Chapter 14: It’s My Fault

The teachers without programs were arranging their own class’s kids, only leading them to the auditorium when it was their turn.

I was waiting outside Sunflower Class. The clothes had already been delivered.

Zhu Erting was clapping her hands and emphasizing, “Smile! Everyone smile! Hey, right, let Teacher Xiao Zhu see who’s not smiling yet. Be happy! Chin up, yes—”

Yihan stood at the very front and center, like a vibrant and dazzling sunflower. She smiled with great effort, her cheeks squeezing upward nonstop, baring her teeth and looking like Zhu Erting had just beaten her up.

As soon as I stood in the doorway, Yihan’s smile became much more genuine. Zhu Erting lowered her head, propping up her chin with her palm, examined it, and praised, “That’s a great smile. Everyone, look at Yihan’s smile!”

The Rabbit Who Didn’t Like Carrots tells the story of a rabbit who enters the forest to find the Carrot King in order to cure her mother’s eyes. She becomes good friends with other kids’ least favorite veggies like Broccoli and Spinach. In the end, they all defeat the Carrot King together. He fires carrot vitamin light beams that cure the rabbit’s mom’s eyes, and finally, all the veggies and the rabbit hold hands and dance.

The essence of this story is Zhu Erting’s earnest hope for these kids. She wants all of them to stop being picky eaters and gobble down these vitamin-packed goodies.

At lunchtime, Zhu Erting poked her head in to supervise, like a homeroom teacher watching over high school students. She stuck her butt out while peering through the back door glass to see who was eating hesitantly. But kids being picky is inevitable—Yihan herself doesn’t like carrots and left the ones in her curry. I looked down at her, and she looked up at me, then righteously shoved a carrot into her mouth. In her haste, she choked.

We’d been trained in the Heimlich maneuver, so we didn’t panic. Soon, Yihan spat out the carrot. I figured this would deepen her lifelong trauma with carrots. Seeing she’d eaten everything else cleanly except the carrots, they were about to collect the trays.

Unexpectedly, Yihan was stubborn. After that one time, she decided to go all out against carrots and tried to eat more, but I stopped her.

Later, Yihan’s mom told me that when the kid got home, she started gnawing on carrots, saying it was the bad stuff that choked her and she had to bravely eat it until it could never hurt her again.

This method made me see Yihan in a new light. Standing at the kindergarten gate, every kid running in looked like a little hero to me.

Charge! Declare war on carrots!

That evening, while preparing gifts for Zheng Ningning, I specially added a card with a carrot pattern.

Zheng Ningning’s death anniversary was approaching.

Every year, I prepare a bunch of little gifts, calculating her age—she’d be fourteen this year, right in the rebellious teen phase, turning into a young girl. I wanted to write her a letter but only managed an opening line before crumpling it up.

The 22nd was right around the corner. In Neng County’s funeral customs, there’s a saying that in the seventh year after death, the soul returns home one last time. Family starts preparing seven days before the anniversary to welcome it. The soul eats some home-cooked food, so they make extra dishes or dumplings these seven days, and at night, they burn paper money fiercely, turning longing into ashes that leave faces yellowed and noses gray with soot. I don’t have the habit of burning paper, and Zheng Ningning doesn’t know my family, so I don’t bother. I just still plan to visit her grave on the actual anniversary.

I also bring gifts to visit Zheng Ningning’s grandma. The old lady lives alone, picking trash for a living. She never likes the gifts I bring and doesn’t appreciate it. After I do chores for her, she chases me out the door.

That’s how I spend every May 22nd.

The shoebox already had the carrot card and Elsa stickers inside, with more stuff to add gradually.

I sealed the box and sorted the gift wrapping paper and ribbons into categories before putting them in the drawer. Then came a knock at the door from outside.

I’d developed the habit of not peeking through the peephole. I asked against the door, “Who is it?”

“Shentong—” The voice dragged out from the other side. Only then did I check through the peephole and see him rolling his eyes while holding a delivery box. I opened the door to take it. As the delivery guy turned, he revealed the person behind him—like tearing open one pancake from a pair of spring pancakes, leaving the other one. This one was expressionless, still carrying a Jiaxing Supermarket plastic bag, wearing the same unchanged black hoodie.

But it had been washed; there was no smell on her.

Gan Ling looked at me and, without any preamble, yanked out a phone from the plastic bag, as if assuming I knew what she wanted.

This phone was powered on. I glanced down and saw it was a new one.

The previous one had been badly damaged and finally retired honorably. This one had a case on it. I don’t know phones, couldn’t tell the brand, but I could see the screen was at least smooth and shiny. The difference between this phone and the last one was like the difference between me and Gan Ling—side by side, anyone could see I lived comfortably while she was out in the wind and rain.

She wanted to show me photos—the pile she’d taken wandering the streets.

I was a bit resistant, standing in the doorway, propping the door and closing my eyes outright.

Facing Gan Ling with my eyes closed showed my lack of cooperation, but I knew she wouldn’t let it go. Sure enough, just as I closed my eyes, a plastic bag suddenly got pulled over my head.

I reflexively opened my eyes to grab it, but as soon as I did, Gan Ling whisked away the bag and shoved the phone right in my face, displaying it in landscape mode: a photo of a man pushing a fruit cart, wearing a Jiaxing Supermarket uniform. Seeing no reaction from me, she immediately swiped to the next one—a male customer passing by at Jiaxing Supermarket, accompanying his wife and looking impatiently at clothes.

Looked like she’d been staking out Jiaxing Supermarket.

I couldn’t very well close my eyes again. Like my bones had been pulled out, I leaned against the door, swaying with the hinges, weakly lifting my eyelids: “How many did you take? I haven’t even finished the last batch.”

Gan Ling was expressionless: “One thousand two hundred seventy-one.”

If she’d been vague about the numbers, I could’ve chalked it up to this woman being desperate and fishing in the sea. But spitting out such a precise figure made it feel like she was serious—she’d really set everything up to fish out that one specific person from Neng County’s three hundred thousand people.

If the killer had been released early from prison, would he definitely be in Neng County? Or maybe Peng County? Or neighboring Ming County, Xia County, Zheng County—or simply holed up in some village for a decade without coming out—

I took a deep breath. There was really nothing I could do.

“Fine.”

I could already foresee this woman searching for ten years without finding him, finally snapping and taking it out on me with one slash.

I stepped aside: “Come in. It’s not good blocking the doorway.”

The house wasn’t tidied. I turned and picked up the gift box for Zheng Ningning—it was too tall for the drawer—so I put it in the bedroom. Gan Ling didn’t look at my decor either, just calmly stepped in from the doorway, onto the mat, and stood still. Looking at the floor tiles, I felt like at that moment, I’d have to hold down the screen and charge up for ages to make her jump to the rug in front of the sofa.

I closed the door, and Gan Ling finally took another step forward, eyes downcast, showing no interest in my furnishings at all.

My place didn’t have much anyway. Living alone, you come in to a shoe rack facing the sofa, rug, TV stand, and a wooden tea table. Usually, I sit cross-legged on the sofa doing crafts, with odds and ends piled on the TV stand and tea table.

I came out of the bedroom, and Gan Ling had stationed herself behind the sofa, unfamiliar with it, keeping a fist’s distance. She poked at the phone for a bit, then handed it to me.

The new phone brought Gan Ling’s intentions and actions to the surface, giving her sea-fishing operation a tiny bit more efficiency.

The album had nothing but WeChat, Alipay, maps, and cloud drive—no third-party apps. Opening the album showed views sorted by location. Gan Ling tapped Jiaxing Supermarket, and an employee’s face popped up again. I judged she’d hidden behind some cabbage to shoot it—half the frame was green. This guy was bound to get nabbed by the cops eventually.

I had no expression as Gan Ling swiped through. I held the phone while she stood across from me, eyes flicking constantly between me and the screen, like watching an exciting esports match, not missing a detail.

Jiaxing Supermarket had at least two hundred photos. I deliberately swiped one to check the timestamp, estimating she’d squatted there for at least an hour.

I couldn’t help but sigh.

Gan Ling wouldn’t be deterred by my sigh. Calmly, she selected all, uploaded them to the cloud with a whoosh, then deleted them with a snap.

“Should we keep the ones already confirmed?” I rubbed my sore eyes, thinking it wasn’t great to huddle over one phone for half a day.

Gan Ling didn’t reply, just poked a bit more and opened the second location.

After scanning three locations, I felt like a demining dog, diligently helping Gan Ling rule out all sorts of suspicious men. But I wasn’t as well-trained as a real demining dog—my eyes were sore, mouth dry, and finally, I closed them and slumped back onto the sofa.

“I can’t look anymore.” That was the truth.

Gan Ling didn’t believe me. Familiarly, she pulled an art knife from her pocket and held it to my neck to threaten me.

“Really.” I guaranteed weakly, and Gan Ling put the knife away. The threat was especially childish.

I sank into the sofa, enveloped by a cloud-like softness all around me. After overusing my eyes, both eyeballs went on strike outright. A kaleidoscope of men’s faces flashed vividly before me, so I forced my eyes open. Suddenly, a thought struck me: “Have you ever considered that if my expression changes when I see a man’s photo, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s the killer? It might just be that I know him—like if you snapped a pic of my ex-boyfriend, or some parent I see all the time from the kindergarten kids, or even our old security guard uncle… I can’t possibly know only the killer and no other man.”

“I’ll judge for myself.” Gan Ling’s voice remained perfectly calm.

“You weren’t on the sofa last night—you went somewhere. Later, after your fever broke, you washed your clothes. Why were you sleeping outside our neighborhood that day?” I’d looked at so many of her photos for a reason. I had to pry some info out of her.

Gan Ling made a gesture that, to me, didn’t seem like something she’d do.

She lifted her sleeve and sniffed it. Her gaze landed smoothly on my face, but she said nothing, just slowly blinked.

“Why?” I pressed relentlessly.

Gan Ling held her scrutinizing pose toward me, eyes blinking faintly as if deep in thought. Finally, she cracked a faint, mocking smirk unique to her—a smile that didn’t reach her eyes: “Mind your own business.”

“I’m done looking at your photos. Get out. I have work to do.”

I shot to my feet, fueled by some unknown burst of courage. I grabbed the hood of Gan Ling’s hoodie and shoved this woman right to the door.

As I yanked the door open, ready to toss her out like a bag of trash, Gan Ling suddenly said, “Conscience.”

“Huh?” I clutched her collar tight.

“Ningning died right in front of you. Your conscience… it never got over it.”

It was the same question Gan Ling had asked me before—and now she was answering it herself. A surge of fury hit me, like my diary had been read aloud in public. I shoved her out with extra force.

“Get out. Next time, I won’t even open the door.”

The moment I pushed Gan Ling out, those eyes of hers—always dark and foggy like black mist—finally glimmered with a hint of tears.

I froze. Gan Ling let out a “pfft” chuckle, though I couldn’t tell what she was laughing at. Suddenly, she raised her hand and covered her eyes with the heel of her palm.

Then she turned her back to me.

I gripped the door, feeling at a loss, but I still slammed it shut hard.

From outside finally came her confession: “You act like Ningning’s death was your fault.”

“I can’t hear you!”

“Actually… it was my fault.”

I heard that.

Thud—Gan Ling started pounding on the door like mad again. Before she could knock too many times, I wrenched it open.

“I won’t hear any confessions! I’ve had enough! Do you even know what it was like back then? You don’t know a damn thing! It was my fault—mine! The direct cause was me being blind, deaf, and stupid! I was the one who let the killer into the kindergarten!”