Chapter 54: Prelude

On the rooftop, the wind was getting stronger and stronger.
Yu Yuhui stood up and walked toward the stairwell.
Xiahou Ming looked at her back and subconsciously wanted to call her.
But Yu Yuhui stopped when she passed by her.
Xiahou Ming looked up in some surprise, not understanding what she wanted to do.
“The task I gave you,” Yu Yuhui looked at her, “seems like it’s not finished yet.”
Xiahou Ming’s heart suddenly shrank.
“How about this,” Yu Yuhui said with a smile, “This afternoon, I’ll punish you by having you clean this building from top to bottom.”
Xiahou Ming looked at her, looking into her dark eyes.
Is this… an excuse to stay in school?
At this moment, Yu Yuhui suddenly took a step forward.
Xiahou Ming didn’t react at all.
A pair of cold fingers cupped her cheeks.
Then, something colder and softer gently pressed against the longest and deepest scratch on her left cheek.
It was her lips.
That kiss was light and cool.
Like a snowflake.
Xiahou Ming’s mind went blank, and she even forgot to breathe.
“Go ahead.”
A whispering voice woke her from her trance.
When she focused her sight again, there was no one in front of her.
She reached out her hand and touched the place on her cheek where she had been kissed with her trembling fingertips.
There, the cool touch and taste of the other person’s lips seemed to still linger.
An indescribable ecstasy and trembling instantly spread throughout her body.
She knew that she was beyond redemption.
She no longer hesitated.
When the school bell rang on campus, Xiahou Ming sneaked out from the shadows of the rooftop stairwell like a ghost.
She put on canvas gloves “borrowed” from the labor and technology classroom and held a heavy pipe wrench in her hand.
Her target was clear—the boiler room.
The last class in the afternoon, in the infirmary.
The squad leader had left half an hour ago.
Before leaving, she just looked calmly at Lin Xiaomei lying on the bed and said nothing.
Lin Xiaomei lay quietly on the hospital bed, replaying the scene in the abandoned warehouse at noon over and over again in her mind.
She recalled the feeling of Xiahou Ming’s fist landing on her body, that unique feeling.
Then she slowly raised her hand and touched her swollen cheek obsessively.
A smile that belonged to an adolescent girl appeared on her face.
She was finally… looking at me alone again.
Only with me can she return to her original state.
She thought.
Whether it is Ling Yicai or Yu Yuhui, they understand nothing at all.
All they want is an obedient Xiahou Ming.
And what I want…
She closed her eyes and let out a satisfied hum.
Xiahou Ming followed the shadow of the wall, avoided the last wave of students leaving school, and nimbly climbed into the air vent of the boiler room.
A gust of hot air with the smell of coal ash hit her face.
She found the main hot water valve that led to the main teaching building.
The valve was badly rusted.
With all her might, she jammed the wrench onto the valve, pressing her entire body weight onto it.
“…Click… squeak…”
A teeth-grinding sound of metal friction was heard.
Sweat slid down her forehead and dripped into her eyes, making them sting.
But she didn’t stop.
At the same time, at the school gate.
The crowd had gradually dispersed.
Ling Yicai was alone, still standing under the huge camphor tree, and had not returned home.
She spent the whole afternoon searching.
She searched every corner of the teaching building, every stand in the playground, and even mustered up the courage to take a look at the abandoned old warehouse.
No.
Not anywhere.
It was as if Xiahou Ming had disappeared from this world after jumping out of the window at noon.
That desperate figure kept replaying in her mind.
For the first time, she felt fear.
A fear that things were going in a direction she could not predict or control.
She always thought that she was the only one who could bring her back on track.
But now, she found that she might even lose the qualifications to hold her back.
“Xiao Ming, where are you?”
“Come back soon and stop messing around.”
She knew that these words were meaningless to her now.
The rain began to fall.
The cold raindrops hit her face and mixed with the tears that she shed unconsciously.
“Bang!”
With the last muffled sound, the rusty valve was finally turned half a turn by Xiahou Ming.
The heat rushed up the pipe.
She succeeded.
Xiahou Ming immediately turned around and rushed to the rooftop of the main teaching building.
When she pushed open the heavy iron door again, it was raining heavily outside.
Heavy rain poured down from the gray-black sky, covering the entire world in white water vapor.
She climbed onto the slippery water tank, found the valve at the water inlet, and opened it completely.
She heard the warm water flowing into the iron tank, making a “dong dong” sound like a heartbeat.
She felt the iron sheet under her feet gradually becoming warmer.
She just sat on the water tank, letting the cold raindrops hit her body madly, waiting for the huge iron tank to be filled.
It was late at night.
In the student dormitory.
Wen Xuelan sat under the desk lamp with needle and thread in her hand.
In front of her was the shredded dark blue dress.
It could not be repaired.
But she still tried to sew the broken pieces of cloth together stitch by stitch, clumsily and persistently.
Every time she threaded the needle, it was like she was stitching up her own broken heart.
Her eyes were unusually firm.
She thought, If… if I could put it back together.
Classmate Xiahou Ming, will you… smile at me again?
On the rooftop, the water tank had been filled.
Xiahou Ming slid down from the cold and slippery tank, and her feet landed on the wet ground.
She closed the valve.
The world was silent, with only the sound of pouring rain.
A white, warm mist rose from the open top of the water tank, forming a dreamlike realm in the cold rainy night.
Xiahou Ming stood at the edge of the fog.
The rain slid down her cheeks; her body was already soaked and freezing cold.
But inside her heart, there was a burning flame.
That’s enough.
She turned around, rushed down the stairs, and ran all the way.
When she passed the message room on the first floor, she casually pulled off an old dark green raincoat and put it on.
Behind her, she heard the security guard’s vague shouting and cursing, but she could no longer hear it.
She rushed straight to the main gate of the school.
The tall cast iron fence school gate looked like a cold giant beast on a rainy night.
She clenched the hand that had Yu Yuhui’s home address written on it into a fist.
Run up, push against the wall, grab the cold iron railing.
The movements were done in one go.
The rain blurred her vision.
A pale flash of lightning streaked across the night sky, illuminating her frail figure like a saint heading to the execution ground.
She leaped.
It landed steadily on the asphalt road outside the school, splashing a large amount of water.
She was going to meet her god.
To participate in this grand festival prepared just for her.