After the car drove into the compound.
Song Ning got out early, and Gu Zheng followed behind her with the mesh bag.
The compound was still the same compound, but it looked nothing like the place Song Ning remembered.
By the time she was born, Old Man Lei had already moved into the detached house in the rear courtyard, and the corridor-style apartment blocks up front had long since been renovated.
The two stood on the road between the family housing blocks.
Gu Zheng checked the address in his hand, looked around, then pointed ahead.
"We should need to go another three buildings in!"
Song Ning took a deep breath and was just about to step forward.
Then she heard a commotion from the playground beside them.
A group of children were roughhousing there.
But when she looked more closely, they weren't roughhousing at all.
They were fighting.
A little girl had been running ahead, with several little boys chasing her.
Seeing that she couldn't get away, the girl turned and shoved with both hands, knocking the chubby boy closest to her to the ground.
Then she lunged forward, straddled him, and started pummeling him with both fists.
The boys beside them shouted loudly, trying to threaten the girl into stopping.
But she was thoroughly worked up, her little face flushed red and her arms swinging like drumsticks. There was no stopping her.
The chubby boy bawled under the blows.
Song Ning watched the scene.
Her feet refused to move another inch.
Gu Zheng followed her gaze. The little girl wore a floral shirt and had her hair tied in two pigtails. She looked about six or seven.
None of these children were very old.
Perhaps it was because they had been born in the Military District compound, but they