The room fell into a brief silence.
A few seconds later, Dr. Li came back to himself. "A seraph?"
"Yes."
"What was He doing?"
"Nothing at all. He was like a golden statue, sitting in the center of an enormous lunar crater, head raised, looking at the Earth. As if He were... keeping watch?"
Dr. Li rubbed the corner of his eye and spoke with some helplessness. "Qiye, do you know how far the moon is from the Earth?"
"Nearly four hundred thousand kilometers," Lin Qiye said calmly.
"Nearly four hundred thousand kilometers," Dr. Li repeated. "Even with the most advanced astronomical telescopes, we can barely make out the surface of the moon. And you, at seven years old, lying on the roof of your family home, saw an angel on the moon with your naked eyes?"
"I wasn't the one who saw Him." Lin Qiye's voice was distant. "He saw me. All I did was look up, and my eyes were dragged across space, as if by Him, until we were looking at each other."
"So you're saying He forced you?"
"More or less. How else could I have seen the moon's surface? It's not like I have clairvoyance."
"But if an angel really existed on the moon, why hasn't humanity discovered it in all these years?"
"I don't know." Lin Qiye shook his head. "Maybe that seraph doesn't wish to be observed. And besides... does humanity really understand the moon?"
Lin Qiye said it with utter sincerity—sincere enough that Dr. Li almost wanted to phone for a car on the spot and haul him back to the asylum.
Dr. Li was, after all, a doctor who specialized in mental illness. He had seen patients of every stripe, and over the course of his medical career he had distilled one rule: the more earnestly someone spouted nonsense—and the more reasonable that nonsense sounded—the sicker they were.
"And your eyes? What happened to them?"
Lin Qiye reached up, lightly rubbing the black satin over his eyes, no ripple of emotion in his voice. "That day, I met His gaze for a single instant. And then... I was blind."
Dr. Li opened his mouth, looked down at the file in his hands, and sank into silence.
In the column for cause of blindness, there were only two words.
—Cause unknown.
So... what had actually happened back then?
Could it really be as Lin Qiye said—that he had seen a seraph on the moon? How else to explain sudden blindness?
The thought surfaced for only an instant before Dr. Li strangled it dead.
That was close. He'd nearly been led off the rails by a mental patient!
He could almost picture it: ten years ago, a newly blinded, seven-year-old Lin Qiye standing before a room of doctors and saying what he'd just said—the looks on their faces must have been priceless.
No wonder the child had been committed. However you looked at it, that was the kind of statement only a mental patient would make.
There was no shortage of people like that in the asylum. One claimed to be the reincarnation of the Monkey King and spent every day dangling from the horizontal bar, staring into space. One believed he was a coat rack and stood motionless in his room all night. One saw her husband in everyone she met and kept sneaking pinches of other people's backsides...
Right—that last patient was a greasy forty-year-old man.
"That's all in the past. What about now? How do you see the whole thing today?" Dr. Li composed himself and continued the checkup procedure.
"It was all a delusion." Lin Qiye's voice was calm. "That day, I just slipped and rolled off the roof and hit my head on the ground. As for my eyes—some nerve was probably damaged. That's why I went blind."
He had said these words who knew how many times. Practiced. Cool.
Dr. Li raised his eyebrows, wrote something in the file, then chatted with Lin Qiye about everyday things. About twenty minutes later, he checked the time and stood up with a smile.
"All right, that's it for the checkup. Your condition is no longer a problem. I hope you can keep a good mindset and live well." Dr. Li shook Lin Qiye's hand and offered his encouragement.
Lin Qiye smiled and nodded slightly.
"Aiyo, Dr. Li, stay for dinner!" Auntie pressed warmly when she saw him leaving.
"No, no, I have another patient to visit. I won't intrude."
Dr. Li said a polite goodbye to Auntie and left through the door.
The instant the door closed, Lin Qiye's smile vanished, as if it had never existed.
"A delusion... huh..." he murmured.
"Ge, dinner!" His cousin Yang Jin came out of the kitchen carrying a dish and called out.
Yang Jin was Auntie's son, four years younger than Lin Qiye and just starting middle school. Ever since Lin Qiye's parents went missing and he came to stay at his aunt's home, the two of them had grown up together, closer than blood brothers.
"Coming," Lin Qiye answered.
He had just sat down at the cramped dining table when a patch of warmth spread across his foot. He froze for a second, then the corner of his mouth curled up.
Yang Jin glanced under the table and laughed, scolding fondly:
"Well, well, Little Blackie. Lazy as a slug all day, but the moment it's dinnertime, you're faster than anyone."
A small black mangy dog poked its head out from under the table, tongue lolling past its teeth, huffing out hot breath. It sidled up to Lin Qiye and licked his foot, its whole face one big display of flattery.
Three people and one dog. That was a family.
Simple, hard-pressed, yet somehow reassuring.
Ten years, just like this.
Lin Qiye patted its head, picked one piece from the few scraps of meat on the plate, and placed it in Yang Jin's bowl.
"Give it a bone to gnaw."
Yang Jin didn't refuse. With the bond between these brothers, any more words would have felt like distance.
What he cared about was something else.
"Ge, are your eyes really almost healed?"
Lin Qiye smiled faintly. "Mm. I can see now. They just can't take light yet. The satin stays on a few more days."
"What do you mean a few days? Xiao Qi, listen to Auntie—eyes are far too important. Even if you can see now, don't rush to take that satin off. What if... what if the sun ruins them again? What a waste that would be! Better to play it safe and keep it on a while longer!" Auntie hurriedly admonished.
"I know, Auntie."
"Oh right, Ge! I saved up some money and bought you a really cool pair of sunglasses. I'll show you later!" Yang Jin seemed to remember something, his voice bright with excitement.
Lin Qiye shook his head, smiling. "Ah Jin, sunglasses block light, but they're nowhere near as good as the satin. I can't wear them yet."
"Oh..." Yang Jin looked a little crestfallen.
"But once my eyes are completely healed, I'll wear them out every single day. And I'll buy you a pair too. We'll match."
At those words, the light came back into Yang Jin's eyes, and he gave a heavy "mm!"
"By the way, Xiao Qi, Auntie has the transfer all arranged. When the new term starts, you'll move from the special school into a regular high school." Auntie seemed to remember something. "But—have you really thought it through? A regular high school isn't like the special school. In your condition, if anything..."
"There's no 'if anything,' Auntie." Lin Qiye cut her off. "My eyes are healed. And if I want to get into a good university, I have to stand at the same starting line as everyone else."
"You child... even if you don't get into a good university, it's fine. Worst case, Auntie will support you forever!"
"Ge, I can support you too!"
Lin Qiye's body trembled faintly. Whatever his eyes looked like beneath the black satin, his lips pressed together—then curved into a smile.
He shook his head, firm.
He said nothing, but both Yang Jin and Auntie felt his resolve.
Even Little Blackie at his feet nuzzled against Lin Qiye's ankle.
"—Woof!"