Chapter 32: Unseen Protection and Blind Malice

Lin Mo felt rather puzzled. Why would the little panda be here? Shouldn’t it be searching for its bamboo?

“Meow~”

A cat’s meow interrupted Lin Mo’s thoughts.

The black stray cat bolted out from somewhere, running up to the little panda’s side and looking up at it. In its mouth, it carried a piece of discarded black mantou. With a sweep of its tail, it placed the mantou right in front of the little panda.

The little panda’s eyes were dark and deep. It bent down, picked up the mantou, and scooped the black stray cat into its arms. Rubbing its plump bear paw against the stray cat’s head, it ambled into the dark alley, walking all the way until it reached a dead end.

A layer of spiderwebs clung to the mottled walls, and withered vines crept up a dead tree, wrapping around the brickwork to create an exceptionally desolate scene.

With a wave of a bear paw, the wall in front of them vanished, replaced by a dilapidated little shed. The moment the little panda walked inside, the wall behind it instantly restored itself to its original state. Sitting down in the center of the little shed with its back against a haystack, the little panda broke off a piece of the mantou with its paw and fed it to the little wild cat.

With a soft mew, the black cat snatched the piece of mantou from the bear paw, devouring it wolfishly before affectionately nuzzling against the little panda’s paw pad.

The little panda rubbed the black cat’s head again.

Once the entire mantou was fed, the black cat seemed completely stuffed, its little belly round as a ball as it curled up against the fluffy little panda and fell asleep. Only then did the little panda slowly close its eyes.

At the break of dawn, the three schoolboys from yesterday were chattering along the road like noisy sparrows, entering the school gates early.

The boy with the cracking voice surreptitiously slid the classroom door shut, tiptoeing over to the desk right in the middle of the second row. He pulled a homework notebook out from a neatly arranged stack of books.

He flipped it open to take a look, confirming Lin Mo’s name. Waving the notebook in his hand, he tossed it to Wang Ming behind him. “Brother Ming, here’s the notebook. Tear this thing to pieces later and dump it in the trash can.”

Wang Ming tossed his schoolbag onto his desk, caught the notebook, and flipped through a few pages before loosely clutching it in his hand.

The boy beside him urged, “Hurry up and put the caterpillar you caught inside, otherwise what if everyone comes to school later and catches us in the act?”

“Hehe, don’t worry, it’ll be done in a jiffy.”

With a mischievous laugh, the one with the cracking voice pulled a plastic bag out from his pocket. Unfurllying it with his fingers, revealing a red caterpillar wriggling inside, he used a small wooden stick to prize it out.

Just as he placed the caterpillar onto the pages of the textbook, a sudden gust of wind violently swept through the window, flipping the caterpillar directly onto his face.

“AAAAHHH!” Like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, the boy covered his face and began jumping wildly on the spot.

Wang Ming and the other boy clutched his shoulders, asking anxiously, “What happened?”

The wind outside the window blew even harder, making it impossible to keep one’s eyes open.

The moment the boy loosened his grip on his face, the caterpillar flew up as if it had grown wings, plunging directly onto Wang Ming’s face. It crawled from his chin up to his forehead, leaving a trail of bumpy red welts and a burning, stinging sensation on his skin.

Wang Ming shrieked, his eyes squeezed shut as his fingers clawed wildly at the air. The caterpillar then lunged toward the third boy, and the three of them ran out of the classroom wailing like ghosts.

A round, fluffy little ball appeared at the doorway. Walking calmly into the classroom, it picked up the notebook that had fallen to the floor.

The notebook looked rather crumpled. The little panda used its bear paw to smooth it out a bit before placing it squarely and neatly on Lin Mo’s desk. Because it was stained with dust and had been handled by the bear cub’s paws, a tiny bear paw print was inadvertently left on the cover.

Lin Mo remembered that when she was a child, she had indeed found a bear paw print on her homework notebook once. At the time, she had assumed it was a classmate’s prank.

So it was the little panda who helped me win back my notebook.

At that moment, a sudden set of footsteps echoed outside the door. The little panda’s ears twitched, and it swiftly scrambled out through the window.

With a creak, the door was pushed open by a pair of small hands. A tender little face appeared outside the doorway, her eyes large, clear, and bright. Carrying a pink double-strap backpack and wearing her hair in twin ponytails, the little Lin Mo walked slowly into the classroom.

The little Lin Mo looked around the empty classroom, frowning as she muttered to herself, “How strange. I clearly heard noises in the classroom just now.”

Feeling a bit bewildered, she walked over to her seat and sat down, noticing the homework notebook on her desk.

Hidden in the grassy lawn outside, the little panda watched the little Lin Mo from afar, its gaze exceptionally earnest.

The little Lin Mo stared blankly. “How is there a paw print on my notebook?”

Unable to figure out any explanation, she put the notebook away, pulled out a textbook, and began previewing her lessons.

Lin Mo could only watch anxiously from the side. She desperately wanted to pat the little Lin Mo’s head: You silly little egg, if you just turn your head and look out the window right now, you’ll see the little panda!

But until the morning bell rang, the little Lin Mo kept her head down, earnestly previewing her text without looking back once, while the little panda kept its eyes fixed unblinkingly on her.

Forget it, my heart is tired. Lin Mo sighed, giving up.

The teacher walked into the classroom carrying a textbook and began the lesson.

After a while, a few shifty-looking young boys slunk past the window. Glancing inside and seeing that class had already begun, they felt even more guilty and hurried to the classroom door, standing there with drooping heads.

“Report.”

The students in the class turned their heads in unison and burst into a roar of laughter. To the three boys, this scene was nothing short of a public execution.

Their faces turned incredibly ugly, instantly flushing red to the roots of their necks. Clenching their fists, they turned their heads away to look outside.

The teacher glanced askance at the three students at the door, tapped the blackboard eraser against the podium to signal everyone to quiet down, and then nodded, calling out their names one by one.

“Wang Ming, Zuo Si, Li Tiaotiao!” The teacher’s expression was stern as he paused to glance at the clock hanging at the back of the classroom. “Class has already been underway for half an hour. Why are you only arriving now?”

Wang Ming kept his head down, unable to save face. He had always been a good student in the teacher’s eyes, and this was the first time he was being publicly reprimanded, leaving him temporarily unable to find his tongue.

The boy with the cracking voice behind him blurted out, “Teacher, we arrived at school a long time ago. Our schoolbags are already in the classroom.”

His words were nothing less than pouring oil on a fire. The teacher narrowed his eyes, shooting a piercing glare through his glasses. “Zuo Si, so you just dumped your schoolbag here and sneaked out to play, didn’t you? Did you finish the lines I penalized you to copy yesterday? Bring them over for me to see.”

Zuo Si froze, his expression instantly collapsing. How had he forgotten about that?

With ample teaching experience, the teacher knew at a single glance from Zuo Si’s reaction that he hadn’t done his homework again. He let out a cold snort and scolded sharply, “You fail to complete the assignments set by the teacher on time every day, and now you’ve even learned to skip classes. Have your parents come to school tomorrow; I need to have a private talk with them.”

“All of you get inside, stand by your seats, and finish making up your homework.”

The three of them slunk into the classroom under the snickering of their classmates.

Wang Ming felt even worse inside. His father was a drunkard who would never come to school to meet a teacher. It could only be his mother, but his mother still had to run her small stall to support the family and couldn’t spare the time at all. If his mother earned less money, his father would beat her again.

Wang Ming bit his lip, walked back to his seat, and gripped the edges of his desk tightly with both hands. Tilting his head up, he said timidly, “Teacher, I finished my homework. Can you please not make my mother come?”

The hand writing on the blackboard paused. The teacher turned around, the gaze looking at Wang Ming tinged with a hint of disappointment. “Wang Ming, do you know how much your grades dropped in the school-wide ranking this time? Yet you still show no desire to improve and only think about playing all day. Living like this, are you worthy of your parents’ expectations?”

Wang Ming bit his lower lip, not daring to look at the teacher again as his head dropped deeply.

“Speaking of this examination, I want to place special emphasis on praising Lin Mo from our class. She just entered our class for the new semester and managed to secure an excellent rank, scoring first in our class and third in the entire school. Everyone should learn more from Lin Mo.” The teacher’s encouraging gaze landed on the little Lin Mo.

A round of enthusiastic applause erupted in the classroom. The little Lin Mo felt a bit embarrassed, the tips of her ears turning slightly pink.

“Lin Mo is now our class monitor. When I am not around, if anyone has any academic questions, you can consult her.”

The little Lin Mo nodded heavily. She would definitely do her best to help her classmates.

Sitting diagonally behind the little Lin Mo, Wang Ming gripped the tip of his pen tightly, a trace of resentment flashing in his eyes.

Lin Mo sat to the side, taking everything in. Her heart couldn’t help but leap; this wave of resentment had been drawn to its absolute peak. So it was simply because of this that Wang Ming had targeted her time and time again?

Looking at the little Lin Mo listening intently to the lecture, she realized that without the little panda, growing up smoothly really wouldn’t have been easy for her.

Right, where did the little panda go? How did it disappear in the blink of an eye?

Lin Mo stood up, preparing to search for it, only to find herself pulled by a force and sucked into another vortex.

“Brother Ming, do we really have to do this? If we get caught, we’re going to prison.”

“If you don’t say anything and I don’t say anything, who will know about this? I’ve already checked this area; there are no cameras. Even if we get caught, what can they do to us? It’s written in the Juvenile Protection Law—anything done before turning eighteen isn’t called a crime, and we won’t go to prison. We’re just beating her up to vent our anger.”

Wang Ming’s features looked fierce as he pressed his foot down hard, crushing a flattened Coca-Cola can. He clutched a thick steel pipe tightly in one hand while handing another steel pipe to Zuo Si with the other.

When his mother came back from the school last night, she had gone out to run her small stall again. As a result, the urban management officers arrived, directly confiscated the stall, and even fined her several hundred Shells. When he returned home at night, the moment he opened the door, he saw his mother being beaten to the floor by his alcoholic father. He had rushed forward to shove his father down and help his mother up. His mother had knelt on the ground with tears streaming down her face, hugging him as they cried together.

In his heart, Wang Ming was convinced that if it weren’t for Lin Mo, he wouldn’t have lost face, his mother wouldn’t have been called to a parent-teacher meeting, let alone be fined and have her stall confiscated, and that drunkard wouldn’t have found an excuse to beat his mother.

All of this was because of Lin Mo. Why did she have to score first in the class, and why did she have to transfer to their class?

As long as Lin Mo was gone, the top rank in the class would be his again. He would still be the good student in the teacher’s eyes and the role model for his classmates; the glory that belonged to him would return.

The last trace of hesitation in Wang Ming’s heart was thoroughly driven away. He gripped Zuo Si’s shoulder tightly, his eyes fixed on the entrance of the alley.

Forced to turn around, Zuo Si held the steel pipe, his hands shaking slightly. Although he was usually a bit aggressive, blocking someone for a real fight was a first for him.