Crossing the Line - Chapter 1

Early in the morning, Gu Tan rubbed her aching eyes and headed out for her usual routine of teaching the children.

She worked at an orphanage where most of the children had lost their families and were forced into this life. Others had obvious physical disabilities; a large portion of them had been abandoned at the orphanage gates by their parents shortly after birth.

“Hello, Teacher Tan!” a little girl greeted her with a bright smile as she passed by.

“Good morning, Xixi. Did you finish all your breakfast today like a good girl?”

“I ate every bit of it!” Gu Tan crouched down and patted her head. “Make sure to study hard. Go on to class now.”

“Okay! Goodbye, Teacher.”

Gu Tan taught music. She had majored in early childhood education in college but had ended up at this orphanage through a twist of fate.

She lived an ordinary life, one that barely left a ripple. At twenty-three, she was a committed singleton and had already been working at the orphanage for a year.

Recently, she had developed a sense of “curiosity” regarding a fourteen-year-old student.

Her name was Shen Yanchuan.

Yan meant speech; Chuan meant mountains and rivers. The name “Yanchuan” carried the hope that the child would one day grow up to speak of all things in the world.

Contrary to that expectation, Shen Yanchuan was a girl of few words, one could even say she was taciturn. It was only when Gu Tan spoke to her privately that she would seriously organize her thoughts, though her answers remained somewhat mechanical.

Through daily observation, Gu Tan discovered that the girl’s behavioral logic was entirely different from that of an average child.

No matter what happened, Shen Yanchuan remained calm. This extreme level of emotional stability was rare even in adults.

Gu Tan made it a habit to memorize the children’s files, and during class, she would mentally match each file to a face. Perhaps it was a small thing, but Gu Tan felt it gave her work meaning.

Shen Yanchuan had entered the orphanage at age eight. Her biological mother was unknown, and she had no major disabilities.

Those were the only few pieces of information recorded in her file.

If Gu Tan wanted to know more about her, she would have to rely on her own observations.

Shen Yanchuan owned a thick notebook with a faux-leather cover. It carried an ancient, weathered scent that seemed entirely out of place for someone her age.

Even during class, she would write in it as if no one else were there.

After watching her several times, Gu Tan finally couldn’t help but walk over to remind her, “Shen Yanchuan, everyone else is practicing their singing. Why are you drifting off?”

Out of respect for the girl’s self-esteem, she didn’t call her out publicly.

Shen Yanchuan’s reaction, however, was surprisingly intense. She slammed the notebook shut and looked at Gu Tan with a wary, defensive gaze, tensely whispering a few words, “I’m sorry, Teacher.”

Startled by her reaction, Gu Tan quickly tried to soothe her. “Don’t be nervous. I just want you to join in the activities with everyone else.”

Shen Yanchuan was one of the older children in the facility. Some were as young as three and couldn’t feed themselves yet, while the oldest was seventeen. The older residents usually had some form of physical or intellectual disability and had never been adopted, meaning they would likely be unable to live independently even after turning eighteen.

But Shen Yanchuan was different. She was physically healthy, intellectually normal, and had even shown a slightly higher IQ than her peers during a previous test.

A family had once tried to adopt her, but for some reason, Shen Yanchuan had been extremely resistant, even refusing to speak to the prospective parents.

A class period wasn’t long, only fifty minutes, and there weren’t many music classes scheduled in a day.

The reason Gu Tan was willing to stay at the orphanage was the stability, the social benefits, and the holidays, even though the salary was quite meager.

Because of this, she lived a frugal life. She owned a small apartment of about seventy square meters, which her mother had bought for her when she first started working. Gu Tan had paid for the renovations herself, taking out a bank loan that she had finally managed to pay off a year ago.

Twenty-three years old, no mortgage, zero savings, a job, and a life full of hope. Gu Tan lay on her soft bed, finally letting out a sigh of relief.

She worked Monday through Friday, and because the orphanage was too far from her home, she chose to live on-site.

There was another reason Gu Tan chose to live there.

Influenced by her mother’s upbringing, she believed in karma and insisted on doing good deeds to accumulate merit.

Her mother’s words often echoed in her ears: “Gu Tan, it’s best for a person never to do anything against their conscience. That’s the only way to sleep soundly at night.”

Over the past three years, Gu Tan would help distribute meals in the cafeteria and watch cartoons with the kids after dinner. Seeing one homeless child after another find a family brought her a sense of happiness.

Compared to the other children, Shen Yanchuan was more sensible, followed the rules, and rarely lost control of her emotions.

Gu Tan always looked at the girl with a sense of pity, feeling that she was clearly gifted but could easily be buried away in this small orphanage.

More than one teacher had discussed Shen Yanchuan with Gu Tan. The most common descriptions were “smart,” “full of spirit,” but “such a shame.”

For some reason, this always made Gu Tan feel uneasy.

She felt she couldn’t just stand by and watch a child’s future be snuffed out by such a cruel reality.

Starting from one particular evening, she began to occasionally talk with Shen Yanchuan, chatting about her future academic plans and the importance of studying hard.

Shen Yanchuan was very obedient. Her eyes would brighten, shining with a focused light, as if she were truly taking every word to heart.

***

It was the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

“Hey, Teacher Gu!” an older woman called out to her. “My kid has a parent-teacher meeting tomorrow. Could you swap shifts with me?” This was her colleague, Xia Hong, who had worked at the orphanage for nearly a decade. She was a bit stout and always had a very kind expression.

Gu Tan agreed without a second thought. “Teacher Xia, which class do you have tomorrow?”

“The first one in the afternoon. Oh, right, the director said they’re giving out mooncakes to the staff tonight. Are you free this evening? If not, I can bring yours to the dorm for you.”

“Then I’ll have to trouble you, Sister Xia.”

That evening, Xia Hong arrived with the mooncakes as promised. “Here, they’re the same as always, five-nut filling.”

Actually, Gu Tan didn’t particularly like such sweets. she was quite disciplined about her lifestyle and would occasionally go for a run in the streets at night.

“How can you young people stand staying here all the time?” Xia Hong asked, while pulling out another small box.

“It’s just a job, they’re all mostly the same. It’s a bit more relaxed here.” Gu Tan pulled over a small chair for Xia Hong to sit on. “Sister Xia, sit for a while.”

“These are meat pies I made, fresh pork filling. They taste better than those five-nut mooncakes. Keep them.”

“You’re too kind.”

Xia Hong had a family and didn’t live on-site because she had to pick up her own child every day. After chatting for a bit, she said her goodbyes.

The iron door closed with a “thud,” leaving Gu Tan alone in the dorm. She looked at the two boxes of mooncakes, feeling a bit conflicted. On a whim, she opened the one provided by the orphanage. They were yellow, stamped mooncakes that looked entirely unappetizing.

She took a bite, and a few strands of candied red and green fruit popped out.

So, Gu Tan opened the ones Xia Hong had given her instead. They were flaky pastry mooncakes. In Gu Tan’s hometown, they didn’t have meat-filled mooncakes, and her gut feeling was that mooncakes and fresh meat didn’t go well together.

However, it was much better than the stamped ones.

At 6:30 PM, the sky wasn’t completely dark yet, just a deep shade of blue.

Gu Tan led the children to dinner as usual. Even though it was Mid-Autumn Festival, the atmosphere in the cafeteria hadn’t changed. If anything was different, it was that several of the cafeteria ladies had already left.

Gu Tan wasn’t a homesick person. Besides, her mother was far away in a neighboring town, and she couldn’t just abandon her work to go back.

The children didn’t have mooncakes, and even the dishes were more half-hearted than usual. Cold tomato and scrambled eggs sat pitifully on the children’s trays.

“Teacher Tan, I want to eat a steamed bun,” a girl said, clumsily holding her spoon as if eating were an incredibly difficult task.

“There are no buns tonight. How about we have some tomorrow?”

The girl stared at Gu Tan, then sat back down resignedly to eat, shoving the rice into her mouth grain by grain.

After dinner, Gu Tan took them to the television hall to watch Boonie Bears. They had seen it many times, but some of the children always wanted to watch it again.

The TV hall was on the second floor of the dormitory building. The windows were reinforced with security bars, but the iron railings couldn’t block out the moonlight. Gu Tan noticed that Shen Yanchuan was sitting in the corner, still writing.

What on earth is she writing?

Gu Tan’s curiosity flared up again. She had been observing this girl for six months and had seen her write from the middle of the notebook until only a quarter of it was left.

What could a fourteen-year-old child have so much to write about?

Once the cartoon ended, the children had to return to their dorms to rest. Being one of the older kids, Shen Yanchuan took on the responsibility of leading the younger ones back.

At the same time, Shen Yanchuan was also observing Gu Tan.

Her Teacher Gu seemed almost too kind. Shen Yanchuan noticed that she remembered every child’s name in the orphanage, including hers.

Even during dinner, Gu Tan would occasionally walk over to Shen Yanchuan and stand there for ten minutes, not leaving until she saw that every bit of food on the tray had been finished.

Shen Yanchuan truly didn’t understand the point of her doing this.

“Shen Yanchuan, stay behind for a moment.” She heard the teacher call her name and stopped in her tracks.

Gu Tan stood there for a moment, seemingly waiting for something.

“Teacher, what is it?”

A moment later, Shen Yanchuan noticed the moonlight reflecting off the teacher’s face, making her look exceptionally radiant. Once the other children had all returned to the dorms, Gu Tan finally spoke, “Do you want some mooncakes?”

Shen Yanchuan had never eaten a mooncake, but she knew that people were supposed to eat them during the Mid-Autumn Festival, and that they were meant to be shared with family. To her, that was a fairy tale.

Gu Tan brought her to her dorm, poured out all the mooncakes, and then pulled out a white plastic bag to pack them together. “Take these and share them with the other kids. Remember to make sure they finish them and clean up the trash.”

Shen Yanchuan froze for two seconds before politely saying, “Thank you, Teacher.”

In the past fourteen years of her life, this was the first time Shen Yanchuan had felt the touch of light, even if that light was meant to shine on everyone.

To her, Teacher Gu was more like a fixed star, emitting a constant and enduring glow.