Chapter 40: Metamorphosis

Tan Mo came back out, changed and with the dull hair on his head gone, he was back to his usual cold and refined teenage self.

Qiao Lan looked at Tan Mo's neat and tidy hair and was a little disappointed for a moment.

Qiao Lan's book on Asperger syndrome, which she has been reading recently, says that the condition cannot be cured and will never be cured, but that there are other ways to bring people with Asperger syndrome closer to normal people, so that they can slowly understand other people's facial expressions or body movements.

It would undoubtedly be heavy to think of this illness as just a disease, a disease that prevents normal communication with people, but it doesn't seem too difficult to think of it in a different way, for example, as a lesson in communicating with people, to understand other people's expressions, their movements, as another language that one has never been exposed to.

I don't understand it because I have not been exposed to it, but if I take my time to learn it, I may be able to communicate properly.

Tan Mo doesn't know what Qiao Lan is going to teach him, and seems to be sitting obediently at the table, but in fact his mind is in turmoil.

Because Qiao Lan had left her mobile phone on the table when she went out, Tan Mo caught a glimpse of the large AS letters on the top of the book Qiao Lan was reading.

Then the whole group froze in place.

He did not know before that Qiao Lan already knew that he was an AS sufferer and did not want Qiao Lan to know, just as he did not want Qiao Lan to see his grotesque leg and embarrassing scars.

But now it has come to light that Qiao Lan already knew about it, and not only did he know about it, but he was secretly aware of it behind the scenes.

When did she know? How did she find out? What did she really think when she found out? Would she think she was weird? Would she find herself in trouble ......

Within a minute of Qiao Lan's departure, Tan Mo's mind was already racing with thoughts.

After a while Qiao Lan found a mirror from somewhere and moved a chair to sit next to Tan Mo, rubbing his arm against his arm every now and then, unlike his usual school uniform when he sat at the same table.

Much warmer than yourself.

Qiao Lan placed the mirror in front of Tan Mo, "Okay, let's start with the basics, that is, smiling, there are many kinds of smiles, smiles, big smiles, bitter smiles, cold smiles...so many, so many, so let's learn the simplest ones, like the most basic smile, look at me!"

Tan Mo turns his head.

Ah, so close.

"No matter what kind of smile, usually the corners of the lips are up, some smiles have a little bit of an upward arc, and some have a little bit of a smaller one. Smile is everyone do commonly used expression, simple understanding is a little smile, a little, understand, a little means the arc of smile is not big, so the corner of the mouth up arc is not very big, is what I am now."

Qiao Lan looked at him with a smile on her face and pointed to the corners of her lips, "The corners of her lips are raised, usually showing her teeth, and then her eyes squint a little bit, and the whole face is curved upwards", Qiao Lan gestured upwards with her hands again.

"If a person has five features on their face like that, then they are 80 to 90 per cent smiling, and generally when people smile they are in a good mood, a smile makes people more confident and better looking, and people see each other with a smile on their face and they get in a good mood with it."

Tan Mo averted his eyes from Qiao Lan's near face, averting them somewhat unnaturally.

He also thinks a person looks better when they smile.

Just like Qiao Lan now, Tan Mo thinks she looks really good at the moment.

And he really seemed to be able to sense emotions, and this moment was indeed a good one for himself.

"Let's learn to smile first," Qiao Lan said as she placed the mirror in front of Tan Mo, keeping her own facial expression, "like me, with the corners of her lips raised..."

Tan Mo finally understood what Qiao Lan was looking for in a mirror.

He moved his stiff facial muscles and turned his head to look at Qiao Lan, feeling that he had imprinted Qiao Lan's face on his heart, but when he did it, it was far from easy.

For a normal person, there is no need to learn this at all. What he feels in his heart, his eyes, mouth, etc., all change spontaneously accordingly, but for Tan Mo, what he feels in his heart and his facial expressions seem to be different pivots, and he needs to send out secondary commands to control his five senses to make the corresponding changes.

Not from the heart, but in imitation.

As Qiao Lan said at the beginning, the process is analogous to learning a new foreign language.

Remembering the facial expression that corresponds to an emotion is like remembering a new word, but rethinking it and then figuring out how to show it, i.e. forming the new word into a sentence.

Tan Mo remembers a school photo shoot when he was a child and the cameraman shouted at him to smile and smile, but he didn't know what a smile was.

If only the photographer had been more like Qiao Lan and told him exactly what to do when he smiled, he might have been able to leave a smile on his face as a child.

The corners of your lips should be turned up and your eyes should be slightly narrowed a little...

Qiao Lan sits next to him, cocking her head and looking at him intently.

Tan Mo did a serious job, but had never studied like this before, so it was always tough at first, the corners of her lips lifted, but they were high and low, less like a smile and more like a sneer, her eyes narrowed more like a purposeful scowl than a smile.

"Well... not quite," Qiao Lan said, leaning forward a little and extending a finger to land abruptly on Tan Mo's lips, whose quirky smile froze on his face and he turned his head mechanically to her.

Qiao Lan took a closer look and raised his left hand on Tan Mo's chin, his right hand nudged the right corner of his lip, "A little more up here, yes just like that, don't be nervous, don't be afraid to show your teeth, our MoMo has such beautiful teeth...eh, is that orange flavoured toothpaste?"

Tan Mo felt the warmth of Qiao Lan's fingers landing on his cheek, so nervous that he didn't know what expression to make, and when he heard Qiao Lan say so he subconsciously said, "Orange."

"I like the taste of oranges too", Qiao Lan smiled, "Let's squeeze some orange juice for later, shall we?"

Tan Mo's eyes curled slightly and he said busily, "Good."

"Don't move", Qiao Lan suddenly said sharply, "just keep it that way", and Qiao Lan hastily pulled out his mobile phone.

Tan Mo is always a bit odd when he smiles, but in that moment just now, his smiling eyes curved and the corners of his lips turned up in an extraordinarily nice curve, and his features, which felt incomparably cold because he had never smiled before, slowly melted away under this moment of smile.

With the sun shining, Qiao Lan captured the moment in Tan Mo's memory.

Sunshine, teenagers, smiles.

Qiao Lan hands the phone to Tan Mo, "Doesn't it look nice when you smile."

Tan Mo took the phone, looked at himself on it and looked up at Qiao Lan for a moment.

It does look good when you smile.

But he was thinking of Qiao Lan.

She has the best smile.

Uncle Chan came in from outside and was amazed at the photo for a long time.

Qiao Lan sent a copy of the photo to Uncle Chan and another to Tan Mo, and then stared at it for a long time himself.

If he is so good-looking, he should smile more often. He looks better when he smiles, and people will like him more if he smiles often, and he will have more friends and more understanding people close to him.

Every day after that, Qiao Lan and Tan Mo were given a new lesson in recognising facial expressions.

Start by identifying them and then slowly learn to imitate them.

When Qiao Lan was reading the book, she saw that it recommended a software that used the same actor who played Harry Potter to show specific facial expressions, body language and speech characteristics related to emotions, and to make it easier to understand the feelings, small events were written for each of them.

For example, if you expect to get a present from your parents on your birthday, but they forget your birthday, the feeling that arises is disappointment; for example, if you have done nothing wrong, but everyone thinks you have done wrong, the feeling that arises is, by and large, aggravation.

Qiao Lan asked Tan Mo to look at it first and then asked him to guess what emotion he was trying to express and what emotion he was feeling when he made the face.

Tan Mo is really clever.

Relying on this method of learning, he quickly memorised a number of facial expressions and body language corresponding to feelings, and gradually understood some feelings that he could not recognise before.

Although for the average person this method of identification is very rigid and subject to many errors, it is certainly an improvement for Tan Mo.

The summer holidays have been going by slowly, and while Tan Mo thought it was too long when we first got off, now it feels a little too short.

A few days before the start of the school year, Aunt Chan finally returned from her hometown and was stunned to see Qiao Lan when she returned.

It is said that adolescent girls change from day to day, and when we don't see Qiao Lan for months, Aunt Chan doesn't even recognise her anymore.

After all, Qiao's mother, Qiao's second aunt and Qiao Yuan were all very fair, and Qiao's eldest sister was probably malnourished and overworked every day, so she looked a little worse for wear.

Qiao Lan has been fed by Tan Mo for almost a year, with daily nutritious meals specially prepared by the nutritionist and a wide range of nutritional supplements, the girl has regained all that she lacked before.

Once the skin was white, the already outstanding features grew a little more, like dusty pearls that had been cleaned and exposed for what they were.

What started out as a young girl who could be described as innocent, suddenly turned into a beautiful girl that you couldn't take your eyes off.

With exquisite features, an excellent figure and long legs, she is a stunning presence on the street that will turn heads.

Qiao Lan looked in the mirror and finally believed the description of Qiao Lan's appearance in the book, and how much the colour of one's skin really affects one's face.

Sitting in his wheelchair, Tan Mo listened to Aunt Chan praise Qiao Lan's beauty over and over again, and felt a little bit proud of it, as if Aunt Chan was praising Qiao Lan instead of him.

It was finally the last day of the holiday, so Qiao Lan packed up her things and returned to school early to pack up her dormitory and report in the morning.

It was a bit nerve-wracking to say the least, not knowing exactly what class I had been placed in and whether I would be placed in the same class as Tan Mo.

Uncle Chan happily sent Qiao Lan off to school himself, leaving a message for her when he left, saying that she should not worry.

Qiao Lan was in a hurry and didn't hear or react too well. When the school officially started the next day, she went to the display board and found the class divisions and smiled softly when she saw that her name and Tan Mo's were in class 18.

So that's what reassuring her meant.