Heavenly Eyes

CHAPTER 5

Section 9: Transfer

After the funeral, I insisted on going back to Grandma's.

 

Mom hugged me and said, “Be good, Tongtong. I've already taken care of your transfer. It's the best private school here. From now on, you'll go to school with Mom and Dad, okay?”

 

I pushed away from Mom's embrace, unwilling.

 

“No! Didn't you say you'd send me back in a week? Why are you lying to me?”

They didn't want me when I was born, so why do they want me back now that Grandma has raised me?

 

I don't want to go to school in the city at all. I don't know anyone here. There's no Li Zhuangzhuang, no roasted sweet potatoes, and no Grandma's warm embrace.

 

Mom, seeing how stubborn I was, got a little angry.

 

“Shen Tong, don't be so willful, okay? What kind of future do you have following your Grandma in that rural place? Isn't the city better? Don't you want to achieve something great?

You wouldn't want to grow up and be like your grandmother, would you? A fortune teller, pretending to be spiritual?”

 

Mom said I could achieve great things, but implied my grandmother couldn't.

 

I angrily pushed her away.

 

“Grandma doesn't pretend to be spiritual! Everyone in the village says Grandma is a fairy!”

 

Mom was also angry. She couldn't understand why her daughter so firmly believed in the very things she despised.

 

“Your grandmother is a fraud, a liar! Your father and I are both highly educated people. You're our daughter; don't believe your grandmother's superstitious nonsense!”

 

At only ten years old, I had a huge argument with my mother over my beliefs.

Being the adult, she resorted to unfair tactics.  

Seeing she couldn't win the argument, she used physical force, grabbing a feather duster to hit me!

 

Having been cherished and treated like a precious jewel by my grandmother since I was little, how could I bear such injustice?

 

I turned and ran.

 

Because children don't need tickets on buses, I hopped on and off several buses.

 

But the bus that usually took me straight home just wouldn't get me there today.

 

I secretly wondered, was it because we came here on something called a plane?

Darn it, I can't fly!

 

Finally, hungry and exhausted, a kind person called the police station, and the officers there contacted my parents, who came to pick me up.

 

I thought Mom would hit me again and was prepared for a three-hundred-round battle.

 

Unexpectedly, Mom hugged me and sobbed uncontrollably.

 

“Tongtong, Mommy's sorry. Please don't run away from home again, okay? Mommy didn't really want to hit you; Mommy just didn't know what else to do. Don't leave. Mommy doesn't want to be separated from Tongtong.”

 

My brother watched Mom cry, tears and snot streaming down her face, looking a little troubled.

Looking at him, I sighed inwardly.

 

Mom was so grown-up, yet she was still crying. My brother had to take care of such an adult; it must be so hard for him.

 

Dad, although he didn't cry, also told me earnestly:

 

“Tongtong, your mother has actually missed you very much. Although you haven't been home, your mother has always kept your room ready. Open the closet; it's full of clothes and shoes she's prepared for you over the years.

 

Your mother isn't neglecting you; she just doesn't know how to deal with you and your grandmother. Tongtong, come home, okay? Dad and Mom both love you very much. Do you want to leave your brother?”

 

To be honest, I really did. I wasn't willing to leave him.

In my heart, Grandma was my real family. Although Dad, Mom, and my brother were also very good to me, it still felt different.

 

But I couldn't do anything; I was just a ten-year-old child.

 

Mom and Dad wouldn't let me go back, and I didn't know my way around, so I couldn't return on my own.

 

Luckily, I could still call Grandma and Li Zhuangzhuang, tell them I'd been tricked, couldn't go back, and ask them to come and rescue me.

Li Zhuangzhuang insisted on coming to rescue me, but his grandfather caught him and gave him a beating.

 

Grandma told me, “Be good, Tongtong. Your parents are doing this for your own good.”

 

I cried, “But, I'm supposed to inherit your mantle, Grandma! What if the tradition is broken without me?”

 

Grandma only said, “The time hasn't come yet. Everything in this world is about fate. If the time isn't right, forcing it won't work.”

And so, I stayed in the city to go to school.

Section 10: The Playground

By this time, due to policy reforms, my parents had left their government jobs and gone into business, and they were doing quite well. They paid the fine, registered my household registration, and weren't afraid of people knowing they had an older daughter.

 

It's just that their older daughter wasn't exactly a high achiever. At a private school with a 95% high school acceptance rate, my grades consistently ranked dead last.

 

The one time I was second to last was because I had diarrhea that day and wasn't feeling well.

 

Both my parents were academic high-achievers, and my younger brother was even called a child prodigy.

I single-handedly dragged down our family's academic reputation, making my fiercely ambitious mother's head spin.

 

“Shen Chen! Control your sister!”

 

Poor little Shen Chen, still in kindergarten, tried to tutor me, his older sister.

 

I shook my head at him.

 

“Little brother, it's no use.”

 

Ever since that time I used my supposed ‘sixth sense’ to help Shao Lanxuan see his future and leaked Heaven's secrets, my mind has been hazy. All I think about these days is eating and playing.

The very mention of studying gave me a headache.

 

I felt I wasn't cut out for academics.

 

Fortunately, although I was a poor student, I was a very quiet child. The teacher assigned me a seat in the far corner of the classroom, and usually, nobody bothered me.

 

That day, during physical education class, I sat alone by the sandbox, lost in thought.

I was drawing patterns in the sand with a twig.

 

A man who looked to be in his forties suddenly walked over and gently asked, “What are you doing, classmate? Why aren't you playing with the others?”

 

Looking at the somewhat unfamiliar man in a teacher's uniform, I answered honestly:

 

“The math teacher said I got zero on such simple problems, suspects I have a congenital intellectual disability, and suggested my parents take me to the hospital for a check-up.”

The man laughed. “What kind of problems can you not solve? Let me see.”

 

The man was very patient in his teaching. He discovered that I didn't understand the current curriculum because my foundation was weak, so he started explaining things from first-grade level.

 

He also told me to go to the sandbox whenever I had free time, and he would tutor me there.

 

With the man's help, my math grades improved dramatically, going from zero to passing.

Although my other subjects were still a mess, math was a high-scoring subject! So, I climbed from dead last in the grade to 50th from the bottom.

 

After the man tutored me for a semester, I received a perfect 100 on my math exam and happily ran to share the good news with him.

But I found a group of people surrounding the sandbox where he usually tutored me. Several people in uniforms were walking around the edge of the sandbox.

 

I grabbed a classmate and asked, “What's going on?”

 

The classmate whispered in my ear, “It seems they're renovating the playground, and they dug up a skeleton from under the sandbox.”

Having grown up in the countryside, I was used to attending both celebratory and funeral feasts, so death wasn't unfamiliar to me.  

My only worry was, with the sandbox dug up, where would the man tutor me in math now?

 

While I was thinking this, I suddenly saw the man appear in the crowd and wave at me.

 

I happily ran toward him with my report card, but he had vanished.

Later, I heard that the skeleton buried in the sandbox belonged to a math teacher who had worked at the school over a decade ago, Mr. Wei.  

At the time, the school was building a new playground, and Mr. Wei had offended some people for some reason. He was murdered and buried in the sandbox under the playground.

 

At the memorial service, the black and white photo of Mr. Wei showed a man who looked exactly like the man who tutored me.

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