Zhang Shutong quickly insisted it was no trouble. The man was wearing a white tank top; he had been a gymnast in his youth, but now he sported a slight beer belly.
Time spares no one.
He entered the living room, where a middle-aged woman was pulling out a pair of slippers. Who else could it be but Ruoping's mother?
"Shutong, we haven't seen you in so long. Auntie thinks you've gotten even handsomer!"
Ruoping's mother was a cheerful woman.
Zhang Shutong smiled awkwardly, desperately wanting to say, Auntie, we just saw each other a few hours ago.
"Gotten handsomer, gotten handsomer!"
Just then, another rasping voice rang out.
Zhang Shutong wondered who this could be and hurriedly turned to look. Hanging on the balcony was a massive birdcage, home to a red-and-green parrot.
"Gotten handsomer, gotten handsomer!"
The parrot mimicked cheerfully.
It was actually quite cute, with big, wide eyes.
Only then did Zhang Shutong remember who the little guy was. He recalled Ruoping mentioning on the Wild Dog Line that because her mother was always nagging her to get married, even the parrot had learned the phrase.
"Ping'er, look at it," the woman said in pleasant surprise. "It hasn't spoken in ages since you left."
"It ignores the good stuff and picks up all the bad habits." Ruoping sighed, walking over to the parrot and blinking. "I'm going to watch a little more TV—"
"Watch what!" Out of nowhere, the parrot's tone completely shifted. "Look what time it is and you're still watching! If you don't go to sleep right now, you're sleeping on the couch tonight, young lady!"
Zhang Shutong was utterly baffled by this sudden turn of events. Ruoping's mother clearly looked embarrassed and quickly raised her voice:
"Shutong, do you want some ice cream? Auntie will get it for you. Ping'er, you too—your friend is here and you're not entertaining him, what are you doing talking to a parrot..."
Ruoping giggled, looking as if her prank had succeeded. "Let's go, let's go, wash up and eat." She nudged Zhang Shutong and whispered, "This is my mom and dad's daily dialogue. Even the parrot memorized it."
"Your parrot actually has this kind of superpower?"
"Yep," she said proudly. "Impressive, right? Other parrots can only repeat a single phrase, but mine can finish your sentence if you give it the first half."
After the commotion, the four of them sat down at the dining table. Ruoping's family had a wonderful time eating, except for Zhang Shutong.
For some reason, the conversation at the table centered entirely around him. One moment they were asking how college life was, the next they were asking if he had found a girlfriend. Zhang Shutong felt rather tormented and could only force a smile to brush it off. Suddenly, the table fell silent.
"Where are Qingyi and Du Kang? Why didn't they come?"
Ruoping's father asked.
Zhang Shutong, who was biting into a steamed bun, pricked up his ears at the question.
"Qingyi can't get away; he's a very busy man."
"What about Du Kang?" the woman asked.
"He probably has some things to take care of too, I didn't ask too closely," Ruoping replied nonchalantly.
Zhang Shutong fell into deep thought.
But reality left him no time to ponder. After finishing the meal, Zhang Shutong finally remembered the main objective of the day—
Moving houses.
In fact, before they even stepped through the door, most of the furniture had already been hauled out and laid across the living room, leaving barely a place to sit.
His task was both light and heavy: loading the large pieces of furniture onto the van outside.
Before long, Zhang Shutong was drenched in sweat. Taking a break, he stared at the ceiling and thought, A few hours ago I was clearing debris in a tunnel, and a few hours later I'm still clearing debris. This is truly miserable...
This move wasn't a rushed job, so they worked in fits and starts. Zhang Shutong had only recently learned that his own family had actually moved off the island last year.
So he was currently homeless and had no choice but to stay at Ruoping's house tonight.
"Want some ice cream?" Ruoping asked. "A Little Pudding or a Green Tongue?"
A few minutes later, Zhang Shutong licked a Green Tongue ice pop as he headed up to the second floor.
The second floor was Ruoping's room, which had a very girly feel to it—celebrity posters, fluffy plush toys, and various bottles and jars that looked like cosmetics.
"Stop staring," Ruoping said, blushing slightly.
Zhang Shutong withdrew his gaze.
"What exactly is going on between you and Du Kang?" he asked directly.
"Why are you acting like a nagging old woman? I told you it's nothing. Do we have to be glued at the hip every single day for it to count as normal?"
Zhang Shutong was choked up by her words.
His intuition told him something was definitely wrong, but neither of the two involved parties would talk, and Qingyi wasn't answering his phone either.
"Alright, take a break first." Ruoping turned on the air conditioner, her back also soaked with sweat. "If you want to lie on the bed, go ahead. I won't mind you being dirty today. I'm going to the next room to pack..."
The next room was a utility closet.
Just as Zhang Shutong sat down on a chair, Ruoping suddenly pushed the door open again:
"Don't look at things you shouldn't."
Zhang Shutong raised his hands innocently.
He listened to Ruoping's footsteps fade into the distance before his eyes drifted back to the furniture in the room.
The first thing that caught his attention was a photo frame.
Inside was a group photo of several people—there were actually five of them.
Aside from the four best friends, Lu Qinglian was also in the photo.
The four people in the photo were wearing short sleeves, and the background was the school. It must have been taken during the second semester of their fourth year of middle school.
So she is quite sentimental after all, Zhang Shutong thought. When Ruoping asked him for the group photo on the ferry, he had assumed she had lost all her old pictures.
But the photo before his eyes carried a subtle sense of incongruity.
It also had five people, but on the ferry photo, it was Gu Qiumian standing to the side.
On this school photo, she was replaced by Lu Qinglian.
The one on the ferry was taken in winter, but this school one was taken in summer.
Is this some game of spot the difference? Zhang Shutong shook his head, finding it somewhat amusing.
Furthermore, in the photo on the ferry, everyone was laughing heartily, but the one before his eyes...
Zhang Shutong finally realized where that sense of incongruity stemmed from.
All five of them had completely expressionless faces.
Five young boys and girls stared calmly at the camera, deadpan and solemn.
Zhang Shutong knit his brows.
It made sense for Lu Qinglian not to smile, and it was even understandable for himself and Qingyi not to smile. But why Du Kang and Ruoping? It was already a miracle if those two didn't intentionally make goofy faces during a photo shoot, so why weren't they even smiling a little bit?
The ringing of his phone broke Zhang Shutong's train of thought.
It was Qingyi.
"Hey, are you on the island?" Qingyi let out a yawn, sounding sickly and weak. "Did you see Ruoping?"
How do you know too?
"Just arrived."
"Then keep it up. It's going to be a tough few days."
"Why do you sound like you're working overtime?" Zhang Shutong asked, puzzled.
"Overtime? No," Qingyi replied, equally confused. "We're only freshmen in college, what overtime would we be working?"
Zhang Shutong inexplicably breathed a sigh of relief. Thank goodness, Qingyi hadn't turned into an overtime demon after all.
"I'm doing an internship," Qingyi answered calmly in the next second.
Zhang Shutong almost dropped his phone. "An internship?"
"A relative's company happened to be short-handed, and it'll look good on my resume later... Let's not talk about that for now. Why were you looking for me?"
"...I wanted to look into something. Why do Ruoping and Du Kang seem a bit off?" Zhang Shutong lowered his voice.
He could already anticipate Qingyi's confusion, but he still had to ask clearly.
"Those two? Same old, same old." To his surprise, Qingyi's tone carried no hint of surprise. "They've been like this for years."
"What happened?" Zhang Shutong pressed.
"...I don't know."
Zhang Shutong was somewhat surprised. How could even Qingyi not know?
"We discussed it back then, remember? But we could never reach a definitive conclusion. We even guessed they broke up, but neither of them would admit it."
Qingyi paused.
"So, did you find a clue?"
Zhang Shutong glanced at the air conditioner vent, which was blowing out cold air.
"If I had found a clue, I wouldn't be asking you, would I?"
"True." Qingyi fell silent for a moment.
The two of them were somewhat speechless across the phone line.
Even after hanging up, Zhang Shutong hadn't managed to extract a single useful piece of information.
According to Qingyi, Du Kang and Ruoping had "cut ties" ever since their fourth year of middle school.
Everyone had tried to repair their relationship, but it was to no avail.
Zhang Shutong looked back at the photo frame. He seemed to have an answer as to why no one in it was smiling.
But where exactly did the problem lie?
If it were a breakup or something similar, it wouldn't go so far as to keep even Qingyi in the dark.
Or was there some clue that he had missed?
This timeline clearly seemed to have no major issues...
As he lay back in his chair, a sudden feeling of powerlessness washed over him.
Suddenly, a loud thud echoed, sounding like something crashing to the floor.
The sound came from next door.
Zhang Shutong rushed over immediately. In the dimly lit utility room, Ruoping was clutching her hand as beads of blood welled up from her tiger's mouth, dripping onto the floorboards.
"What happened?"
Zhang Shutong looked around and saw a hammer lying on the ground. A wooden crate sat at Ruoping's feet. It turned out she had wanted to open the wooden crate just now, but her hand had been accidentally cut.
"It's nothing. Help me grab a tissue from the room..." Ruoping endured the pain. "Forget it, I'll go downstairs and rinse it with water first. Don't tell my dad..."
"There's a nail, and it's rusty." Zhang Shutong shone his flashlight on it. "Going to the hospital is the safer bet."
"I told you it's fine." She was just as stubborn as before. "It was just a scratch from the wood, don't I know my own hand..."
Zhang Shutong thought about it.
"Otherwise, I'll tell your parents."
"You..." Ruoping's eyes widened.
The woman in the red dress, who normally exuded a subtle aura of maturity, instantly turned back into the young girl from years ago.
Heading down to the first floor, Zhang Shutong tossed the wooden popsicle stick into the trash can. Ruoping followed behind him, forcing a smile as she waved her hand:
"Mom, I'm taking Shutong out for a spin. We'll be back in a bit..."
"Do you need the car keys?"
"No, we'll just ride the electric scooter to catch the breeze."
"Aren't you two bothered by the heat..."
"We used to wander around like this all the time during summers past..."
The moment Ruoping stepped out of the house, her smile vanished instantly, and she gritted her teeth:
"Zhang Shutong, you've really got some nerve now, haven't you? Courting death by threatening me?"
Zhang Shutong shrugged and hopped onto the electric scooter parked at the door.
The wheels rolled forward, and the stagnant air finally stirred into a slight breeze, though it was far from cool.
Ruoping continued to complain behind him about making a mountain out of a molehill, but Zhang Shutong simply tuned her out. He squinted against the sun, navigating through streets that were either unfamiliar or intimately known, feeling as though he were traversing through time and space.
"It's been a long time since we've cruised around like this," Ruoping said, quieting down.
"Then I'll take you around for a good spin." Zhang Shutong smiled.
When they arrived at the hospital, the layout had changed significantly; the wards had been moved to the first floor. Zhang Shutong naturally ran into a young... well, she should be a young nurse. She was only around thirty this year, and she hadn't changed much compared to back then, except her short hair had grown long.
Zhang Shutong assumed the nurse wouldn't remember him, but to his surprise, she exclaimed:
"It's you! Long time no see. You must be in college by now?"
Zhang Shutong also felt somewhat sentimental and nodded.
"Back for summer vacation to hang out."
"Well, that's bad luck, coming back to hang out and running straight to the hospital. But luckily, this older sister is now the head nurse."
She wore a smug expression, like a daughter-in-law who had finally become the mother-in-law after years of enduring:
"Spill it, what's the matter? Anything within my power, I'll take care of it completely for you. Oh, except fleeing halfway through an injection."
Zhang Shutong thought to himself that he would never live down that reputation.
"A friend's hand got cut, she..."
He gestured, but the head nurse teased:
"Hey, speaking of which, do you remember when you also brought two female classmates to the hospital back then? You gave me quite a shock. Back then, I even placed a bet on whether you could bring a third one, but unfortunately, you didn't deliver, little brother..."
She shook her head with a mix of playfulness and nostalgia. Just then, Ruoping walked into the dispensary.
"Uh..."
"Did you do that on purpose?"
The head nurse blinked, looking just as dazed as she had years ago.
Ruoping needed a tetanus shot.
After the shot, she had to stay at the hospital for a period of observation.
"Want some water?" Zhang Shutong asked her.
"No, I don't!" Ruoping pouted. "It hurts like hell, why does it hurt so much..."
Her face was scrunched up into a tight knot. Zhang Shutong said:
"And here I thought you had grown up."
"You're the one who hasn't grown up."
"When you grow up, getting a shot doesn't hurt anymore."
"Go away, go away. Who was the one who dragged me here anyway? Do you think I'm still that little girl from back then? Warm guys aren't trendy anymore, handsome..." Ruoping burst into laughter after speaking.
The two of them sat in the hospital corridor, which was even less crowded than before.
"You still remember that tunnel, right?" Ruoping shifted her body and looked out the window. "We went to so much trouble when we first discovered it. Back then, the three of you insisted on finding out what was hidden inside."
"It felt like the word 'tired' didn't exist in our dictionary back then," Ruoping recalled. "No matter how wild we went, we never felt tired, and we could still muster up the energy to go to school the next day."
"You were clearly the very first one to beat a retreat."
Zhang Shutong exposed her ruthlessly.
"That's because you guys were too capable of making a mess! I did nothing but worry!"
Ruoping refused to back down.
"Then I'm going out for a walk, so you won't have to worry?"
"Suit yourself. I'm not your mom or your girlfriend, what is there for me to worry about?" Ruoping waved her hand lazily.
Zhang Shutong hesitated no longer.
He left the hospital, turned into the small alleyway beside it, and crossed through it in a few strides. In a wasteland enclosed by buildings, an old house stood in absolute silence.
Zhang Shutong gazed at it silently for two seconds.
Aside from uncovering what had transpired on this timeline, he also needed to find a way back.
Perhaps the moment to verify his conjecture had arrived.
The prerequisite was that the entrance still existed.
Zhang Shutong took a deep breath. He walked up to the door of the old house. It was locked, but the wooden door was thoroughly rotted. He pushed the door with force, and the entire wooden structure crashed to the ground.
Zhang Shutong gritted his teeth again, using both hands to pull open the door to the tunnel. This place looked like it hadn't been visited in ages; a cloud of dust blew in his face, and he hurriedly covered his nose and mouth.
Once the dust had mostly settled, he turned on his flashlight and walked briskly toward the left side of the tunnel.
Before long, a platform came into view. Crossing over the platform led to a natural cavern, inside of which was a rock relief carving of five foxes.
Finally, Zhang Shutong brought his footsteps to a halt, instinctively holding his breath.