Chapter 351 - 154: Farewell

Chapter 351: Chapter 154: Farewell

December 13th.

Thursday.

Zhang Shutong yawned, pulled last night’s homework out of his desk, and handed it to Lu Qinglian.

Homework was supposed to go through the group leader before being handed to the academic representative, but Lu Qinglian was the academic representative. The benefit of being her deskmate was skipping a step in the process.

The downside was, if you didn’t do your homework, it was an immediate death sentence. There was no room for excuses.

"Hey, Lu Qinglian, if I don’t have time to do my homework tonight, can you cover for me?"

"Hey, Zhang Shutong, looks like the fried chicken was good. Going again tonight?"

Zhang Shutong glanced at the girl beside him. Her high ponytail hung low against the back of her head, and her eyes were fixed nonchalantly on her textbook. If you ignored the actual content of her words, her calm, clear voice was actually quite pleasant.

But he didn’t have the energy to talk much today. He didn’t even know if the fried chicken was good or not, so he just nodded in acquiescence.

"What were you up to last night?" Lu Qinglian asked instead. It seemed she hadn’t taken the fried chicken comment seriously either.

"How did you know I was up to something last night?"

"You have dark circles under your eyes. They’re pretty bad."

"Really."

Zhang Shutong subconsciously touched the skin around his eyes. He’d noticed them when he washed his face this morning but hadn’t expected them to still be there.

"Oh, I went to the basement again."

"Curiosity killed the cat."

"There’s some truth to that, but I found something related to... ’that.’ By the way, I have something important to tell you at noon. See you on the rooftop."

Lu Qinglian just nodded.

Zhang Shutong didn’t know how his "wild dog line" self had overcome the sudden difficulty breathing, but for the current him, there was no good solution other than to talk and think about it as little as possible.

Otherwise, it would be terribly embarrassing to suddenly look like he was suffocating in the middle of the classroom.

Besides, it was morning reading period—hardly the right time to be talking.

Not only was the classroom filled with the sound of students reading aloud, but the homeroom teacher was sitting at the front desk, his eyes scanning the room like a hawk. After saying his piece, Zhang Shutong propped up his textbook to hide his face.

The rooftop key wasn’t in his possession anymore. After yesterday’s fiasco, hiding it under the floor tile was no longer safe. He had planned to wedge it in the gap between their two desks—like King Arthur’s sword in the stone, ready to be drawn at a moment’s notice—but as soon as he’d stuck it in there after getting to class this morning, Lu Qinglian had casually taken it.

Zhang Shutong didn’t argue with her about it. It wasn’t like he went up there often anyway.

He forced himself to stay awake and recite the text, but his eyelids grew heavier and heavier.

If his body were a phone, Zhang Shutong had just switched on power-saving mode.

He never would have thought that after just one day of paying lip service to the idea of conserving energy, he would actually be forced to do it for real.

Some things just couldn’t be hidden.

He was referring to Song’s dorm room, and the photo wall in that secret chamber.

When they had first entered the secret room, only Zhang Shutong had looked at the photos. His three best friends had been investigating something else at the time, so he’d managed to keep it from them temporarily.

But later, after everyone opened that door and went up to Song’s dorm together, Qingyi turned on the light, and the photos of Song’s ex-girlfriend were finally revealed to all.

Anyone would have thought it was a bizarre room. Without knowing the logic behind it, the behavior seemed an awful lot like that of a psychopathic serial killer.

There was no telling what might have happened if he’d let them come to their own conclusions.

Zhang Shutong knew that trying to hide it from them at this point would be treating them like idiots.

So, he gave the three of them a rough explanation of the "mud man" incident.

Then he led them to the basement and told them about Song’s secret and his own speculations.

Of course, he only mentioned the ex-girlfriend. When they came to the photo of the long-haired woman, he just said he didn’t know her either. As for whether they could see a trace of Gu Qiuyan in the woman’s face, that was anyone’s guess.

Maybe they had been too shocked at the time to notice, or maybe they had their own quiet suspicions but didn’t voice them.

Zhang Shutong was increasingly feeling that spelling things out ruined the fun. It was better for everyone to just maintain an unspoken understanding.

As for the last photo, the one of Lu Qinglian, he had put it away beforehand.

It wasn’t that he was obsessed with protecting Lu Qinglian’s privacy, but she had explicitly told him not to tell anyone else about it. Since Zhang Shutong had promised her, he would help keep the secret as long as he was able.

That was enough.

And so, no one was in the mood to bring up getting together for a meal anymore. Perhaps that Wednesday had already been crazy enough; there was no need to go wild at KFC, too.

They cleaned up the scene and talked as they walked. Fortunately, Zhang Shutong had already given his three best friends a heads-up while he was in the hospital, telling them that both Song and Lu Qinglian were searching for the "mud man," so they accepted the new information relatively quickly.

But the facts were ironclad; they had no choice but to accept them.

This spur-of-the-moment adventure had begun with a mystery and ended with one.

But it wasn’t a total loss. For instance, Du Kang didn’t forget to grab the little dog on his way out. They had left the dog in the house when they went into the tunnel. ’It’s raining outside, so the dog probably has nowhere else to go,’ Zhang Shutong thought. ’And even though four humans are scary, is getting soaked in the rain even scarier?’ He couldn’t quite figure out what the little dog was thinking.

In any case, the four of them ended up adopting the little black dog together.

It was something that had never happened in his original life.

Du Kang was its guardian in name.

The guardian didn’t come to school today.

He had a fever.

He was the only one who had fallen in the water yesterday, and he’d walked for a long time through the chilly, drafty tunnel. When he got back, instead of taking a hot shower like the other three, he built a nest for his "canine son." Who else was going to get a fever if not him?

Du Kang’s nickname was now "Zorro."

Which was why Ruoping had asked in the group chat first thing in the morning:

"Why isn’t Zorro here?"

Qingyi said, "I haven’t seen Zorro either."

Du Kang then sent a weak-sounding voice message: "Why are you guys worried about the dog and not me?"

’Is it possible,’ Zhang Shutong thought, ’that they’re talking about you?’

This was one of the few amusing things to have happened lately.

If you took midnight on Thursday as a dividing line...

Before midnight, Zhang Shutong had been mostly thinking about who the person in the secret room was, and where they had gone.

After midnight, he found it hard to find an answer. Since he couldn’t figure it out, he turned to another question—

What did the figure that vanished from the rooftop have to do with this?

He had previously given up on finding that person, because he didn’t think the rooftop figure was related to the "mud man." But yesterday’s events had forged a close link between the two.

If it’s likely the person from the basement retrieved the mud man four years ago...

Then who was the one looking for them?

The truth was becoming more and more murky.

Zhang Shutong took out a piece of paper.

He first wrote down the two words "mud man."

Then he drew three lines radiating out from it.

One was naturally the mastermind who dug up the body.

One was the person who retrieved the mud man back then.

And one was the figure on the rooftop.

He wasn’t sure if these were three different... ’factions,’ perhaps he should call them. If the mastermind was the clear antagonist, what stances did the next two factions hold?

Before the churning in his stomach could start, Zhang Shutong quickly stopped writing and sighed.

Having learned his lesson, he crumpled the scratch paper into a ball, then slowly tore it into tiny pieces, destroying the evidence.

After morning reading, he didn’t leave the classroom, instead resting his head on his desk to close his eyes.

Today was a rare, quiet day. Although Ruoping and Qingyi didn’t have fevers, they looked lethargic all the same.

The morning passed quickly.

Zhang Shutong yawned his way through the first three periods. During the break, he turned his head and saw Lu Qinglian pulling out a book to read for pleasure. She didn’t spend all her time grinding through practice problems and tests; rather, she did her problem sets during class specifically so she could better arrange her free time.

She was also one of the few students who actually went to the library. Right now, Lu Qinglian was quietly reading a book she had borrowed.

"Could you give me a shout when class starts?"

Zhang Shutong asked.

Lu Qinglian glanced at him but said nothing.

Zhang Shutong thanked her again and let his heavy eyelids fall shut.

...

"...I feel relieved seeing all of you. From now on, you need to focus more. I know I’ve always said to play when it’s time to play and study when it’s time to study, to value a balance between work and rest, but—"

In his drowsy state, a cheerful voice drifted from the front of the room, its tone suddenly shifting:

"But the high school entrance exams are just one semester away, so you really need to get your heads in the game. I won’t repeat the same old platitudes. Let me offer a different perspective, just my personal opinion. This isn’t about grades or your future prospects. It’s about the fact that you’ve all spent four years in this classroom. As we stand on the cusp of the next stage of our lives, we need something to put a period on the previous stage. And right about now, someone’s bound to ask, ’Teacher, teacher, why do we need to bother putting a period on anything?’"

"Good question. It’s what will tell you, as you’re about to start high school, that you are truly ready to embrace a new life. Maybe that’s what you call a sense of ceremony. Don’t underestimate that phrase. Why do we eat cake on our birthdays, light candles, and make a wish? Isn’t it to make ourselves truly believe, from the bottom of our hearts, that we’re another year older and it’s time to face life’s new challenges?"

"Don’t mind my rambling. What I hope for all of you, whether you’ve been diligent or lax in the past, is that starting today, you will all strive to put a period on your middle school careers. That will be the foundation of your confidence as you welcome your new lives. Of course, an exclamation point is fine, too! Just don’t end it with a question mark..."

"Finally, I’d like to end with a quote. Shakespeare said in *The Tempest*, ’What’s past is prologue.’ I sincerely hope you can all live the lives you want. I mean, Wenwen, don’t wipe your tears away. And you too, Yawen, look, your eyes are all red. It’s not like I’m never coming back."

"Look at Shutong, he’s still in the mood to sleep..."

As Zhang Shutong listened, he realized something was wrong. His intuition told him that several angry glares were now fixed on him. He had just become the ungrateful villain of the story for no reason.

He quickly shook off his drowsiness and raised his head.

It was noon on December 13th. After a heavy downpour, the weather was surprisingly clear. There seemed to be less dust floating in the air, and a beam of sunlight fell across his eyes, making him blink. A tall man in a wrinkled white shirt was standing at the teacher’s desk.

The man was just over 1.8 meters tall, with an aquiline nose, a long face, and a square jaw that gave him a resolute air. But right now, he was grinning mischievously and waving at Zhang Shutong.

"You finally decided to wake up, kid?"

The man seemed to be in a good mood, but Zhang Shutong’s first reaction upon seeing his beloved teacher was pure shock.

’Whoa, whoa, what’s going on? Where’s the new teacher, Teacher Xu?’ he thought, whipping his head around. Besides the teacher at the front, nothing else had changed. Zhang Shutong didn’t know if this was a good thing or a bad thing. His deskmate wasn’t Gu Qiuyan, but Lu Qinglian.

"What’s going on?" Zhang Shutong asked in a low voice.

"Teacher Song came back early."

Lu Qinglian sat primly in her seat. She rarely paid attention in class, but now, for once, her chin was raised as she looked toward the front of the room.

At his question, she glanced sideways, as if repeating the words he had missed:

"He came to see the students and say goodbye."

"Also, we’re going to lunch."

"Lunch?"

"Teacher Song said he’s treating a few of us to lunch."

Zhang Shutong was about to ask who "a few of us" included, but just as Lu Qinglian finished speaking, the bell for the end of class rang.