A few days later, I sneaked out of the ward and went home. Xu Tuo followed me and asked me if I had figured out how to explain it to my mother.
Fortunately, my mom and grandma weren't home these days. It was a blessing they weren't. They were also traveling, and my mom kept sending me messages, reminding me to be careful when I went to Iceland. "A few more children drowned while swimming in the river during the National Day holiday..." She warned me with this kind of news that could happen on any holiday.
Xu Tuo said things would be quiet for a while. "Ajie confirmed with someone that no one would come looking for trouble anytime soon. The teacher finally couldn't stand it anymore and called a halt, saying they'd wait until they saw us first before continuing."
Class L is an organization formed by many groups of "teachers" and "students." Xu Tuo and Ajie were students of the same teacher. It wasn't that I hadn't had that crazy thought: "If I joined Class L..."
"Don't even think about it." He cut me off from the idea.
The incident at the Fifth Municipal Hospital surprisingly didn't cause much of a stir - the news reported that the ventilation system had been lacking cleaning for years, leading to increased indoor air pollution... The bloodstains, traces of fighting, the several juice men knocked down by Xu Tuo on the rooftop, Dong Quanming's body, Ji Yuyi... all disappeared.
Or perhaps it's precisely because these characters and sets have all vanished that the coma on the entire floor is attributed to a problem with the ventilation system.
"The logistics team has been dispatched," Xu Tuo said on the sofa while changing the dressing on his wound. "...The teacher rarely deploys the logistics team, but this time he's really angry..."
Class L had a comprehensive system, including a logistics team to fake an accident before the public discovered it. Dong Quanming had chosen the hospital as his stage with a self-destructive mentality, not considering the aftermath. Consequently, Xu Tuo's teacher was transferred out of the logistics team.
But things turned out differently. I thought the relationship between teachers and students in Class L was tense, as teachers had to be constantly on guard against being bullied by students. If students broke the rules, teachers wouldn't hesitate to kick them out.
But Xu Tuo's teacher didn't seem to be that aggressive.
"Ajie was able to get to this point outside because the teacher helped him block a lot of things behind the scenes. Our teacher... has a certain status difference from the other teachers in Class L. He has more power." He said, "His nickname is 'Principal.'"
Ajie wanted to leave Class L, and the teacher tacitly agreed and would not take the initiative to clean up the students. Of course, if other hunters spontaneously attacked Ajie, the teacher could not interfere.
Now Xu Tuo was also on the verge of death. With both students acting like this, any teacher with a bit of temper would be embarrassed.
"It sounds like the 'Principal' has a good temper."
"Yes, a Bodhisattva-like existence."
"You haven't considered killing him, 'Graduation'?"
"No, why would I kill him?" Xu Tuo was bewildered. "There's no real benefit to graduating. It's just a bit of prestige, and it allows you to teach two students on your own. Ajie and I have a good relationship with the teacher. He's our benefactor."
"..." This was something I hadn't expected at all, "Is your teacher a man or a woman?"
"I'm considered a man..."
"What do you mean by considered? How old is he? Is he good-looking?"
"Are you hungry? I'll order you some fried chicken."
…
Since the chaos began, we've all been bruised and battered. Xu Tuo is used to it, but my reaction is even worse. I'm completely exhausted. After the long flight from the airport to Europe, I feel like I'm falling apart.
Luckily, he booked first class. I've always been curious about Xu Tuo's source of income—he's never had a proper job, but he never seems to be short of money.
"Ajie gave me money." He gave a reply that left me speechless. "The teacher also gives me some pocket money."
"...You are...living off your parents and relying on them..."
"It comes at a price. At a critical moment, I have to help them solve some... troubles. You know." He took the plate handed to him by the flight attendant, "You have to pay back for eating other people's food."
The L class Xu Tuo mentioned reminded me of an office: some superiors and subordinates had very good relationships, while others were just superficial. Regardless, thanks to his bodhisattva-like teacher, our crisis was temporarily resolved.
It's not like I haven't insisted on joining Class L. According to their rules, they can't stay in one place for too long and can't have any contact with ordinary people, so why not just join?
Xu Tuo didn't immediately explain why I couldn't join. We joined a local group and followed our guide through a tunnel inside an iceberg, where all light and sound distorted and collided. As we emerged from the ice into the outside world, he told me that joining this organization was like entering an icy tunnel with no exit.
"Not being able to stay and not being involved means you can hardly have any work on the table. Sometimes, we do some... paid 'cleaning work'."
"Killer?" I was mentally prepared.
He shook his head. "More than that. There are many things under the sun that you don't know, and you don't need to know. Whether you or Qi Mengzhu, no matter how different you are from normal people, you are not from that world."
I looked at him firmly: "I can join that world."
We stared at each other for a long time. A group of 12 people stopped for a break on a cliff platform. The tour guide was chatting with an elderly man in the group, a few children were laughing and playing around, and a young girl was taking a selfie on the cliff edge.
He pointed at the girl.
"—Push her off the cliff. Don't ask why, don't hesitate, don't panic, and don't draw anyone's attention." He said, "No one is paying attention to her side now. I'll give you ten seconds. If you can do it, I'll have the teacher find someone to take you to Class L."
I was stunned.
"nineteen..."
"for..."
His eyes made me swallow my words - don't ask why.
On a snowy day, no one noticed us and the girl in the gray mist. Four seconds left on the countdown, three seconds...
"two..."
I rushed over to her. She had just finished taking pictures and was putting away her camera to fix her hair.
Xu Tuo just watched me run towards the cliff.
one.
I rushed to her side, only a dozen centimeters away; she was frightened by me and jumped a few steps away: "What's wrong?"
"..." For a few seconds, I was speechless. Faced with her confusion, I finally found an excuse to borrow a power bank and slowly walked back to Xu Tuo.
How many people has Xu Tuo "pushed"?
At night, we returned to the hotel to rest. I was taking a shower in the bathroom and couldn't help but think about this question.
Did he keep count of the people he had killed, or was it just like counting the number of Cokes he had drunk that he simply didn't care?
I squatted down in the shower room, my stomach suddenly twisting and nauseating.
Just then, without any warning, the bathroom light went out.
What's going on?!
I immediately became alert. It was very quiet outside, without any sound from Xu Tuo.
Could someone chase us all the way to Iceland and attack us? No, that's too...
After a brief hesitation, I wrapped myself in a bath towel, picked up the decorative vase in the bathroom, and moved out carefully - the lights outside were also dim, and someone had turned off the lights in the room.
I could hear my own heartbeat and my nervous gasps. Where was Xu Tuo? Was he in the room? Why didn't he react? ...
Suddenly, a pair of strong hands reached out from the side, slowly clamped my neck, and dragged me to the bed like a helpless toy; the vase in my hand was knocked down, and the desk lamp also lit up - Xu Tuo's face appeared in front of me, and seeing that I was scared pale, he laughed.
"Is this easier?" He turned over and lay down beside me, the soft bed sinking slightly under his movement. Seeing that I was still dazed, he reached out and helped me tuck my hair, which was still covered with shampoo foam, behind my ears. "...Don't be afraid, I'm the only one here."
I'm not afraid of how many people are here besides you, I'm only afraid of not having you here.
After that incident on the cliff, the outline of a dark world vaguely emerged in my mind. That was the world Xu Tuo had lived in for many years, where death and hunting were the norm, unlike me, who simply enjoyed the afterglow of death as a snack.
Before this, I had never realized the existence of this world. I thought we were from the same world, and as long as we could deal with the assassinations that were coming, we could walk in the sunshine like ordinary people without any shadow of a shadow.
Some irresistible force began to separate us.
That day, I realized that I was the only one walking in the sunshine, and Xu Tuo, from the beginning to the end, had been hiding in my shadow.
As planned, we went to meet Xu Tuo's teacher on the first Friday after returning from Iceland.
He repeatedly assured me that this wouldn't be a Hongmen Feast, that no extreme preparations were necessary. This only made me feel even more uneasy about the meeting. "So where should we meet? Can we choose where? Like, a mall or a restaurant..."
"At school," he said.
I thought I had heard wrongly.
"Meeting the teacher at school." Xu Tuo repeated, "Isn't it normal to meet the teacher at school?"
"…What kind of school is that? An abandoned one?"
— Friday, 1 p.m. The two of us stood at the gate of our city's key experimental school. There were three bright red banners at the gate.
"We warmly welcome Mr. Xia Mo, the internationally renowned Chinese educator, to our school for exchanges and guidance."
"Celebrate Teachers' Day and wish all teachers a happy life."
Xu Tuo looked at the banners and couldn't help laughing.
"Let's go," he patted my shoulder and took out two campus visit passes from his pocket. "Whether your future life will be happy or not depends on how Teacher Xia guides you."