The Mirror Opens

"Click." Everything shifts from dark to light, the screen flickers, and the picture begins to appear.

.

This is a Faculty Dormitory, the most out-of-the-way building among the century-old school's cluster of structures, tucked away in a remote corner; the department mostly sends its green young teachers to live there. From outside, the building looks lovely with its red brick and white steps, ivy stretching its thousand-charming green tendrils as it climbs the old Western-style house, and anyone passing cannot help but glance twice. But those lucky enough to become teachers and step inside have a great awakening — this charming dwelling has been repaired many times over the years, and the inner walls are layered and mottled, like a weary face that has been made up countless times.

So weary that even a digital television is lacking; each room in the Dormitory Building is allotted a cable TV that can be called antique-grade.

"Heavy to torrential rain has been appearing successively in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River..."

The boy walked past the corridor entrance; the sound of the TV program came through the glass of the reception room window. The old lady on duty would usually stop him and call out:

"Hey, young student, do you know? This is the Faculty Dormitory, where teachers live. You're a student — don't keep running in here."

But today, the old lady did not interrogate him. Perhaps she was daydreaming, her old eyes dim, and in the dark night she did not notice him passing by.

He went straight up to the third floor and knocked on that familiar iron door.

The door creaked open, and the woman inside peered out: "It's you?"

The boy said softly: "Teacher Xie."

Although it was very late and the boy was an uninvited guest, she was his teacher and also the person at the school closest to him. After a brief moment of surprise, the woman still welcomed him inside.

She brewed a cup of tea, sliced in some ginger. It was raining outside, and she felt the boy was wet and cold; hot ginger tea could drive out the chill.

Teacher Xie set the steaming teacup on the tea table in front of him: "When did you get back?"

"Just got back today." The boy stood awkwardly in front of the sofa.

Teacher Xie: "Please sit down."

Only then did he sit, his hands curled on his knees, restrained, not touching the teacup.

"Why didn't you tell me in advance you were coming back? It's so late — is there still a bus to the school?"

"...Mm."

"Then how did things at home get handled?"

The boy was quiet for a moment, head lowered, picking at the torn hole in his jeans.

"My mom still wants me to drop out..."

Teacher Xie fell silent.

He was already a University student; whether a student chose to study or not was not something the school had the power to comment on. She had spoken with the boy's mother, promising tuition reductions for families in special difficulty, hoping the mother would allow the child to finish the University he had worked so hard to get into.

But the mother had sharply refused —

"Read what books? Study Chinese? Who can't speak Chinese? You're just here to cheat us out of money!"

She patiently reasoned with the mother: "The child has real talent. You see, he's already in his second year — wouldn't it be a shame to give up halfway? Besides, after another two years of study, he'll find work more easily in society. I've asked him, and he wants to be a teacher in the future. With his grades, getting a teaching position isn't a problem. This is the child's dream, and teaching work is stable..."

"He can't be a teacher! You've seen his face, haven't you!"

The mother's words fell like a blunt blade, cleaving through the invisible current between them.

Teacher Xie felt a surge of anger, but she did not know what to say in response.

"I'm going to make him come home and work now! There's no money at home! Don't waste time! That face — that face... even if he studies, what good will it do! What school would want a teacher like that!"

What kind of face was that?

A low-wattage incandescent bulb burned in Teacher Xie's room, casting a dim, heavy light, but it still illuminated the boy's face.

Teacher Xie had long grown accustomed to his face, but anyone seeing it for the first time would gasp — a face split in two like yin and yang, as if some unknown illness had struck, with greenish-purple blotches stretching from his forehead all the way down to his neck, like a rotting skin laid over him.

A shocking sight, blatantly abnormal.

"Sicko!"

"Don't go near him, he might be contagious."

"Hey! Yin-yang freak!"

Growing up alongside that face was a shadow that never left — abuse and mockery.

Because he was ill, because his illness could not be hidden and his ugliness could not be avoided, the boy had endured cold looks since childhood. No matter how hard he studied, how gentle he was with others, he was still like a dragon wandering under the bright sky — never receiving any equal treatment.

Few people, like Teacher Xie, could see that the normal half of his face was quite delicate and gentle.

He always bore everyone's ridicule with a gentle numbness; sometimes he even joined in with a smile, as if he had truly done something wrong.

But what had he actually done wrong?

Teacher Xie could see: he was always the most diligent student, honest and steady, and in group work he quietly did the most. When others bullied him, he took it with a good temper, saying little.

"It's okay, teacher. Being able to chat with you already makes me very happy. Before, in my village, people would walk around me when they saw me. No one ever listened to me as attentively as you do."

"My classmates are also pretty good — at least they don't throw bricks at me."

He spoke calmly, but his head was always lowered, his shoulders hunched. The long-term burden of heavy insults had warped his spine, bending it out of shape.

She later told him: "After evening self-study, whenever you're willing, you can come to me for one-on-one tutoring. If there's anything you don't understand, anything you need help with, just say the word."

He smiled a little shyly, the normal half of his face flushing with embarrassment.

In the two years she had known him, she had grown used to him hunching his back slightly as he knocked on her dormitory door, bringing her the essays, prose, and even poems he had written, asking for her guidance.

These days, plenty of people like to curse, but few like to write poetry.

But he wrote on, stubbornly.

His classmates laughed at him: an ugly freak writing ugly things, so sour it stings, more sour than his rotten grape-face.

He smiled and, obedient as ever, kept writing.

But now, even that small right had been taken from him.

Teacher Xie thought of what had happened before, sighed in her heart, and looked at the boy before her with pity.

The boy said: "I came this time to say goodbye to you, teacher. I'm leaving tomorrow."

"Going back home?"

"...Mm, I suppose so."

The boy paused: "Teacher, if only my illness weren't on my face but somewhere no one could see, people would be a little kinder to me. That would be nice."

Teacher Xie's eyes finally reddened beyond holding back. Things had reached this point; everything that could be tried had been tried. But she was, after all, not his family — she could not make the final decision, nor could she save him. The boy's family finances grew tighter by the day. His mother regretted letting him come out to study; after all, there was still a healthy second son at home, only in middle school. Call the sick one back, and the healthy one could go out instead.

She felt the mother was not wrong either — as a mother, one had to weigh the family's circumstances; it was fair.

"You... the paper you left with me last time for me to look over — I haven't finished marking it up yet..."

Teacher Xie felt she was about to lose control of her tears, and in her panic shifted the subject.

"But I've read through the earlier parts very carefully. Why don't you delay the withdrawal procedures a little, wait until I've marked all of it..."

"No need." He smiled and shook his head. "As soon as dawn breaks, I'm leaving."

She was full of regret — why had she always felt there was still time?

Why had she not pulled an all-nighter?

And why had she gone shopping, chatting, attending those long, meaningless meetings?

Here was a student's dream about to shatter, and a heart about to stop beating. As his last teacher, she could not lay even a single bouquet at the farewell of his dream.

"I'm sorry..."

"It's okay." He said. "But I wrote one last poem — may I give it to you?"

She nodded quickly.

He took it from his schoolbag and showed it to her. The paper was very thin, as if it had no weight at all when held.

She read it word by word. It was a deeply tender love poem, scalding and passionate, yet careful and cautious. She had read love written by many great masters — from the ancients' "When shall we lean by the empty curtain, our tears' traces dried in double light?" to today's "My eyes are more beautiful because they hold you." But at this moment, none of them seemed to match the single page the boy held out.

He had said nothing outright, as if saying it plainly would itself be a loss of rhythm.

The boy was a poet; he knew that once poetry was lost, love between people of unequal standing was left with nothing but awkwardness.

"It's a keepsake for you."

Both the ugly face and the normal face were written with tenderness.

"I'm sorry, teacher. I really can't afford any gift to give you."

"Nothing could be better than this." She turned away, holding back a sob. "You, you eat something — I'll find you some refreshments."

Using the rummaging as cover to steady her emotions, Teacher Xie took out a tin of butter cookies and set it on the coffee table.

The boy thanked her politely. Under Teacher Xie's gaze, he finally, carefully, touched the teacup — then pulled his hand back and said softly: "It's hot."

She touched it: "How could it be? It's warm."

But she still went and added some cold water to it.

The boy nibbled at his favorite cookies and drank, little by little.

When he had finished eating and drinking, the night was still long.

He said: "Teacher, may I read here a little longer?"

"Of course."

The boy smiled again, a little helpless: "I'm about to leave, and I'm still troubling you like this at the end."

"It's fine, you can stay as long as you like... Oh, when you get back, give me an address — I'll send you every good book I come across. You're so smart; even self-study... you wouldn't fall behind anywhere." Teacher Xie could only offer what comfort she could. "If there's anything you need help with, you can always find me on WeChat."

The boy looked at her: "Thank you."

A pause.

"If everyone were like you, then perhaps..."

He lowered his head and did not finish.

Her dormitory was fullest of books. Because his appearance was ugly and his illness was so visibly exposed, every visit to the Library made him the center of attention, so she had invited him to the Faculty Dormitory and lent him books from her own collection.

The boy read through the entire night in the Faculty Dormitory, as if he meant to carry all those words back to his hometown in this single night.

He rarely indulged himself like this. Before, he would never stay too late, always afraid of disturbing the teacher's normal routine. But today was an exception.

Teacher Xie did not begrudge him this last indulgence, but staying up with him until the small hours, she grew truly drowsy and, without realizing it, fell asleep at her desk.

In her half-dream, she heard the boy suddenly say to her again: "Teacher Xie."

She gave a vague reply.

"There's one more thing. I want to apologize to you."

"Before, when things kept going missing from the class... a few students kept losing things, and no matter how they investigated, they couldn't find out, and you got criticized for it. Those things — I was the one who took them."

She stirred drowsily, half-waking in alarm, but her body was too heavy with sleep to rise.

The boy said, with a trace of sorrow: "But I didn't want those things. I didn't take a single cent. They mocked me like that, and in my heart I did hold a grudge... I threw their bags into a haystack, and later burned them all. Back then they suspected me, but you didn't even come ask me — you cleared my name for me. The person who actually did it was indeed me — I won't deny it."

"I didn't have the courage to confess. I have only ever been seen as a normal person — even a good person — in one person's eyes."

"That person is you."

"Teacher, am I being vain?... But if even you were to be disappointed in me, I wouldn't know what to do. You are the only recognition I have ever received in my life."

By the end, his voice grew softer and softer.

But his eyes were clear, almost transparent, as if a weight had been lifted.

"—The thing I regret most in my life is this... Teacher Xie, I'm truly sorry. My illness seems to have moved from my face into my heart. If there is a next life, I really want to be a normal person... I don't want to be so sick that I don't even have the right to love."

"Teacher Xie..."

A gust of wind swept in through the window, sending the pages on the desk fluttering like soul-summoning banners.

Then, everything returned to silence.

The tea on the table had gone cold.

When Teacher Xie woke the next morning, she found she had slept the whole night at her desk. The room was clean — the boy was a very polite person — but that day he had packed his things and left without waiting to say goodbye to her.

A little heartsore, she rose and, still bleary-eyed, went to the living room.

She looked down at the coffee table —

And her whole body was drenched as if a basin of ice water had been poured over her head; her eyes flew wide!

The tea she had poured for the boy yesterday had frozen into ice, but... but...

The room temperature was clearly twenty-seven or twenty-eight degrees!

How could it be? How could it be?

She stared wide-eyed, searching the room. More and more signs chilled her heart further — the butter cookies in the tin, which she had clearly watched the boy eat yesterday, now appeared untouched, not a single piece missing. The water in the teacup had frozen into a block, yet the level had not dropped. And finally —

Finally, that page of restrained love poetry — its contents still resting in her heart, the slip of paper he had given her as farewell.

The paper was gone.

Or rather, there had never been that page of paper...

She was nearly trembling, when suddenly a "ding" — her Mobile Phone buzzed, startling her into jumping up and snatching it. It was just a junk message. She exhaled in relief, but, as if waking from a dream, thought of something, and quickly dialed the boy's number.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Her heartbeat trembled along with the mechanical tone.

"Hello?"

It connected.

The person who answered was the familiar voice of a middle-aged woman, coarse, but now edged with a sobbing tone. She exchanged a few words with the boy's mother on the other end of the line.

Her heart plunged violently into a black hole she could not see into, falling and falling.

She heard —

"..."

"It's you! You again!! I haven't even had time to come find you, and you're calling first!"

The woman was making accusations. What she had said before, Teacher Xie could no longer remember; her mind was almost blank. She only heard, at the end, a piercing cry like a thunderclap: "He's dead! Dead!"

Her blood ran like ice.

Dead?

"It's all because of your bewitching!! He had a fight with me and ran out. It was pouring rain outside. The police said there was an exposed cable there..."

A buzzing filled Teacher Xie's ears.

Amid the fierce cursing and wailing, she barely caught two more lines, like ghosts, like demons, like a farewell that did not belong to this world.

The woman on the other end of the line, her voice breaking through the ear:

"What is there still to look for?! What is there still to look for?!"

——

"Yesterday was already the seventh day after his death!!!"