He Looks Like a Dog

The football lay quietly in the grass, its surface gleaming from the dew clinging to it.

Hu Lai carefully reached out and lifted the football in his hands, as though he were holding a fragile gem.

He needed to confirm once more whether this football was really his.

He turned it over and found an English word written in black permanent marker near the valve: "WHO."

Here, though, it did not mean "who." It was a homophone for Hu Lai's surname.

Hu and "WHO" sounded similar.

Hu Lai had used this subtle way to indicate that the football belonged to him.

Why had he not simply written "HU"?

Because Hu Lai thought that was not interesting enough—he had come up with a joke in his head:

"Whose football is this?"

"This football is Hu's."

"Yes, I'm asking whose football this is."

"That's right, this football is Hu's!"

It was actually a little lame... but Hu Lai did not care.

Now that he saw that word, Hu Lai could be completely certain that this football was his. No one else would come up with such a ridiculous lame joke and write it on a football.

There were countless footballs in the world, but this one that belonged to Hu Lai was unique. There was only one of it.

Hu Lai stood where he was, looking down at the football in his hands.

The question that had troubled him all day seemed to have an answer.

Is this still the world I know?

It seemed that many things related to football had changed. The stars he knew were gone, the clubs had vanished, and in their place were names and people entirely unfamiliar to him.

So was this no longer the world he knew?

But at school, his classmates were still the same people. Their names were the same, and their attitudes toward him were the same too—Luo Kai never even gave him a proper look, Luo Kai's lackey Li Zhiqun mocked him, and although Song Fatty had tricked him, he had ultimately given him ten yuan as compensation...

They seemed no different from yesterday, or from before—though Fatty could be pretty infuriating sometimes, he was still Hu Lai's best friend. After all, Song Fatty probably thought his deskmate was quite a pain too...

Everything around him was familiar, including this abandoned square that usually no one came to, and the football in his hands.

The stars were different, and the professional football clubs were different, but they were all so far away from him. Could they affect his life at all?

Hu Lai had considered it seriously.

They could not.

So was this world unfamiliar?

No.

Since the people around him had not changed, and they treated him no differently, what difference did this world make to him?

Once Hu Lai understood that, it no longer mattered whether he had crossed into another world or the world itself had changed.

He looked at the football in his hands and realized that what mattered most now was that perhaps only half of the half-hour he had delayed going home remained.

And his special training had not even begun yet!

He tossed the football onto the ground, then kicked it toward the raised platform directly ahead.

A closer look revealed a thin white line on the bluish-black stone wall, outlining a rectangular frame the size of a goal.

That was his goal.

Here, in this secret base of his, he kicked the football toward the goal again and again.

With a bang, the ball struck the stone wall, but instead of bouncing back, it ricocheted off at a bizarre angle.

Hu Lai sprinted after it, stretching out a foot to try to trap it. But the rebound angle was simply too strange. Even though Hu Lai nearly did the splits, he still failed to touch the ball and almost pulled a thigh muscle instead...

But Hu Lai was not frustrated. He climbed up from the ground, caught up with the football that had been stopped by the grass, charged forward, and kicked it at the "goal."

Yet this time, the ball still did not rebound in the direction it should have.

Hu Lai could only run toward the other side of the square to chase down the ball and stop it.

This time, he did better than before. At least he touched the football, though all he did was kick it toward the stone wall on the other side...

Bang!

Bang.

A long, slender leg stepped onto a wooden stair tread, producing a dull thud.

Bang.

Bang.

Bang bang bang...

A girl carrying a cardboard box in her arms ran quickly up the stairs. The railing trembled with her footsteps, shaking loose dust that had likely gathered there for ages.

The dying light of the setting sun shone through the window opposite the stairs, divided into four sections by the cross-shaped window frame. Dust drifted through the four orange beams of light.

The girl passed through the light and dust, her swaying ponytail stirring the dust behind her into one vortex after another.

Not a single speck of dust touched her, as though she and the dust did not exist in the same world.

The girl set the box down on the table with a bang. Just as she turned to run downstairs again, she heard dull impacts echoing outside the window.

Bang!

Curious, she walked to the window and saw a boy in the weed-filled vacant lot below her home, chasing after a football.

He staggered after the ball, stopped it, then kicked it toward the stone wall of the raised platform opposite him.

With a bang, the football bounced in the exact opposite direction from the boy, so he turned and chased after it again.

After catching up with the ball, he shot it at the stone wall once more.

The football bounced and skipped across the irregular wall, while the boy ran back and forth across the vacant lot, trying to receive it. But it looked more like he was simply running after the football's backside.

Looking at the boy's clumsy figure, the girl somehow thought of a dog fetching a frisbee...

And once that thought came to her, she could not stop thinking it. In her eyes, the boy chasing the football and a dog chasing a frisbee gradually overlapped.

Then the corners of her mouth curled upward—her own thought had amused her.

But she immediately realized that it was disrespectful to the boy playing football below, so she quickly put on a stern expression and wiped away her smile.

The boy below was trying to stop a flying football, but in the girl's eyes, it was a desperate attempt. He was doomed to fail.

Yet the boy had no intention of giving up. He stubbornly chased after the ball, like a dog whose full attention had been seized by a frisbee.

He stretched out a foot with all his strength toward the football in midair.

He kicked the ball.

He kicked it toward the wall right in front of him.

The football hit the wall.

The football came back the way it had gone, bouncing straight back.

The football hit the boy square in the face!

Bang!

The stern-faced girl finally could not hold it in anymore and burst out laughing.

Hu Lai crouched on the ground, rubbing his face hard with both hands and letting out low whimpers. It hurt so badly that tears had come to his eyes.

He wiped away his tears, then touched his nose. When he found no nosebleed, he finally breathed a sigh of relief—his face was not ruined!

Then he slowly stood up, frowning as he looked around at the windows on the raised platform.

When he had been baring his teeth and sucking in cold air from the pain, he had vaguely heard laughter.

He remembered that the houses around here were unoccupied...

As usual, all the windows were tightly shut, with nothing visible inside.

Just then, a gust of wind blew through the alley, sweeping up grass blades and dust from the vacant lot. Hu Lai felt a chill and could not help shivering.

That reminded Hu Lai of something—supposedly, no one came to this vacant lot because it was said to be haunted. Children had seen a girl in red by the windows. But these houses had indeed been empty for a long time...

Only after coming back to his senses and looking around did Hu Lai realize that the sky had grown much darker.

He looked up. The setting sun had vanished at some point, and dark clouds filled the sky.

Li Ziqiang had a huge hiking backpack slung over his back. He lifted two large boxes from the back of the van, turned around with difficulty, and shouted toward the open doorway, "Qingqing, what are you doing? How did you disappear after going upstairs?"

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" The girl hopped out through the doorway. Her red sleeveless T-shirt fluttered, faintly revealing her navel beneath it.

Her low-rise shorts showed off her long legs perfectly. A closer look revealed that her legs differed from those of other girls. They were not slender; instead, her thighs were slightly thick, and the lines of her muscles became clear whenever she exerted herself. Her skin was not fair either, but slightly dark. Yet those muscles and wheat-colored skin made her look healthy and athletic, brimming with irrepressible youthful vitality.

"Does putting something down really take that long?" Li Ziqiang complained. Then he nodded toward the van's trunk. "Hurry up and carry the rest. Looks like it's going to rain."

As the girl leaned into the van and dragged out a woven sack, she said to Li Ziqiang, "I was watching the sunset from upstairs just now. It was beautiful."

"The sunset?" Li Ziqiang leaned back and barely managed to raise his head, staring doubtfully at the cloud-covered sky.

"Just now. I said just now. The sunlight was shining through gaps in the clouds, like holy light. It was so beautiful!"

There really had been sunlight just now. Li Ziqiang smiled. "Do you like this place, then?"

"I like it quite a lot, Dad."

"That's good. The two of us might be staying in this house for the next three years."

When the girl carried another load of her belongings upstairs, she went to the window again and took a glance outside. She happened to see the boy bending over and crawling into the grass, with only his butt sticking out and swaying around.

Well, now he finally did not look like a dog fetching a frisbee. He had turned into a dog burrowing through the grass...

The girl stood by the window with the corners of her mouth raised, watching him.

The boy busied himself in the grass for a while before backing out. Once he was out, he carefully restored the grass to its original state before pushing the bicycle beside him away.

Watching that sneaky figure disappear from sight, the girl withdrew her gaze and stared thoughtfully at the patch of weeds the boy had been busy in.

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