"Sir," he said, "if the judge lets an alien go for the first time, will he let him go for the second time?"

Polly looked at him gently.

"He let you go for the second time, and he let you go many times." Anzhe said, "Later, he knew you were an alien."

"But..." He wanted to say something, but he couldn't say anything. His heart was tightly grasped by a hand. He wanted to get rid of this inescapable confinement, but he couldn't.

"I'm sorry..." He was sure that he couldn't utter a complete sentence, and he said intermittently: "I...whenever I think of him, I...want to cry."

Polly hugged him in his arms: "Don't cry, child."

"Keep living," he said, "you will meet him again."

"I won't meet him," Anzhe grabbed Polly's arm, as if he was grabbing the last straw in the midst of emotional turmoil. He couldn't stop himself from crying, and finally he could close his eyes with trembling, and rest his forehead on Polly's shoulder: "I would rather...I would rather have never met him."

"Why?"

Anzhe couldn't say anything.

"You can say anything here, kid," Polly whispered, "Don't lie to me, and don't lie to yourself."

Anzhe's throat was choked, and he cried even harder. He didn't understand the relationship between human beings, but facing Polly, he seemed to understand it. He seemed to be facing a kind father, a loving priest, or a forgiving emperor. He knelt in the temple of Jehovah and could confess everything like any mortal in the world - but in fact, it was not to any other person or god, but to himself.

"I want to see him..." He opened his mouth, his whole body trembling with severe pain, his mind went blank, and he finally broke through the emotional barriers and blurted out: "I want to see him..."

"I want to see him." He repeated this sentence almost in self-destruction: "I want to see him, sir, I want to see him. I don't regret leaving him, but... I really regret it."

"I know... I know." Polly patted his back gently with his palm and comforted him.

"You don't know..." Anzhe said, his words contradicted himself, his emotions were torn into pieces, and sorrow drowned his soul like an ocean. If this ubiquitous longing and pain killed him alive, he would not be surprised.

"I have lived several decades longer than you, kid." Polly said, "You are still young, and there are still many things you don't know."

"You..." Anzhe looked up blankly. He couldn't refute, and he didn't want to argue. There was indeed something pent up in his chest, which he couldn't grasp or see clearly, but he couldn't describe it.

He looked over Polly's shoulder, looked at the endless night sky, and murmured, "You don't know...what?"

Dongdong.

In the brief silence, Anzhe heard his own heartbeat. He suddenly had a premonition that what Polly was going to say next might change his life.

He heard Polly's breathing.

"You don't know." In the silence, Polly said, "You love him."

Anzhe widened his eyes.

In the sky, the aurora changed, and the deep green light was like a rolling tide, moving from the south to the north, dissipating and then reborn.

He trembled violently.

The strong intuition hit his soul like a meteor hitting the ground, and the light made everything in the world bright. He didn't actually know what the three words meant, but he knew it was right.

He was completely stunned, forgetting even his sorrow, staring blankly at the aurora in the distance. Until Polly let him go and wiped the tears from his face with his hand.

"But why is it like this?" he murmured.

Before he could get an answer, he was caught up in another more urgent question.

"Then...then will he love you too?" He looked at Polly almost begging: "Will he love you too? You are...an alien."

"Did he say anything to you?"

Anzhe shook his head. The time they had together was terribly short. He said, "But he kissed you." But

he didn't know the meaning of that kiss. On that day, the power of words was too pale. They couldn't do that.

"You're still alive." Polly asked, "Did he let you go?"

"I left him. He has always been a qualified judge and I knew he would not let me go." Anzhe said slowly, "I wanted to leave him and find a place to die. But his gun fell into your backpack, so I could return to the abyss."

"His gun fell into your backpack?" Polly repeated this sentence.

Anzhe said "um" lightly, and a faint smile appeared in his eyes: "He likes to leave his things here."

Polly Jones stroked his hair slowly with his hand.

"You have to know, silly boy," Polly said, "the judge never leaves his gun. This is an iron rule established a hundred years ago."

Anzhe looked at him quietly, and finally, he bit his lips tightly.

"I don't know," he said, "I really don't know."

"Whatever the reason," Polly told him, "he must love you too."

"Will the Inquisitor like aliens?"

"I don't know," Polly said, "but I have lived with many aliens for more than a hundred years - if you think you are still qualified to be called the Inquisitor."

Looking at those gray-blue eyes that seemed to know everything, An Zhe thought, Polly must know why Lu Xun liked him, but he didn't dare to ask. If Polly didn't say, he must have his reasons.

Many images appeared before his eyes. Inside the city gate, a woman who lost her husband cursed him hoarsely, and at the supply station in the square, a bullet shot through Dusay's head, but she fell forward towards him. Countless silhouettes appeared before his eyes, those shouting at the top of their lungs, trembling with fear, and admiring him to the bone. Countless black shadows rose up, swarming together, reaching out to him, using love, hate, and the hatred and fear that they knew well, pushing him to the top of a mountain where the wind was howling, and letting him look down at these groups of people.

No one approaches him, no one understands him, and those who love him would rather spend their entire fortune to customize a fake doll than take the initiative to say a word to him.

As for... as for the favor and preference of the Judge, that is something no one dares to hope for. What kind of creepy fear and unimaginable honor is that?

As an alien species that is completely opposite to humans, he secretly hopes to get that thing. And he actually got it.

At least, at the moment when Lu Xun put the gun in his backpack, there was such a second in billions of years - in that second, the Judge left the gun to an alien, and he betrayed his lifelong belief to love him.

Then, just like the children in the fairy tale, the clock struck twelve, some people returned to the abyss, some returned to the base.

Like a sandstorm that gradually stopped, in the sound of the bell, the dust settled, and Anzhe's heartbeat returned to its normal frequency little by little. He received unimaginable rewards, but he was completely calm.

He felt enough, everything was enough.

"If one day, when mankind is safe, you meet him." He said to Polly, "Please... please don't tell him that you have been here."

Polly said, "No one can lie to the judge."

"Then you say that you have been here and left." Anzhe said, "You have gone far away, you may be anywhere in the world."

Polly looked at him with gentle and sad eyes.

"I really hope that God will take care of you." He said.

Anzhe shook his head slowly.

"But you can't love him, and he can't love you." Anzhe said this softly.

"Unless-unless the day when mankind falls. But I hope that day will never come." At this moment, calmness and peace enveloped him.

Countless translucent white ice chips appeared in the gaps between the aurora and the clouds. They drifted down, and the silent mountains and night came alive because of the flying snow. It was snowing.

An Zhe stretched out his hand, and hexagonal snowflakes fell on his fingers. The beautiful shape gradually lost itself in the temperature of the skin and gathered into a crystal clear water drop.

"I have known you for three months." He said, "But this is my whole life."

The wind sounded louder, and thousands of snowflakes blew into the gray corridor, like catkins in the spring breeze. An Zhe looked up, thinking that he had forgotten the past, but everything was unfolding before his eyes, dispersing into glittering fragments.

The turbulent waves subsided, and the waves and undercurrents stopped surging. He could not say he was sad, nor happy. He thought the snow was beautiful.

His life of joy and sorrow, encounters and partings, like the birth and death of all tangible things in this world, were all fleeting snowflakes.

"Is it cold?"

"No."

He remembered the shape of the snowflake, and in that second he gained eternity.

The aurora shone through the abyss.

In the laboratory, there was a sound of glass breaking.