The Bank Burglary Case (2)

Chapter 2

Xiao Mei’s mother really couldn’t understand how a child who had been so well-behaved since she was little could change so much after just one month of studying in town.

First, she had been expelled from school for no apparent reason. When asked why, she stubbornly refused to say a word.

And now, she wanted to run away from home.

It was three in the morning. The sun hadn’t even risen, and neither parent could sleep.

They didn’t hit the child again, mostly because they knew it wouldn’t do any good.

The couple told Xiao Mei to go back to her room and sleep, saying nothing more.

Xiao Mei returned to her room, but sleep eluded her. As she lay in bed, she could hear the faint murmur of voices from outside.

“Let’s get some sleep too. Once we wake up, I’ll go to the school and ask the teacher exactly why she was expelled,” her mother said, her voice no longer filled with gritted teeth.

“I’ll go with you,” her father said.

“You go harvest the grain at Xing’er Tianwan. We’ll thresh it together when I get back. We have to move fast today; it’s supposed to rain tomorrow and the day after.” Once the grain was harvested, it would be stored at home to be dried in the sun later, then sold for money.

They had borrowed money for Xiao Mei’s schooling; now that the grain was being harvested, they could finally pay it back.

Thinking of this, a surge of inexplicable anger rose in Xiao Mei’s mother. She couldn’t wrap her head around it. Her daughter wasn’t a reckless child, so why did she have to get expelled?

“She’s only been in school for a month. If she really can’t go back, ask if they can refund the tuition,” her father sighed.

“No, she still needs to study. I’ll go see what’s going on.”

As Xiao Mei listened, tears streamed down her face. In her heart, she still wanted to go to school, but… but…

She couldn’t tell her mother the truth. She knew that telling her would only make things worse, and it was true that she had made a mistake.

It felt as if something sharp was lodged in her chest, unable to move up or down. It just stayed there, making everything around her unbearable. The dim room, the windows patched with newspaper – it all felt suffocating. Just then, the sound of bleating drifted in from outside.

It was the sheep her grandmother raised.

Xiao Mei suddenly remembered something from last year.

It was her grandmother’s birthday, and the family was preparing to slaughter an old ewe. She had been there when a little lamb started following them, constantly butting people with its tiny horns and bleating. Her grandmother watched for a moment, said it was too pitiful, and decided not to kill the old sheep after all.

Thinking of the sheep back then made her feel a little better.

After a period of muddled thoughts, she finally drifted off to sleep.

Soon, her mother’s voice sounded in her ear.

“We’re going to the school. Get up, now.”

In a daze, she followed her mother to the school.

The sky over the school was overcast, heavy enough to make it hard to breathe. The mother of one of her classmates was standing in the faculty office.

Her mother pulled her forward, leading her to apologize.

The classmate’s mother, wearing a floral cloth shirt with her hands on her hips, began to shout, “I’ve never seen a child like this in my life! She broke my child’s pen, and instead of apologizing, she hit my child!”

Xiao Mei kept trying to say it wasn’t true, that the pen was already broken. She had hit the girl because they said her mother smelled like a “poverty-stricken peasant” and would “kneel to anyone she met”…

But she couldn’t say it. She didn’t want to say those things in front of her mother.

Her mother kept bowing and apologizing. “Don’t worry, we’ll definitely pay for it. I’ll make sure to discipline her when we get home!”

The classmate stood there giggling, saying to her mother, “You can’t afford it. It costs over ten yuan. You couldn’t afford it even if you sold your whole family!”

“Forget it, I won’t force you paupers. I heard the teacher say you couldn’t even scrape the tuition together and had to kneel to the principal just to get into the school. Tell you what, just have Mei Yue kneel to me.”

Her mother shook her head repeatedly. “She’s just a child with a stubborn temper. I’ll kneel to you instead.”

Xiao Mei watched from the side. Her mouth and eyes felt as if they were stuffed with the foulest spring mud; she couldn’t utter a single word.

Her mother knelt there, begging them not to take it further.

Other students crowded around, giggling and encircling her mother. Her mother froze for a moment, seemingly realizing why she didn’t want to go to school anymore, and began to cry.

“Come on, let’s go home. We’re not staying. We’re done with school.”

Xiao Mei was led away by her mother, but the students behind them continued to mock the mother and daughter.

Her temples began to throb.

Suddenly, two large ram horns sprouted from her temples.

Two massive, enormous ram horns!

She had horns!

Xiao Mei turned her head, narrowing her eyes at the people mocking her and her mother. Like a young sheep, she lunged forward, her sharp horns piercing them until they wailed in pain.

No one dared mock her or her mother again.

“Xiao Mei! Xiao Mei! Wake up!”

Xiao Mei jerked awake, her forehead and neck drenched in sweat. It had only been a dream.

She touched her forehead; it was smooth, covered only in perspiration.

They hadn’t gone to the school yet.

Xiao Mei turned her head to see her mother searching for something in the cupboard.

Xiao Mei knew she was looking for a gift to give the teacher.

“Mom, I’m not going back to school,” she said seriously.

Her mother glanced at her. “Is that your decision to make?”

“I’ll go find work. I can earn money working.”

“If it’s come down to you earning money, we might as well go out with baskets and hope to find money on the ground.”

“Mom, I’m serious. I don’t want to study anymore. Look, you never went to school, Dad never went to school, and Grandpa and Grandma never went to school. Aren’t you all living just fine? Why is it that I’m the one who absolutely has to study?”

Xiao Mei’s mother looked at her daughter as if she were a fool, or perhaps possessed by a ghost.

In her mind, she weighed the options between beating the child into her senses or scolding her into them, and chose instead to say:

“Fine. You don’t have to go to the school. Just wait for me at home. I’ll go to the school and find out exactly what happened.”

The child was being ignorant, but that was fine; she would thank her later.

She carried a basket full of chili peppers and eggplants on her back as she headed toward the town.

Xiao Mei watched her mother carrying the heavy basket. She followed anyway. In her heart, she still wanted to go to school, but she didn’t want to see her mother kneel down for anyone again, and she hated how people always used that incident to make fun of her.

Xiao Mei’s mother soon arrived at the school. Xiao Mei continued to follow at a distance, her heart growing more anxious the closer they got.

Her mother quickly found Xiao Mei’s teacher.

The teacher was originally speaking with another, unfamiliar woman. Xiao Mei took one look and immediately withdrew her gaze.

“Handle your business first,” the woman said.

Xiao Mei’s attention shifted away from the stranger. She heard her mother’s voice, sounding very subservient, asking, “The child didn’t say much after she got home. Sigh, Teacher, you know our family’s situation…”

“This matter can be seen as big or small. Mei Yue broke a classmate’s pen. When the classmate asked for an apology, she refused and even got into a fight with them. When the classmate’s mother found out, she came to the school to ask about it. She also wanted Mei Yue to apologize, but she still refused and wouldn’t even agree to call her parents…”

The teacher sighed and said, “Your family’s circumstances are difficult, and getting an education isn’t easy. The child should cherish this opportunity even more. Sigh, you need to have a good talk with her and have her apologize to her classmate. At the end of the day, she was in the wrong.”

Hearing this, Xiao Mei’s mother realized there was still a chance for her daughter to stay in school. Her whole posture relaxed, and she immediately said with a smile, “Don’t you worry, I’ll definitely make her apologize to her classmate.”

Just then, the bell rang for the end of class. Xiao Mei watched the teacher step out, and soon her classmate came in as well.

The girl didn’t start shouting insults like she had in the dream. Before the classmate even had a chance to speak, Xiao Mei’s mother turned to Xiao Mei and said, “Hurry up and apologize!”

Xiao Mei looked at the classmate, then at her mother. She suddenly felt as if something was crushing the life out of her. Was she going to be like her mother for the rest of her life? Spending her whole existence apologizing to people regardless of right or wrong?

Xiao Mei grit her teeth, refusing to speak. Her temples began to throb with a stabbing pain. She wished she had horns like a goat; she would ram everyone until they wailed in pain!

The horns from her dream did not appear. She only felt as if her body was about to explode, and her head began to swim.

Suddenly, she felt someone whisper in her ear, “Deep breaths.”

It was the stranger who had been talking to the teacher.

The woman said to the teacher, “Let’s look into this matter a bit more. Usually, when someone knows they’ve done something wrong, they rarely have this kind of physical reaction.”

People can lie, but the body cannot.

Xiao Mei felt the woman looking at her. “Do you want to talk to me?”

Xiao Mei shook her head. She didn’t want to speak. It wouldn’t matter anyway.

The stranger didn’t press her. Instead, she went to talk to the classmate.

The woman took the classmate outside, and they spoke privately.

Xiao Mei felt as if her chest was clogged with heavy mud. She felt certain the woman would take the classmate’s side. That classmate was a very good liar.

This woman would surely think she was a bad person who broke things and hit people.

Xiao Mei tugged at her mother’s sleeve. “I don’t want to go to school anymore. Let’s go home.”

Her mother shook her head, refusing to leave no matter what.

Soon, the three of them returned.

To Xiao Mei’s surprise, her classmate walked over and said in a low voice, “Mei Yue, I’m sorry. That pen was already broken. I lied to you. I shouldn’t have said those things about you.”

Her mother waved her hands dismissively. “It’s fine, it’s fine. As long as you children talk it out, it’s all okay.”

Xiao Mei couldn’t help but look at the stranger in the office. The woman said, “It’s settled now. Go back to class. If anything happens, you can come find us.”

Xiao Mei could hardly believe it. Was it really that simple? How did she get the girl to admit it? She felt the painful, suffocating weight that had been stuck in her chest vanish all at once.

The teacher nodded as well. The matter seemed to be over.

Xiao Mei assumed she was a new teacher. She ran all the way back to her classroom, her mind filled with thoughts of the stranger.

As soon as she arrived, she saw other students looking toward the woman.

“Is she our new teacher?”

“No, she’s a police officer from the city here to investigate the bank robbery.”

A police officer! No wonder!

At noon, Xiao Mei sneaked back to the office.

She heard several other people call the officer by name.

“Yun Song¹.”

Xiao Mei couldn’t help but repeat the name in her mind. Just thinking the name felt like a warm breeze gently brushing across her heart.

Only then did she recall what the others had said.

The police were here to investigate a bank robbery.

Wait, the bank was robbed? Only now did Xiao Mei notice this major event that had happened back when she was originally expelled.

Translator’s Notes