You"ll be all right staying the way you are… I would take this as praise for the moment, since after all Xiao Ning was smiling as he said it.

"What are you going to do in the future?" I asked in concern.

Although Xiao Ning had said that he had money, he actually lived a very impoverished life. He had to sit on a hard seat for over thirty hours to get home, and he had to rely on the most primitive means of transportation on his return, running wildly along the road. I knew that in modern society there were still circles where a Celestial Master could make a good deal of money, but Xiao Ning was only a trainee Celestial Master, and his graduation a.s.signment had somehow vanished. H City"s cost of living wasn"t cheap. It must have been hard for him to stay here.

"I want to spend more time going around H City at night, and I also want to come and listen in on your cla.s.ses. Can I?" In Ning Tiance"s eyes there was confusion, and a hint of something else I didn"t understand.

"Of course, there"s no problem!" I said, nodding.

My cla.s.ses were all at night. I imagined the dark of the night, the howling wind, myself and Xiao Ning alone on the school bus...

Finishing that thought would have been a little embarra.s.sing.

"Where are you staying?" I was waiting for Xiao Ning to say that he hadn"t found a place to stay long-term yet and was making do with a hostel and had to find somewhere as soon as possible.

If he just said the word, I would invite him to stay with me. My bedroom was the largest in 404. There was plenty of room to add a single bed. Then Xiao Ning could take the double bed, and I could have the single.

"I don"t have to worry about accommodation," said Xiao Ning. "The Maoshan Sect has a long-term private room at an international hotel, large enough to house a dozen disciples. I"ve been staying there this whole time."

He took out a business card and handed it to me. Looking at it nearly gave me a stomachache.

This was the most luxurious five-star hotel in H City. An ordinary room started from 2000 yuan a night. Xiao Ning"s room, with s.p.a.ce for a dozen disciples, had to be a suite at the very least. The cost per day would be…

A poor college student like me couldn"t comprehend it!

It turned out that Xiao Ning had told the truth when he"d said he had money.

"It"s getting late," Xiao Ning said to me after a look at the sun. "You probably didn"t sleep well last night, so I won"t bother you any further. If you have a cla.s.s in the future, please make sure to tell me. I really want to listen to Teacher Shen teach."

"That"s no problem at all."

After I reluctantly sent Xiao Ning away, I ate a bit of something and then sat on my bed staring into s.p.a.ce. Before this, I had always wanted to destroy his feudal superst.i.tions, get Xiao Ning to study math and science, become a young man of the modern era. But thinking about how much money the Maoshan Sect"s Celestial Masters made hunting ghosts, I felt a bit...

Alas, at heart I was a vulgar materialist. Just hearing about making money could shake my firm faith in science.

Could a bit of money defeat an upright man?

I lay in my bed in my rental apartment, imagining the handsome Ning Tiance taking a shower and going to bed in his five-star hotel, and at some point slipped quietly into sleep.

Princ.i.p.al Zhang had told me before that the cla.s.s schedule wasn"t busy. There wouldn"t be cla.s.ses every night. She would send me the schedule the day before, which would give me sufficient time to prepare for cla.s.s, and I shouldn"t worry about it.

Since she hadn"t told me last night that there was a cla.s.s scheduled, that meant there would be no cla.s.s tonight. To be honest I was pretty tired after yesterday. It wasn"t comfortable spending half the night sleeping seated on the floor of a morgue. In my familiar bed, I slept until midnight, when I was woken by hunger, and went to make myself some instant noodles, planning to go back to sleep after.

When I left my room to boil some water, I saw that there was a light on in Tan Xiaoming"s room, and there seemed to be voices coming from it. I was concerned about Xiao Ming, so while the water boiled I went to knock on his door. "Xiao Ming, you"ve moved in?"

After a while, Tan Xiaoming"s door creaked open on its own. I saw Tan Xiaoming sitting on the bed and Teacher Liu sitting on the toilet I had given Li Yuanyuan. The two of them were deep in conversation.

When he saw me come in, Xiao Ming curled up in a corner of the bed, hugging his knees and watching me. I knew that he was making room for me to sit down, so I sat on the bedplate and naturally said, "This bedplate was too damp. I put it out in the sun to dry today. Now it"ll be more comfortable to sleep on."

"I know," Tan Xiaoming said slowly. His voice was hoa.r.s.e, as if he was thirsty.

He must have spent too long talking to Teacher Liu while I was sleeping and had talked himself hoa.r.s.e.

I looked at Liu Sishun. "Teacher Liu is also acquainted with Xiao Ming?"

Teacher Liu"s voice was also a little hoa.r.s.e. "I"m a literature teacher. On days when you aren"t teaching, I hold cla.s.ses."

He gave his clothes a shake as he spoke. I noticed an unpleasant smell on his clothes. It was rather familiar. It smelled like...

It smelled like the stink when Tian Bowen opened his mouth!

To tell the truth, I was impartial towards my students. I held them all at the same level. But humans all have their private views, and I really didn"t like getting too close to Tian Bowen. He really didn"t understand hygiene. In order to frighten me, he had actually put bugs in his mouth. Each time he opened his mouth, a stench came out. It came from the bugs.

"Has Teacher Liu just seen Tian Bowen?" I asked.

"I have." Liu Sishun"s expression looked rather unhappy. "And he covered me in bugs."

Hearing this made me angry. "Tian Bowen has gone too far. I"m a new teacher, not familiar to the students. He can scare me all he likes. But Teacher Liu is an old teacher. Why would he want to treat you like this? I"ll have to discipline him sternly next cla.s.s."

Hearing that I was going to discipline Tian Bowen, Tan Xiaoming gave an involuntary shiver. He also must have suffered because of Tian Bowen"s bullying.

I thumped Xiao Ming"s knee to bolster his courage. "Don"t be afraid, Xiao Ming. I"ll certainly be able to guide Tian Bowen back to the right path. Tomorrow I"ll go buy insecticide."

Teacher Liu shuddered and said, "Listen... Teacher Shen... It"s all right for you to discipline Tian Bowen, but could you stop using the notebook to crush his bugs? I... I really..."

Teacher Liu had given me his precious notebook, and I had casually used it to kill bugs. I hadn"t treasured it properly. I had been wrong.

"Don"t worry, Teacher Liu. Today, a very handsome young man already reminded me about this. In the future I"ll be sure to protect that notebook. I absolutely won"t use it for anything a notebook shouldn"t be used for."

"You don"t need to protect it so thoroughly, either. You can just put it in your bag. Don"t take it out in the sun or anything… It"s very old. If the sunlight hits the pages they may disintegrate and then…" Teacher Liu"s face was pained.

That was fair. I nodded, smacked my chest, and promised Teacher Liu.

Teacher Liu and Tan Xiaoming were rather over-dressed for sitting in this room. Yesterday Xiaoming had been wearing a tank-top, but today he wore long sleeves and long pants. Even his hands were covered. He also had a hat covering his head, and sat with his head hanging down, not speaking as he listened to Teacher Liu and me.

"Teacher Liu, what"s the matter with Xiao Ming? He seems a little depressed." The Xiao Ming I had seen yesterday wasn"t like this. Although he"d been full of malice and mischief, he had also been very lively. He hadn"t had the deathly aura he had now.

"Oh, you see, I"m try to persuade him to attend a normal school," Teacher Liu explained. "Going on attending your cla.s.ses won"t do, and living in these surroundings, such a lousy rental apartment, I"m worried that after some time his soul will… I mean, I"m worried staying up late all the time will be bad for his health."

What Teacher Liu said made sense. Xiao Ming really did need a normal education. Staying up late like this wouldn"t have any benefits for his mental and physical development.

"Teacher Liu"s grasp on the problem is very comprehensive," I said with emotion. "As a newly employed teacher I can only do basic things like comforting him or staying with him for the night, but Teacher Liu can resolve the problem at its root. I"ll work even harder to be able to get up to your level in the future..."

"No, absolutely do not work even harder!" Tan Xiaoming interrupted abruptly, raising his head. "You"re fine as you are!"

Only then did I see his face clearly. There were wounds all over it. They seemed to be burns.

"What happened to you?" I pushed back his sleeve, and sure enough, all the places covered by his clothes were burned. "Who"s been abusing you?" I said angrily. "I"m going to report them! Didn"t you go to see the psychiatrist today?"

Tan Xiaoming"s eyes were full of hatred. He grit his teeth and said, "It was you…"

Teacher Liu quickly tugged at his clothes. Tan Xiaoming calmed down a little and said, "I used boiling water to burn myself. You were the one who forced me to do it!"

W-why?

I was stricken. Had I acted too rashly pulling Xiao Ming off the bed last night? Had he felt safer tied to the bed plate?

"No, no, no," Teacher Liu quickly comforted me. "Don"t get excited, Teacher Shen. You didn"t do anything wrong by turning over Xiao Ming"s bedplate. Drying the bedplate was... uh, no, no, it was me, it"s my fault. I was advising Xiao Ming to go on the right track. He abused himself in anger."

As he spoke I saw the burns on his hands, though they weren"t as severe as Tan Xiaoming"s.

"Teacher Liu, your hand..."

Teacher Liu immediately drew back his hand, thought about it and explained, "It"s nothing. I got hurt by accident when I was stopping Xiao Ming. I"m old and hardy, the wounds are slight. I"m not like a child with a weak const.i.tution who"s easily hurt by a bit of heat."

I"m felt angry and sorrowful. I said to Tan Xiaoming, "Xiao Ming, if you"re angry, take it out on me. I"m strong, it"s OK if you scratch and bite at me. But Teacher Liu is acting entirely in your interests. How could you hurt him? And the most important thing is, each person is his own treasure. First of all, you have to love yourself, cherish yourself. Don"t hurt yourself because of a little setback! "

Tan Xiaoming didn"t say anything more. He turned his head away to face the wall.

Teacher Liu pulled me out of the room. In a warm voice he said, "Don"t be too angry. I was just trying to persuade him, wasn"t I? Last night Xiao Ming already untied one of the knots in his heart, and today you helped him move. It"s been very good for him. He"s willing to go back on the right track, he"s just missing a little extra push. I"ll keep talking to him. I have faith that in another two days he"ll be willing to attend school."

"Well, all right." I knew that continuing to try to advise Xiao Ming would only backfire, so I went disconsolately back to my room. I didn"t even make instant noodles.

Before I left, I heard Teacher Liu saying to Tan Xiaoming in a whisper, "Don"t be impulsive, he doesn"t know that we"re... and he can still... if he knew... then we"ll…"

His voice faded in and out. I couldn"t hear it clearly. Anyway it wasn"t good to listen in on other people"s conversations. It wasn"t the behavior of a gentleman.

I lay in bed feeling hungry and lost. I took out my phone and sent a message to Xiao Ning: Tan Xiaoming is rebelling. He burned himself and Teacher Liu with boiling water. What can I do? I"m useless.

Xiao Ning stayed up late a lot. He replied to my message at once: Let Teacher Liu advise him. I believe Tan Xiaoming will soon be able to accept his situation and move on.