14. The Girl Runs Away From Home (Part One)

For the sake of Wen Mingjuan's safety, Lin Yitan began asking around in every direction to learn more about Gao Weizhao's personal history. Gao Weizhao was a local; one or two teachers at the school who'd lived in the area for decades knew roughly something of his family background. But since he hadn't attended this particular high school, even these two teachers didn't know much more, only that he'd gone to Tainan First Senior High School.

Through a roundabout connection—a classmate who worked at Tainan First—Lin Yitan finally managed to piece together a few clues. Taking advantage of the weekend, he invited Wen Mingjuan and Zhang Tingyu along, and the three of them went to visit Gao Weizhao's math teacher from those years.

This Teacher Chen, his hair streaked with gray, looked to be getting on in years. Even after more than a decade, this boy's name was still etched clearly in his memory.

After a brief greeting, Teacher Chen recounted at length the story of that peculiar boy from years ago.

"He never graduated high school." This was his deepest impression of Gao Weizhao. "In the second semester of his senior year, he had far too many hours of absence, so he never received his diploma. He sat the college entrance exam under equivalent qualifications and got into the mechanical engineering department at National Taiwan University. Truly an exceptionally bright child."

"Too many hours of absence? Why was that?" Lin Yitan pressed further.

"If I remember correctly, word was he'd fallen in with a gang, so he rarely came to class. But his aptitude really was beyond words—no matter how difficult the math problem, once it landed in his hands, he'd always handle it with ease. Even if he was absent for an entire week, I never once felt he'd fallen behind. Still, school rules are school rules, and the administration had no choice but to go by the book. His mother was so upset over him running with a gang and failing to get his diploma that she ended up hospitalized."

"So he really was a bad seed after all." Lin Yitan offered his own take.

"Well, I wouldn't quite put it that way." Teacher Chen considered for a long moment before continuing. "He never caused any trouble at school. Quite the opposite—he was very quiet, unusually so, and didn't mingle much with others. Several times I tried deliberately to talk with him, but I never found a way in. Aside from a simple 'yes' or 'no,' he hardly spoke at all. Honestly, when I first heard he'd fallen in with a gang, I could hardly believe it."

"He was quiet?" Hearing Teacher Chen say this, Wen Mingjuan was taken aback, and said, puzzled, "You'd never guess it, seeing him now."

"Are you close with him, Teacher Wen?" Teacher Chen asked with a faint smile.

"Not really! We've just crossed paths a few times—he's my student's uncle." Wen Mingjuan explained hastily.

"Honestly, even now I still can't understand it—a child that bright, that refined, from such a well-off family—what on earth could have driven him down a road of no return?" Teacher Chen sighed.

All the way out through Teacher Chen's front door, Wen Mingjuan remained in something of a daze. She was rather distracted, and didn't even hear Zhang Tingyu calling her name several times.

"Hey! Get in the car." When Lin Yitan pulled the car around, Zhang Tingyu practically shouted herself hoarse calling her, finally pulling Wen Mingjuan's soul back into her body.

"Oh." Wen Mingjuan answered Zhang Tingyu blankly.

"What are you thinking about?"

"I was thinking, back when I was hurt by Gao Weizhao and in the ER, he mentioned to me that he'd joined a gang in high school."

"Oh?"

"Don't you think there's something a little strange about Gao Weizhao?" Wen Mingjuan asked.

"You're pretty funny yourself. He's already strange to begin with—joining a gang at such a young age, and who knows, maybe he's even the flasher. It'd be stranger if he weren't strange." Zhang Tingyu made a face, thinking Wen Mingjuan was being a bit odd herself.

"Isn't Teacher Lin's whole point to get you to see clearly what kind of person Gao Weizhao is? If he were someone of good character and generous spirit, Teacher Lin wouldn't need to go to all this trouble today, don't you get it?" Zhang Tingyu rapped Wen Mingjuan on the head.

"Do you think he's a bad person?" Wen Mingjuan asked Zhang Tingyu again, somewhat sheepishly.

"Probably? I don't know him, so I can't really jump to conclusions." Zhang Tingyu mused. "If he doesn't even count as a bad person, then what exactly counts as a bad person?"

Zhang Tingyu's logic, in its own way, was actually rather thought-provoking.

If Gao Weizhao still didn't count as a bad person, then what kind of person would count as bad?

The question was:

Was Gao Weizhao really a bad person?

And what exactly was a "bad person" supposed to be like, anyway?

This question was too hard, too complicated—at the very least, she didn't think the label "bad person" could be settled on so simply.

Especially since—

she had never once felt that there was anything bad about Gao Weizhao.

Especially not toward her; he'd never been anything close to bad to her.

* * *

One morning, just as Wen Mingjuan arrived at the classroom to supervise self-study period, Su Yongcheng, the homeroom teacher two classes over, came flying toward her.

"Teacher Wen!" He called out forcefully.

Wen Mingjuan stopped in her tracks at once, staring at him in confusion.

In her impression, Su Yongcheng was normally a rather steady, composed sort of person; he was already past forty, and such an agitated performance didn't suit him at all.

"Is something wrong?" Wen Mingjuan asked flatly.

"This is bad—Lan Yunmei in your class has run away from home." Su Yongcheng's tone was thoroughly panicked.

"What did you say?" Wen Mingjuan froze, thinking she must have misheard. "Lan Yunmei ran away from home? When did this happen?"

She instinctively turned to look at the student's seat, and sure enough, Lan Yunmei's seat was still empty.

And so Wen Mingjuan began to grow anxious as well.

Lan Yunmei and her twin sister, Lan Zimei, both attended this high school, though the two sisters were in different classes. Because of the similarity in their names, people who knew them always called them Little Blueberry and Big Blueberry.

Lan Yunmei had always been an excellent, well-behaved student who never gave anyone cause for worry; the news that she'd run away from home left absolutely everyone stunned.

"Why?" Wen Mingjuan's mind was in complete disarray. "Did Big Blueberry say something? Is it because of her parents' divorce?"

"It's what Big Blueberry said. She woke up early this morning and found Little Blueberry gone, with only a letter left behind saying she was going to find her mother."

"Find her mother? Does she know where her mother is?"

"In Taipei." Su Yongcheng said.

"Taipei?" Wen Mingjuan was taken aback. "A girl, running off to Taipei in the middle of the night by herself?"

Little Blueberry had always been the diligent, obedient type, who did nothing but study, study, and more study—how could she suddenly do something this impulsive? It was truly beyond anyone's wildest imagination.

"Does she know her mother's address?" Wen Mingjuan asked urgently.

"No, she doesn't! That's exactly why we're calling it running away from home." Teacher Su said.

In the second semester of her sophomore year, something had apparently gone wrong between Little Blueberry's father and mother; her father's affair had left the household atmosphere growing colder and colder. Perhaps her father's heartlessness, combined with her mother's suffering, had deeply affected Little Blueberry—her grades had plummeted abruptly from the top two in her class to outside the top thirty. Wen Mingjuan had talked with her several times, always offering timely guidance and encouragement. Perhaps thanks to her homeroom teacher's earnest care and attention, Little Blueberry's grades had immediately stopped their slide and rebounded, and by the final exams she'd smoothly reclaimed her spot at the top of the class.

But did the recovery of Little Blueberry's grades really mean the turmoil inside her had settled as well?

What reason could there be for her to leave home in the dead of night like this? Did she not want to stay by her father's side? Was she missing her mother too much? Or was there some other, unknown factor at play?

Wen Mingjuan found herself deeply puzzled.

After three agonizing days of waiting, it was finally midday on the fourth day when Little Blueberry's father came rushing into the homeroom teachers' office in a panic. Spotting Wen Mingjuan from a distance, he cried out loudly, heedless of all the people present.