Hear the voice of emotions
Each teacher had three minutes to introduce their research area. It was like an information storm—some were serious, some were relaxed.
The first person to go on stage was a male professor with snow-white hair. He adjusted the microphone and said with a smile, "I used to be able to memorize the entire phone book, but now I can't even remember my own WiFi password."
The laughter in the classroom grew even louder.
His research topic is memory modeling, specifically the relationship between age and memory loss. Midway through his presentation, he asked if anyone in the audience could remember their elementary school classmate's phone number.
Panqiu did try to recall, but only a string of blurry numbers and the sound of a mobile phone ringtone popped into her mind.
The second speaker was a female professor in a light green suit. She was an expert in digital fatigue and spoke at a breakneck pace, like a high-speed train passing through a station. Her slides were filled with images, resembling a chart of tech stock trends.
Pan Qiu strives to keep up with the key words: "cognitive load", "fluctuations in screen time", and "video conferencing fatigue".
But when she saw the sixth chart, she just felt a little dizzy.
Next, a female professor wearing a light gray suit and with brownish hair walked onto the podium and said that her research focused on how attachment relationships are established.
She didn't use slides or refer to her notes; her voice was low, yet remarkably penetrating.
“Insecure attachment is not a wound—it’s a knot. It’s a thread that you tied to someone when you were a child, but you never learned how to untie it.”
Pan Qiu stopped writing. The professor's profile was gentle, and his voice sounded like he was comforting a crying child.
“We study how early care and neglect affect intimate relationships in adults. If you’ve ever wondered why some people make you feel at home while others don’t—then you’re already doing attachment research.”
She knew that if she had to choose a mentor now, she should choose this professor. She was familiar with the theory and had had similar questions. This professor seemed gentle and clear-headed.
Before she could think it through, the next teacher representative stood up: "Next up is Dr. Ethan Ellery from the Emotion Regulation Lab."
At that moment, it was as if the classroom had quietly pressed the "clear cache" button.
He wore a dark gray shirt, the cuffs rolled up halfway, and walked with a rhythmic yet subtle gait. He was tall and slender, but his expression wasn't sharp. It was a quiet clarity—like a research building still lit up on campus at night.
He looked younger than the previous professors, probably in his early thirties, with neatly cut hair, clean features, no superfluous expressions, and no deliberate attempt at friendliness.
He wasn't like a novice scholar eager to prove himself, nor did he exude the aura of a senior professor. Instead, he was a calm and self-sufficient young man—like someone who was already used to dealing with emotions, yet still retained a certain restrained curiosity about the world.
He didn't bring a prepared speech or slides. After standing still for a second, he began to speak.
“We study how people regulate their emotions. Not what they feel, but what they do about those feelings.”
The voice wasn't loud, but it was very clear. The tone was steady, with slight pauses between words, as if giving the listener some breathing space.
“Our lab focuses on three processes: inner language, selective attention, and the stories we tell ourselves. We believe that emotions are not just reactions—they are constructed. You don’t ‘find’ an emotion, you ‘create’ it.”
Panqiu felt as if the surroundings had fallen silent for a moment.
"And regulation is not suppression; it means listening—listening to the feelings that are rising, rather than pushing them away."
He spoke these words in a flat tone, yet they seemed to gently tap on someone's heart.
“We conduct experiments and interview participants. But what’s really important is the question behind it: What do you do when you’re injured and nobody sees it?”
As he finished speaking, his gaze fell in a certain direction below the stage, just sweeping over Pan Qiu's row.
She wasn't sure if he was looking at her, but his gaze was so calm, like a ray of light piercing through the fog, yet without warmth.
He nodded and said, "If this touches you, feel free to come and talk to me later."
Then he quietly stepped down from the podium and returned to his seat.
The entire speech lasted only three minutes, yet it was like turning on a silent stream of water amidst a great deal of noise.
Pan Qiu didn't move, but her pen had already unconsciously landed on the edge of the page, writing a sentence:
"Adjustment means listening."
She didn't quite understand why this sounded like some kind of answer, like a door being pushed open a crack and the wind was blowing in.
She recalled how she had tried various ways to avoid pain, but never thought that "hearing" could also be a way to cope.
The next speakers took turns on stage, some speaking rapidly, others presenting engaging slideshows.
Pan Qiu sat in her seat, mechanically taking notes, but her mind was already wandering.
Her gaze occasionally swept across the podium, but it always lingered longer on Ethan Ellery's row.
He sat there, upright and motionless, looking down at the documents beside him.
No one spoke to him, and he didn't look up on his own initiative, but he didn't seem isolated.
It was like a stable aura, passively drawing her attention.
“Adjustment means listening.” That sentence was still written on the edge of the notebook, the handwriting a little darker than the others.
Panqiu knew she would read that sentence many more times in the future.
Perhaps not today, not tomorrow, but this sentence has left an anchor point in her mind that she hasn't had time to process yet, waiting for her future self to decode it.
The feeling was so strange it was almost illogical—the few minutes of the speech felt like a subtle electric current gently brushing against the depths of her consciousness.
Perhaps it was the rhythm of his voice, or perhaps it was the line, "What would you do if you were injured and no one saw it?"
As the applause subsided, the squeaks of chair backs rubbing together echoed.
As Ethan stood up, she instinctively looked up. It was an utterly ordinary gesture—
But at that moment, she suddenly had an almost absurd intuition:
He will be the one who helps her relearn how to listen.
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