Si Teng (Rattan) – Five Years Later – CH11

Qin Fang?

Xizhu’s eyes widened in surprise. Before he could say anything, Kong Jinghua’s footsteps were almost behind him, followed by a chilling sound.

“Xixi… Xixi…”

Qin Fang frowned, a hint of pre-confrontation solemnity flashing in his eyes. Just then, Xizhu suddenly pulled him back, whispering, “Don’t let her find out.”

Don’t let her find out? Did she mean to avoid a direct confrontation?

In the meager light, Qin Fang saw Kong Jinghua’s long, slanted figure almost around the corner of the stairwell. Without a second thought, he pushed against the wall behind him for leverage, moving backwards, and almost instantly his back hit the ceiling.

Although she had expected this, Xizhu still felt a pang of sourness: She could have done it in the past too, right? She’d done far better than Qin Fang.

She hugged Qin Fang’s neck and desperately turned her head to look down. Right below her was Kong Jinghua’s head. Sometimes the light was brighter, and she could see the sparse white hair on her head. Her shadow and body were so thin, slowly walking down the stairs.

Xizhu held her breath until she was out of sight, then turned back with a sense of relief.

Huh?

Qin Fang was looking at her.

Xizhu’s eyes rolled around, and she greeted him, “Hello.”

Suddenly, she remembered something. “Oh! My teacher!”

Lin Juan was not seriously injured; she had indeed fainted from shock. Qin Fang closed the window, tucked her in again, and tried to restore everything to normal—though if she woke up tomorrow morning and remembered something, there would inevitably be a commotion, but who cared? It wasn’t his problem.

As he did this, Xizhu leaned against the door, waiting for him. She seemed a little sleepy and yawned twice. Qin Fang deliberately ignored her, closed the door, and walked out. After walking down the hallway for a while, he heard the sound of footsteps behind him. Sure enough, she was following him.

As they neared the stairs, Qin Fang paused, turned around, looked at her for a moment, and slowly squatted down. “You’re not a child, are you?”

After what had just happened, pretending to be a child again seemed a bit far-fetched. Xizhu nodded. “Actually, I’m a monster.”

After saying that, he added, trying to be friendly, “You too, right?”

Qin Fang stared at her. “What kind of monster are you?”

“Monster… a stone monster. What about you?”

“I’m a stone monster too.”

A hint of anger flashed across Xizhu’s eyes, as if to say, “Liar!”

Qin Fang pretended not to notice, “Why are you so small?”

“Because I’m… a little demon.”

The conversation was truly devoid of sincerity. Qin Fang stood up and said expressionlessly, “Then, little demon, go wherever you want to play.”

With that, he turned and walked away. Xizhu was stunned at first, then annoyed. After weighing the pros and cons, she had to chase after him, “Hey, hey…”

A wise man knows the situation. Of course, she couldn’t expose herself in front of Qin Fang, but she couldn’t let him get away either.

Qin Fang turned around and saw her panting with her short legs. He was both angry and amused. Xizhu ran closer, panting heavily and with her hands on her hips, like an old lady who had just run 800 miles. “Bend down… I… have something to say.”

Qin Fang didn’t bend. “Just say it.”

Xizhu had no choice but to look up at him, her neck stiff and aching. “There aren’t many monsters in this world. Let’s be friends and help each other.”

At this point, his face suddenly serious and his voice laced with intimidation, he said, “That one just now might have been a monster too.”

What kind of auspicious day was this? Were all the monsters gathering for a meeting? Qin Fang laughed and pointed out, “You’re actually afraid of her, so you’re looking for someone to protect you, right?”

Afraid? What a joke. Why would she be afraid? She was just temporarily unable to defeat Kong Jinghua.

Qin Fang was becoming increasingly annoying. He used to be so timid that he wouldn’t dare challenge her. Xizhu’s heart was boiling with anger, and the words “Do you know who I am?” were almost on the verge of escaping…

Suddenly, she realized something. No, no. Qin Fang had been respectful to her before because she held the upper hand. Now, their positions were practically reversed. As the saying goes, a phoenix removed from its perch is worse than a chicken, and a tiger in plain sight is bullied by dogs. Xizhu could be bullied and mocked, but Si Teng couldn’t. After all, once she transformed back into Si Teng, who would know about Xizhu’s situation?

She put on a pitiful expression. “For the sake of us being stone…”

Qin Fang glanced at her, turned around, and left without a word. Xizhu watched him go, crestfallen and dejected. “As you know, ‘Birds of a feather flock together,'” she thought. “How could Qin Fang be any better when he spends all day with Yi Ru? Or maybe I should go find Yan Furui. If that doesn’t work, Wang Qiankun would be fine too; he’s an acquaintance after all…”

Just as I was lost in thought, a voice suddenly drifted from the front, “Aren’t you leaving yet?”

Huh? Did Qin Fang… agree?

Back in the car in the rain, Qin Fang handed a towel to Xizhu. Xizhu took it and wiped it all over her face. As she did so, a thought suddenly struck her: Why was Qin Fang here this evening?

He said he’d been following her all the way, but that seemed a bit too serious. Could he be following… Kong Jinghua?

“Do you think… there’s something wrong with Kong Jinghua?”

Qin Fang didn’t look at her but started the windshield wipers. “Of course there is. If there wasn’t, could she have climbed up the sixth-floor wall with her bare hands? And you just told me, ‘Don’t let her find out.’ Is she that impressive?”

Xizhu said nothing. The wipers moved rhythmically back and forth. Just as they’d cleaned the windshield, a new wave of rain stains began to fall.

Was Kong Jinghua that impressive? Not necessarily. Although she was certain she was a demon, and despite Kong Jinghua’s repeated chilling behavior, Xizhu had a hunch: even if she was a demon, she was far inferior to Chen Yindeng or Bai Ying.

As for why she “kept it a secret,” it was because she suddenly had a plan.

She didn’t directly answer Qin Fang’s question, “Is Yi Ru Kong Jinghua’s daughter?”

“Yes, she used to be called Xizhu.”

Xizhu sat up straight. “How did you meet her?”

The rain was still pouring, and Qin Fang wasn’t in a hurry to leave. He briefly recounted Yi Ru’s story. After all, she wasn’t really a child, so Qin Fang didn’t hide the gory details and collusion.

Xizhu’s eyes widened. “Was she photographed? Did she say she was going to call the police? Could it have been those guys who did it? Did you fight with him? Was his arm that tough? And what else did you discover?”

What else did he discover? The fight was brief, so he didn’t notice anything unusual.

Before Qin Fang could say anything, Xizhu suddenly blurted out, “Could the murderer be Kong Jinghua?”

—I’ve seen the photo of Yi Ru she kept hidden. At first, I wondered how she could have such a photo. Now that I think about it, if those thugs took it, they might have threatened Yi Ru with the photo when they heard she was going to call the police, and then it somehow ended up in Kong Jinghua’s hands.

—Kong Jinghua’s arm is also very strong. I just stabbed her with a knife, and she didn’t react at all.

Qin Fang subconsciously retorted, “But the man I fought that night was tall, clearly a man…”

He stopped mid-sentence, a strange feeling rising in his heart.

Clearly a man?

He had even briefly suspected Kong Jinghua’s “husband,” with whom she had a troubled relationship, but at that moment, a flash of enlightenment struck him, and he suddenly realized what was happening.

Wasn’t Chen Yindeng, originally, neither male nor female? What if Kong Jinghua could be either but leaned more towards the female side? This would explain why she had a husband who rarely showed up but never divorced. After all, in a society like China, a normal marriage made things easier, like…adopting a child.

So, only one question remained. “Yi Ru told me her mother had always been kind to her and never hit her. Why would she suddenly go against her will and kill her own child?”

Xizhu said, “Don’t think of it as killing.”

“Killing is so simple. Just take a knife, slash the throat, and the person is dead. She didn’t kill Yi Ru; she chopped off her hands and feet one by one. If you hadn’t shown up, who knows if she was going to kill Yi Ru or just leave her at that?”

Was there a difference between killing a person and chopping off their limbs? In a sense, Qin Fang even felt that the latter was more cruel: a single blow would be better than a life worse than death, right?

A strange light flashed in Xizhu’s eyes. She said, “Just let me know two more things.”

“First, what kind of monster is Kong Jinghua?”

“Second, she’s adopted at least three Xizhus. I’m the third, and Yi Ru is the second. I want to know what happened to the first Xizhu.”

By the time they returned to the hotel, daybreak had already begun. Xizhu was so sleepy she couldn’t even open her eyes. She climbed onto the sofa as soon as she entered the room, sprawled out with her arms and legs spread, and fell asleep. Qin Fang asked her, “Do monsters get sleepy too?”

Xizhu mumbled, “Little monster.”

She fell silent after that, snoring soundly like a curled-up puppy. Qin Fang helped her take off her shoes and socks, picked her up and put her to bed, pulled the quilt over her tightly, and looked at her in silence for a long time.

Little monster, she would eventually grow up.

Xizhu slept until dusk. When she woke up yawning, she had almost no idea of the time. Following her morning routine, she went to the bathroom. As she climbed out of bed, she saw Qin Fang sitting on the sofa next to her, reading a book. He exchanged pleasantries with her, “Up so early?”

Qin Fang smiled. “A lot of interesting things have happened this day.”

Interesting…things?

Xizhu suddenly woke up.

Several things did happen that day, though whether they were truly interesting was hard to say.

—After Lin Juan woke up, she first called the police, screaming that her child was missing. Then, after coming to her senses, she called to apologize, saying she’d misremembered and that the child’s parents must have taken her away in the middle of the night.

—Several kindergarten teachers went to Kong Jinghua’s house but couldn’t get the door open. Kong Jinghua hadn’t returned home, but she hadn’t come to the kindergarten to demand Xizhu’s return.

—Qin Fang used the daytime to inquire about Kong Jinghua’s situation. Sure enough, Kong Jinghua had adopted a child before Yi Ru. However, the child had died at the age of five or six, reportedly from tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis? Xizhu wasn’t familiar with the disease. “Is it serious?”

“It’s contagious. Medical care wasn’t advanced back then, so it was very serious. But now it’s not a serious illness. But the child died in the 1980s, when living standards were generally low, so it’s possible.”

At this point, Qin Fang paused. “Of course, there’s another possibility. If the child didn’t die of a natural illness, it’s very likely that Kong Jinghua was behind it.”

If Kong Jinghua had killed Yi Ru because Yi Ru was obscene and disobedient, causing her to lose her mind in anger, that would make sense. But the first Xizhu was only five or six years old, not as impulsive as the Xizhu before her. What could she have done to disobey Kong Jinghua?