Chapter 44: The Passive One

I hurriedly pulled out my phone to check the time—9:45. Calculating the distance, it seemed that not long after I said my goodbyes, Gan Ling had headed out to find this Shen Liu.

In the deep alley, Gan Ling walked out with steady steps, her hand positioned behind Shen Liu like she was holding a hostage in a standoff with fully armed police blocking the outside. Her face was full of seriousness as she looked toward the street. There weren’t many people on the street, so she let go of Shen Liu. He walked like a duck, his legs splayed wide apart. He was extremely panicked, looking back at Gan Ling with every step, as if she had a weapon in hand and was planning to shoot him dead after a few dozen steps.

Gan Ling waved her hand, actually smiling a little helplessly.

I was hiding behind an aluminum alloy shack, concealed in the shadows, only daring to stick out half my phone to turn on the camera mode. On my phone screen, I could see the two of them up close.

Shen Liu reached his little shack, habitually tugged at the lock, then quickened his pace and darted into another alley.

Gan Ling stood in place for a good while, arms crossed as she walked forward in a somewhat lonely posture. She stood at the edge of the road, facing the flow of cars and people, occasionally raising her hand to swat away flying mosquitoes. I could only capture her back, pitch black against the scene. After a while, she lowered her head and ground something with her toe, then slightly raised her head to gaze at the traffic.

I didn’t step out to disturb her. She stood there for a long time before walking along this road. I followed her halfway and saw that she was heading home.

The tailing went undiscovered. I waited all night for a WeChat from Gan Ling, but got nothing about Zheng Chenggang.

Early the next morning, I received a screenshot from Gan Ling instead—it was a memo with the recipe for brewing sour plum soup.

Jiang Huixiang: Huh?

Gan Ling: You didn’t seem to have enough yesterday. Brew it yourself.

Jiang Huixiang: Listen, thank you…

Gan Ling: Hahahahahaha

She was still hahahaha? I could imagine this woman typing those words with a straight face. Last night, she’d gone to check and found out Zheng Chenggang wasn’t dead… Why wasn’t she asking me about it? She even had the leisure to share sour plum soup with me?

But I couldn’t ask directly either—that would be the same as me confessing the killer’s info.

I’d promised to come clean by January next year. Had Gan Ling grown tired of waiting?

On the eve of the kids’ vacation, we had a summer safety education course, spread over three days. Besides the standard stuff like not playing in the wild, water safety, heatstroke prevention, and safe electricity use, the kindergarten’s lead teachers also gave the kids some crash courses in sex ed.

The lead teacher in Li Yongquan’s class had called in sick with a cold, and he couldn’t handle it alone as the only male teacher. The Principal sent me over to save the day.

For the kids, it was basically just basic prevention knowledge—not much content, but it came every year. Tailored for summer, the lesson became: I’m a bad auntie. If I want to pull down a boy’s pants, the boy must learn to tell an adult that it’s wrong. No one should casually let anyone pull down their pants, boy or girl—simple, easy-to-understand stuff like that.

My demo actions weren’t actually pulling down pants; I was just pretending to be the bad auntie talking to the kids.

A lot of the kids were pretty naive—one trick and they fell for it. I said I was nice Auntie Jiang, here to help you pull up your pants, and the kid would nod and spread their arms, letting me do whatever. I said that wouldn’t do. Li Yongquan thought about it and figured I didn’t have the chops to play a bad guy either, so he skipped the demo. With a straight face, he lectured the kids: Lots of bad people are as friendly as Teacher Xiao Jiang, but that’s all an act. If a stranger or unfamiliar adult suddenly wants to touch your body, you must refuse…

In the morning, everyone was discussing how the kids’ vigilance sucked. In the afternoon, when the weather cooled a bit, we took the kids outside for “don’t go with strangers” crash training. Teachers from different classes crossed over to play bad guys, and I wasn’t much use—the kids fell for it every time.

After work, the teachers all sighed: “What’s the point of telling the kids? If a real bad guy shows up, even adults can’t guard against them. If they really want to trick or coax you, what can a kid do?”

What could a kid do? They were soft and weak, clueless and innocent. Bad people had a million tricks and motives. Once targeted, it was a dead end. To protect all the kids, you’d have to lock them in kindergarten, then elementary school, middle school, university—and then suddenly release them like sheep. The bad guys lurked outside, eyeing them hungrily. Like cheetahs and lions in Animal World, crouching in the grass, rarely missing. Even if they missed, what good did it do the herd? They’d just panic in fear, clustering all the fawns in the middle during migration—

At quitting time, Li Yongquan’s motorcycle pulled up in front of me again. “Thanks for today, or I wouldn’t have managed alone as a guy… Let me treat you to fried chicken. Let’s go!”

“Nah, I rode my bike today.”

“Perfect, we’ll go together!” Li Yongquan invited me enthusiastically. I hesitated briefly, then nodded in agreement.

The fast food joint had the AC blasting, but hardly any customers. Li Yongquan and I sat across from each other. He was munching fries while I sipped cola. Outside the window, my e-bike and his motorcycle were parked close.

This twenty-year-old guy was still full of youthful vigor. Every time I looked at him, I felt he brimmed with initiative in life—whether hitting the pool hall, breaking up with his girlfriend, or whatever. He charged forward, unlike me.

Everything I did was passive. Life was balls flying at me—I dodged or hit back. It felt like I’d never actively chosen anything, just muddled through naturally, in a daze.

It was as if the cool AC was blowing from Li Yongquan himself, cooling my constantly churning brain.

Li Yongquan said, “Teacher Xiao Jiang… Xiao Jiang-jie.”

I looked up. He was leaning forward, hands greasy from the food, resting on the table.

I tucked my hair. “Yeah?”

“Can I just say it straight?”

That was pretty direct. I thought for a sec. “What topic?”

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

I paused, eyeing Li Yongquan, unsure how to respond. Gan Ling was right—I really sucked at dealing with people.

If Li Yongquan were a girl, I could’ve said without hesitation that I didn’t have one. If she didn’t mind, I could’ve even chatted about my history with Lu Jinshi.

But he was a guy, and it was a dating topic, so I hedged: “Why? Asking out of the blue?”

“Just curious.” He seemed genuinely interested.

“What do you think?”

“I dunno.” Li Yongquan, young and straightforward, kicked the question back. “No other meaning… I just never noticed before. But since getting to know you, I’ve realized you’re pretty mysterious.”

I’d always seen myself as transparent, so suddenly being called mysterious threw me off. I couldn’t control my expression—eyebrows up, eyes wide. Li Yongquan froze. “Did I say it wrong?”

“Mysterious… how?”

Li Yongquan racked his brain to list my mysterious traits. In his eyes, I was like an alien existing at Bright Kindergarten. I didn’t socialize, but wasn’t introverted either. I was a teacher from the Plum Kindergarten days, same tenure as the plum trees—yet I didn’t lead a class, didn’t gossip much, floating on the crowd’s edges while always in it.

In his words, after adding me as a friend, he’d wanted to chat, but felt this inexplicable awe, like my friendly face had “keep out” written underneath.

Later, when the Principal pushed him to drive me home after work, his curiosity peaked. Did I have some story? Then he started paying attention to me.

“So, you wanna dig into my love life? If I have a boyfriend, does that make me less mysterious?”

I was still wary. Li Yongquan didn’t have Lu Jinshi’s savvy at reading people; he was more focused on himself.

My drink was almost gone, the straw slurping. Beside me, Li Yongquan said, “I’m just asking. This Saturday, wanna go to Qiaonan for BBQ? A few friends. Come or not, you can bring yours… Kids are off anyway, rare day off.”

The refusal on the tip of my tongue took a detour: “Can’t commit yet. Let me check and reply tomorrow.”

” Cool.”

I sucked at turning people down. Pushing it to tomorrow was progress for me.

There was this Japanese movie, Love for 100 Yen. The girl gets asked out and shyly asks why her. The guy says because she looks like she wouldn’t refuse. She finally gets chosen, but only because she won’t say no—and he tells her straight.

I figured by thirty, I’d end up like the heroine One, played by Ando Sakura—squatting at home in a slobbery bathrobe, watching TV, unkempt. Never knowing what I wanted, reduced to those free chopsticks from the convenience store: an add-on, impossible to refuse…

I knew interpreting myself that way was wrong.

Li Yongquan’s motorcycle drove off. I checked my reflection in the fast food shop’s glass. No matter how long I grew my hair, I looked childish—black, straight, long. Nothing special, no striking beauty, no nice muscle lines, not overly skinny. Just ordinary, a frumpy woman in a T-shirt. Mysterious? I bet that was just an excuse.

I’ve always been passively accepting whatever came my way. I’d been waiting all day for a message from Gan Ling.

She absolutely suspected Zheng Chenggang now. I even had a gut feeling—she must have added Zheng Chenggang to her list of potential killers.

On the glass window, Zheng Chenggang walked toward me and, caught off guard, pulled a knife from under his ribs, stabbing through his daughter Zheng Ningning.

Transparent blood splattered out, turning into a stain at the bottom of the cup. On the glass, Zheng Ningning’s soul gazed sadly at me. I reviewed the past seven years since her death—I’d never once thought to take any active steps.

Even proactively blocking Gan Ling had only been because she wanted to find out the killer through me, so I responded accordingly.

But once she went around me…

I would be useless, and I had no idea what I could even do.

For seven years now—or even longer—I’d accepted the facts, convinced myself otherwise, with blood splattering across my face like a heavy slap.

Gan Ling’s goal had always been crystal clear: she wanted to find the killer. It wasn’t that she had to find the killer through Jiang Xiaohui.

I snapped the plastic lid back on my beverage.

I asked Zhu Erting, and she said she could come with me to have barbecue with Li Yongquan. Then I went to reply to Li Yongquan, my fingers flying across the WeChat keyboard. I tapped open Gan Ling’s chat window again; it was still stuck on her “hahahaha” reply.

Gan Ling’s actions were like balls flying straight at my head—either smashing into me or getting caught and thrown back.

But I needed to take my own actions. I wasn’t Job, sitting in the dust scraping my body with a potsherd to fend off my friends’ rebukes.

I dug through WeChat and found a contact who had been silent for a long time.