Before ascending to the second floor, Chen Qingning noticed nothing out of the ordinary.
Even when Yu Bei stopped at the gated railing at the top of the stairs to unlock it, she assumed the family might have gotten a small dog.
These kinds of gate doors were common in pet stores.
This one was taller, though—Chen Qingning discreetly measured it with her eyes; it came up to about her chest.
The person who came to greet them at the sound of the noise was an elderly woman with short, salt-and-pepper hair, a short, round face, and a red-and-black plaid smock. Her hands were still wet, as if she'd just stepped out of the kitchen.
Yu Bei entered and said, "Auntie Xu."
Chen Qingning kept her mouth shut and followed him in.
The elderly woman glanced at her but didn't ask questions, only beaming at Yu Bei: "Already eaten, Teacher Yu."
Yu Bei nodded, looked further inside, and asked, "In his room?"
The old woman said, "Yes, he just finished eating."
Yu Bei's gaze settled on one spot, and he spoke toward the interior: "Chang Kangle, have you eaten too?"
His tone was uncharacteristically loud, which also made Chen Qingning crane her neck, following the direction of the name he called.
It was a little boy—a short little thing—sitting back on the sofa, using his bent legs as a tablet stand, staring at the electronic screen with complete absorption.
He hadn't heard Yu Bei call him at all.
Chen Qingning let out a snort of laughter.
Auntie Xu couldn't stand his being so lost in his own world, so she raised her voice sharply: "Lele, Teacher Yu is asking you a question!"
The little boy looked up, dazed and confused.
Yu Bei kicked aside a small white-and-green ball blocking his path and walked closer to him: "Is it good?"
The child showed no fear: "It's good."
He noticed the unfamiliar face behind Yu Bei and pouted: "Who is she?"
Yu Bei didn't introduce Chen Qingning, only telling Auntie Xu to go about her business, and handled Lele himself: "Answer one of my questions, and I'll tell you who this big sister is."
Big sister?
Chen Qingning curled her lips. Our old uncle Yu Bei has pretty good eyesight after all.
Yu Bei sat down on the armrest of the sofa beside him. Lele paused his tablet and looked up: "Ask away."
Yu Bei asked, "Has your brother eaten yet?"
There's a brother too? Chen Qingning listened while looking for a place to put her feet.
The living room was a mess—the tiles were covered with toy cars and dismembered Ultraman figures. Light from the balcony streamed in, illuminating the character-recognition wall charts pasted on the white walls.
From behind the wall came the faint sound of washing and scrubbing—probably Auntie Xu doing the dishes.
Lele answered, "He's eaten."
Yu Bei said, "Did he eat with you?"
Lele nodded: "Yes."
"How much did he eat?"
"More than a bowl."
Chen Qingning stared at the two of them in astonishment, clicking her tongue in amazement: Yu Bei, I never knew you had a side gig as a childcare grandpa.
Chen Qingning had also been raised by a live-in nanny who changed her diapers and wiped her nose. Shen Minhua's role was just to show her face and swipe her card. Even so, she was still very close to her parents and never doubted that they loved her.
The environment was a mess, and Chen Qingning had nowhere to sit, so she ended up on the armrest at the other end of the sofa.
Lele looked left and right—two adults flanking him like guardian beasts—and couldn't help but shout: "You haven't answered me yet!"
Yu Bei was about to speak, but Chen Qingning grabbed the conversation first: "I'm Teacher Yu's personal campus-beauty assistant, Teacher Chen."
Yu Bei: "…"
Lele: "Kicking Chen?"
Chen Qingning: "How is your English worse than mine?"
Lele got scolded out of nowhere and turned to Yu Bei for help.
Chen Qingning followed his gaze to Yu Bei: "You tutor him?"
"No," the man finally revealed his hand: "You're in charge of him."
Chen Qingning froze: "Me?"
"Yeah."
She was surprised: "I have no tutoring experience."
Yu Bei said, "Just play with him for an hour."
Chen Qingning blinked her lashes: "What about you? Watching the show?"
Yu Bei said, "I'm teaching his brother."
When adults are dumbfounded, kids get cheeky. Lele suddenly broke into a mischievous grin and spoke in a surprisingly mature tone: "You didn't know Teacher Yu teaches my brother?"
Chen Qingning: "I'm new here."
"Oh." He finally gave her a proper once-over.
Chen Qingning struck a pose worthy of a coconut juice packaging: "Never seen a teacher as pretty as me, have you?"
Lele giggled and was about to answer when the space in front of him went empty—Yu Bei had snatched the tablet away and closed it without mercy.
"I haven't finished this episode yet—" Lele jumped up from the sofa in despair, pleading to no avail. Just as he was about to throw a tantrum and deploy his signature floor-flopping move, Yu Bei made a "shh" gesture and glanced at the closed door.
As if hit by a binding spell, Lele plopped back down, his face still gloomy, but he stopped making a fuss.
Yu Bei placed the tablet on a high shelf crammed with colorful children's books of varying heights.
Yu Bei suggested, "Read a book with the big sister?"
Lele said nothing, hugging his knees.
"Play with him." His gaze shifted to Chen Qingning: "I'm going in."
Chen Qingning stood up, making a last-ditch effort: "Didn't you say you'd bring me up to watch how you do home tutoring?"
Yu Bei said, "This is part of the tutoring."
"How can you just change your mind like that?" Chen Qingning had no one to appeal to, so she turned to look toward the kitchen: "Can't that auntie stay with him?"
Yu Bei said, "She's off this afternoon. You hold the fort for a bit."
So she'd been tricked into coming upstairs to be a playmate. Chen Qingning only wanted to bolt out the door. She knew Lele's type of little brat all too well—a husky puppy in human form, glued to his electronic devices, letting reason go in one ear and out the other, and liable to tear the place apart when he got too excited.
Because she used to be exactly that kind of little brat.
She glanced sideways at Lele's dejected round head.
Playing companion to a miniature male version of herself didn't seem so bad after all.
She accepted Yu Bei's task, whispering, "I'll bring you the tablet in a bit."
The spiky-haired head shot up, turning into an eager little face.
"I heard that." The man heading into the room paused.
Chen Qingning's heart lurched. She clenched her fist and coughed: "I was joking."
Then she patted the phone in her pocket, lowering her voice even more: "No tablet, but I've got my phone."
Lele accepted her in zero point one seconds.
After Yu Bei entered the room, the sound of water in the kitchen also stopped, and the apartment fell suddenly silent. The man's voice came through from beyond the wall, as if through a receiver, not quite clear:
"Chen Xiaoshan, I brought you another bottle cap."
Chen Qingning held her breath, but heard no response from the child in the room—only two "ang-ang" sounds.
Then Yu Bei again:
"I'll put it in the box first. We'll have our lesson, and I'll give it to you after."
Finally, the child's voice emerged, saying loudly: "Okay—"
That "okay" wasn't pronounced accurately, like a babbling infant. Chen Qingning frowned and looked down at Lele, only to find him also listening to the sounds through the wall.
Chen Qingning asked, "Is your brother hearing-impaired?"
Lele looked up, confused: "What's hearing-impaired?"
Chen Qingning touched her ear: "It means he can't hear, or can't hear very well."
Lele shook his head: "No, he's stupid."
Chen Qingning was stunned.
She didn't quite believe it: "How can you say that about your own brother?" Though she often called Shen Can an idiot too, she was a teacher now, and in that role she should act the part—putting on a proper display of sibling harmony: "You should respect your brother, respect your family."
But Lele insisted: "He really is stupid. Mom says he's mentally disabled too."
Chen Qingning lost the ability to speak for a few seconds. This was the first time she'd directly faced this kind of situation, this kind of family. Fragments of special education schools grew in her mind, intertwining with what she was seeing and hearing.
She suddenly knew what kind of children Qu Xiao was teaching.
She also knew why, walking through the school corridors, she'd always see children who looked odd—some who seemed quite old, taller than her, yet with especially dull, vacant eyes; some who completely ignored her, even when she smiled brightly; and one day, passing through the corridor, she'd inadvertently glimpsed the equipment area, where a boy kept pushing a yellow tire along the edge of the field, over and over without stopping.
A chill ran down Chen Qingning's spine.
She quietly clenched her hands and changed the subject: "But you're very smart."
Lele seemed to be cursing someone: "Because I'm not mentally disabled."
Chen Qingning asked, "Did your brother hit his head?"
Lele leaned against the sofa, his two chubby feet kicking back and forth: "No. Mom says he was born like that—his brain isn't good. His dad even ran away."
Chen Qingning's eyes widened: "You don't have the same dad?"
Lele nodded: "We have the same mom."
Chen Qingning fell silent.
She secretly slipped her hand into her pants pocket, long-pressed the side button, and only after confirming the vibration did she softly clap her hands and look around: "What should we play, Lele?"
Lele pouted: "Weren't you going to give me your phone?"
Chen Qingning wagged her phone: "No no, we have to pretend to play a game first. Otherwise, when Teacher Yu comes out and sees me secretly giving you my phone, he'll be really angry."
"We have to commit to the act," Chen Qingning declared confidently, pulling out her phone and placing it on the coffee table: "See, I said I'd do it, so I did. My phone's right here."
"Huh? Why is the screen black?" She scrunched her eyebrows, tapping away: "What's going on? Is my phone dead?"
Lele leaned in, patting the pitch-black screen too, joining her: "There's nothing showing!"
Chen Qingning echoed his words: "Right, why isn't anything showing?"
She slapped her forehead: "Oh no, I must have forgotten to charge it this morning when I left."
Lele volunteered eagerly: "I'll find you a charger! I have a charging cable!"
With that, he jumped off the sofa.
Chen Qingning smirked inwardly, then, when the little boy came stumbling over dragging a white data cable, she took it, aimed at the port several times, and finally shrugged helplessly: "Our phones aren't the same brand. Your cable won't work with mine…"
Lele froze.
The pretty teacher's face looked terribly upset—regretful and sincere. He gave up in despair: "Then what do we play, Ball-Kicking Teacher?"
"Who's Ball-Kicking Teacher?"
"You are."
"I'm Teacher Chen, not Ball-Kicking Teacher. My surname is Chen."
"My mom's surname is Chen too!"
"What Chen? Also the 'ear-east' Chen?"
"Yeah!"
…
The noise in the living room grew louder. Yu Bei glanced back through the crack in the door, walked over, and closed it.
Back at the table, he sat down across from the boy who had been staring blankly at the visual cue cards, now frantically tugging at the hair on both sides of his head.
Yu Bei reassured him: "It's a bit noisy outside. I closed the door."
The boy didn't look at him, but began to gently rock his upper body back and forth, bumping against the edge of the table.
Yu Bei reminded him, "Chen Xiaoshan, put your hands down. Our bus hasn't reached Qingshuitang Vegetable Market yet."
The boy repeated in a slurred voice, "Vegetable market." He lifted his head after speaking.
Catching the student's gaze, Yu Bei immediately followed up, "That's right, vegetable market. You've already placed the card with the number 2 under Nanbu Bridge."
"Nanbu Bridge."
"Two."
Yu Bei's finger moved back and forth between the two laminated cards stacked vertically in the center: "Your placement is correct. Nanbu Bridge is the second stop."
Within his emotionless words, Chen Xiaoshan slowly lowered the hand that had been rubbing his head.
Yu Bei said, "Pick up the card with the number 3."
Chen Xiaoshan lowered his eyes, shaking his head as he searched. He touched the card: "Three."
Yu Bei said, "That's right. What's the third stop?"
Chen Xiaoshan answered without hesitation, "Vegetable market."
Yu Bei nodded. "Find it."
Chen Xiaoshan pinched the "3" card with both hands, buried his face again, and let his gaze roam back and forth across the cards on the table. Yu Bei waited at his leisure.
A moment later, the boy looked at him joyfully, using the card in his hand to tap the card printed with a simple line drawing of a vegetable market: "This one! This one!"
Yu Bei smiled faintly. "You found it. What should you do now?"
Chen Xiaoshan answered, "Put it underneath."
Yu Bei said, "Do it."
Watching the small hands place the card neatly in the correct position, Yu Bei followed up, "Which stop is Qingshuitang Vegetable Market?"
"Three."
"Very good," he let out a breath. "We'll get off here today, alright?"
Yu Bei took a bottle cap from the transparent acrylic box beside him and handed it to the boy, whose eyes were shining.
He held it up excitedly, placed it on the table, and spun it around.
Watching him play with it contentedly for a while, Yu Bei turned to look at the sky outside the window, then checked the time on his phone. He tapped into WeChat, planning to send a voice message to Sister Chen downstairs, letting her know the lesson was over and she could come up to take over the child.
His thumb paused over the Chen surname entry. He turned his head to look at the wall.
The person with the most eye-catching cartoon avatar had gone completely silent.
Yu Bei listened carefully, then left his seat, opened the door, and walked out into the hallway. The living room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop, and the scene involving Chen Qingning never failed to deliver.
Standing still for a moment, he basically confirmed that both she and Chang Kangle had fallen asleep.
One occupied the recliner, the other sprawled across the sofa.
Chen Qingning, apparently worried about getting dirty, had even placed a scarf underneath herself.
The wall-mounted air conditioner wasn't like underfloor heating—the afternoon room temperature remained cool and chilly. Both of them had curled up, yet their sleep was completely undisturbed.
Yu Bei walked behind the sofa, pulled off the blanket draped over the back, and gently covered the child with it. He looked around the living room but didn't spot anything else that could be of use, so he returned to the room to fetch his own jacket and draped it over Chen Qingning.
His shoe stepped on something foreign. Yu Bei took a step back.
It was a palm-sized bright red paper frog. Not far away, there was also a dark green one.
Looking around, frogs of various colors were scattered everywhere. It seemed a fierce battle had taken place not long ago.
Yu Bei picked up the paper frogs one by one and arranged them on the coffee table from smallest to largest.
He returned to the room, glanced at Chen Xiaoshan, who was still tirelessly spinning the bottle cap round and round, then gently closed the door without making the call to Sister Chen.