Bella took several deep breaths, pushing her psychic shield to its maximum output. Psionic energy circulated rapidly, suppressing the negative emotions once more.
To divert her attention, she lowered her head and looked at the short story The Day After Tomorrow.
The piece indeed contained the emotional resonance triggered by the New York Public Library, as well as the influence of certain negative emotions deep within her own heart.
"I'm sorry. There have been a lot of things going on lately. This short story really does come from some thoughts in my heart, but I'm mostly using the cold as a metaphor for certain people and certain matters," she explained briefly, apologizing for her earlier lapse in control.
"Would you be willing to accompany me for a walk outside?" the bald old man asked. "You know, I'm an old man—I quite enjoy evening strolls."
He did not continue probing the topic of the apocalypse.
Bella still could not detect the slightest trace of his presence through her psychic senses, which meant the old man also possessed methods to resist mind-reading and mental detection.
That was only natural. As the world's most powerful telepath, failing to protect his own mind would have been truly strange.
"Of course," Bella replied. She packed up her belongings, slung her bag over her shoulder, and pushed Charles Xavier out of the library.
Once outside, she felt a bit lost. The old man hadn't said where he lived, and she had no idea either. Was she supposed to wheel him to the New York Police Department and say, I picked up a lonely old man on the street—could you help contact his family?
Seeming to guess her thoughts, the bald professor smiled. "Just a casual walk. I actually haven't been out for a long time… That street over there—I remember there used to be a restaurant with excellent food. Now it's all high-rise buildings."
Like a conscientious tour guide, he occasionally shared memories of New York's past with her.
"Ororo has spoken to me about you," he said suddenly, smiling with a childlike purity. "Would you like to know how she evaluates you?"
Storm's evaluation of her? Bella thought for a moment. "Uh… of course."
"Ororo said you are intelligent and brave. But what I see is your fragility—and your hesitation."
His tone was calm, neither praise nor criticism. Bella nodded, accepting the assessment.
"You're right. I do have a strong sense of crisis, and I constantly wrap myself up. It's always been this way."
Her psychic shield—fully fused with her soul—was proof enough. It ran twenty-four hours a day, blocking mind-reading and mental manipulation. By now, it had become instinctive.
This was both the habitual vigilance of the original Bella and the protective mechanism formed from the unease she carried after transmigrating.
"Protecting yourself isn't wrong," the old man said. "You don't need to hesitate because of it. What truly matters is behavior—how you define your role in this world."
He suddenly looked into the distance. A black stretch Lincoln slowly approached.
"Ah, it seems my students are here to pick me up. I've enjoyed our conversation. Goodbye, Miss Swan."
Bella had once suggested that he call her "Bella," but he remained stubbornly attached to "Miss Swan."
"Goodbye, Professor."
The stretch Lincoln stopped in front of them, and a man and a woman stepped out.
The woman was a familiar face—Storm, whom she had mentioned earlier.
The man was unfamiliar to Bella: tall and slender, with sharp facial features and quartz-tinted glasses. He was almost certainly Cyclops, well known within mutant circles.
"Hi, Bella."
"Hi, Ororo."
After brief greetings, the tall man helped the professor into the car. Storm waved goodbye to Bella and moved to the driver's seat.
Before the Lincoln pulled away, Professor Charles spoke with deliberate meaning.
"Miss Swan, once your short story is finished, could you email it to me? I'd like to see how it ends."
"Of course."
"Good. Goodbye."
"Goodbye."
Her encounter with Professor Charles was merely a small interlude in her New York life. Her negative emotions gradually dissolved step by step, and Bella remained largely unaffected, continuing to explore New York at her own pace.
She visited libraries, wandered the streets, shopped—and whenever inspiration struck, she continued writing.
She spent three days finishing The Day After Tomorrow. After polishing and revising it once, she converted it into a digital manuscript and emailed it to Professor Charles.
Humanity was not annihilated. Instead, the Northern Hemisphere was frozen, and survivors retreated to the Southern Hemisphere—what Americans now referred to as Third World countries.
Hegemony vanished entirely. The once-proud and arrogant Americans became guests in foreign lands. Oil was no longer the fuse of war, and past prosperity became history.
In the book, a newly inaugurated U.S. president delivered a speech, calling for all survivors to unite and continue struggling—for survival, and for the continuation of civilization.
Professor Charles was very satisfied with the ending. He didn't know that this had always been the story's original conclusion, and assumed his advice had helped Bella shift her thinking. To him, the ending carried even greater meaning than he had anticipated.
…
"The barriers between races are, at their surface, language—and beneath that, deeper values. To eliminate hatred, in my view, is extremely difficult to accomplish through the efforts of one or two individuals. It requires time, and more sacrifices, to slowly wear those barriers down…"
Inside the library, Bella spoke at length with a new acquaintance.
He was a middle-aged man in his forties, completely bald, with oversized glasses perched on his nose and a modest smile at the corner of his mouth.
Carl Elias was a high school history teacher. Many of his students were Russian.
Russians struggled terribly in the United States—engaging in theft, robbery, and various social disturbances. Most who immigrated could only end up in gangs.
Carl Elias patiently taught those Russian children history, hoping they might find a path forward through it.
Whenever he encountered his students in the library, he encouraged them to study diligently.
The history teacher had initially only been making casual conversation. Bella sensed no hostility, and seeing that this unmarried man in his forties didn't resemble a superpowered individual or magician, she spoke freely.
Unexpectedly, their views aligned closely. Before long, they were discussing the widely publicized human trafficking incident in Paris.
"One must not harm women or children. I believe that even criminal organizations should adhere to this most basic line," Elias said, his tone tinged with indignation.
As a firsthand witness, Bella had plenty to say. She couldn't admit that the blood-soaked streets were her doing, but she made her stance clear—those traffickers deserved to die.
"The principle of civilization," Carl Elias said sharply, "is that we must treat criminals with more mercy than they showed their victims. We cannot degrade ourselves to the level of criminals…"
His words were incisive enough that Bella couldn't help but take a second look at him.