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Case File Compendium - Chapter 1

Published at 24th of August 2022 06:35:04 AM


Chapter 1

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Mirror open

    Click. Everything turned from dark to light, the screen flickered, and the picture began to appear.

    This is a staff dormitory, the most remote building in the century-old school complex. From the outside of this house, the red bricks and white steps are very beautiful, and the ivy, with its charming green vines, climbs around the old western-style building. Anyone passing by can't help but take a second glance, but I was fortunate enough to be a teacher, and it was only after I entered that I fully realized- It turns out that this Fang House has been repaired for a long time, and the walls of the inner walls are mottled, like a tired face that has been repaired countless times.

    I am so tired that I don't even have a digital TV. Allocated to each room in the dormitory building is an antique cable TV.

    "The middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River have experienced heavy rains one after another..."

    The boy walked through the entrance of the corridor, and the sound of the TV program came through the window glass of the reception room. The old lady on duty always stopped him and shouted:

    "Hey, little classmates, don't you know? This is the staff dormitory, where the teachers live. Don't run into it all the time as a student."

    But today, the old lady didn't cross-examine him, maybe she was in a daze, her eyesight was dim, and she didn't notice his passing in the dark.

    He went up to the third floor and knocked on the familiar iron door.

    The door creaked open, and the woman inside the door probed: "Is it you?"

    The boy whispered: "Thank you, teacher."

 

    Although it was very late and the boy was an uninvited guest, she was his teacher and the person closest to him in the school. After a brief surprise, the woman welcomed him into the room.

    Make a cup of tea, cut **** and add it in. It was raining outside. She felt that the boy was wet and cold. Hot **** tea could ward off the cold.

    Teacher Xie put the steaming teacup on the tea table in front of him: "When did you come back?"

    "Just got back today." The boy stood awkwardly in front of the sofa.

    Teacher Xie: "Sit down."

    He then sat down, with his hands curled on his knees, cautiously, and did not touch the teacup.

    "Why didn't you tell me in advance when you came back. It's so late, and there is still a bus to the school?"

    “…hmmm.”

    "How are things at home?"

    The boy was silent for a while, and lowered his head to dig the hole in his jeans.

    "My mom still wants me to drop out..."

    Teacher Xie was silent.

    She is already a college student, and the school has no right to decide whether to read or not. She talked to the mother of the teenager in front of her and promised to give tuition fee relief to the poor families, hoping that the mother would allow the child to put his hard work in the exam completed university.

    But the mother sharply refused—

    "What book to read? Learn Chinese? Who can't speak Chinese? You are cheating money!"

      It is also easy to find a job in the society. I asked him if he wants to be a teacher in the future. With his grades, it is not a problem to get a teacher's system. This is a child's dream, and the teaching job is stable..."

    "He can't be a teacher! It's not like you didn't see his face!"

     

    Mr. Xie was very angry, but she didn't know what to respond to.

 

    "I'm going to let him go home to work now! There's no money at home! Don't waste your time! That face-that face... Reading, what can I do! What school would want this teacher!"

    What kind of face is that?

    Teacher Xie had an incandescent lamp on in his room, the wattage was low, and it looked drowsy, but it still illuminated the boy's face.

    His face, Mr. Xie is very used to seeing it, but anyone who sees this face for the first time will take a breath of air - half yin and yang face, and I don't know what disease she has suffered from, green The purple scars covered from the forehead to the neck, like a piece of rotten skin.

    Shocking, naked and abnormal.

    "Sick!"

    "Don't go near him, it might be contagious."

    "Hey! Intersex!"

    With this face growing up with him, there are abuses and ridicules that go hand in hand.

    Because of being ill, too ill to hide, too ugly to hide, the young man has suffered from scorn since childhood. No matter how hard he studies and how he gets along with others gently, he is still like an evil dragon wandering in the blue sky and white sun, and he cannot be treated equally.

    Few people, like Teacher Xie, can find that the normal half of his face is well-behaved and gentle.

    He always bears everyone's ridicule gently and numbly, and sometimes he also smiles with it, as if he really did something wrong.

    But what did he do wrong?

    Teacher Xie sees that in his eyes, he is always the most conscientious in his studies, he is honest and does the most work silently in the group. When others bully him, he always suffers with a good temper and doesn't talk much.

    "It's alright, teacher, I'm very happy that you can chat with me. I used to be in the village, and people would walk around when they saw me, and no one has ever been as focused as you. Listen to what I have to say."

    "The classmates are also very good, at least they didn't hit me with bricks."

    He spoke very peacefully, but his head was always lowered, his shoulders were hunched, and he had been burdened with heavy insults for so long that his spine had grown deformed and bent.

    She later said to him: "After the evening self-study, as long as you want, you can come to me for private tutoring. If you don't understand anything, if you need my help, just ask."

    He smiled embarrassedly, half of his normal face showing some embarrassed red.

    She has known him for the past two years and is used to him knocking on the door of her dormitory with his back slightly hunched over, bringing her his own essays, essays, and even poetry and asking her for advice .

    Many people like to scold mothers these days, but few people like to write poems.

    He wrote persistently.

    The classmates laughed at him, ugly writing ugly things, sour, more sour than your rotten grapes.

    He smiled and wrote again honestly.

    But now, he doesn't even have that power.

    Mr. Xie thought about the past, sighed in her heart, and looked at the boy in front of her with pity.

    The boy said, "I'm here this time to say goodbye to the teacher. I'm leaving tomorrow."

    "Back home?"

 

    "...Well, that's it."

    The teenager paused: "Teacher, if my disease is not on my face, but in places where others can't see it, everyone will be kinder to me. That would be great."

    Teacher Xie's eyes finally couldn't help reddening. At this stage, she has done all her efforts, but unfortunately she is not his family after all, she can't make the final decision, and she can't save him . The boy's family situation was cramped day by day, and the mother regretted letting the child come out to study. After all, there was a healthy second son in the family who was only in middle school. If the sick one was called back, he could go out with a healthy child.

    She felt that what she did was not wrong. As a mother, she should also weigh her family circumstances, she is fair.

    "You...the paper you put with me last time and asked me to read it for you, I haven't finished editing it yet—"

    Teacher Xie felt that she was about to hold back her tears and changed the subject hastily.

    "But I read it very carefully before, do you want to go through the school leaving procedures later, wait for me to approve all..."

    "No." He smiled and shook his head, "I'll be leaving at dawn."

    She is very regretful, why does she always feel that there is still time?

    Why not stay up all night?

    Why, go shopping, chat, hold that long and meaningless meeting?

    Here is a student's dream that is about to shatter, and a heart that is about to stop. As his last teacher, she can't give his dream a bouquet of flowers to say goodbye.

    "Sorry..."

    "It's all right," he said, "but I ended up writing a poem, can I give it to you?"

    She nodded.

    He took it out of his schoolbag and showed it to her. The paper was so thin that it seemed weightless in his hands.

    She read it word by word, it is a very sweet love poem, hot and warm, but careful, she has seen many love poems written by masters. From the ancients' "When will I lean on the empty guise, and my tears will dry." To today's "My eyes are more beautiful, because I have you in my eyes", but at this moment, it seems that it is not as good as the page held by the teenager.

    He didn't say anything, as if it was a lack of rhythm.

    The boy is a poet, he knows that the love that loses the poetic quality and the disparity of status will only be embarrassing.

    "It's for you."

    The ugly face and the normal face are written with tenderness.

    "Sorry, teacher, I really can't afford any present for you."

    "There's nothing better than this." She turned her back and choked, "You, you eat something, I'll get you some refreshments."

    By rummaging through boxes to control her emotions, Teacher Xie took a jar of butter cookies and put them on the coffee table.

    The boy thanked him politely, and under Teacher Xie's gaze, he finally touched the teacup carefully, but withdrew his hand and said softly, "It's so hot."

    She touched: "How come? Warm."

    But still gave him some cold water to go back.

    The boy drank his favorite biscuits little by little.

 

    After eating and drinking, the night is still long.

    He said, "Teacher, can I read a book with you for a while?"

    "Sure."

    The boy laughed again, a little helpless: "I have to leave, and I will trouble you in the end."

    "It's okay, you can stay for a while... By the way, after you go back, give me an address, and I will send you a copy of the good books you see. You are so smart, in fact Even if it's self-study...it won't be too bad." Teacher Xie could only talk for comfort, "If you need any help, you can find me on WeChat."

    The teenager looked at her: "Thank you."

    Pause.

    "If everyone was like you, then maybe..."

    He lowered his head and said nothing.

      He reads.

    The teenager just spent a whole night in the staff dormitory reading books, as if he had to rely on one night to bring all these words back to his hometown.

    He seldom had such self-confidence, he would not stay too late in the past, always worried that he would disturb the teacher's normal work and rest. But today is an exception.

    Teacher Xie didn't blame him for this last willful way, but she stayed up with him until the middle of the night, she was really sleepy, and fell asleep at the desk unconsciously.

    Hazy, she heard the boy suddenly say to her, "Thank you, teacher."

    She answered him vaguely.

    "One more thing, I want to apologize to you."

    "The theft in the class before... Those students always lost things and couldn't find them, causing you to be criticized. Those things were actually taken by me."

    She was dazedly awake, but she was too tired to get up again.

    The teenager said with a little sadness: "But I didn't want those things, I didn't want a penny. They laughed at me like this, I actually have resentment in my heart... I put all their bags I threw it into the haystack, and then burned it all clean. At that time, they suspected me, but you didn't ask me, so they excused me. In fact, it was me who did this. correct."

    "I don't have the courage to admit that I have only been a normal person in the eyes of one person, even a good person."

    "That person is you."

    "Teacher, I'm vain, aren't I?... But if even you are disappointed in me, I don't know what to do. You are the only recognition I have ever received in my life."

    He said at the end, his voice getting quieter.

    The eyes are clear, almost transparent, and relieved.

    "—The thing I regret most is this... Teacher Xie, I'm really sorry. My illness seems to have been transferred from my face to my heart. If there is a next life, I will I really want to be a normal person...I don't want to be so sick that I don't even qualify for love."

    "Mr. Xie..."

    The wind blew through the window, blowing the paper pages on the table to fly, like a soul-inspiring streamer.

    After that, everything was quiet.

 

    The tea on the table is cold.

    When Teacher Xie woke up the next morning, he found that he had slept in front of the desk all night, and the room was clean. Packed up and left.

    Inevitably, she was a little nervous. She got up and walked to the living room with sleepy eyes.

    Look down at the coffee table—

    But the whole person is like a bucket of ice water, and his eyes are suddenly shocked!

    The tea she poured for the boy yesterday turned into ice, but...but...

    The room temperature is obviously 27 or 8 degrees!

    How? how come?

      , but now it seems that there is no less. The water in the teacup froze into ice cubes, but it was not missing, and finally—

    Finally, the content of that implicit love poem was still in her heart, so he gave her a piece of paper to say goodbye.

    The paper is gone.

    

    She almost shuddered, and suddenly there was a "ding" sound, and the phone vibrated, making her jump up and grab it, it was spam. She breathed a sigh of relief, but she thought of something as if she had just woken up from a dream, so she quickly dialed the boy's phone.

    Beep. beep. beep.

    The heart beats with the mechanical sound.

    "Hello?"

    Yes.

    The person who answered the phone was a familiar middle-aged woman's voice, rough, but at this time with some crying. She exchanged a few words with the mother of the boy on the phone.

    Heart fell into a black hole that could not be seen, and fell down.

    She heard—

    “…”

    "It's you! It's you again! I haven't had time to find you! You should call first!"

    The woman was complaining. Teacher Xie couldn't remember what she said earlier. Her mind was almost blank, and she only heard the last shrill cry, "He's dead! Dead!"

    Blood like ice.

    Dead?

    "You are all bewitched! He quarreled with me and ran out. It was raining heavily outside. The police said that there was a cable exposed there..."

    Teacher Xie was buzzing.

    In the fierce abuse and mourning, she could only barely hear two words, like a ghost like a charm, if not part of the world.

 

    The woman was on the other end of the phone, with a mournful voice:

    "What more? What more?!"

    —

    "Yesterday was his first seven!!"





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