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Without a doubt, Guan Deng was an orphan, but ten years ago, when he was ten years old, he was not an orphan. From a young age, Guan Deng was different from other children, and that was equally undeniable. When he was in kindergarten, Guan Deng would wet his pants on average once every three days, and each time it would inevitably happen during class.
This became a great source of amusement for the other kids. Every day, the first thing they would say upon seeing Guan Deng was, "Guan Deng, are you going to wet your pants today?"
The children's uproarious laughter contrasted sharply with Guan Deng's embarrassment. Interestingly enough, it was never Guan Deng who first noticed it.
Whenever everyone was focused on their lessons, a few children would chime in unison, "Guan Deng has wet his pants again."
And sure enough, it happened every time.
The teacher had lost count of how many times she had told Guan Deng to raise his hand if he needed to go to the bathroom. Yet, it seemed as if Guan Deng could not feel his urge at all; he never raised his hand even once. No matter how patient and gentle the teacher was, she simply could not tolerate this child who couldn't even manage to let out a fart.
The teacher had once subtly mentioned this issue to Guan Deng's parents, suggesting they take him to the hospital for a check-up to see if there were any problems with his digestive system.
One parent believed it; the other did not.
Guan Deng's mother refused to believe her child had any issues, while Guan Deng's father secretly took him for an examination. There were no problems with Guan Deng's digestive system; in fact, compared to others, his digestive health was even better. This left Guan Deng's father feeling utterly frustrated. If it wasn't a physical problem, then it had to be a psychological one.
Guan Deng's father did not realize that he thought Guan Deng was doing it on purpose. From then on, every time the teacher sent Guan Deng home to change clothes, his father would hit him.
At that time, no one knew what Social Anxiety Disorder was.
Guan Deng had thought about raising his hand when he needed to go to the bathroom and telling the teacher. But for some reason, he couldn't bring himself to do it; every time he tried to raise his hand, fear overwhelmed him. He didn't even know what he was afraid of. He didn't dare answer calls from strangers or initiate conversations with others; even when someone spoke to him first, he wouldn't know how to respond.
This continued even when he entered elementary school.
Guan Deng's father could no longer tolerate this child. He began to beat Guan Deng without reason. Guan Deng didn’t know what running away meant; he just stood still and waited for his father to tire out from hitting him.
"Run! Are you stupid? Don't you know how to run?" Guan Deng's father shouted at him.
Guan Deng remained silent, not moving at all.
It was clear that Guan Deng's Father believed that if this continued, he would eventually go insane. When Guan Deng was eight years old, on a sunny morning, his father left home and never returned. Even ten years later, Guan Deng still had no idea where his father had gone or what he was doing.
Guan Deng's Mother was deeply affected by this event; she seemed to age ten years in an instant. For the next two years, she played both the father and mother role, raising Guan Deng on her own. In Guan Deng's memory, his mother had never complained about him and had never made him feel different from other children.
Guan Deng was not foolish; he knew he was different.
His mother would often tell others, "My child has no issues; he is just a bit introverted and shy. He is a very well-behaved and understanding child."
Guan Deng's Mother cared for him deeply. Since he was too afraid to speak to strangers in real life, she bought him a computer and connected it to the internet, allowing him to chat with people online. Soon enough, Guan Deng began to showcase his talent; the internet provided him with a new lease on life.
In the online world, Guan Deng felt his worth.
His mother told him, "If you are afraid to talk to people, just speak to the air, to plants, or to animals."
Guan Deng had a cactus; it became his friend.
Everything changed when he turned ten.
That morning, Guan Deng's mother clutched her chest and said to him, "Quickly call 120; it seems like I’m having heart problems."
Those were the last words she spoke to him.
The heartache came swiftly; after saying that, she collapsed on the ground and lay still.
Guan Deng was terrified. He knew what he needed to do at that moment—he had to call 120 immediately and explain his mother's symptoms and their home address.
As he dialed the number, Guan Deng silently rehearsed what he would say ten times in his mind. However, when the call connected and he heard the other person's voice, all the lines he had prepared vanished from his lips. He couldn't utter a single word. The operator naturally assumed it was just a child's prank; several times, Guan Deng failed to speak up.
Three minutes can mean the difference between life and death for a patient.
That day, Guan Deng wasted a full three hours.
Guan Deng could never forgive himself. His punishment was to never speak to anyone again, but it didn’t feel like a punishment. Guan Deng was always running away from his guilt. He thought that if he had been a skilled hacker at that moment, he could have bypassed the command system and arranged for an ambulance, and then his mother wouldn’t have died.
From that point on, he practiced hacking skills relentlessly, but deep down, he knew he was just avoiding the real issue.
Just like now.
Three minutes meant life or death for hundreds of people.
Guan Deng stood outside the crowd while the wires lay tangled within it. If he just spoke up and asked them to make way, he could step in and connect the wires properly. Yet faced with so many strangers, Guan Deng found himself unable to utter a single word.
He was a sensitive and intelligent person. His time in the special task force was one of the few happy moments in his life.
Although he had a low profile, he knew that here, no one regarded him as an oddity. Here, he found a long-lost warmth. Sometimes, the coldness of a keyboard could never replace the warmth of conversation. He heard over the radio that Old Shao had been injured; being smart, he understood what it meant for someone’s carotid artery to be severed.
Three minutes were equally a matter of life and death for Old Shao.
He felt that he had never done anything valuable in his life, but now, he wanted to be someone of worth.
Because others trusted him.
Just as he trusted others.
He wanted Old Shao and Jiang He to know that believing in him was not a mistake.
Two minutes.
This was almost the largest crowd Guan Deng had ever seen, with a hundred thousand strangers filling the square. The noise was deafening, voices overlapping in a chaotic symphony.
Guan Deng opened his mouth wide, using all his strength to shout in a hoarse voice, "I am the police! Everyone, step aside!"
As he shouted, he pushed his way through the throng, becoming the center of attention for everyone around him.
Guan Deng could clearly feel all eyes on him, yet at that moment, he seemed to feel less fear. Compared to the paralyzing terror of silence, he was more afraid of letting down Old Shao and Jiang He. He was the best hacker in Dragon City, so skilled that both Old Shao and Jiang He praised him endlessly.
His voice grew louder as he plugged in the power source.
It turned out everything was this easy. He realized he had spent so many years being afraid of what exactly. His mother had dedicated her life to teaching him to speak, and now he had finally done it.
He glanced toward the distant café and only saw a few flickering shadows.
Guan Deng softly said, "The rest is up to you."
Xu Yiman stood by, watching Old Shao tremble on the brink of death. She resembled a sheep frozen in fear; aside from shaking, she seemed unable to do anything else.
"You are the only doctor here now."
Xu Yiman told herself this.
"Jiang He... did they succeed?" Old Shao asked softly with his eyes closed.
Xu Yiman instinctively replied, "I don’t know; the time hasn’t come yet."
"Yes," Old Shao said. "Everything is dark before me; I can’t see anything. I know my time is short, but I believe they will succeed. You are all people I have carefully chosen; I trust you will succeed."
"Trust?" Xu Yiman murmured.
"Believe," Old Shao said.
The word "believe" seems simple, yet when it comes to life, it becomes incredibly difficult. Especially for a woman, and a female doctor at that. Xu Yiman grew up in a single-parent household, but she never felt that her childhood was particularly unfortunate. She believed that fate was in her own hands; regardless of how one is born, as long as one is willing to strive, things would always turn out better than before.
And that was exactly what she did.
She was a strong-willed person, consistently ranking among the top three in her class throughout her school years. During the college entrance examination, she achieved outstanding results and was admitted to Long City Medical College, becoming an excellent internist. After working in Dragon City for several years, she returned to her hometown before turning thirty and became the head of internal medicine at the largest hospital in her area, with a bright future ahead.
She lived her life according to her own plans. The tales of being poor and fatherless that she had heard in her childhood were now distant memories. No longer did she hear about how she couldn’t afford a decent outfit or had to collect plastic bottles after school to make money. Instead, whenever relatives spoke of her, it was with pride about her success and inquiries about whether she could help find a job for their sons.
Through her hard work, she gradually regained the dignity that had been stripped from her during childhood.
She could never forget the time in college when she lacked the funds for tuition. Her mother took her from relative to relative, knocking on doors only to be met with disdain and ridicule.
She nearly gave up on her studies then, but her mother persisted in gathering the money needed to send her to school. The following year, she repaid those loans with scholarship funds.
From that point on, she never asked anyone for help again.
Had it not been for that incident, Xu Yiman believed she would have led a happy life.
But that day, when her dignity was trampled upon, she finally understood that life is like an impenetrable web; just when you think you've slipped through its grasp, you realize you are still caught within it.
Xu Yiman referred to it as an unforeseen disaster; others called it fate.
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