Her words were so sincere and full of emotion that the room suddenly fell silent. No, it was dead silent.
“Um… my condolences.” Lu Mingfei handed the dejected junior an orange, patting the book on her head, as if a compassionate monk comforting a young acolyte struggling with their path.
Suddenly, he burst into laughter, throwing himself onto the bed, covering his head with a blanket, and pounding the mattress. He really couldn’t hold it in any longer; if he did, it would cause internal injury. He suddenly felt that this strike was wonderful, and staying in Chicago for the week would be even better—all because of meeting this pretty, mischievous, yet endearingly silly junior. She was both Lin Chi-ling and a stand-up comedian at the same time!
“What… what are you laughing at?” Xia Mi shot Lu Mingfei a sideways glance and pouted.
“If ‘the One’ refers to spirit, then does the upper and lower realms refer to the different spiritual worlds of dragons and humans?” Chu Zihang resumed the discussion.
“That’s one way to interpret it—describing a process of evolving from a human to a dragon to achieve self-fulfillment,” Xia Mi replied.
“Is it possible for a human to evolve into a dragon?”
“In the Middle Ages, The Emerald Tablet described it as ‘approaching the divine’ or ‘stealing the laws of the gods.’ Because there was fear that these laws would be understood by common people, they were written in a secret code,” Chu Zihang explained.
“Written in the ancient Egyptian sacerdotal script?” Xia Mi asked.
“Yes, the sacerdotal script was only mastered by priests. By the 7th century AD, Arabic had replaced Egyptian as the common language, so the sacerdotal script is very difficult to decipher. The Newton version you’re using might be full of errors…”
“The translation you used earlier was ‘The One rises from the earth to the heavens and then descends back to the earth, thus absorbing the powers of the upper and lower realms. By this means, you shall have the glory of the entire world, free from ignorance.’ Based on your interpretation, if a human can evolve into a dragon, there would be no need to return to the human world. Since the author wanted to be free from ignorance…” Chu Zihang mused.
“Why be free from cute girls?” Lu Mingfei interjected, bored.
It was a wonderful day—staying in a luxurious five-star hotel with a comfortable sofa, complimentary fruit, a wealthy, expressionless senior to pay for everything, and a beautiful junior they had just met. Yet there they were, each balancing a book on their head, standing against the wall like two guardians. To make things worse, after reading for a while, the two “guardians” started debating the interpretation of The Emerald Tablet—both were academic types, leaving Lu Mingfei completely clueless, only catching phrases like “from the heavens to the earth” and “from the earth to the heavens,” utterly confused by their abstract talk.
“Then why does it ‘descend back to the earth’? Isn’t ‘from earth to heaven’ the ultimate pursuit of all alchemy?” Chu Zihang completely ignored Lu Mingfei, fully absorbed in the discussion with Xia Mi.
“From earth to heaven, from heaven to earth, everything is so mysterious, so mysterious…” Lu Mingfei suddenly remembered a children’s song from a CCTV program he watched as a kid and started singing it.
Chu Zihang and Xia Mi stared at him, utterly unable to comprehend his inner world.
“The scales of heaven and earth have a balance, and the counterweight is the common people…” Just as Lu Mingfei realized he had gone off-topic again, Xia Mi suddenly began singing the theme song of Prime Minister Liu Luo Pot in the rhythm of Beijing drum.
“Hey, hey, what’s going on? Weren’t you two discussing an academic topic? How did it suddenly turn into an old-song medley?” Lu Mingfei asked.
“Just trying to keep up with you,” Xia Mi said. “Do you know the theme song for Barbapapa?”
“I think I remember it…” Chu Zihang tried humming the tune.
Later, when Lu Mingfei recalled that warm afternoon bathed in sunlight, he thought they didn’t do anything meaningful. Boats traveled back and forth on the Chicago River, The Simpsons reran on TV, and he sat on the sofa, flanked by handsome and beautiful people standing straight with hardcover books balanced on their heads. Sometimes they discussed academic topics, sometimes they sang together, Xia Mi occasionally told silly jokes, and Lu Mingfei explained the factions of the college to her. Afternoons like this sounded like a waste of life.
Yet you’d always wish for such afternoons to last longer, to have more of them, never to end…
“Are you asleep?” Lu Mingfei asked quietly, staring at the ceiling.
“Not yet, just thinking,” said the person beside him, also looking at the ceiling, the blanket pulled up to their shoulders, hands neatly tucked under.
“Sorry, was my turning over too loud?”
“No, I’m just not used to sleeping with someone else. I’ll fall asleep when I’m tired—no worries.”
“You also have an iPhone, and there’s Wi-Fi here. Since we both can’t sleep… want to play a game of Link Link together?” After a long silence, Lu Mingfei suggested.
“I don’t know how to play Link Link, but we could play chess.”
“Never played Link Link? Your life must be a tragedy, Senior…” Lu Mingfei turned his head to look at the handsome face and neatly arranged eyelashes beside him and sighed.
“Sorry,” Chu Zihang said.
Lu Mingfei remembered back during high school military training when they secretly eavesdropped on a girls’ night conversation, with the topic being “If I managed to win over Chu Zihang, what would I do?” The aggressive type said she’d definitely push him down, the artistic type said she’d want to hear him tell bedtime stories, the nurturing type said she’d want to pamper her beloved “Chu Zihang baby,” and the ambitious type disdainfully declared, “I’ll let him live his life the way he wants! I’ll take care of him!” In the end, the sentimental type stood out, a girl softly saying, “I just want to count his eyelashes one by one while he sleeps…” The eavesdroppers were all smitten.
Now, years had passed, those girls probably all had boyfriends, and yet here he was sharing a bed with Young Master Chu.
“Damn it,” Lu Mingfei muttered to himself, “sharing a bed with this young master for a week? What did I do to deserve this? Hey, girl, are you jealous of me? Hey, girl, are you jealous of me?”
He muttered until he fell asleep.
Chu Zihang turned his head slightly. Xia Mi was already fast asleep. The curtains were left open, and the moonlight shone on her soft forehead. The blanket was wrapped up to the back of her head, leaving only a delicate, small face exposed, with her long eyelashes casting two shadows on her cheeks. Something stirred in Chu Zihang’s heart—the eyelashes were clear, as if they were counting time.