“…”
He Qinghong’s face showed no particular expression, maintaining its usual indifference.
Only his hands gripping the edges of the square glass fish tank tightened slightly, the large hands highlighting blue veins and distinct knuckles.
Xin Hexue’s expression remained unchanged, and his heartbeat was steady; instead, he smiled calmly. “Children, they speak without restraint.”
He Qinghong nodded slightly, appearing very understanding.
As Xin Hexue walked alongside him holding Mingzhu’s hand, He Qinghong lowered his gaze and asked Mingzhu, “Who are the other two ‘boyfriends’?”
Mingzhu blinked.
Was this something she could say?
Would it make Teacher Xin argue with her boyfriends?
Before she could answer, He Qinghong looked up and met Xin Hexue’s eyes, the corners of his thin lips curving in a subtle arc imperceptible to most people. “I’m teasing her.”
He was actually explaining himself seriously.
The mouth of the small alley gathered wind, rustling their clothes.
Xin Hexue gathered his coat closer. “Mr. He, you really are… quite humorous.”
He Qinghong said modestly: “Not really.”
“This is a child from the kindergarten class, called Mingzhu. Her parent didn’t come to pick her up on time, so I’m seeing her home.”
Xin Hexue introduced.
“You were away these past two days, so you might not know. I happened to see a job posting at Flowers Kindergarten before. Zhou Liao is missing, I’ve just settled here, and I have no source of income, so I thought finding a job might be better…”
Xin Hexue lowered his eyebrows and eyelashes, his lips pressed together tightly. His pale profile was like a clean, dewy bellflower after a rainy night, his figure slender and seemingly fragile.
He Qinghong parted his lips, as if about to say something, but his peripheral glance swept over the child beside them, and he stopped.
Finally, he said dryly, “Mm, being a teacher is good too.”
Xin Hexue suddenly turned to look at him. “Mr. He seems to like children very much?”
He Qinghong often had a cold, stern appearance, his lips straight and slightly downturned, looking unapproachable, and in reality, he indeed kept people at a distance.
Apart from the time fixing the water pipe, it was rare to see him actively tell cold jokes, let alone something like teasing a child.
“…Mm.” He Qinghong said flatly, “Compared to adults, children are more pure.”
He was adopted when he was very young and began training day and night from then on, eventually becoming the perfect killing machine the organization was satisfied with. He never missed, and never made mistakes, not even a millimeter off in the angle of a bullet.
Not killing children was an unwritten, default rule of the organization.
But they could make a half-grown child pick up a sniper rifle.
The organization’s standard procedure was to train newcomers through mentorship by older members.
He Qinghong’s first practice target was a farm owner. The other party had broken a promise and embezzled contraband trade goods, so the old partner who worked with the farm owner decided to hire someone to resolve the trouble.
He Qinghong failed to hit the target. He was too nervous at the time. The farm owner happened to straighten up, and his bullet hit the newborn lamb behind the man. The senior fired another shot, and the farm owner’s fat body slowly fell like a mountain.
He Qinghong still remembered the feeling of the lamb nuzzling into his palm with its wet nose.
His palms felt slightly sweaty. In a daze, he thought it was leftover bloodstains, and felt an urgent need to return to their lodging to disinfect and wash.
“It seems Mr. He might actually become a good father.”
Xin Hexue said casually.
The early spring wind carried the faint cold fragrance from the young man beside him. He Qinghong rubbed his fingertips, feeling inexplicably calm and at peace. This was a sensation he hadn’t experienced in all his years walking the gray areas between light and dark.
“Good father?”
He Qinghong had never considered this role.
“Do you know what most desert dwellers die from?”
He Qinghong asked out of nowhere.
Mingzhu raised her hand. She loved the quick Q&A games on TV, so she immediately answered, “I know! Deserts lack water, so people… die of thirst?”
He Qinghong shook his head. “They drown.”
Xin Hexue was somewhat surprised by He Qinghong’s answer.
Deserts are chronically short of water, but when it rains, it pours heavily. People living in deserts don’t even know how to cope. The thing they desire most instead brings terrible floods and quicksand disasters.
As he explained, He Qinghong gestured Xin Hexue to look inside his trench coat pocket. “Inside.”
He was carrying the fish tank himself and couldn’t reach for anything.
Xin Hexue took out three pieces of candy from it.
The candy wrappers were colorful.
He Qinghong: “Participation award.”
Xin Hexue distributed the candy to the game’s participants.
Mingzhu: “It’s fruit candy!”
Having received the treat, she felt obliged to speak well of him. She said to He Qinghong, “Thank you, gege. You need to work hard! I have the most faith in you, I’ll definitely support you!”
He Qinghong glanced at Xin Hexue but still didn’t clarify the misunderstanding with Mingzhu. “…Mm, thank you.”
The sun slanted westward near 5 PM, creating a hazy warm feeling. The ding-ding sound of students riding bicycles into the alley, the white steam rising from noodle shops, the gurgling sound of boiling water…it all gave a feeling of peace and stability.
“Dad…”
“Come back home for dinner!”
Scattered, fragmentary human voices, and busy, joyful footsteps.
He Qinghong’s gaze swept over the adults and children on both sides of the street.
Every executioner would sneer at words associated with “family.”
Their profession made them destined to walk alone. Once their hands are stained with too much blood, they can’t sleep peacefully…not due to guilt, but because they had too many enemies. You never know when a bullet from an enemy might pierce your chest.
So, at night, they can’t even sleep lying flat, as that makes it easy to fall into deep sleep, and they might die unknowingly in their dreams.
You had to be on alert every moment.
And once you start having an anchor point, a place where your body and mind settled, you are not far from death.
Just as those lacking water die by drowning, those lacking love die by love.
Zhou Liao was a living example.
When he went out, He Qinghong dealt with the two mission targets, and incidentally confirmed the news of Zhou Liao’s death. He brought back the materials, but the photos of the deceased, at first glance, might be hard for the family to accept. The emotional pressure of facing grief directly could likely overwhelm the fragile figure.
So, He Qinghong hadn’t figured out how to explain it to Xin Hexue yet.
Fortunately, things probably couldn’t get much worse.
After all, Xin Hexue was a man. Even if his partner died, he at least wouldn’t face the predicament of being a widow with an orphan.
“I’ll see Mingzhu home first.”
Just as He Qinghong wanted to speak, Xin Hexue spoke first. “Sorry to trouble you to bring the fish tank back. Could I ask you to set it up for me? I’ll settle the payment with you later.”
A brass key was placed in He Qinghong’s palm.
Xin Hexue bid him a brief farewell at the foot of Ju’an Building. “Thanks in advance.”
He Qinghong stared at the object in his hand.
……….
Mingzhu invited Xin Hexue to her home as a guest.
Her home was quite far compared to Ju’an Building.
Along the way, the corners of the walls were dark and damp, moss crept along the walls, sewage crossed the narrow alleys, and clothes hangers could be seen on the spider-web-like electrical wires, hanging cheap, dripping underwear. Even within the Walled City, living conditions could be ranked, and the area where Mingzhu’s home was located definitely counted among the worse ones.
Mingzhu’s home was on the second floor.
After the peeling vermilion door opened, Xin Hexue first kicked the empty liquor bottles at the entrance hallway; sending them scattering across the floor. Garbage bags piled up in the corner with flies swarming over them, and food scraps and takeout containers spilled out from untied bags.
Mingzhu pressed her lips together and pushed Xin Hexue towards the room she shared with her mother. “Teacher, I’ll tidy up a bit and be right back. Please wait for me properly. I have a gift for you.”
Her pattering footsteps faded away from the bedroom.
Xin Hexue surveyed the room. Compared to the outside, it was quite tidy and clean. The dressing mirror had many photo booth stickers attached, and a photo album with yellowing edges lay open on the table.
His fingertip landed on the photo paper and turned a page.
Mingzhu’s mother in her youth was a very tall and pretty woman. She wore glasses, had a bright smile, and was dressed in the trendy fashion style of that time.
The people around her were probably colleagues or friends, with similar clothing styles, their eyes and brows relaxed in laughter.
She looked completely different from the later woman with sunken cheeks. The friends from her youth no longer appeared in group photos.
Mingzhu returned to the room, bringing a cup of warm water. “Teacher, have some water.”
“Thank you, Mingzhu.”
He took the water and sat down on the chair.
Mingzhu went to unzip her small backpack and handed a drawing to Xin Hexue. “This is the gift I’m giving you, teacher.”
It was the picture Mingzhu had been drawing from the start. Under a large tree, two people, one big and one small, held hands.
“This is Teacher Xin, and this is me.” Mingzhu wanted a hug, so she opened her arms and hugged Xin Hexue’s waist, hiding her head. “…Teacher Xin is like Teacher Annie. Very gentle. I like you both.”
Xin Hexue stroked her hair. “Did your braids come loose?”
Mingzhu looked at the wall clock. “I don’t know when Mom will be back. Teacher, can you re-braid them for me?”
This stumped Xin Hexue.
He didn’t know how to braid hair. Even a simple three-strand braid was something he had never learned.
But… it probably wasn’t too difficult?
Xin Hexue lowered his head. “I’ll try.”
He took off the small hair ties at the ends of the braids. The two braids completely unraveled, but he could roughly infer the crisscrossing pattern from the traces of the three sections.
The wooden comb smoothed Mingzhu’s hair from the crown to the ends.
Then, he carefully and nearly divided the hair evenly into two parts from the center line at the back of her head.
The mirror reflected the slender fingers weaving through the dark cloud-like hair.
The result was small braids that curled slightly outward towards her shoulders.
“Done.”
Mingzhu happily leaned close to the mirror to look. Suddenly, her shoulders trembled, and she swiftly ran to the window.
From the second floor, they could hear heavy footsteps approaching the stairwell from the small courtyard below.
Xin Hexue felt something was wrong. “What’s wrong?”
Mingzhu didn’t speak for a moment. After a while, she said softly, “…Dad is back.”
Xin Hexue remembered she said her biological father had passed away. “Stepfather?”
Mingzhu nodded. “Teacher, I need to go wash the rice and prepare dinner. If Dad finds out dinner isn’t ready, I’ll get scolded. Wait for me in the room, okay.”
“Wait, Mingzhu…”
Xin Hexue had just stood up when Mingzhu, already by the door, closed the door with a “bang”.
………
Click, click-click.
The door lock was broken, and stuck.
Xin Hexue frowned tightly and searched the room for a handy tool to break open the door.
The stumbling footsteps of someone drunk appeared in the living room.
“Mingzhu, where’s your mom?” The middle-aged man’s voice was slurred, sounding like it carried a heavy, animal-like panting. “That bitch isn’t back yet? Just because we had a fight, she runs back to her parents’ house and avoids me like I’m the plague.”
“Dad…” Mingzhu spoke timidly. “Is scrambled eggs with tomatoes okay for dinner?”
The middle-aged man grunted from his nose: “Mm.”
Mingzhu: “We don’t have any tomatoes at home. I’ll go ask at Granny Wang’s shop if they have any left.”
The middle-aged man stopped her. “Wait, not so fast. I bought you a dress and a pair of shoes. Go change and let me see.”
Light, pattering footsteps paused briefly outside the room where Xin Hexue was, then turned a corner towards the bathroom inside the house.
The man hummed a tune and sat down on a chair in the living room, the wooden chair creaking under his weight.
Suddenly, he stood up again.
He called towards the inside, “Mingzhu, how is it?”
“Last time I argued with your mom, it was wrong of me to scold and hit you. Dad’s factory issued wages, and my first thought was to buy you this dress and shoes, and I bought your mom a lipstick.” The man spoke as he walked. “Consider it my apology to you two.”
“Mm, it’s okay. Then when Mom comes back, you should say sorry to her, Dad.”
Mingzhu’s voice was muffled from inside the bathroom.
Stepfather: “Mingzhu makes sense. You have to help Dad plead with Mom.” He spoke and walked with heavy breaths, as if his body was extraordinarily heavy.
Mingzhu straightened the skirt. It was a very bright red dress. “Okay. As long as Mom and Dad can live together happily, that’s all that matters.”
Mingzhu was six years old. Next year, she will go to primary school outside. Her mother had told her many stories for early enlightenment.
In fairy tales, they often ended with “they lived happily ever after.”
It was a bit too far from her life.
So, Mingzhu actually preferred listening to her mother tell fables before bed, especially ones about small animals.
Compared to princes and princesses, tangible small animals that she had seen made it easier for her to imagine the scenes and even extend her imagination to real life.
The timid Xi Mei was a little deer, the water-loving Xiao Ya was a crow carrying stones, the always-crying Yangyang was a little lamb…
Mom was a beautiful, clever fox. She found a father for Mingzhu, as if anxious to find a reliance and an answer in life. She firmly believed that once Mingzhu had a father, the gossip outside would stop, and no one would dare bully them anymore.
Mingzhu had heard the story of the fox who borrowed the tiger’s might; small animals would all be afraid because of the tiger behind the fox.
What Mom wanted to find was probably a tiger.
Mingzhu slipped her feet into the new shoes.
They were really unsuitable shoes for a child, with high heels and a red surface.
They made it uncomfortable for her to even stand.
“Mingzhu, have you changed yet?”
The heavy, panting sound seemed to ring right by her ear.
The bathroom door quietly opened a crack. Mingzhu looked up abruptly, “Dad!”
A human-pig forced its way through the door crack.
Its eyes were narrowed to almost invisible slits by fat. It huffed and puffed, its face greedy. “Mingzhu…”
Mingzhu felt as if she had fallen into an ice cellar as a huge shadow enveloped her.
What she had always wanted to shout and tell her mother was… Mom, the man you found isn’t a tiger; he’s a pig.
This was how the stepfather appeared in Mingzhu’s eyes.
……….
Xin Hexue forcefully twisted the doorknob. He had tried various tools, but there was nothing suitable in the bedroom. He knocked the door hard, “Mingzhu? Mingzhu?!”
It was impossible for the middle-aged man outside in the living room not to hear the loud noise.
But this bedroom seemed isolated in its own space and there was no response.
“Xin Hexue!” Yu Xingzhou climbed in from the edge of the second-floor window, first throwing a heavy object onto the floor, then jumping down from the windowsill himself. “Move aside!”
Yu Xingzhou picked up the axe from the floor and chopped at the door lock.
He took a deep breath, stopped, and said to Xin Hexue, “Prepare yourself.”
Xin Hexue didn’t spare the energy to ask what he meant, directly pulling the door open and rushing out.
Seeing the scene before him, his hands and feet gradually turned cold.
A human-pig sat on a chair. Mingzhu, wearing the dress and the unsuitable high heels, was having the so-called lipstick meant for her mother smeared onto her lips by it.
“Bastard!”
At that moment, the main door flew open. A fox woman with reddish-brown hair stood there, the things dropping from her hands and onto the floor. Her narrow and slender eyes widened and she screamed furiously: “Ahhhh!” She rushed forward and knocked Mingzhu aside. “Disgusting! Disgusting!”
She passed directly through Xin Hexue’s body.
Xin Hexue’s steps came to a complete stop. He looked at his palm; when he tried to stop the pig earlier, he had only grabbed a handful of air.
In the moment he was stunned, the fox woman and the human-pig started fighting fiercely.
The human-pig was fierce in appearance but weak within. His body drained by drink and debauchery was no match for the fox woman who had always worked hard. Especially when the woman grabbed a sharp fruit knife and stabbed him in the arm.
A white blade went in, a red blade came out.
“Chen Mei! Chen Mei!” The human-pig finally learned to speak properly. “Calm down, look at your daughter!”
The fox woman with the knife in her hand looked back blankly. “Ming… Mingzhu?”
Mingzhu lay on the floor. The low table beside her was very old, but she was reluctant to throw it away. A nail previously hammered in protruded from its corner, and there was a pool of blood spreading from the back of Mingzhu’s head.
The human-pig huffed and puffed, “You killed her! You killed her!”
The fox woman was distraught and unable to think clearly. “Mingzhu? No, it can’t be, how?”
At this point, the human-pig again pretended to be the reliable man of the past. He patted the fox woman’s shoulder, comforting her, “Alright, Chen Mei, you didn’t mean to. Didn’t you always tell me before that this burden caused you to be driven out by your parents, made you lose your original job, and moving here you still have to suffer people’s contempt?”
“Look at your old friends, how glamorous they are…” He coaxed and manipulated, “Without this burden, everything will be fine. Besides you and me, who knows what happened? Let’s get married, go far away and start over. I’ll be good to you. We can have new children.”
“How much money did you borrow from your mother-in-law?”
As the human-pig spoke, he observed the fox woman’s dazed expression and tentatively reached for the knife.
Their hands locked together in struggle.
“Ah…I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!”
“You damn woman, ungrateful bitch!”
……..
Dust fell from mid-air onto the floor. Xin Hexue now finally saw the true appearance of the entire house.
It had been vacant for a long time. A layer of dust covered the furniture. The dark bloodstains on the floor couldn’t be washed out. The crimson outlines of the three human-shaped figures remained like scars left by a branding iron.
Mingzhu hugged Xin Hexue’s waist. “Teacher, it hurts so much…” Her braids were loose again, and there was an empty gap at the back of her head.
Xin Hexue reached to touch it and felt a trace of blood.
He lowered his eyelashes. Only now did he realize that Mingzhu had never had a shadow all along.
These events had already happened long ago.
The identity card containing the answer grew hot in his pocket.
Yu Xingzhou looked at him, hesitant to speak.
“I don’t want to go to kindergarten tomorrow.” Mingzhu squinted her eyes sleepily. “Teacher, can you plant me under the longan tree?”
When Xin Hexue picked her up, the blood in Mingzhu’s mouth spread on her tongue. “So bitter.”
She rested her head on Xin Hexue’s shoulder and neck. “Does life all taste like this? Or is it because I’m a child?”
A gentle force patted Mingzhu’s back. Xin Hexue looked at her, “Sleep.”
Goodnight, Mingzhu.
No need to go to kindergarten tomorrow.
………
“Resign?” The principal’s face was stern and smoke seemed to come out from her nostrils. “You’ve only been working for two days and you’re already resigning?”
The young “woman” opposite had not even worn his kindergarten uniform on the day he submitted his resignation.
He wore a plain crepe satin cheongsam with a black branch pattern, the high slanting collar encircling his slender neck, over which he wore a dark silk traditional vest. “She” was like a tall, slender white peony.
“Sorry, Principal.” Xin Hexue pressed his lower abdomen, his eyelashes covering his eyes. “…But I am pregnant.”
The principal sneered.
“Go find accounting for your two days’ salary. Go, leave quickly.”
As Xin Hexue walked out of the office, he could still hear the principal complaining. “Young people these days…”
When Xin Hexue left the kindergarten, he ran into Teacher Li. Or rather, the other party had been waiting for him on purpose.
“Is Mingzhu not coming to school anymore?”
Teacher Li asked expressionlessly.
Xin Hexue smiled gently and replied, “She isn’t feeling well. I’m afraid she can’t come.”
Teacher Li raised his hands, covered his forehead, and slowly moved them down, blocking his face.
“Sorry… On the day Sister Chen didn’t come on time, I should have stopped that man from taking her away after school.”
As he spoke, he crouched over as if losing all strength.
So, when everything became surreal, all he could do was atone for the regret of that day.
By not letting Mingzhu leave this kindergarten.
[Who Killed the mockingbird?]
Who killed the mockingbird? I, said the Sparrow, with my bow and arrow, I killed the mockingbird.
Who saw him die?I, said the Fly, with my little eye, I saw him die.
Who caught his blood?I, said the Fish, with my little dish, I caught his blood.
Who’ll make his shroud?I, said the Beetle, with my thread and needle, I’ll make the shroud…*
As Xin Hexue walked under the longan tree, a bird happened to peek out from the branches.
He suddenly remembered the painting Mingzhu had given him; it was now framed and hung on the wall.
“Teacher Xin, you are like Teacher Annie.”
Mingzhu had said back then.
In an instant, a white string of beads connected in Xin Hexue’s mind.
When he got up in the morning, he thought he hadn’t rested well and had vomited once in the bathroom.
Teacher Annie…
The woman in the class photo, wearing a long dress, with a slightly bulging abdomen.
……..
The clinic door was suddenly pushed open.
Gu Mifeng had his legs propped on the desk and was leaning back in his chair. The commotion made the newspaper covering his face fall off.
He opened his eyes sleepily. “Hmm?”
When he saw clearly, Gu Mifeng straightened up. “What brings you here?”
Xin Hexue’s face was pale, one hand supporting himself on the doorframe, his black hair damp with cold sweat at his temples. “…Abortion.”
