Winter Returns

Chapter 155 Farewell (Thanks to my mom for the Silver Alliance)
12 month 13 day.

Thursday.

Zhang Shutong yawned, pulled out his homework from last night from his desk drawer, and handed it to Lu Qinglian.

The homework will be handed over to the class monitor after the group leader, but Lu Qinglian is the class monitor, so the advantage of being her deskmate is that it saves one step of the process.

The downside is that if you don't do your homework, it's a death sentence, with absolutely no room for negotiation.

"Lu Qinglian, if I don't have time to do my homework tonight, could you help me cover for it?"

"Zhang Shutong, the fried chicken looks delicious. Shall we go again tonight?"

Zhang Shutong looked up at the girl beside her. Her high ponytail hung down behind her head, and her eyes were casually staring at her textbook. If you ignored the specific content of her words, her plain and clear voice was actually quite pleasant to hear.

But he didn't have the energy to talk much today, and Zhang Shutong didn't know whether the fried chicken was good or not, so he nodded as if he agreed.

"What did you do last night?" Lu Qinglian asked. It seemed she didn't take the fried chicken incident seriously either.

How did you know I had something to do last night?

"Your dark circles are quite severe."

"Yeah."

Zhang Shutong subconsciously touched his eye socket. He had noticed it when he washed his face this morning, but he didn't expect it to still be there.
"Oh, I went to the basement again."

“Curiosity killed the cat.”

"That makes some sense, but I've discovered something related to 'that.' By the way, I have something important to tell you at noon. See you on the rooftop."

Lu Qinglian simply nodded her chin.

Zhang Shutong didn't know how he overcame the sudden difficulty breathing, but for him now, there was no good way but to talk less and think less.

Otherwise, it would be very embarrassing to suddenly look suffocated in the classroom.

Besides, it's morning reading time, not a good time to talk.

Putting aside the sound of students reading aloud, the homeroom teacher sat in front of the podium, his eyes scanning the room like those of a hawk. After Zhang Shutong finished speaking, he held up his textbook to cover his face.

Now the key to the rooftop is not in his possession either. After yesterday's blunder, hiding the key in the floor tiles is no longer safe. He originally wanted to insert it into the gap between the two desks, like the sword in the stone of King Arthur, so he could take it whenever he wanted. But as soon as Zhang Shutong entered the classroom this morning, Lu Qinglian casually took it away.

Zhang Shutong didn't argue with her, since he didn't go there often anyway.

He forced himself to recite the text, his eyelids drooping little by little.

If we compare the body to a mobile phone, Zhang Shutong has already switched to power-saving mode.

He never imagined that just by talking about energy conservation for a day, he would actually be forced to practice it himself.

Some things can't be hidden no matter what.

It refers to Lao Song's dormitory and the photo wall in that secret room.

When they first entered the secret room, only Zhang Shutong was browsing the photos. At that time, his three best friends were investigating something else and kept it a secret for the time being.

But later, when everyone opened that door and went up to Lao Song's dormitory, Qingyi turned on the light, and the photo of Lao Song's ex-girlfriend was finally exposed to everyone's view.

Anyone who comes here would think it's a strange room. If you don't understand the logic behind it, just looking at the behavior, it actually looks quite like a psychopathic killer.

Let them guess wildly; who knows what might happen?

Zhang Shutong knew that trying to keep it from others at this point was simply treating them like fools.

He then briefly recounted the story of the clay figure to the three men.

He then led them to the basement and told them about Old Song's secret and his own speculations.

Of course, he only talked about his ex-girlfriend. When they got to the photo of the long-haired woman, he simply said he didn't recognize her. Whether they could see any resemblance to Gu Qiu Mian in the woman's face was anyone's guess.

Perhaps I was too shocked to notice at the time, or perhaps I had a vague suspicion but didn't say it.

Zhang Shutong increasingly felt that pointing things out was pointless; it was best for everyone to maintain a tacit silence.

As for the last photo of Lu Qinglian, he put it away beforehand.

It wasn't that she was particularly obsessed with protecting Lu Qinglian's privacy, but rather that she had clearly stated at the time that she shouldn't tell anyone else about this. Since Zhang Shutong had promised her, he would help keep the secret if the conditions allowed.

That's enough.

So nobody was in the mood to bring up the dinner again. Maybe that Wednesday was already crazy enough, and there was no need to go crazy with chicken again.

They cleaned up the scene and talked as they walked. Fortunately, Zhang Shutong had warned his three best friends when he was hospitalized, and had also told them that Lao Song and Lu Qinglian were looking for the "mud man". So they accepted it relatively quickly.

But the facts are irrefutable, and there's nothing we can do if we don't accept them.

This impulsive adventure began and ended with a mystery.

But it wasn't all for naught. For example, Du Kang didn't forget to take the little dog with him when he left—they left the dog inside when they went into the tunnel. Presumably, it was raining outside and the dog had nowhere to go. Although four humans were scary, getting wet in the rain was even scarier? Zhang Shutong couldn't figure out what the little dog was thinking.

In short, the four of them adopted the little black dog together.

It is something that never happened in my original life.

Du Kang was the nominal guardian.

The guardian did not come to school today.

He has a fever.

Yesterday, he was the only one who fell into the water and walked for a long time in the cold tunnel against the wind. When he got back, unlike the other three who took hot showers, he built a kennel for his dog son. If he didn't get a fever, who would?

Du Kang's current nickname is "Zorro." Therefore, Ruoping asked in the group chat early this morning:

Why isn't Zorro here?

Qingyi said, "I didn't see Zorro either."

Du Kang weakly sent a voice message: "Why are you concerned about the dog instead of me?"
Zhang Shutong wondered if it was possible that they were talking about you?
This is one of the few things that brings me joy.

If we take midnight on Thursday as the dividing line.

Before midnight, Zhang Shutong was mostly thinking about who the person in that secret room was and where they had gone.

After midnight, he found it difficult to find the answer. Since he couldn't figure it out, he turned his attention to another question—

What does the disappearance of the figure on the rooftop have to do with this incident?

He had previously given up searching for the other person because he felt the figure on the rooftop had nothing to do with the "mud man," but yesterday's events brought the two closely together.

Since the people in the basement most likely retrieved the clay figure four years ago.

So, who is the person searching for the basement?
The truth is becoming increasingly elusive.

Zhang Shutong took out a piece of paper.

He first wrote the two characters "mud figure".

Then draw three lines around it.

One of them is naturally the mastermind behind digging up the corpse.

One of them is the person who recycled the clay figurines back then.

There's also a figure on the rooftop.

He wasn’t sure if these were three different…or perhaps forces. If the mastermind was the clear adversary, what were the positions of the next two forces?
Before a churning sensation rose in his stomach, Zhang Shutong stopped writing and sighed.

Having learned from his past mistakes, he crumpled the toilet paper into a ball, then slowly tore it into pieces to destroy the evidence.

After morning reading, he didn't leave the classroom, but instead lay on his desk with his eyes closed to rest.

Today was a rare quiet day. Although Ruoping and Qingyi did not have a fever, they both looked listless.

The morning went by quickly.

Zhang Shutong yawned as he finished the first three classes. During the break, he turned his head and saw Lu Qinglian taking out an extracurricular book. She didn't spend all her time doing practice questions and tests; rather, she did practice questions in class to better manage her free time.

She was one of the few students who went to the library. Right now, Lu Qinglian had borrowed an extracurricular book and was quietly reading it in her seat.

"Please call me when class starts."

Zhang Shutong asked.

Lu Qinglian glanced at him but didn't say anything.

Zhang Shutong thanked him again and then closed his eyes heavily.

……

"...I'm relieved to see you all. From now on, you need to focus more on your studies. Although I used to say that you should play when it's time to play and study when it's time to study, and that you should pay attention to the balance between work and rest, but—"

In a daze, a rather cheerful voice came from the podium, its tone suddenly changing:
"But the high school entrance exam is just one semester away, so we still need to be more focused. I won't repeat the same old things, but I'll offer a different perspective, which is my personal opinion. I won't talk about grades or future prospects, but rather that students have spent four years in this classroom. As we step into the next stage of our lives, we need something to put a period to the previous stage. At this point, someone will definitely ask, 'Teacher, teacher, why do you need to put a period to the previous stage?'"
"Good question. It tells you as you embark on your high school life that you're ready for a new chapter in your lives. Maybe that's what you call a sense of ritual. Don't underestimate the word 'sense of ritual.' Why do we eat cake, light candles, and make a wish on our birthdays? Isn't it to genuinely believe that we've grown another year older and are ready to face new challenges in life?"

"Don't blame me for rambling, but I hope that all of you, whether you were diligent or lax in the past, will strive to put a period to your junior high school life starting today. This will be the foundation for you to embrace a new chapter in your lives. Of course, an exclamation mark is fine too, just don't use a question mark..."

"Finally, I'd like to end with a quote from Shakespeare in The Tempest: 'All that is past is prologue.' I sincerely hope that you can live the life you want. Wenwen, don't wipe your tears. And Yawen, look, your eyes are all red. It's not like I'm not coming back."

"Look at Shutong, she's still in the mood to sleep..."

As Zhang Shutong listened, he realized something was wrong. His intuition told him that several angry eyes were looking at him, and he had suddenly become the ingrate.

He quickly shook off his drowsiness and then raised his head.

It was noon on December 13th. After a heavy rain, the weather was unexpectedly clear, and there was less dust floating in the air. A ray of sunlight shone into my eyes, making me blink unconsciously. A tall man wearing a wrinkled white shirt was standing on the podium.

The man was a little over 1.8 meters tall, with a hooked nose, long face, and square jaw, exuding a resolute air. But at this moment, he smiled rather irreverently and waved his hand at himself:

"You're finally awake, kid?"

Perhaps the man was in a good mood, but Zhang Shutong's first reaction upon seeing his mentor was shock.

Hey, what's going on? Where's the new teacher, Ms. Xu? He quickly turned his head to look. Apart from the teacher on the podium being different, everything else was the same. Zhang Shutong didn't know if this was a good thing or a bad thing. His deskmate was no longer Gu Qiumian but Lu Qinglian.

"What's going on?" Zhang Shutong asked in a low voice.

"Teacher Song has returned ahead of schedule."

Lu Qinglian sat upright in her seat. She usually didn't pay much attention in class, but this time she raised her chin and looked at the podium, which was quite unusual.

She turned her head upon hearing this, as if repeating the words she had missed:
"I'll meet with my classmates and say goodbye."

"Also, let's go out for lunch."

"Have a meal?"

"Teacher Song said she would treat us to dinner."

Zhang Shutong was about to ask who was there when the bell rang, just as Lu Qinglian finished speaking.

(End of this chapter)