But… but something felt wrong. Guo Zhi couldn’t find a precise word for it. He only had this vague feeling. He always had trouble focusing on the important things. Discovering life on an alien planet was obviously an enormous event, yet here he was obsessing over tiny details like this.
Standing on an alien street, Guo Zhi didn’t exactly look out of place. He resembled one of them, yet somehow didn’t resemble them at all. There was some subtle difference he couldn’t identify. After thinking for a long time and still failing to figure it out, he decided to ask someone. He looked left and right. Aliens hurried past him without a single person willing to look his way. Someone even slammed straight into him with their shoulder.
Guo Zhi looked down at his hands and wondered whether the aliens had something wrong with their corneas and simply couldn’t see him. Weren’t there animals that went blind after living in darkness for too long? Impossible, impossible. It was clearly daytime. The thought itself was ridiculous. Guo Zhi amused himself so much with his own imagination that he started laughing.
At that moment, he sensed someone looking at him, but when he raised his head, he couldn’t find anyone. Had he imagined it? Maybe he should walk farther. He would have to return to the spacecraft and make his report soon anyway. After taking two steps, a boy wearing a baseball cap passed him. Guo Zhi stopped. Had that boy just glanced at him? He hurriedly turned around, caught up, and stepped in front of the boy, walking backward as he spoke. “You can see me? I thought nobody here could see me.” Shi Xi didn’t answer and continued walking. Guo Zhi kept walking backward too, waving his right hand in front of the boy’s face. “Hello. Can. You. See. Me? Or can’t you understand me? Alien, how are you?” Guo Zhi deliberately slowed down every word. Shi Xi slapped away the hand waving in front of him. “Stop following me.”
“I’m not following you. I’m walking in front of you. You’re following me.”
Shi Xi walked around Guo Zhi. Guo Zhi pouted and followed him anyway. “I’m not some weird person. I just want to collect data about your planet. Can you tell me a little about it?” Of course, if someone walked up to you on the street and said they wanted to collect data about your planet, what else could they possibly be besides weird?
“I have an ID card. Look, if you don’t believe me. My name is Guo Zhi.” Guo Zhi reached toward the pocket of his clothes for his ID card, but accidentally pressed something else. A small spherical object sprang out like a prank toy. Almost at the same time, a large motorcycle came speeding toward Guo Zhi, its rider cursing loudly. “Get the fuck out of the way! Are you trying to die, dumbass?” He had absolutely no intention of slowing down. Guo Zhi dodged just before the motorcycle could hit him and crashed into a trash can. Rubbing his knee, he noticed a cap on the ground. He remembered that the safety device that had suddenly popped out must have knocked Shi Xi’s cap off, so he hurriedly picked it up. He didn’t think about anything else. He didn’t wonder why the boy hadn’t pulled him away or even warned him. Shi Xi had simply stood beside him.
“Your hat.” Guo Zhi held the cap out to Shi Xi and raised his head. Then he saw the face that had been hidden beneath it. Guo Zhi forgot which organ he was supposed to use to breathe and which one was supposed to keep his heart beating. Wasn’t looking like this almost unfair? Then Guo Zhi looked into Shi Xi’s eyes. They were so empty that they seemed capable of holding everything and nothing at once. There was nothing inside them. Even when Guo Zhi had nearly been hit just now, Shi Xi had remained completely unmoved.
For some reason, without understanding what had happened inside his own head, Guo Zhi suddenly wanted those beautiful eyes to see every beautiful thing in existence. If they did, perhaps the depths of Shi Xi’s pupils would no longer look so dim and lifeless.
Shi Xi took the cap but didn’t want to look at Guo Zhi’s face, much less the expression on it. The person in front of him didn’t belong in this world at all. What was the word for it again? Shi Xi could no longer remember.
“What’s your name, Alien? Talking to you without knowing your name feels kind of rude.” Calling someone Alien over and over was far ruder.
“Stop talking to me.” Shi Xi turned away.
“You probably don’t have many friends. I’ve barely said two things and you’re already telling me to stop talking. Fine. Maybe that’s some custom on your planet or something. I won’t talk. When you feel like talking, then I’ll talk too.” Guo Zhi patted the dirt from his pants, but couldn’t resist adding, “Just one more thing. You should go this way. That side is dangerous. I almost got hit just now.”
Shi Xi finally looked at Guo Zhi’s face again. A sudden desire surged through him. He wanted to destroy that expression. Destroy everything about Guo Zhi. That existence of his, so completely out of place here, was truly, truly irritating.
Guo Zhi kept quiet as promised. Since Shi Xi didn’t tell him to leave, he followed behind and took out a miniature camera, photographing things along the way. He looked like a tourist visiting another country, but gathering information really was his job. When Shi Xi climbed onto a bus ahead of him, Guo Zhi quickly put the camera away and followed. There weren’t many passengers. The driver smelled faintly of alcohol. A man near the door had taken off his shoes and was playing on his phone. Guo Zhi chose the seat behind Shi Xi. They were both beside windows, giving them a view outside.
The next stop wasn’t far away. Five minutes later, the bus stopped.
“Give me the damn money,” a young man shouted at an elderly man.
“I, I already don’t have any money.”
“No money? If you don’t have money, don’t you know how to earn some? I still need to buy equipment for my game. Don’t play dumb with me. You and Mom definitely hid some money somewhere. If you don’t hand it over, watch what I do.” The young man shoved the elderly man. The old man trembled. “I gave you everything yesterday. There isn’t a single cent left in the house.”
Before Guo Zhi could even process what he had seen, the bus had already driven away.
Along the way, Guo Zhi saw adults making children relieve themselves in public, regional discrimination, racial discrimination, gender discrimination, people cheating others, people stealing money. Some people were utterly indifferent because none of it concerned them, while others were filled with rage and cursed everyone around them… There were far, far too many ugly things. Too many to write down and too many to count.
Leave a Reply