So she hesitated, unsure whether she should make a call and say "I'm sorry." She thought he should know what was on her mind; all these years, he had always understood her.
Just as I was hesitating, my phone suddenly rang.
She answered the phone, but heard an unfamiliar voice: "Is this Teacher Yu? This is Changchunqiao Police Station."
Yu Lele was startled, her muscles tensing instantly: "Hello, is there something you need?"
It was a voice around thirty years old, authoritative and deep: "Do you know Meng Xiaoyu and Zhuang Yuewei?"
“They are my students,” her heart sank. “What happened to them?”
Countless cruel images flashed through her mind in an instant, the scenes sharp and bloody, and her breath caught in her throat.
"They were involved in a fight and are now in our station. You can come over here for a moment." The other party hung up the phone, their words brief and concise.
Yu Lele froze for a moment, then immediately grabbed her bag and ran out the door. The late spring sun felt scorching hot. She sat in the taxi, her mind racing: a fight? Meng Xiaoyu and Zhuang Yuewei? How could this be?
Changchunqiao Police Station is located in the east of the city. Yu Lele had never been there before and almost couldn't find it. The taxi driver made many turns before finally finding it in a small alley. As soon as the car stopped, Yu Lele took out 20 yuan and handed it to the driver. Without waiting for change, she ran into the police station, but suddenly stopped inside: Where are Meng Xiaoyu and Zhuang Yuewei?
Just as I was standing there in a daze, I heard a door open behind me, and a person walked in and asked, "Is this Teacher Yu?"
Yu Lele turned around and saw a policeman speaking to her. She quickly nodded and said, "I am Meng Xiaoyu and Zhuang Yuewei's teacher."
The policeman looked her up and down and said, "Come with me."
He turned and went into the house. Yu Lele hurriedly followed. As soon as she entered, she saw Meng Xiaoyu and Zhuang Yuewei sitting on stools with their heads down. Upon seeing her, a flash of relief quickly appeared in their eyes. Meng Xiaoyu even had time to blink, as if she wanted to say something.
"How old are these two students? They're under 18, right? Why don't their teachers and parents keep an eye on them?" The police officer frowned. "Luckily we got there quickly. Otherwise, if someone had died, even if they were under 18, they would still have to bear some criminal responsibility."
The police continued their reprimand, and Meng Xiaoyu and Zhuang Yuewei kept their heads down, looking somewhat frightened. Yu Lele finally understood the sequence of events: Zhuang Yuewei and Meng Xiaoyu had been loitering near Changchun Bridge when they got into a fight with a group of delinquents. A kind passerby called the police, preventing them from being seriously injured, but they were still taken to the police station and, according to regulations, their parents had to be present to take them away.
Yu Lele finally understood why she had been called here: the two of them dared not tell their parents, let alone Li Jing or Cheng Kai about this, so in a moment of inspiration, she was pushed to the front line.
Thinking of this, Yu Lele couldn't help but turn cold, glaring sternly at the two of them. Zhuang Yuewei looked up and saw the chill in Yu Lele's eyes, then lowered her head guiltily. Yu Lele sighed inwardly, but her words were anything but ruthless.
"You guys think you're so great! What, do you think you're Popeye or Ultraman? You think you can kill someone with a flick of your little finger?" She tried to suppress her anger: "In a fight, can you even beat those thugs? How old are you? How can you have no self-control? Don't you know what you should and shouldn't do?"
Her voice grew increasingly stern: "If something really happens, how will we explain it to your parents?"
Meng Xiaoyu kept her head down, not looking up, and just let her scold her. It seemed to be the first time she had criticized someone so freely, until the police interrupted her and handed her a pen: "Sign here, take her back and discipline her properly."
She angrily signed the papers and walked out of the police station first. Meng Xiaoyu and Zhuang Yuewei followed timidly behind her, exchanging glances, looking like they wanted to say something but didn't dare.
After walking some distance, she finally turned back and glared at the two of them: "What are you thinking?"
A hint of unease had already appeared in her words, which Meng Xiaoyu keenly noticed. She quickly put on a smile and said, "Teacher, I was wrong. I was too impulsive. I will never do it again. I promise."
Zhuang Yuewei carefully took her hand, her voice soft: "We really know we were wrong. I was terrified just now. I never want to do it again, really."
Looking into Zhuang Yuewei's eyes, Yu Lele was forced to soften by the innocence within them, and she could no longer utter those critical words.
"Teacher, can you keep this a secret for us?" After a long silence, Meng Xiaoyu finally spoke up hesitantly.
Yu Lele glanced at him, her face expressionless: "What do you think?"
"Teacher, please help us!" Zhuang Yuewei cried out anxiously, "If my mom finds out, she'll be so angry!"
“If your mother were really, really angry, this probably wouldn’t happen again,” Yu Lele said, looking at her.
“Teacher Yu, we really didn’t know who else to turn to. You were the first person we thought of. We thought you were different from other teachers and would help us at least once. Really, just this once, and there will never be a second time. We promise!” Meng Xiaoyu swore to the heavens.
Looking at their anxious expressions, Yu Lele thought for a long time before finally nodding.
The two were overjoyed and kept insisting on treating Yu Lele to dinner. Yu Lele waved her hand and said seriously, "I have only one request: this matter ends here. If you still have any entanglements with those people, I will never keep your secret again."
Meng Xiaoyu and Zhuang Yuewei nodded hurriedly, and Yu Lele finally felt relieved and went home.
At the time, she simply didn't realize that storms often arrive unexpectedly. And many mistakes, in fact, begin with a single misjudgment.
19-1
After leaving the police station, Yu Lele initially wanted to report to Li Jing, but remembering the trusting and expectant looks in the two children's eyes, she ultimately decided against it. The subsequent calm seemed to confirm Meng Xiaoyu and Zhuang Yuewei's keeping of their promise, which gradually put Yu Lele at ease. Her internship was already more than halfway over, and the school conducted a random check among the students. Yu Lele's approval rating reached an all-time high—all the students selected had checked the "excellent" box on their survey forms. If nothing unexpected happened, Yu Lele would sign an employment agreement with the Experimental Middle School when her internship ended in three weeks, becoming a Chinese language teacher at her alma mater.
From a timid and self-conscious student to a gentle and approachable teacher, Yu Lele herself finds the transformation in between quite amazing.
By this time, summer was drawing ever closer. One thing Yu Lele often did was sit by the playground on afternoons when she didn't have classes, watching the children run, jump, play football, and frolic. In her daze, those young figures became her 14-year-old self.
It was still the same grassy field, but now a synthetic running track had been laid out, and new green lawns had been planted. She sat in the stands; the place where she used to hide and cry secretly, where piles of logs had been, was now gone. In its place was a flatter basketball court, surrounded by many trees, with comfortable seats beneath them. Sometimes she would sit by the basketball court watching the first-year high school basketball games, listening to the spirited cheers, feeling a bittersweet ache in her heart, an itch that spread uncontrollably.
At times like these, she would think: Xu Chen, what are you doing right now?
It seems like just yesterday that we broke up, and now it's been over a year.
For over a year, news of him continued to reach her ears: she heard his TOEFL score was 638 and his GRE score was 2330, enough to apply for scholarships at many universities; she heard he had resigned from his student council position and spent his days alone, focusing solely on his studies; she heard his mother's health wasn't good, and he had returned home a few times, but the city wasn't too big or too small, and the chances of them meeting again were ultimately infinitesimally small...
So now, he should be preparing his application materials for studying abroad, right? His aunt and his mother should be so proud and satisfied. He's bound to have a bright future. She believes that with his personality and intelligence, he'll be the most outstanding person wherever he goes. She even imagines a romantic ending: years later, he's successful and returns to China for a medical conference. She sees him on television and is instantly stunned. Perhaps for a moment she'll still be moved, still feel a pang of nostalgia for those golden years, but just then, at that perfect moment, her children's calls will ring out beside her, loudly calling her "Mom." In that instant from memory to reality, her face, already etched with the marks of time, will imprint his voice and smile onto her heart through the television screen, then turn around and embrace her children…
From then on, we were truly strangers.
You have your world, and I have my life—from now on, the person beside me will truly no longer be you.
Thinking of this, she raised her head and looked at the sweaty figures and bright, unrestrained smiles on the playground. Suddenly, she realized that she no longer felt a sharp pain in her heart, but instead, she was filled with a deep sorrow.
There is a subtle sense of regret, like the lush green grass of late spring and early summer, spreading out boundlessly.
When Pang Yi rushed into the office, Yu Lele was grading essays. Seeing Pang Yi's figure flash by the door, she smiled slightly. She always used a combination of gentle persuasion and firmness with this clever and mischievous language arts representative—Pang Yi was the kind of boy with exceptional language talent, but also extremely lazy. Without supervision, he probably wouldn't write a single essay or complete a single practice test. She was just considering whether to drag Pang Yi into the office and give him a good scolding when she suddenly heard a roar of panic at the door. It was Cheng Kai's voice: "What did you say? The Central Hospital?!"
Yu Lele was startled, a sense of foreboding washing over her. She hurriedly left the office, only to see Cheng Kai and Pang Yi running downstairs. She quickly grabbed a boy next to her and asked, "What happened?"
The boy looked nervous: "Pang Yi said that Meng Xiaoyu sought revenge and was stabbed. She's in the Central Hospital now."
Yu Lele was stunned.
She felt a little dizzy, but only for a few seconds, before she took off running downstairs. For some reason, she had a vague feeling that she was deeply involved in this matter. She ran very fast, but still couldn't catch up with Pang Yi and Cheng Kai. She anxiously flagged down a taxi and rushed to the Central Hospital.
The Central Hospital was far from the school, and the entire route was fraught with red lights. Finally, at the intersection before the hospital, two cars had collided, causing a long line of cars to form, completely blocking the road. Yu Lele panicked and simply got out of the car and ran towards the hospital. She didn't know how long she ran, but when she finally saw the green "Emergency Room" sign in front of her, her hair was disheveled, and she almost crashed headfirst into it.
Just then, she suddenly heard a voice call out from the side: "Teacher Yu!"
Yu Lele turned around and saw Pang Yi's sweaty face, and Zhuang Yuewei standing next to him looking disheveled. Her school uniform skirt was stained with blood, and there were scratches on her face and hands.
Yu Lele hurried over and asked, "What happened? Where's Meng Xiaoyu?"
Before she could finish speaking, Zhuang Yuewei burst into tears. Pang Yi, however, remained calm and told Yu Lele, "Meng Xiaoyu is in emergency care. Teacher Cheng went to pay the bills. Teacher Yu, don't worry, everything will be alright."
A 16-year-old boy, in such a chaotic moment, told his teacher, "Don't be afraid."
A warmth gently washed over Yu Lele's heart. Overwhelmed with mixed feelings, she looked at Pang Yi's composure beyond his years, unsure of what to say. Her heart pounded with tension, as if a storm was about to break and she had no way to escape it.
As they were talking, Cheng Kai rushed over. When he saw Yu Lele, he was taken aback and asked, "Why are you here?"
"Let me see what's going on," Yu Lele said anxiously.
“I don’t know the details clearly either. The police came by earlier and said the assailant was caught on the spot. I called Meng Xiaoyu’s family, and her parents should be here soon,” he explained the situation in a few words. Then, when he saw Zhuang Yuewei, his face darkened. “I also called your family, and your mother said she’ll be here soon.”
He glared at Zhuang Yuewei with hatred: "You kids, how can you have no sense of propriety? Revenge, what deep-seated hatred could possibly require you to risk your lives?"
"Zhuang Yuewei, who did you seek revenge on?" Yu Lele was starting to understand: "Was it that group from last time?"
Zhuang Yuewei nodded. Yu Lele's head suddenly felt like it was going to swell up.
Yu Lele looked at Zhuang Yuewei with a mixture of anxiety and anger: "You asked me to keep it a secret, and I did, but I also told you not to get entangled with those people anymore. Why didn't you keep your promise?"
Zhuang Yuewei sobbed, "Meng Xiaoyu said he can't swallow this insult and he's determined to get revenge no matter what. He said he's never been arrested and taken to the police station before, it's too humiliating."
Before Yu Lele could speak, Cheng Kai, his face dark, asked, "Teacher Yu, what do you know?"
Yu Lele finally couldn't hide it any longer and confessed to going to the police station to pick up Zhuang Yuewei and Meng Xiaoyu. Cheng Kai was furious: "Yu Lele, do you know what you're doing!"
Yu Lele lowered her head in silence: How could she not know? From the moment she brought the two of them out of the police station, she had a responsibility to supervise them, but the fact that they had ended up like this was clearly because she had failed to fulfill her responsibilities.
"Yu Lele, you're so naive!" Cheng Kai was furious. "You're just a student teacher. You should have reported such a big thing to the school immediately, or at least told me. We would have contacted the students' parents, worked together to talk to them, and understood their thoughts to prevent them from doing anything more dangerous. But you took it upon yourself to cover up the situation and failed to stop them from acting rashly, which is why we lost the most valuable opportunity, do you know that?!"
Yu Lele's face turned pale instantly. She stared at Cheng Kai, only then realizing how serious the consequences of her actions had been.
“I know you want to be kinder to your students and trust each other. I used to think that way too. When we were young, who didn’t want to be a friend to their students? But do you know that in real life, many situations are more complicated than you imagine? You’re a teacher. You have the future and even lives of so many students on your shoulders!” Cheng Kai said, his voice filled with anguish.
“Teacher, this isn’t Ms. Yu’s fault. We begged her to keep it a secret for us,” Zhuang Yuewei interrupted Cheng Kai tremblingly.
“No, it’s my fault,” Yu Lele glanced at Zhuang Yuewei, then looked at Cheng Kai with a pale face: “You’re right. I only considered things from the students’ perspective, but I forgot that I’m also a teacher.”
At this moment, Yu Lele finally understood: from the day she decided to become a teacher, the radiant and perfect image of a teacher that she had imagined in the past was no longer relevant to her. Because a true teacher carries the future, character, and even life of his students. They can be friends with their students, but they also have a "responsibility" that is more important than friendship.
I'm no longer the child I used to be who could trust each other with pinkies and vows. I'm a teacher, a teacher representing the school. How could I have been so rash back then?
“Forget it, you’re not very experienced, so I can’t entirely blame you,” Cheng Kai said, hanging his head listlessly. “But there’s definitely more to come, so you’d better be prepared.”
Yu Lele nodded silently without saying a word.
What can I say? When things have come to this point, it's too late to say anything.
19-2
Ten minutes later, Meng Xiaoyu's mother arrived. She was crying incessantly outside the emergency room, repeatedly muttering, "I'm going to sue your school." Cheng Kai comforted her while giving Yu Lele a reproachful look. Yu Lele stared blankly at Meng Xiaoyu's mother, who was sobbing uncontrollably, feeling as if sharp awls were stabbing her heart.
Self-blame, regret, sadness, anxiety... all intertwined, choking her heart and making it hard for her to breathe.
Just then, another figure ran from the end of the corridor, stopped in front of a group of people, looked at several of them nervously, and then focused on Zhuang Yuewei, letting out a scream. Yu Lele looked up and saw a middle-aged woman holding Zhuang Yuewei, asking in a panic, "Weiwei, where are you hurt? Why isn't a doctor bandaging you? What happened to you?"
Zhuang Yuewei glanced at the woman in front of her with teary eyes, then buried her face in her arms and burst into tears, crying, "Mommy!"
Zhuang Yuewei's mother? Yu Lele's eyes widened suddenly.
The woman in front of her breathed rapidly. She touched her daughter's face and asked with heartache and anxiety, "Where are you hurt? Tell Mommy, where does it hurt?"
Zhuang Yuewei shook her head in her mother's arms, sobbing uncontrollably, only able to say intermittently, "Mom, I want to go home!"
“Let’s go home, let’s go home.” Zhuang Yuewei’s mother took her daughter’s hand and turned to leave, but was stopped by the police who appeared out of nowhere.
The police officer said, "I'm sorry, but you'll need to come back with us to give a statement."