Lin Wanxing said nothing more and handed Lin Lu a second sheet of draft paper.
For the students, continuing to eliminate options was expected, but the process was indeed becoming increasingly difficult.
Chen Jianghe always wanted to watch a match at San Siro; Fu Xinshu didn’t remove his wish to get into a prestigious university; Qin Ao ultimately gave up on Jay Chou but insisted on buying his family a bigger house.
They had so many things they wanted to do, people they wanted to meet, possessions they desired, and dreams they wished to fulfill. Crossing these things out one by one was in itself a painful journey.
The more painful it was, the harder and slower it became.
Qi Liang still kept the top line that said "idle away and wait for death," as if it were the last bastion he had to hold onto.
In the end, despite their reluctance, the boys put down their pens again, signifying they had completed the task at hand.
A gust of wind swept across the rooftop, causing the papers to flutter noisily.
Lin Wanxing said, "Next, please delete three more items..."
"Why?"
"How can we delete any more?"
"What’s the point of this?"
They had been holding back for a long time, and upon hearing this, some even doubted their ears.
"It’s never-ending!"
Someone jumped up from the ground, his pen clattering as it fell. Another slammed his fist against the wooden frame on the rooftop.
For a moment, the previously quiet rooftop erupted into chaotic protests.
"Alright, let’s make this thought experiment a bit more concrete."
Seeing the students like little fire dragons about to burst, Lin Wanxing spoke unhurriedly, "Let’s assume there are many parallel universes in this world." She glanced at Lin Lu and continued, "Yes, like time travel. You can now travel to another parallel universe where there’s another 'you.' They look exactly like you, have the same life experiences, but they’re not you—they’re separate individuals."
"And then?"
"Then, of course, they also have a piece of paper in front of them with only five items left. You need to help them make a choice and cross out two more."
"Teacher, you’re..." Yu Ming trailed off, unable to finish.
"Aren’t you just cheating us!" Chen Weidong blurted out.
"But this will make it easier for you to make choices, won’t it?" Lin Wanxing said. "Through some tricks, you can think more carefully and reconsider."
The boys stopped protesting, seemingly briefly convinced.
But when they wholeheartedly immersed themselves in making life decisions for their "parallel universe" selves, it was still incredibly difficult.
For Chen Jianghe, how should he choose between "spending more time with Mom" and "playing football abroad"?
If he couldn’t make a choice for the moment, he could first cross out "watching the Milan Derby at San Siro"—it wasn’t that important for now.
It was truly painful, and even more frightening than giving something up was making the wrong choice.
"Teacher, how am I supposed to choose? Just kill me instead!" Yu Ming was so tangled up that he ruffled his hair until it was as messy as Qi Liang’s, but he still couldn’t decide.
"My suggestion is to just choose randomly." Lin Wanxing walked over and saw the five options:
Find a beautiful wife
Earn lots and lots of money
Get good grades in the college entrance exam and attend university
Have a good job in the future
Win a championship
Lin Wanxing crouched down, her eyes level with the boy’s.
Yu Ming happened to look up at her: "I can’t delete any of these, teacher. I want them all."
Lin Wanxing: "Remember, it’s 'him,' not you. You’re making the choice for the person in the parallel universe."
"What if I choose wrong for him?" Fu Xinshu asked gloomily and anxiously from the side.
"Take a deep breath, and trust your intuition," Lin Wanxing said.
"You’re talking all mystical! What the hell is intuition?"
"Intuition..." Lin Wanxing patted Yu Ming’s stomach and said, "Psychological research shows that the basal ganglia in your brain, while mostly responsible for motor control, also handle summarizing emotional decisions for you."
"I don’t get it," Yu Ming said bluntly.
"The basal ganglia only connect with the limbic system and your gastrointestinal system. In other words, it gives you a 'feeling-based message' to help you make decisions. When you make the 'right' choice, you feel good. We call that 'intuition.'"
"And if I make the wrong choice?" Yu Ming retorted.
"Your stomach will feel uncomfortable," Lin Wanxing said with a laugh.
Yu Ming immediately looked down at his stomach for a moment, then swallowed: "But teacher, I ate too much earlier, and you patting me makes me feel a bit nauseous..."
Lin Wanxing laughed again. She stood up and comforted the students, saying she hoped they would just follow their intuition to make decisions. After all, this was just a small experiment in a parallel universe and wouldn’t affect reality, so they should relax.
But in truth, these were just futile words of comfort.
Lin Wanxing knew it all too well.
Even if it was about making decisions for a parallel universe self, even if it was clearly a choice unrelated to real life, the deeper humans peered into their own hearts, the more panic and pain followed.
The boys’ thoughts were actually quite simple.
What remained were nothing more than things like money, future prospects, family, dreams, university, and so on.
As the options dwindled, every deletion was a struggle. Each of them was suppressing the pain, bitterness, and reluctance in their hearts.
The rooftop of the old residential area was extremely quiet at night, yet it seemed to echo with countless voices.
Each voice was speaking—human thoughts, struggles, self-persuasion, or simply throwing caution to the wind.
The night had grown truly deep. The city’s neon lights gradually dimmed, unnecessary landscape lights turned off, and finally, the lights in countless homes went out one by one.
True darkness had arrived.
A strong gust of wind swept across the rooftop, blowing a few empty bowls off the table.
Lin Wanxing was momentarily blinded by the wind and dust. When she opened her eyes again, a sheet of draft paper had blown to her feet.
She bent down to pick it up and realized it was the one she had originally placed on the armrest of Wang Fa’s lounge chair.
Opening it, she found it completely blank.
Wang Fa was still dozing in the rooftop lounge chair, his hat covering his face, the marker pens scattered far away. It was unclear how long this blank draft paper had been blown down.
Holding the paper, Lin Wanxing walked to the edge of the rooftop railing and leaned against it.
Another night wind swept across the sky, whipping at their clothes.
The first to lose patience was Chen Jianghe. He threw his ballpoint pen down and shouted, "This is so annoying! Why do we have to listen to you and make these choices?"
"We’ve crossed them out, so what then?" Zheng Feiyang followed up, questioning, "There are only two left, and we have to choose one, right?"
"Why can’t we have both? Is there only one path in life? Why do we have to choose?"
"You just have to make us so miserable!"
Finally, Qin Ao angrily voiced the deepest thought in his heart.
Lin Wanxing looked up at the students.
Chen Jianghe had a red mark on his forehead from contact with the concrete floor; Qin Ao had mud from the football field on his clothes.
In front of her were children who had finally erupted because they could no longer make choices. Behind her lay the vast football field and a sky full of stars.
She pinched the draft paper, tore off a strip, folded it again and again, her movements unchanging.
Lin Wanxing: "If this were a class to help you find your life goals, then we would help you identify the parts that belong to those goals and discuss them. I would do different thought experiments with you, encourage you to listen to stories of different archetypes, and finally, try things out."
Lin Wanxing painted a beautiful vision for the students and said, "But unfortunately, this isn’t that. This is a brutal choice."
"Why?"
"Yes, why..."
Lin Wanxing continued folding the blank draft paper in her hands, also lost in thought: "Perhaps because I feel that in real life, there really are so many options. You have countless wishes and endless dreams. You can go to concerts and buy your favorite Gundam models, have the chance to attend a good university or become a great football player. All dreams are precious and beautiful, aren’t they?"
The boys stood in the wind. Some nodded, while others remained rigid, but none of them spoke.
The rooftop was empty and desolate. Lin Wanxing heard her own voice floating up: "But at the same time, because there are so many beautiful things in this world. Today you might like the flowers by the roadside, tomorrow you might love the grass on the streets. You want to study hard and get into a good university, but you also feel that even working in a factory now might be the best choice to comfort your days and accompany your parents. There are truly too many ideal things, so no one knows, among your thousands of beautiful aspirations for this world, what you want most, right here, right now."
Lin Wanxing paused, looking at her students’ confused expressions, and said, "Except for you yourselves."
In her hands, the origami gradually took shape.
The students’ protests followed one after another.
"But what’s the point of knowing?"
"What the hell? You said you’d give us freedom, so why force us?"
"But it’s also painful if we can’t achieve it. Why make ourselves so miserable by forcing ourselves to think about it?"
"Fantasy about gaining is happiness; fantasy about losing is pain."
Lin Wanxing couldn’t help but feel a bit emotional, her speech becoming lighter and slower. "So I believe you should keep this paper safe and cherish every beautiful dream you seriously wrote down at 18. Similarly, you should also endure the pain of giving up, again and again. In the process of constantly digging into your own hearts, see what’s buried deep inside—that thing you’d give up everything to obtain. See what it really is."Without giving the students a chance to refute, Lin Wanxing took the folded draft paper and walked toward Wang Fa."
"Next is the final choice between two. Whether to make that last mark is up to you."
She placed the refolded draft paper back on the armrest of Wang Fa’s lounge chair.
The young man opened his eyes, his gaze calm and serene.
It was a paper frog, with the light blue lines of the draft paper on its body.
Lin Wanxing gently pressed the frog’s back, and with a "snap," it jumped onto Wang Fa’s chest.
The sky was clear, the moon bright.
"Is it a rare opportunity in life, and you don’t even have the courage to take a look?" Lin Wanxing asked.
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