Alan Carter hung up the phone, then patted Zoe Young on the head and said, "Don't do that again next time." Zoe Young pressed her lips together and nodded. "I had no choice." Alan Carter looked at her a bit strangely, thought for a moment, but didn't ask further. He just pointed toward the glass door. "Mr. Green is unconscious and being resuscitated." Zoe Young stood on tiptoe, peering through the glass door for a long time, but couldn't see anything. "Why is it just us here? Where is everyone else?" "Who else should be here?" Alan Carter looked down at her.

Yes, who else should be here? Mr. Green had no children, his partner had died of breast cancer years ago, and the youth center was his entire spiritual support. He had no family.

"What about the other orchestra members? And the other teachers at the youth center?" "A few teachers from the orchestra came, but they all went out to buy clothes nearby and haven't come back yet." "Buy clothes?"

"Funeral clothes." "Vet...erinarian?" Alan Carter laughed. "It's the clothes people have to wear after they die, for the funeral, for... their own funeral." Mr. Green was still being resuscitated, but the funeral clothes were already bought. "You have to put them on right after death, otherwise, once the body cools and stiffens, it becomes very hard to dress them." Alan Carter's voice was extremely calm, without any emotion. He still wore a faint smile, but there was not a trace of warmth.

Zoe Young looked at this unfamiliar Alan Carter, feeling a bit panicked. "Are you... familiar with this... process?" "Oh," Alan Carter seemed to have his thoughts interrupted. He came back to himself and nodded at Zoe Young. "When my grandpa passed away, I was the one who helped him put on the funeral clothes." Zoe Young felt very sad. She didn't know what to say, so she just stared blankly at the door and said dryly, "Why aren't the other students coming?" "Why should they come?" Alan Carter looked at her calmly.

"Shouldn't they come? It's so... desolate..." Zoe Young tried a word she had only used in essays before. "It's so desolate."

"Yeah, that's true. The more people who come to say goodbye, the better. The more, the warmer, the more touching." Alan Carter's tone was a bit sarcastic, even tinged with anger, but Zoe Young instinctively felt he wasn't targeting her.

Alan Carter's gaze had already passed through the corridor, reaching some place Zoe Young didn't understand.

"But no matter how warm or touching it is, it has nothing to do with the dead. All of that is for the living to see. Whether there are two people or two hundred people standing outside the emergency room makes no difference. He can't see it, and he won't feel sad."

Alan Carter paused, then half-squatted down to look into Zoe Young's eyes. "The one who's sad is actually you. And only you." This Alan Carter was both frightening and pitiful. Zoe Young felt her brain had stopped working. She couldn't understand what Alan Carter was saying—yet somehow, she felt she could. "Then why did you call me here?" she asked timidly. "Because you truly like Mr. Green, and Mr. Green likes you too." "Don't others like Mr. Green?"

Alan Carter smiled ambiguously. He affectionately put his arm around Zoe Young and asked aimlessly, "Zoe, what kind of person do you think Mr. Green is?"

"Mr. Green is a good person." Zoe Young said each word with utmost seriousness. "Then what kind of person is a good person?" Zoe Young was stunned. Alan Carter's smile seemed so distant and ethereal.

"In this world, those who are good to you are good people, and those who aren't are bad people." Alan Carter tapped her forehead. "It's that simple."

"No!" Zoe Young was a bit angry. She didn't like this version of Alan Carter. "Good people are kind, very... fair. They don't look down on others, and they're not biased, and..." She racked her brains to define what a good person was in her heart, arguing in vain with this big brother with a faint smile in the empty corridor at midnight.

"Mr. Green is kind to you, fair to you, doesn't look down on you, and isn't biased—no, he is biased, but he's biased toward you. So he's a good person. But if I told you that Mr. Green is just like those teachers you complained to me about, that he also accepts gifts, that he doesn't stop kids with no future from coming to the youth center to chase their dreams, and even makes big promises to fool their parents. That when arranging positions in the orchestra, he's also unfair and biased. Many people don't like him. For others, Mr. Green is a bad person."

Zoe Young stood there quietly. She didn't shout "You're lying" or run away in tears. She seriously considered Alan Carter's words, recalled the other orchestra members' attitudes toward Mr. Green, lowered her head, and quickly made her own judgment.

After a long time, she stubbornly raised her head. "It's enough that he's a good person to me." Alan Carter smiled. "Looks like you understand now." Zoe Young still longed for the pure black-and-white good and evil of cartoons and fantasy worlds, but at that moment, she learned to comfort herself in another way, to see this "wonderful yet cruel" world differently. In her eyes, no matter how cruel, cold, or selfish a person was, they would still pour all their love and passion into someone else—it just wasn't her. Just like in the eyes of many classmates, Mr. Hughes was a responsible and gentle teacher—even if it was an illusion, there was no need to break it.

"Alan Carter, do you think Mr. Green is a good person?" Alan Carter turned back and gently patted her shoulder. "He was very good to me," Alan Carter said. But Alan Carter had always been someone who quietly watched from the sidelines of right and wrong. This time, he pulled Zoe Young up to the stands as well. Even though Zoe Young never knew why he reached out to her.

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6. Saying goodbye is dying a little

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When a few teachers from the youth center arrived, the doctors happened to be coming out of the room. She looked inside from the doorway and saw Mr. Green being jolted up from the hospital bed by two large paddles in the doctor's hands, like a carp flipping, then falling back down heavily. His thin, pale chest showed every rib. Zoe Young was so frightened she covered her mouth, then looked up at Alan Carter for help.

"It's just a defibrillator, don't be scared." Alan Carter was still extremely gentle, but at that moment Zoe Young suddenly felt he was like the moon she saw as a child—the afternoon moon, so faint you couldn't touch it, yet so enchanting you couldn't help but gaze at it for a long time. "Are the clothes all ready?" A doctor, sweating from performing CPR, wiped his brow and asked the teachers. A female teacher handed him a bottle of Coke and smiled, "Doctor, this is fresh, have a drink and take a break." Maybe because none of the people present were Mr. Green's relatives, the doctor spoke very bluntly. He twisted open the cap, gulped down a few mouthfuls, wrinkled his nose, and said, "Looks like he can't be saved. You should get things ready." It was as if this sentence was a signal to death. Zoe Young ran to the door, leaned against the frame, and stared inside, and actually saw Grandpa Green open his eyes and look straight at her.

A final glimmer of light flashed in those dry eyes, and Zoe Young instantly burst into tears. "Grandpa Green wants to say something!" She turned and shouted at Alan Carter, "Take the mask off his face!" Alan Carter comfortingly patted her shoulder. "Zoe, calm down." But he wanted to say something, and he couldn't. Zoe Young soon started sobbing uncontrollably. She clung tightly to Alan Carter's sleeve, and through her tears, it seemed as if all the busy doctors and nurses had stopped, removed all the tubes and equipment from Mr. Green, and then said something to the teachers nearby.

"Alan Carter, watch this child outside for a bit, we'll go in and tidy up." Alan Carter held Zoe Young, gently patting her head. "Death is no different from going far away. It just means you'll never see them again. Just think of it as Grandpa Green going on a long trip, like those childhood friends of yours, or classmates about to go to another school for middle school. Everything just disappears, that's all."

"It's not the same." Zoe Young shook her head stubbornly. "Those people, maybe you'll see them again, maybe not. But people who die, there's no maybe anymore."

Alan Carter was stumped by her words and could only smile awkwardly. "Most maybes are lies anyway."

About half an hour later, Mr. Green's body had been prepared and was ready to be taken to the morgue. Zoe Young timidly walked to the bedside, shocked to find that the person lying there had such a strange face.

"This is..." "People always look different after death. You'll understand when you grow up and learn more."