A night passed, and day broke.
When I woke up, Lu Xiu’s hand was still fixed in my mouth as usual.
Except this time, it was in the mouth on the stomach.
My actual throat still hurt a little.
I sat up and looked around the room, feeling dazed. The sheets beneath me were pink and blue, printed with a magical girl pattern. I stared at the sheets for a long time.
‘My head feels empty. What am I supposed to do? I don’t know.’
‘Maybe I should sleep a little longer?’
With that thought, I shoved Lu Xiu to the side and reclaimed the center of the bed.
“Mm… don’t push me…”
Lu Xiu’s fragmented sleep-talking drifted over from beside me. Then, he shoved his way back.
He almost knocked me off the bed.
Now, I was a little angry. I wobbled to my feet, lifted my leg, and delivered a fierce kick to his backside!
*Thud!*
Someone was kicked right off the bed.
“Hiss—my butt!”
Lu Xiu woke up instantly, clutching his rear and grimacing. “What are you doing…?”
“You were crowding me.”
He stared at me with wide eyes. “There’s clearly a huge space over on that side of the bed. Why do you have to sleep right in the middle?”
“I don’t know, but you were crowding me.”
He shook his head and sighed, choosing not to argue with me.
***
Face washed, teeth brushed.
Oh, that’s right. There were no spare toothbrushes or toothpaste. I was even wearing the same clothes from yesterday.
Breakfast consisted of three fried dough sticks and five steamed buns. Two of the dough sticks and three of the buns ended up in my mouth.
After we finished eating, Lu Xiu pulled out his phone and checked the old maps Qu Le had sent him earlier.
“Chongming District… Luohu District… there are quite a few. Let’s start with Xiangwan District today since it’s closer to us.”
“Oh, okay.”
We headed out. Guided by the GPS on his phone, Lu Xiu led me to an old urban area that was currently being demolished.
In the early morning, the roar of machinery hadn’t yet begun in the old urban area. There was only a desolate silence among the ruins, standing quietly in the warm morning light.
Weeds grew from the cracks in the walls, leaning against the piles of rubble for support. Every few steps, we saw scattered items like slippers, newspapers, and wooden cabinets.
Further away, several relatively intact buildings had the word “Demolish” spray-painted on them in large, red characters.
“Ah… man, this whole area is almost completely torn down,” Lu Xiu said, scratching his head. “Let’s see if we can find anyone who still lives here first.”
As he spoke, he led me deeper into the ruins.
*Crunch—crunch—*
Our feet made sharp, grating sounds as we stepped on gravel and broken tiles. We rounded a collapsed wooden pillar and found rows of red-walled brick houses.
“The wooden doors here aren’t green either. Sui, do you remember anything else? Besides what you already told me?”
I tried to recall those memories.
Darkness, cold, pain…
“There was a teacher, some children, a mother, and backpacks.”
His eyebrows shot up. “A school?”
I nodded.
He immediately began searching on his phone.
“Tsk… most of the schools in the old urban areas have been abandoned, and there are quite a lot of them. There are four or five in Luohu District alone.”
I watched him mope and ponder, so I pulled up a few stalks of foxtail grass and stuffed them into the mouth on the stomach.
They didn’t taste good. Everything here had a damp, moldy smell. It didn’t taste good at all.
***
In the distance, the pale, clear sky was veiled in a thin mist of light, making it a bit piercing to look at. The faint sound of car horns drifted in from the outside world, echoing into this silent graveyard.
Lu Xiu was still searching, but he hadn’t found any useful information yet. In this place, you couldn’t even distinguish the shapes of the school buildings anymore; everything was just a jumbled mess of collapsed concrete.
“Sui, come over here.”
Suddenly, he waved at me from a distance. I looked over, stood up, and ran toward him.
It turned out Lu Xiu had found someone—an old man still living in these ruins. The man wore a tattered leather jacket and a knit hat woven with dark green and deep red yarn.
Lu Xiu was currently asking him about the school. However, I couldn’t understand a word the man said; Lu Xiu told me it was a local dialect.
After watching them ramble back and forth for a while, Lu Xiu nodded and pulled some money from his wallet to hand to the old man. The man simply waved his hand dismissively and crawled back into his dark, red-walled shack.
“There probably isn’t a school that fits the description in this area. According to the old man, all the doors around here were painted red.”
I nodded.
“Are we going somewhere else then?”
“Let’s get lunch first. We’ve been searching all morning,” he said, wiping away sweat.
I nodded blankly. So, it was already noon.
We ate at a small restaurant, ordering stir-fried potato matchsticks with meat. It was delicious.
“I want more.” I handed my empty bowl to Lu Xiu.
“Go get the rice yourself.”
“Oh.” I nodded.
Then I heard Lu Xiu click his tongue. He took my bowl from me. “Forget it, forget it. I’ll go. You just sit right there.”
“Oh.” I nodded.
Time to eat.
One bowl followed another.
“Ding! Thank you for your patronage. That will be 268 yuan.”
Lu Xiu’s hand was shaking as he scanned the QR code. Once we were outside, he poked me in the head.
“One plate of stir-fried potatoes with meat cost me 268, and 250 of that was just for the rice you ate!”
“But you’re the one who got the rice for me,” I said, shrinking my head back.
He gave my head one last forceful poke, then led me toward the next old urban area.
The second area was Luohu District, located in the west of the city. The buildings here were better preserved; only a few had been demolished, though most of the rest were deserted, empty shells.
Lu Xiu didn’t make me split up to search. Instead, he took me through one building after another. I could see quilts hanging out on balconies to dry—blue ones, pink ones.
There were elderly people who had moved their stools outside, sitting silently as they watched people and cars pass by. People were still living here.
“We’re here. This is one of the schools,” Lu Xiu told me as we stood before a derelict school gate.
I pushed open the rusted gate and walked inside. The ground was dirt and mud, full of potholes. Directly ahead was a flag-raising platform made of stacked concrete.
It felt very unfamiliar. And the doors weren’t green. I shook my head.
“Then we’ll go to the next one.”
As he spoke, he took my hand and led me toward the other schools.
By the time evening rolled around, we headed back out. We still hadn’t found anything.
“Lu Xiu, I’m hungry,” I told him.
“Let’s go. Time for dinner.”
“Are we going home?”
“No, we’re going to a buffet.”
“A buffet?” What was that?
Lu Xiu didn’t explain. With a mysterious smile, he led me to a restaurant that looked quite luxurious. We went inside and paid the fee.
“Eat your heart out,” Lu Xiu said grandly.
“Really?” I looked at the various delicacies laid out and swallowed hard.
“Absolutely.”
In that case, I wouldn’t hold back.
“Delicious… so delicious…”
One plate, two plates…
I didn’t know how many plates I ate; I just felt like today was the happiest day of my life. I had never been this full before. Coming back to reality from the world of food, I rubbed my stuffed belly.
I had decided! From now on, I wanted to eat at a buffet every single day!
“Lu Xiu—”
I was just about to announce this exciting news when I noticed a circle of people surrounding me, holding their phones and snapping pictures. Meanwhile, Lu Xiu was already covering his face with his hands.
In the end, we were ‘invited’ out by the restaurant owner. His expression was even scarier than Lu Xiu’s when he was angry.
“Lu Xiu, I want to eat at a buffet again next time,” I said.
“…I’ll see if I can find a new place.” He sighed and took my hand.
We headed home.
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