Chapter 26. The Answer Is No Part 3

Lu Zhengming let out a breath of relief.

But that didn’t mean the flood of questions in his mind had been answered. He was still full of doubts, unsure where to even begin, and unwilling to speak up. No matter how impatient he felt, he had a natural fear when it came to this issue. It was only now, as he wrestled with his doubts, that Lu Zhengming realized he’d backed himself into a corner. He was tired of fleeting, meaningless encounters, yet he wasn’t ready to fully commit to a real relationship.

It was as if Yin Yan sensed his anxiety. He added, “I didn’t lie to you. Everything I’ve ever told you is the truth.”

His tone was calm and understated, almost hypnotic, and it soothed Lu Zhengming greatly. Yet, just as someone on the verge of sleep might be startled awake by a sudden falling sensation, Lu Zhengming felt a sudden jolt of unease before he could fully believe it.

He couldn’t explain why. He just had a vague sense that things weren’t that simple. This wasn’t something that could be solved with a simple yes or no, or by deciding whether to believe it or not.

A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts, and he had no choice but to push his doubts aside.

“Professor Lu, are you resting?”

It was Ouyang’s voice, drifting through the crack in the door. Compared to her usual tone, she sounded a little hesitant.

Lu Zhengming quickly composed himself. “Come in!”

She walked in, holding a bouquet of calla lilies. Maybe it was because the florist didn’t have any fresh ones at this hour, but the flowers looked wilted, their heads drooping as if they wouldn’t last through the next day.

“Professor Yin is here too.”

Ouyang looked a little surprised. Yin Yan smiled and explained that he had come to look at Lu Zhengming’s paintings. “Your Professor Lu is very strict. He checks homework every day.”

Yin Yan placed a hand on Lu Zhengming’s shoulder and said, “She was just praising you, saying you’re ‘the most promising student of your year.’”

Ouyang lowered her head slightly and murmured a soft thank you. She unwrapped the flowers and tried to arrange them in the vase. As soon as the paper was removed, one of the stems drooped. She tried to prop it up a few times, but it wouldn’t stay upright. Standing by the bedside, she looked as dejected as that wilting flower. It seemed like the calmness she’d shown before had been left behind in the ocean. Now, all that remained was discouragement.

“I’ll leave you two to talk.” Yin Yan pulled a chair over for her, then quietly left the room.

Ouyang sat down on the edge of the chair, leaning forward slightly, as if afraid to put her full weight on it. The first thing she said after sitting down, as expected, was an apology. Lu Zhengming immediately cut her off, but after stopping her, he felt the atmosphere had grown too heavy, so he changed the subject.

“Where did Professor Yin take you guys for fun? He’s a local.”

“He did stay with us the whole time, but he didn’t take us anywhere to play,” Ouyang replied, following his lead. “He stuck with us all day, and every evening before we left, he took attendance.”

Lu Zhengming had only known that Yin Yan was helping him grade assignments. He hadn’t realized that Yin Yan had been spending the entire day with his students and hadn’t said a word about it.

This man…

By the time he snapped out of his thoughts, Ouyang had been staring at him for quite a while.

He felt a little awkward. “How’s your leg? Does it still hurt?”

Ouyang shook her head and fell silent again. Just as Lu Zhengming was about to look for another topic to break the tension, she sighed and said, “Actually… you didn’t have to save me.”

“It was just an accident,” Lu Zhengming said, thinking she felt guilty. He tried to comfort her. “If anything, I should be thanking you. You saved both of us.”

He thought back to the moment they were rescued. “Did someone say something to you?”

“It would’ve been nice if someone had,” Ouyang said softly, lowering her head. “But no… nothing at all. It’s like it never even happened.”

Lu Zhengming mulled over her words and suddenly recalled seeing Ouyang sitting alone by the window on the bus. She had looked so self-assured back then. Was that just a façade? Had she been isolated all along? But that wasn’t an easy question to ask.

“For a while now, our studio’s been short-staffed. The other female teachers couldn’t come, and I didn’t take good enough care of you…”

“Mr. Lu, I don’t need to be taken care of.”

Lu Zhengming chuckled. “Don’t be so tough. Back when I was in school, the girls in our class never had to lift a finger. The boys these days, they don’t have a lick of awareness.”

“I really don’t need it.”

Lu Zhengming didn’t say anything more, but as he looked at Ouyang, he couldn’t help feeling that she did seem like someone who needed looking after. He didn’t understand why she was so stubborn.

“I’m just… a little lonely.” Ouyang suddenly blurted out, then immediately seemed to realize she’d said too much. She quickly tried to regain her usual nonchalance. “Sorry. That’s not what I came here to talk about.”

“If you came just to apologize or check on me, then you shouldn’t have come at all.”

Lu Zhengming reached into the drawer by his bed and pulled out a plastic bag filled with washed, peeled fruit. Yin Yan had prepared it, knowing Lu Zhengming might be too lazy to bother otherwise. Since he hadn’t been able to smoke these past few days, he’d been surviving on fruit instead.

He opened the bag and said, “Help yourself.”

Ouyang’s expression finally relaxed a little. She picked a plum, not too big, not too small, and held it in her hand.

Lu Zhengming glanced at her all-black outfit and grinned. “Why do you like wearing black so much?”

Ouyang smiled back. “Maybe it’s like what Yohji Yamamoto said. Black means, ‘I won’t bother you, so don’t bother me.’”

“And you’re still afraid of being lonely?”

“I am, but I enjoy it too.” She bit into the plum and commented, “It’s sweet.”

“Isn’t that a contradiction?” Lu Zhengming took a plum for himself, bit into it, and had to agree. It really was sweet

“It’s like the idea of ‘not bothering others’ and ‘others not bothering you.’ Though sometimes, I kind of wish someone would bother me,” Ouyang said with a small laugh.

Lu Zhengming burst out laughing.

“But they really don’t,” Ouyang added with a hint of helplessness. “I don’t know why. I want to form connections with people—any kind of connection.”

“Well, I don’t think I can help you with that,” Lu Zhengming said, suddenly feeling a bit tense.

“You might be overthinking it.” Ouyang gave him a long look. “It’s not necessarily about sex.”

Lu Zhengming felt his face heat up and awkwardly tried to brush it off. “You know how it is. Guys tend to jump to conclusions…”

“Maybe it’s because I don’t fit into men’s idea of beauty, so no one ever bothers me. What’s strange, though, is that women don’t bother me either. Maybe fat people really are a third gender, isolated from both sides.”

Lu Zhengming laughed again, genuinely amused by her self-deprecating humor.

But there was a trace of sadness in Ouyang’s eyes as she continued, “If it were just my body that separated me from the world, that’d be an easy fix.”

“True enough.”

“I’ve tried connecting with people beyond the physical level. Like online,” she said, gazing up at the ceiling. “But I found that mental isolation can be even worse than physical isolation. And that’s probably a topic we could discuss all night.”

She sighed, one of many that evening and Lu Zhengming found himself feeling a bit down as well. He couldn’t solve any of her problems. In fact, he was just as lost as she was.

“If that kind of problem had an easy solution,” he said after a moment, “humanity wouldn’t have invented God. All that praying and worshiping, at its core, it’s just asking questions and answering them yourself. Though, I’ll admit, the rituals are pretty fascinating.”

Lu Zhengming nodded in agreement, pulling out an apple from the plastic bag and breaking it in half with his hands. He handed one half to Ouyang, who didn’t eat it but stared at it, lost in thought. The fragrance of the apple drifted into Lu Zhengming’s nose, and he hesitated to take a bite himself.

“Have you found a way to deal with loneliness?” he asked.

“No,” Ouyang replied softly, lowering her head.

“Does painting help?” Lu Zhengming finally took a bite of the apple. “I’m an only child. When I was a kid, there weren’t many people to talk to at home, so I drew. It was like talking to myself. Later, I realized that art is a different kind of language. It lets you communicate more directly, more efficiently. It can express things buried deep inside… Do you get what I mean?”

He suddenly paused and looked at Ouyang intently, as if he weren’t talking to a student but to an equal, a friend.

Ouyang smiled. “That’s why I paint, too.”

“Exactly!” Lu Zhengming said, excited. “I knew you’d understand!”

“But I’m still pessimistic,” Ouyang added, her smile fading. “I don’t think humans can ever truly understand each other.”

Lu Zhengming suddenly thought of Yin Yan and fell silent.

“Mr. Lu, maybe the world you see is beautiful. But from where I stand, it looks a little desolate. When I fell into the ocean, I wasn’t that scared. Maybe… it felt like a kind of release.”

“Don’t talk like that!” Lu Zhengming’s heart clenched as if gripped by an invisible hand, and for a moment, he saw another Yan Yan in front of him. “You still have so many questions. The only way to find answers is to keep living!”

But Ouyang didn’t want to continue the conversation. She stood up, bowed sincerely to him, and left the room.

Lu Zhengming felt his chest tightening with unspoken words, but he couldn’t voice a single one. He didn’t notice when Yin Yan came in, but by the time he snapped back to reality, he realized he was clutching Yin Yan’s waist, trembling and drenched in cold sweat.

Yin Yan pressed his hand gently on Lu Zhengming’s shoulder, but Lu still didn’t let go. Yin Yan had to pry his fingers off one by one. “I’ll walk her back.”

Only then did Lu Zhengming release him, slumping stiffly on the bed.

He listened to Yin Yan’s footsteps fade away, then return. A moment later, something warm touched his forehead. A kiss.

His body finally relaxed completely.