Chapter 67: Shortcuts

An adolescent with Asperger syndrome once used a metaphorical phrase to describe how he was different from normal people.

He said that the average person's fuss is like a windows operating system running in a socialized world, while the Asperger syndrome brain is just operating slowly under a dos system.

In addition to being slow, a variety of errors occur.

It is a fact that can never be changed, a mutilation that will follow him for the rest of his life and can never be erased.

Tan Mo, even if he was slow, could understand that Qiao Lan had just relieved himself, that she was helping him to keep the others from realising that he was still not a normal person after he stood up.

Tan Mo suddenly came up with a word.

Happy not to think about it.

The temporary peace and ecstasy had made him somewhat complacent.

At the evening session that night, Tan Mo's sparring instructor could feel Tan Mo's irritability, and although his face remained expressionless, the intensity of his hands was evident in his anger.

The teenager was one of the most ruthless and desperate students he had ever taught, as if something was pushing him hard behind him. The coach would sometimes ask Tan Mo a few questions when he was curious, but Tan Mo never said anything.

The coach didn't expect Tan Mo to say anything today, but casually asked if something had happened to him today.

The teenager, whose figure was gradually ceasing to be thin, still clenched his fists, but his movements stopped.

He stood still for a long time and suddenly spoke, his voice so low that it was more of a question to himself than a complaint.

"What would you do if there was someone that you could not chase for the rest of your life."

Someone you can't catch up with in your lifetime?

Although the coach did not know Tan Mo's status and wealth, he could tell that this young man was not a simple man just by the fact that Tan Mo was spending a lot of money and that the car he was transported to and from every day was a daydream that he would never dare to dream of.

The girl who could make this teenager feel that he could never catch up no matter how much he chased after her in his life, what kind of heavenly fairy or grand lady would she have to be?

If it was him, since he knew that no amount of chasing would lead to

Without giving it much thought, the coach said, "Then let's not chase it."

As soon as the words left his mouth, the coach saw the teenager, who had been expressionless, instantly tinted with a scowl, his eyes all gloomy.

The coach, who had grown a very muscular body, was taken aback by the teenager's sudden change of mood.

The coach quickly changed his tune though before he had a chance to think it through.

"In fact, I am more curious, why do you think you must not be able to chase it", look at you, look so handsome family so good, to the outside of a station there are a lot of young girls running to ask WeChat, so superior conditions so determined to say that you can not chase, is it

"Have you already pursued it before? The girl you liked didn't say yes?"

The teenager was silent for a moment and spoke in a deep voice, "No."

There has been no chasing.

Coach: So it's still a crush after all!

"How do you know you can't catch up if you've never done so? Do you know each other?"

"Awareness."

"So, a bad relationship?"

"Very well."

"How good is very good?"

"Best."

"Then get after it," said the coach, who was anxious for Tan Mo.

Tan Mo lowered her eyelashes and shook her head, "No."

How come it doesn't work?

The coach couldn't figure it out.

"She thinks of me as a friend."

"How normal," the coach thought it wasn't even a thing, "How many couples develop from friends, and although I'm not sure what's going on between you, I don't think you need to be so negative."

"My opinion is that everything always has to be tried, and since it has never been pursued, it cannot be concluded that the matter is not possible". The coach didn't know what to say, but when he opened his mouth, he became gushing and transformed into a love interest.

"If you never go after a girl because you think you can't, then you'll never catch up, but if you try, of course it could be what you think, but what if you catch up, right, what if! If I were you and had a girl I liked to the core, I'd just give it a go, try my hardest, chase her once, and if I can't catch her then forget it, at least I won't look back and feel sorry."

No regrets

Tan Mo suddenly wanted to laugh a little.

He doesn't want to have any regrets, but what if Qiao Lan finds out what he's thinking and becomes a stranger.

It was the ending he could not accept any more than he regretted.

The coach was still spouting off about how Tan Mo didn't have to be so unsure of himself and how the girl might already like him.

Tan Mo closes his eyes and makes light of the situation and the coach shuts up instantly.

The coach froze for a long moment before saying, "Sick?"

Tan Mo has to have a medical check-up almost every few days and there is absolutely nothing wrong with her body.

"What's wrong?"

Tan Mo chewed the three words in his mouth for a long time before he struggled to say them, "Mental illness."

Coach: "????"

Moved back a little in complete unconsciousness.

Tan Mo gave a cold look towards the coach and although he said nothing, the coach read the sarcasm in Tan Mo's eyes.

See, no matter how much was said, when it was learned that he had such a condition, everyone would stay away from him.

The coach then reacted with a jolt, remembering the unconscious action he had just taken, and wanted to slap himself. He wanted to explain, but felt that it was useless to say anything else at this point.

It is the subconscious reaction of a person that is the most realistic response.

So it was for this reason that Tan Mo felt that the girl would never like him and accept him, and the coach felt that everything made sense.

"I'm sorry, I really didn't mean to", forget it, it was all a wasted explanation, not to mention that Tan Mo wasn't concerned with his opinion, the coach sighed, "so the girl didn't know you were sick?"

"I know."

Know?

The coach was amazed.

After a long time, the coach finally said with a straight face, "I think that a girl who can make you like her so much must have something different from the others, and you don't have to gauge her thoughts with what the rest of us think of you. Since she has known about your condition for a long time, but still treats you well and the best she can, it means she probably doesn't even care if you are sick or not."

Tan Mo stared sullenly into the distance without speaking.

Coach sighed, " Tan Mo , maybe, and I mean maybe, you are more important in the mind of the girl you like than you think."

That was the end of the conversation, and Tan Mo got back up and started practising, still with the same sharpness, but at last with less severity than he had just done.

Tan Mo's studies include two more items, in addition to his normal school work and free sparring.

A stock, a sentiment analysis.

Tan Mo was introduced to stocks after learning of Qiao Lan's interest in stock trading.

Qiao Lan said she wanted to learn because she admired the biography of the stock god, and one word made Tan Mo's decision.

He was always trying to get Qiao Lan to develop more affection for him in various ways, even if it wasn't love, and on top of that, Qiao Lan was interested in stock trading, which he could learn first and then teach Qiao Lan later.

But what Tan Mo found very pleasing was that after actually getting involved in stock trading, using mathematics and various analyses, Tan Mo found it much more interesting than he had imagined.

It was simply too much fun.

In addition to this, Tan Mo began to study emotional analysis like crazy.

He endured the discomfort and began to re-engage with his psychiatrist and take his advice to become more of a "normal person."

He can never be a normal person, but he can try to do so in such a way that others cannot see that he is not a normal person.

It is an exceptionally difficult and lifelong learning process.

The psychiatrist gave him a book dedicated to the symptoms of Asperger syndrome, which identifies a total of 412 human feelings and divides all of them into 24 different groupings.

What he needs to do is to memorise and commit to memory all 412 of these feelings; he doesn't understand them, so then memorise them and remember the expressions and gestures that each one would show.

When someone cries, what he needs to do, he doesn't know, so he memorises it, and when someone laughs, what he needs to do, all of it is memorised.

In a matter of days, Tan Mo felt physically and mentally exhausted.

Because he doesn't understand it, he can only search his memory banks for how other people should react after seeing a certain expression on one person's face.

He had to be quick, because if he was slower, someone would think he was sluggish, and no one knew how fast Tan Mo's mind had been running in just a few seconds.

So tired, because nerves were on high every moment, Tan Mo felt exhausted by everyone.

But the results were surprisingly good.

Tan Mo is frantically picking up knowledge to turn himself into a master of mimicry, and he is making himself available in the quickest time possible to respond correctly to the most conventional expressions of all kinds.

Some say Tan Mo is finally not expressionless anymore, others say Tan Mo is not really difficult to socialise with, only Qiao Lan, who feels a strong sense of unease and dissonance when everyone thinks Tan Mo is becoming more and more social.

Tan Mo began to grow wild in a space where Qiao Lan was not aware of it.

Only in the face of Qiao Lan does he manage to reveal the real him because of the uncontrollable fluttering in his heart.

Qiao Lan asked him what was wrong, but Tan Mo was able to lie calmly.

He said he was treated by a psychiatrist and that he might be different from his usual self lately because the psychiatrist told him to do so.

The half-truths, even 80 per cent of them, were indeed the advice of the psychiatrist, but Tan Mo did not tell Qiao Lan that the psychiatrist had also warned him about another statement in the first place.

Doctors say that when adults with Asperger's syndrome use their imitation skills to communicate like normal people, and even start to become comfortable and popular, it may seem like a good thing, but that's when the disaster begins.

For the whole world would become a distinction between truth and falsehood.

Whereas once it took slow analysis to analyse the other person's true thoughts, then there will be no more analysis, relying on the knowledge and experience acquired to guess what the other person is thinking and react accordingly.

From then on, it's true, there's nothing to read anymore.