Chapter 3

“Wait.”

Zhou Huaixia raised her hand, trying to save the collar of her coat that had been lifted, but the security guard tightened his grip, choking her. She struggled, dragging her feet on the ground, and said, “Sir, my things fell inside. Can I look for them first?”

The security guard, a burly man in his early forties, held her collar firmly with an iron grip. He sneered, “Your things fell all the way from Building Two to here? Behave yourself! I noticed you right from the first manhole cover you looked at.”

At first, he saw this female student bending down to look at a manhole cover and was about to ask if she needed help, but then he watched her move furtively along the way, bending down to stare at the covers repeatedly, and finally stopping in this secluded corner to pry open a manhole cover.

Grabbing her, the guard said, “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re thinking. No one usually comes down this path, there are no cameras, are you planning to jump in?”

He began to speak gently, “I know you students have heavy academic pressure, sometimes your minds get muddled and you consider extreme actions, but you’re still so young, you have your whole life ahead.”

Zhou Huaixia’s struggling faltered. “Ah?”

“What ‘ah’? I’ve been a guard here for seven years. Every year, I see students go mad and try to kill themselves, but you’re the first I’ve seen trying to jump into a sewer.” The guard kept dragging her toward the security office as he spoke.

Zhou Huaixia stopped struggling and said seriously, “Sir, I just started my freshman year; I only just finished the college entrance exam.”

She pulled out a student ID card from her pocket and handed it to the guard.

The guard paused, shone his light to see the card clearly—it was indeed a newly enrolled freshman. Looking into her sincere eyes, the two exchanged a glance.

The guard asked, “You’re not crazy?”

“I’m not crazy.”

She added, “Have you ever heard of someone committing suicide by jumping into a sewer? Do you think I’d want to kill myself by the stench of the sewer? Besides, there’s Mirror Lake not far from Building Two. Why would I choose the sewer over that?”

The guard was skeptical, “Then why were you prying open a manhole cover in such a remote place?”

Zhou Huaixia replied, “I overheard someone say they threw a cat into the sewer beneath Building Two, so I came to look.”

Her reason was fair and reasonable, but the guard wasn’t so easily fooled. “How are you sure it was this manhole cover?”

He had followed her all the way and confirmed she only opened this one.

Zhou Huaixia shifted her body sideways, finally freeing her coat collar from the guard’s grip. “Because I think I heard a cat meowing underneath this cover.”

The guard was doubtful but considered her words.

Zhou Huaixia pleaded earnestly, “Sir, please check it out. Besides, the manhole cover wasn’t closed, and there’s no streetlight nearby. What if someone falls in?”

He had been eager to take her away, thinking she intended to jump in, and had forgotten to close the cover.

After a moment’s thought, the guard chose to believe Zhou Huaixia and agreed to go back. He reminded her, “I’ll close the cover properly and check if there’s a cat inside. Next time, if something like this happens, come straight to us guards—don’t sneak around by yourself.”

“Okay.”

They returned together. The guard crouched next to the manhole cover labeled 013, stretching out a hand to keep her back, “Stay back.”

The sewer smell was foul, damp from the rain, with an indistinct odor of rot.

Zhou Huaixia took a deep breath, trying to detect any scent of blood.

Hearing a noise beside him, the guard shone his flashlight on her face, suspiciously asking, “What are you doing?”

Holding her breath against the stench, she muttered, “I have a cold, my nose is blocked.”

No bloody smell was detected, only the pervasive stench.

She nearly vomited.

The guard shone his flashlight deeper into the sewer, revealing about seventy to eighty percent of the interior.

Zhou Huaixia tiptoed and leaned forward, peering inside.

Because of the rainwater drainage, the sewage level was high and flowing in other directions, leaving no place to stand. She only saw floating debris and garbage. Anything thrown in would either be washed away or sink.

There was no reason for the guard to go down into the sewer to retrieve an uncertain cat carcass.

They stared inside for a long while. The guard finally said, “If there was a cat, it’s not here now.”

Seeing the girl silent, he comforted her, “Cats can swim; maybe it escaped from somewhere else.”

Zhou Huaixia forced a smile. If the dream was true, the cat thrown in would have already been torn apart.

The guard asked, “What did the person who said they threw the cat look like?”

“Too dark to see clearly.”

Since they didn’t find a cat, they closed the 013 manhole cover and left. Passing by Building Two, it was just closing time.

“Zhou Huaixia?”

Lu Jin called out as she saw Zhou Huaixia, waving hello.

“Your classmate?” the guard asked before leaving. “Don’t worry, I’ll patrol that side more often from now on.”

Zhou Huaixia watched the guard walk away, then turned to look at Lu Jin descending the stairs from Building Two, her gaze guarded and evaluative: her roommate appeared like any ordinary university student, even warmly inviting her to the cafeteria during the day, but anyone who had nightmares about torturing cats couldn’t be normal.

Lu Jin stepped closer then took a step back, eyeing Zhou Huaixia oddly, “Why do you smell like sewer?”

She seemed so familiar with the sewer smell?

A test!

The words flashed in Zhou Huaixia’s mind as she quickly made up, “I almost fell into the sewer just now, but the guard pulled me back.”

Lu Jin adjusted her backpack strap to ease the weight, “You came to Building Two to see me today? But it’s already eleven o’clock; why aren’t you asleep?”

She was shorter and could see the yellow duck pajamas under Zhou Huaixia’s wrinkled coat. Remembering their earlier phone call, she asked, “Did you call me earlier for something?”

Zhou Huaixia nodded, “I thought about it, even though the college entrance exam just ended, university can’t be a time to slack off. So I want to ask if we can go to the library together every day.”

Medical classes fill up quickly; the rest of the time, she would follow Lu Jin, so there’d be no chance for cat abuse.

Lu Jin pushed up her glasses, “Okay, but sometimes I’ll be in the lab, so I can’t always come to the library with you.”

Even before going together, she already found an excuse.

Zhou Huaixia gained a new understanding of her roommate’s cunning.

They went back together, Lu Jin keeping a two-step distance behind Zhou Huaixia. Once inside the dorm, she couldn’t help but say, “Go wash up quickly.”

Her sensitive nose had caught a faint but persistent foul odor drifting from Zhou Huaixia’s hands all the way. She must have gotten some dirty, grimy stains.

Zhou Huaixia glanced at Lu Jin, who was taking books from her backpack but accidentally pulled out a package, hurriedly stuffing it back inside. Zhou Huaixia saw clearly—it was various surgical knives.

A normal medical student would take such tools out openly, not nervously hide them.

—Lu Jin was carrying tools for premeditated crime.

After washing up, Zhou Huaixia lay on her bed with her laptop. The screen’s glow softly lit her face as she opened the university’s official website to find the emails for the logistics department, campus security, and the president’s office. She wrote a letter reporting the lack of streetlights and surveillance around the Fifth Avenue of the Library Two building, warning that this posed a safety hazard for students and could severely damage the school’s reputation if exploited by criminals.

After sending it, she opened the psychology department counselor’s email and typed “Request to change dormitory,” but her fingers hovered before deleting the message entirely and shutting the laptop.

…

Lu Jin sat upright at a library desk, turning a page. Then she pushed up her glasses and looked seriously at Zhou Huaixia, who was buried in sleep opposite her.

It had been a week.

Since they agreed to come to the library together, Zhou Huaixia never studied—she just slept anywhere.

Sleeping during the day, sleeping at night.

Lu Jin wondered if humans really needed so much sleep.

She glanced around; everyone was at lunch. She nudged the sleeping girl with her foot, “Zhou Huaixia, wake up.”

Bleary-eyed, Zhou Huaixia sat up and rubbed her eyes slowly. “What’s up?”

Lu Jin took a deep breath. Out of roommate goodwill at the semester’s start, she had endured a week but finally couldn’t hold back, “You come to the library with me just to sleep?”

No, to spy.

Zhou Huaixia wanted to protest in her heart, but she was just too tired.

Lu Jin stared at Zhou Huaixia’s empty desk, furious at her laziness, “You don’t even bother to put a book in front of you to pretend.”

“I only said we’d come to the library together,” Zhou Huaixia said with a faintly dazed look. “I never said to study.”

Lu Jin recalled those words from that night and fell silent.

After Zhou Huaixia’s nightmare where she threw a pillow at herself, Lu Jin had long doubted her mental state, wondering if there was something wrong with her.

“Girl, you’re something else,” Lu Jin laughed angrily, “Just finished high school and already slacking off in college, huh?”

She closed her book, ready to go eat lunch, regretting she thought she had found a diligent, motivated roommate.

Zhou Huaixia didn’t even bother packing her book, hands in pockets, and followed Lu Jin slowly, asking, “Are you coming to the library this afternoon?”

“No!”

Zhou Huaixia followed behind, “Why haven’t you been going to Bamboo Garden to pet cats lately?”

She had been there a few times, seen the calico cat and even the shy raccoon dog, but never the white cat with a black-tipped tail.

“No time.”

Zhou Huaixia said, “I went once during practical training but didn’t see that white cat.”

Lu Jin glanced back at her, “It’s getting colder; the school cats move their spots.”

Zhou Huaixia, “But the others are still around.”

Lu Jin slowed her pace and asked, “You’re not going home tomorrow for National Day? I saw some people have already left early.” She remembered Zhou Huaixia was from another province.

Changing the subject and testing if she herself would leave, Zhou Huaixia strongly suspected Lu Jin was planning something during the quieter holiday when fewer people were on campus—maybe even to carry out her cruel cat plan unnoticed.

But Zhou Huaixia’s parents had already urged her to go home for the holiday. She couldn’t stay on campus any longer.

That night, she decided to send another round of emails to the logistics department, campus security, and president’s office. Over the week, she had documented all the areas near the two libraries, the practical training building, and Bamboo Garden lacking streetlights and surveillance, reporting them all.

When she returned after National Day, she planned to visit the medical school and other places, reporting every dark, unsupervised spot to leave Lu Jin no chance to carry out any plan.

Lost in thought, Zhou Huaixia said, “I haven’t decided yet. I quite want to stay and have fun in S City.”

…

At noon on National Day, A City, Exit 3 of the airport.

“Xia.”

Zhou Huaixia had just come out when she heard her mother’s voice and looked up to see her parents walking toward her.

“Tired?” her father asked, pulling the light backpack from her shoulders. “Why so little stuff?”

“I have everything at home; I didn’t want to carry much from school.”

Her mother took her hand, “How do you feel at school? Is your roommate easy to get along with? I didn’t see them on the first day.”

There was only one roommate, and she might be mentally disturbed, but Zhou Huaixia didn’t say that—just that things were okay.

Her father drove, and her mother chatted with her in the back seat as they smoothly returned to their neighborhood.

The neighborhood was about twenty years old, with five buildings no taller than eighteen floors, spacious gaps between buildings, good greenery, a park, and an artificial lake where people walked morning and evening.

Thanks to past preferential policies, most residents were primary and secondary school teachers, who kept a close eye on their children’s studies, so the local schools had good student sources.

Both of Zhou Huaixia’s parents were middle school teachers, and she attended a nearby middle school. They didn’t care much about her grades but only wished for her health.

Still, Zhou Huaixia had worked hard and was admitted to S University.

At home, her room was neatly arranged: bright yellow sheets and blankets perfectly made, a yellow duck pillow sitting firmly in the center of the bed facing the door, and a row of yellow duck toys lined up by size on the spotless desk.

“Xia, wash your hands and come eat,” her father called from the living room.

“Coming.” Zhou Huaixia slipped the smallest yellow duck toy from the desk into her pocket, squeezed it, then turned to the living room.

…

That night, Zhou Huaixia lay relaxed on her bed, finally home, no longer needing to enter those chaotic nightmares every night.

University students probably think and worry a lot, which is why they have so many nightmares; the nights at school were far less peaceful than those in her neighborhood.

Hugging her yellow duck pillow, she fell asleep easily, ready to welcome a rare night without dreams.