Chapter Six: The Everyday

When Lin Nian returned home from the internet café, it was already evening. He knocked on the door upstairs for a while without any response, then remembered that Lin Xian was working the night shift and no one was home. After looking around cautiously, he found the spare key hidden under the doorstep mat and finally entered.

The small apartment, only about sixty to seventy square meters, felt empty. Lin Nian had left the windows open before leaving, so the room was filled with a chill. He opened the refrigerator and took out some leftover cured meat from lunch, stir-frying it with chives and cold rice. The steaming bowl of mixed stir-fry barely served as his dinner.

Eating alone at the dining table was often the most efficient. There was no one to chat with, no distractions. The only sounds were chewing and chopsticks clinking against the bowl. Before long, he finished the large bowl of rice, washed the dishes and pots, then sat on the living room sofa to open his textbook and start studying.

Lin Nian read quickly, especially with humanities subjects. He flipped through his history textbook page by page, spending about fifteen seconds on each page. In less than ten minutes, he had gone through half the book. Then he closed the textbook, placed it on the table, and closed his eyes in deep thought for several minutes. Afterward, he reopened the history book and flipped through the second half, repeating the same process. Finally, with eyes open, he skimmed through the entire book once more. Finishing this meant Lin Nian had memorized the whole textbook.

Indeed, Lin Nian’s first step in studying was memorizing textbooks. Whenever he could boost his scores by rote learning, he would memorize entire books. If his exam results were still unsatisfactory, he would buy extra tutoring materials to memorize until he ranked among the top in that subject.

Thus, Lin Nian never really enjoyed the conventional exam-oriented education process. For humanities, he memorized; for sciences, he drilled problems. Upon seeing a classical Chinese passage, his first thought was, “I’ve memorized this.” For math problems, “I’ve done this before.” As for English, he recognized every word on the test paper and was well-versed in grammar and tenses, so scoring high was inevitable. This approach had earned him first place in the high school entrance exam.

Lin Xian had always known Lin Nian was a genius, but she also understood that the label “genius” would not bring him pure achievement or pride. At least on the path of growth, being a genius meant loneliness, sometimes even alienation or malice from others. Over the years, Lin Xian had worried a great deal about Lin Nian and done a lot to support him.

Looking at him now, those worries had not been in vain. So far, Lin Nian only showed slight signs of being a bit “different,” rather than harboring any misanthropic or more severe traits.

Lin Nian didn’t really understand what others thought of him. If anyone called him a genius, he would definitely deny it, because he felt he was not a genius—after all, the word was meant to describe people.

After three or four hours of studying, the sky outside had turned pitch black. The streetlights outside illuminated the glass windows. Lin Nian closed his book, went to his room, and took out a bokken—a wooden practice sword used in kendo drills.

The bokken was one and a half meters long, shaped somewhat like an oversized chicken drumstick, wrapped tightly in plastic film. Lin Nian held it effortlessly in one hand, but no one else knew the entire wooden core and the weighted parts inside were made of iron, weighing a full fifty kilograms.

Standing in the living room, Lin Nian gripped the bokken with both hands, raised it overhead, and swung it down in a standard practice strike, his face showing no sign of strain. After repeating dozens of times, he switched to one-handed swings, still effortless.

“Strength is increasing again,” Lin Nian thought as he set the bokken down.

If the kendo instructor at the youth center saw this scene, they would probably curse Lin Nian a pervert and then beg to take him on as a disciple to inherit the art.

A sixteen-year-old boy swinging a fifty-kilogram bokken with one hand might not be earth-shattering, but calling it prodigious talent would not be an exaggeration. Yet Lin Nian’s extraordinary abilities were not limited to this.

After hundreds of swings alternating hands, Lin Nian broke into a slight sweat, put away the bokken, took a shower, changed into pajamas, then returned to the living room with a deck of playing cards.

Of course, playing cards alone was not for entertainment; one can’t play solitaire properly. Lin Nian placed the deck on the coffee table, pressed his right thumb under the stack, bending the cards slightly up and down. His eyes fixed on the deck, his thumb exerted pressure, flipping through the suits rapidly. Halfway through the deck, he suddenly inserted his left hand, pulled out a colored joker, and laid it on the table.

He shuffled the joker back into the deck and repeated the process. At one-third of the way through, he pulled the joker out again.

This was Lin Nian’s daily routine.

Aware of his extraordinary gifts, Lin Nian naturally sought to understand just how exceptional he was. Every day, during these routines, he noticed steady improvements—in memory, reaction speed, and agility.

He didn’t know if this was a blessing, but he understood that everything had limits. Being one step ahead of the times made one a genius; two steps ahead made one a madman. Similarly, surpassing normal people by one, two, or three steps meant being gifted, but exceeding by ten steps or more meant being a monster locked away in a hospital for study.

Lin Nian had always restrained his talents, but in recent years, for some unknown reason, his abilities seemed to be exploding in growth—improving day by day, like water seeping through a tightly closed dam. One day, the dam would break, unleashing a flood behind it. The flood might hide whales or monsters—no one could know until that moment arrived.

If Lin Nian were alone, he would not worry about this. After all, the more talents one had, the better. When the flood broke free, he could simply walk away. But the problem was, his life was not just about him.

After finishing his daily routine, Lin Nian put away the cards, glanced at the clock on the wall, then went to the kitchen to search for leftover ingredients. He found only tomatoes and eggs. Taking these, he lit the stove and the exhaust fan and began cooking.

After about twenty minutes, Lin Nian placed the finished dish into the rice cooker with the steamed rice, closed the lid, unplugged the cooker, washed the pot, and went to bed.

About two hours later, the living room door was unlocked with a key.

Lin Xian, looking weary, stepped inside and changed into slippers. She lay back on the sofa to rest briefly, then took a deep breath and stood up to wash and prepare for bed—she had an early shift tomorrow.

Passing by the dining table, Lin Xian noticed a note in Lin Nian’s handwriting.

“There’s food in the rice cooker. Remember to eat. Thanks for your hard work.”

She opened the rice cooker in the kitchen to find the vibrant tomato and egg stir-fry. Sniffing the aroma, she served herself a bowl of rice and sat at the table, eating heartily until the dish was completely gone. Without a word, she washed the dishes, turned off the living room light, and returned to her room.

The door slammed shut behind her. In the darkness of the adjacent room, Lin Nian opened his eyes, lay still for a while, then finally closed them and slipped into deep sleep.

That night, without reason, he dreamed of a frozen, snow-covered world. He sat inside a fortress, gazing quietly through iron bars at the dark sky, as if waiting for the dawn to arrive.