Why had he suddenly gotten off the train to carpool back?

I thought about it, then called Xiao Ning, but by now I didn"t have a single bar of reception left. The coverage in the abandoned hospital must have been spotty.

"Back to back, such a comfort. Back to back, nice and warm."

Tan Xiaoming"s voice didn"t stop. I couldn"t help sitting up and asking, "Xiao Ming, do you want to sleep in the same bed with me?"

But as soon as I sat up, he stopped talking. Was he shy?

To be honest, I didn"t particularly want to share a bed with Tan Xiaoming. Most of the installations in the morgue had already been taken away. There were only a few broken down single beds, between 90 and 100cm wide. It was a little cramped for an adult man to sleep in, never mind two people.

If Tan Xiaoming wanted to sleep in the same bed with me, we would have to sleep very close together: the "back to back" posture he had described, or else I would have to hold him.

Imagine an adult male s.e.xually attracted to men, sleeping in a single bed with a 13 or 14-year-old boy in his arms; it was no different than a 26-year-old male teacher holding a female middle school student. The image was truly unsightly. It absolutely wouldn"t do.

I could only say, "Xiao Ming, it"s not convenient for us to sleep in the same bed. If you"re cold, let"s go back to my dormitory. The room is empty, and there"s a bed in it."

Under these pressing circ.u.mstances, I was willing to sh.e.l.l out money for a taxi. Xiao Ming was so frail, he wouldn"t be able to bike home with me.

Tan Xiaoming didn"t speak. I took this as silent refusal. Adolescents could easily enter a rebellious stage, and given his domestic situation, it would be difficult for him to accept a new environment.

Today was my first formal day of teaching. Between them, Tan Xiaoming and Mu Huaitong had really made me feel that it was no easy task being a teacher. When I was a student, I couldn"t stand my teachers. I"d thought that they were always making trouble.

But now that I was a teacher, I found that managing this many students, preventing them from going astray, worrying about their studies and their lives, really was a difficult matter.

It was a long and serious path.

I thought that although I couldn"t sleep with Xiao Ming, I certainly couldn"t let him continue being so lonely. I had to help him rejoin society and become a healthy and active young man, instead of someone who hid in a morgue trying to scare his teacher.

I tossed my phone on the bed, hopped up and walked to the corner where Tan Xiaoming was sleeping. As I approached, I said cautiously, "Xiao Ming, it"s all right if you can"t sleep. I"ll keep you company. But I can"t sleep in the same bed as you. How about this: you sleep here, and I"ll sit beside the bed to keep you company."

So what if I had to sleep sitting on the ground? It was all for my students.

However, when I came to the corner, there was only an empty bed. At some point the child had crept out of his bed without making a sound. Of course, it may have happened while I was chatting with Xiao Ning. I"d had my whole heart focused on waiting for Ning Tiance"s responses. I wouldn"t have noticed anything going on around me.

That was a dereliction of duty on my part.

Had he run away, or was he still hiding in this room?

"Xiao Ming? Xiao Ming?" I whispered Tan Xiaoming"s name in the morgue for a while without getting a response. I went to the door and saw that the handle had been blocked from inside with a wooden bar. That couldn"t have been done from the outside, so that meant no one had gone out that door.

Because the hospital was abandoned, there were strips of sealing wax on the windows. All the seals were intact, without any traces of damage. That meant Tan Xiaoming was still in the room.

Where was the child hiding?

I turned around and around for a long time without finding him, then lay down in bed and looked at my phone in confusion. There was still no signal; the last message was about Xiao Ning planning to carpool back.

What kind of emergency had made him suddenly get off his train and come rushing back to H City? Had he left something behind? Then couldn"t he have asked me to mail it to him?

After I"d rolled around in bed for a while rereading my chatlog with Ning Tiance, I heard Tan Xiaoming"s voice again: "Back to back, such a comfort. Back to back, nice and warm."

I didn"t rush to get out of bed but instead listened carefully for the source of the voice.

The morgue was large and empty, full of echoes. It took me a long time to realize that the voice was coming from under me.

I leapt out of bed, grabbed the lamp I"d left at the head of the bed, turned it on, crouched down, and shone the light under the bed. As expected, I saw Tan Xiaoming, hanging from the bedplate and looking at me. His face was red and his eyes were protruding, probably due to the force of gravity. It looked very uncomfortable.

How could anyone be comfortable after tying himself to a bedplate and hanging like that?

I was very angry. I said to Tan Xiaoming, "How could you do this, child? Even if you"re running around trying to scare your teacher, you still have to look after your own health. Just look at you! You"ve tied yourself up so tightly you"ve cut off your circulation. Your skin is turning blue!"

When I went to untie the rope for Tan Xiaoming, he said quietly, "After my mom left, there was only one bed at home. At first, I slept with my dad. Later, he began to beat me. He said I was crowding him. After he was done beating me, he"d tie me to the bedplate, under the bed. Back to back, such a comfort."

"Comfort my a.s.s!" I really wanted to go and beat up his dad.

Tan Xiaoming was tied too tightly. I didn"t know how he"d managed to tie himself up like this. In the dark I couldn"t get the knot untied, and I hadn"t brought scissors with me. I watched his eyes roll up and show the whites, his tongue lolling out of his mouth.

Afterwards, I would have to remember to bring scissors or a knife to cla.s.s. The students really were too much.

"Xiao Ming, don"t worry. A bit of rope won"t defeat me."

I, Shen Jianguo, aside from having gone to university, had one other good quality: I was fit and strong. It was only a bedplate. I could just flip it over.

Tan Xiaoming"s bedplate was one meter by two meters. It was just the right size to have come off that empty bed. I stood up, put my hands on both sides of the bedplate, and lifted it from the iron frame. First, I put the bedplate upright so Tan Xiaoming"s head would be more comfortable. Then I flipped the bedplate around, lifted it and put it back on the iron frame. This time Xiao Ming was face-up.

He looked blankly at the ceiling and said, "Teacher Shen, I like sleeping under the bed. Let me sleep back to back with you."

"Like h.e.l.l!" I used my teeth to break the rope tying him, freeing Tan Xiaoming.

After all this messing around it was already four in the morning. I rubbed Tan Xiaoming"s skin; with the rope unfastened his skin was regaining its color, and his eyes no longer protruded. It seemed he had recovered.

"Go to sleep." I took off my jacket and put it on him. I sat down on the floor beside him, using the notebook Teacher Liu had given me as a cushion. I patted Tan Xiaoming. "I"ll help you move tomorrow, then I"ll consult a lawyer and a psychiatrist about how to go about reporting your father."

"No need." Tan Xiaoming looked at me. "He"s dead."

I was startled. There wasn"t a trace of sadness in Tan Xiaoming"s expression; he was wearing an eerie smile.

"He was drunk. He woke up in the middle of the night and heard me talking. He looked under the bed and got scared to death when he saw me. Hahahaha!"

In the morgue, the sound of Tan Xiaoming"s laughter was sorrowful.

I clapped him on the arm angrily. "Don"t think like that! He wasn"t scared to death by you. He"d drunk too much, and his heart was weak, so he died. How could anyone be scared to death by seeing you? I wasn"t scared. Don"t think about it. Go to sleep now, and you"ll move in the morning. I"ll come with you." I kept lightly patting him to encourage him to sleep.

"I don"t have any luggage. If you take the bedplate for me, that"ll be enough," Tan Xiaoming said. "Tomorrow I have something to do during the day. I"ll go over in the evening."

"No, I"m going to take you to see a psychologist tomorrow," I said stubbornly.

Seeing that Tan Xiaoming couldn"t sleep, I began to recite the principles of Marxism to him. During school, whenever I started reciting them, I would immediately fall asleep. Tan Xiaoming shouldn"t have any problem.

Sure enough, after reciting for a while I fell asleep myself. When I opened my eyes, it was day.

My jacket was on the bed. Tan Xiaoming was gone.

That child. He"d snuck off while I was sleeping.

I picked up my phone and saw a dozen unread messages, one of which was from Princ.i.p.al Zhang. The timestamp on it was four in the morning, just after I"d fallen asleep.

Princ.i.p.al Zhang: I"ve already found the best psychologist in the country for Student Tan. In the future, he will go to treatment every day and go back to the dormitory at night. There"s no need for Teacher Shen to worry.

Princ.i.p.al Zhang was always reliable. I was relieved.

The rest of the messages were from Ning Tiance. He thought I"d run into a ghost again and had sent a string of texts:

I got off the train at a small station. There are no cars here in the middle of the night. I have to walk to the big city thirty kilometers away to find a car. Hold on, wait for me.

Where are you?

This talisman is for you. Although it"s just a picture, it"ll still be of some use. If you"re in danger, hold up your phone.

If you see this message, answer me. Let me know you"re safe.

I"ve already run 20 kilometers along the highway. I met several cars on the road, but no one stopped. I can only keep running. I"m in good training, I"ll be there soon. Please hold on.

I have arrived at the big city. I can"t get a carpool at night. I"ve rented a car to get back to H City. I should be at the hospital after ten in the morning.

The last message was sent at 6:00 am. Had Xiao Ning been racing along the highway all night?

My heart felt warm. Although Ning Tiance clung to outdated beliefs, he really was a kind-hearted person. He thought I"d encountered a ghost, so he"d gotten off his train in the middle of the night to come find me.

What a nice boy. Despite his feudal superst.i.tions, I couldn"t help being attracted to him.

As I was reading Xiao Ning"s messages, I walked out of the morgue carrying the bedplate on my back.

It was 9:30 in the morning. Xiao Ning was on his way to the hospital. Owing to some complicated psychological motives that I myself couldn"t clearly understand, I didn"t answer his texts but stood in the hospital"s courtyard waiting for Ning Tiance.

While I waited, I put the bedplate down in the courtyard to dry out in the sun so Tan Xiaoming would be able to sleep more comfortably.

When I had waited for around forty minutes, a car stopped at the hospital gate. Ning Tiance, looking travel-worn and exhausted, got out of the car and ran into the courtyard. When he saw me, he came to a halt.

The sun shone on his handsome face. In that moment, I was dazzled.

I, Shen Jianguo, fell in love.