Qiao Huan returned to the shop the same day Qiao Qingyu started school, and Li Fanghao resumed her tireless routine of shuttling Qiao Qingyu by electric scooter every day. She had already confiscated Qiao Qingyu’s ID card and bus pass, and on the first day of school, she followed Qiao Qingyu into the school, standing in the long line of students to pay for Qiao Qingyu’s first month of lunch money.
“Don’t carry money with you anymore, you won’t need it anyway,” after making the payment, amid the suppressed excited whispers around them, Li Fanghao linked arms with Qiao Qingyu and said in an earnest tone, “I’ll come to pay for your lunches every month. Just focus on your studies, don’t worry about anything else.”
Leaving the cafeteria, she led Qiao Qingyu to the principal’s office. The Dean of Students, Grade Director, and Homeroom Teacher were all there, an assembly so grand it left Qiao Qingyu both surprised and nervous.
Fortunately, with the first day of school being busy, the meeting didn’t last long.
Li Fanghao did most of the talking. She casually recounted everything that had happened at home that winter, beautifying everyone in the family, while looking at Qiao Qingyu with disappointment, lamenting her sacrifices for her.
The principal comforted Li Fanghao in a generous voice, promising her that the school would continue to care for every student and ensure Qiao Qingyu’s learning environment; the Dean praised Qiao Qingyu’s personality; the Grade Director just looked at her with knowing eyes, saying nothing; the homeroom teacher Sun Yinglong said he would communicate more with Qiao Qingyu, care for her mental health, and help her integrate into the class.
The conversation left Li Fanghao very satisfied, so much so that on the way to the school gate, she repeatedly summarized the meeting’s contents, tirelessly pouring them into Qiao Qingyu’s ears.
“The teachers are right, parents are your strongest support. If you have any concerns, don’t keep them hidden, you must tell Mom.”
“Mm.”
“In this world, besides Mom, who else would truly care for you?”
“Mm.”
“Mom doesn’t ask for anything, the family doesn’t ask anything of you either. Just study well, and live a good life when you grow up, that’s all.”
Some unfamiliar male students whistled at them, and Li Fanghao suddenly fell silent, quickening her pace. Qiao Qingyu hurried after her to the electric scooter. Before getting on, Li Fanghao examined her from top to bottom, front and back, worried and looking ready to cry.
“I’ll take you to get a haircut tonight,” she suddenly said with determination, “Long hair is distracting.”
Li Fanghao rode away on her electric scooter, stirring up a breeze. A soft wisp of hair tickled Qiao Qingyu’s chin like a spring wind, and she clutched it reluctantly. There were many students in the assembly square she had to cross to return to the teaching building, and Qiao Qingyu imagined the excitement, judgment, and contempt her passing would stir up. So she loosened her ponytail, combed her chest-length hair smooth with her fingers, then broke into a run, passing like the wind through those startled, complicated gazes.
Qiao Qingyu knew her hair was black, glossy, and smooth as water. Forcing everyone to remember how she looked with flowing hair gave her a rebellious pleasure. Since everything had been taken from her anyway, she might as well live a bit more freely and boldly.
The next day during the back-to-school exam, when Qiao Qingyu appeared with hair shorter than many boys’, the originally noisy classroom instantly fell silent as if someone had hit mute. Her seat was still in the middle of the classroom, and those few seconds walking there felt like a century. In her peripheral vision, Ming Sheng was the only one in the back row with his head down. I must look really ugly, Qiao Qingyu thought desperately. Was he deliberately avoiding looking, or did he simply not care?
After sitting down with her back to Ming Sheng, her rationality rebounded, harshly criticizing herself. She warned herself that not caring about anyone meant exactly that—anyone. Just like at home, immersing herself in books and exercises, forgetting everything, wasn’t difficult.
But this was school, with so many eyes, so many mouths.
Those seven days of confinement had brought Qiao Qingyu one notable result—unexpectedly good scores on the back-to-school exam. She ranked thirteenth in the class, surprisingly ahead of Ming Sheng. Because she was thirteen and Ming Sheng fourteen, Ye Zilin started teasing them about these numbers.
“Thirteen-fourteen, ‘love for life,’ this must be intentional,” he shouted toward Qiao Qingyu’s ear from afar, “You jinx! Can’t you leave our Sheng alone?!”
Fortunately, few people responded to him. Apart from several girls covering their mouths to giggle, the boys in the back seemed collectively deaf. Ye Zilin appeared to immediately realize he’d said something wrong and quickly moved behind Ming Sheng, his tone fawning like a puppy: “Sheng, just joking, just joking…”
Ming Sheng removed Ye’s hand from his shoulder: “If you’re interested, pursue her yourself.”
“Me? Pursue her?” Ye Zilin slapped the desk, laughing loudly, “Brother Sheng, are you messing with me? Haha, I’d rather chase a frog!”
His exaggerated laughter at his poor rhyme was met with an even more terrifying silence in the classroom. Ming Sheng’s displeasure with Ye Zilin was written on his face, making others instinctively suppress their habitual agreement with Ye Zilin.
“Bros, there’s a new shop across the street, I’ll treat everyone to lunch, anyone who heard is invited!”
Ming Sheng remained silent, and even if others wanted to go, they had to hold back. No one wanted to cross Ming Sheng, especially when he was so obviously distancing himself from Ye Zilin.
“Not today… then Friday night? Friday night’s more convenient for everyone! What do you say, Brother Sheng?” Ye Zilin laughed miserably, his tone so submissive that even Qiao Qingyu felt sorry for him.
“Stop disturbing my reading.” Ming Sheng coldly shut him down.
Some said Ming Sheng was ignoring Ye Zilin because he did poorly on the exam, but this reasoning didn’t hold up. More people believed Ming Sheng was cutting ties with Ye Zilin, the instigator, because of last year’s incident when Qiao Qingyu cut his hand. Wasn’t that the case? He hated Qiao Qingyu so much, yet Ye Zilin kept provoking this scheming wretch. If you can’t beat them, shouldn’t you at least avoid them? Ming Sheng was right.
Qiao Qingyu’s intuition told her that Ming Sheng’s sudden aversion to Ye Zilin was indeed because of her. But not because of the cut hand that prevented him from playing basketball. It was because he had made Black Brother intensify her already difficult life, because of his sleazy, vulgar interest in her. Ming Sheng had probably been annoyed with Ye Zilin for a long time, only now finally exploding.
This speculation made her feel inflated. Her thoughts floated suspended in mid-air, and the classical text passage before her eyes took over a dozen readings before she could barely recite it. When the morning reading bell rang, Qiao Qingyu closed her textbook in frustration and took out a draft paper, gripping her pen to practice writing—the first character she wrote was “Bai” (white), the second was “Shang” (wound), and then, her right hand seemed to have a mind of its own, writing “Nan Qiao Village” without thinking. Only then did she realize what was appearing in her mind was Ming Sheng’s handwritten note tucked into the wedding candy box.
Qiao Qingyu threw down her pen, exhausted and helplessly confused, utterly disappointed in herself.
Guan Lan came in from outside and called her, saying to go to Sun Yinglong’s office. Qiao Qingyu grabbed at this like a lifeline, escaping the classroom filled with Ming Sheng’s presence. As she was about to say “reporting” while pushing open the half-closed office door, her heart stopped—Ming Sheng was there too.
“Come in.” Sun Yinglong nodded to her.
After Qiao Qingyu walked in and stood parallel to Ming Sheng, Sun Yinglong asked if she had gone to Ming Sheng’s grandfather’s house when she ran away from home. Remembering Li Fanghao’s warnings and reminders, Qiao Qingyu gathered all her courage and clearly uttered two words: “No.”
“No,” Sun Yinglong repeated meaningfully as if speaking specifically for Ming Sheng to hear, “There are many things in this world that seem one way but are another. ‘Hiding’ itself isn’t right or wrong, it depends on the purpose. Often, ‘revealing’ causes more harm than ‘concealing.'”
He paused, moving his gaze from Ming Sheng’s face to Qiao Qingyu’s, becoming even more earnest: “You’re both still young, you don’t understand the ways of the world yet. You’ll understand when you grow up.”
Qiao Qingyu hadn’t absorbed any of it. She had just flatly denied Ming Sheng’s help right in front of him, forgotten everything in his presence. Using and discarding—she truly was as scheming as Ye Zilin had said. To preserve her pitiful bit of reputation, she had trampled on his dignity and sincerity with selfishness and cowardice. Now, without doubt, he would see through her completely, despise her, hate her—
After school that day, Sun Yinglong called Qiao Qingyu in for a second time, kindly recommending the school counselor, Le Fan. He gave her a landline number and a mobile number, saying she could call Le Fan about any troubles that were hard to voice but needed sharing.
Qiao Qingyu promised she would talk to Teacher Le Fan to relieve her emotions. But as soon as she left the school gates, she threw the paper with the phone numbers into a trash bin—she hated how Sun Yinglong saw her as so fragile. It must have been that jarringly short haircut Li Fanghao forced on her that made her look a bit unhinged. She hated Li Fanghao and hated how she not only controlled her but also controlled how others saw her. I’m fine, Qiao Qingyu kept telling herself, I can handle any emotional burden.
Due to weather conditions, the first week’s flag-raising ceremony was postponed. On a drizzly Monday, Qiao Qingyu went to find Wang Mumu to tell her she wanted to quit the flag team. Wang Mumu didn’t focus on her short hair, seeming not to notice her change at all, which comforted Qiao Qingyu and made her feel suddenly closer to Wang Mumu.
“That’s fine,” after hearing Qiao Qingyu out, Wang Mumu nodded readily, “Though I don’t manage the flag team anymore… but since I chose all of them, I can select someone new.”
The new flag-bearer was Su Tian. Reportedly, she was reluctant to stand where Qiao Qingyu had once stood, but the other girls in the flag team would accept no one else. They said after agreeing to join, she immediately replaced all of the flag team’s outdated uniforms, gloves, and shoes, using her own family’s money. They said she complained that one set of long-sleeve uniforms wasn’t enough and specially added summer short-sleeve and skirt uniforms. Even the flag itself was replaced with a new one.
How nice, Qiao Qingyu thought. For some reason, she quite liked what Su Tian did, liked that undisguised effort to erase all traces of her.
Wang Mumu, however, seemed quite embarrassed. In private, she found Qiao Qingyu to explain that the flag team’s things were indeed old and needed replacing, and since she wasn’t part of the team anymore, she couldn’t stop Su Tian from such waste. It was just after school then, and Qiao Qingyu, worried Li Fanghao would get anxious waiting at the gate, didn’t talk much with Wang Mumu. The next day, Wang Mumu came looking for her again.
“I need to go somewhere, but I’m scared to go alone. Will you come with me?”
This time, she came just before the last self-study period bell. Qiao Qingyu was worried about missing self-study but couldn’t refuse Wang Mumu’s earnestness, so she followed her out of the teaching building. The class bell rang as they entered the administration building, and Qiao Qingyu stopped, looking at Wang Mumu uncertainly.
“It’s okay, being a few minutes late to self-study, Teacher Sun won’t blame you.” She wore an apologetic, uneasy smile.
So Qiao Qingyu continued walking beside her, up to the third floor, where Wang Mumu stopped before a reddish-brown wooden door at the end of the corridor.
Five striking characters on the wooden door read “Psychological Counseling Room.”
Qiao Qingyu’s first reaction was that she had been betrayed—most likely, Sun Yinglong had asked Wang Mumu to bring her to see the counselor. Shock and anger showed on her face, which Wang Mumu deliberately avoided seeing.
Qiao Qingyu wanted to turn and leave, but her feet felt heavy and slow. Just then, Wang Mumu knocked on the reddish-brown door.
Teacher Le Fan opened the door, and Wang Mumu turned back with a “come along” gesture. As if possessed, Qiao Qingyu followed them in.
Sitting beside Wang Mumu on the soft fabric sofa, Qiao Qingyu felt her companion’s body was even more rigid than her own. Le Fan was a middle-aged woman with kind eyes and a round, gentle face. After pouring them each two cups of water, she sat down on the single sofa to the side.
“I often meet female students who come together,” she began with a smile, her compassionate gaze moving between the two girls, “I know both of you, Wang Mumu, and Qiao Qingyu. I’m a bit surprised that you two are such good friends.”
“It’s spacious, clean, and bright here,” Le Fan smiled, “It can hold any burden, and any trouble spoken here, when laid out in the sunlight, becomes lighter.”
Suddenly Wang Mumu shot to her feet: “I’m sorry, Teacher, I… I’m not ready yet.”
Le Fan said “Oh,” but before she could finish saying “That’s alright,” Wang Mumu had covered her face and run out. Quickly recovering from her shock, Qiao Qingyu apologized to Le Fan and rushed out after her.
Wang Mumu ran into the small garden behind the administration building, disappearing behind a mushroom pavilion. When Qiao Qingyu found her, her eyes were red, with tear drops still hanging at the corners she had hastily wiped.
“You must think I tricked you into coming to the counseling room, right?” Wang Mumu said in a low voice, “I don’t know why Teacher Sun approached me, but he did, asking if I could persuade you to talk with Teacher Le Fan. But,” she sniffled, glancing up at Qiao Qingyu, “I promise you, I didn’t trick you today! I wanted to see Teacher Le Fan myself, but was scared, and hoped you would accompany me.”
“Mm.” Qiao Qingyu sat down beside her.
Wang Mumu rolled up her sleeves—cotton jacket, school uniform, sweater—until she pushed back the last layer of thermal undershirt, revealing a section of the fair arm.
At first, Qiao Qingyu looked without understanding, but as Wang Mumu turned her arm over, she gasped—on the other side of her arm, the fair skin was covered with bright red blood marks, a horrifying sight.
“I have too many troubles,” Wang Mumu bit her lip, “all of them too dark to see the light of day.”