The Child's Past Life

by Cai Jun

  There were more parents than students in the dorms. The kids needed all the help they could get organizing their beds and luggage. When He Qingying finally got everything done, she left reluctantly, reminding him to call home on a regular basis.

  “Mom, I’ll be fine.”

  Si Wang kissed her forehead. Students snickered. He didn’t care.

  He spent his first overnight at school. All Nanming High students boarded there. They were allowed cell phones to make calling home easier, but they weren’t to use them during class. Si Wang’s roommates made fun of his knockoff phone. They used iPhones, and two of his roommates had iPads. They all obsessed over Plants vs. Zombies.

  He carefully looked at the windowsill—twenty years of etchings blended together. Among the names and years and symbols, “Dead Poets Society” was scrawled in a corner.

  Cicadas chirped outside the window, and the wind carried the scent of oleander flowers, helping cool the night. He stared at the library across the dark playing field.

  A light went on in the library attic.

  Si Wang continued to stare from his fourth-floor dorm room, wishing he had binoculars.

  It was lights out. One of his roommates told him to get in bed and another one pulled shut the curtains without a word. Si Wang had been sitting on the seat by the window for the past two hours. Everyone already thought he was weird.

  At that moment, far away in Guangzhou, Ma Li received a text: “I’m back at Nanming High. My bed is the top bunk in your old room.”

  Si Wang heard from his mom the next morning. She was anxious to know how he’d slept and eaten. He said everything was fine and asked how she was. She said that she couldn’t sleep at all without him at home.

  First day of class.

  Section 2 of tenth grade was on the third floor of the white building. There were thirty-two students—seventeen guys and fifteen girls. Si Wang was one of the taller students; he sat in the fifth row and was about ten meters away from the blackboard. It was a good spot for goofing off. He shared a desk with an out-going guy who kept chatting with everyone. Two girls sat in front of him; one had short hair, one had a ponytail, and both of them were average looking. They were friendly to Si Wang. He only answered when asked, and never initiated conversation.

  The teacher walked in. In his forties, he carried a thick file and wore a perfectly pressed white shirt; a gold pen poked out of his chest pocket. He had the build of a young man, just with less hair. His assertive gaze swept the room, filling every student with his confidence and pride.

  “Hi, class. I’m your homeroom teacher, Mr. Zhang Mingsong.”

  He turned to the blackboard and wrote his name. For a math teacher, he had excellent handwriting. The students whispered. Mr. Zhang was on TV a lot.

  “I’ve not been a homeroom teacher for ten years. The school asked me to do it, and coach you all the way to graduation. I considered carefully before agreeing. I chose this class, Section 2.”

  Some students actually clapped. A few of the geekier students thought that having the famous Mr. Zhang as their homeroom teacher was like winning the lottery. It was the same as having an in-home tutor for free, and it got them closer to a top university.

  Zhang Mingsong was already immune to all praise. He didn’t chitchat before starting his math class, which was dry and foreign to many of the students. But everyone stayed focused. Zhang Mingsong received another ovation at the end of class. He solemnly surveyed the room before locking eyes with Si Wang.

  He frowned, as if scared by the teenager’s gaze. The bell rang, signaling the end of class. Zhang Mingsong didn’t say good-bye before walking out of the room.

  Si Wang didn’t move during the class break; he waited for the next bell. Zhang Mingsong had already chosen the classroom leader, a chubby girl with glasses. She instructed the class to stand and greet the next teacher.

  It was now Chinese class, and Ouyang Xiaozhi was the teacher.

  “Hi, class!”

  She bowed deeply and then walked to the podium. Her every gesture was friendly. Students noticed she wore no rings, not even a wedding band. She wrote her name on the blackboard.

  A girl in the front row loudly whispered, “Wow, Ouyang Xiaozhi, too! Did you read those books?”

  Xiaozhi smiled in a way that made everyone pay attention. “You can call me Ms. Ouyang or Ms. Xiaozhi. Know why I’m called Xiaozhi? It’s the name of a flute.” She elegantly smoothed her hair from her shoulders to her back. “I’m honored to be your Chinese teacher. This is my first class at Nanming High. I graduated from the teachers’ college and taught Chinese for twelve years. I just transferred here two months ago. Oh no, now you know my age!”

  The words relaxed the class. Another girl whispered, “I thought she was in her twenties!”

  Ouyang Xiaozhi didn’t mention that she’d graduated from Nanming High.

  “Please open your textbook to the first essay, ‘Spring in the Garden: Changsha,’ by Mao Zedong.”

  The teacher started reading the poem, her voice was as gentle as before: “In the peak of youth, passion reigned . . .”

  Forty-five minutes later as class ended, Xiaozhi announced the topic for the next day and said good-bye to the students. She walked out of the room feeling confident about how well the first session had gone.

  Xiaozhi returned to the teachers’ lounge, which was filled with dozens of desks. The teachers chatted and shared snacks.

  At dusk, as she was preparing to walk out, she ran into Si Wang again. He backed away shyly.

  “Hello,” she said. The wind picked up her hair, showing off her face even more.

  The teenager took his time to answer. “Hi, teacher.”

  “I remember you. My first day here was the first day of class. We shared a ride.”

  “It was OK.” His voice was so low even he couldn’t hear it.

  “You’re Si Wang, right?”

  “Yes.”

  She said good-bye and turned down the road, heading for the subway station. The construction never seemed to end.

  When Ouyang Xiaozhi suddenly turned around, the awkward student was gone.

  CHAPTER 48

  “She’s in Hong Kong,” Si Wang said as he brought a cup of warm tea to Miss Cao and opened the box of moon cakes.

  “She never mentioned it to me.”

  “She was trying to surprise you.”

  “This isn’t a . . .” She paused to look outside at the overgrown plants. Primrose scented the air. She took her time finishing her thought with, “surprise.”

  “Don’t worry, she called me today and asked me to visit.”

  A moment of noncommittal silence. She raised the tea cup for a sip. “Fine, thank you, Si Wang.”

  “Not having any moon cakes?”

  She opened her toothless mouth.

  “I’m sorry!”

  Si Wang slapped his own face. He sliced open the cakes and scooped out the fillings. The elderly woman took one piece and held it in her mouth to savor the taste. “Thank you! The last time I had moon cakes was in 1948!”

  “Yi Yu never had moon cakes with you in all these years?”

  “Moon cakes are to be shared with family. We’re always alone. You won’t understand, child.”

  “No, I do.” His expression was serious.

  “Tomorrow is the Mid-Autumn Festival. I almost forgot how moon cakes tasted. But they haven’t changed since last I had one.” Miss Cao looked a bit tired. It was hard to imagine how sixty years ago her face drove men crazy. “Is she really in Hong Kong?”

  “Yes!”

  Yi Yu was still alive.

  Three months ago at Nanming High, Yi Yu said good-bye to Si Wang after the exams. Just after parting ways a dump truck hit her. She’d been seriously hurt, and after three days and nights in the ER, she was pulled back from the verg
e of death. But she hadn’t woken up since.

  “But the phone hasn’t rung,” Miss Cao said, pointing to the phone.

  “Hong Kong University is very strict. She’s a good student and always studying.”

  Lying to the elderly was like lying to kids.

  “As long as she’s doing well.”

  Finally, Miss Cao smiled at him. She picked up another piece of the moon cake. Her appetite was good today.

  “No worries, she won’t forget you.”

  “Hah, I wish she would forget me! Then she could be a normal girl and not waste her time with me!” The kind woman’s rough yet warm hand stroked Si Wang’s palm. “It’s getting dark. Your mom is waiting for you.”

  “Miss Cao, take care of yourself! I’ll be back. Call me if you need anything.”

  He left the ivy-covered house and returned to the dark Serenity Road, slowly pedaling his bicycle. The road was so quiet it was creepy. The moon moved between lotus flower–like clouds. The streetlights elongated his shadow, almost stretching it across the road like taffy. There was Yi Yu’s house from her past life: Its mailboxes were stuffed full of today’s paper and junk mail. A lot of people still lived there. The half window from the basement apartment was right next to the sidewalk. Si Wang got off his bike and crawled up to the window, staying as flat as possible. He spit in his hand before wiping off the dusty window. He took out a flashlight, but the light wasn’t enough to penetrate the dust. There seemed to be a lot of junk inside.

  He looked across the road at the dark old murder house. If the first floor lights were on, he could tell what was inside, be they people or ghosts.

  Si Wang stood up again. He took a deep breath. The road remained empty.

  A single leaf fell in front of Serenity Road Number 19. He touched the rusty plate on the door and pressed his ear against the door. He could hear the sound of falling dust, and something else, like wind moving through the roof, or snakes crawling on the ground.

  He used his knuckles to tap on the murder house door. Dull echoes came from within.

  The front door was locked, but he noticed a small yard to the right hidden behind a squat wall with bushy willow leaves. Si Wang flipped himself over the wall, landing on the patio. Leaves, trash, and cat feces littered the space. There were two broken windows on the side of the house. He easily opened one of the windows and checked out the inside of the house using his flashlight. It smelled of decay. Most people would have been scared to enter, but he crawled right into the house.

  He waved his flashlight’s beam across the empty room. Most of the furniture had been removed as part of the crime scene back in 1983. Either that or it had been stolen once the police investigation was completed. A few chairs were left in the living room, covered in thick cobwebs. He held his breath, not wanting to inhale too much mildew or toxic dust. He didn’t see a body shape marked on the floor. That only happened in American movies. But he saw some symbols and lines left by the police, marking where the body was found.

  He stood in front of the living room window and used a dirty washcloth to clean the window. Now he could better see the moonlit Serenity Road and the basement window across the street. The stairs creaked as he walked upstairs, like they could collapse at any second.

  There were three rooms on the second floor. The bathroom had a filthy toilet. Large white tiles had turned the color of coffee. There was a brick tub seen only in old-fashioned homes. Another big room with a corpse-like big bed, barely upright with rusted metal. Mice scurried underneath. He covered his nose before backing out and opening the door to the last room.

  A small bed sat inside, the wooden frame almost completely rotten. Clusters of roaches crawled past. The mirror on the wall was inside an oval black frame. Si Wang got closer and saw his blurry reflection.

  Sixteen-year-old Si Wang stared back at him. He was afraid to clean the mirror. He could tell that it was haunted.

  He turned around and saw a shabby chest of drawers and some toys on the floor. He picked up a doll, the kind many little girls played with back then. The naked doll’s large, dusty, time-worn eyes stared ahead like she was alive.

  Si Wang put back the doll, feeling the need to leave this haunted place. The flashlight reached a corner, where he saw a black hole in the wall. At some point it had been covered by a board, but years of neglect had rotted away the wood.

  With some trepidation, he reached in and found a square-shaped cookie tin. After wiping away the dust, Si Wang appreciated the box’s quality. There were hand-painted illustrations of ancient beauties Xue Baochai, Miaoyu, Wang Xifeng, and Li Wan. The words on the tin said “Dream of the Red Chamber’s Twelve Girls of Jinling.”

  In the old days, many homes had boxes like these. They were used for storing candy and snacks. Usually, they were just brought out for the holidays.

  He used his fingernails to pry open the lid, releasing an odor that smelled like someone’s musty ashes. He reached inside and found a few cards. One was of General Guan from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and another one was of the battle between the three warriors and Lu Bu. Kids today had no idea that cigarette packages once included free trading cards. Scenery or characters on the front, descriptions on the back, they had nothing to do with cigarettes, really. Some street vendors also sold them independently. Many boys collected them, trying to get all the warriors of Outlaws of the Marsh, Romance of the Sui Tang Empire, and Generals of the Yang Family. Kids played by putting two cards together on the floor and slapping them together. Whichever one flipped over was the winner.

  This was obviously a girl’s room, belonging to the victim’s daughter, and the crime’s only witness. But cigarette cards were a boy’s game.

  Si Wang dumped out all the contents of the tin. A pair of tarnished hair clips tumbled out, something a twelve- or thirteen-year-old girl would use.

  There was also a cassette tape.

  Training the flashlight on the tape, Si Wang could see the year 1983 written on Side A, along with the following: 01. “Alone on the Western Pavilion”; 02. “Eternal Love”; 03. “Melancholy”; 04. “No Love Lost”; 05. “Deep Is the Night”; 06. “Who Knows My Heart.”

  All of the songs were from the Teresa Teng album Tender Love. It was a pirated copy since the real release wasn’t available in China back then. The album had twelve songs and used ancient Chinese poems as lyrics. The song “Melancholy” used a poem from Li Yu. Songs on Side B used Li Yu’s “Rose tears making one drunk, regret forever lasting in my life” and Ouyang Xiu’s “Last year this time, the holiday fair was bright, the moon rose above the willow, and we met after dusk.”

  The six songs on Side B were 07. “Rose Tears”; 08. “Everlasting Sorrow”; 09. “Meeting After Dusk”; 10. “Looking at You Through Tears”; 11. “Unspoken”; 12. “Missing You.”

  Nothing else but rat droppings was in the hole in the wall.

  Standing in this girl’s bedroom that had been untouched for thirty years, Si Wang breathed in the scent of decay.

  Suddenly, his cell phone rang.

  It was his mother, wanting to know why he wasn’t home yet. He told her he was on the way.

  He tucked the metal tin back into the wall. Whether or not it had anything to do with the crime, the police definitely hadn’t found this hiding spot.

  Si Wang rode home, with the moon casting a long shadow behind him.

  CHAPTER 49

  A sixteen-year-old girl’s shiny black hair framed her doll-like face. Her eyes were so bright that boys were afraid to stare into them. She’d just entered high school and was listening to Teresa Teng’s “Eternal Love.” She was staring out the window, waiting for the moon to rise. It would be another two hours. Her dad was worried she had a crush on someone.

  The doorbell rang.

  Her dad was cooking in the kitchen, so she ran out to open the door. A stranger stood outside. He was about her
age, taller than her by half a head. He looked at her shyly.

  “Who are you?”

  She should have asked this question, but the boy said it first.

  “Shen Min,” she blurted out. “Sorry, do I know you?”

  “I’m here to talk to your dad.”

  “Hold on.” Shen Min frowned and closed the door. Where had she seen this face before?

  Shen Yuanchao was sixty-one and retired. He had gray hair and a lean face, but his eyes were still piercing. He went to the door. “You are?” Staring at the young man, he tried to remember why he recognized him.

  “Prosecutor Shen. How are you? Huang Hai was my father. We’ve met before. I’m Huang Zhiliang.”

  “Huang Zhiliang, yes. Please come in!”

  The young man nodded politely and offered a box of moon cakes. “Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!”

  Shen Yuanchao was used to turning down gifts, but since it was from a high school student he accepted it. Shen Min came out of the kitchen with some hot tea. Shen Yuanchao offered some to their guest, but be declined.

  “I heard about your dad last year,” Shen Yuanchao said. “He died trying to find my son’s killer. I regret making trouble at your home and upsetting him. I’ll never forget something he told me: I’ll catch the killer—unless I die first. He was such a good cop. I misunderstood him.”

  “It’s all right. My dad solved lots of crimes, all except the ones surrounding the 1995 Nanming Road murder. He told me that if he died, I’d inherit his mission. We have to solve those cases, and I need your help. I’m here to help you, too.”

  “I had no idea he felt so strongly about it. But you’re still in high school. I doubt you can help me.”

  “It’s OK. I’ll get into the Police Academy.”

  “Such dedication—like father, like son. It’s been three years since last I saw you. You’re so handsome now. You remind me of my son, Shen Ming. If he were still alive, he’d be forty.”