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The darkness before dawn is thickest. There are no lights on in the living room, only the city's perpetual light pollution seeping in from the window, casting blurry and distorted blocks of color on the floor.

Chen Xu lay frozen on the sofa, not daring to move. The brief, strange, and abruptly ended conflict outside the door had sent a chilling current through his spine, leaving him with a constant shudder and a near-paralyzing fear. His ears were ringing as he strained to detect any sound, but there was only dead silence outside, as if it were all just an auditory hallucination caused by his extreme tension.

However, he knew it wasn't.

His gaze was fixed on the figure at the window, its back to him. Ye Shu remained standing, his posture unchanged, as if he had never turned, never made that silencing gesture, never gazed at the door with that penetrating gaze. But something in the air was different. An invisible, intangible, yet breathtakingly heavy aftermath still lingered.

Time crawled by minute by minute. The inky black of the sky outside the window began to fade very slowly, turning into a dull blue-gray.

Finally, the first ray of pale morning light struggled to penetrate the clouds and illuminated the room.

As the light returned, Chen Xu's tense nerves seemed to relax a little. He sat up very slowly and carefully, not even noticing the blanket slipping off his body. He looked toward the door, then toward Ye Shu's back. He opened his mouth, but his throat was too dry to make a sound.

At this moment, Ye Shu moved. He turned his head slightly, and his profile appeared unusually clear and pale in the morning light.

"Gone." He uttered these two words, his voice as flat as if he was talking about the weather.

Chen Xu's heart suddenly sank: "Gone... Gone? Who left? Just now... Just now outside..."

Ye Shu didn't answer the question about "who". He just turned back and continued to look out the window at the gradually brightening sky. "For now, he won't be coming."

These words were like a pardon, instantly draining away the strength Chen Xu had forced himself to hold on all night. He collapsed onto the sofa, gasping for air. Only then did he realize the cold sweat pouring down his back. The fear receded slightly, and a sense of exhaustion and a sense of surviving a catastrophe washed over him.

He stared at Ye Shu, a thousand questions swirling in his throat: What just happened? How did you know they were gone? What did you do? Why did they…?

But looking at Ye Shu's absolutely calm, even more distant figure than before, all his questions choked. He realized that he might never get the answer. Or rather, the answer lay in the silence he couldn't understand, the silence called "Ye Shu."

Ye Shu left the window and headed for the kitchen. The sound of boiling water rang out, steady as ever. Soon, the aroma of tea filled the air, bringing a calming power.

He brought over two cups of tea and placed one on the table in front of Chen Xu.

Chen Xu lifted the teacup with trembling hands. The scalding heat seeped through the cup's walls, scorching his cold palms and bringing a touch of genuine comfort. He sipped it, the boiling hot tea sliding into his stomach, slowly dispelling the chill within him.

The two sat facing each other in silence. The sunlight gradually grew stronger, completely dispelling the darkness and illuminating everything in the room. It was as if everything that had happened last night had truly been just a nightmare.

But some things have indeed changed.

Chen Xu stole glances at Ye Shu. He was still as indifferent, as quiet, brewing tea, drinking water, and gazing out the window. But Chen Xu sensed something was different. It was no longer a detached indifference, but a kind of... a calm that had, after some silent wash, become even more silent, yet even more unfathomable. It was as if after a storm, the sea surface had returned to a smooth, mirror-like state, yet no one knew the turmoil that had roiled the deep sea.

An invisible "trace" also grew between him and Ye Shu. It wasn't a barrier, but a strange, fragile connection born from a shared experience of a sinister secret. He glimpsed a glimpse of the true nature of Ye Shu's realm of absolute silence—it wasn't emptiness, but rather contained a power he couldn't understand, yet it was real.

That morning, Chen Xu mustered up his courage and carefully checked the internet using Ye Shu's computer. He discovered that most of the slanderous and suggestive online discussions about him had quietly vanished. The remaining posts had become vague and lost their focus. It was as if an invisible hand had quietly erased those traces of malicious intent.

He looked at Ye Shu in astonishment. Ye Shu was standing by the window, holding a tiny feather that had floated in from the window at some point in time, his fingertips watching with indifference.

Chen Xu didn't ask anything. He knew it wouldn't lead to any results.

In the afternoon, Chen Xu prepared to leave. After a night of terror, he urgently needed to return to his nest for a good night's sleep to process everything.

He walked to the door, held the door handle, hesitated for a moment, and looked back at Ye Shu.

Ye Shu was sitting in his usual seat, staring blankly at the dust flying in the air. He seemed completely unaware of Chen Xu's departure.

"Ye Shu," Chen Xu's voice was a little hoarse, "I... I'm leaving."

Ye Shu's eyelashes moved very slightly, but his gaze was not focused on Chen Xu. He just said "hmm" very lightly.

Chen Xu took a deep breath and opened the door. The familiar world outside poured in, yet it seemed as if there was an invisible membrane between them. He walked out and gently closed the door.

“Click.”

The sound of the door lock closing was particularly clear.

The apartment returned to the absolute silence that was unique to Ye Shu.

He still sat there, not moving for a long time.

When the sun set, he slowly stood up and walked to the door. He did not immediately clean up the traces outside the door - there might be strange footprints, scratches from struggling, or perhaps nothing at all.

He just stood there quietly, his eyes lowered, looking at the extremely fine, almost invisible scratch on the bottom of the door panel, which might have been left in the chaos last night.

He looked at it for a long time.

Then he stretched out his finger and lightly brushed the scratch with his fingertips, his movements as gentle as if he were touching a fragile treasure, or as if he were providing some kind of silent comfort.

The fingertips felt the rough touch of wood.

He withdrew his hand and went to the kitchen to get a rag and bucket. Instead of ignoring or covering it up, he began to wipe the floor at the door and the lower half of the door panel very carefully and meticulously.

The movements were slow and focused, like completing a silent ritual.

He wiped away all visible and invisible traces left from last night.

After doing all this, he cleaned the tools and put them back in their original places.

Then he returned to the living room and sat down again.

Outside the window, the city lights came on and the nightlife began again, noisy and full of vitality, as if the silent invasion last night had never happened.

Inside the apartment, everything returned to normal: empty, clean, and quiet as before.

Ye Shu picked up the cup of tea that had already gone cold on the table and brought it to his lips, but did not drink it.

He just maintained that posture, his eyes fixed on the bright and illusory lights outside the window.

An invisible "trace" has been quietly engraved into the depths of his eternal and unchanging silence.

Very light, yet impossible to wipe away.