. She didn"t even have to wait to collect the a.s.signments, just walking around the cla.s.sroom while they were writing, glancing at each person"s paper, and knowing their status.

What they wrote was not nonsense, at least most of it appeared coherent with subjects, objects, and connecting words, but lacking in understanding and logic, confusing fact with fiction, filled with chaos and self-contradiction, without realizing it. By looking more, she could even judge from the content of the a.s.signments how far a person had deteriorated.

The most severe student"s face had never changed, appearing more stable than her, but the content in that a.s.signment was completely unrecognizable, the text itself so simplified that it was incomprehensible. Qiao Yuansi only glanced a few times and never dared to approach that female student again.

After looking over everyone"s work, she discovered that there was only one normal person in the cla.s.s.

He was an ordinary-looking boy, whom she had never paid much attention to before because he always sat quietly in the corner—perhaps because he wasn"t eye-catching, the other deformed people seemed not to have noticed that he wasn"t one of them.

Qiao Yuansi read his a.s.signment several times, unsure whether to approach him or not. Sadly, she didn"t have anyone to consult anymore. After much thought, she decided to observe the situation first.

Fortunately, she had been cautious, as she quickly discovered that the boy couldn"t recognize the facial changes of those around him. It wasn"t that he was an exceptional actor; he truly couldn"t recognize them. Once, he asked a cla.s.smate during a group discussion, "Are you chewing gum? Give me a piece." Qiao Yuansi stared at the person whose lower face was a reflection of the upper one for a few seconds, not even finding where his mouth was. When the person said, "Yes," and indeed took out a piece of gum, she had to admit: in the boy"s eyes, this deformed person not only had a mouth but was also chewing something.

Two weeks later, the boy transformed in cla.s.s.

The same thing happened several times later. It seemed that compared to "normal" people who could see the transformation, the proportion of "normal" people who couldn"t see it was even greater. When Qiao Yuansi realized this, she couldn"t help but feel down for a few days.

Being a minority within a minority, they had to pretend not to see the transformation to ensure that other Changelings wouldn"t act against them. But by doing so, they also pushed away the possibility of finding others like themselves.

In this situation, if there were normal people in the school who could detect the situation, would they dare to approach Qiao Yuansi? Of course not.

Perhaps she shouldn"t try to interact with others anyway.

Before starting school, she agreed that with her special situation, it was better to live in isolation and avoid attracting attention. The more normal people around her, the more dangerous it was. Qiao Yuansi understood this; she just didn"t expect that being silent among the Changelings would be so unbearable.

Speaking of which... How long had it been since school started? It seemed like a month had pa.s.sed.

On the surface, everything seemed normal for her. Attending cla.s.ses, preparing lessons, meetings, talking – n.o.body could tell anything was different. But deep in her mind, she always felt a bit dazed. Her time had stopped on the day before school started, so whenever she saw the date on the newspaper increase by one, she doubted if the newspaper had made a mistake.

Others were counting dates forward; she was counting down: twelve months and one week, twelve months and six days, twelve months and five days... What would happen when the countdown reached zero, she did not know.

Qiao Yuansi later didn"t dare to recall this period. Every time she thought about it, she would be enveloped by a nearly terrifying thought, making even breathing difficult – was it because she was so distracted during this time, revealing something, that led to the series of misfortunes later?

One day, like usual, she had nothing to do, couldn"t concentrate on reading, and sat alone in her office, watching the scenery outside the window.

One or two weeks earlier, Qiao Yuansi found herself frighteningly idle every day. Her cla.s.ses had no normal students left; no one could understand her lessons, and she couldn"t understand the students" a.s.signments. She had to let the students discuss in groups, evaluate each other, thus reducing her workload by more than half.

How were the other cla.s.ses doing?

As Qiao Yuansi pondered, she slowly added water to the windowsill water box. Manmiao treated her as a mobile cafeteria, appearing at least once or twice at irregular intervals every day, often looking hungry. She and Manmiao were connected in life, so she could subtly sense the little bird"s condition.

"Miss Qiao?"

Hearing a few knocks on the door, she spun her chair around to face the person at the entrance. A somewhat familiar young girl was at the door, her facial features not only normal but also pleasant to look at. With some caution, she said, "I"m on the waiting list, and I want to ask about the vacancy..."

Oh, right, that"s true. No wonder she looked familiar; she seemed to have come to the office once before.

Qiao Yuansi bent over, reached for the drawer, and asked, "What"s your name?"

The question was asked, but she didn"t wait for the young female student"s answer. When she found the folder from the drawer and straightened up again, she found that the latter was still standing there, stunned, as if she had seen something incomprehensible.

A heavy feeling sank in Qiao Yuansi"s chest.

She turned her chair, following the young girl"s gaze to the windowsill that had just been obscured by her — the bird food box and clear water box for Manmiao were there. Manmiao was not present, and everything seemed normal.

What was she looking at?

The young girl then looked at the "travel photo" hanging on the wall for two seconds. She surely had seen this picture before, anyone who had been in Qiao Yuansi"s office would have noticed it... but her sudden, focused and careful look made Qiao Yuansi afraid.

"What"s your name?" Qiao Yuansi asked again — this time not out of work duty, but hoping to quickly divert the other"s attention.

The young girl finally came back to her senses, stood by the desk and answered softly. "Jin Yan. Is that... for feeding birds?"

"Yes," Qiao Yuansi replied dryly, holding back her pounding heart.

She felt her face might have gone pale; she was never good at acting, so she quickly bent down to pretend to check the waiting list, saying, "Which cla.s.s are you on the waiting list for?"

The young girl sat down in the visitor"s chair, "The one at ten o"clock on Wednesday morning."

Clearly, neither of them was thinking about the waiting list; Qiao Yuansi was unsure what the other was thinking, but they were both pretending, pretending they were scheduling cla.s.ses here.

Jin Yan wasn"t the first person to see the bird food box; it was placed there every day, and countless Changelings had seen it. There was naturally no Changeling who could understand why she wanted to feed the birds; but their a.n.a.lytical abilities made them unable to establish any connection between feeding birds and non-Changelings, so they would at most comment, "You"re strange to care for them," and then let it go.

Could it be... could it be that Jin Yan...

Qiao Yuansi bowed her head, feeling lost about how to handle this situation. She stared at the file, not flipping the page for several seconds, taking nothing in; just then, she heard Jin Yan softly ask, "Um, Miss Qiao, can you take off your face so I can see it?"

Take off... her face?

Qiao Yuansi"s heart jumped, and she looked up abruptly. She was prepared to see a despairing face, but Jin Yan was still sitting there, her features clear and clean, only a slight anxiety and tension between her brows.

How should she respond? What reason could she give to refuse?

Jin Yan took a deep breath and said softly, "You can"t, can you? I... I understand. I can"t either, because... I haven"t transformed either."