Or something else?
Something the child cared about...
Was it something at home?
The teacher made a few guesses, then turned her attention back to the child in front of her.
"Xue Jiamin, is there something you can't tell your teacher?"
Seeing the child stay silent, the teacher softened her voice even more.
"Maybe I can help you figure it out."
Xue Jiamin opened his mouth.
But in the end, he closed it again.
He thought of how Song Heng had been in their class back then.
It wasn't until the semester ended and the next one began that the teacher told them Song Heng had transferred away. Until then, none of his classmates had even noticed that he wasn't in class.
Song Heng was peculiar.
There had been plenty of rumors about him.
And yet Song Heng himself was so easy to overlook.
His classmates talked about all kinds of strange rumors about Song Heng, rumors that seemed to come from nowhere, but they paid little attention to the Song Heng right beside them.
It was as if the rumors about Song Heng existed separately from Song Heng himself.
Xue Jiamin had only interacted with Song Heng that one time, when the teacher had asked him to walk Song Heng home.
After that...
Even though they were in the same classroom, they never spoke again.
He hadn't expected...
That he would think of Song Heng again.
He remembered that day after school, when Song Heng had stared at the basketball court... as if he were watching something.
When they pressed him, Song Heng said he was watching a leopard.
A leopard?
At the time, none of them believed that the leopard Song Heng mentioned was the kind they had seen at the zoo.
But then