Diagnosis: Friend [Rebirth] - Chapter 11

Chapter 11

The boy said, “She’s not here.”

Jiang Qing asked: “Then has she been going to school these past few days?”

According to what Chen Yajun said, No. 9 had been suspended for several days.

The boy replied: “No, the teachers won’t let her go.”

“What time did she leave the house today? What was she going to do?” Meeting the boy’s suspicious gaze, Jiang Qing slowed her speech and offered a gentle smile. “I’m her friend. I have something to talk to her about.”

After a long pause, the child finally said: “She left in the morning. I don’t know what for.”

A dead end.

Jiang Qing stepped onto the damp mud, leaving a trail of blurry footprints behind her. It hadn’t rained in the last two days, but this area lacked a proper drainage system. Families would splash their used water out their front doors; over time, the road had turned into a foul-smelling ditch. You could smell the stench from over ten meters away.

Her phone rang.

The screen displayed an incoming call from Gu Yining. Jiang Qing stared at the complex characters of the name. By the time she answered, it had already rung twice.

A strange female voice came through the phone: “Jiang Qing?”

After a few seconds, Jiang Qing asked: “May I ask who this is…? You aren’t the owner of the phone, are you?”

The person on the other end laughed: “She dropped her phone, and I happened to pick it up. Classmate Jiang Qing, long time no see. Can’t recognize my voice?”

Jiang Qing: “I’m sorry.”

“My name is—”

At that moment, a train whistle let out a long howl, followed by the clack-clack of the tracks which completely drowned out the girl’s voice. Atop a pile of old, grass-covered stones, Tan Baozhu turned her head, her gaze following the train carriages as they disappeared into the sunset.

Once the train noise passed, the anxious voice of the girl on the other end returned, but Tan Baozhu wasn’t in the mood to listen. Her leather shoes stepped on the waist-high grass, slowly crushing the green sap out of the stems.

Perhaps finally noticing her indifference, the voice on the phone stopped.

Her shoes were stained with sticky juice. Tan Baozhu said, “I don’t know where I am exactly.” She laughed. “There’s grass, there are stones, and there’s no one else.”

Tan Baozhu seemed to sigh, looking up at the darkening sky. “The sunset is beautiful.”

She hung up the phone and squatted on the high stones. Not far away, a streetlamp emitted a faint, ghostly white light. Before long, a girl appeared under the lamp, tapping something on her phone. Immediately, Gu Yining’s phone rang, and the girl followed the sound to look at her.

Found me pretty fast.

Tan Baozhu jumped down from the stone pile and walked leisurely over to the girl. She was still in that same dress; the fabric was stiff, and as the wind blew, it whipped against her legs. She handed the phone to the girl, who was busy studying her face. “Classmate Tan?”

Tan Baozhu: “Mm.”

She stared at the girl. “I just picked up the phone by accident. As for Gu Yining, she seemed to head that way. People were with her; I didn’t dare talk to them.”

Jiang Qing gripped the worn, second-hand phone. Unlike her own old-school device, Gu Yining’s was a smartphone. She looked up and asked: “Was it boys or girls? About how long ago did they leave?”

“About half an hour ago.”

In the dimness, Jiang Qing saw Tan Baozhu fish something out of her pocket. A “click” followed, and a small flame gathered between Tan Baozhu’s palms. She bit onto a thin cigarette and leaned toward the flame. “Both. None of them are the type you want to mess with. Good student, I advise you not to meddle.”

She spoke with the cigarette between her teeth, making her words slightly slurred.

Jiang Qing said: “Thank you.”

She immediately bolted in the direction Tan Baozhu had pointed.

Following the direction indicated, the light grew dim. Both sides were filled with ruins and broken tiles. She had likely entered an area scheduled for demolition; the houses were torn down, but the developer had fled, leaving this region a “holy land” for student fights.

The deeper she went, the darker the streetlamps became. Zhou Xuening was not answering her calls. Jiang Qing’s heart was in her throat, and her legs trembled with every step forward.

A few dark silhouettes appeared ahead. Jiang Qing kept her head down and walked cautiously. Only when she got close did she dare steal a glance—it was just a few boys squatting on a broken wall, smoking. They glanced at Jiang Qing, and seeing that she was just a passerby, they went back to their own conversation.

A suffocating, dilapidated atmosphere hung over the ruins. Tall weeds grew along the damp mud. In the distance was a dark mass that Jiang Qing realized, after staring for a long time, was a patch of woods.

Voices drifted from ahead—it sounded like seven or eight people. Their laughter was punctuated by one or two shrill cries. Jiang Qing’s heart beat faster with every second, practically jumping into her throat.

Her phone buzzed with a message. Before she could take it out, a gruff male voice barked: “What are you doing here!”

Jiang Qing looked up.

Under a utility pole stood seven or eight people. Half of them held silver steel pipes. A bruised and swollen person knelt on the ground, head bowed and trembling. Three girls stood to the side, wearing sun-protection shirts over knitted camisoles and denim miniskirts.

The outfits looked familiar.

Her gaze swept lightly over the girls. In a flash, Jiang Qing remembered—those were the three girls she had encountered in the No. 9 restroom.

Gu Yining might be nearby.

The man standing at the front sized her up. Large tattoos were visible on both his arms. He spat on the ground: “I’m asking you, why are you here?”

The girl trembled slightly, a look of panic on her face: “I… I… I’m just passing through.”

The man snorted: “Passing through here? You don’t know what kind of place this is?”

The girl’s eyes darted around, her fingers tugging at the sleeve of her school jacket. She whispered: “I… I don’t know. I thought I could take a shortcut through here.”

No one replied. In the deathly quiet night, the only sound was the pained, labored breathing of the boy on the ground.

After a long while, the man waved his arm. “Get lost.” He turned to point at the person on the ground. “Tie him back up. As for that girl who ran off, surname… Gu, right? Tell the other brothers to keep looking. I’m going to teach her a lesson she won’t forget.”

In a corner where no one was watching, the girl who had turned to leave clenched her palms tight, her footsteps rapid.

Jiang Qing had no information now. She could only rely on her knowledge of Gu Yining to guess where she might run… but she wasn’t sure if it would work. She hadn’t known the current Gu Yining in her past life, and her understanding didn’t cover this version of her.

She walked straight down the path and soon reached a fork. Jiang Qing took one look and turned left. Before long, she entered the shadow-drenched woods.

There were no streetlamps; the woods were pitch black. Small animals breathed quietly in the silent night, and the smell of damp earth rushed at her. Jiang Qing stepped on the soft soil covered in dry leaves and twigs, which crunched under her feet. After a few steps, she accidentally bumped into a tree trunk.

Jiang Qing recoiled half a step, rubbing her forehead. It was black as pitch, with only a few stray beams of light filtering through the sparse leaves to hit the roots.

Not until the voices in the distance had completely faded did Jiang Qing turn on her phone’s flashlight. She used it to light the dark path ahead, looking around and tentatively calling out Gu Yining’s name in a low voice.

Only the rustling of leaves touching responded.

The woods weren’t large and could be crossed quickly. After a moment, Jiang Qing looked up through the layers of trunks; the lights of billboards from distant high-rises were vaguely visible. Maybe Gu Yining had already escaped.

Jiang Qing called out Gu Yining’s name again softly. Still no response. In the deep darkness, there was a tiny snap as if a branch had fallen to the ground.

It was chilly in the woods. She blinked, pulled her school jacket tight, and was about to move forward when she suddenly felt someone observing her from behind. A chill ran through her entire body.

In the next instant, a hand reached out from behind her neck and covered her nose.

“Jiang Qing, it’s me.”

It was Gu Yining.

Jiang Qing’s struggling hands dropped. The person behind her felt like a heavy boulder, putting all her weight onto Jiang Qing. Jiang Qing sniffed; her breath was shaking: “Are you bleeding?”

Gu Yining didn’t speak. She just pulled her backward. Sensing that the girl’s body was swaying as if she might collapse, Jiang Qing quickly stepped up to support her.

After a few steps, Gu Yining seemed unable to stand. she fell into a haystack, taking Jiang Qing down with her.

Her voice was very low: “All the exit routes are blocked. I can’t get out.”

In the darkness, Jiang Qing reached out to help her but only felt a sticky liquid. She gasped: “There’s blood.”

Her wrist was caught by a warm palm. She heard Gu Yining panting, her breath hot against Jiang Qing’s neck: “It’s just a nosebleed.”

She let go of Jiang Qing’s hand, sat up, moved aside a bunch of straw, and reached out to feel around. She crawled into a hole that had been revealed. Once settled, she beckoned to Jiang Qing: “You come in, too.”

When Jiang Qing crawled into the haystack, warm air immediately surrounded them. Gu Yining turned her upper body and reached out to cover the entrance.

After this sequence of movements, Gu Yining leaned against Jiang Qing. Below them was soft straw; looking up, faint moonlight filtered through the sparse stalks.

Jiang Qing asked: “The injuries on your body?”

Gu Yining said: “It’s nothing. I just got hit a few times. I ran fast, but I accidentally tripped and got a nosebleed.” In the darkness, she turned her head toward Jiang Qing. “How did you find me here?”

Jiang Qing smelled the metallic scent of blood on her and frowned. “I called you and you didn’t answer. I met Tan Baozhu on the way, and she said you were here.”

Once Gu Yining’s breathing gradually steadied, Jiang Qing asked: “Why did they want to beat you? Many of them don’t look like high schoolers; they look like adults.”

“It’s probably about the situation at school. They think I’m the one who provided the evidence, so they called in some thugs. I was intercepted as soon as I left home today.” Hearing her move, Gu Yining thought she was uncomfortable lying there and reached out to wrap an arm around her waist. “Move closer.”

In the small space, Jiang Qing’s cheeks suddenly heated up. Fortunately, it was pitch black, and Gu Yining didn’t notice anything unusual.

Gu Yining chuckled: “I seem to have dragged you into trouble again.”

She actually didn’t quite understand it herself. Her relationship with Jiang Qing wasn’t particularly deep—they had only met three times—so why would Jiang Qing risk such danger to find her?

Jiang Qing said: “I came looking for you on my own; it’s not your fault.” Thinking of the text message she just got back from Zhou Xuening, she added: “I’ve already called the police. They’ll be here soon. Just wait a little longer.”

“Jiang Qing.”

Gu Yining called her name. The voice was like an evening breeze over fine sand, possessing a unique texture.

Jiang Qing asked softly: “What is it?”

Gu Yining’s hand was still on Jiang Qing’s waist. She didn’t know where else to put it, so she just left it there. She pulled Jiang Qing closer, nuzzling against her slightly. “Why are you so good to me?”

There was no sound to her laugh, but Jiang Qing could clearly tell she was smiling. She turned her head toward Gu Yining. It was dark in the haystack, and she couldn’t see her face, but she traced the features in her mind from memory.

They were very close. Gu Yining’s breath brushed against Jiang Qing’s face, and she smelled the scent unique to Gu Yining. That scent enveloped her, just as it had many years ago when they would mess around lying on the bed.

Her heart beat like a drum. Jiang Qing silently turned her head away. “Maybe because… you’re a good person.”

The sound of approaching footsteps was heard. Jiang Qing immediately went silent, holding her breath to listen to the movement outside.

A group of people entered the woods. Their steel pipes reflected cold light under the beams of flashlights. Li Rong held a flashlight, scanning the surroundings. Seeing no one suspicious, she stamped her foot, the shame and anger of being toyed with surging up: “This place is so small. Where could she have run off to?”