Only She Is Silent - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

This world has never been fair.

Some are born with the ability to hear what others are thinking, while others can only live honestly within their own skin-seen through, exploited, and picked over.

The Supernatural Guild calls the former “Listeners” and the latter the “Silent Folk.”

It’s a pleasant-sounding name, almost like a form of consolation, but everyone knows that being part of the Silent Folk simply means you have no power.

I am one of the latter, a perfectly ordinary librarian. I live in a thirty-square-meter old apartment, working from eight to six organizing collections. My salary is enough to raise two cats, pay the rent, buy second-hand novels, and occasionally treat myself to a completely unnecessary piece of cake.

I always felt that the most interaction I would ever have with the world of the supernatural was clicking on a news story to look at the man who always stood at the edge of the frame.

Xu Shuheng.

The de facto leader of the Supernatural Guild, rumored to be the strongest Catastrophe-level “Mind-reader.”

A single word from him could silence an entire branch office instantly.

A single frown from him could make the supernatural brokers in the west end-who made their fortunes selling information-close shop and flee overnight.

Some say he used mind-reading to catch serial killers; others say that if he wanted to, he could dig up every lie a person has told since the age of seven and lay them out to dry in the sun.

The first time I saw him was three years ago, during an interview after an old book restoration exhibition.

The camera panned over him for a single second. He was standing outside the crowd, the hem of his black trench coat lifted slightly by the night wind, his expression so cold that it seemed all the lights on the street couldn’t warm him.

I clearly didn’t know him, yet in that moment, I had the inexplicable thought that if this man ever got tired, he probably wouldn’t even say the word “tired” out loud.

Since then, it was as if I were possessed.

I began searching for his shadow in the margins of the news, collecting every piece of public information related to him. I even went so far as to copy his interviews word-for-word into my diary when I couldn’t sleep.

At first, it was just curiosity. Then it became a habit. Later on, I was too embarrassed to admit even to myself that it had become a crush.

It was stupid and made no sense.

I knew he and I were from completely different worlds, so I locked all the things I couldn’t say inside my diaries.

The seventh volume noted a faint, old scar on his left ring finger; the eleventh mentioned how he was clearly smiling during an interview, yet his eyes looked like they were veiled by a snowstorm; the seventeenth stated that I probably really, truly liked Xu Shuheng.

And right now, this man-whom I should only be able to see in the news-is standing at my front door.

It is 1:17 AM. The motion-sensor light in the hallway flickers erratically. Sweat beads at his temples, and the corners of his eyes are red, as if he has just barely pulled himself back from the brink of losing control.

One hand props him up against my doorframe. His breathing is heavy as he stares at me, his voice low and raspy. “Xie Jinhe, why is your head filled with nothing but my name?”

I grip the doorknob, my entire body freezing up.

“You have the wrong person,” I say, my first instinct being to deny it.

But he takes a step forward, as if driven by something that leaves him no room for retreat. His gaze travels from my face down to the heavy rise and fall of my chest, and then to the desk drawer behind me.

In that moment, I almost think he can see those seventeen diaries.

“I don’t have the wrong person,” he says. “In all of Yungang, you are the only one I cannot read.”