Teacher Tuniu

I am Teacher Tuniu. I do not teach anyone to slaughter cattle, nor can I slaughter cattle myself. I am not even a teacher in any real sense. "Tuniu" is my compound surname: my father's family name is Tu, my mother's is Niu. When it came to naming me, my mother insisted her name be included, and so I ended up with this double-barrelled surname. As for "Teacher" — all you need these days is a scrap of public visibility and people will call you that.

I work as a minor clerk at a tech company and write web novels on the side. I had a few fantasy serials published on a well-known fiction platform, enough to gather a small following. But the online climate has grown harder on writers year by year, with fiction sites imposing ever stricter censorship — and fantasy serials are the worst hit. I had one novel barely ten thousand characters in when it failed review after round after round of self-censorship. In the end I gave up and started fresh on a new platform.

After hearing a few readers call me "teacher," I rather liked it, and registered "Teacher Tuniu" as my pen name there.

My ability to work as a web novelist is, if anything, a gift from heaven. I have always dreamed in vivid, convoluted episodes, and each night my dreams pick up seamlessly from where the previous night left off. When I wake I can recall everything clearly. So I never have to rack my brains plotting — I simply transcribe my dreams. The story practically writes itself.

What I had just dreamed, even recalling it now, made me shudder. The bedsheet beside me had been twisted into a ball. The more terrifying, the more the readers love it. I ran the dream through my mind with satisfaction, smoothed the bedsheet, slipped quietly out of bed, and went to the study to open my computer. I typed as I remembered, and by the time I had finished and clicked Publish, morning had arrived.

"Up in the middle of the night writing again. Can't find you in bed when I wake up, for days now." Ruoli was already standing in the study doorway, complaining. She had dressed in a white blazer — one she had bought just last month. She must have an important meeting today.

"All right. From now on I'll try to finish faster and be back in bed before you wake up."

I said a few soothing words, then hurried through washing up and out the door. My work at the office was simple and mind-numbing: pay the company's bills, field a relentless stream of debt-collection calls, and stall for as long as possible with every excuse I could invent.

In the afternoon I picked up another call. As I lifted the receiver I had already lined up a shelf-load of delay tactics — but the other end was silent. After a few "hellos" I was on the verge of hanging up when a voice crackled through: hoarse beyond words, impossible to tell if it was male or female.

"That box. Must not be opened."

"Sorry?" The non-sequitur baffled me. "What box?"

No answer. The line went dead.

I set down the phone and thought I understood what had happened. My novel had mentioned the box in this morning's post, and I had received this call in the afternoon. Some bored reader's idea of fun. What disgusted me was that they had somehow dug up my office number.

Fiction sites require real-name registration — you have to submit genuine ID details to publish. But the sites could not be trusted to keep that information secure. Once your ID leaked, everything about you was exposed. I immediately called the platform to demand an explanation. Their response: their information security was excellent and there had been no leak.

Of course. Without hard evidence, they would never admit it. I even suspected they were selling authors' information outright. But what could I do? Swallow the insult. That's the price of wanting their money.

The indignities weren't over. While I was still on the phone with the platform, a message appeared in the company group chat:

Finance Manager Sun: Meeting today at 4:45, regarding the recent work schedule. (2022-02-21)

The department manager had timed the meeting to begin just before the end of the workday, and proceeded to deliver a long-winded ramble that had nothing to do with me — or, it seemed, with anyone else in the room. She had called us all in simply to run out the clock and stage a show of diligence for her own superiors.

By the time I got home, Ruoli had already finished her day and collected Xiaobao from kindergarten. Xiaobao had been changed out of his school clothes; Ruoli was still in her white blazer.

"Watch Xiaobao — I'm going to shower." She turned and went to the bathroom.

I made straight for Xiaobao's room. Whenever I was in a bad mood, one look at my child's guileless, bright eyes was enough to cheer me immediately. But today was different. Xiaobao's innocent eyes did not cheer me — because of what they were staring at.

A box.

A green cardboard box. Hearts-and-leaves printed all around its sides. An oval shape on the lid like a cockroach's body. Why did the box Xiaobao was holding look so much like the one from my dream?

"Don't touch that box!" I rushed over and tried to grab it away from him.

Xiaobao saw me coming for his box and lunged in the opposite direction, pulling hard. His weight swung into the table; a glass toppled and shattered on the floor.

The crash rang out and glass scattered.

I ignored it and asked first: "Where did that box come from?"

Xiaobao: "Brought it from kindergarten."

Me: "Who gave it to you?"

Xiaobao: "Xiaobao made it."

Knowing no one had given it to him, I relaxed. Xiaobao often brought home crafts from kindergarten; making a box one day was probably just coincidence.

I lifted Xiaobao onto the bed and started sweeping up the broken glass. He sat there on the bed still clutching the box. I disposed of the shards as quickly as I could and returned to his room — he had already opened the lid. The box was empty.

"That box. Must not be opened."

The strange phone call from that afternoon surfaced in my mind, and a faint, formless unease crept through me.

"Ahh—!"

A scream rang out from the bathroom.

I sprinted to the bathroom. Ruoli was pressed against the wall, clutching her towel, her eyes wide with fright. Following her gaze, I saw what had put her there: on the opposite wall of the bathroom, a palm-sized cockroach was waiting.