Chapter 4: Click
Xiahou Ming froze, nearly dropping the recorder from her mouth.
She yanked out the plastic tube and turned toward the back door in panic.
Her heart pounded like it was being gripped.
Who is it?
Did the teacher come back?
Or did Lin Xiaomei and the others lock him up as a prank?
She rushed over and tugged at the door handle.
Not moving at all.
She turned and rushed to the front door, which was also locked from the outside.
Window!
She rushed to the row of windows that faced the corridor, the ones she had closed and bolted herself, and with shaking hands she strained against the old metal latch.
The latch was tight, but with a desperate effort she managed to get it open.
A glimmer of hope flashed in his eyes.
When she pushed open the window and was about to climb out—
A hand stretched out from the darkness of the corridor and pressed the window she had just opened back down from the outside.
Xiahou Ming took a step back in horror and saw a face appear outside the window through the dusty glass.
It’s that “weirdo”.
The girl whose name she couldn’t remember.
She just stood there in the corridor, looking at herself calmly with a cat-and-mouse smile on her face.
Then, her figure disappeared from the window.
A few seconds later, Xiahou Ming heard the sound of a key unlocking the back door.
“Click.”
The girl walked in from outside.
Then, in front of Xiahou Ming, she turned around and locked the back door from the inside.
She locked herself and Xiahou Ming in this secret room.
“It’s you?” Xiahou Ming’s heart sank, replaced by a fury of being toyed with.
“What do you want to do!?”
The sky was getting darker and darker, and the last rays of sunset disappeared.
This was the first time that Xiahou Ming truly saw her appearance.
She was thin, wearing a school uniform that was faded but immaculate.
Her waist-length black hair was pure and tranquil, with overlong bangs that almost completely obscured her eyes.
Her skin was very pale, the kind of paleness that comes from years of sunlessness.
Her features were delicate, but when combined, they appeared strangely calm and lifeless.
She didn’t answer Xiahou Ming’s question, but just looked at her quietly.
Her eyes, which seemed particularly bright in the darkness, seemed to be able to see through her heart.
Then, her gaze slowly moved down and fell on the white recorder that Xiahou Ming was holding tightly in his hand.
She walked over slowly.
Xiahou Ming subconsciously took a step back and hid the recorder behind him.
But this girl’s target was not him.
She walked straight to Ling Yicai’s seat, bent down, and picked up the fallen cloth cover from the ground.
She held the cloth cover as if admiring a work of art.
Then, she raised her head and extended her hand to Xiahou Ming.
“Give it to me,” she said.
“You’re dreaming!” Xiahou Ming roared.
She seemed to have anticipated this reaction and did not insist any longer.
She simply placed the empty cloth cover on Ling Yicai’s desk, then walked to the chair where Xiahou Ming had just sat and sat down.
She imitated her, her despair-soaked gestures.
Then she turned her head and her eyes locked on Xiahou Ming again.
“Thirty-seven seconds,” she whispered.
“What?”
Xiahou Ming was stunned.
“You looked at the recorder for thirty-seven seconds,” she said flatly.
“Then you stood up and took seven steps.
Your hand hesitated for about two seconds before touching it.”
A chill ran down Xiahou Ming’s spine.
“After you put it in your mouth, you paused,” she continued, as if replaying a movie, “and then, with the tip of your tongue, you licked the edge of the mouthpiece three times.
Is that right?”
Xiahou Ming’s mind went blank.
She felt like a butterfly pinned to a specimen board, all her struggles visible to everyone.
“Shut up!”
Xiahou Ming finally broke down.
She rushed forward and used all her strength to push the girl off the chair to the ground.
Her thin body hit the ground with a dull thud.
Xiahou Ming panted heavily, looking down at her.
This was the first time today that she had achieved a victory in terms of strength.
But this victory made her feel an unprecedented emptiness and fear.
Because the girl lying on the ground did not have any expression of pain or fear on her face.
She even… smiled.
It was a very light, almost imperceptible smile.
She looked at Xiahou Ming with a mixture of approval and pity in her eyes.
Then she stretched out her hand and pointed at the recorder in Xiahou Ming’s hand, which he regarded as a treasure.
“See?” she said, her voice muffled from lying on the ground, but remarkably clear.
“Even when you were resisting, you couldn’t bear to throw it away.”
Xiahou Ming subconsciously looked down and saw that the white recorder was still tightly held in her hand.
As if burned, she suddenly loosened her grip, and the recorder fell to the ground and rolled to the side.
She slowly sat up from the ground, brushed the dust off her clothes, and her movements were as calm as if nothing had happened.
She picked up the recorder, stood up, and walked in front of Xiahou Ming.
This time, Xiahou Ming did not retreat, but just stood there frozen, unable to move.
“Your imitation just now was terrible.”
Then, in front of Xiahou Ming, the girl slowly brought the recorder, which was stained with dust and the breath of three people, to her lips.
“I’ll teach you.”
Xiahou Ming watched helplessly.
Watched her stick out her tongue.
The tip of the tongue is very light in color.
Gently sweep along the edge of the small mouthpiece.
One time.
Two times.
Three times.
She is learning from me.
This realization made Xiahou Ming feel creepy.
“The taste is very light.” She closed her eyes, as if savoring something.
“There’s Ling Yicai’s, and yours.
Mixed together, it becomes a completely new flavor.”
Then she opened her eyes and looked straight at Xiahou Ming.
Her cheeks were slightly sunken.
Her movements were very light, but Xiahou Ming could clearly hear the sticky, watery sound of air being drawn out from the small mouthpiece.
That sound was amplified countless times in the silent classroom.
Beautiful and thrilling.
She even wants to learn this from me.
“Are you looking for this feeling?” she asked vaguely while sucking, “a feeling… of filling yourself up by devouring others?”
Xiahou Ming could no longer bear it.
What she saw was no longer this girl, but another self in the mirror.
A calmer, more morbid self who understands this desire better.
She wants to escape.
But her feet seemed to be nailed to the floor.
The girl finally stopped the strange ritual.
She looked at Xiahou Ming who was stunned, and gently wiped her wet lips with her fingers.
“My name is Yu Yuhui.” She introduced her name to Xiahou Ming for the first time, and only unilaterally.
“Remember it.”
“Let’s play a game.” The corners of her mouth curled up into her first real smile.
“Your voice is too hard.
It doesn’t sound like a girl at all.”
She threw the recorder at Xiahou Ming’s feet like a piece of garbage.
“In English class tomorrow morning, when the teacher asks a question, you must stand up and answer the question in the softest, sweetest voice you can muster.”
“If you do this, this secret,” she pointed to the recorder on the ground, “will only be known to the two of us.”
“If you can’t do it…”
She didn’t say anything else, but turned around.
Under Xiahou Ming’s shocked gaze, she took out a key from her pocket.
The key that the teacher gave her for safekeeping because her seat was next to the back door.
“Click.”
She opened the door that only she could open.
“Then tomorrow, the whole school will know that Xiahou Ming from Class 2-3 of Senior High School likes to taste Ling Yicai’s saliva.”
She walked out and disappeared into the dark corridor.
The door didn’t close again.
But Xiahou Ming knew that she had been locked in another cage from which she could never escape.