Chapter 53 Teachers

Huh.

Though it was the end of summer, under the dim yellow street lights, the two columns of breath exhaled from the nostrils were clearly visible.

"Do you feel it?"

Li Ang asked in a soft voice.

The black umbrella behind him swayed gently, with a swishing sound.

Yin energy, thin yet distinct, filled the narrow, dirty alley like a misty gossamer veil, obscuring the view.

The black umbrella swayed contentedly and comfortably, sucking up the cold yin energy in the air. Li Ang adjusted his breathing, letting the Ripple's energy flow slowly through his body.

The warm current dispersed the chill, and Li Ang shook his body. He moved through the alley, following the trail of yin energy, turning left and right, until he arrived at a two-story house.

The house was overall grayish-brown, with walls on the outside covered with lush creeping ivy. Through the gaps in their branches and leaves, one could see the mottled cement bricks falling from the wall.

This house was probably older than Li Ang by a round, and its walls, filled with cracks at the corners and base, made one wonder whether the building would collapse at the next second.

There was light in the second-floor room of the building. Standing at the bottom, one could faintly hear the voices of children reading aloud from above. Li Ang paused, looked left and right to confirm that there was no one around, then quickly climbed up the wall of the building like a black cat and silently lay on the roof of the second floor, listening intently to the sounds below.

"At the foot of the mountain, there is a stone cliff with a crack in it. The Chilly Bird makes this crack its nest."

Several childish voices were reading a textbook out loud, the text being "Chilly Bird" from the second-grade textbook by the People's Education Press. The general idea is that winter is coming, but the Chilly Bird procrastinates and refuses to build a nest, eventually freezing to death on a cold winter night.

Among the children's voices were five boys and three girls, who were all very young, sitting two by two in four rows. Li Ang listened to footsteps that occasionally stood and walked in the front of the small room, which belonged to an adult male, wearing cloth shoes, weighing about 140 pounds.

Without seeing the scene, just from the sound, Li Ang could roughly infer what the interior of the room looked like. Was this a "tutoring class" of a shanty town version?

After the children finished reading the text, the man sitting at the podium in the front of the room, coughing violently, had the children work on math exercise books.

Li Ang patiently lay on the roof waiting for changes, and ten minutes later someone knocked on the door of the room. A voice like that of a middle-aged woman who did heavy physical labor thanked the teacher in a weary voice and took her child away.

As ten o'clock approached, the "tutoring class" children were all picked up by their parents. Once the door was shut, the man in front of the classroom coughed violently and leisurely brewed himself a pot of tea.

Jasmine tea, with a fresh and light color, a sweet and mouthwatering taste, that clears heat and detoxifies. The light white blossoms floated and spun in the tea, the mere sight of which could calm one's mind.

The middle-aged man named Zou Zhengze held the lid of the enamel cup, gently rubbing the rim of the cup and sipped the tea, then indifferently said to the window, "Won't you come down and have a look?"

After a moment of silence, Li Ang gracefully climbed through the window, his mask's red-faced Guan Gong staring fiercely at Zou Zhengze.

"Which organization are you with?" Zou Zhengze blew gently on the surface of his tea water, asking in a relaxed tone, "Special Affairs Bureau? Heterodox Academy? Or Whale Song?"

Li Ang didn't reply but instead inspected Zou Zhengze with great interest.

He appeared to be around forty-five years old, of average build—not fat or thin—with short hair, wearing cloth shoes, a wrinkled, red short-sleeved T-shirt, and black trousers. His arms, not covered by the short sleeves, bore large patches of old burn scars.

On his face, the burn scars were even more prominent, with dark red scars covering the entire left side extending down to the area below the right ear. Whenever he smiled, his slightly swollen lips would stretch to the side, making one worry that the corners of his mouth might split open along the scars.

"Was it you who killed Zeng Weiming and Wang Fangni?"

"It was me," Zou Zhengze nodded.

"Why?" asked Li Ang, "Revenge?"

"Revenge?" Zou Zhengze shook his head, "It wasn't for hatred, but for love."

Li Ang sneered, "No sane person would consider murder an expression of love."

Zou Zhengze shook his head and coughed a few times before standing up from his chair and tapping the table, "What do you think of this place?"

"For a tutoring class, it's not bad."

"Actually, this is not really a tutoring class," Zou Zhengze smiled, "The people living in this area aren't wealthy. Many couples do labor-intensive jobs from dawn to dusk and simply don't have the time or the means to take care of their kids.

I've mended bicycles, carried loads, stoked boilers, run a small store, been a barefoot doctor, and even taught for a while when I was young. So I thought I'd do some good, help look after the kids for the residents around here while also tutoring them in their studies."

"It's a touching story," Li Ang said calmly, "It could almost qualify you for the Yin City Top Ten Inspirational Figures award."

Zou Zhengze ignored the sarcasm in Li Ang's words and sighed, "As kids, Wang Fangni and I were best friends, we grew up together in the village, went to school together. Sadly, my parents' financial situation was really bad, they couldn't afford to send me to high school, so I had to start working early to fend for myself.

Later, I heard that Fang Ni's family had an accident and couldn't afford her school fees, so I took on two jobs in the city and sent her money so she could continue high school.

When she was in university, we lived together. I drove a taxi to support us, and she would cook for me when she got home from classes during the day. Those were our happiest moments, she told me as soon as she graduated, she would marry me."

A trace of fond nostalgia warmed Zou Zhengze's discolored face, "But the good times didn't last. During a voluntary action to put out a large fire, I, who had rushed into the blaze, had my escape mask stolen by the very person I was rescuing. By the time the firefighters pulled me out, I was left in this horrific, ghastly state."

"Fang Ni didn't leave me, she took great care of me by my bedside, constantly describing the bright future we once dreamt of together.

But, one was a college girl with a bright future ahead, the other a disfigured cripple with a broken body. The whispers and stares from the people around us made Fang Ni increasingly silent."

"Have you ever felt that? The fear of being abandoned, the fear of being despised, hating yourself, loathing yourself, no longer being able to trust the person you love,"

Zou Zhengze said absently, "At that time, I was terrible to her, really terrible. I would lash out, and she just stayed silent in response. I told her to get lost, but she wouldn't leave, so I tore off my bandages and fled the hospital in the dead of night, fleeing from that city.

During that time, I couldn't tell if I hated her or myself."