After finishing the website, I went an entire month without writing a diary entry.

Why? Partly because having one more place to update felt troublesome, and partly because everyday life gave me plenty to do. But if you kept pressing me, you would probably receive only stammering and evasive glances. It is true that the past few weeks of school have been rather intense, but with a mere thirteen credit hours this semester, I can handle the assignments comfortably enough. At least I do not stay up until the middle of the night. (Ah, a deadline warrior.)

So what have I been doing with all my free time?

Some readers may have noticed that certain Sojourner’s Diary material never appeared on WeChat and cannot be found among my Telegram posts. It sits quietly archived in a corner of the website. Those entries are my daily schedules from a period last year.

“Schedules” is not quite the right word. They are more like logs, or something of that sort. Following an elder’s advice, I recorded what I did in each two-hour block of the day for two straight weeks. At first, there were signs that I was pretending to be a model student. Later—meaning immediately after the first Sunday—my true demonic form descended upon the earth. I was already like that in Beijing, where transportation was convenient. Now I spend entire days alone in my dorm, unfamiliar with both the area and the people around me. The situation has taken a sharp turn for the worse. (Tragic.)

But at least I have begun writing again.

Interestingly, I had many topics far more entertaining than this one, yet I could not summon the desire to write any of them. What has been missed has been missed, however. Let us turn our eyes to every moment of the present.

And at this particular moment, there is a decision I need to share.

Perhaps I did not pay enough attention to scholarships before coming here. Only after I truly arrived at LeTourneau did I discover how many application opportunities I had missed. In the end, even with the Dean’s Scholarship, my family cannot afford twenty thousand dollars per semester. After also considering my major, the alumni network, and several other factors, my family and I have decided that I will transfer from LETU to UT Dallas and continue university closer to home.

To be honest, ever since making the decision, I have felt a strange resistance to saying it aloud in front of others. I remember how I felt when a friend once decided to leave the Gao family, and a sense of unease whispers that I am committing some sort of “betrayal.” That feeling becomes stronger when I recall the introductions and testimony I gave about Christian education in China soon after arriving at LETU, along with the “rupture” caused by one self-important in-person inquiry last year.

Ultimately, though, I persuaded myself: it was Lingyu’s departure without a word that trapped Lingluo in her nightmare. (The Paranoia series really is useful for everything.) The one thing I absolutely should not do is wait until the last moment and throw out a hurried goodbye.

When I told Professor Gowing about my choice, he smiled and said this was not the first time tuition had cost him a student. LETU truly does have the finest campus culture and classmates. In any corner of the university, you can discuss subjects large and small with people from every imaginable place. You can even understand every joke derived from the Bible. But for international students, the financial barrier remains too high.

As I have said before, if I had done more research during my time in Malaysia, I should have followed Sister Jenny’s example and taken the SAT. I might even have completed online courses directly affiliated with LETU for transfer credit. Those opportunities are gone now. Another twelve credits still seem impossibly far away, and I truly do not dare bring the subject up repeatedly.

Let it go. Whether the road is smooth or difficult, a traveler must adapt to whatever comes. The experiences along that road are what matter most.

My experiences at LETU are what matter most. I learned about American culture. I overcame the fear of communicating in English that followed me through Peninsula. I learned about Third Culture Kids and Missionary Kids and formed close friendships with many of them. Every Sunday afternoon, after washing all the dishes, I received enough Chinese food for three meals. And Malaysian chicken! All of it has been precious.

Yet amid all these blessings, I do not seem to have brought many blessings to other people.

I am a contradictory person. “Arrogant because of talent” is not quite accurate, since I possess very little genuine expertise. While discussing AI programming and vibe coding with an old friend, I suddenly realized that, after someone criticized me as “too casual” for clicking Gmail’s suggested quick reply at Peninsula, I had never again written a proper English email.

On one hand, I joke that AI-generated code is a mountain of garbage. On the other, my own website still runs on that code, and I have even imagined it was enough to let me participate in more complex professional projects of the kind not introduced until Software Engineering II. At the same time, I love being different and love receiving praise. So after using AI to brute-force a hash buried in a website’s source code, I immediately throw a screenshot into the group and enjoy the succession of question marks from my friends. After revising AI-generated text as heavily as possible, I tick the mandatory box when submitting it…

Ah. Let us listen to music instead.

Ilem’s new song, Bird of Death, is a Luo Tianyi track I love very much. The resurrection of that ancient pigeon of a producer surely deserves a few words, and the song’s theme is profound enough to deserve a few more. Yes, I have been looping it throughout the writing of this entire entry.

I mentioned in Diary 87 that sound is one of the vessels of memory. This song will inevitably become bound to my time at LETU.

The most immediate interpretation lies in what happened at the end of last September. When I heard the words “bird of death” over the phone, time stopped. I had heard that when people face a life-changing event, they sometimes remember the completely unrelated details surrounding that moment with extraordinary clarity. At the time, I was scrolling through the Silksong bestiary, trying to determine which entry I had not unlocked. My cursor rested on the Cogwork Pilgrim.

…On May 10, I will make braised pork again.

The next layer is the change in spirit reflected across the Master’s songs over the years. In Midnight Poet, three thousand fathoms of starry sky became wings. In White Bird Crossing the Riverbank, the wings became a white bird—and then became the extraction string in n different puzzles. No, wrong subject. Now, in Bird of Death, a dark figure glides hurriedly across the distant edge of the sky.

It seems to portray every person living in this era. Lost, yet still moving forward. Echoing the mainstream view. Chasing whatever opportunity the age declares to be the next great thing. And in the end, failing to share one more drink with an old friend before they leave.

So before I leave, I hope to leave behind the best—

(You can all keep in touch! Why are you being sentimental? The entire paragraph has collapsed.)