Teacher Ike

Around three o'clock in the afternoon, the winter sunlight slanted in along the corridor.

Just as Panqiu was about to turn off the computer, a soft knock sounded on the door.

"Teacher... is this a convenient time for you?" A girl wearing round-framed glasses stood at the door, holding a thick book, her fingers gripping it tightly.

"Come in," Pan Qiu smiled. "Who are you—?"

The girl took two steps forward and nervously and earnestly introduced herself: "My name is Su Miao, and I'm a junior at our school. I... booked your office hour for today in advance."

Pan Qiu nodded: "I remember, you said you wanted to talk about your research direction?"

Su Miao took a deep breath and sat down as if she had mustered up her courage: "Teacher, I... I've actually been thinking about whether I want to study for a master's degree abroad in the future. But I haven't had a specific direction in mind before."

She looked up, her eyes bright: "Until... a seminar last semester."

Pan Qiu was slightly taken aback: "Seminar?"

Su Miao nodded, her tone suddenly becoming softer and brighter: "Yes. It's that visiting scholar, everyone calls him Professor Chi Shui. On the first day of class, when he introduced himself, he said that his Chinese wasn't very good, and asked us to call him Chi Shui. He said that the name came from an ancient poem."

She frowned, trying to recall: "He read it with a lot of frustration... his Chinese pronunciation was weird, but it sounded quite nice. The whole class was quiet. We couldn't understand what the poem was about, but... the atmosphere was very gentle."

Su Miao continued, "However, he said that he named himself 'Chi Shui' (Pool Water) because his emotions are like this line of poetry—when the light shines up, it is a kind of being seen; when the wind blows ripples, there is no need to be afraid."

At this point, she smiled gently: "Later, every time he talked about the theory of emotion construction, about culture and mind, his tone was very much like the feeling that poem gives people... very peaceful, very steady, and a bit... indescribable power."

Pan Qiu's heart skipped a beat.

Su Miao continued, "Then I took your class and felt that... the way you two teach is very similar. It's that feeling of 'explaining complex concepts very lightly and gently, but suddenly a sentence hits you right in the heart'."

She looked up, her eyes shining with sincerity: "So I... took the liberty of asking you. I want to do research with you and gain some research experience for my application to study abroad."

As Pan Qiu listened, her eyes seemed to slowly fill with a warm light. She paused for a few seconds before finally speaking slowly, "Are you sure you want to work on the emotional construction direction?"

Su Miao nodded: "Yes. I want to try."

Pan Qiu smiled gently: "Okay. I'm preparing a paper for a German conference. You can start by helping me with some research materials."

Su Miao's eyes lit up with surprise: "Really? I can really be with you?"

"sure."

When the girl stood up, holding her book, she was radiant. Before leaving, she turned back and said, "Teacher, I'm so glad I met Professor Chi Shui... but I'm even more glad that I can do research with you now."

The door closed gently, and the student left.

The office returned to the quiet that is typical of a winter afternoon—warm light, a gentle breeze, and the sound of paper curling slightly.

Pan Qiu sat there, motionless for half a minute. The student's words—"Teacher, the way you lecture... really resembles Teacher Chi Shui"—still echoed in her ears.

picture?

She chuckled softly, a hint of bitterness tinged with her smile.

How could it possibly resemble that?

She knew perfectly well where she learned her teaching style—it came from quietly observing, memorizing, and imitating it during that period. It was about being gentle, patient, and standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the students, rather than looking down on them.

That's Ethan's style. And it's something she secretly picked up.

So when others thought she "looked like another teacher," she didn't know why... her heart skipped a beat. She instinctively moved towards that empty space—towards a direction that didn't even exist. But in just three seconds, she realized what she was thinking.

How ridiculous.

She even laughed at herself, a little self-deprecatingly.

She stood up, rearranging the fragments of her former office colleague in her mind: long hair. A big beard. An artistic temperament. Philosophical lectures. He spoke Chinese with great effort.

She pictured Ethan at their lakeside wedding—his suit impeccably tailored, his hair neatly styled, and his profile radiant.

...Not at all like it.

She gently shook her head. That heart-pounding feeling of "thinking it was him for a moment" now seemed as absurd as a hallucination in the night.

She turned her gaze back to the bookshelf. Among the books left by her ex, there was one with a soft beige cover and an author whose surname was clearly Japanese.

She stared at the name for a few seconds.

Pool water.

Japanese writer.

A visiting scholar with long hair and a large beard.

I like philosophy.

She suddenly breathed a sigh of relief: "He's probably Japanese."

Thinking this way, the world immediately became quiet and rational, without any unnecessary ripples. Only she herself—in this small, fleeting moment on a winter afternoon—revealed a part of her own emotions.

Pan Qiu exhaled softly, pulling these thoughts back from their distant horizons. She still had classes to prepare, papers to write, and students to mentor.

She gently placed the Japanese author's book back on the shelf, her fingertips lingering on the cover for half a second, as if confirming some fact unrelated to herself.

The wind blew through the ginkgo leaves outside the window, casting shadows that swayed on the desk.

Panqiu sat back in her chair and turned on her computer, but the cursor blinked several times and she couldn't type a single word.

She knew perfectly well that the pool water couldn't be Ethan. Nothing made sense. There was no rational reason to connect the two of them, yet for a fleeting moment, her heart skipped a beat towards him.

Pan Qiu closed her eyes and took a soft breath. Half a year had passed; so much time had gone by. She had done so many new things, met so many new people, adopted a new identity, and returned to a new life…

Yet a thin thread still quietly tugs at my heart.

On a winter afternoon, she was gently reminded that what she thought she had let go of had actually been moved to a deeper place by time.

Around 9 p.m., Panqiu returned to the teachers' apartment.

After taking a shower, she casually wrapped her hair in a towel and sat down at her desk to read her thesis.

The cursor blinked on the screen a dozen times, but she didn't type a single word.

I don't know why—it felt like something quietly tapped in my heart.

Pan Qiu hesitated for a few seconds, but finally clicked on the website that she had already added to her favorites.

The page is as simple as it was six months ago, even a bit overly academic. There are no dynamic updates, and apart from research directions, course links, and publications, there's nothing else.

Pan Qiu knew that every time she opened the app, she wouldn't see much new content, perhaps just an extra paper occasionally. But she would still visit it from time to time.

It wasn't that she wanted to spy on anything—it was just… when some inexplicable emotion welled up inside her, this page acted like an invisible tranquilizer. It had no taste, no weight, yet it allowed her to take a deep breath.

She stared at the line “Cognitive Psychology – Prof. Ethan R. Ellery” for a long time.

Pan Qiu leaned back in her chair and let out a soft breath. The few seconds of browsing made her feel like she was surfacing a little from deep water.

She knew this habit wasn't good. But she also knew it wasn't a serious offense.

Panqiu closed the webpage and shut down the computer.

The only thing left in the room was the mist gently exhaled from the humidifier, like white breath slowly dissipating in the winter night.

Then, she began to truly get to work.