Chapter 90
◎A brief hug◎
It was lunchtime when Zhan Xinyue left Shi Ziqian's place. She had lunch at the cafeteria, and there was still a long time before afternoon classes. So she didn't go back to the classroom and wandered aimlessly through the empty campus in the afternoon.
The weather was unusually nice today; the autumn sun wasn't scorching, casting a warm glow on the vast artificial turf of the back playground. The playground was deserted, except for a few soccer balls, seemingly from some grade, lying quietly along its edge.
Such weather easily makes one sleepy. After walking around twice, Zhan Xinyue found a spot on the lawn, rested her head on her arm, and lay down. The sun shone warmly on her eyelids, and the surrounding tranquility was relaxing. The fatigue of the past two days finally melted into a rising drowsiness in the stillness.
That night, after returning home, she asked Zhan Wei to help her ask for two days off. When Pang Yun asked her what she was going to do, she didn't hide anything. When the two of them heard that she wanted to help her sick classmate find his lost dog, they not only didn't object, but also offered to go with her.
"Your deskmate was when you were little, right?" Zhan Wei said. "That kid is very sentimental; he even got sick from worry when he lost his dog."
“That’s right. Nowadays, kids keep pets as their own family members, so they’d be really worried if they lost one,” Pang Yun said.
The next morning, the family of three went to a print shop and printed more than a hundred missing dog notices. Pang Yun and Zhan Wei were responsible for posting them in several blocks around the school, while Zhan Xinyue went to the school security office alone to check the surveillance footage.
First, she found the security camera downstairs in the apartment building and saw the footage of Panpan running out of the door. Then she asked the security guard to help her pull up the footage from several nearby cameras, but none of them captured Panpan. However, considering that Panpan went missing at night and its fur was black, it was very likely that it hadn't been noticed, so she watched the footage frame by frame many times.
After looking around all morning, she discovered a clue.
Shortly after Panpan disappeared from the surveillance footage, a neighboring camera captured the back view of an elderly man walking by. She watched the footage many times, feeling that his walking posture suggested he was carrying something, but since it was only his back that was captured, she couldn't be sure.
It's unlikely that there would be a teacher of that age at the school. Besides the single apartments, there are also family housing buildings further down this road. He is very likely a family member of one of the school's teachers.
Thinking of this, Zhan Xinyue asked the security guard to help her pull up the surveillance footage below the apartment building. Sure enough, the man's figure quickly appeared in the camera. He was an elderly man over sixty years old, dressed in black, walking quite slowly. The camera was positioned very high, capturing the top of his head as he slowly walked into the building.
Zhan Xinyue stared for a long time, then pointed to the spot in his arms and asked the security guard next to her, "Did something move in his arms just now?"
The security guard leaned over and looked for a while, then said uncertainly, "It looks like it, but it's too dark to see clearly."
It was too dark. The sky was dark and the light was dim. Not only could he not see if the black thing in his arms was Panpan, but he couldn't even see a complete face of him.
After Zhan Xinyue called her parents to tell them about it, they both decided they should give it a try. So, for the rest of the day, the three of them split up and knocked on every door in the apartment building.
Behind what seemed like the umpteenth door, an old woman asked through the door, "Who is it?"
Zhan Xinyue asked from outside the door, "Hello, have you found a black dog?"
There was a moment of silence inside the door, then a loud voice said, "No!"
"Okay, sorry to bother you." Zhan Xinyue was already used to this kind of cold reception. Just as she was about to walk to the next door, she suddenly heard a dog barking from inside the house, followed by a child's "haha" laughter.
Zhan Xinyue tentatively called out, "Panpan?"
Several more barks rang out from inside the door, followed by a pattering sound as dogs approached, and then the sound of claws scratching at the door began.
What happened next became very chaotic. Zhan Xinyue was convinced that Panpan was inside, but the old man inside refused to open the door no matter what she said, and it dragged on until very late. So the next day, her parents took her to the door early in the morning to wait. Finally, they waited until the door opened and the old man, who was about to go out to buy groceries, came out.
An elderly couple and a four- or five-year-old child lived in the room, and Panpan was indeed there. Although they were certain that Panpan had been found, the old man refused to hand her over, saying that his grandson really liked the dog and that such a black mongrel was common everywhere. He demanded that Zhan Xinyue provide evidence to prove that the dog belonged to her.
The group remained deadlocked for the entire morning until Zhan Wei finally managed to contact their son. They lived in the staff housing complex because a relative worked at the school. Their son, a middle school teacher, arrived shortly after receiving the call, but after a few unsuccessful attempts to persuade them, he was also helpless. He told Zhan Xinyue and the others, "My parents did indeed find this dog, and they've grown attached to it after a few days. Our child loves it very much; you know how grandparents spoil their grandchildren, I really can't help it."
"How can you say it was picked up?" Zhan Xinyue was a little angry. "The surveillance footage shows that it was taken away just a few minutes after it ran out, and it was still wearing a leash around its neck. It's obvious that it already had an owner."
"There's nothing I can do about it. The old folks are too old to argue with." The other person's attitude was alright, but their words implied that they didn't want to get involved. "Why don't you two discuss it here? I have class later."
Zhan Wei stepped aside to block him, saying, "If you keep doing this, we'll have to call the police."
The other party looked helpless. "Go ahead and call the police. It'll be good if they can talk to them. Otherwise, there's nothing I can do. The old man is just too stubborn. I'm afraid that if I say too much, I'll upset him and cause him some kind of health problem."
The whole family acted like they were completely unfazed, but the child in the house kept lying on the floor, playing with Panpan under him.
Zhan Xinyue glanced at its hind leg, and her eyelids twitched. Children this age don't know anything about weight; they grab whatever they like and won't let go. The puppy's hind leg, which he was currently pressing down on without his knowledge, was something that Shi Ziqian had spent a lot of effort to heal.
"I really don't have time to waste with you over such a small matter. I'm really busy. How about this, I'll give you five hundred yuan, consider it as me buying it. I won't even mention two or three hundred, you really can't sell this dog for that price."
What some people see as a creature worth saving at all costs, others see as something to be bargained over and disposed of at will.
Zhan Xinyue looked at him and spoke.
"This is Shi Ziqian's dog."
The polite, unyielding smile on the other person's face faltered for a moment.
“I think the school board should be quite interested in the fact that you picked up his son’s dog and didn’t return it, and even made him sick.”
A few seconds later, the other person entered the house alone, left a message saying "Wait a moment" and closed the door.
A few minutes later, he came out alone, carrying Panpan, and handed her the dog leash along with him.
A cloud drifted across the sky, and the sun began to darken. Zhan Xinyue bent her legs and remained lying on the playground, but she couldn't fall asleep. She was exhausted, but her mind was filled with a jumble of chaotic thoughts.
When Shi Ziqian took Panpan home, he looked much better. Although he still looked a little tired, he had changed into a very formal outfit and seemed to be getting ready to go out. Obviously, he wasn't heading to the classroom.
The moment the door opened, Panpan ran inside first. Shi Ziqian's eyes initially showed undisguised surprise, but when he looked up, they quickly became complicated, and the emotions in his dark eyes shifted several times.
Looking back now, she suddenly felt that she saw a struggle in his eyes that she couldn't understand.
However, that moment was very brief. Zhan Xinyue didn't have time to understand what was happening. She only knew that Shi Ziqian suddenly seemed to have made up his mind and gently exhaled.
He reached out and took the rope from Panpan's hand. The moment Zhan Xinyue loosened the rope, he gently grasped her wrist.
Shi Ziqian stepped forward and gently hugged her.
It was just a brief hug, a fleeting touch, devoid of any romantic undertones. Yet, in that instant, her forehead brushed against the front of his shirt, and his voice seemed to travel straight from his chest into her ears.
“Thank you, Zhan Xinyue,” he said softly.
Looking at his somewhat haggard face, Zhan Xinyue felt a pang of guilt that seemed somewhat alleviated by what she had done, but this was all she could do for him before leaving. She let out a soft sigh and replied quietly, "You're welcome."
A few noisy voices came from not far away. Zhan Xinyue closed her eyes and didn't want to pay attention, but the voices got closer and closer, mixed with a man's angry shouts and a woman's faint crying. Soon they became so loud that they could not be ignored.
Zhan Xinyue finally lifted her eyelids and glanced in that direction. After a distracted look, she suddenly sat up.
She actually saw Wang Zhiyi. She was holding her phone and making a call, her eyes still filled with shock and redness. Strands of hair on her face were sticky with wet tears.
"Hello, is this 110? I need to report a crime..."
In front of her, a young man was tightly gripping the arm of a boy in a school uniform. The boy was so frightened that he lost his composure and his legs were so weak that he couldn't stand up. He was being dragged by the man like a piece of rotten meat, heading towards the back gate of the playground.
Zhan Xinyue realized what had happened in an instant, and her drowsy state vanished without a trace.
In her past life, Zhan Xinyue heard from the discussions among her classmates that Wang Zhiyi had somehow almost been assaulted by students, and the incident even escalated to the point of being taken to the police station.
The scene before her now cruelly reminded her that the tragedy concerning Wang Zhiyi had repeated itself. But unlike in her previous life, this time it was happening right before her eyes.
She had seen Wang Zhiyi just two days prior. When she went to borrow fever-reducing medicine that day, Wang Zhiyi was knitting in her apartment. Upon hearing her purpose, he immediately got up to help her find the medicine and kept asking her anxiously if she needed any assistance. At that time, she was wearing soft, fluffy pajamas, and her skin looked as smooth as porcelain under the light, making her look no different from a college student who hadn't yet graduated.
But at this moment, her eyes were blank, filled with a dazed look, like someone who had just been pulled out of the water, too shocked to have their soul returned to its place.
"Shameless wretch! What kind of education did the school give you? How dare you do such a brazen and despicable thing!" The young man's voice was filled with suppressed anger. "Where is this! The teachers' dormitory! Where did you get such audacity?!"
Zhan Xinyue recognized the young man who was pulling at the student; it was Zhang Chao, someone she knew. But thinking back, the story she remembered did mention a teacher living next door who had saved Wang Zhiyi, though she hadn't expected it to be him.
The student he was dragging was either terrified after the incident or something else; half of his body was limp on the ground as Zhang Chao pulled him along. Although Zhang Chao was a teacher, he had the appearance of a thin, scholarly man and wasn't much taller than a high school student of that age. At this moment, he loosened his grip slightly, and the student simply collapsed onto the ground.
Zhang Chao tried to pull him up, but even after pulling so hard that his school uniform was almost torn to shreds, he still couldn't get him up and could only stand there panting.
"Now you're scared! Why weren't you scared when you were so audacious? Playing dead won't work now. I've already called the police, they'll be here soon." Zhang Chao said, turning to look at Wang Zhiyi, "Are you alright?"
Wang Zhiyi closed her eyes, slowly shook her head, and a line of clear tears slid down her cheeks as if a broken string had been cut.
Zhan Xinyue stood up from the playground and walked towards that direction, her mind racing as she recalled everything about this incident from her past life. At that time, she didn't know the specific details or how it actually happened, but that fleeting glimpse of Wang Zhiyi's swollen, red eyes standing in front of Gao Qiang had lingered in her mind for many years.
The same thing happened again, just like in the previous life. Now, the only variable seems to be Zhan Xinyue, who wasn't here in the previous life. What should she do to protect Wang Zhiyi to the greatest extent possible?
Just as I was pondering this, a sudden change occurred in a very short moment.
Perhaps because he heard the words "call the police," the boy, who had just been limp, somehow regained his strength, flipped over, and actually pushed Zhang Chao aside before running away.
"Stop!" Zhang Chao snapped out of his daze and shouted sharply, giving chase.
Perhaps driven by a survival instinct, the boy, who had been weak just moments before, ran incredibly fast, covering dozens of meters in the blink of an eye. He was running towards the dormitory building. Although he could run for a while within the school grounds, he couldn't run forever; even if he hid in the dormitory, he would eventually be caught. But for Wang Zhiyi, it was a different story. This meant that the matter was bound to escalate significantly.
Zhang Chao was clearly trying to keep the matter to a minimum, so he initially dragged him toward the back door where few people usually went. Now that he saw him running away, he panicked and chased after him desperately.
But sometimes, a person's will to survive trumps everything. So, despite Zhang Chao's best efforts, the distance between them continued to widen.
Just as he was about to cross the playground and run straight towards the dormitory area, there was a sudden "smack".
Caught off guard, the boy stumbled and fell to the ground.
A soccer ball rolled past him.
Just as Zhan Xinyue saw him running towards her, and realizing it was too late to intercept him, she quickly picked up the soccer ball from the side of the playground and threw it to him.
Although the boy fell heavily to the ground, he seemed oblivious to the pain, pushing himself up and trying to run forward again.
This time, Zhan Xinyue had already caught up with him and grabbed his clothes.
The boy stumbled and fell back to the ground after being pulled by her. Only then did he realize that there was someone else there. He immediately turned around and glared at her with red eyes: "Who the hell are you? Get the hell away from me!"
Zhan Xinyue clung to his school uniform, refusing to let go. He tugged at it twice but couldn't pull it off, so he kicked her leg. The crazed boy was incredibly strong; Zhan Xinyue's leg staggered from the kick, but she still stubbornly refused to let go.
The boy was furious and was about to kick him again, but fortunately, he had a moment to catch up and pounced on him, pinning him to the ground.
Perhaps his will to survive had been abruptly extinguished, for his gaze seemed to hold a murderous intent towards her. "Damn it, are you crazy? What the hell are you doing getting involved? What's it to you?"
The crazed look in his eyes made Zhan Xinyue instinctively take a step back. The boy was still hurling insults when someone stepped forward, blocking her view.
Wang Zhiyi was clearly crying and trembling, but at this moment she still stood in front of her students like a teacher.
"New Moon, what are you doing here?"
Her hair was disheveled, and Zhan Xinyue noticed a deep scratch on her neck, with traces of blood.
"Stand back a bit, he's desperate and might hurt you."
His constant swearing finally prompted Zhang Chao to kick him, yelling in exasperation, "Shut your mouth! How dare you swear? How did our school produce such a scumbag?"
The boy was stunned by the kick, and after a moment, he finally seemed to accept his situation, tears and snot streaming down his face: "Please, teacher, I was just momentarily blinded by greed, please let me go this time! I'm a senior in high school, please don't call the police, otherwise my life will be over, I really know I was wrong, please, spare me..."
"Is your life over? Before you did such a despicable thing, did you ever think about other people's lives?" Zhan Xinyue walked out from behind Wang Zhiyi, put her arm around her shoulder to stop her from looking in that direction.
"I'm not an adult yet, I'm just a student. Please let me go this time, I'll kowtow to you, okay?"
Zhang Chao ignored her and simply turned to them, saying, "Let's go to the school gate."
Lunch break is almost over, and soon students coming out of the dorms will pass by here.
Zhang Chao tried to pull him again, but this time he couldn't. The boy's hand had somehow become firmly gripping the railing of the nearby sewer drain, as if clinging to a lifeline, refusing to let go.
Zhang Chao tried to pull him away but couldn't budge him. He roared angrily, "Now you're scared? Why weren't you scared when you were so audacious? What's the use of struggling now? You have to let everyone see what you did!"
Zhan Xinyue released Wang Zhiyi and then tried to pull him away. At this moment, Zhan Xinyue didn't have time to ask Wang Zhiyi what had happened, but she knew that gossip was a terrible thing, and such a thing could almost be fatal to the reputation of a young female teacher. She absolutely couldn't let it become public knowledge like it had before.
The two of them tried to pull him down, but the boy kept gripping the ground tightly, his legs kicking and thrashing about like a fish in the mud.
After a long standoff, the sirens blared louder and louder.
The police have arrived.
At this moment, groups of students began to appear downstairs at the dormitory building, attracted by the sound of sirens, their eyes already looking in this direction.
"Let go!" Zhan Xinyue cried out, stomping on his hand in frustration. "Let go!"
Hearing the siren, the boy went berserk again, scrambling to his feet and attacking Zhang Chao. Despite Zhang Chao's brute force, he couldn't subdue the boy and could only hold him tightly to prevent him from escaping. Zhan Xinyue pulled at him from behind, but was elbowed in the temple.
After a brief moment of distraction, Zhan Xinyue heard voices getting closer and closer.
"What happened? Why are they fighting?"
"There are police cars over there. Why are all the police here?"
"Holy crap, a teacher hitting a student? Are you crazy?!"
"Look, isn't that Wang Zhiyi over there?"
"It really is her..."
A woman who is too beautiful will never lack attention. Even though the scene was in complete chaos, Wang Zhiyi just stood aside with red eyes, but everyone's eyes couldn't help but glance at her.
"I recognize that teacher, from the high school. What's going on? Could it be a love triangle...?"
"My God, it's kind of like that, it feels like one of those scenes where you catch someone cheating..."
As the crowd grew larger, the boy became increasingly disorganized after being surrounded, and finally, he was once again pinned to the ground by Zhang Chao.
However, the original hope of not disturbing others has been completely shattered.
Zhan Xinyue's heart pounded. Seeing Wang Zhiyi's face growing paler and paler, she desperately told herself: "Think of something! There must be a way..."
Someone in the crowd, probably led by Wang Zhiyi, mustered up the courage to ask her directly, "Teacher Wang, what's going on here?"
Being stared at and watched like this, Wang Zhiyi's already unpleasant expression became even more embarrassed and helpless. After a long while, he finally whispered, "He..."
"No!" Zhang Chao's face was grave. Just as he was about to speak, the boy who was being held down suddenly screamed like a madman, "It's not my fault! She seduced me! She called me here! It was her, it really was her..."
The crowd erupted in an uproar.
"What did you say?" Wang Zhiyi swayed, looking at her in disbelief, his face as white as paper.
Among the students watching, some already showed excited expressions of having stumbled upon some gossip.
Everything seemed to be moving forward cruelly and irreversibly, just like in a previous life, following the path arranged by fate.
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