Mio stopped using that notebook.
Well, she no longer relied on it exclusively, at least.
She cleared the table, leaving only three items: a pen, a stack of scrap paper and an old novel.
She'd pulled the novel from the bottom shelf; she'd long forgotten the plot, and only the yellowed corners remained.
She flipped to the middle and casually slipped a piece of paper inside.
The first layer of her record began.
She wasn't writing about events,
but feelings.
A sudden emptiness shot through her chest.
When she counted to four, she missed a beat.
Someone was there, but there was no shadow.
There was no time, no cause and effect; it was like fragments before waking from a dream.
After writing, she folded the paper into an irregular shape and tucked it into a page of the novel.
No page number, no position.
Then she took out the notebook.
This was the second layer of record.
This time, she wrote only one line:
'Everything normal today.'
Clean and safe, it met the world's expectations perfectly. She closed the notebook and put it back.
For the next few days, Mio repeated this process.
The real record was dismantled, jumbled and hidden within meaningless text. The record shown to the world was stable, ambiguous and non-aggressive.
Like a layer of skin.
The world didn't react immediately.
This made her even more cautious.
Until the fifth day.
She found a folded piece of paper in the novel.
The paper was still there, the creases unchanged.
But the words on the paper looked incomplete.
Not erased,
, but dismantled.
Sentences had been separated and their order disordered.
A hollow feeling shot through her chest.
Someone was at four.
Mio stared at the pile of words.
and suddenly she understood.
The world was trying to 'understand', but didn't know where to begin with logic.
It could organise sentences, but it couldn't restore feelings.
She didn't panic.
but continued writing.
Next time, her writing was even more rambling.
Blue
Countdown.
Too quiet.
The door wasn't closed.
Like a password or garbled code.
She hid these notes on different pages of books, in drawers and pockets.
She didn't develop a system or strive for completeness.
She didn't offer the world a summarising model.
In the notebook, there was still only that one sentence:
'Everything normal today.'
On the seventh night,
Mio opened the notebook.
A line had been added to that page.
The handwriting was still hers.
'Everything's normal today. You've done enough.'
Mio stared at that sentence.
for a long time.
Then she smiled.
She knew what it meant.
The world began to soothe her.
She closed the notebook and pushed it aside.
Then she pulled a piece of paper from her novel.
Beneath the jumble of words, she wrote another line:
'If you're talking to me, it means you're starting to fear that I'll understand.'
She didn't hide the paper.
Instead, she tucked it into the most conspicuous spot in the book.
as if to provoke.
Before turning off the light, Mio sat on the bed.
For the first time, she felt a strange sense of balance.
Neither victory nor security.
Rather, it was the feeling that she had finally outpaced the world.
The anomaly first appeared in someone else.
Not Mio, not the student council.
, but an entirely different person.
On Wednesday morning, a new message appeared in the class group chat:
'Li Qing is taking leave today.'
There was no reason or explanation given.
Mio stared at the message for a long time.
She didn't recognise the name and could only vaguely remember her as a girl who used to sit by the window.
That morning, that seat was empty.
No one mentioned it; no one even glanced at it.
Until the second period.
The teacher called the register:
"Li Qing."
A pause.
Less than 0.5 seconds — even shorter.
It was as if the world had been rapidly corrected.
The teacher frowned.
'Oh, taking leave.'
He continued reading.
Mio's fingertips grew cold.
That wasn't an echo of the collective subconscious.
It was a failed attempt at identification.
At noon, a new notice was posted on the noticeboard.
The title was long.
The content was very official.
Mio only glanced at the middle line:
'Due to an abnormal personal condition, a short-term adjustment will be made.'
There was no name, but she knew who it was about.
During the afternoon study period, she found that her seat had been changed and that the window seat was empty, as if it had never been there.
That emptiness, as if it shouldn't have existed.
Mio opened her novel.
The piece of paper tucked inside was still there.
The words hadn't been changed.
This meant one thing.
The world hadn't noticed her.
It had locked onto the 'abnormal direction'.
The noise she was making was misleading it.
After school, she overheard a conversation between members of the student council in the stairwell.
The voice was low:
'It's not her.'
'The source of the record is unstable.'
'It might just be a secondary infection.'
'Infection.'
The word sent a chill down Mio's spine.
She didn't approach.
She didn't leave either.
She just stood around the corner, listening.
'Clean it up first.'
Don't let the deviation spread.'
The footsteps faded into the distance.
Mio stood there.
For the first time, she truly realised:
Her confrontation wasn't safe.
Her strategy would bring others to the forefront.
That night, she didn't write anything.
No fragmented notes, no fake diary entries.
She spread out all the hidden papers one by one.
She looked at the illogical pieces,
For the first time, they felt heavy.
The next day,
A transfer student joined the class.
She sat by the window.
The teacher introduced her naturally:
'Please take care of her from now on.' "
Mio stared at the empty seat.
She watched a stranger sit down.
as if nothing had happened.
The world had undergone a perfect replacement.
Mio lowered her head.
She traced three words lightly in her palm with her fingernail.
Very faint.
Not her.
There was no paper or pen.
She dared not write them down.
Because she already understood.
When the world starts to misjudge, it stops distinguishing between right and wrong.
Mio stopped writing.
Not because she was afraid or threatened.
It was because she had realised for the first time that if she continued, someone would disappear in her place.
She put the old novel back on the bottom shelf, leaving no pages tucked inside.
She didn't tear it or burn it.
She simply stopped touching it.
She locked the notebook in the drawer, put the key in the innermost part of her bag and never took it out again.
She began practising one thing.
Not responding.
During roll call, the blank star reappeared and she lowered her head.
A new notice appeared on the noticeboard and she chose to ignore it.
Student council members passed by and she looked away.
The world seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.
A few days later, classes flowed smoothly, time no longer felt jumbled and the logical gaps had been neatly repaired.
Everything seemed to have returned to normal.
But the price slowly began to show.
She started to forget the order of things.
It wasn't a big deal; just some minor details that were too trivial to complain about.
She wasn't sure which day it was, couldn't remember why she was standing at the end of the corridor and found several new photos on her phone that she had no memory of taking.
She dared not look at them.
She was afraid that, once she had confirmed it, this confirmation itself would become a record.
First, the tone of voice disappeared.
She could remember someone's existence, but not the rhythm of their voice.
Later, the outline appeared.
She knew that person was important, but she couldn't picture their face clearly in her mind.
That night, she had a dream.
In it, she stood at the classroom door.
The classroom was full of people and noisy.
She wanted to call out a name,
But her throat felt sealed shut and she couldn't make a sound.
It wasn't that she had lost her voice, but that she didn't know how to speak.
When she woke up, she found herself crying.
But she couldn't explain why.
The next day, she found a faint scratch on the corner of the table.
It was crooked and uneven.
as though it had been scratched with a fingernail.
It wasn't hers.
Mio stared at those three words.
Her heart skipped a beat.
She didn't remember carving them.
But she knew that it was a message that she had left for herself.
the only record she could still understand.
After school, she passed the noticeboard.
At that moment, she felt an overwhelming urge.
She wanted to write something, even just one word.
She stood there for a long time.
In the end, she did nothing.
By the time she got home, it was dark.
The streetlights came on one by one.
Mio suddenly realised something:
She had succeeded.
The world had stabilised again.
And she was slowly being cleansed back to "normal".
That night, she lay in bed staring at the ceiling.
Her mind was blank.
But in the depths of the emptiness, a voice knocked persistently.
The voice was soft yet persistent.
It was as if it were reminding her:
'Silence is not safety; it's merely a delay.'