Chapter 70: Return
The girl was leaning against the mottled wall, her face pale from vomiting. The filthy food scraps had fallen into the gutter on the side of the road, and a dark, viscous liquid was slowly flowing at the bottom of the gutter, as if it had gathered all the filth and ugliness behind the bright side of this city.
Xia Qiange watched silently from the side. It was not until the girl had almost finished vomiting that she handed her a few tissues and patted her on the back to help her catch her breath.
“Thank you…”
The girl said thank you with a complicated expression. She looked at Yun Meiman, who was standing on the side, indifferently looking around, with a somewhat timid look. She knew she had made a mistake. On the first day of her internship, she had left such a bad impression on her teacher. She stood there in a daze, not knowing what to do.
“If you’re really not feeling well, you can go back and rest for a while. Next time, I’ll arrange for Lawyer Huang to take you. Then you won’t have to deal with cases like today’s.”
The girl’s weak face suddenly turned even paler. She opened her mouth, wanting to explain something, but a foul and pungent smell from the alley made her stomach churn, and she turned her head and vomited for a long time.
The surroundings were all low-rise bungalows. The rapid development of Qingchuan in the past two years could not erase some of the backward and intolerable dark sides. It was almost no different from a dirty and poor slum. Villains, migrant workers, or some bankrupt rich merchants… there were all kinds of people.
A mixed bag of people were squeezed into this narrow alley. The dim light in their eyes seemed to only see gray and white, as if their souls had already died in despair, and only a shell was left to live numbly.
“Be careful on your way back. Don’t walk in the dark. Remember to keep your phone on at all times. Your parents have asked me to take care of you. Don’t get into any trouble.”
Yun Meiman hugged her arms and gave a few instructions from behind. The girl didn’t respond, as if she were in a huff, and left without a word.
“Teacher, is it a bit… to let her go back alone?”
Xia Qiange looked at the girl, who was gradually disappearing into the shadows at the end of the alley. On their way here, many of the hooligans who were gathered in the alley and had nothing to do had whistled at them, and their words, which were clearly teasing, had followed them.
The New Year was approaching, and the alley was still old and dilapidated. Not a single bit of a fresh color could be found. They were like strange intruders, and they had added a few colors for no reason, but they had also attracted a lot of wanton and dark gazes from the corners.
“Someone will be watching her. If it wasn’t for bringing you guys, I don’t know how many years it’s been since I’ve personally come down to investigate a case. My family was quite powerful in the capital back then. They directly put me under someone’s command and started from the most basic. At that time, the management was loose… I’ve even touched a lot of dead bodies.”
Yun Meiman stretched her slender waist, and her exquisite and shapely curves were lazily stretched out. Her eyes were slightly squinted, and she pinched the soft flesh on Xia Qiange’s cheek with interest, and she whispered in her ear to scare her, “There are all kinds of death scenes. The eyeballs are about to fall out. After a round of inspection, the gloves are all covered in blood, sticky… and they’ve turned black. Tsk tsk… it’s so scary.”
“You’re just joking, teacher. Did you also say this to Xiaoyue? You’ve scared her away.”
Xia Qiange just smiled and blinked her eyes. Her clear black and white eyes were as if they had been stained with a deep and dark ink, and her pupils were embedded in the whites of her eyes, exuding a faint light.
“It’s no fun. You won’t be able to attract boys like this, Qian Ge. A girl… has to pretend to be a little weaker, so that someone will dote on her.”
Yun Meiman stared at Xia Qiange for a while, but she still got nothing. She suddenly lost interest and looked away at the direction the girl had left, pouting.
“That girl just now, her family asked me to take care of her. But I don’t have that much time. So I thought I’d take you guys here for a walk. It hasn’t even started yet, and she’s already run away. It saves me the trouble.”
“Then we’re now…”
Yun Meiman was stunned for a moment, and the words on her lips were stuck and she couldn’t find a chance to say them. She really didn’t feel like a teacher at all from her own student. She was suddenly a little unhappy. She lightly bit her bright red and full lips and rolled her eyes in boredom. A moment of charm was revealed, like a ripe kiwi. It was as if with a gentle squeeze, the soft and glutinous flesh could seep out with a fresh and sweet juice.
The girl seemed to be good at everything, but she was too mature. She was always so calm that it was terrifying.
“Forget it, forget it. Let’s go back. I’m tired.”
The gaze that was on her body disappeared a little suddenly. Xia Qiange silently listened to the screams that had erupted in the corner. She roughly understood why Yun Meiman was not worried about the girl. She followed her and held Yun Meiman’s arm, smiling sweetly, as Yun Meiman had intended. “Then does Sister Yun know what kind of case it is today? Can you tell me about it?”
She recalled the house that had just scared the girl away. It was an empty house that no one was willing to approach. One could vaguely see the faint chalk dust that was outlining the shape of a human body. The small house of twenty or thirty square meters was filled with a mess of clutter. A lot of household garbage had been left for too long and had not been cleaned up, and a dark liquid had seeped out. There was dark black blood everywhere, and there were traces of a struggle. The blood had flowed from the bedroom to the door, and it had almost covered the entire floor.
The bloody scene that had made the girl scream at first glance just made Xia Qiange feel familiar. She thought that she had also had such a scene when she had witnessed her mother’s suicide. Death was probably a very painful thing, but it should be far from being as numb as living.
“It’s a very tragic case. The tenant was a college student with no money. He was killed by his girlfriend, who was working part-time to support his studies. Hmm… it seems that the boy was cheating on her and was flirting with another girl. This kind of case is very difficult to handle. Lawyer Mo is in charge of this case. I’ll ask him to tell you about it when we get back.”
Yun Meiman of course saw Xia Qiange’s deliberate attempt to please her. She suddenly felt that she was making a fool of herself and swallowed a long speech. As if she had remembered something again, she held Xia Qiange’s shoulder with a whim and smiled, her tone a little gossipy. “Then what do you think, Qian Ge? Men are really unreliable, right? My family is always urging me to get married. I haven’t had enough fun yet. A girl like Qian Ge should be the same as me, right? Do you have a boy you like? Many of the younger lawyers in the law firm are interested in you.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Oh, I see… really? Don’t lie to me, sister. Hey…”, Yun Meiman’s round and bright eyes widened, and her light purple eyeshadow spread out with her thick and dense eyelashes. She paused for a long time before she repeated, “Did you just say… you have someone you like?”
“It’s not just like. I love him very much.”
“But how come I’ve never seen him?”
Xia Qiange smiled and didn’t explain too much.
“He’s been abroad all this time. He seems to have come back a while ago. Next time… I’ll introduce him to you, sister.”
