ATLAS TRANSLATES

They sat side by side on the bench. Luo Jingyu curiously looked around, especially at the area with children’s play equipment, which seemed to particularly interest him.

Zhan Xi tugged at his sleeve. He turned to her, and she asked, “Little Fish, have you been to the Youth Palace before?”

Luo Jingyu shook his head, swept his arm forward, pointed to himself, and finally held up one finger.

“Your first time?” Zhan Xi was surprised.

The Qiantang Youth Palace’s extracurricular classes had existed since the 1990s, and the small amusement park appeared alongside them. Over twenty years, it had been renovated several times. When Zhan Xi was little, she had visited once with her parents and brother. She hadn’t expected that Little Fish, a local child, had never been here.

Then again, it made sense — he wouldn’t have attended the interest classes.

Seeing Zhan Xi’s confused look, Luo Jingyu typed on his phone: [I was a very gentle child, didn’t like playing much.]

Zhan Xi read it and laughed, asking, “How gentle were you?”

Luo Jingyu pursed his lips and typed while looking down: [Very well-behaved, like a girl.]

Zhan Xi laughed so hard she rested her head on his shoulder. Luo Jingyu laughed too, both of them shaking with laughter.

After a while, Zhan Xi lifted her head but kept her chin on Luo Jingyu’s shoulder, watching his profile.

He certainly didn’t look like a girl now. He was tall and handsome, with a straight nose and sharp facial features rather than soft ones. His jawline was firm and clear. Though he was already twenty-six years old, he still had an air of pure youthfulness about him. No wonder Zhan Xi had initially thought he was her age or even younger.

Her gaze fell to his neck, where his Adam’s apple was prominently visible from the side. Zhan Xi, emboldened by some unknown courage, reached out to touch his Adam’s apple. Luo Jingyu startled and immediately turned to look at her, his right hand catching her left before she could withdraw it.

Zhan Xi took advantage of his grip to touch his Adam’s apple again. This was one of men’s distinctive features, and she had never touched one before. Luo Jingyu couldn’t help but swallow, and Zhan Xi’s fingers felt the movement of his Adam’s apple.

She asked with gentle eyes, “Little Fish, did you ever learn to speak?”

Zhan Xi didn’t think her question was inappropriate. Little Fish was her boyfriend, and she just wanted to know more about him — about his childhood and youth, she wanted to know it all.

But Luo Jingyu froze.

After hesitating for a moment, he shook his head. Zhan Xi didn’t show any particular reaction and just rested her head on his shoulder again. Like all couples in love, she hugged his arm, finding complete satisfaction in simply cuddling with him.

But Luo Jingyu’s thoughts were in turmoil.

He had lied to Huanhuan — he had actually learned to speak, though only for a month.

Because Luo Jingyu was born into a family with a history of hereditary deafness, his hearing was tested immediately after birth. Without any delay, they discovered he had hearing problems.

The whole family was plunged into deep disappointment. After accepting reality, his parents didn’t sink into depression but actively dealt with everything.

So, Luo Jingyu underwent treatment for a long period during his early childhood, though he himself doesn’t remember any of it.

As a child born with congenital deafness, Luo Jingyu was actually fortunate in some ways compared to deaf children born to parents with normal hearing.

There are many causes of congenital deafness: heredity, improper medication during early pregnancy, or genetic mutations.

Many healthy parents don’t discover their child’s hearing problems immediately after birth. By the time they notice, the child might be several months old, or even one or two years old. Since the parents of deaf children are typically people who can hear, they can’t communicate with their children, which can affect many congenitally deaf infants’ intellectual development during their earliest stages due to lack of external stimulation, impacting both their IQ and personality.

This wasn’t the case for Luo Jingyu. The first language he encountered after birth was sign language. His father, mother, grandparents, and sister all “spoke” to him using sign language, so his intellectual development wasn’t affected. In contrast, he had almost no concept of verbal language.

Children are innocent. Luo Jingyu didn’t realize he was different from other children in the neighborhood until he was four. At that time, he would unconsciously call out and cry, following Ji Hongzhe around like a little tail.

He could only follow Ji Hongzhe because only little Zhe would communicate with him in sign language. He didn’t understand why other children didn’t “talk” like him, and when their mouths opened and closed, Luo Jingyu didn’t understand what they were doing.

But little Zhe didn’t like playing with him, complaining that his noisy outbursts were annoying, and sometimes would even lead other children in bullying him.

Luo Jingyu was naturally kind-hearted and never held grudges. After being bullied and ostracized, he would only hide alone to cry. Eventually, he became isolated, spending his days following his mother to the welfare factory, sitting beside her watching her do handicrafts.

Later, Ji Hongzhe went to kindergarten, but Luo Jingyu couldn’t go. He asked his sister why he couldn’t attend kindergarten, and Luo Xiaomei, who was already in primary school, told him: [Because you can’t hear or speak, kindergartens don’t accept children who can’t hear.]

Luo Jingyu opened his big eyes and signed: [What does it mean to not hear?]

Luo Xiaomei tugged at his ear: [Ears are for hearing sounds. Others can hear, but we can’t. You watch cartoons on TV, they all talk, but you can’t understand.]

Four-year-old Luo Jingyu was terrified and tearfully signed: [Can I go to school in the future?]

Luo Xiaomei comforted him: [Yes, we’ll go to a different school from little Zhe.]

That was the first time Luo Jingyu learned he was deaf.

After that, he began observing other children, along with his parents’ neighbors and colleagues, and finally understood that the world had sound. Dogs would bark, horns would honk, people in cartoons would talk, and fireworks weren’t just beautiful but also very loud. All these sounds could be heard by others, and they could speak too, unlike him.

Luo Jingyu would often hide under his blanket, touching his ears and wishing that he would wake up one day able to hear. But day after day passed, and each morning he woke up, his world remained unchanged.

Fortunately, his father, mother, grandparents, and sister were like him — they all couldn’t hear. Still a child, Luo Jingyu learned to comfort himself: it doesn’t matter, I’m not the only one who can’t hear. Sister can’t hear either, but she can still go to school.

That same year, Luo Mingsung wanted to try fitting Luo Jingyu with hearing aids. Unfortunately, after testing, they found that like Luo Xiaomei, he had bilateral profound hereditary sensorineural hearing loss, with both ears measuring above 120 decibels, meaning he couldn’t hear any natural sounds.

With this degree of hearing loss, hearing aids would be useless. At the time, a doctor recommended cochlear implants to Luo Mingsung, mentioning that in 1997, China’s first pediatric cochlear implant surgery had been successfully completed in Beijing. The patient was a three-year-old girl, and the surgery was successful. After the device was activated, the little girl could hear sounds, and through speech training, she could learn to speak.

The doctor said the best age for pre-lingual deaf children to receive cochlear implants was between twelve months and five years old. Luo Jingyu was at the right age, though Luo Xiaomei was a bit too old. Luo Mingsung was interested and considered taking his son to Beijing for examination, but when he learned the price, he and Yan Yajuan fell silent.

The cost of several hundred thousand yuan in the 1990s was an astronomical figure for a deaf-mute couple working in a welfare factory, earning only a few hundred yuan per month. They didn’t even own a house, still living in factory dormitories. The few tens of thousands they had saved were meant for buying a house.

Luo Mingsung initially didn’t want to give up and sent Luo Jingyu to speech training. It was said that if deaf children could recover some language ability, they would be more suitable for cochlear implant surgery. Luo Mingsung thought that if his son did well in speech training, they would grit their teeth and borrow money to take him to Beijing. After all, this was a lifelong matter — being able to hear versus not being able to hear made an enormous difference for a child.

Unfortunately, because Luo Jingyu had never received any auditory stimulation since birth and had never undergone language learning, he strongly rejected the repetitive and tedious speech training, crying and making a fuss every day, refusing to go.

How could such a small child understand what speaking meant? He thought sign language was already speaking. Why did he have to press his little hand against the teacher’s throat to feel the vibrations? Why did he have to mimic the teacher’s mouth movements to make sounds?

Even when he made sounds, he couldn’t hear them and didn’t know what he was saying or if it was correct. Sometimes with a simple word, the teacher would make him repeat it over and over, but it was never right. He had no idea what was wrong. He felt his mouth shape, tongue position, and teeth placement were exactly like the teacher’s, but the teacher kept saying his pronunciation was incorrect.

He would cry heartbrokenly, crying while trying to speak. After persisting for a month, Luo Jingyu refused to go to speech training anymore, clinging to the door with tears in his eyes, refusing to leave. After this happened several times, Luo Mingsung and Yan Yajuan decided to give up.

Yan Yajuan believed that being unable to hear wasn’t a big deal — they had all grown up that way, and Luo Jingyu could still have a good life with a deaf wife in the future.

But Luo Mingsung was filled with guilt, especially after his son turned five, then six, seven, eight… As he grew older, the possibility of cochlear implants became more distant, but they still couldn’t gather enough money. They hadn’t bought a house, and there were rumors that the welfare factory would be restructured — if they lost their jobs, they didn’t know how the whole family would survive.

These things were gradually told to Luo Jingyu by his family as he grew up. Luo Mingsung always felt deeply apologetic towards both his children, especially Luo Jingyu. Firstly, for having a son with disabilities despite already having a deaf daughter, and secondly, because of the cochlear implants.

For both matters — the former could have been avoided, the latter was limited by their circumstances — Luo Mingsung felt he had failed tremendously as a father to both his son and daughter.

Thinking of these things, Luo Jingyu’s eyelashes lowered. He had never blamed his parents, though in his youth he had cursed fate, wondering why he was born different from others when everyone was human.

Zhan Xi didn’t know what Luo Jingyu was thinking. At this stage, he couldn’t express his thoughts well to her. It was a helpless situation — they had discussed this topic and agreed to take things slowly, not to rush, and not to get angry with each other about it.

They both made plans in their hearts — he was willing to work hard to improve his written typing skills for her, and she was willing to study sign language properly for him.

At 10:30, Zhan Kaiwei finished class. Zhan Xi went to the classroom door to pick him up. The little one walked out with his backpack, looking dejected. Even seeing Zhan Xi didn’t excite him; he just called out softly, “Auntie.”

Zhan Xi knew that her parents’ fighting would definitely affect her little nephew’s psychology, so she gently comforted him, changing the subject to ask what he had learned in class.

Weiwei’s next class was at 1:30 PM, leaving three hours of free time. Usually, Zhan Xi would take him to the bookstore to read for a while or to KFC to eat and rest. Qin Fei didn’t allow her to take Weiwei to play on the amusement equipment, saying that if the child played too much, he would fall asleep during afternoon classes.

However, today, seeing her little nephew’s drooping spirits, Zhan Xi’s heart softened. She asked him, “Weiwei, would you like to go to the amusement park?”

Weiwei looked up at her, blinking his eyes and saying, “I want to, but Mom won’t let me play.”

“Your mom’s on a business trip. Today auntie will take you to play, and we won’t tell your mom, okay?” Zhan Xi patted his little head.

Weiwei finally showed some spirit, jumping once and saying, “Okay! I haven’t played at the amusement park for so long!”

“Hmm… before we go play, auntie wants to introduce someone to you. He’s auntie’s friend, an uncle.” Zhan Xi held Weiwei’s hand and walked towards Luo Jingyu, who had already stood up from the bench when he saw them coming.

Weiwei asked, “Is he your boyfriend?”

Zhan Xi blushed, neither confirming nor denying, “Who taught you that? He’s my friend, look, that’s him.”

She pointed to Luo Jingyu standing a few steps away. Weiwei looked over and saw a very tall uncle.

Luo Jingyu was very nervous. Even though it was just a six or seven-year-old boy, he still felt like he was meeting the family. He stood with his hands in his pockets, trying to look cool, and gave Weiwei a bright smile.

“Call him Uncle Little Fish,” Zhan Xi said when they got close.

Weiwei politely looked up and called out, “Uncle Little Fish.”

The mouth shapes for “Fish Uncle” looked too similar, all with puckered lips. Luo Jingyu was used to being called “Brother Little Fish” by Gu Xinchi and didn’t catch what Weiwei had called him. He looked at Zhan Xi with a questioning expression: “?”

Zhan Xi made the sign for a swimming “fish” and said with amusement, “Little Fish, uncle, Uncle Little Fish. I’m his aunt, do you still want to be Brother Little Fish?”

Luo Jingyu smacked his forehead, shaking his head and laughing.

Zhan Xi crouched down to tell her confused little nephew, “Weiwei, let auntie tell you something. Uncle Little Fish can’t hear with his ears and can’t speak, but he can understand what you’re saying. When you talk to him, you need to face him and speak slowly, okay?”

After hearing this, Weiwei looked at Luo Jingyu again with a very curious expression. He had never known there were people who couldn’t hear or speak!

Luo Jingyu smiled at him, pointing to his right ear and shaking his hand. Weiwei made an “ah” sound and became a bit scared, quickly hiding behind Zhan Xi.

Zhan Xi was unhappy and pulled her nephew out, “What are you hiding for?”

The little one didn’t dare make a sound, peeking at Luo Jingyu from under his eyelashes. Luo Jingyu naturally wouldn’t be angry and reached out to ruffle his head, signing to Zhan Xi: [It’s okay, he’s just a child.]

Weiwei watched him use sign language and thought, so this is how Uncle Little Fish talks?

Zhan Xi and Luo Jingyu took Weiwei to play on the amusement equipment. After the little one rode the mini train, jumping frog, and carousel by himself, he asked to try the drop tower.

The drop tower in the small amusement park was actually quite short, designed for children, and not very thrilling. However, children under 1.3 meters still needed adult accompaniment.

Zhan Xi was afraid of heights and absolutely refused to go up, trying to persuade her nephew not to play it, but Weiwei was very unhappy: “I really want to ride this! The mini train is too childish!”

Luo Jingyu tugged at Zhan Xi’s sleeve, pointing to himself and then to the drop tower. Zhan Xi asked her nephew, “Would it be okay if Uncle Little Fish goes with you?”

Weiwei thought for a moment and agreed.

Earlier while playing, Uncle Little Fish had stayed by their side the whole time. Except for not speaking, he seemed no different from others, always smiling warmly, and had even bought him a grilled sausage to eat.

Luo Jingyu took Weiwei to line up, while Zhan Xi watched them from outside the railing. Luo Jingyu lifted the little boy onto the seat, sat down beside him, and helped buckle both their safety belts.

After the safety bar came down, the ride began. The eight-person row of seats gradually rose higher, leaving Luo Jingyu and Weiwei’s feet dangling. They looked down at Zhan Xi, who waved at them and took out her phone to take pictures.

When the seats reached the highest point, it was about four stories high. Weiwei fearfully hugged Luo Jingyu’s arm. Luo Jingyu had never ridden a drop tower before, and when the seats suddenly plunged down, he was startled too. He turned to look at the little boy beside him and found him staring at him in surprise.

The seats rose again, and with experience now, Luo Jingyu wasn’t scared anymore, finding the repeated drops quite fun. At this point, the little boy beside him tugged at his sleeve. Luo Jingyu looked at him, and Weiwei tilted his little head up and said, “Uncle Little Fish, auntie said you can’t speak, but you just did.”

Luo Jingyu: “?”

Had he made a sound? He probably lost control when he was startled.

He smiled awkwardly, pointed to his mouth, and shook his hand, meaning he really couldn’t speak. Weiwei innocently said, “Really, you did speak, you said ‘ah,’ I heard it!”

The little boy probably thought being unable to speak meant being unable to make sounds. Luo Jingyu didn’t know how to explain it to him and could only point to his mouth and shake his hand again. Weiwei pouted: “I really heard it, you can speak.”

After three minutes of going up and down, the ride ended. Weiwei felt he had become good friends with Luo Jingyu and wanted to hold hands while walking. He also demanded to ride the self-controlled airplane and pirate ship with Uncle Little Fish.

These two rides both involved going up high, and Zhan Xi’s legs went weak just thinking about it. She was more than happy to let Luo Jingyu take over.

The pirate ship was more thrilling than the drop tower. Luo Jingyu had even foolishly sat with Weiwei at the back of the ship. When the big ship swung to its highest point and dropped back down, the sensation of weightlessness suddenly hit, and he couldn’t control himself, crying out again.

Luo Jingyu was very nervous and eventually just covered his mouth. After getting off, Weiwei pulled his hand, excitedly saying, “Uncle Little Fish, you really can speak! You just said ‘ah’ several times, I heard it all. Your voice sounds very nice, I’m not lying.”

Luo Jingyu: “…”