A Literary Life Starting from the First Year of High School

Chapter 128 The Legend of Earthsea

Thursday, May 23.

When Lin Shubai arrived at the classroom, Su Wan was already in her seat. It was unusual for them not to come together today. The reason was simple: Lin Shubai had overslept.

"Good morning." Lin Shubai put down his schoolbag.

Su Wan didn't say anything, but took a small box out of the drawer and placed it on his desk.

Lin Shubai glanced at the box—it was dark blue, about the size of a palm, and had a logo he didn't recognize printed on it: 1og0.

"What?"

"Open it and take a look."

Lin Shubai opened the box, inside was a bracelet, made of black woven cord with a dark blue bead strung in the middle. The bead had tiny sparkles on its surface, like stars in the night sky. There was a line of small characters engraved on the inside of the bracelet, which he took a closer look at—"Shu Bai".

His hand paused on the box for a moment, and he looked up at Su Wan, but Su Wan didn't look at him and looked down at her English textbook.

"What is this?"

"Bracelet, can't you tell?" Su Wan's tone was deliberately casual, but the tips of her ears were already turning red. This was a habit she couldn't hide; whenever she was nervous, her ears were always the first to betray her.

"I know it's a bracelet, I'm asking why you gave me this?"

Su Wan finally turned her head, glared at him, and said, "Isn't your birthday coming up soon? Can't I give it to you early? You gave me a keychain last time, couldn't I give you a gift in return?"

After Su Wan reminded him, Lin Shubai finally remembered that his birthday was in early June, which was indeed coming soon.

Lin Shubai took the bracelet out of the box and put it on his right wrist. The length of the cord was just right. He noticed that Su Wan was also wearing the same black woven cord with dark blue beads on her left wrist. The only difference was the words engraved on the inside. He knew what the words were without even looking.

Are we a couple?

Su Wan turned to a new page in her English textbook and said in a voice so soft it was barely audible, "Mmm."

Lin Shubai glanced down at the bracelet on his wrist, then at the one on Su Wan's wrist, and a slight smile appeared on his lips.

Su Wan caught a glimpse of his movement out of the corner of her eye, and the corner of her mouth curled up slightly, but she quickly suppressed it.

During the break, Lin Shubai went to get water. As he passed Su Wan's seat, he glanced at the canvas bag she had placed at her feet. There were two keychains hanging on the bag, one was the silly little bear from the amusement park, and the other was a cartoon dragon.

The dragon was a chibi version, with a green body, orange horns, and a fierce expression that wasn't scary at all; in fact, it was kind of cute. The dragon's claws were gripping the zipper pull of the canvas bag, as if afraid of being thrown off.

Lin Shubai stopped, bent down, picked up the dragon keychain and looked at it. It was plastic, the workmanship wasn't very refined, but the color was very bright.

"When did you buy this?"

Su Wan was doing her English homework and didn't even look up. "I saw this at the small commodities market last week. I thought it was pretty fun, so I bought it. Look at its expression, doesn't it look like Liu Yang when he's angry?"

Lin Shubai looked at the dragon's expression—its eyebrows were furrowed and its mouth was crooked—and it did look somewhat like it.

【Trigger Keywords】

[Bracelet + Dragon]

Lin Shubai's fingers trembled slightly, then steadied themselves. He casually hooked the keychain back onto the canvas bag's zipper.

He returned to his seat, picked up his water glass, and took a sip. Each book in the series was neatly arranged in his mind.

In his previous life, he had heard of this set of books, which many people considered to be one of the three great Western fantasy works, along with The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia.

But unlike the grand war epics of The Lord of the Rings, Earthsea is quiet. It is not about heroes defeating evil kings, but about how a person knows himself, accepts himself, and becomes himself.

Ged chased the shadow his whole life, only to find it was his own dark side. Tena grew up in darkness but ultimately chose to walk towards the light. These people were not fighting against external enemies; they were fighting against themselves.

More importantly, the philosophical core of this book is completely different from the Western Christian tradition. It does not talk about original sin, redemption, or an omnipotent God controlling everything. It talks about balance—light and darkness, life and death, order and chaos, which are mutually opposed and interdependent. You cannot eliminate darkness; you can only acknowledge that it is a part of you. This idea comes from Taoism.

Ursula K. Le Guin translated the Tao Te Ching, and she incorporated the core of the Tao—the balance of Yin and Yang and non-action—into the worldview of Earthsea. It is already surprising enough that a Western author could write such a work. Now, a sixteen-year-old Chinese student is going to "write" it out, or rather, bring it back to the Chinese-speaking world.

When school was over, Liu Yang turned around from the front and said, "Shubai, I saw your science fiction collection at the stall yesterday. It was displayed in the most conspicuous spot as soon as you entered."

Lin Shubai smiled but didn't reply, but Liu Yang's words reminded him that "Feeding Out" had been released.

He hasn't paid much attention to the online feedback.

When he got home that evening, he turned on his computer and went to the Sky City forum.

The pinned post wasn't posted by the moderator; it was a long review written by a book reviewer named "Fang Yanqiu." Lin Shubai recognized Fang Yanqiu; the magazine "Science Fiction World" had sent her a sample copy before, and she had praised "The Long Life" on Weibo. The title of this long review was "Lin Shubai's Science Fiction: Cold, but Just the Right Amount of Coldness."

"It took me two days to finish reading 'Feeding One Out,' and I was a little reluctant to finish it. Each of the twenty-one short stories is like a piece of candy, which only has flavor when it is slowly melted in your mouth."

"Lin Shubai's science fiction is different from others. Others write science fiction about 'what if'—what if aliens come, what if time travel becomes possible, what if humans can live forever."

He wrote "If—So What?"—"If aliens came, humanity would still be alone; if time travel became possible, you still wouldn't be able to go back to the day you want to go back to; if humanity could live forever, you would be more miserable than you are now."

"This is what I find so impressive about Lin Shubai: he doesn't write 'settings,' he writes 'the people behind the settings.' Science fiction is just a tool for him; his theme is always the same: how does one person live?"

"In 'The Long Life,' the immortal watches all his relatives and friends die one by one, and finally says, 'Longevity is not happiness.' When I read this, I was reminded of a line from 'The Little Prince': 'What is essential is invisible to the eye.' Lin Shu-pai writes science fiction and fairy tales with the same heart."

This long review has been widely shared and commented on. Lin Shubai scrolled down and found that most of the comments were positive, but there were also some trolls who gave him a reason to criticize.