I brought out the noodles. They were clumped together like a solid block of instant noodles that hadn’t been properly soaked. Gan Ling jabbed her chopsticks into it and stirred for a moment, shaking loose the sticky strands before slurping them into her mouth in big mouthfuls.
I didn’t ask, and she didn’t say anything. After she finished eating, I cleared the bowl. The TV screen projected images of several men; the photo album spun like a kaleidoscope. At a glance, I spotted a stage photo from Bright Kindergarten right in the center of the screen.
It was Yihan walking through the forest and encountering Broccoli. She was putting on an extremely dramatic look of surprise as she said, “Who are you?”
The child tilted her head, her mouth gaping wide, eyes bulging huge, like a finely carved craft doll.
Yihan was only four and a half, already the star of Bright Kindergarten’s stage. She always had to stand right in the center for everything and do everything the best. Even praise had to exceed everyone else’s by half a sentence before she’d be satisfied. Her natural curls had been groomed extra neatly by her mom.
When the photo of Yihan flashed by, I clearly saw Gan Ling looking uncomfortable.
A dangerous thought suddenly rose in me. “Go back.”
Gan Ling flipped to the next photo with a blank expression, completely ignoring my request.
“You taking photos of men is one thing, but photographing other people’s kids… what are you trying to do?”
There was a TV drama about a woman who lost her own child and went insane, so she stole someone else’s kid to raise. There was a short video about a dog that lost its pups, and in the end, a little leopard drank its milk and became its comfort. There was even a news story about a nanny who was jealous of how pretty and smart her employers’ child was, so she stole the kid back home—
In my mind, Gan Ling was persistently calm with intermittent bouts of madness like the above cases. I had to stay on guard.
I abruptly stood up as if to demand an explanation. Gan Ling kicked my trembling calf, her face dark as she flipped back to the photo and deleted it right in front of me.
I’d been kicked, but I still pressed forward. Gan Ling suddenly said, “You’re paying a lot of attention to this kid…”
“Whether I pay attention or not, it’s…”
“Would you have a favorite kid? With a dozen or so kids in the class, would you show favoritism?” Gan Ling stared straight at the TV again, but her words stabbed right into my throat. I plopped down heavily. “It’s none of your business.”
“So you do have favorites. It’s inevitable.”
She was awfully magnanimous about it.
I knew some teachers treated students very differently—fists and feet alongside gentle words, all existing in the same person. Teachers, or people in general, had many faces; good and bad were so blurred, like a piece of faded fabric after too many washes.
I also knew there was a teacher at our kindergarten who was all soft words and endless patience with other people’s kids. But all her love got spent at Bright Kindergarten; she had no reserves left to take home. Toward her own child, she was always distant, cold, strict—to the point of being harsh.
Gan Ling’s question was reasonable, and she didn’t press further. It was that infuriating tone of certainty again, pinning a label on me.
But I had no way to argue back.
Seven years ago, I was twenty. The class was full of vibrant, colorful kids like a pond full of koi fish, mouths breaking the surface, waiting for me to scatter food. Some fish were more eager, leaping out in a beautiful arc. The food hadn’t even divided evenly before it landed in their mouths. The rest fought over the scraps; some didn’t compete, letting the food sink, then calmly nibbling a bite.
The naughty ones, the clever ones, the fidgety ones, the poor ones—all popped up one after another. I noticed every child’s traits.
Only Zheng Ningning was average in the class, unremarkable in every way. My attention on her was limited to her “orphan status” and her plain-looking grandma. I knew little about what Zheng Ningning liked or her personality.
That overly ordinary girl left the deepest impression in the end: blood splattered on the floor.
She never tried to win the teachers’ favor or cause trouble like the others. She never called me “Teacher Xiao Jiang,” just “Teacher” for all of us, blurring genders, surnames, ages, appearances—until her dying breath, when she finally called me “Teacher Xiao Jiang.”
“I get it…” Gan Ling said abruptly while flipping through photos.
“Hm?”
“Ningning wasn’t the kind of kid people like.”
“You’re her mother—how can you say that?” I shifted my position and kept looking at those faces that weren’t the killer’s.
“Because I don’t love my own child.”
The screen lit up with a stranger man’s face. I turned to look at Gan Ling.
She remained calm, lips like they held a cotton thread ready to stitch my eyes shut so I couldn’t scrutinize her expression so brazenly.
“No way…” I wanted to say, “No way that’s true.”
Gan Ling laughed immediately. “What mother doesn’t love her own child? Me, that’s who. You’ve seen it.”
Gan Ling’s stance was always ironclad, no room for debate. I was never good with words anyway, so I could only change the subject. “Sometimes, it’s not that I want to show favoritism… I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like raising a bunch of flowers. Some are so delicate I have to set alarms to remind myself to water them. Others are tough; I can go half a month, water them once when I remember… I can’t water them all the exact same amount at set times every day just for absolute fairness…”
“So you’re saying Ningning’s tough and doesn’t need looking after?” Gan Ling was being a bit argumentative.
I rubbed my face and waved at the screen, signaling Gan Ling to flip the photos faster.
“She’s got strong opinions, very sensible, understands everything you say. Adults’ words—she gets the meaning… It’s all her grandma’s doing, teaching the kid to steal my stuff for her, teaching her to call me… cheap slut. Normal kids wouldn’t even know what that means, but she did. She said it spot-on.” Gan Ling kept flipping photos as I gradually lost focus.
After Gan Ling left Bright Kindergarten and came to my place, the tightly shut door in my heart cracked open a bit. But I really had no knack for chatting with people, so I just scooted closer bit by bit, inching nearer.
Gan Ling suddenly shoved me back with her arm. “Spit it out if you have something to say. Don’t get closer.”
…I had nothing to say, just held my breath.
Gan Ling toyed with my shoulder like playing tai chi—one push, one pull—dragging me back to her side. She stared blankly at the ceiling, tongue scraping her teeth, cheeks puffing slightly then deflating, puffing again, exhaling—like a frog mom sitting on a lily pad. After a while, she opened her mouth. “You’ve looked at a lot of my photos… my info… um…”
I quickly said, “Yeah, thousands already. My eyes are going blind. Go ahead, tell me now.”
Gan Ling laughed; she caught how awkwardly I was building her a ramp.
“Kids, right? If you don’t worry about them, they’ll naturally grow crooked. This world has way too many bad influences, everyone teaching their own ways. If you don’t beat and scold her back straight, what will she turn into? Learning good is hard; going bad is easy. Two days apart, and she picks up cursing her own mom. She hates me for disciplining her. But her grandma sure knows how to teach: ‘Good girl, eat candy. Eat whatever Grandma buys. Skip school? Grandma’ll cover for you. Oh, rude? Good kids have big tempers…’”
Gan Ling suddenly started rambling. I could hardly imagine it—Zheng Ningning was a ghost perched on a coffin in my mind. I couldn’t picture her cursing Gan Ling to her face. I could only suspect Gan Ling was making it up again to mess with me. Last time her fabrications broke me on the spot; this time I was on maximum alert, sweat soaking my back. Gan Ling got up to turn off the TV, and I gripped the sofa arm, body tensed in vigilance.
Luckily, my brain was still working. “When you left Neng County, you didn’t take her with you? A change of environment…”
“She wouldn’t come with me.”
That rainy day I photographed was Gan Ling’s last day in Neng County. She came to pick up Zheng Ningning in a raincoat, determined to bind the kid and leave once and for all. As her mom, she had law and reason on her side. She’d fought her mother-in-law and everyone around her to exhaustion, deciding to switch to a peaceful map.
But Zheng Ningning refused outright, insisting on staying with Grandma.
Gan Ling said, I’m your mom. If you don’t come with me, just see what you’ll turn into.
Adults and kids couldn’t communicate. Gan Ling grabbed Zheng Ningning, but the kid bit down hard on her hand to break free.
The scars on Gan Ling’s hand had faded over seven years—no bite marks or scratches visible anymore, just crisscrossing, raised, pale, ugly ridges. Gan Ling held up her hand; I tentatively reached to take it and examine it. After one glance, she twisted my head away.
Gan Ling vaguely recounted the events at first, details later. The kid picked up dirty words fast. When she heard Gan Ling was leaving for elsewhere, she yelled that Grandma was right—Gan Ling was a stinking adulteress who’d run off with another man.
In the end, Gan Ling got bitten, got cursed, and finally gave up forcing it.
“You think I want to take you? Hah, I regretted the day I gave birth to you. Don’t come with me? Fine, go live with that old hag. I’ll see what you turn into in the end.”
That was the last thing Gan Ling said to her daughter.
Zheng Ningning’s last words to her mom were: “Even if I die, I don’t want you meddling!”
“Why did she hate you? Just because you hit her and cursed her? But…”
“She hated me mainly because…” Gan Ling paused strangely, then slanted her eyes at me and sneered. “You’re good at prying words out of me.”
Breaking from her previous cold and tough demeanor, Gan Ling’s temperament changed drastically after crying. She became a woman who confided her heart to me. But she didn’t seem resentful or hold grudges against anything—not the deceased old man, not Zheng Ningning, not the past, and not even the scars on her hand. She wiped them all away effortlessly, as if all those rights and wrongs were a massive burden she trampled under her front paws before continuing her hunt.
Gan Ling pondered for a long time, taking into account that I wasn’t very smart. She gestured slowly, using a metaphor.
“You’re still young… and not married, so you don’t understand. Take a game for example: you fight against tons of people, diligently level up by slaying monsters, and finally beat the BOSS. But in the end, in your daughter’s heart, you’re the villain.”
Gan Ling waved at me. With one hand, she pinched a little person figure and made it walk along my arm; with the other, she formed a massive fist and smashed it down. She watched my expression closely, like she was explaining a story to a little kid.
My reaction was slow, but Gan Ling was quick as ever. Thinking I hadn’t gotten it, she gave another example. “In a kid’s eyes, normally in that show of yours, the rabbit goes into the forest, makes friends with Broccoli, makes friends with Spinach, makes friends with Mushroom, and finally beats Carrot King—all just to get the healing ray for the rabbit mom.”
She’d watched Yihan’s show super closely. I got what she meant.
But Gan Ling always treated me like a kid—either clamming up or breaking things down, chewing them up, and spoon-feeding them to me so I’d understand: “But I’m not like that. In Ningning’s eyes, I’m at odds with everything. I think it’s all no good. The things I hate, the things I despise—they’re exactly what Ningning likes and fears losing. I fought her grandma and cursed her an old hag; I fought her dad—he grabbed a knife, so I grabbed an axe; I fought the neighbors, and when they came to break it up or visit, I cussed them out bloody… Sometimes Ningning didn’t get it. She thought everyone was good to her—giving her candy, being gentle, letting her play, taking care of her. What was wrong with that? But I just wouldn’t have it. I went against it every time. Ningning thought they were right and I was wrong. I was the villain, the demon.”
“If you’re not the villain, how come everyone’s your enemy? You fight everyone—if you’re not the villain, then who is? In Ningning’s heart, I’m brawling with everyone. I can’t stand a single thing… I’m just a crazy woman.”
