Chapter 2: I Have a Story

“Jiang Xiaohui, you’re in big trouble!”

The principal kept repeating it to me, as if she wanted to pry open my mouth with this trouble I knew nothing about, dig out the baggage of my secret, then shoulder it herself—like some secret relay race.

I stayed firm that I couldn’t say a word. The principal’s slender eyebrows knitted together like two fine swords clashing, only to relax in that instant of crossing. She raised her hand and pulled open the curtains. “Then get out.”

I hugged my secret and walked out. Having someone know I had a secret felt just like them knowing I was pregnant—like carrying a seven-year pregnancy, not knowing what kind of evil spawn or calamity my secret would breed. My belly felt heavy; I held my lower back, waiting for it to miscarry on its own.

Just as I stepped out of the office, my colleague Li Yongquan came walking toward me.

Li Yongquan was the one-and-only male preschool teacher at Bright Kindergarten. He didn’t usually venture into those unseen corners, so we weren’t that close.

We exchanged a glance, and I noticed a child’s footprint on his embroidered jacket. He followed my gaze downward and explained, “Some bratty little boy was super naughty. I picked him up, and he stomped me twice.”

I nodded and continued forward, clutching my secret.

Li Yongquan and I had no real overlap. When he started at the kindergarten this spring—at just twenty years old, with his fluffy hair like a mild-tempered golden retriever—I was busy changing a kid’s soiled pants.

After emerging from the principal’s office, the golden retriever trotted right up to my side.

“The principal said that starting today, I’ll take you home after work.”

Our principal was a decisive out-of-towner with real ability—clear logic, always a reason behind her actions. For her to decree that Li Yongquan escort me home, there had to be some consideration on her part.

But I asked Li Yongquan, “What’re your plans after work?”

“Was thinking of hitting some billiards.”

I told Li Yongquan he could go nuts with his billiards. Today, I’d ride home on the back of Zhu Erting’s electric scooter—no problem.

Zhu Erting lived in the neighborhood right behind my Jiaxing Residential Area, so we were on the same route. As I explained this, Li Yongquan kept his head lowered, staring at me, a wave of hot air wafting from the top of his head. Finally, after I’d made it clear, he scratched his head. “No choice, huh? Principal told me to take you, so I’ll do it. I’m on the way anyway.”

I asked where he lived and learned it was right behind Zhu Erting’s place.

After work, Li Yongquan looked mighty cool straddling his motorcycle, all in black, engine roaring. In the evening dusk, the bike was still too hot to sit on. Once the kindergarten closed, he stood in the corner, cigarette in mouth, waiting for both the bike and the sun to cool down.

I shuffled along, stepping on my own shadow, mulling over the principal’s words about me being in trouble. I’d just come up with an opening when the principal pedaled out on her bike. Spotting me and Li Yongquan standing apart by the wall, she immediately nodded at him and waved her arm, stringing us together. “Escort her! Take her home! Watch her go into the unit door, got it!”

Li Yongquan, cigarette between his lips, raised his hand in a casual salute—like giving one to Hitler.

Once the principal was gone, the colleague vibe between me and Li Yongquan thinned out. I was carefully wording a way to excuse myself first when he suddenly slapped the motorcycle tire. “Alright!”

I had no choice but to hop on. The bike roared and shot forward.

Li Yongquan’s fluffy hair whipped straight back. I pursed my lips, eyes squeezed shut, arms hooked around his waist, face tucked behind his back. His golden retriever hair battered my head like a pelting downpour, scraping my face into a mess.

On the road, I asked Li Yongquan what specific trouble I was in that required a male preschool teacher to escort me home.

Li Yongquan let out an “Ah?”, his voice fragmented by the wind. “What’d you say?”

I shouted at the top of my lungs, “I said—why did the principal tell you to take me home?!”

“Didn’t say! No idea!”

We arrived at Jiaxing Residential Area, and Li Yongquan dropped me by the roadside curb. I pointed at the unit door—close enough that it counted as him seeing me in.

Li Yongquan leaned over for a look and nodded. “Alright, I’m off. Call if anything comes up—we’ve got each other on WeChat.”

We’d added each other as friends when he started at the kindergarten. Our chat history was just two lines: him sending an emoji, me replying with one.

The words were on the tip of my tongue. I said, “Okay, got it, thanks, bye.”

Once Li Yongquan roared off, I spat out the invisible hairs lingering in my mouth—pthoo, pthoo.

The neighborhood was sparsely populated. I passed three trash bins propped against a wall. At the entrance to Unit 2, a few kids were rollerblading, zipping back and forth, trailing shadows. The setting sun turned my canvas bag a waxy yellow lump. I rummaged inside for my keys.

I lived in Unit 2, Room 502 of Jiaxing Residential Area—a new place I’d bought outright. Neng County’s housing prices mirrored those in neighboring Peng County like two illusory mirage cities on either side of a looking glass. Peng County even had its own Jiaxing Residential Area—my old address. The difference? Back then, I was in the inner Unit 3, where the window view was just other people’s balconies with dangling underwear. Now, from my window, I could see those kids gliding on wheels at their feet, darting around super fast.

Looking down at kids from a high floor gave that Cairo Game feeling—you could reach out, drag one kid from one grid to another, make them stay put in a fixed spot. Feet glow to show editable; you yank her from danger, pin her to another mini-map.

As I randomly swiped at the glass, my phone buzzed. The principal called with a voice message, no preamble.

The other end was noisy and chaotic. I pictured her clutching the phone in one hand, waving the other commandingly, her thick eyelids from past surgery flipping into three, four, seven, eight layers before snapping back. The moment it connected, she was shrill-shouting, “That’s not your problem? Huh? You guys know nothing—what’re you even eating for, you rice buckets!”

A man’s voice came through: “What’re you so worked up about? If you’ve got the guts, you go! Here, put it on, you go catch the person. On what grounds? Just ‘cause you saw something and they ask, you grab ‘em? Who do you think you are, miss high-and-mighty? Oh yeah, you’re the cop, I’m the cop?”

I immediately pressed my ear tight to the phone. The principal must’ve been making a racket at the police station, but at this hour, they’d be off duty—pointless even if she caused a scene. I hurriedly shouted, “Principal!”

She fired back a couple more curses before her voice turned to me. “Xiaohui, I’m filing a report—they’re calling it nonsense— You home yet?”

“Yeah, I’m back.”

“Don’t go wandering these next couple days, okay? There’s some crazy woman snooping around everywhere, asking about the murder at Plum Kindergarten. Damn cops all claim they know zip. That’s why I said you’re in trouble. Stick with Xiao Zhu for work shifts, Xiao Li after—don’t go solo.”

“What happened?”

A crazy woman? Snooping about a murder at Plum Kindergarten?

“Nothing much, just a hassle, totally deranged. Today I had security chase her off—such a pain.” The principal hung up with a bang.

My secret contained a whole wide world, every detail vivid on-site—except there was no trace of any crazy woman. Like a meticulous detective, I pulled out every face in my mind one by one for matching. Result for crazy woman: zero hits.

That secret—I couldn’t share it.

Even though the principal had rushed to the police station on her bike after work to report it and sent security to shoo away a crazy woman, I still couldn’t tell her the secret.

But the murder itself wasn’t some huge secret. If it was trouble, I’d speak up.

Seven years ago, in the preschool class at Plum Kindergarten, a girl was hacked to death on the spot.

The killer was caught, the funeral long held. I knelt at the girl’s grandma’s house; that old woman jabbed my face hard with her finger, demanding why I didn’t save her.

“What kind of teacher are you?! You were right there, just watching our Ningning die—why wasn’t it you who died?!”

The emotional elder was pulled away by a crowd of teachers. I knelt silently, facing the black-and-white photo of seven-year-old Zheng Ningning.

Her coffin—a bit bigger than a Fuji apple crate—held her still-uncooled, mangled remains. I heard the crisp snap of bamboo shoots being chopped; she shuddered in pain inside, the knife wounds on her bones icy and chilling.

Incense smoke wafted dreamily from the censer. In the illusory mist, Zheng Ningning’s ghost soul floated up to Hongzhi Elementary School, where she’d already signed up, just short of enrolling.