Chapter 67: Shortcuts

An Asperger's teenager once used a metaphorical sentence to describe how he was different from normal people.

He says that the average person's brain is like a windows operating system running in a socialized world, whereas the Asperger's brain just works slowly under DOS.

In addition to being slow, there are all sorts of errors.

It was a fact that could never be changed, a handicap that would follow him for the rest of his life and never be erased.

Tan Mo, even if he was slow, could understand that Qiao Lan was trying to help him out, helping him not to let the others realize that he wasn't a normal person after he got up.

Tan Mo suddenly thought of a word.

Joyful.

Temporary peace and ecstasy, made him a little carried away.

At the evening class that night, Tan Mo's free sparring instructor clearly sensed Tan Mo's irritability, and although he remained expressionless, the strength in his hands was immediately apparent as he was venting his anger.

The teenager is the most ruthless of his students, as if something is behind him, urging him on. The coach is sometimes curious and asks Tan Mo a few questions, but Tan Mo never says anything.

The coach didn't expect Tan Mo to say anything today, but casually asked if he had met something today.

The young man, no longer skinny, still clenched his fists, but his movements stopped.

He stood still for a long time, then suddenly spoke, in a low voice that was more like a question than a complaint.

"What would you do if there was one, one person you loved, but couldn't chase after for the rest of your life."

Someone you like but can't catch up with for the rest of your life?

Although the coach didn't know what Tan Mo's status was, he could tell that the teenager's status was definitely not simple just by looking at Tan Mo's generous spending, and the car that picked him up and dropped him off every day was something that he never dared to dream of in his entire life.

What kind of fairy, what kind of young lady, could make this boy think that he couldn't catch up with her no matter how hard he chased after her in his life?

If it's him, since I know how to chase can not chase ......

Without doing much thinking the coach said, "Then don't chase."

As soon as the words fell, the coach saw that the teenager, who had been expressionless, was instantly tinted with a layer of hideousness, and his eyes were as gloomy as they could be.

The coach, who had grown a very muscular and strong body, was taken aback by the teenager's steep change of mood.

Though before he had time to think it through, the coach quickly changed his tune.

"In fact, I'm more curious is, why do you think that must not chase it", you see you, look so handsome home so good, to the outside of one stop there are a whole lot of little girls running to ask WeChat, so superior conditions so resolute to say that can not chase it, is it ......

"Have you been chased before? The girl you liked didn't say yes?"

The teenager was silent for a moment and spoke quietly, "No."

There was no chase.

Coach: So after all that it's still a crush!

"How do you know you can't catch up if you've never done so? Do you guys know each other?"

"Recognize."

"So, a bad relationship?"

"Very good."

"How good is very good?"

"Better."

"Then get after it," the coach listened, anxious for Tan Mo.

Tan Mo dropped her eyelashes and shook her head, "No."

How come it doesn't work?

The coach couldn't figure it out.

"She thinks I'm a friend."

"How normal," the coach thought it wasn't even a thing, "how many couples develop from friends, and while I'm not sure what's going on between you two, I don't think there's any need for you to be so negative."

"My opinion is that everything should always be tried, since it has never been pursued, it cannot be concluded that this matter is not possible." The coach had no idea what to say, but he didn't realize that as soon as he opened his mouth, he became a gushing, incarnate lover, the

"If you never go after a girl because you think you can't catch her, you'll never catch her, but if you go and try, of course there's a chance that it could be what you think it is, but what if you do catch her, right, what if! If I were you and had a girl I liked to the bone, I'd just go and give it a try, chase it once with all my might, and if I really can't catch it then forget it, at least I won't feel sorry in retrospect."

No regrets.

Tan Mo suddenly wanted to laugh a little.

He doesn't want to have any regrets, but what if Qiao Lan finds out what he's thinking and becomes a stranger from then on.

More than regret, this was the ending he couldn't accept.

The coach is still talking about Tan Mo's qualifications, saying that he doesn't have to be so insecure, and that the girl might have already liked him, and so on.

Tan Mo closes his eyes and makes light of the situation, and the coach shuts up instantly.

The coach froze for a long time before saying, "Sick?"

Tan Mo has to have a physical almost every few days. There's absolutely nothing wrong with her body.

"What's wrong?"

Tan Mo chewed the three words in his mouth for a long time before he struggled to say them, "Psycho."

Coach: "???"

Completely unconsciously, he moved back a bit.

Tan Mo coldly glanced toward the coach, although nothing was said, but the coach read the mockery in Tan Mo's eyes.

See, no matter how much has just been said, when it is learned that he has this condition, everyone will stay away from him.

The coach then reacted violently, remembering the unconscious action he had just taken, he wanted to slap himself, he wanted to explain, but felt that it was useless to say anything else at this time.

It is the subconscious reaction of the human being that is the truest reaction.

So it's because of this reason why Tan Mo thinks that girl will never like him and accept him, and the coach thinks it all makes sense.

"I'm sorry, I really didn't mean it", forget it, it's all a wasted explanation, not to mention the fact that it's not his opinion that Tan Mo cares about, the coach sighed, "So that girl doesn't know you're sick?"

"Know."

Know what?

The coach was amazed.

After a long time, the coach finally said with a straight face, "I think a girl who can make you like her so much must have something different from the others, you don't have to gauge her thoughts with what the rest of us think of you. Since she has known about your condition for a long time, but still treats you well and is the best to you, it means that she probably doesn't even care if you're sick or not."

Tan Mo stares off into the distance, his eyes a little empty, and doesn't say a word.

Coach sighed, "Tan Mo, maybe, and I mean maybe, you're more important in the mind of the girl you like than you think."

That's the end of the conversation, and Tan Mo gets back up and starts practicing, still sharp, but finally a little less vicious than just now.

Tan Mo's studies include two more things in addition to his regular school work and free sparring.

A stock, a sentiment analysis.

Tan Mo got into stocks after learning that Qiao Lan was interested in speculation.

Qiao Lan said she wanted to learn because she admired the biography of a stockbroker, and one sentence made Tan Mo's decision.

He doesn't have any goals. Since Qiao Lan says he likes it, he'll do it.

He always tries to use all kinds of methods to make Qiao Lan feel more affectionate towards him, even if it's not love, and on top of that, Qiao Lan is interested in stock speculation, so he can learn it first, and then slowly teach Qiao Lan afterwards.

But what makes Tan Mo happy is that after he really got into stock trading, using math and various kinds of analysis, Tan Mo found that it was much more interesting than he had imagined.

It's simply too much fun.

On top of that, Tan Mo went nuts studying sentiment analysis.

He endured the discomfort and began to re-engage with the psychiatrist, taking his advice to become more of a "normal person."

He could never be a normal person, but he could try to be so that others could not see that he was not a normal person.

It is an exceptionally difficult and lifelong study.

The psychiatrist gave him a book that specifically addresses the symptoms of Asperger's, which identifies a total of 412 human feelings and divides all of them into 24 different groups.

What he needed to do was memorize and keep all 412 of these feelings in his mind, he didn't understand them, so then he would memorize them, remembering the expressions and actions that each one would show.

When a person cries, what does he need to do, he doesn't know, so he memorizes it, and when someone laughs, what does he do, collectively all of them.

In just a few days, Tan Mo felt physically and mentally exhausted.

Because he didn't understand it, he could only go searching in his memory banks for how other people should react after seeing a certain expression on a person's face.

He had to be quick, because if he was slower, some people would think he was slow, and no one knew how long Tan Mo's mind had been running fast in just a few seconds.

Too tired, because nerves are highly stretched every moment, Tan Mo feels exhausted by everyone.

But the results were surprisingly good.

Tan Mo is on a frenzy of knowledge to turn himself into a master of mimicry, and he's making himself available in the fastest possible time so that he can respond correctly when faced with a wide variety of the most conventional expressions.

Some people say that Tan Mo is finally not expressionless, others say that Tan Mo is really not that difficult to socialize with, and only Qiao Lan feels a strong sense of uneasiness and dissonance when everyone thinks that Tan Mo is becoming more and more sociable.

Tan Mo began to grow wildly in a space that Qiao Lan never realized was there.

Only in the face of Qiao Lan can he still show the real him because of the uncontrollable fluttering of his heart.

Qiao Lan asks what's wrong with him, but Tan Mo is already able to lie calmly.

He said he was treated by a psychiatrist and that he may have been different than usual lately because that's just what the psychiatrist told him to do.

Half-truths, even 80 percent true, were indeed the psychiatrist's advice, but Tan Mo did not tell Qiao Lan that the psychiatrist had warned him otherwise in the first place.

Doctors say that when an adult with Asperger's uses mimicry, can communicate like a normal person, and even begins to be comfortable and popular, everything looks great, but that's when disaster begins.

Because the whole world will be true and false.

Where once it took slow analysis to analyze what the other person was really thinking, there will be no more analysis, relying on acquired knowledge and experience to guess what the other person is thinking and react relatively.

Since then, it's been really, really hard to read anything anymore.