My name is Zheng Yingxiong.

I’m from Quanzhou, Fujian.

I lied. I came to “Dao City” precisely to search for that scent I had once smelled.

Before coming to the “Land of the End,” I was sitting in the second grade, first class classroom, trembling with fear.

Listening to the homeroom teacher’s gradually approaching footsteps, my head remained lowered the entire time.

I not only lacked the courage to look at her, but even more so lacked the courage to look at my desk mate.

Just as I had anticipated, when the homeroom teacher saw several meal tickets lying quietly in my desk mate’s desk compartment, she became like Zhang Fei from the picture books—instantly flying into a rage.

She slapped my desk mate across the face, then grabbed his dirty collar and made him stand up.

“Xu Jiahua! Your head broken ah!!” The teacher kept pointing at my desk mate’s temple with her extended finger. “Stealing things at such a young age—you’ll grow up to be a pickpocket!!”

My desk mate looked at the several meal tickets in the teacher’s hand with complete disbelief, stammering, “Damn it… I, I didn’t steal!”

“Cursing! Cursing!!” The teacher extended her palm and struck my desk mate’s body indiscriminately. “You didn’t steal? Where did these meal tickets come from?! Your family is dirt poor. Fine, stealing meal tickets to eat, huh? You can’t even afford three-yuan meal tickets. You deserve to end up in prison when you grow up! Your Xu family line will end with you!”

“Really, really not me!!” My desk mate was so anxious he was about to cry. “My mom prepared lunch for me! I brought my own!!”

He hastily pulled out a plastic bag full of wrinkles from his desk compartment. Inside were two dried-out flatbreads. The bread seemed to have broken, and the plastic bag was full of crumbs.

My desk mate held up the bread, his voice choked with emotion as he said, “Teacher, look! I, I brought bread. Why would I steal things if I brought bread?”

Her voice was so loud that my ears were about to go deaf.

“I… I…” My desk mate’s hands holding the bread kept trembling. He had probably never suffered such injustice in his entire life.

“Fine! The school’s provided lunch has ham in it. You wanted to eat it so you stole classmates’ meal tickets, huh?” The teacher slapped my desk mate’s bread to the ground with one palm and pointed at his forehead viciously, saying, “You dirty brat!! You poor beggar!! Don’t disgust me with these things!!”

The teacher cursed my desk mate out in front of the entire class. My usually smiling and carefree desk mate had suffered tremendous injustice at this moment, but he simply couldn’t think of how to defend himself for the time being.

How could he defend himself…? He simply couldn’t argue his way out.

Because those meal tickets weren’t actually stolen by him—they were stolen by me.

Taking advantage of when no one was around during recess, I stole those meal tickets and quietly placed them in his desk compartment.

The girl who lost the meal tickets discovered they were missing from her desk compartment. During this homeroom teacher’s class, she suddenly interrupted the lecture, stood up, and began wailing. After figuring out the reason, the homeroom teacher had everyone put their hands behind their backs while she checked each person’s desk compartment and schoolbag.

Just as I had anticipated, my desk mate was discovered.

The teacher scolded him terribly. My whole body was trembling because I knew that the person she was scolding wasn’t Xu Jiahua—it was me.

I didn’t want to steal things either. I don’t want to end up in prison in the future, but I hoped the school would expel my desk mate. He’s not a good person.

He would ask me for money, would stab me with pencils, and if I didn’t obey, he would also hit me with his fists.

But the teacher simply didn’t care. Every time she would say, “Classmates should get along well. Why doesn’t he bully others?”

I had no other choice. I didn’t want to get beaten every day, and I didn’t want to give him all my lunch money either.

My family likewise couldn’t afford the three-yuan meal tickets. Each day, my meal money was only one yuan and fifty cents, but he would demand fifty cents from me every day!

Students who didn’t buy meal tickets already annoyed the teacher greatly. This time, I absolutely couldn’t be discovered. Otherwise, the teacher would definitely beat me to death.

But… I never imagined that the feeling of framing someone else would be so unbearable.

I kept my head lowered, holding back tears. I thought I would be very happy when my desk mate was being scolded, but I wasn’t at all…

I was very scared, but even more so, I was sad.

Only later did I learn that stealing a classmate’s meal tickets wouldn’t get you expelled from school at all. The homeroom teacher made him apologize to the girl who lost the tickets in front of the entire class, then told him he could only stand and listen to lectures for the next two days.

It looked like my desk mate had received punishment, but actually, I was the one suffering the most.

I had stolen something and then framed someone else. Seeing my desk mate standing there nonchalantly, I knew that the person who should be made to stand was me, and the one who should apologize should also be me.

Even after school ended, my mood remained extremely heavy.

That night when I got home, Dad had gotten drunk again. He quarreled with Mom as usual, and all the plates and cups in the house were smashed.

Dad lay sprawled on the sofa snoring. Mom wasn’t home—she probably went out to play mahjong again.

Our home was already very small, and now the floor was covered with shattered plates and cups everywhere. There wasn’t even anywhere to stand. I took a broom and swept up the glass fragments, then returned to my own room.

My room was very small. Upon entering, there was a bed, and at the foot of the bed was a desk.

Every day I would sit on the bed to do homework. The light in the room had long been broken. Dad and Mom hadn’t fixed it, and I couldn’t reach it myself, but fortunately I had a small desk lamp.

But today Dad and Mom’s quarrel seemed to be particularly fierce. My small desk lamp had also fallen over on the desk. When I stood it back up, I discovered the bulb had already been smashed.

“Ah…”

I was somewhat flustered and didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t expected that there wouldn’t be a single bright place in the entire house where I could do my homework. Although my academic performance wasn’t very good, homework still had to be done. If I didn’t do homework, the teacher would slap me. Our teacher was good in every way, just had a very bad temper.

I took my schoolbag and came to the doorway, sitting on the steps at the courtyard entrance. There happened to be a streetlight here. I pulled out my homework notebook and began writing today’s assignments.

Good thing… there’s a streetlight at the front door.

Today I had to copy “Sima Guang Smashes the Water Vat” once. This text was really interesting. I could understand it without needing pinyin.

Sima Guang not only had many playmates, he would also go save his playmates.

After he smashed the water vat, his parents and teacher didn’t blame him either.

It really was a great text. I really envied Sima Guang.

He had his own playmates and didn’t have fierce parents and teachers.

I had copied halfway when I noticed several water spots appearing on the four-line grid notebook.

Was it raining?

I raised my head blankly. On summer evenings, people were quarreling everywhere. Neighbors were quarreling, pigeons were quarreling, and cicadas were also quarreling.

Sometimes the sky would also quarrel. The sky was like Dad—after thundering, it would throw down a few raindrops and let the raindrops shatter on the ground.

Then the sky would fall into a deep sleep, and the next day it would be as if nothing had happened.

But today the sky wasn’t quarreling. In that pitch-black sky, not half a star could be seen—only a moon hung there, as lonely as me.

Was the moon also doing homework outside today?

I reached out and touched—my cheeks were very cold. It turned out the sky wasn’t crying. Rather, I was crying.

I buried my head in my knees, forcibly holding back from making any sound, then tears streamed down my face.