DBTHDCAR Chapter 78

After Ning Xiaobei called urging him to return to Shanghai, Zhao Jingwen, though confused, followed his advice and booked a return flight. Hong Kong had seen a lot of travelers heading to Shanghai for the New Year in recent years, so the earliest ticket he could get was a week later. By the time he got home, it would already be the 28th.

Before he even stepped through the door, Fan Xia sprayed him head to toe with disinfectant. Just as he was about to curse, Ning Xiaobei shoved a thermometer into his mouth.

“36.7°C. Normal temperature.”

Ning Jianguo looked at the thermometer with a serious expression.

All three of them wore masks, disposable shower caps like the ones Ning Jianguo used only when frying meatballs, disposable gloves like the ones used for eating crayfish, and blue shoe covers. They were fully geared up.

Passing neighbors looked on and laughed.

“Xiaobei, Xiao Xia, what are you playing at now? Didn’t you get enough from yesterday’s vinegar fumigation of the whole building?”

“Auntie, it’s to prevent colds in winter. Schools do vinegar fumigation too,” Ning Xiaobei explained. He couldn’t exactly mention SARS, so he used flu prevention as an excuse.

Aunt Zhang and Aunt Tian covered their mouths, laughing. “Fuming your own place is fine, but who spreads a cold through a whole building? Lucky Jianguo has patience to go along with the kids. Right, Xiao Xia?”

Fan Xia waved at them—he didn’t really know what they were doing either, but the boss insisted, so he just went along.

Zhao Jingwen was locked in Room 216; Ning Jianguo wouldn’t let him leave. Everything he needed to eat or drink was handed through the window. No matter how much he pleaded, the door wouldn’t open until he’d stayed the full seven days.

“Xiaobei, aren’t we overreacting?”

Back at home, washing hands with medicated soap and using disinfectant, Ning Jianguo still didn’t understand why his son was taking things so seriously. It was just a rumor from Grandma Ning’s small shop; why go to such extremes? If nothing happened, wouldn’t it be hard to recover from this level of panic?

“Dad, the white vinegar in the cafeteria warehouse must be locked up. There are many workers in the cafeteria, so get extra masks. Make sure students wash their hands before eating. Stock more Shanghai medicated soap and alcohol. Keep alcohol-soaked cotton on hand, it will definitely help.”

Having experienced two epidemics firsthand, Ning Xiaobei mobilized all the knowledge he had about disease prevention to fight this outbreak.

Though Ning Jianguo didn’t fully understand, he trusted his son after all these years and followed his instructions.

Soon, he realized that Ning Xiaobei wasn’t exaggerating.

By January, rumors about a mysterious and severe flu in Guangzhou were getting more intense. Some even claimed that only white vinegar and banlangen could prevent this unnamed disease.

Grandma Ning’s small shop couldn’t keep up. Forget just white vinegar, even rice vinegar, black vinegar, and aged vinegar were all sold out, and the 84 disinfectant solution¹84 disinfectant (84消毒液): A strong chlorine-based disinfectant commonly used in Chinese households and public places for sanitizing was out of stock.

At the school cafeteria, workers sneaked into the warehouse searching for white vinegar, but it wasn’t just them. Even teachers and administrators would stop by between meals, asking Ning Jianguo if there was extra vinegar they could take home.

Ning Jianguo thought of the crate of white vinegar locked in the big iron box at the back of the warehouse and shook his head apologetically. It wasn’t that he was stingy or hoarding; vinegar, after all, is a condiment first and a disinfectant second. He needed it for cooking.

Once winter break started, the situation escalated. TV reports began showing deaths in Guangzhou. Experts still disagreed on what exactly the disease was. And with the Spring Festival travel rush, more and more cases appeared in other areas.

Panic spread even faster. Rumors circulated that in some rural villages, entire communities had died, and crematoriums couldn’t keep up.

Ning Xiaobei warned Fan Xia not to get involved in the online hysteria. He told him to report any posts like that immediately and avoid discussion entirely. Getting an account banned would be the least of their worries; worse, being summoned for a tea talk by the authorities could jeopardize college exam approvals.

Fan Xia nodded seriously, seeing the gravity on Ning Xiaobei’s face.

That night, Ning Xiaobei and Fan Xia went to the supermarket to buy bottled water and instant noodles. Passing the pharmacy, they saw it packed with people lining up for medicine and there was no way to get in.

At the supermarket entrance, they watched coldly as scalpers seized the opportunity to resell supplies. They saw a bottle of rice vinegar shot up from 10 yuan to 80, and people were still scrambling to buy it.

“Xiaobei, if we hadn’t listened to you, we’d probably be those suckers right now,” Fan Xia said, clutching three huge bags of instant noodles, still feeling shaken.

“Did you see the pharmacy just now? A box of banlangen is going for 300 yuan. Do you know today’s gold price per gram? 110 yuan.”

Passing a jewelry store, Fan Xia pointed to the sign displaying the day’s gold rate. Doing the math, he realized that their supplies were basically a miniature private gold reserve.

“Let’s go home. No need to go out for now,” Ning Xiaobei said.

Two worlds, two epidemics; both breaking out in winter. For a moment, Ning Xiaobei felt the parallel worlds overlapping in strange ways.

He vaguely remembered that in the real world, Shanghai had handled its outbreak extremely well that year, with only eight confirmed cases from start to finish. But he couldn’t afford any slack; he had fortified both the Ning and Zhao households like impregnable strongholds.

After Zhao Jingwen was quarantined away, he got word from his friends in Hong Kong that panic was spreading there. Luckily, he had left early; otherwise, even a plane ticket might have been impossible to get.

Even Grandma Ning’s small store temporarily closed. For the first time in over twenty years, her meticulously clean little mahjong table was left untouched. Grandma Ning, who valued her life highly, made sure Xiao Mei washed her hands first thing after every grocery run.

Despite all precautions, nobody expected the school to be locked down.

Shortly after the semester began, hospital staff in white protective suits arrived and took several school workers away. Some of them had returned to their hometowns over the New Year and had been in close contact with people from Guangzhou. Now that someone was hospitalized there, the trace of their movements led straight to Shanghai.

Panic swept through the school. Seals were placed on both the front and back gates, yellow caution tape was stretched across, and parents who came upon the news could only watch from afar, crying as they saw their children trapped inside.

“Let me in! Please, let me in!”

Wang Yihong stood at the gate, holding a whole bag of clothes and food, sobbing as she begged the person blocking her way.

“I’m the parent of Chang Leyun from Class 4 of Third Year. She didn’t bring spare clothes, and her mattress is thin. I need to get her clothes inside. Please let me in!”

Tears streamed down her face.

The struggle between mother and daughter had lasted from June all the way through the Spring Festival.

After that argument, Chang Leyun either didn’t go home at all or went only to her grandmother’s house. Even for the Lunar New Year, she stayed with her grandmother.

On New Year’s Eve, Xiao Zhao from Nanhui personally went to her maternal grandmother to ask the eldest daughter to come home. Chang Leyun firmly refused, saying that as long as her mother disagreed, they wouldn’t see each other for even a single day. Xiao Zhao returned empty-handed. The strong-willed Wang Yihong held her pride, saying that even if her daughter froze or starved outside, she wouldn’t intervene.

Who would have thought that half a year later, from summer to winter, the mother and daughter’s first meeting would be under such circumstances.

“Mom… Mom…”

On the other side of the fence, Chang Leyun buried her face in her hands, trembling violently as she cried. Beyond calling Mom repeatedly, she couldn’t speak a single word.

Even though the mother and daughter were separated by only a hollowed-out fence, it felt as if they were in entirely different worlds.

Ning Xiaobei and the two other boys stood behind, watching with heavy hearts.

“Let us in, please. We’ll leave as soon as we deliver the things.”

Behind Wang Yihong, hundreds of parents wearing masks held up the plastic bags they had prepared. Some even brought suitcases.

“Parents, please calm down! Everyone, calm down!”

The principal stood on a makeshift platform made from stacked desks, holding a megaphone and shouting to the crowd outside.

“Parents, the school has everything you need. Supplies are stable. The cafeteria and bathrooms are open as usual. The logistics department has prepared winter clothes and quilts. If students need anything, we will provide it to the best of our ability.”

“I won’t accept that! My child is sick, I need to give him medicine! You can’t stop us from entering! If you don’t let me in, let him out! Consider this me taking him on leave. I’m taking him with me!”

A father shouted, and others quickly echoed him.

“Parents, we understand your feelings as teachers. But the city has its own regulations. We must act according to the rules.”

Seeing hundreds of agitated faces outside, the principal tensed up. He stumbled on the platform and almost fell off the desk.

“I’ll handle this,” said the director of academic department, rushing forward to steady him. Then he climbed onto the desk himself and shouted into the megaphone:

“Parents, the school’s quarantine measures also come at a huge cost to us. Students can’t leave, and neither can teachers. Many of us have elderly or young family members to care for. We’re even more anxious than you are. Besides, the students live here in dorms; please trust us and treat it like a normal day. Leave your children with us…”

Before he could finish, a black object flew over the fence and struck him, knocking off his wig and revealing his shiny, receding Mediterranean bald head.

Fan Xia, using his height advantage, stood on tiptoe and saw—it was a leather shoe.

“What kind of damn director are you? Are you even speaking human language?!”

The parent who’d contributed the shoe balanced on one leg like a golden rooster standing, both hands gripping the fence as he yelled, “If it’s all the same, then what’s the point of this quarantine? Let my son out, out!”

The director of academic department had originally planned to use this moment to impress the principal, but his scheme backfired spectacularly. Flustered, he clumsily climbed down from the desk and bent over to pick up his fallen wig.

Thanks to his fire-stoking speech, the parents outside became even more agitated. “Crack! Crack!” sounds echoed as things kept flying over the fence like a sudden downpour aimed at the teachers inside. Some parents even started shaking the fence, trying to break in.

“Give me back my child!”

“We’ll take the kids home ourselves! It’s not safe in school!”

“Dad!”

“Mom!”

On this side of the fence, many students were also caught up in the chaos. The freshmen, still not fully used to dorm life, were particularly shaken. A few of them, overwhelmed by panic, actually started running toward the school gate.

“Mom! I want to go home! Take me home!”

“Fan Xia, hold Lele back!”

Seeing Chang Leyun screaming and trying to follow the running students, Ning Xiaobei shouted urgently.

Already on the edge of an emotional explosion, Chang Leyun screamed at the top of her lungs, flailing her arms and legs wildly, and the three older boys almost couldn’t restrain her.

“Aaaaah! Mom, mom… I want my mom!”

Her tightly tied ponytail had come undone, tears streaming uncontrollably. Every fiber of Chang Leyun’s being was full of anger and grief; anger at this sudden outbreak, and resentment at herself for the months-long cold war with her mother.

Why hadn’t she talked to her mom sooner? What if she never got to see her again?

“Someone just climbed over the eastern wall!”

A voice shouted from the crowd.

Ning Xiaobei spun around, a terrible premonition rising in his chest.

………………

Author’s Note:

A little hardship heightens the emotion.

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  84 disinfectant (84消毒液): A strong chlorine-based disinfectant commonly used in Chinese households and public places for sanitizing