NB Chapter57

At first, I couldn’t find Zhang Xiaoyuan. I even began to wonder if Zhang Mingsheng had lied about the child’s origins as well.

Eventually, the old director set aside his work to come and speak with me personally.

He had aged quite a bit; his hair was graying, and he was due to retire soon. Since I started working, I hadn’t visited often, and seeing him so suddenly, I was startled by how much he had aged.

“Ah Chao is here,” the old director said. He wasn’t a Hong Kong native, and his accent was plain and steady, making every word sound clear and powerful. “It’s been a long time. How is it that someone as young as you have white hair just like me?”

I looked toward the dressing mirror in his office. With a slight tilt of my head, I saw a streak of silver at my temple. I rubbed it a few times, but it didn’t go away.

Li Yi had once pulled out a white hair for me. At that time, I was already in my thirties; mentally exhausted and physically weakened, so having a few gray strands was nothing unusual. Yet who would have thought that, upon waking from that dream, I would find myself back in my twenties, while that white hair had stubbornly followed me all the same.

I looked at my reflection, lost in thought. To be honest, I still wasn’t quite used to this.

The director’s expression turned serious. “No matter how busy work gets, you must look after your health.”

I smiled and agreed.

Then I thought to myself: monthly hair treatments and dyeing would be another expense. A cost most people don’t have to worry about until their fifties or sixties, yet I’d have to start shelling out for it in my early twenties.

“Alright, it’s not easy for you to find time to visit. Come, let’s have some tea.” The director said, gesturing for me to follow as he turned to lead the way.

“Keep the good tea for yourself, I don’t care for it.” I said, waving a hand dismissively. “I brought some gifts for the children.”

He turned back slowly and gave me a long, heavy look. “Ah Chao, are you still holding a grudge against me in your heart?”

A grudge? Where was this coming from?

The old director had aged, but his eyes were well-preserved; still clear, with no bloodshot veins in the whites, likely due to his disciplined lifestyle over the years. In the past, he had once taken on a thief alone; in the dead of night without knowing whether the other party was armed, he had rushed out with nothing but the sword he used for Tai Chi.

The director said slowly, “Back then, I reprimand you in front of outsiders. After that, you stopped coming to my office to look at the turtles.”

The director kept a pair of turtles, one named Auspicious and the other Prosperous. I used to visit them often when I was small. These childhood memories had long been buried deep in the recesses of my mind; if he hadn’t brought them up, I would have forgotten them long ago.

As for being reprimanded in front of outsiders… that was the day those people came looking for Auntie Yang.

I smiled. “Not at all. I actually forgot about that a long time ago.”

“I know you’re sensitive,” the director sighed. “The children here always tend to remember the smallest things for a very, very long time.”

In truth, I didn’t really remember the specific details. I only remembered the director’s rare flash of anger. Although he didn’t lay a hand on me or punish me afterward, that moment of sharp prohibition and solemnity had struck my heart like a bolt of lightning.

The moment those words left my mouth, the secret the director had been trying to conceal could no longer remain hidden.

He had every right to be angry; he couldn’t help but be angry.

I was even angry at myself.

“It was all my fault.” I said softly.

“You found out something, didn’t you?” His expression grew grave.

I nodded.

The old director and I walked along the long corridor. Out in the yard, the younger children were laughing and playing, chasing an old leather ball. The slides at the orphanage had already rusted with their blue paint peeling off, and no one was allowed to climb them anymore. The director mentioned that before he retires in a while, he plans to replace the broken equipment in the yard.

I asked him if he had enough funding.

He said it was simply a matter of peddling his old face around.

My heart ached. I felt useless for being unable to give back to the orphanage.

Seeing my expression, he tapped my back like an old prankster, “Seeing those wealthy folks so well-fed and flush with cash, what’s the harm in me ‘extorting’ them a bit to earn some extra money for the kids’ meals?”

He was a man of integrity and openness. It was my own narrow-mindedness that had tried to force a sense of lofty pride upon him. This was what he wanted to do, what he was willing to do.

We continued our stroll side by side.

The director spoke softly, “The first time Xiao Yang arrived, it was in the pouring rain. She looked truly pitiful seeing her all alone…”

“…A woman seeking refuge at an orphanage in the dead of night was suspicious, I originally thought it might be some kind of ‘honey trap’ scheme to say the least. At the time, I told her to get lost, the further the better.”

“But when I opened the door the next morning, she was sitting right there at the entrance. I couldn’t tell if she had fainted or just fallen asleep.”

Naturally, she had fainted. I thought helplessly. Anyone would faint after being drenched in the rain all night.

“I decided then that she must have run away from home, and I couldn’t just leave her lying out there,” the director said. “Of course, I tested her several times. She wasn’t a criminal, and she hadn’t escaped from prison either. For a woman to be pursued and wanting to flee to a place where no one knows her… it’s usually because she’s being harassed, or she has a conflict with her family; or perhaps both. In the end, we reached a tacit agreement: I wouldn’t pry into her past, and she would work diligently to fill the vacancies here.”

I didn’t know exactly how the old director had tested Auntie Yang. Auntie Yang was clever, while the director possessed his own wisdom; I couldn’t imagine how long the two of them had circled each other before deciding to become ordinary colleagues.

When I was little, I always assumed Auntie Yang was the director’s daughter. Whenever she caught him secretly eating peanut butter, she would shout, “How can you ignore the doctor’s orders again!” The director would freeze in shock, then huff and puff, his beard bristling with feigned anger.

The old director was like a righteous sect leader from an old martial arts film.

He didn’t know where Auntie Yang came from; he only knew she was hiding. Once he determined she wasn’t a bad person, he concluded that whoever was chasing her must be the villain.

I had always regarded my mentor as my closest kin, yet for so long I had overlooked the old director’s presence. Talking with him today felt as though there had never been any friction between us; in fact, I felt even more at ease than when I spoke with my mentor.

“So, you never knew who she really was either.” I mused.

“My acquaintance with her was already worth more than a thousand other types of friendship; why bother investigating her name?” The director said. “You nodded just now, does that mean you’ve looked into her past? She used to dote on you the most. She told me she felt there was a shared destiny between the two of you. It’s only right that you wanted to find out who she is. I wanted to apologize to you later, but by then, you were growing closer and closer to your teacher.”

After Auntie Yang disappeared, my mentor appeared.

I once believed this was a gift from God.

I fell silent for a moment, then said, “I know who she is, but I don’t know much about her life.”

“Where is she now?”

I didn’t know how to answer that question.

The person was gone; she was already reduced to a skeleton.

The old director held onto a glimmer of hope at first, but seeing my prolonged silence, he slowly turned his head away. “It’s no matter, I suppose.”

A light breeze brushed past, tugging at his clothes and outlining a frame as steady as an ancient pine. He looked up at the sky with his hands clasped behind his back and said quietly, almost to himself, “We all die eventually. It’s only a matter of time.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but a child suddenly rushed over; a little sprout-like child and collided straight into my leg before tumbling backward onto his bottom.

I quickly crouched down to help him up.

The child kept his head lowered, remaining silent for a long time. I asked if he was alright several times before he finally opened his mouth. The next second, a sharp pain shot through my arm.

He had bitten me.

A small and sinuous little snake-like child rushed over.

He lifted his head with his brows furrowed.

I recognized him instantly.

A woman came chasing after him, looking frantic.

The old director signaled for her to stop and asked what had happened. She wiped away a bead of sweat. “This child is incredibly disobedient and was smarter than the average kid too. I tried to give him a bath, and he just bolted. If you asked me, we shouldn’t have kept him. A child raised among swindlers…”

Before she could finish, the director cut her off.

I gripped Zhang Xiaoyuan by the shoulders, meeting his gaze, and said seriously, “If you don’t bathe, the bugs will eat you.”

Zhang Xiaoyuan stared at me for two seconds, processed the words, and then let out a piercing wail.

I was stunned. I had never seen Zhang Xiaoyuan cry like that.

Now, even the woman was glaring at me. She pulled Zhang Xiaoyuan into her arms while looking at me with clear disapproval.

I stood up. “…This child…”

“He was raised by a syndicate of scammers and was taken out to beg. We don’t know if he was abandoned or trafficked,” the director explained. “He has a very stubborn temperament.”

I had seen those scammers before, they were predators who spent everyday hunting for the weaknesses of others, greedily living off the blood of their prey.

So, Zhang Xiaoyuan’s childhood was steeped in such an environment.

“I just remembered, Xiao Yang once gave me an emergency contact number. She said it was for her younger sister, but I could never get through.” The director added.

“A younger sister?”

Auntie Yang had a younger sister.

This was truly significant news.

That afternoon, Zhang Mingsheng cornered me at the entrance of the police station, asking if I would attend his birthday party.

I refused.

Zhang Mingsheng wouldn’t leave. He smiled and said, “This is the first time I’m celebrating my birthday with so many people. I hope you can be there.”

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