It’s Him – Ch16

Zhang Mingcai

On the other side, Zhao Jingzheng had no idea that the father he was protecting had completely stopped pretending.

He still decided to go find the janitor himself. Li Xun had class during the day, and since Zhao Jingzheng spent his time online arguing with people, losing the arguments, and having nothing else to do, he decided to look for the janitor.

The janitors at school all wear the same gray uniforms, and they are mostly middle-aged women around fifty or sixty years old, with similar body types. They also wear hats, and in the surveillance footage, the person is looking down, so their face isn’t visible.

To find the person who pushed the trash bin in the video, Zhao Jingzheng had to ask the other janitors.

Worried about alarming the person, he didn’t reveal that he was the missing teacher’s son. He pretended to be a high school student, even carrying a book as he walked around the school.

The janitors were cleaning the playground.

He started chatting with one of them.

He imitated Li Xun’s way of talking and tried to build rapport with the janitor.

The woman responded vaguely, occasionally glancing at him. Zhao Jingzheng swallowed nervously. Was he caught?

Regardless, he decided to ask first.

He asked, “Auntie, who is usually in charge of cleaning the trash bins at night?”

“We take turns on duty. Which night are you asking about?”

“This Monday night.”

Seeing the woman look at him, he quickly added, “I accidentally dropped something that night. A classmate said it was the cleaning auntie who picked it up. I just wanted to ask—”

The middle-aged woman immediately became displeased, furrowing her brows and raising her voice. She said, “That night, I emptied the trash. What did you drop? I didn’t pick anything up. Which classmate saw it? Let them come tell me!”

Zhao Jingzheng was startled and quickly waved his hand, saying, “It wasn’t anything valuable, just two bookmarks.”

“You’re funny. You’re asking about something that’s not valuable,” she said, irritated.

Zhao Jingzheng awkwardly left, but in reality, he secretly took a photo of her, planning to follow her after work.

What he didn’t know was that as soon as he left, the woman who had spoken to him immediately called someone else.

“Old Zhang, did you pick up a student’s things? Don’t act for the next couple of days, the student is looking everywhere.”

When Zhang Mingcai received the call, she was confused. She picked something up?

Then the other person explained the situation.

Zhang Mingcai’s alertness kicked in, and she quickly sent a picture: “Is this the boy?”

The person on the other end quickly confirmed it.

“Did you tell him it was me?”

“I didn’t say it was you. It was my turn that night, you were helping me. Anyway, he won’t find anything here. Just be careful.”

Zhang Mingcai felt touched, though it wasn’t the right time to feel that way. She repeatedly thanked the person and promised to help with the next shift.

Zhang Mingcai used to be a composer. She loved creating grand, tragic music back then, but her teacher always told her that her music had a sense of forced sorrow, and advised her to write more cheerful pieces without focusing solely on reaching new heights.

That comment was somewhat harsh.

In fact, before that incident, the biggest blow she had experienced in life was that comment.

She was an only child with working parents, and she never knew what it was like to struggle with money or love. She was smart enough to never struggle academically, smoothly passing her exams and getting into a music university. During college, she had a relationship with an upperclassman, then graduated, got married, and had a child. None of this impacted her career, especially with four elderly people helping to take care of the child.

Everything came to a halt one clear afternoon when she received a phone call—her child had gone missing.

At first, she hoped it was a kidnapping and that as long as the child was returned, everything would be fine.

Her hope shattered another afternoon when the mailman brought a letter addressed to her.

Without much thought, she signed for it, opened it, and then began to feel dizzy before losing consciousness.

When she woke up in the hospital, her father-in-law was there apologizing, crying as he said, “I’m sorry, it’s all my fault.”

Yes, as she looked at his face, the only thought in her mind was that it was his fault.

She began to break down, accusing her father-in-law. Despite his bad temper and lack of patience, why did he take the child out for a walk? Did the house really need him?

He took her outburst badly and, in a fit of anger, committed suicide the next day.

Besides the pain of losing her child, she also had to bear the responsibility for his death.

She and her husband quickly divorced.

Her parents’ health deteriorated day by day. A couple of years later, her mother died from breast cancer, and her father later died in a car accident.

The pain she had never experienced in her life exploded in those few years.

She could only constantly seek help from therapists, learning various treatment methods. Going in circles, her life became busier.

She participated in many charity events, often walking down muddy paths she had never taken, carrying dozens of kilograms of supplies.

Her life had a huge void, and she had to fill it with countless tasks.

Until Li Yugui called her.

“I found the murderer.” She had never heard the other person cry, but that day, the voice on the other end was sobbing. “I found him, he’s still alive.”

At first, she was comforting the other person when she heard them say, “He has a child, older than mine, about your child’s age. He’s about to graduate from college.”

Someone ruined her life without paying any price.

She had never needed to understand what pain and despair truly felt like. She could have been a composer, writing music with forced sorrow, never having to face these emotions.

This person ruined her life, dragging her into a pit of mud.

The person who went through this with her back then.

Her father-in-law escaped the pain through suicide, and her ex-husband formed a new family, moving on from the agony.

Only she, the one left behind, had to carry all the pain from that time and continue moving forward.

She had to seek justice for herself, and someone had to pay for everything she had endured.

“I’ll go.”

She hadn’t completely lost her sanity, but still worried she might make a mistake. She volunteered to go observe the person at school.

The young her wouldn’t have been able to do this, but the current her no longer cared about such things.

She had a good relationship with the other janitors, and they all worked the same dirty, tiring job.

While working, they would clean while chatting about various topics to pass the time.

They would teach her how to slack off at work, secretly knitting sweaters, and she would teach them how to use different apps on their phones.

This had become her routine. For years, she had been hiding in other people’s worlds, avoiding her own life.

During her time at school, she had to see this potential murderer every day. If she didn’t hide in other people’s worlds, it would be hard not to expose herself.

Because of this life of hiding, Zhang Mingcai had become very close to her colleagues.

These janitors weren’t from the city; most of them were middle-aged women from the countryside who couldn’t find other work, so they became janitors. They were hardworking, and had no friends in the city except for the people they worked with.

Zhang Mingcai enjoyed being with them. They had a special vitality about them. She listened to their stories about ungrateful children, their past hardships, and which teachers were the kindest or the harshest.

She hid in their lives, caring about them and living like them to avoid her own pain.

What Zhang Mingcai didn’t know was that these people considered her one of their own.

When one of their own has a small problem like this, of course, they would help.

Zhao Jingzheng never imagined they would cover for each other. When he heard what they said, he naturally believed it.

So when Li Xun finished her self-study session and saw that the person they were going to follow was an unfamiliar auntie, she was stunned.

What’s going on?