Yu Xingzhou frowned and asked coldly, “Who is the child’s father?”
Xin Hexue’s eyelid twitched, and he felt a throbbing at his temples.
If he wasn’t mistaken, Yu Xingzhou clearly knew about his identity in the Big World, and understood that a man can’t get pregnant, right?
Could it be that this person had slept through every biology class since childhood?!
He ignored the rash high school boy and turned instead to Gu Mifeng, who was watching the scene as if it were a show.
“Doctor Gu, you seem to have misunderstood.”
Xin Hexue forced the corners of his lips upward, “Thank you for the gift, but unfortunately, I am not pregnant.”
As for that complimentary pregnancy test product, it was of course lying in the trash bin.
Gu Mifeng adjusted the frames on his nose bridge. “Is that so? It seems I was guessing wildly then. But if you ever feel unwell in the future, you can always come to my clinic for a check-up.”
“Your physical condition isn’t very optimistic. You should pay attention to a regular diet and get plenty of rest.”
Xin Hexue lowered his eyelashes and replied softly, “Thank you for your concern. Well, I should go check on the children now.”
He brushed past Yu Xingzhou and heard the boy whisper in the whirling afternoon wind, “Wait for me after school.”
Maintaining a volume only audible between the two of them.
Xin Hexue glanced at him in confusion and Yu Xingzhou winked at him suggestively, his unruly brows arching into a sharp, fierce curve.
…?
A faint trace of bewilderment flashed through Xin Hexue’s eyes.
Not far behind, under the kapok tree, the doctor stretched his back and called out leisurely, “Teacher Xin, wait for me.”
Xin Hexue hurriedly responded to Yu Xingzhou with a soft, “En.”
It wasn’t until he entered the health room and returned to the noisy environment of children playing and laughing that Xin Hexue slowly realized.
He initially thought Yu Xingzhou was being vague because he was concerned about the presence of others. But in fact, Yu Xingzhou’s winking at him probably held no other hidden meaning.
He was probably just trying to act cool and handsome.
Xin Hexue fell silent.
Gu Mifeng walked to his side and asked casually, as if without thought, “What was that delinquent whispering to you just now?”
Looking at it this way, it wasn’t entirely just acting cool. If it had to mean something, it might be the competitive awareness all newly adult puppies have, an attempt to mark territory.
Xin Hexue turned his head to look at Gu Mifeng and said with a faint smile, “It seems Doctor Gu has maintained the curiosity of his childhood.”
……..
Perhaps because they all thought they could go play in the playground after the health check-up, the children hurriedly completed each item. Before leaving the health room, each one received two pieces of candy from Doctor Gu.
It was the very common White Rabbit creamy candy found in many corner shops. But given the average living conditions in the Walled City, snacks were still precious things they couldn’t get enough of. Moreover, compared to greasy lard candies or pungent durian candies, White Rabbit creamy candy was much more popular among the children.
“Thank you, Doctor!”
“Thank you, Doctor Brother!”
“Thank you… Moo-moo!”
Teacher Li led the line of children filing out to the open space of the playground. Xin Hexue originally intended to leave, but his gaze swept over a wall inside the room and his steps paused.
It was a photo wall.
Though called a health room, it was actually decorated quite warmly, like an activity room. Floral stickers and small animals cut from cardstock were pasted on the walls, with colorful ribbon borders framing the dozen or so photos in the middle.
One of them was labeled Small Class Six, which corresponded to the current Big Class Six. It was a photo taken two years ago.
In the photo, Mingzhu was standing at the very edge of the third row and looking much happier than now. Next to her was a woman in a long dress with long flowing hair. She had bent down slightly to hug Mingzhu during the group photo.
A somewhat younger Teacher Li stood at the other end of the corresponding row.
According to the seating arrangement and the convention of two teachers per class, this long-haired woman should have been the teacher at that time. As for why she wasn’t wearing the kindergarten uniform, it seemed because her pregnancy was advanced. Even in the long dress, her baby bump was visible in the photo.
“Teacher Xin!” A small head popped out from the health room doorway, calling out a little shyly, “Come play with us!”
Another sweaty little head popped out, “Teacher, let’s play Eagle Catches Chicks!”
…..
Just as the children said, Mingzhu did not play with them.
While everyone else formed small groups in the open playground area playing hopscotch, drop the handkerchief, or eagle catches chicks, Mingzhu sat quietly under the kapok tree.
She had paper and a pen, drawing and coloring. Seemingly tired, she then put them down.
When Xin Hexue went over, she was squatting by the roots of the tree, motionlessly, watching ants moving food.
“Won’t Mingzhu go over and play?” Xin Hexue glanced toward the open space in the distance, where the little girl playing hopscotch kept looking over here, “She looks like she really wants to play with Mingzhu.”
Mingzhu pressed her lips together. “…”
She didn’t answer, so Xin Hexue didn’t speak further.
“Not good.” After a long while, Mingzhu squeezed out a soft sound from between her lips and teeth, “…Not.”
Xin Hexue tilted his head, “What’s not good?”
Mingzhu turned her head and answered him seriously, “She has to go home.”
Xin Hexue frowned, unable to connect the logic of these two things, “Of course, all children have to go home. Doesn’t Mingzhu have to go home too?”
The wind rustled through the branches and leaves, scattering red petals down finely.
They were under the tree, while on the other side, Teacher Li spoke clearly to the group of children playing in front of him, “The boss of the uniform factory has delivered the goods. For the next couple of days, someone will be waiting in the open ground floor area of the comprehensive building near dismissal time. If anyone’s kindergarten uniform is torn and unwearable, or lost, or you need a spare, tell your mums and dads to go to the open ground floor area to buy one.”
Mingzhu clutched the edge of her uniform.
The fabric near her elbow had a patch of similar color, but the stitches were so fine the mending was almost invisible.
“It got burned last year playing with fireworks.”
“Is that so…” Xin Hexue reached out and plucked the petal from the top of Mingzhu’s head, “Were the fireworks fun? Mingzhu’s mother seems very skilled at needlework.”
“Mmm…” The lips Mingzhu had pressed together finally curved up just a little.
Suddenly, Teacher Li called out loudly to Xiao Ya, who had left the group, “It’s not dismissal time yet! Don’t run off everywhere!”
Xin Hexue pushed himself up from his knees and stood. He scanned the playground and noticed the subtle change in the atmosphere.
Even though the children were still playing games, they began looking toward the kindergarten’s main gate frequently. As the sun moved west, their expressions gradually showed anxiety, and they searched from time to time. Their body language conveyed a sense of eagerness and anxiety.
One by one, figures of parents began appearing outside the kindergarten’s iron gate.
Xin Hexue saw Xiao Ya, who had had her Little Red Flower deducted today, break free from her anxious state and smile through her tears toward outside the gate, “Dad…!”
In an instant, a thread passed through countless connections, connecting the beads together.
He remembered what Teacher Li had said during the day…
—”Just use this method. If they make a mistake, then deduct their Little Red Flower count.”
—”Children who behave well get Little Red Flowers, and the parents who come to pick them up after school will be happy too.”
—”The children in our kindergarten are all good kids.”
Behind the obsession with Little Red Flowers and the ranking of good children, behind the adherence to behavioral rules, there was another unwritten rule…
Bad children without Little Red Flowers would not have parents come to pick them up.
It might sound like a scare tactic adults use on children, but in this kindergarten, permeated with strangeness and absurdity, it was true.
Xin Hexue suddenly looked down.
Mingzhu, who was originally under the tree, along with her paper and pen, was gone.
Teacher Li stood in the still-scorching sunlight of 4 PM, backlit, his face blurred as he waved to Xin Hexue, “Teacher Xin, come over to the gate. We need to make sure every child leaves holding their parent’s hand.”
……
4:30 PM.
All the children had left, holding their parents’ hands.
Xin Hexue stood at the kindergarten gate the whole time. He was sure that among these children, there wasn’t a single face that belonged to Mingzhu.
Teacher Li acted as if he hadn’t noticed that one child named Mingzhu in the class had nowhere to go. He changed out of his kindergarten uniform and walked out of the kindergarten. As he passed by Xin Hexue, he reminded him, “Teacher Xin, the new uniform will be issued to you tomorrow. It’s only your first day, there’s no need to pretend to be so hard working. Are you staying behind to work overtime?”
Xin Hexue smiled, “No, I just suddenly remembered I left my violin in the classroom. I’m going back to get it.”
Teacher Li smiled a skin-deep smile, his tone kind, “Oh, then be quick. The closing time is 5 PM. Don’t be late.”
“The security guard will clear the premises. Don’t make things difficult for him.”
“The last new teacher was like this too. Working too hard isn’t g…”
His words faded into the clear yellow light of the early spring evening.
……..
Xin Hexue found his violin in the classroom and put it back into its case.
Unfortunately, he didn’t see Mingzhu’s figure in the classroom.
Where on the campus was she hiding?
She was just a child, after all. How could she spend the night alone in the kindergarten?
Carrying the violin case on his back, Xin Hexue opened the doors of empty classrooms one by one, crouched down to look under desks, and even pulled back curtains.
Not in the first one. Not in the second one. Not in the third one.
……….
Dong, dong, dong.
While searching the classrooms on the second floor, a bell rang from outside.
The kindergarten’s bell system was still very primitive, it was not an electric bell, but a person physically striking a bronze bell hanging in the corridor of the administrative building opposite.
Xin Hexue looked up at the plastic clock on the classroom wall.
It was five o’clock.
This was a rather special point in time. In some cultural contexts, 5:00 is marked as the beginning of the ‘Encountering Demons Hour’.
The air grew thick with the heavy, blanket-like smell of moss and dampness. The evening’ yellow light of dusk faded in an instant, replaced by a grey darkness invading the room.
The front wall of the classroom began to seep water, as if plagued by long-term dampness, with wet stains creeping across the white wall.
Xin Hexue took a step back, and his heel stepped on a piece of paper, making a slight rustling sound.
He bent down and picked up the paper.
It wasn’t cardstock or a drawing, but a talisman paper.
Xin Hexue looked up again and realized his surroundings had actually returned to the initial Class Six.
The relief on the front wall was the familiar black-and-white round-eared mouse, the corners of its lips raised in a U-shaped smile. In its black-and-white eyes, the pupils, which had been pointing down, lifted, their gaze piercing toward him. Two trails of water slowly trickled from under its eyes and dripped onto the floor.
Xin Hexue clenched the talisman paper and turned around. Behind him was the felt board nailed with drawings and handcrafts from the daytime. Now it was completely covered with dense talisman papers, sealed all the way up to the ceiling.
The yellow papers with their incantations were mottled, the backs showing through with damp green mold spots.
Xin Hexue didn’t hesitate and left through the classroom’s back door.
Sure enough, he was back on the third floor.
“Hehe.”
A chuckle rang out in the corridor.
The light was dim and gloomy.
Xin Hexue caught a glimpse of a shadow, which vanished in a flash.
“Mingzhu?”
He hurried forward.
The north-south teaching building and the east-west comprehensive building were connected by corridors on each floor. The two buildings were like a horizontal T, the horizontal and vertical connected at a point.
To get to that connecting corridor, he had to pass the staircase entrance of the teaching building in the middle.
Heavy footsteps, sounding like they were coming down from the floor above, accompanied by the clinking of a bunch of keys hitting against a leather belt slowly rang out.
It was the security guard.
Xin Hexue remembered the teacher code of conduct: strictly adhere to work hours. Staying overtime within the kindergarten after nightfall is not allowed.
Teacher Li had said the security guard would clear the premises.
The stairwell had windows letting in the evening sunlight.
The keys jingled crisply. A shadow stretched infinitely long over the steps, pouring all the way down onto the corridor floor.
Distorted, bloated, malformed.
It didn’t look humanoid.
An indistinct nursery rhyme was being hummed in the air.
Xin Hexue leaned back against the wall. He didn’t choose to sprint quickly down the corridor, as that would undoubtedly mean encountering the guard descending the stairs from the side.
The skin on his palm suddenly felt hot, and veins spasmed, as if something was about to sprout and was struggling to break through the soil.
Xin Hexue was grabbed by a great force from behind, pulling him by the shoulder into the classroom next to him.
The violin case bumped against the doorframe.
“Who? Who hasn’t left yet?”
The sound of keys became hurried.
A tongue secreted mucus-like saliva, moistening sharp teeth.
A key opened the classroom door, revealing the violin case lying on the floor. “Found you.”
A wet, sticky body surface rubbed against the floor tiles. It lifted the curtain, “Where is it?”
It bent down, sweeping past the desks and chairs in the classroom one by one, “Where is it?”
Finally, it reached the back of the classroom.
There stood rows of storage lockers.
They were lockers purchased collectively by this class’s parent association, but after buying them, they realized the dimensions were actually too large…so large that a child could even hide inside to play hide-and-seek. If it were an adult, curled up to the extreme, they could also hide inside.
“So… here you are.”
It patiently opened the locker doors one by one with its hands.
Only the last two closed locker doors remained. It seemed it could already smell the scent of food.
It reached out to open the second-to-last door.
Just then, a “bang” rang out.
The last door suddenly swung open from the inside and hit the wall.
“Uncle, I didn’t expect you to be so fast at finding people as the ghost.” The little boy with red highlights stood up from inside the locker.
And from the locker it had already opened, a fair-skinned, black-haired little boy slowly shifted out, not forgetting to brush the dust off his clothes elegantly.
“Do we change who’s the ghost now?”
It was as if this was a game of hide-and-seek.
The sudden turn of events made the “security guard” opposite visibly stunned, and its eyes scanned the name tags on the two children’s chests and their blue-and-yellow trimmed kindergarten uniforms with unwillingness.
Children that were not from this kindergarten were not allowed to enter and they had to wear the kindergarten’s name tag.
But unfortunately, they were not outside the rules.
“Didn’t any parents come to pick you up?”
Yu Xingzhou grabbed Xin Hexue’s hand, “My parents didn’t come, Xiao Xue, yours didn’t either, right?”
Their name tags were ones Yu Xingzhou had stolen from the administrative building office that afternoon, and they were from among the tags of children who had taken leave or transferred away. Coincidentally, the child on this name tag also had a “Xue” in their name.
The Flowers Kindergarten had hundreds of children; it was impossible for the “security guard” to know every single one.
“Which class are you in?”
It still refused to give up.
Children must wait for their parents after school before they can leave. But as far as it knew, this kindergarten shouldn’t have that many “bad children” left behind because their parents abandoned them.
It was going to check the Good Child ranking in their class.
Footsteps echoed quietly in the corridor outside.
The scent of an adult living person was distinct. It immediately found a higher quality, more delicious target and rushed out fiercely.
“Hmm?” Gu Mifeng adjusted his glasses, one hand tucked in his white coat pocket. “Are you the security guard? I was just looking for you.”
“It’s so late, what are you doing staying here?”
Its lips had already stretched to their limit, splitting below the earlobes. A dark, gaping mouth and sharp white teeth opened towards the food.
Gu Mifeng took a piece of paper from his pocket. “The principal asked me to organize the children’s health records.”
It stared intently at the principal’s handwritten signature on the note.
Gu Mifeng: “But the health room in the comprehensive building is already locked, and the files are still inside. I don’t have the key. I was just about to find you to borrow it. It’s great that I found you.”
A bunch of keys belonging to the comprehensive building were thrown to the floor.
It left, hungry and frustrated.
Gu Mifeng picked up the keys and walked step by step to the classroom door.
“Urgh, whose ugly child is this?” Gu Mifeng frowned, looking the child up and down. “He has dyed red hair too, really not learning proper behavior at such a young age.”
Suddenly, his expression brightened as he greeted the child behind Yu Xingzhou.
“Baby is too beautiful, let gege hold you.”
Xin Hexue stood there, like a perfect little prince who had walked out of a fairy tale.
Black hair, snow-white skin, long and thick eyelashes, a straight nose, and red lips.
“Please stay away from me.”
He pushed away Gu Mifeng’s approaching face.
[I’m going to call the police, weird uncle don’t touch our little cat…]
[We elderly have bad teeth, we just need to eat more of these soft, cute little things, ya…]
