Adding insult to injury

It was 3 p.m. on the first Tuesday after spring break.

In the open-plan office area on the second floor of the psychology building, the hum of the air conditioner mingled with the sound of rain, casting a damp and weary atmosphere. Since the good weather on St. Patrick's Day, the rain has hardly stopped, falling intermittently until now. It's as if the heavens have suddenly turned into a capricious child, crying and whining.

Each cubicle was lit by a desk lamp, and the gray-white partitions resembled isolated little islands, with the occasional soft sounds of turning pages and typing coming from within.

Pan Qiu was huddled in her cubicle, a half-finished coffee resting on the corner of the table, its cold aroma carrying a bitter aftertaste. She tried to focus on her work, grading student-submitted psychological case analysis reports, but she couldn't concentrate. Her thoughts, like raindrops outside, pounded against her heart relentlessly.

What she was incredibly anxious about was that in less than 24 hours, she was to go to that all-too-familiar office on the third floor for her routine meeting with Ethan. The thought of that familiar desk, the chair opposite him, and his gaze suddenly made her panic.

Did he see her fleeing in such a disheveled state on St. Patrick's Day? She couldn't be sure. But that question alone was enough to make her heart clench.

Ding—reality responded with a notification sound, and a new email popped up in her inbox. The subject line read coldly: Decision: Major Revision.

Click to open. The comments from the three reviewers are lined up like bullets:

The topic is too niche. The theoretical significance of bilingual inner speech has not yet been fully demonstrated to warrant a full paper.

The sample size is limited (n≈several tens), the statistical power is insufficient, and the extrapolation is questionable.

The lack of a control group (monolingual/bilingual) suggests that a third variable may have been introduced.

The operational definition of “inner speech” is not fully aligned with the existing literature system, and the conceptual boundaries are vague.

Even if it is valid, its practical application value is unclear.

Each strike hits the vital point.

Pan Qiu stared at the screen, suddenly feeling as if she and her thesis were being held underwater—every time she tried to lift her head to breathe, another reviewer's hand would immediately push her back down. She stared at the few lines of cold, impersonal comments, her chest tightening. Suddenly, she let out a cold laugh, thinking to herself: Very well—love, gambling, and thesis writing, all three are empty-handed.

She was trying to reassure herself: at least tomorrow's meeting has a real topic, so there's no need to worry about awkward silences.

The words in her mind had barely left her lips when she suddenly heard two light taps behind her, right on the edge of her cubicle partition. The sound wasn't loud, but it pierced her nerves like needles.

She turned around quickly. It was Ethan.

His expression remained calm as always, holding a stack of printed manuscripts in his hand.

“I’m sorry,” he spoke first, his voice low and steady, “I didn’t mean to bother you. I just thought you might have already seen the reviewers’ comments and perhaps wanted to discuss it as soon as possible.”

Pan Qiu nodded, hurriedly closed her notebook, and followed him up to the third floor. Her heart was pounding uncontrollably, the thumps seeming to break free of her chest. She felt like she was about to faint; it was utterly absurd.

Panqiu followed Ethan into the office at the far end of the third floor. The moment the door closed gently, a familiar scent wafted over—the fragrance of pages, the smell of ink from the printer, and a faint hint of coffee.

This mixed smell usually calmed her down, but today it made her heart tighten.

As usual, they sat at opposite ends of the round table. The tabletop was spotless and arranged neatly as always. But Panqiu felt as if she were nailed to her seat, her body leaning slightly forward, her posture stiff.

Ethan didn't rush to speak, but simply looked at her quietly. His eyes weren't oppressive, but rather seemed to be organizing his thoughts, carefully considering how to begin. The air between them seemed to freeze, and time stretched out to an absurdly clear level for every second.

Pan Qiu suddenly remembered a term she had learned in class: "hypervigilance." When people are nervous, they magnify every small movement of the other person to an exaggerated degree, as if their brain has automatically entered a threat scanning mode. She wasn't sure if she was being manipulated by this mechanism at that moment.

She was over-interpreting and magnifying the other person's every move, trying to find clues in non-existent details. But once she realized this, she panicked even more: if she couldn't stop, the meeting couldn't continue.

The atmosphere froze at both ends of the round table, so quiet that even the hum of the air conditioner was amplified.

Pan Qiu stood stiffly, unsure how to begin.

Ethan finally spoke first, his tone calm: "Let's go through the main peer review comments one by one."

He pushed the printed copy to the center of the table. Pan Qiu reached out to take it, but her movements seemed a little flustered, and her cuff accidentally pulled a pen off.

She immediately bent down to pick it up, but her body was so low that her head almost hit the edge of the table when she stood up.

In that instant, a hand reached out faster than her and blocked the edge of the table. The cold wood didn't touch her, but her forehead lightly brushed against the back of that hand's fingers.

Time seemed to freeze for a second. Pan Qiu froze, her ears instantly burning hot.

She looked up, and before she could look away, her gaze met Ethan's directly.

It was a silent gaze—

He was very close, his gaze focused and calm, yet a subtle softness emanated from the refraction of light.

In that instant, she could almost hear the subtle tremors in the air.

Ethan's hand was still resting on the edge of the table, the lines of his knuckles clearly defined.

He seemed to sense her panic, paused slightly, then casually withdrew his hand, simply reminding her, "Be careful."

The tone was gentle and restrained, yet carried a subtle lingering charm.

Pan Qiu's heart skipped a beat, as if touched gently by something invisible—

I was both shocked and afraid to take a deep breath.

When she looked up again, he had already lowered his eyes, his fingertips turning the first page of the printed document, his voice regaining its usual calm: "Let's start from the first point and look at them one by one."

Pan Qiu quickly composed herself and focused her attention on the manuscript that Ethan was pointing to.