The date is 14th May 2007, 8:50 am.
Two years have passed, and 16-year-old Li Chengyu arrives at the bus stop at Clementi Road opposite New Hope Polytechnic, the next stop in his academic journey that he chose to study in. He arrives there wearing a black T-shirt and navy blue jeans coupled with a new pair of spectacles and completed with a new pair of sports shoes that fits his new shoe size. He is also carrying a fairly large bag on his back and another hand-held carrying case which contains his notebook computer that he will use for the next three years in polytechnic.
The Chengyu seen here has not changed much in appearance compared to his look in secondary school, but his heart of loneliness and anger has become far stronger since that assault incident, due to a declaration he made in his previous secondary school where the teenage gang members once studied as well before their arrest by the police...
In his third year at his previous secondary school, weeks before he was transferred out of, his Chinese Language teacher wants to confer titles to some of her best students in class, Chengyu being one of them, and was conferred the title of 'Prince of the class', but this invoked severe anger inside of him, due to the fact that he is sitting on an isolated desk away from the class in the classroom as a result of his distrust in all his classmates. When the anger reached beyond its eruption point, he declared loud and clear in front of everybody in class:
“I don't want to be a prince! Never now or in the future!! The only place that suits me now is that of a lone ranger! A warrior who fights the course of twisted reality as a true one-man army!! I will fight completely on my own, even if the entire world wages a total war of annihilation against me!!”
This caused serious dissatisfaction among the entire class, including the teacher herself, making Chengyu more isolated than ever in the class that has him sitting isolated in a classroom of groups. Ever since that assault incident, he has rejected any contact from any peers in his school, or admit anyone into his Friendship Test which has since became far more stringent since his first 'Policy Fail' issuance.
But as for Chengyu himself, he still remembers every single word of the declaration he made at that time even till this very day, right down to each and every letter of that declaration, and made it a personal responsibility to uphold this for as long as he lives, until the day someone can remove the thorn inside his heart and heals him completely.
But before that can happen, he wants to remain all alone throughout his upcoming three-year polytechnic life to avoid any unnecessary harm to his heart that has a frozen thorn stuck in it. His heart has also been frozen over time as a result of the spillover effect of the frozen thorn, and has undergone regimens of extremely harsh secret training to minimize the effects of the thorn to the rest of his body. The result of this harsh training is a 180-degree change from the kind and calm soul of the past, in which the Li Chengyu right now is much tougher, colder, extremely fierce and merciless when faced with adversary and will spare no effort to burst and battle himself through any situation with extreme anger, willpower and brutality, to the extent that the fearless
Spartans in ancient Rome will shatter like brittle glass today when faced against this warrior.
“Fighting this vicious cycle of undue bullying has become my personal mission in life, as well as not allowing anyone to face the threat of bullies any more! Although this is a lone crusade, I have to give all I have to fulfil this mission!” Chengyu said to himself while his right fist tightens.
But one side effect of this serious angry determination is that anyone who tries to show kindness to him will invoke his emotional defence mechanism against them, however subtle the kindness will be. If the kindness gets too close or too much, his emotional defence can blitz immediately into hyper-drive and can destroy anyone completely which also applies to any hostility against him as well. So as for him right now, he will definitely repel anyone who show kindness as well as hostility towards him. In addition, any amount of kindness shown or hostile damage to him will automatically translate to emotional and psychological damage to himself and his heart ten times the amount shown or done to him.
Once he reached the Convention Centre in New Hope Polytechnic, he went straight in and handed in his enrolment documents to finalise his status as a student in this new school. Once that is completed, he is instructed to head for the School of Information and Communications Technology Faculty located a distance away from the Convention Centre. All this time, no one has ever talked to him in this campus, nor did he even approach anyone even once, relying entirely on himself all this time.
“Even in this new environment, I shall not ask for any help nor accept help from others when they offer it. I have to depend entirely on myself!!”
Arriving at Block 27 of the Faculty, he took the central lift up to the 5th storey of the building and reached his class orientation classroom. Sitting down on an empty seat inside the classroom, he saw many new faces, but is completely not interested in any single one of them. His biggest fear is that any interaction with anyone in the campus may start a process that will eventually activate his own emotional defence mechanism and ends up hurting or killing them.
A few minutes later, a lecturer comes into the classroom and the class starts to quieten down.
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Mr. Jonas Chua. I will be your class mentor for the next three years in this polytechnic, so I hope to know everyone of you and earn your trust by the end of your term in New Hope Polytechnic.”
Mr. Chua starts to write down some basic particulars about himself on the whiteboard, while Chengyu looks on.
“So this lecturer is our class mentor...... I still have to be extremely careful of any new person that I meet, regardless of where they come from, or their character! The last thing I will want is permanent damage to my heart and permanent damage to them in the end!”
After his basic introduction, the students start to ask him about his personal life. It seems like everyone is interested in this, except for Chengyu himself who is still looking at them. The only thing that has not changed at all for Chengyu is the constant thirst for information and knowledge that might aid him to deal with anyone or anything that he might be up against.
After a short discussion, the students are asked to introduce themselves to the class one by one, in which the other students can start asking questions after each one has done their own introductions. Chengyu was scheduled to be the last one to do so while the other classmates (totalling 22 students) starts to introduce themselves. During this time, Chengyu is still thinking of a way to put his own introduction forward without hurting his own psychological injuries.
After about one and a half hours of introductions and questioning time, it is finally Chengyu's turn to stand up and do his own introduction. But when his name is called, he starts to become nervous in fear of activating his emotional defences.
“I still can't think of a proper strategy to take this one out! What should I do??”
Chengyu slowly and reluctantly stood up, but the minute he opens his mouth, nothing came out of it.
“What's wrong with me!? Why can't I even speak now!?”
His right fist was clenched tightly, but still couldn't blurt a single word out of his mouth.
“This is bad......!!”
“Chengyu? What's wrong?” Mr. Chua asked about him. “Chengyu?”
“This is very bad! I can't release any words from my mouth!” Chengyu thinks while his fists are clenched.
The students in his class starts discussing about him, but Mr. Chua tells them to quieten down.
“It looks like I may have no choice but to do the introduction for him.” Mr. Chua explained his situation to the whole class. “As
you can see, Mr. Li Chengyu here has had a sad past in which causes him to have serious problems with interacting with people, thus causing the situation you see today, so please give him some time for his heart to open up slowly, okay?”
After the introductions, some ice-breaking games were played for the students to know each other better. However, Chengyu chose to sit out of every single one of those games as he feels his anti-social nature would be more of a hindrance to the progress of these activities than helping them at all.
“Sorry everyone, I really want to join in...... but I think this is not the perfect opportunity or timing to be involved in this yet......”
By the time the games ended, it is almost lunchtime. All the students start to leave the classroom, but Chengyu was called back by Mr. Chua.
“Chengyu, if it's okay with you, can you see me after the freshmen orientation in the afternoon?”
Chengyu still wasn't able to speak right now, so he couldn't answer him.
The date is 14th May 2007, 12:30 pm.
It is now lunchtime, and Chengyu went to the canteen next to Block 31 to have his lunch. However, the canteen is crowded with people from the Faculty and elsewhere, which makes finding a seat very
difficult. It's not very obvious to other people but Chengyu is still feeling very lonely due to the fact that virtually no one in his former schools have any place in this Faculty or even in this campus. Even if any of them are enrolled here, almost all of them do not recognise him at all due to the non-contact nature he has adopted since transferring to the secondary school that he graduated from.
“I have to be careful about my choice of lunch, no spicy food is number one priority for this.”
While he is walking past the stalls to decide what he wants to have for lunch, he notices a shot of orange hair among the crowd.
“What the......? Who's that......!?”
He tries to ascertain the identity of the person with the orange hair, but that person had disappeared in the next instant!
“Why does that orange hair seem so familiar......? Have I seen that kind of hair before in the past......?”
Knowing that worrying about that matter does not help, he decides to continue his search for his lunch for the day.
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