Hypnos and Figs

Although Lin Jia Ji thought of giving Fei Ge another try, her motivation was especially weak, after having to endure a three-sided attack from her end-of-season evaluations, special reports and presentations, as well as the madness from her supervisor.

There was an information breach last month; a client company was on the verge of bankruptcy judging from their numbers and this was supposed to be covered up, but somehow it was leaked online. The screenshots not only contain the chat records of employees in the bank, but also several pages of internal data.

As such, there is already no need for the company to be “on the verge of bankruptcy”, they might as well just declare themselves bankrupt publicly. The client lambasted the bank, but the screenshots had already been transferred several times before it was posted online; its original source was nowhere to be found. The bank could only compensate the client in whatever way it could, and assume responsibility. 

It just so happen that this client was one of the clients from Lin Jia Ji’s department.

The supervisor was severely punished and as such wasn’t in too good of a mood. Each new meeting would definitely be held back for at least half an hour so that he could deliver scalding lectures on the importance of “Keeping Your Lips Shut”, which only worsen the workload for the already busy end-of-season. 

As for the night, she would be working overtime—or so she claimed to Fei Ge.

Fei Ge also worked overtime.

Sometimes, when he was walking towards his parking spot after overtime, he would take out his phone. His fingers would hover around the WeChat dialog box, hesitating on whether he should ask her out for supper or just anything to send over some warmth. 

But without fail, as he remembered his unfinished drafts, the tits of the giant dragon he was about to draw would always win. 

Dragon tits can’t smile, can’t chat awkwardly, can’t rate him, and can’t be offended. They have no emotions to dump onto him, no opinions to share; they just made him happy. He had nothing but gratitude for the dragon tits. 

But one day he felt that it was really unacceptable to procrastinate the relationship. Should the situation drag on, the “relationship” would have ended before it even started, just like the past several “relationships” he had in the past ten years.

Fei Ge gritted his teeth and finally sent a message: “Supper?”

The stone has entered the sea.

Five minutes passed, then ten minutes, and then came twenty minutes. By the 20th minute, Fei Ge silently started his car and went home, watching the red lights flicker in the night and counted down the seconds slowly. The feeling that dragon’s tits were meaningless came onto him for a moment, but passed.

At the same time, Lin Jia Ji was wearing a gas mask and spraying colour in her workshop.

What she wanted to make this time was a battle-damaged Gundam. On its black glossy surface, the vertical and horizontal scars opened up to a golden lustre, giving an effect akin to that of tearing apart the silent earth apart, revealing the entrance to the treasure mines.

Lin Jia Ji is famous in the community, not only because of her wealth, after all, wealthy figurines hobbyists are not unheard of in the community.

Her niche however lies in the aesthetics. The colouring, background settings, lighting, and post-production? All top-notch. Just as Figs praised, the glue she uses is alluring – different colour pigments in the glue lent itself to different meanings, and it helped to indicate texture, aura, and strength of the Gundam. 

After Lin Jia Ji uploaded this new set of pictures into her laptop for minor adjustments and sent it to her phone to check for colour differences, did she finally noticed an unread message.

The unread message had been hanging in her notifications for 40 minutes. 

“Supper?”

Lin Jia Ji’s heart sunk. Afraid of appearing indifferent or even unenthusiastic over text, she quickly called him.

​Fei Ge jumped in shock. After taking a deep breath, he picked it up. 

“Are you free now?”

Lin Jia Ji: “En, I was in a meeting just now, sorry.”

“A meeting at night? Working at the bank seems hard.”

Lin Jia Ji laughed awkwardly, and Fei Ge said again: “It’s okay, I just got off work.”

“Then… do you still want to eat supper?”

Fei Ge glanced at the unfinished dragon tits on the screen, and silently closed the laptop’s lid. 

“Sure, will it be convenient for you?”

Although Fei Ge moved as he ate his barbecue skewers, he still resembled a humanoid. Each bite was taken quietly and efficiently, and each skewer was treated with seriousness that was definitely unnecessary, but it did leave the skewers clean.

Lin Jia Ji sat across him drinking beer and started to wonder the reason why he was still single. To use Gundam as a metaphor, he is the Goddess of Justice, his physique was drawn out with nothing but the neatest of lines, coloured with the most primary of colours, and possessed a refined aura. He may not be the most eye-catching, but surely it’s almost impossible for him to be hated. 

People of this type should not have to worry getting attached.

But, on the other hand, since he’s still single, there must be a problem with him that she didn’t realize. Maybe he’s outrageously critical, or maybe he’s a player. 

Lin Jia Ji mulled over this question for three seconds and yawned. She was exhausted; she’ll think about it some other time. 

She took another sip of beer, closed her eyes, and listened to the sounds in the shop: “It’s actually quite nice to come out every now and then.”

“Huh?” Fei Ge was carefully studying the octopus tentacles, but came back to his senses when he heard her voice. 

“Yeah. What do you usually do when you’re free?”

​Lin Jia Ji paused, thinking about maybe getting him to slowly accept the fact that she doesn’t like going out. 

“Staying at home and maybe watch some TV.”

“Like?”

The gears in Lin Jia Ji’s brain churned rapidly: “…Penthouse1?”

“Oh.” Fei Ge praised, “Good taste.”

“You’ve watched it?”

“No. That’s why I said that.”

Lin Jia Ji laughed and said, “Then what do you usually watch?”

Fei Ge’s mind spun rapidly, and thought about getting her to slowly understand him so that he would have an excuse in the event should something go wrong. He replied nonchalantly, “I don’t really watch TV, but I do watch cartoons sometimes.”

Lin Jia Ji: “…”

She thought about how her parents would answer, and mimicked them. 

“Like…SpongeBob SquarePants?”

Fei Ge chose a series with the highest viewership. “Like Naruto2.”

Lin Jia Ji’s DNA started to hurt. The person she had just rejected a few days ago was a veteran JUMP3 fan who had gushed about JUMP for half an hour.

​Lin Jia Ji was eager to change the topic, so she brandished her trump card. 

“Oh, I watched it when I was in kindergarten.”

A killer move. 

As soon as such words are spoken, she exists simultaneously at the bottom and also the top of the chain of contempt. This response enables the other party to sneer at her, but also leaves them helpless. This response is truly Schrödinger’s Brahmin4.

Just in case this sentence was not enough, Lin Jia Ji added another. “We watched Cardcapter Sakura too, and everyone liked Wang Xiao Ming5.”

Fei Ge: “…”

Fei Ge quickly ended the topic. 

“Do you like grilled eggplant? I’ll go add some vegetables and head to the bathroom.”

He walked away.

Lin Jia Ji shook her head, tapped on her phone and flipped through Weibo.

Unexpectedly, the set of Gundam photos she had released before going out received an astonishing amount of retweets. The visual impact of the colour was really strong, so much so that even people who weren’t into Gundams appreciated its beauty, and it has become popular unexpectedly.

Lin Jia Ji clicked on the pictures and admired it again. After scrolling through the comments, she recognised two old acquaintances.

One is Figs, who fawned over it excessively. Lin Jia Ji was amused, and answered him with a few question marks. The latter, her college roommate Yu Sheng—the one who introduced her to the community. Yu Sheng has gradually stopped over the years, but occasionally hangs around the comments of ​​several well-known Gundam hobbyists. Lin Jia Ji recognised her username and profile picture, but she couldn’t recognise Lin Jia Ji’s account which was specifically opened for her hobby. Yu Sheng complimented enthusiastically in her comments. 

“The aesthetics of the Gods are really different! Baby, come and see! @Watching the Night Investigator”

Baby? Did she have a boyfriend?

Lin Jia Ji hadn’t contacted her old classmate for a long time, and she almost fell into the category of “I’ll forget her face if I don’t contact her again” friends. The nostalgia of hanging out with her roommate creeped up on her. Lin Jia Ji however, knew that she wouldn’t take any initiative, and chose to forget about it. 

She refreshed the comments and found that person her roommate had tagged replied. 

Investigator of Watching the Night: “…He’s…well, if you like assembled figurines, you can check out GK6 , like @XXX @XXX. That depends more on technique, unlike this which relies on money and post-production.  

“Have they served the eggplant?”

Fei Ge came back and was standing at the table, seeming scanning for the eggplant. 

Lin Jia Ji quickly adjusted her expression and put away her phone. “Not yet.”

Fei Ge muttered, “I’ll check with them,” and turned to look for an employee.

Lin Jia Ji hesitated for a while, then had another look at the comment, a masochistic reaction. The other party surprisingly, had more to say. “This kind of ‘battle armour’ may be popular but to say that it’s good would be deceiving. I’ll send you pictures of really good ones later, you’ll understand me after opening your eyes, baby.”

​Lin Jia Ji put down her phone, and slowly folded her hands below the table.

When the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara understood the Supreme Wisdom, he realized that the five aggregates (skandhas) making up a person were but an illusion, and with this he was relieved from all sorrow and suffering.7

Recently, the figurine community has been undergoing an involution8, with some better-known hobbyists going to the extent of purchasing a 3D printer just to produce better models and Gundams. 

Hers, technically speaking, may not really be good enough for professional hobbyists. It is normal for someone to criticise it, it’s normal…

Don’t be angry, no one will take care of you if you get sick…

“Why aren’t you eating?”

Lin Jia Ji raised her chopsticks but suddenly put them down: “Give me a second, I’m replying my supervisor.”

She quickly typed, “Respect your girlfriend”, sent the message and logged off. 

She waited till she reached home before opening the other party’s reply.

There were several.

“Wait, brother, so you do know that this is my girlfriend?”

“Did I hurt you? (Dog head) Embarrassed? (Dog head)”

“Wait, it can’t be. I have no ill intentions, don’t get frustrated just because you’re an amateur? So are you capable of doing GK?”

“Could it be? Could it be? (flashes teeth) Why are you silent? (flashes teeth) Is there a possibility that this H God can’t produce their own parts?, I’m just saying, (feeling wronged) but it’s really easy to be a God in this community.”

O Śāriputra, material itself is no different from the void; material is void, and void is material…7

If I happen to induce a stroke just because I got angry, no one will care… Getting angry only harms my body and takes up too much effort…

The bank is still busy, and I have to leave some time for Fei Ge, how can I afford to think about other things, let’s wash up and sleep…

Lin Jia Ji laid down peacefully, her hands folded on her chest, and waited to enter dreamland. Three minutes later, she sat up, rushed to her laptop, pulled up the search engine, and typed in “modelling online class”.

​There were a lot of results, with the prices varying greatly, and the reviews were even more baffling. Lin Jia Ji didn’t know which ones were legitimate reviews and which ones were bought. She strained her eyes, and compared the reviews laboriously for quite some time before she suddenly thought of a person.

She opened up a private dialog with Figs on Weibo.

“Sorry to bother you, I’m interested in learning 3D modelling recently. Do you have any recommendations for online courses?”

Figs: The Lockheed Martin of R-18 drawings. Lin Jia Ji was looking through her works a few days ago, and noticed that the body proportions she drew was very accurate, to the point of being unnecessarily accurate. 

Someone else in the comments seems to have mentioned that Figs sometimes uses 3D modelling aids. 

“Figs toils and slogs away for these R-18 drawings. Such noble sentiments, such broad mind, it’s definitely not an over exaggeration to call her the light of mankind.”

Figs quickly replied. “Hahaha why the sudden want to learn modelling?”

Lin Jia Ji did not want others to think that she was defeated by a comment, so she thought over her words carefully.

She first started with “I want to improve myself”, but the other party suddenly replied. 

“(link attached) This is a class I took, and it was pretty good. The basics needed to make robots and figurines will be covered. Think about it, if you want, I can ask the teacher and maybe they’ll give you a discount ~”

“Sure, I’ll think about it, thank you.”

“Hang in there, make that guy speechless!”

​Fei Ge told a small, innocuous lie. The course he recommended to Hypnos is indeed good, but he had not taken it himself. It was taught by Fei Ran. After sending the link to Hypnos, he sent another message to Fei Ran on WeChat.

“In two days, there may be a great god who will take your class. Give him a discount.”

Fei Ran: “…What kind of great god, your kind of great god?”

“A realty, really great God. You won’t understand.” Fei Ge typed, “Take good care of him and make him feel comfortable and then ask him for an autograph. Don’t tell him about me, he probably thinks I’m a woman.”

Fei Ran was silent for two minutes, and then replied. 

“My dear cousin, after all these years, have you finally turned gay?”

Fei Ge had expected this question, and got ready a reply in advance: “What do you know? This is a connection between similar souls.”

​​Fei Ge was a terrible nightmare for Fei Ran as a child.

For every ten instances Fei Ran got scolded for, eight instances can be attributed to Fei Ge winning first place. When he was in high school, his parents finally accepted his fate of being an art student. On one particular summer vacation, Fei Ran was personally escorted by his parents to Fei Ge’s house, and asked this cousin to supervise his supplementary lessons.

Fei Ge’s secrecy measures at that time were still relatively unestablished. He only had a computer password, and it was still easy to guess. Taking advantage of this, Fei Ran took off with his computer to play games, but at a glance, he saw a PSD file on his desktop.

By the time Fei Ge returned, Fei Ran had finally managed to stop his pupils from trembling and killed the huge waves that were thrashing about in his heart. He looked at Fei Ge and stuttered, “I know your secret. If you…if you…”

He suddenly went mute, because Fei Ge’s eyes seemed to be seriously weighing the consequences of killing him.

Fei Ge tilted his head. “If I…?”

Fei Ran clenched his fists in an attempt to be braver.

“If you don’t let me play games all day, I’ll tell everyone in our family.”

Fei Ge: “…”

After a few seconds of silence, Fei Ge shattered his beautiful mirage of a happy summer vacation. 

“If you do tell them, they’ll realise that you can’t even draw better than me.”

​​Fei Ran could have swallowed his pride and let the rebuttal slide, but surely there must be a limit to what can be tolerated and what cannot be. 

Fei Ran was distraught. He ran back to his room and carved on the table: Don’t look down on the youth!

He was done living in the shadows of his cousin, and vowed to be strong, to crush Fei Ge underneath his feet. He used up his summer vacation, but as a result, not only did his grades for class improve, but his painting skills were also better. His parents were surprised and delighted and asked him what motivated him to do so. Fei Ran however, remained tight-lipped and resolutely refused to speak of the incident.

A few years later, Fei Ran, who had matured, looked back onto those days and felt sincere gratitude towards his cousin. He took the effort to find a day to thank him personally.

“Without your taunts, my university entrance examinations wouldn’t have gone so well.”

Fei Ge looked at him with an expression of bafflement, and only replied after a while, “Oh, there’s no need to thank me.”

​​In any case, till today, Fei Ran is still the only person in the world who knows Fei Ge’s secret. Over the years, Fei Ge has also procured a lot of art textbooks from him. It’s not far-fetched to say that that Fei Ge’s R-18 drawings only grew to be this sophisticated because of Fei Ran. 

He once asked Fei Ge, since he has already refined his art techniques till this point, why not simply change careers and become a painter or something. 

The other party’s answer at the time was: “I don’t want to taint my hobby with money.”

Fei Ran looked at him in awe: “…Your hobby is rather holy.”

​​However, Fei Ge waited for a few days, but Hypnos did not come to him to ask for the discount.

Very wisely, Fei Ge did not prove any further. The great god may have signed up for another class, or maybe he was just agitated because of the comment, but calmed down soon after. Fei Ge didn’t really care about making that guy speechless, but it was a pity that he couldn’t see his great god venturing into new areas.

After a while, Fei Ran also suddenly remembered this, and sent a message asking him, “I have already started two sessions of class, where is your great god?”

Fei Ge: “He probably didn’t sign up.” 

He then opened Weibo and looked at Hypnos’s homepage.

Hypnos has released a new work.

Several self-made floating Gundam appeared in the new picture.

Fei Ge: “?”

He sent the screenshot to Fei Ran: “Help me check something. This Gundam can only be made after learning modelling, right?”

“Well, although it looks cool, the shape is actually quite simple. You can do it after two basic lessons and then figure out the software by yourself.” Fei Ran replied, “But who’s this, is this your great god? Didn’t he not sign up?”

Fei Ge was a little embarrassed, and could only think of two explanations. 

“He probably signed up for someone else’s class…or it was too expensive, so he just taught myself.”

But will wealthy Gundam hobbyists find online courses to be too expensive?

Fei Ran: “My school is the only school that offers modelling classes now, and even the earliest classes from other school will only start next month. If he did take up modelling classes, it can only be mine.”

The more Fei Ge thought about it, the stranger it appeared to him. Hypnos secretly attended Fei Ran’s class, but didn’t tell him about him? What’s the point of doing so? If he hadn’t been so mysterious, Fei Ge wouldn’t have been curious, but now, he was interested to find out why. 

“Is there anyone in your class named Hypnos?”

 “No.”

“Then is there any student that seems way too good? If there is, remember to send me the ID, and then find a chance to get him to speak into the mic.”

Fei Ran fell silent again: “Two basic introductory classes won’t make too much of a difference. But my dear cousin, do you know what you resemble now?”

“What?”

“Sasaengs9.”

1 – A Korean TV series that aired for three seasons. It’s known for being makjang, and the plot and twists resemble a soap opera.

2 – A Japanese manga and animation series.

3 – JUMP is term that refers to an anthology of manga magazines by the publisher Shueisha. They feature mostly shounen (young males) manga, and they publish a lot of series that you may have heard of: One Piece, Dragon Ball, JoJo, and even Naruto – the series Fei Ge mentioned.

4 – Brahmin refers to the highest caste in Hinduism. I may be misunderstanding what the author is trying to convey, but I think Jia Ji is trying to say that her response is a “highest level” of Schrödinger that someone can use. She’s just trying to get Fei Ge to not talk about JUMP and her response somehow achieves that.

5 – Cardcaptor Sakura is a manga and animation series by CLAMP, and one of the male characters is called Li Syao Ran (李小狼). Jia Ji misspoke his name on purpose, calling him Wang Xiao Ming (王小明).

6 – GK is an abbreviation for Garage Kit, which is an assembly model kit, and it’s usually cast in resin, hence its other name Resin Kit.

7 – Jia Ji is reciting Buddhist sutras to calm herself down. These two paragraphs can be found from the The Heart Sutra (心经). I referred to this website to translate the sutras, do take a look if you’re interested in finding out more.

https://pages.ucsd.edu/~dkjordan/chin/chtxts/ShinJing.html

8 – Involution is the process of complicating something, or the state of being complicated. In Chinese, it’s called 内卷, which can literally be translated to mean inner turmoil. It’s used to describe the state of people being locked in a competition that is ultimately meaningless. Have you ever studied under the candlelight and used it as an example of how hard you’re studying? Imagine if people then started to study using their neighbours’ lights, the street light and the moon light to prove their dedication to studying. That’s complicated. Here’s an article on involution if you’re interested.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/chinas-involuted-generation

9 – Korean term for obsessive fans that border on stalker tendencies.