ISBH - Chapter 14
Chapter 14: Bullying
"Mo Sheng, what happened to you? Who bullied you..."
Seeing Mo Sheng like this, Han Tian suspected at once that Mo Sheng had been bullied, yet after Mo Sheng came back she only stared blankly at the ceiling, and Han Tian could not tell at all what had happened to her.
The sky grew darker little by little. At this hour Mo Sheng would usually eat a little and then do her homework, yet today Mo Sheng showed no intention of eating anything.
"Mo Sheng..." Han Tian watched from the side and felt worry rising in her heart, and for a moment Han Tian even had a reckless urge to throw caution away and try to touch Mo Sheng.
But Han Tian knew it was a terrible idea. If the little girl had even slightly weak mental endurance and was touched by an unknown being, the little girl might lose her mind on the spot.
Han Tian did not dare to take the risk.
She crouched beside Mo Sheng and watched her, and the longer she watched the more heartache she felt. Without realizing it, Han Tian had already come to treat Mo Sheng as her own younger sister. Now seeing the little girl she had cared for so well turned into this, while she herself could do almost nothing, Han Tian felt her heart ache as if pricked by needles...
Her eyes stung, and Han Tian wiped at her tears on the spot.
Mo Sheng seemed to finally come back to herself at this moment. She lowered her head, bit her lower lip, slowly stood up and walked to the bathroom. The sound of rushing water kept coming from the bathroom. Han Tian hesitated for a long time, but in the end she still worried and leaned over to look, only to find the little girl was not bathing. She was only using the sound of water to mask her crying.
Mo Sheng huddled in the bathroom and sobbed softly. The zipper of her dress had been pulled open, revealing a back that was little more than skin and bones.
In that instant a thought flashed through Han Tian's mind, yet before she could think it through, all her attention was seized by Mo Sheng's back.
Someone had covered Mo Sheng's back with abusive words like 'ugly freak' and 'thief', written in black marker...
The strokes looked childish and came from more than one hand!
...
What on earth had Mo Sheng gone through?!
It felt like a thunderbolt crashing down on her head!
Han Tian stared with eyes wide, her chest burning as if on fire and her heart feeling torn apart, and for a moment she felt she could not even breathe!
When Han Tian finally came back to herself, she realized her face was already covered in tears without her knowing.
She did not dare to look at Mo Sheng's back again and hurried out of the room.
Now that she had condensed into solid form, Han Tian quickly took paper and a pen from Mo Sheng's backpack. In that moment she wanted to ignore everything else and only thought of helping Mo Sheng...
Han Tian wanted Mo Sheng to contact herself from ten years ago!
It was a bold and crazy thought. Han Tian was trying to challenge the Spacetime Rules, and no one could say exactly what the limits of the Spacetime Rules covered. If she failed, Han Tian might be wiped out by this spacetime as an intruder...
But what if she succeeded?
Han Tian truly could no longer watch Mo Sheng live like this.
Han Tian took a deep breath, bit down on the pen at last, and wrote quickly on the paper.
Dear Mo Sheng,
Do not be afraid when you read this. I come from ten years later...
When Han Tian wrote the salutation, nothing unusual happened, and this gave Han Tian back a little confidence. Yet when she wrote the words ten years, a sudden change struck. A huge pain rose inside Han Tian's body. The pain spread through every inch of skin, as if a blunt knife were slicing every inch of her body, and it seemed an invisible eraser wiped away every word Han Tian had written, right before her eyes, until nothing remained...
Han Tian gritted her teeth and watched the paper and pen fall back into Mo Sheng's backpack.
Han Tian understood in that instant. This was a warning from the Spacetime Rules!
She could not voluntarily reveal anything about herself in this spacetime.
Han Tian clenched her teeth!
Yet the warning from spacetime did not stop there.
As if determined to punish this intruder well, the Spacetime Rules showed Han Tian no mercy. Han Tian felt the pain inside her body keep growing worse. Blood came from her bitten lower lip, and her vision gradually blurred...
When Mo Sheng went to school that morning, she had actually felt a little excited. She had never worn such a beautiful dress.
Mo Sheng's seat was in the last row of the classroom. Because the classmates disliked her for being dirty, the boys usually mocked her and the girls each had their own small cliques, so Mo Sheng had no close friends in class.
Mo Sheng understood her situation, but looking dirty was her protective coloring. Only this way did Mo Sheng feel safe.
In Mo Sheng's memory, her father and mother had both looked very attractive, and as a small child Mo Sheng had also cared about looking pretty.
Yet after one incident, prettiness began to mean danger in Mo Sheng's mind.
The place where Mo Sheng lived was the most chaotic part of the city. Countless people from all over the country gathered here. All sorts of people mixed together there, and cases of many kinds happened again and again.
Not long after Mo Sheng's father died, several cases of murdered young girls occurred in Mo Sheng's district. The girls were all seventeen or eighteen years old and all very pretty. After her father died, Mo Sheng once went out to look for food and saw blood trickling out at a secluded corner...
She seemed to see the hem of a man's clothing...
Mo Sheng did not dare to look again and quickly left that place.
That very night news came of another missing girl.
Mo Sheng struggled for a long time, but in the end she went to the police station and haltingly told what she had seen.
As expected, the police found a body where Mo Sheng had said.
"What a pity!"
"What a lovely little girl! Pretty as a flower, she should have been at the age to thrive, yet her life was cut short because evil men coveted her..."
...
The police covered Mo Sheng's eyes, yet after hearing their words Mo Sheng still fell seriously ill when she went back.
Mo Sheng suffered nightmares for a long time. When she recovered a little, Mo Sheng began to reject every way of making herself look good. She basked in the sun without a care, and her arms were covered with many scars...
During that time everyone felt insecure, especially families with pretty daughters, who guarded their daughters like the apple of their eye.
Mo Sheng could only huddle alone in her room, carefully eating the little food left at home, living in fear every day...
Later no more murders occurred in Mo Sheng's area. The transient population in that district was too large. The police investigated for a long time without finding the killer, and people gradually forgot the shadow that had hung over everyone's hearts...
Yet Mo Sheng never forgot. During that time she was like a frightened bird, and from time to time she would recall the blood winding across the ground.
It was not until one day not long after, when Mo Sheng saw in the mirror that she had become an emaciated little girl with hollow cheeks, an 'ugly' little girl, that the panic in Mo Sheng's heart slowly faded...
Mo Sheng would not usually wear a pretty dress, but these were the final exams...
Just one day...
Mo Sheng told herself quietly.
This had been made for her by the female ghost!
Mo Sheng also wanted to tell everyone in a quiet way that someone cared about her...
When Mo Sheng reached the classroom, she found she drew many gazes.
The classmates also realized for the first time that this dirty little girl who looked like a little mouse and annoyed everyone actually had delicate features when looked at closely, only her skin was a little dark and she looked far too thin.
At first Mo Sheng still lacked confidence under such gazes, but soon Mo Sheng overcame the fear in her heart, bit her lower lip, held her head high and walked into the classroom.
Mo Sheng was in seventh grade this year. The classmates disliked her for being dirty and did not want to sit with her, so she had no deskmate.
Across an aisle sat the tallest girl in class.
The girl was named Wang Zhi. She was the oldest among the girls in class and looked quite good. Unlike Mo Sheng, who looked like a little girl of eight or nine years old, Wang Zhi had already begun to mature and had even learned to wear makeup.
Wang Zhi did not wear the school uniform. She wore jeans and a long T-shirt, and among seventh grade students whose awareness of the differences between boys and girls had not yet begun to sprout, she looked especially eye catching.
Wang Zhi's Father Wang Qiang was a contractor on a construction site. Because Wang Zhi had always done poorly in school and had started skipping classes early to hang out with delinquents from outside school, and because Wang Qiang had recently taken on many projects and earned a lot of money, he paid a large school selection fee to get her into this class to study.
Wang Zhi disliked studying and usually hung out with a group of girls who also did not study, and she looked at Mo Sheng as if looking at an annoying stink bug. Yet when Mo Sheng sat down wearing this dress, Wang Zhi's eyes shifted, and she suddenly leaned over and sat beside her. "So your dress is very pretty? Where did you buy it..."
Mo Sheng did not want to offend the boss girl in class, so she answered vaguely. "It wasn't bought by me. A friend gave it to me."
"Is that so?" Wang Zhi fingered the candy on Mo Sheng's dress, looked at the English lettering embroidered on the candy, and pushed Mo Sheng away with contempt. "Ugly freak, you look just as ugly in this dress..."
Mo Sheng had long grown used to everyone's taunts, and although Wang Zhi's words sounded especially harsh, Mo Sheng still endured it.
After finishing the two morning exams, when the afternoon exam was about to begin, Mo Sheng had just entered the bathroom of the school when Wang Zhi followed in, and then several girls who usually played with Wang Zhi also squeezed into the restroom.
Mo Sheng sensed something wrong and instinctively wanted to escape, but Wang Zhi pushed Mo Sheng to the ground, and then one of her followers leisurely locked the restroom door from the inside.
"Little bitch, where do you think you can run?"
A girl at once slapped Mo Sheng hard on the face.
"You dare steal our Sister Wang's dress! You even have the nerve to wear it to school..." Another slap landed on Mo Sheng's face.
"A dress Sister Wang's family bought from abroad, is that something an ugly freak like you can wear?"
"Ugly is bad enough, and you're shameless too, stealing other people's clothes..."
...
"I didn't. I picked up this dress from a garbage pile..." Mo Sheng explained hurriedly. She also realized at this moment that Wang Zhi had probably lost a dress and blamed it on her...
"You told me this morning it was a gift from a friend, and now you say you picked it up... You really are a little stink bug!" Wang Zhi's aunt had mailed a dress to Wang Zhi from abroad. Wang Zhi had meant to give it away, but it was stolen before she even opened it. Wang Zhi only knew the brand of the dress and had never even seen what it looked like.
This had frustrated Wang Zhi for several days.
Now seeing the new dress on Mo Sheng, embroidered with English she did not recognize, Wang Zhi naturally suspected Mo Sheng. A little stink bug with neither father nor mother, how could she afford such an expensive dress?
At this moment the bell for the exam rang. Mo Sheng felt despair in her heart. She struggled to go back to the exam, yet several girls pressed Mo Sheng to the ground. They took out markers, pulled open the zipper at Mo Sheng's back, and wrote 'thief' and 'stink bug' on Mo Sheng's back...
The pen tips poked into her skin. Mo Sheng bit her lower lip tightly until blood seeped from the edge of her lips.
...
No one knew how long passed before this bullying finally ended.
"We'll let you off this time!" Wang Zhi looked down from above at Mo Sheng curled on the ground. She was about to leave when a girl beside Wang Zhi suddenly spoke. The girl clung to Wang Zhi's arm and said in a spoiled voice. "Although I don't want this clothing now that it's been dirtied by a stink bug, I don't want to see a stink bug wearing a dress that belongs to me..."
"Fine!" Wang Zhi kissed the little girl on the cheek.
A girl beside them at once tore the dress off Mo Sheng, yet when she saw the label on the inner lining of the dress, shock clearly showed on her face.
"Wang... Sister Wang, this dress isn't the brand you told us about!"
...
Wang Zhi looked down and saw that the brand was indeed different.
So... they had punished the wrong person?
Mo Sheng on the ground raised her head. Her eyes were actually very beautiful, especially now when hiding anger, they looked like twinkling stars.
Meeting Mo Sheng's gaze, Wang Zhi froze, and her face suddenly showed embarrassment. She wanted to say something, yet a girl beside her kicked Mo Sheng again. "So what if we were wrong? That doesn't prove this dress wasn't stolen by her. We're carrying out justice..."
"Right, we're carrying out justice, teaching the little stink bug not to run around..."
...
"Zhizhi, I want to drink milk tea!" Wang Zhi said nothing more. The girl beside her kissed her on the face, threw the dress onto Mo Sheng, and sneered. "Little stink bug, if I ever see you stealing again I'll beat you to death..."
The girls' voices gradually faded away.
...
Mo Sheng pressed her face against the freezing floor, gritted her teeth, and finally managed to stand up again.
She returned to the classroom, but because she had long missed the start time, the teacher would not allow her into the exam room.
Mo Sheng went to the office and told the whole thing to the homeroom teacher.
The homeroom teacher found Wang Zhi outside the school drinking milk tea.
Wang Zhi froze, waved the delicate mobile phone in her hand, and soon Wang Zhi's Father Wang Qiang arrived at the school loaded with bags...
Soon after, the Dean arrived at the homeroom teacher's office, smoking the cigarette Wang Qiang had just bought...
"Mo Sheng, why not just let it go..." The homeroom teacher glanced at Wang Qiang and spoke with difficulty. "Wang Zhi didn't mean it."
"You never looked like someone who could afford such a dress..."
Mo Sheng lowered her head.
Seeing Mo Sheng bite her lip and stay silent, the homeroom teacher's eyes shifted, and she looked toward Wang Qiang again. "Mo Sheng always ranks among the top three in class, and now she missed an exam because of Wang Zhi, so what about her tuition for next semester..."
Mo Sheng's tuition was an astronomical figure for Mo Sheng, yet for Wang Qiang, who was riding high, the money was no problem.
"We'll naturally cover this little student's tuition for next semester." Wang Qiang's eyes flickered as he looked at Mo Sheng, and he laughed heartily. "Little student, my Wang Zhi really didn't mean it this time. Since your grades are so good, could you come help my Wang Zhi with tutoring?"
"Mo Sheng, hurry and thank Wang Zhi's Father..." The homeroom teacher kept smoothing things over and pushed Mo Sheng before Wang Qiang. "Wang Zhi's Father is a very kind man. The water dispensers in our classes were all donated by Wang Zhi's Father..."
Mo Sheng was very smart, so she understood very well that the homeroom teacher's words already carried a warning.
She was only a shabby girl from a poor household, but Wang Zhi's family was different. This district was already poor, and Wang Zhi's presence could bring more benefits to the school.
...
Wang Zhi stood beside her Father, looking at Mo Sheng with a complicated gaze. Her eyes no longer held the contempt of before and seemed to contain something else.
Yet Mo Sheng did not glance at her at all.
"Thank you, Uncle Wang." Mo Sheng took a deep breath, bit the wound on her lower lip, and finally bowed.
Shouldn't she have gotten used to it long ago?
Why did she feel so humiliated and sad?
...
Wang Zhi looked at Mo Sheng and uncomfortably turned her head away.
Mo Sheng did not know how she got home.
As soon as she pushed the door open, the female ghost came over with a face full of worry and asked what on earth had happened.
Mo Sheng found she could not say a word at this moment.
As the teacher had said, her tuition for next semester was settled, she even had a part-time job, and the school could get another donation from Wang Qiang. She should have felt happy...
Yet the moment she saw the female ghost, Mo Sheng only felt her nose sting.
She had not felt the urge to cry for a very long time.
Mo Sheng barely held back and did not cry in front of the female ghost.
The female ghost was so silly she could not even protect herself. If she saw Mo Sheng cry, she might cry along...
Mo Sheng did not want to coax this foolish female ghost.
So Mo Sheng held back her tears and went into the bathroom alone.
To keep the female ghost from noticing, Mo Sheng deliberately turned the faucet up loud.
Almost as soon as she entered the bathroom, the tears Mo Sheng had held back for so long fell.
She did not want to accept the extra work and tuition offered by Wang Qiang. She only wanted to take her exams well...
But Mo Sheng had no choice but to agree to the happy ending the homeroom teacher imagined...
When would her father come back? She missed him so much...
Her father said, "School is the pure land of the human world."
But was there really a pure land in this world?
...
Only after she had cried enough did Mo Sheng sob and try to wipe the writing off her back with a cloth, yet her hands could not reach that spot, and after trying for a long time she still could not wipe it clean.
Afraid the female ghost would grow suspicious, Mo Sheng stopped trying to wipe, put her dress back on and left the bathroom.
The female ghost would not have noticed that she cried, right?
Mo Sheng felt nervous.
Yet after Mo Sheng went out, she found the female ghost collapsed beside the table!
It was not the female ghost's usual sleeping posture. The female ghost's cheeks had lost all color, her eyes were tightly closed, and her body seemed to still tremble...
Seeing the female ghost like this, Mo Sheng ran over at once...
At such a moment, Mo Sheng felt extremely anxious and had no time to care whether the female ghost would discover that she knew of her existence.
Yet the female ghost did not notice her arrival.
Mo Sheng touched the female ghost lightly. The female ghost's body was extremely stiff, her whole body shivering slightly, and her lips were purple.
A familiar feeling of electric current flowed into her fingertips, yet the female ghost showed no response at all...
Was she sick?
Mo Sheng looked at the female ghost whose face was pale as paper and bit her lower lip again.
Blood seeped from the wound she had bitten open before, but Mo Sheng had no time to care.
When people get sick they can take medicine, but what about a female ghost?
Would the female ghost disappear in the end like her father?
Mo Sheng found she simply could not bear such an ending.
She had finally gained a companion. The female ghost had never harmed anyone. She was so silly, only a little too chatty, so how could she end up disappearing...
But what way could save the female ghost?
...
Mo Sheng recalled a TV drama she had once watched. In TV dramas, female ghosts had to absorb people's essence...
As long as they absorbed essence, even dying ghosts would recover.
Mo Sheng looked at the female ghost's pale cheeks and no longer hesitated.
She pressed her lips together, puffed her cheeks and took a deep breath, imitated what she had seen on TV, and then slowly breathed air into the female ghost's lips...
The edge of Mo Sheng's lips had been bitten open before. With this movement, blood seeped out again, smearing little by little onto Han Tian's lips and moistening the lower lip Han Tian had bitten open from pain before...
Mo Sheng did not know if her method was right. Her heart stayed tight with worry as she kept blowing onto Han Tian's lips. She did not know how long passed before the female ghost's body seemed to gradually soften and was no longer as stiff as before, and her complexion slowly eased...
Mo Sheng finally sat beside the female ghost, exhausted.
Mo Sheng had not wanted to sleep. The female ghost now looked a little better, but Mo Sheng was not sure whether the female ghost would wake up, so Mo Sheng had meant to review her lessons for tomorrow while watching the female ghost. Yet today had taken too much out of her, and Mo Sheng still fell asleep without meaning to...
The little girl did not go to bed. She lay on the table and slept, and her thin figure looked even smaller.
...
No one knew how long passed before Mo Sheng felt a cool touch on her back. The little girl opened her eyes into a slit, saw the pure white skirt hem beside her, felt her hanging heart settle at once, hummed comfortably twice, and fell back into deep sleep...
"Sorry, I'm bound by rules and can't help you at all..."
Warm liquid fell, drop by drop onto Mo Sheng's face.
...
When sunlight shone in the next morning, Mo Sheng found she was already in bed.
Her back felt cool, as if medicine had been applied...
The female ghost slept at her bedside, looking as calm and gentle as always.
Mo Sheng secretly stared at the female ghost, who looked very beautiful in the morning light, for two seconds, and let out a long breath.
It's good that she's still here!
Silly female ghost, so hard to raise!
Comments
Post a Comment