Chapter 98: Lin Yu’an
When the boys teasing Lin Yu’an saw Chen Mo turn his head, they immediately toned it down and fell silent.
Everyone quickly acted like nothing had happened and turned back around.
Only Lin Yu’an, after wiping the water off his stool and sitting back down, suddenly pulled a notebook out of his desk and wrote something in it.
Then, he tore the page he had written on out of the book and stuffed it into his pants pocket.
The rumor that Lin Yu’an had a "Death Note" started because he often did this.
Every time he was bullied, he would take out his notebook to write something, then tear out the page and put it in his pocket.
Someone had once forcibly taken one out and looked at it. It just had the names of the people who had just bullied him written on it.
This was the reason for the rumors about Lin Yu’an’s "Death Note."
Of course, the "Death Note" talk was purely a joke.
No one else paid any mind to this little incident, but Chen Mo saw everything.
’Now that I have a second chance, I’ve already solved Su Yuqing’s problem and intervened in Zhou Hao’s. As for Lin Yu’an’s problem... if I get the chance, I should find a way to help him, too.’
Judging from how Lin Yu’an acted around small animals, he was a very sensitive person.
But because of his childhood environment, he was very clumsy when it came to interacting with others.
This clumsiness was eventually perceived as coldness by others.
This, in turn, provoked their annoyance and led to bullying.
He was already a quiet person to begin with, and after being bullied, he became even more taciturn and cold toward people.
This, in turn, only intensified their dislike for his attitude.
At the same time, he wanted to avoid contact with others more and more, because in his experience, people only disliked and bullied him.
This caused him to develop a closed-off mental state from an early age.
But unless you live in complete isolation, this kind of closed-off mentality makes you an easy target for isolation, exclusion, and even bullying in a larger social environment.
Thus, a vicious cycle began.
Lin Yu’an had grown up his entire life under the influence of this vicious cycle.
This made him even more withdrawn and cold.
In his eyes, the people around him were like writhing monsters.
In contrast, he could only open his heart to small animals.
But one day, in a world full of decay and monsters, a ray of light suddenly forced its way into his world.
It brutally tore open a gap in his long-sealed heart, allowing the outside sunlight to shine in.
At first, when Chen Mo helped Lin Yu’an, he treated Chen Mo no differently than anyone else.
He wasn’t grateful for Chen Mo’s help. He simply saw his actions as those of an order-keeper, someone enforcing their own rules to establish their own status.
It wasn’t until Chen Mo tirelessly continued to lend a hand whenever he saw him being bullied that the solid ice around his heart finally began to melt a little.
He realized there wasn’t only rotting flesh around him.
Like Zhou Hao, Lin Yu’an also grew up in a single-parent family.
But he grew up to be the polar opposite of Zhou Hao.
Without a father’s presence, Zhou Hao trained himself to become a man who could hold his own, a man of the house who could shelter his mother from the storm.
Lin Yu’an, on the other hand, also grew up without a father, but his disposition was very gentle and weak. This made him a prime target in the eyes of others—an easy person to bully because he didn’t have a dad.
One withstood the pressure, presenting himself as a tough guy who could stand on his own two feet even without a father figure to protect him.
The other sank under the pressure and fell completely into an abyss. He became desperate for a power akin to a father’s love to appear in his life—something to give him a sense of security, a safe harbor from danger, and a shoulder to lean on.
Then one day, the person he had been waiting for really appeared.
Chen Mo’s arrival almost perfectly matched his image of a father figure who could protect him, care for him, and give him a sense of security.
Of course, he didn’t see Chen Mo as his actual father, but as a hero who could unconditionally shelter him just like one.
In fact, because he had been endlessly yearning for such a person to appear, when heaven finally answered his prayers and sent that person into his life, their status was naturally elevated to a transcendent level in his mind.
Father, hero, savior—an ordinary person was imbued with far too much transcendental value in Lin Yu’an’s mind.
This was mainly because he was so desperate for someone like that to appear.
As a child, he had once pinned his hopes on his homeroom teacher, but that male teacher gave him no hope. In fact, he gave him a hard shove into the abyss.
That homeroom teacher only showed a pleasant face to students with good grades. To those with poor grades, he was openly disdainful.
Lin Yu’an’s disposition was such that he didn’t dare to ask questions when he didn’t understand, nor did he dare to speak up when he hadn’t heard or seen something clearly.
There was a time when his grades were very poor, which made this teacher despise him.
When he went to this teacher for help, he was scorned. The teacher felt he was bullied because his grades were bad, and that he deserved it.
"Why don’t they go bully the top students—the first, second, and third in the class? Why do they single you out?"
"You should think about your own problems instead of coming to me to tattle."
"Flies are only drawn to cracked eggs."
...
To the young Lin Yu’an, each of the teacher’s words was like a heavy hammer blow to his heart.
Just when he had started to see this male teacher as a savior, someone he could look up to like a father, hoping he would save him...
...he never imagined he would be met with such contempt and condemnation.
He had only worked up the courage to seek him out because he had seen how kind and approachable the teacher usually was.
In that moment, those few simple words caused Lin Yu’an more harm than all his bullies combined.
The teacher’s kindness, it turned out, was an attitude reserved only for a select group of people.
From that moment on, Lin Yu’an sealed his heart off even more tightly.
However, it also motivated him to strive harder.
Later, with the help of his childhood friend and neighbor, a girl named Ling Yudie, his grades finally started to recover.
But as long as Lin Yu’an’s personality didn’t change, his ability to absorb knowledge at school was ultimately still lacking.
Relying solely on Ling Yudie’s tutoring clearly wasn’t enough. After all, for her to tutor him, she first needed to have a sufficient understanding herself.
But Ling Yudie’s own grades were merely average.