Jennie’s hands that were massaging his legs suddenly stiffened.

Self-inflicted…

Self-inflicted…

Jennie was in a daze. It seems like the book had mentioned that Lisa suffered severe post-traumatic stress disorder after the car accident and had a behavior of self harm.

The scar on his leg was a trace left from that time.

Jennie’s eyes were a little sour, especially after looking at the scar from such a close distance, what kind of pain did Lisa, a person with such a dull feelings, experience before he could develop post-traumatic stress disorder.

She wanted to reach out and touch it, but she was afraid that Lisa would be hurt. So Jennie retracted her hand again, carefully avoiding the scar, and restarted the massage.

“On the bottle of medicine I saw the label say that it’s for relieving nerve pain. Lisa, if the nerves in your legs are still responding, can your legs be cured?”

Lisa was silent again.

This was a reaction that happened when he didn’t want to speak.

Jennie had known him for nearly a year, and she could see his traces when he lied, and vaguely recognized what he meant when he was silent. Lisa’s legs might really be curable.

“Why didn’t you go?”

Because I can’t go, I shouldn’t go.

A person who shouldn’t have been born, a person who should have died in that car accident, who only survived by accident. A person who lived but the one who died in his stead was someone who didn’t deserve to die.

A defective product that was still alive in this world, but the mother who had been dragged down for half of her life for this defective product had left forever because of him.

He would always remember his grandmother telling him that he had dragged his mother down from the time of his birth. He had dragged her down for more than ten years, and then eventually, he even killed her.

He didn’t want to live, but because of his mother’s last words, he had to live. But these legs, the legs that were crippled in the car accident, since they are dead, let them go forever.

Jennie waited for Lisa’s answer, but she didn’t receive one.

He wanted to push Jennie’s hand away and told her not to waste time on these legs. But despite that, he didn’t speak, he was reluctant to speak.

He couldn’t feel her touch, but he still missed this feeling.

As time passed by little by little, the young man who was exhausted from the pain slowly closed his eyes. Jennie carefully put the quilt back on Lisa and sat on the bedside watching the young boy’s pale but delicate face.

The brows that had never been furrowed, slightly bent in his sleep.

Even when he was asleep he seemed to be tortured.

Jennie stretched out her hand, gently smoothed out his eyebrows, slowly pushing away his frowning eyebrows.

At eight o’clock in the morning, Uncle Chen hurried back.

After receiving Jennie’s call last night, he couldn’t sleep well anymore, and finally spent all night driving back.

Lisa was too tired last night to wake up, while Jennie had been up for half an hour, and was currently packing up the breakfast from the nutritionist.

Uncle Chen quietly opened Lisa’s door, and walked in before silently retreating. He looked back at Jennie, who had been startled and wondered what she was thinking.

He called Jennie in a low voice, and Jennie came back to her senses. She took the breakfast, and sat on the other side of the dining table, and after a long while, she said, “Uncle Chen, Lisa’s legs can it actually be cured?”

Uncle Chen was silent for a while before he said, “It can be cured, but it is difficult. The success rate is less than 20%, and the treatment process is…very painful. The most important thing is…”

“That Lisa himself is not willing to go through with the treatment.” Jennie finished.

Uncle Chen was stunned, and stared at Jennie for a long time, before nodding sadly “Yes, he doesn’t want to be cured at all.”

He said, it was his retribution.

After coming out of the kitchen, Jennie stood on the balcony and took a deep breath. She had never felt this kind of helpless powerlessness. She didn’t know what to do or what to say. She had always thought that his Asperger’s Syndrome was already very serious, but the more serious subject was actually Lisa’s radical and deep-rooted thoughts.

At 9:30 in the morning, Lisa finally got up. He sat in his wheelchair and looked at the girl with her back to him. His head was not yet fully awake because he had just woken up. When it finally did, he then remembered that Jennie had taken care of him for half the night last night, and massaged him with her hands.

The boy’s entire body suddenly straightened again.

Jennie turned her head when she heard the movement, Lisa had just woke up, and his soft hair had not yet been fixed, and a few strands of restless hair curled upwards. The dull hair instantly added to the still somewhat dazed teenager.

Jennie smiled suddenly.

Lisa looked at the smile on Jennie’s face, and felt like he was facing the sun. But the girl’s smile was even more dazzling than the sun, and Lisa subconsciously wanted to return Jennie with the same expression.

But he didn’t know how to laugh, and his facial muscles were unwilling to follow his instructions and in the end his expression looked strange.

Jennie patted her hand on the towel and walked over, looking at the young man, “I thought about what I am going to do today, Lisa, I will teach you how to recognize expressions and how to laugh.”

________

Later, Lisa came out of the bathroom and changed his clothes, and the messy hair on his head was gone, and he had returned to the cold and delicate youth of the past.

Jennie looked at Lisa’s neat and tidy hair, and for a moment she was a little disappointed.

Putting aside this and talking about the topic, the book on Asperger’s Syndrome that Jennie had been reading recently, said that this symptom could not be cured and would never be cured, but it can be lessened through other methods. Patients with AS become closer to normal people when they are able to slowly come to understand other people’s facial expressions or body movements.

If one thought of this Syndrome as just a Syndrome that needed to be cured or fixed then undoubtedly it would be very heavy to think about. But if one changed their way of seeing it, such as taking the initiative to progressively communicate and teach the person with AS about expressions and whatnot, the task becomes much easier.

The education of expressions and movements could be regarded as another language, something that would allow Lisa to better communicate and understand the world around him..

He doesn’t understand because he had never been taught, but if he learned slowly, someday he might be able to communicate normally.

Lisa didn’t know how Jennie was going to teach him. He seemed to be very obedient and sat at the table, but in fact, his mind was a complete mess.

Because Jennie put her phone on the table when she went out, Lisa had seen the big AS on the top of the screen from the book that she was reading.

Seeing this, his whole body was frozen in place.

He didn’t know that Jennie already knew that he was an AS patient, he hadn’t wanted her to know. Just like how he didn’t want Jennie to see his weird legs and embarrassing scars.

But now, he suddenly discovered that Jennie had already known about it a long time ago, but she never asked him about it, and kept this knowledge secret.

When did she find out?

How did she find out?

What did she think after finding out?

Did she think he is weird?

Did she think he was troublesome…?

Not even a minute had passed after Jennie had left the table, but Lisa had no idea how many thoughts had flashed in his mind.

During this time Jennie found a mirror from who knows where and then moved a chair to sit next to Lisa. Occasionally her arm would rub against arm from time to time, unlike when they wore school uniforms when they were sitting at the same table, the house was very warm, so Lisa felt Jennie’s warm skin.

It was much warmer than his.

Jennie put the mirror in front of Lisa, “Well, let’s learn from the most basic, that is, smiles. There are many kinds of smiles, a normal smile, a laugh, a wry smile, a sneer… There are so many, we’ll learn the simplest one today, the most basic smile, look at me!”

Lisa turned his head.

Ah, so close.

“No matter what kind of smile it is, the corners of the lips are generally raised. Some smiles have a larger arc and some are smaller. A smile is a common expression that everyone makes. In simple terms to smile is to curve your lips upwards by just a little. Understand that when I see a little it means that the arc of the smile is not large, so the curvature of the corners of the mouth is not very wide, just like what I am doing now.”

Jennie looked at him with a smile, and pointed to the corners of her lips, “The corners of the lips are raised, generally the teeth will be exposed, and then the eyes will be slightly squinted, and the entire facial arc is moved upwards.” Jennie gestured upwards with both hands,

“If a person’s facial features are like this, then the chances of it being a smile is 80%-90%. Generally, everyone is in a good mood when they smile. A smile will make people more confident and beautiful. Everyone will feel better when they see the other side smiling.”

Lisa slightly turned away from Jennie’s smiling face that was very close to his.

He also thought that a person looked better when they smiled.

Like Jennie, Lisa thought that at this moment, she was really beautiful.

And he seems to be able to perceive his emotions and found that his own mood was currently very good.

“Then let’s learn to smile first, okay?” Jennie placed the mirror in front of Lisa, still keeping her facial expression, “Like me, with lips raised…”

Looking at the mirror, Lisa finally understood what Jennie was doing.

He moved his stiff facial muscles, turned his head and looked at Jennie, feeling that he had already imprinted Jennie’s face deeply, but when he did it, it was far from simple.

Normal people don’t need to learn this at all. They would spontaneously change their expressions according to the feelings in their hearts, their eyes, mouths, etc. But for Lisa, the feelings in his heart and his facial expressions seem to be different hubs, and he needs to express commands in order to control his own facial features to make corresponding changes.

Not from the heart, but to imitate.