Chapter 26: Li Nai – Part One
In this false world, there is a clear divergence between myself and others.
I lack two things that everyone else possesses.
The first is ‘memories of the past.’
I have no childhood.
In other words, I have no memories of when I was young. Someone might say, “Isn’t it normal not to have memories from your early childhood?” Many people forget what they were doing at three or four years old, but I’m not just talking about very early childhood memories. I have no memories from five, no, six years ago. In other words, I even lost the memories from my elementary school days. From the moment I had any recollection, I was already a middle schooler with basic common sense.
I even went to the hospital to check for some kind of amnesia, but the results showed no problems. This is clearly not normal. I began searching my home for past photos and childhood clothes, trying to find anything that could prove my past. But I found nothing.
I started to fantasize that I might have been subjected to some kind of mysterious event, my past memories erased, or perhaps brainwashed by aliens. Maybe I was actually an artificial human from some experiment, not that I have no past memories, but that I was already this old from birth. Looking back now, that was probably what they call Chuunibyo, and it happened to be when I was in the second year of middle school. Bored and tired of the monotonous, unchanging daily life, I began to have all sorts of delusions.
In reality, there were no such abnormal events in the world. I realized this when I entered high school. However, after my adolescent delusions ended, when I began to pay attention to my surroundings, I found that I still lacked something else.
That would be the second, ‘family with whom I live.’
I have no family. From the moment I had consciousness, I have been living alone in an apartment that doesn’t feel like a home at all. Because I have no childhood memories, I don’t know what my past life was like. From the beginning, I had ‘independence’ and could easily cope with living alone. Moreover, I felt no burden, which is clearly abnormal.
Although I occasionally received calls from my parents, their concerned words sounded like they came from strangers. Looking back now, it was like a way to ‘numb’ me, giving me the illusion that I was no different from others. But in reality, I had never even seen my parents. Requests for video calls were always met with various excuses, and there wasn’t a single photo of my parents at home. They seemed like people from another world, mere vague and illusory phantoms. I even doubted if they truly existed, perhaps just providing me with an endless supply of living expenses as if I were a pet they were raising.
Starting in high school, I refused to use this money and tried my best to improve my grades. I used my evening study session time to work at a night supermarket to earn living expenses. It was quite tough during that period. The money I earned was barely enough to cover tuition and utility bills, and I often didn’t have enough for food. I could only eat one meal a day, or sometimes I would go hungry for a whole day.
There was no need for me to do this. It was just a pointless persistence, but I stubbornly continued. Something is wrong with this world. Although it sounds ridiculous, I truly have that feeling. It’s all fake. Why am I alive? What is the meaning of living like this? When a person starts to overthink trivial things, it usually means their body has reached its limit.
Then, just as I was about to break, I met her, An Zi’ai. An Zi’ai is a very strange person, a loner who basically doesn’t interact with others. Because I am the class monitor, I occasionally exchanged a few words with her, but I had no other connection with her. Living in her own world, doesn’t she find it… However, dealing with my own matters consumed all my energy, so I really couldn’t spare any for others. The consequence of acting recklessly and stubbornly was obvious; my body couldn’t take it anymore and collapsed.
When I regained consciousness, I saw An Zi’ai. She had taken me to the nurse’s office and even shared her lunch with me, without asking any questions. As I ate, I started to cry. It was the first time I had cried since I had memories. My tears fell into the white rice. I ate the rice bite by bite, not leaving a single grain. I felt like I was no longer alone. During that time, for the first time, I had a ‘sense of reality’ of being alive. Many interesting things happened, and Zi’ai was no longer alone, making many friends— She was like the moon, giving us a sliver of light in a pitch-black world.
Without any warning, she disappeared very suddenly. But after that, Zi’ai disappeared. During the summer vacation, we went on a trip with the school’s organized summer camp, but we encountered a storm en route. After the storm ended, Zi’ai was nowhere to be found. The teacher said Zi’ai had to return early due to family matters, but I knew it couldn’t be that simple. As expected, when the new semester began, we received the news that An Zi’ai had transferred schools. I couldn’t accept such a sudden farewell and wanted to find Zi’ai to ask for an explanation. However, my calls went unanswered, her social media accounts were no longer active, and even asking her parents and family only yielded perfunctory responses like ‘She’s not here right now.’ She had simply disappeared without a trace, and I could no longer contact Zi’ai. This was just like my parents…
Having lost Zi’ai, I returned to that false world and fulfilled my responsibilities as ‘Li Nai.’ Without self-awareness, there would be no distress. No need to do unnecessary things; just get used to it. I stopped thinking. The person I met while searching everywhere for Pochi after it went missing.
Pochi, who doesn’t get close to strangers, surprisingly became very close to him. This, in turn, gave me a sense of déjà vu and familiarity. I naturally thought of Zi’ai, whom I hadn’t seen in a long time, and my heart involuntarily started to race. The stirring in my heart gave me a bold idea. I found a plausible reason and wanted to take him home. I don’t know why I had this thought. It might be an exaggeration to say it was love at first sight. I’m not superficial; besides, that person wasn’t even handsome. It was probably just a desire not to miss this chance. But in the end, I couldn’t keep him. While I felt regret, I also looked forward to seeing him again.
Unexpectedly, I met that man named Juncheng An again just a few days later. His surname is the same as Zi’ai’s. They must have some connection, perhaps siblings, or maybe even twins. Well, I’m not too concerned about his identity. I just thought that perhaps this way, I could return to the time when Zi’ai was in high school, and I could regain the sense of actively participating in life.
But I overlooked one point: “He’s a man.” I took off the hair tie binding my hair and lay on the sofa, squinting at the ceiling, realizing how slow-witted I was. Pochi came to the sofa, squatted down, and let out a bark. I stroked its head and continued to talk to myself. “Indeed, he’s similar to Zi’ai in many ways. Lanhua must have been attracted to him for the same reason. Although I didn’t know her back then, I remember Lanhua also clung to Zi’ai.” There were other people connected to Zi’ai, but they were all girls. Zi’ai was very beautiful, but strangely, she was more popular with girls than with boys. “Even this trait is the same.” Juncheng already has a girlfriend. And she’s Zi’ai’s sister. “It’s nothing, I just feel like this world is full of malice.” Fate is truly a trickster. However, since he already has a girlfriend, I have no reason to intervene, right? Stealing someone else’s love is completely against my nature, and besides, she’s Zi’ai’s sister. No matter how I look at it, I couldn’t do such a thing. He said he wants to attend the same university and major as me—perhaps there’s no special meaning to it. I’m just being overly sentimental again. “But this makes things very awkward.” “If only you could talk, Pochi, then you could give me some advice.”
Since I’ve been living alone for so long, I’ve naturally developed a habit of talking to myself. Then, to prevent myself from having a mental breakdown, I decided to find a listener for my self-talk, so I adopted Pochi. Pochi is quite well-behaved and barks twice as if responding to me, which somewhat alleviates my loneliness. However, if an outsider saw me talking to a dog, I’d surely be considered a strange person. Speaking of which, my encounter with Juncheng was also because of Pochi. We didn’t talk much that time, but later at the cram school, we talked a lot.
Oh right, Juncheng also asked me a very strange question: “If you lost all your memories, what do you think you would become?” I was startled at the time, wondering how he knew I had lost some memories. I pretended to be calm and said something casually, and even I was convinced. If I truly lost all my memories, perhaps I would become free and eccentric. “I just have this feeling that I shouldn’t be like this.” “What does that mean?” “That I should be more lively? Hmm, sometimes I feel like I’m not myself.” Wait, did someone just speak? “Who! Is anyone there!” I jumped up from the sofa, looking around while shouting, but I saw no one. Or was it auditory hallucination? “Pochi, was that you?” I squatted down and stroked Pochi’s fluffy back, but Pochi had already lain down on the carpet with its eyes closed. “Heh heh, you don’t really think a dog is talking, do you?” “Ah!” The voice came from behind me. I shrieked, stood up, and swung my fist. My fist was caught by someone, then enclosed by a pair of icy hands. The owner of the hands was a very beautiful person with a smile. “Don’t be nervous, I don’t mean you any harm. Hmm, you might not recognize me, Nai.” “Lianbing classmate?” I remember there was such a Young Miss in our class in high school. But why is she at my home? She showed a happy smile, shaking her hands up and down, and said, “Yes, I am Ji Lianbing. I didn’t expect you to remember me, Nai! No, if you call me Ruansui, I’ll be even happier? Hehe j~”
