Memory is a strange name, at least in my eyes.

When I first saw her in the game, she stood quietly beside a fictional ruin, with a silver-white fox squatting beside her. The fox had a pair of amber eyes, and her eyes were so focused that they seemed to be able to see through people’s hearts. Memory was completely different, her expression was blank, like a piece of paper without printed content.

She didn’t say anything extra, nor did she show any special emotions. Her skills were not complicated to describe: empowering companions, weakening enemies, and making the whole more efficient. It was like the person in the office who didn’t talk much, submitted reports on time, and always aligned the layout.

But I like her very much.

I like people who “don’t seek to be liked”. She is like a street at 6:30 in the morning, empty, with a light breeze, but there is a kind of strange order quietly existing. Not indifferent, nor kind, just right – you won’t be disturbed or forgotten in it.

Once I put her in the main lineup, everyone else thought I was “wasting a position”. But her fox always appears at the right time, turning the tide of the battle in an almost lazy but precise way. Just like a bottle of water you buy at a convenience store, it ends up saving your life at the end of a long-distance run.

At that time, I began to think that she was probably the kind of person who had to spend time to understand. Unfortunately, in this era, people often don’t give characters that much time.

She has an underestimated characteristic: silence. She is not like those game characters who always shout “Come on, let’s fight!” or “For justice!” She is more like saying: “If you want, I’m here.”

So I opened my phone with fatigue on the subway at 11 o’clock in the evening. When I saw her, I always felt like some kind of metaphor: not everyone has to shine, and not every journey needs cheering and shouting. Some people, some roads, just need to be believed – even a little bit, is enough.

The fox sometimes winks at me. It doesn’t look like a pet, but more like a travel companion who knows all the rules but doesn’t want to say it out. And memory, she still doesn’t talk much.

One day I had a dream. I dreamed that I was in the library and saw her name on the title page of a book. There was only one page of content, which was a piece of code. I couldn’t understand it, but I knew that the code was quietly running some important programs, just like her, quietly making many things possible in a battle.

After waking up from the dream, I opened the game and saw her looking at me in the main interface. She didn’t say anything, and I didn’t say anything either. There was no dialogue between us, but at that moment, I thought, we probably understood each other.

The memory is still quiet. But that quietness is no longer blank, but a choice.