Quick Transmigration: Let Me Tell You, I'm a Social Anxiety Person

At 4:07, Liang Muqi opened her eyes to find everything in darkness.

The hospital's companion bed was a bit cramped. He put his hand on his forehead and lay quietly for a while. The damp and cold feeling from his dream had not yet dissipated. He stood up, and the appearance of the ward was reversed in his pupils for a moment, and a slight dizziness came over him.

His gaze fell on his knees, and he suddenly doubted whether he could walk.

A few minutes ago, this feeling also appeared in my dream. Even earlier, it appeared in reality.

Liang Muxi doesn't consider himself a person who is keen on reminiscing, yet he has dreamt of things that happened in the past for a long time.

In his dream, he was helped to sit up, his body resting on a soft, fluffy pillow. Looking out the window, the tree that he could only see with a few branches when lying in bed appeared in its entirety before him, but it was growing upside down.

He turned his face away, and his mother, standing on the ceiling, watched him.

He felt dizzy and slightly suffocated, and wanted to vomit. Liang Yun took his hand and said, "Muqi, change those bad habits and correct your wrong ideas. You are your mother's only child. You should live with your mother."

Correcting the first mistake in his life took Liang Muxi five years; time that was hard to endure in reality flew by in his dreams.

Liang Yun bought a wheelchair and pushed him forward. He could sit up upright, but his legs were still numb and unresponsive, as if they didn't exist.

Fortunately, Liang Yun did not rush to encourage him to walk, and still allowed him to sit.

His hands were secured to the armrests of the wheelchair. Liang Yun told him that this was to prevent him from developing a mistaken perception that would lead him to collapse.

A group of children were chasing and playing not far away. Liang Yun pointed to them and said, "Muqi, my biggest hope for you is that you can walk and speak normally, just like them."

The phone rang, and Liang Yun went to answer it. He sat in place, watching quietly, his gaze sweeping over the group of children running and flying, drifting further away, where the shimmering water caught his attention.

A ball flew to the wheelchair, and the little boy who was retrieving the ball ran over. He looked at the little boy, wanting to ask him to push him to the place where the light and shadow were swaying, but when he opened his mouth, only intermittent syllables were uttered, and he couldn't make out the words.

The little boy looked at him curiously, a strange expression on his face, then raised his hand and beckoned his friend behind him.

They ran over and pushed him closer and closer to the pond.

Feeling understood for the first time by someone his own age, Liang Muqi felt a surge of genuine gratitude. He looked ahead; the water was calm, and tall buildings and green trees stood quietly in the water.

That was the reality he had always imagined, yet his mother deemed it "wrong." Confused, and with a vague longing, Liang Muqi couldn't help but reach out to touch it, but his hands were tightly bound in place.

At the same time, the person behind him suddenly pushed hard.

The shouts and laughter receded into the distance as the group of perpetrators ran away with the ball, while he and his wheelchair sank deep into the mud.

The scene before him was gradually shattering, and what came even before the panic was an unexpected sadness. At that moment, Liang Muxi finally decided to agree with his mother's words: from beginning to end, only he himself was wrong.

What he longed for was not reality.

That was just a reflection on the water's surface.

As he was being dragged ashore, the sun's position shifted slightly, and the two restraint straps beside the handrail still tightly bound his wrists, making him and the wheelchair one.

A police car was parked on the road, and an ambulance was flashing its lights. Some people were arguing about whether it was children playing or a premeditated murder, while others looked over in astonishment and sighed, "This child is incredibly lucky to be alive."

When they shifted their attention again, accusing "this mother of not fulfilling her responsibilities," Liang Muqi raised his face, wanting to argue with them in an equally loud voice. He didn't think Liang Yun had done anything wrong; raising a child alone was no easy task.

But he couldn't make a sound.

Liang Yun didn't make a sound either. She silently pushed him home, closed the door, and he saw an exquisite gift box on the coffee table in the living room, with the words "happy birthday" printed on it in cursive script.

Liang Muqi realized that he should celebrate his birthday on this day.

But Liang Yun didn't take the cake box. She settled him on the sofa, then sat down alone, staring blankly out the window until the sun began to set and the sudden night swallowed everything.

His birthday had passed, and the cake gradually melted as the temperature rose. The rotten fruit emitted a strange smell, while Liang Yun sat in the darkness, tears streaming down her face.

……

It wasn't until he woke up from his dream that Liang Muqi belatedly realized that it wasn't that Liang Yun disliked his birthday.

It was because, in the summer when she was seven, Liang Yun sat next to her birthday cake and shed too many tears.

Those tears were probably mostly shed for him, because of him, Liang Yun felt much more pain than happiness.

The emotions were so intense that they spread out in a wet, viscous way, causing Liang Muxi to subconsciously define her birthday as an unfortunate day.

Bringing misfortune to those who love you is the second mistake. Liang Muxi can hardly remember when he first developed a strong desire to avoid this mistake, which led him to learn to speak, get rid of his wheelchair, and walk freely.

Liang Yun's expectations for him changed from "to be a normal child" to the more weighty "high hopes".

……

On the bedside table, the nightlight was quietly off, and a water glass sat to the side.

Liang Muqi lowered his head, looked at the floor beneath his feet, and walked forward, one step, two steps, three steps, five steps.

He picked up the water glass, gripping the handle in his hand, feeling its cool touch. The dizziness had vanished without him noticing; perhaps it was just an illusion brought on by a dream.

-

The alarm clock rang three times before Wen Ying finally got out of bed.

Last night during self-study, she had mocked Chen Ge's habit of setting seven alarms every day. This morning, she suddenly felt that setting more alarms was indeed necessary.

She shared this conclusion with Liang Muxi, went to the balcony to get her school uniform, and had just changed into it when her phone chimed with a reply.

Liang Muqi sent two smiley face emojis that came with the app, which had a very old-fashioned feel to them. If Wen Ying hadn't known that he wasn't good at using social media, she probably would have misunderstood them as sarcasm.

She went to the bathroom, holding a toothbrush in one hand and typing rapidly with the other: "It's only 5:30 now, why are people who don't have morning self-study up this early?"

After sending the message, without waiting for a reply, she exclaimed again, "And your step count is already three thousand! What were you doing so early in the morning?"

The text "typing" paused for two seconds before changing to a name. Wen Ying started squeezing toothpaste onto herself, guessing that Liang Muqi was going back to check her step count.

However, he clearly didn't understand, sending out a confused-looking soybean-head emoji before saying, "I went out for my morning exercise."

"What an energetic person," Wen Ying replied. "I've felt tired since I woke up. I don't even have the energy to brush my teeth or wash my face. And when I try to go downstairs to the bus stop, I feel like everything goes black. When will I be able to live the life of being chauffeured around in a private car?"

On the screen, Liang Muxi's name changed to "typing..." again. Wen Ying said, "I'm a little curious, why do you always take so long to type?"

This time, she received a reply as soon as she sent it. Liang Muxi said, "I'm sorry."

Wen Ying glanced at those three words, then at them again, and inexplicably felt a little unhappy: "You type very slowly, but you slide your knees very fast. You don't really want to chat with me, do you?"

Liang Muqi: "No." Then she quickly added: "I was just... trying to think of something."

"Say whatever you want." Wen Ying started washing her face. Since she couldn't type, she pressed voice message and said, "We're chatting, not doing homework."

A few seconds later, a voice message of the same length appeared on the screen. She clicked on it and heard Liang Muqi say, "Because I don't know what to say to make it seem..."

He paused abruptly, took a short breath in the brief silence, and then said, "...quite interesting."

Wen Ying was stunned for a moment, her finger hovering above the screen. She accidentally pressed play again, and Liang Muxi's voice came out completely again, along with that one second of pause and her breathing.

She pursed her lips and typed: "You... care about this?"

"I'm a little... bothered by it."

"You're copying my voice messages, and even my ellipses?"

"sorry."

It was that sentence again. Wen Ying raised her hand to type, then deleted it. She cleared her throat and pressed voice message: "Don't always apologize, you..." She paused, her voice involuntarily softening, "I can handle anything you say, Liang Muxi."

Liang Muxi said "Okay".

To express joy, it is followed by two smiling sun emojis.

Wen Ying clicked her tongue, searched for a few emojis in her collection, and sent them to him: "Learn something good. The first step to mastering the essence of fun chatting is to use emojis skillfully."

Liang Muqi: "Cat nodding.jpg"

Wen Ying: "Applying what you've learned is commendable."

Liang Muqi: "A panda with a bruised and swollen nose grinning.jpg"

Wen Ying: "Uh... this analogy isn't very good. You should just use the one I sent you first, instead of looking for it yourself."

Wen Ying carried her schoolbag out the door, went down the stairs, waited for the bus, and got on the bus. She chatted with Liang Muxi the whole time.

She felt he was talking more than usual today, and with the addition of some cute animal emojis, it was easy to get the impression that the person on the other end of the phone was a bit clingy.

During their back-and-forth conversation, Chen Ge interjected, "Just letting you know, I'm late. Your breakfast will be arriving a little later." Wen Ying complained to him, "Even seven alarms couldn't wake you up."

“I played games until the wee hours of the morning,” Chen Ge said. “Go check my social media profile, I’ve got a twelve-game winning streak.”

His intention to show off his achievements was quite obvious. Wen Ying didn't really want to see it, but Chen Ge's messages asking for likes kept popping up, blocking Liang Muxi's name. Wen Ying was greatly disturbed and had no choice but to do it.

I pressed a like button to exit, and then a red number popped up in the upper right corner that triggered my OCD. The system showed that the space had been visited five times. When I clicked on it, I found that the entire visit history was by Liang Muxi.

The last access record was at 4:53.

Unlike Chen Ge, Wen Ying's social media profile is completely blank; she has never posted a single update.

She uses WeChat Moments more often, but she posts very little there. There's only one photo of a band having dinner together and one song she shared.

Liang Muqi looked at that space, which was almost overgrown with weeds, again and again...

Wen Ying couldn't think of anything interesting to see.

There was no record of that on WeChat Moments, which makes it possible that Liang Muxi might have looked at those two posts several times...

Wen Ying suddenly felt her face getting hot, and her phone almost slipped from her fingers. She thought she was probably feeling embarrassed. She looked out the car window for a few seconds to calm down, and then belatedly realized why Liang Muxi had gotten up so early.

It really was just for running.

Or was it because you were taking care of a patient that you didn't sleep all night?

Or perhaps... you are suddenly awakened by a nightmare, want to talk to someone, but don't know how to start the conversation, so you can only hesitate and look at the screen repeatedly.

Just like his recent statement, "I don't know how to respond in a way that would be interesting," when faced with a sudden urge to confide, does he also feel the difficulty of speaking up and the embarrassment of showing his vulnerability to others?

A strange bitterness welled up in Wen Ying's heart, and she sighed helplessly. She had imagined that she could make others feel so pitiful, and she had actually become the "sensitive creator" that Chen Ge had mentioned.

It's all because of writing songs on a regular basis...

But if she wasn't mistaken, Liang Muqi really was... a little bit sad?

On his phone, Liang Muqi sent a new emoji: a kitten tilting its head. He asked, "Have you arrived at school yet?"

Wen Ying replied absentmindedly, "There's one more stop."

"Hmm, have you had breakfast?"

"Chen Ge, bring this to me."

"it is good."

The "typing..." message lit up again, and a few seconds later, the message "You two have a good relationship" appeared on the screen. At the same time, Wen Ying turned her gaze away from the window and quickly typed on the keyboard: "I'll come find you during lunch break."

The screen flashed, and the message suddenly disappeared. Liang Muqi said, "The hospital is far from the school."

"Did you learn to retract the message?" Wen Ying asked, puzzled. "I saw it all."

Liang Muxi: "It's very troublesome to go back and forth."

Wen Ying: "Why are you bringing up Chen Ge? Do you want to be friends with him too?"

Liang Muxi: "There might not be time to eat."

"..." Wen Ying felt he was changing the subject, but she didn't care. They were about to get off the bus, and business was important. "Books are spiritual food. After a morning of classes, it's okay to go hungry for a meal."

Liang Muqi wanted to say something more, so she continued, "I want to ask you for tutoring. After yesterday's exam, I've learned my lesson and decided to become someone who contributes to the class average and is valuable to society."

He jumped down the steps, pressed the voice button, and started making up a story: "A slacker like me can only be illuminated by the glory of being number one. You can't bear to see me fall into depravity, can you, Liang Muqi?"

A stream of people wearing the same blue and white school uniforms appeared before her. Wen Ying unzipped her backpack, walked forward, and just as she put her phone back in her backpack, she received a reply from Liang Muxi, which was also a voice message.

"I can't bear it," he said, pausing as he breathed slowly and heavily, as if suppressing his emotions.

After a brief silence, she calmed down and said with a smile, "I'll be waiting for you, Wen Ying."