Chapter Text
Insects do not hear sound like humans. They don’t have ears in that sense. There’s no ear bones involved, no easily ruptured eardrum, no freaky-shaped outer ear, no stupid cochlea and even less the semicircular canals that are involved in balance with fine hair and liquid and depending on the movement of the liquid, the brain somehow knows in what position the head is turning.
No, none of that stupid over-complicated nonsense.
Insects are easy.
Well, actually, not that easy.
But generally speaking there are two broad detection modes – airborne sound reception via specialized tympanal organs or antennae that pick up pressure waves and vibrational reception via mechanoreceptors that sense vibrations transmitted through surfaces or air near the body.
Lu Guang was following a butterfly through the park. He believed it was a Silver royal/ Ancema blanka, which would be a huge discovery in the butterfly community because they did not belong to Hong Kong. It would be the first sighting – at least according to his quick research after he’d first spotted it ten minutes earlier.
Lu Guang was vaguely aware there were three players on the basketball field as he chased after the butterfly, but they looked like they were training three-pointers or whatever it was called when they just aimed at the hoop and did not actually play.
It sat down on the fence!
Perfect!
He just needed a photo; it didn’t even need to be a good one. He just needed evidence he could put into the sighting catalogue and show off on the forum before he edited the wiki.
Click.
Lu Guang was so happy! He adjusted his stance a little, looked through the viewfinder, focused on the butterfly again and-
He’d not heard the shouting. He’d heard vague sound but had chosen to ignore it.
The next thing he knew, he was lying on the ground and three men piled onto him. They were saying something, but his vision was a little blurry and he couldn’t focus. He blinked a few times.
He sat up, his hand already searching for the camera, and looked at the spot at the fence. The Silver royal wasn’t there anymore. Oh shit, he needed to get up asap and chase after it. They were known as fast flyers.
He practically ripped his camera from the hands of the black-haired guy, jumped up and ran.
Well, there went Cheng Xiaoshi’s good karma for the month. He looked after the white-haired man as he frantically ran away.
“Can you believe this guy? Didn’t even say if he was good or not.”
He’d offered to take him to the on-campus nurse, he didn’t even get to the point to offer to repair the poor guy’s camera. The shock from falling must have cracked the lens or loosened the inner mechanisms. And then he’d just run away.
Sure, Cheng Xiaoshi was tall, but he was not intimidating.
“You knocked all the words out of him when you got his head with the basketball.” The guy was laughing at his own joke. Cheng Xiaoshi was not.
“I hope he’s okay,” Cheng Xiaoshi said truthfully.
He went over to where the basketball has rolled to and found something beside it. At first glance he’d thought it would be Bluetooth ear buds, but they were not. He picked it up and turned to the others.
“What is this?” he asked them.
It was a little white disk that was attached to what looked like the top part of a candy cane. Odd.
“Looks like a hearing aid,” one suggested. “My grandpa has one, but it looks different than this. He’s got like a little antenna sticking out his ear.”
“Oh, shit, then we’ve gotta find him!”
“Maybe this is your Cinderella moment.”
Cheng Xiaoshi looked around, not amused by the comment, but didn’t see him anywhere. Where’d he gone to so fast?
“You guys wait here and play without me. I’ll go look for him. If he comes here in the meantime tell him to wait. I’ll be right back!”
The others nodded and Cheng Xiaoshi went to pursue. He looked here and there and everywhere, but the mystery man, this apparition, had vanished into thin air.
Ten to twenty minutes later Cheng Xiaoshi returned to the court and this time his buddies had vanished.
And they’ve taken his basketball with them and left his bag with his water bottle by the bench.
What the fuck?
Great move, guys, great move.
Karma is a bitch or something.
Cheng Xiaoshi let out a sigh. Without his basketball, he couldn’t train anymore. He hadn’t found Mr. Mystery.
If was likely that Mr. Mystery was a student at the university as well. It couldn’t be that hard to find someone with pure white hair like that. He’d just have to ask some peers or the cafeteria staff or put a posting about the found whatever device.
Lu Guang hadn’t found the butterfly again. Also, he’s misplaced his cochlear implant. And his head hurt.
What a day.
Since he didn’t wear his hearing aid every day, he’d thought he’d maybe find it on his bedside table, but he looked everywhere and it wasn’t in his tiny student housing apartment. And he was organized and didn’t have many possessions to his name, so it was unlikely to be found anywhere else.
A new one wasn’t in the budget right now.
He sighed and put a cooling pad from the fridge on the bump on his head. Oh shit, right. The basketball court. It could be there!
It was already dark when he got there, and he had an uneasy feeling since there’d been some reports of bad things happening. Drunk students breaking out in fights, sexual harassment, one girl had recently disappeared, but that technically hadn’t been linked to the university’s park. But it was in the vicinity. If Lu Guang remembered correctly, she’d been living in the same dorm as him.
Spooky.
Better be quick.
He searched the area where he’d fallen with the flashlight of his phone, but there was nothing.
He didn’t hear him coming, of course he didn’t, but when he saw another flashlight from the corner of his eyes, he thought he’d be the next victim.
The other person was shining the flashlight right at his face, so he couldn’t really see who the other person was. They were probably talking to him.
Lu Guang had his hands raised like a criminal. If he were getting kidnapped, the other person would not hold a flashlight at his face. He was terrified, but he’d had similar encounters before. With one hand he indicated his ear and shook his head. Then he mouthed the words ‘I’m deaf’.
His eyes were squinted as he looked towards the light source. The flashlight was dropped to shine on his legs and after blinking a coupled of times, he could see it was someone from campus security.
He was glad he had his phone in his hand, because with his arms still raised to not get tasered, he could open his voice app and type: “I’m deaf. I lost my hearing aid around here somewhere.”
The other man said something, but in this dim light from the lantern Lu Guang couldn’t even start to lip read. Again, he shook his head. Again, he indicated he was deaf.
The security guard raised one finger to indicate Lu Guang to wait. Then he went over to a little hidden control box beside the bench and turned on the big flood lights on the court.
First, Lu Guang needed to show his students ID, which was valid and he had it on his phone with him anyway. Then they searched for the hearing aid together but couldn’t find it. The guard even accompanied him back to his dorm, which Lu Guang was thankful for. With his app he thanked him and went inside, calling it a night.