The stone steps outside the clinic still held the afternoon's warmth.
The clamor surged like a tide, the laughter pricked like needles.
Meng Zhiyuan no longer looked back. He simply spread his sleeve, shielding the boy firmly at his side, as though to keep all those gazes and words outside his robes.
Yet suddenly, Meng Zhiyuan was no longer angry.
He looked down at Meng Sheng. There was no intensity in his gaze, no indignation, only a profound calm, like the expression of someone looking at a mountain.
He spoke slowly, his voice quiet but as clear as a drop of water falling in an empty room:
"Sheng, only now that you're like this can they feel at ease."
The boy did not react.
But Meng Zhiyuan continued, as though laying bare the truth of the world on its behalf.
"When your brilliance shone, they craned their necks and called you a star in the heavens."
"When you sank, they breathed a sigh of relief and said you were nothing special after all."
"Those two remarks sound like opposites, but they're really the same thing."
His gaze swept over the people in the street, frighteningly calm.
"They don't care what you are. They only care whether they can accept it."
The wind blew, stirring the dust.
"When people judge others, they never use their hearts. They only look at where you stand."
"Stand above them, and they praise you. Fall down, and they trample you."
"It isn't malice. It's fear."
He lowered his head and straightened the boy's lapels, his movements as composed as ever.
"To them, your being like this is a good thing."
"Because they finally no longer have to look up."
"Nor do they have to admit that they once couldn't even measure up to a child."