Atavism

Chapter 3

What kind of problem could there be with his face, and what treatment could be more thorough than what he's going through now? Of course, this is just something I'm thinking; I can't say it out loud.

At this moment, Yuan Lie joined the interviewers: "The doctor said he shaved your hair this morning. How do you feel physically now that it's growing back so fast? If there's no way to stop it for the time being, what are your plans for the future?"

"Do you have a family history of atavism?" another reporter asked.

I peered at him through the gaps between the people, and suddenly felt a pang of sadness.

Have your friends visited you? Do you feel you can still get along normally with them?

The man remained silent, his eyes sweeping over us. I felt a jolt of fear in my heart from his gaze; it was a silent anger.

He suddenly sat up in bed and roared.

Everyone leaned back, and the two microphones that were originally near his mouth quickly retracted.

A newly arrived nurse became agitated: "How can you disturb the patient like this? Get out, get out!"

They were slunk away and driven outside, one of them muttering under his breath, "They acted like wild animals."

On the way back with Yuan Lie, I was still thinking about that patient who had regressed to ancestral traits. The power of the media is all-pervasive, and sometimes it leaves people helpless.

No one can accept the appearance of body hair, and the person is already under immense psychological pressure. Going to the hospital for treatment only to have reporters rub salt into the wound... In such a situation, the only outcome is either an outburst or a breakdown.

Although the person involved refused to cooperate, the news was still published, including a photo, though the head was obscured. The next day, during the review, the article was praised. Our deputy editor-in-chief, Lan Tou, smiled and said, "Good. We need to keep a close eye on these kinds of breaking news and not fall behind other media. If there are any new developments, be sure to follow up with follow-up reports."

That evening, Dali Zhang called to say there was a card game. Hearing his voice made my teeth ache again, and I jokingly told him to prepare to bleed. Dali Zhang chuckled sinisterly, playing calmly and confidently, his luck running exceptionally good. When the game ended around midnight, although I won a small amount, I didn't win any money from that wretched guy. Dali Zhang laughed twice in the quiet of the night, hailed a taxi, and sped away.

"That guy's really lucky." I was still thinking about the card game in the elevator. I live on the seventh floor, and I often choose to take the stairs for exercise, but now it's the middle of the night, and I certainly don't want to climb the stairs in the dark.

The lights in the hallway are voice-activated. I stood at my own door and stomped my foot with a "thump." The dull sound echoed through the ground, but the light that came on was flickering.

"Damn it, it's broken again." I looked up at the flickering light bulb, like a candle flame in the wind.

My bag is big and I have a lot of stuff in it. The lighting is bad right now, and I've been reaching out for a while but still haven't found my keys.

The hallway was too quiet. The lights flickered for a while and then went out again, but I didn't stomp my foot to turn them back on. It didn't matter whether they were on or off.

The only sound was the rustling of my hands as I rummaged through my bag.

Footsteps.

The very faint sound of footsteps would be inaudible unless the environment was extremely quiet.

I stomped my foot to make the light flash again, but there was no one around.

The sound was coming from a half-open door, behind which was the building's staircase. Now the sound has stopped.

I felt a chill, but I still went over, pushed open the door, and said, "Who's there?"

The sound wasn't very loud, but it echoed through the stairwell that led directly up and down the stairs.

No one answered.

I walked down the stairs, and after a few steps, the motion-activated lights outside went out. There were no windows in the stairwell, so it became pitch black.

I couldn't see anything in the darkness, so I tentatively walked down a little further, stopping halfway down the floor, and asked again, "Is anyone there?"

Still no one answered, but in the lingering echo, I heard footsteps again.

Right above my head.

My heart tightened. I touched the iron handrail and walked up step by step. I raised my other hand slightly and held it in front of my face, on guard.

Stairwells in high-rise buildings are the most unsettling places at night, and I felt a bit uneasy.

I went back to the seventh floor and then went up again. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness, but that didn't mean I could see anything; there were shadows everywhere.

"Who?" I asked again, my voice already a little weak.

I realized it was a terrible idea for me to recklessly venture into this darkness; I should get back to where I can see anyway.

I quickly walked down to the seventh floor and pushed open the door.

"Thump!" I stomped my foot heavily, even if it was just a flickering light, I wanted to make this place a little brighter first.

The motion-activated light turned on, flashing a yellow light. There was a person standing right in front of my door.

My heart skipped a beat, and I stopped in my tracks: "Who are you?"

He was wearing a trench coat and had his back to me. He looked extremely eerie in the yellow light.

He turned around when I asked him. I was startled again.

He was wearing a hat that covered his eyes and a mask, only his eyes were visible. It's summer!

“I am You Hong.” His voice was hoarse and heavy.

"Who?" I couldn't recall the name for a moment.

“Six Ears, I am Six Ears,” he said softly.

Six Ears? I was stunned for a moment. Why was he dressed like this? And his voice? Was this the same nonsensical, lively Six Ears?

He stepped aside: "What, aren't you going to invite me in?"

This time I found the key quickly, opened the door, and invited him in.

Turning on the light made me feel much more comfortable; light is truly wonderful.

"Why are you so late? You didn't even call beforehand. You were acting all mysterious just now. Were you trying to scare me?" I sat down on the sofa in the living room and asked Liu Er, only to find him standing in the entryway, still wearing his hat, mask, and trench coat.

"Aren't you hot dressed like that? Why don't you take it off?" I said, a vague unease creeping into my heart. Something was very wrong with Liu Er.

Liu Er raised his hand, hesitated for a moment, and slowly took off his mask.

“I thought you already knew. You saw me yesterday.” As he spoke, he took off his hat.

I involuntarily shrank back on the sofa, gasped, and slowly stood up.

“I shaved it a little over an hour ago, and now it looks like this again.”

Under the bright light of the incandescent bulb, a layer of fine, dense, dark brown down covered Liu Er's face, extending from his neck to his hairline, making his entire face indistinct. His hair had also grown long and cascaded down.

He took off his trench coat, revealing a short-sleeved T-shirt underneath, and all his exposed skin was covered in a layer of dark hair. He was sweating a lot, and the hair clung tightly to his skin.

I didn't hear Yuan Lie mention You Hong's name yesterday, and today's report only referred to him as "Mr. You." I really didn't expect that the hairy man lying in Huashan Hospital yesterday was actually Liu Er, who had been traveling and playing with me not long ago.

I stared blankly at Liu Er. The slight shock and rejection I felt upon first seeing him had turned into an indescribable complex emotion, and for a moment I didn't know what to say.

Seeing that I was standing there without reacting, the already dim light in Liu Er's pupils weakened even further. He bent down to pick up the mask he had just taken off from the coffee table and was about to put it back on.

That's when I realized what was happening, and I grabbed his hand. The strange sensation when I touched his hair made me slow down for 0.1 seconds, but I immediately gripped his wrist firmly.

"What's going on? Please sit down, I'll get you a drink."

I patted him on the shoulder, took a can of iced Coke from the kitchen refrigerator, poured it into a glass, and handed it to him.

"You must be hot, look at you covered in sweat." As soon as I said it, I realized it wasn't quite right.

"How could I not be hot?" Liu Er forced a smile, raising the cup to his lips, his hands trembling uncontrollably. He opened his mouth and gulped down the cola, the foamy liquid overflowing from the corners of his mouth, soaking a large patch of hair beneath his lip. When only a little over half a cup remained, he finally choked and coughed violently.

He placed the cup on the coffee table, coughed, and bent over, his head drooping to his stomach. He covered his face with his hands, his whole body hunched over, as if trying to curl his originally tall body into a small ball.

He tried desperately to keep himself from making a sound, his broad, bony shoulders trembling.

I gently pressed my hand on his shoulder, unable to think of any comforting words, so I could only hope that this would give him some support.

The blows Liu Er had suffered these past few days were too great, and once they were released, they were hard to suppress. He finally couldn't cover up the sobs that came from his heart. He suddenly raised his head, his hands gripping the sofa. His voice was hoarse from the silent wailing he had just endured.

"What should I do? What should I do? I still want to go abroad. I want to leave this place..." Tears streamed down his face, his hair was a mess, and his eyes were fixed on me, blank and empty, staring into the distance.

I've been through dangerous situations with many people, and in the past, when I saw others in distress, I could always say something encouraging to cheer them up, but now...

I found a clean towel, soaked it in cold water, wrung it out, and handed it to Liu Er.

Liu Er wiped his face clean, folded the towel and placed it on the coffee table, then said softly, "Thank you."

He had calmed down by then.

"Do you have any more Coke?"

I quickly got him another can.

Liu Er took a sip of cola, closed his eyes slightly, and his chest heaved.

"Do you remember when we were in Fujian, I always said there were mosquitoes and my body was itchy, and that burning mosquito coils didn't help? But you didn't feel anything at all."

"Could it have started from that time..."

Liu Er smiled sadly: "At that time, I was puzzled because although I was itchy, there were no lumps. After returning to Shanghai, my body became itchier and itchier. I couldn't bear it anymore, so I went to the dermatology department of Huashan Hospital, but they couldn't find anything wrong. The doctor prescribed two tubes of ointment for allergic dermatitis for me to try. My whole body was itchy, and those two tubes of ointment were almost used up in a few days. At that time, the numbness and itching gradually subsided, and I thought I was really cured."

When I heard him say that, I naturally guessed what had happened, and I sighed inwardly.

"That night before going to bed, I applied the ointment all over my body again, hoping it would never recur. At that time, I felt that the itching was like torture." He opened his palm, revealing a particularly thick tuft of hair on his palm.

"Even if I were itchy to death every day and scratched myself until I bled, it would be a hundred times better than this," Liu Er said softly.

He looked at his palm for a moment, then looked up and asked me, "Do you have a razor?"

I gave him my own razor, which I hadn't used for a long time because I found it too troublesome and had been using electric razors all along.

Six Ears held a razor in his right hand and slowly shaved it across his left palm. He turned his palm down, and a tuft of hair fell to the ground.

He smiled at me and said, "Don't worry, I'll sweep it up later."

Liu Er slowly shaved the hair off the edges of his palms and fingers, and then began shaving the back of his hands.

"It's okay, go ahead and shave." I watched him shave his hands, hair falling out one by one, and a chill ran through me for no reason.

"The next morning, when I brushed my teeth, I noticed my beard was growing incredibly fast. When I washed my face, I wiped it four or five times, but it was never completely clean; there was a layer of black residue on my face." Liu Er spoke calmly and slowly, as if he were talking about something completely unrelated to him.

"You know, I'm a little nearsighted. I put my face very close to the mirror, very close. I could see clearly that the black was a layer of black hair."

Liu Er shaved the hair off his left hand, looked at the pale palm over and over several times, and shook it slightly at me: "Look, it's fine now."

"You..." I hesitated, unable to finish my sentence.

"Let me shave, what else can I do?" Liu Er lowered his head and began shaving his left forearm.

“That morning, the hair wasn’t growing as fast or as long as it is now. I put on my contact lenses, took off my clothes, and looked closely in the full-length mirror.” He spoke without looking up, just watching the razor shave back and forth on his arm. He paused here, blew the shaved hair off his arm onto the ground, and then continued shaving upwards.

"After looking in the mirror, I applied the remaining ointment all over my body. In the evening, I ran out and bought hair removal cream. The woman who sold me the medicine looked at me, and I wanted to laugh, but I was also a little scared. When I walked out of the pharmacy, several women inside immediately gathered together. Soon after using the hair removal cream, all the hair fell out, including my eyebrows. My face was burning, and I thought I had been burned. That stuff shouldn't be used on the face, but I didn't care."

Liu Er handed the razor to his left hand and opened his right palm: "After sleeping, my face didn't hurt at all. I ran to the bathroom to look in the mirror and then threw away the hair removal cream. The hair was growing back faster every day. I shaved the hair off my face and left my left hand, leaving my right hand, and went to Huashan Hospital. The doctor looked at my right hand and then at my body, and his expression changed. I had a lot of tests done and was transferred from the dermatology department to the endocrinology department for observation in the hospital. The nurses shaved my hair once every morning, and after a day, they increased it to once every evening. My two original roommates also moved out. Later, the reporter came."

Liu Er stopped scraping, looked up at me, and said, "When they were asking all those questions, I really wanted to tear them apart. They just needed a report; they wanted everyone to know, 'Look, a hairy person has appeared!' That way, how many more people would read the newspaper? A thousand? Five thousand?"

I shrank back. Although I didn't write that report, I might have done similar things before. The news was well-written, but it only made things worse for the interviewee.