Don’t Pick Up Boyfriends From the Trash Bin

translator: baumkuchen  editors: serefina, glitterypanda

For the afternoon free activity period, they still each performed their respective duties. Everything was peaceful. The one who was working on a puzzle continued to work on their puzzle, the one who was playing basketball continued to play basketball, the one who was fixing dolls continued to fix dolls, the ones who were telling stories continued to tell stories, the one who was cooking continued to cook 

Chi Xiaochi did a count, and found that the children who had been with each person were still with them today, as if they had been pre-installed before leaving the factory.

After the three brats over by him surrounded him, they didn’t bring up teaching singing, rather saying, “Laoshi, laoshi, teach us how to play telephone?”

This so-called “telephone”, also known as “string phones”,  was basically cutting a bottle in half through the middle, taking the bottom half and drilling a hole at the bottom. Then, they would use a string to connect two such bottles and listen to sound travel between them. It was a toy children loved to play with. 

Chi Xiaochi calmly refused, “No.”

As soon as this refusal left his lips, the three children stopped talking. Three pairs of jet black eyes stared at him, their gaze cold.

Pigtails asked, “Why?”

Chi Xiaochi replied, completely serious, “My mom told me not to casually give my phone number to other people.” 

Pigtails, “……”

Unexpectedly, using his mother as an evasion tactic actually worked.

The three looked at each other for a moment. The brat said, “Then what can laoshi teach us?” 

Chi Xiaochi said, “Laoshi will teach you how to do standing broad jumps.” Environmentally friendly, healthy, and green.

Bobcut swept away her strangeness from last night, twisting the corner of her clothes. She said in a weak voice, “Lou-laoshi, I’m wearing a skirt.”

Chi Xiaochi, “Then I’ll teach you how to kick jianzi.”

The two girls agreed, but the brat yelled about not wanting to play a girl’s game and ran off like a shot, disappearing.

Chi Xiaochi really began to teach the two girls how to kick jianzi. He was even pretty good.

When Gan Yu glanced over from afar, Chi Xiaochi was kicking jianzi under the envious gazes of the two girls, kicking the chicken feather jian in a dazzling way.

He and Gan Tang pursed their lips in a soft laugh at the same time, not noticing the brat slipping into the building and running towards the canteen. 

Liu Chengyin had made simple instant noodles for her four greedy little ghosts, then had cooked some porridge. Just as she was picking out vegetables, the brat poked his head in from outside. “Laoshi, I want to play telephone.”

Liu Chengyin couldn’t help but smile. “Be good, laoshi is busy right now. Find some other teachers to play with you, okay?”

The brat persisted, saying, “My teacher doesn’t want to play with me! I want to play!”

Liu Chengyin, unable to out-stubborn him, looked around. Finding that there just so happened to be useful leftover empty plastic bottles in the corner, she said, “Then first make the ‘telephone’ on your own. When you’re done, laoshi will play with you, okay?” 

The brat nodded happily. He picked up two bottles, hugging them to himself, and began to quietly craft.

In the activity room.

The silent, glasses-clad young man, Qin Ling, was helping the children place the puzzle pieces back in their original place one by one. At the same time, he was secretly drifting off in thought slightly. 

He couldn’t help but think, where was the difficulty of this world?

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As he was lost in thought, suddenly, a little hand tugged at his clothes. 

“Hm?”

When Qin Ling looked down, he found that the front-facing portrait had already been just about completed, but it was just missing one puzzle piece at the right eye. A single eye silently stared out at Qin Ling. He couldn’t help but shiver.

He had never been one who was good at dealing with children, but taking into consideration Liu Chengyin and Tian Guangbing’s accounts, he rather unnaturally gentled his voice, “Who hid the last piece of the puzzle away, hmm? Quickly hand it over.”

All the children in the room shook their heads one after the other, innocent looks on their faces. 

Qin Ling opened up the box that had held the puzzle pieces, then carefully searched around nearby, but was indeed unable to find the missing piece.

One of the children was on the verge of tears. “The puzzle’s not complete, what do we do, we can’t finish it.”

The other children comforted him one after another, “Nevermind, Qin-laoshi will help us think of a solution.”

After saying that, pairs after pairs of sincere and clear eyes fixed their gazes on Qin Ling, making Qin Ling feel a little uncomfortable. 

He forced out, “Laoshi…… will keep looking, will keep looking.”

Qin Ling then once more searched hard for a period of time, but was really unable to find anything.

With a slight headache, he shrugged. “Let’s play with another puzzle, okay?”

The children, however, all shook their heads in disapproval. 

At that moment, a child’s voice sounded from the corner. It was very young and sweet, sounding utterly innocent, “Laoshi, don’t you have an eye, lend it to us for a while, okay?”

Yuan Benshan, who was in another corner of the activity room, teaching children how to play with dolls, suddenly heard a piercing scream from behind him, making his heart clench.

When he turned, hurried forward with quick steps, and took a look, Yuan Benshan almost puked. 

A tuning fork had been stabbed into Qin Ling’s right eye, turning it into a mess of blood and pulp. Qin Ling clutched at his eye, curling up on the floor and howling in misery nonstop, broken flesh and dark blood spilling out from between his fingers.

The children had their backs to the door as they squished a broken eye into the empty spot, laughing incessantly, clapping and cheering.

……In the end, something happened after all. 

Liu Chengyin hurried over after hearing the news. Seeing the horrid scene, she involuntarily let out a cry of fear. Tian Guangbing was gobsmacked. The scene before Chi Xiaochi’s eyes had been censored, so he couldn’t see anything. Only Gan Yu remained calm after seeing everything, forcefully knocking out Qin Ling, who was crazed from panic, carrying him to the infirmary, and using bandages and alcohol to do a simple cleaning of his wound.

Only after the children finished eating and went off to shower did the group of people head to the infirmary.

Gan Yu walked out from behind the snow white screen, pulling off his bloodstained gloves.

Liu Chengyin asked, frantic, her eyes bloodshot, “Qin Ling, how is he?” 

……It wasn’t good.

His entire eye had been gouged out. After cleaning it out with alcohol, there was only a dark, empty socket left.

Gan Yu didn’t want to frighten them, doing his best to use a gentle tone as he spoke, “He’s not in any life-threatening danger for now, but I still need to observe him.”

Tian Guangyin was shocked out of his wits. “What…… what did he do?” 

No one could answer. Even Yuan Benshan didn’t know what had happened.

Tears streaked down Liu Chengyin’s face. “Qin Ling’s never been one to actively provoke anyone. We already told him many times to ‘get along well’ with those ghosts……”

“What’s the exact definition of ‘get along well’? Is it being totally submissive?” Yuan Benshan hesitated for a moment before opening his mouth to say, “……Could it be that his eye was gouged out because he was too obedient?”

Liu Chengyin and Tian Guangbing shuddered. The former’s face rapidly paled, and she held her hand to her mouth, as if she was about to vomit. 

Seeing that his girlfriend seemed to be in a bad state, Tian Guangbing wrapped his arms around her, his heart hurting for her. “Don’t think about it. Let’s go back and rest first.”

Yuan Benshan pointed at Qin Ling on the bed. “Then who’s going to stay and watch over him tonight?”

Without waiting for the Tian and Liu couple to speak, Chi Xiaochi raised his hand. “I’ll do it. I’ve studied nursing, so I’m better equipped to take care of him.”

Gan Tang also spoke, “I’ll stay too.” 

Yuan Benshan thought for a moment, and felt it was alright.

……As long as it wasn’t Gan Yu who stayed, it was fine.

Yuan Benshan and Gan Yu, who’d been busy for the entire day, headed back first. 

The pale-faced Liu Chengyin insisted on staying with Qin Ling for a while before being helped out the infirmary and up the stairs.

Before she reached the third floor dorms, she felt a burst of fear as she saw that brat excitedly rush over to her, in his hands an already complete string phone.

He held up the carefully made string phone. “Laoshi, play with me.”

How could Liu Chengyin possibly still dare to listen to him? In fear, she yelled, “No! No!” 

She grabbed Tian Guangbing’s hand, rushed straight into the dormitory and locked the door.

Outside, the brat knocked loudly on her door, his voice childish yet terrifying, “Laoshi, laoshi, open the door, didn’t we already agree, if I made the ‘phone’, we would play?”

Liu Chengyin wrapped herself in her quilt, pretending to not hear him.

The knocking continued for a while, before stopping. 

Liu Chengyin let out a big sigh of relief. Tian Guangbing was next to her, comforting her in a soft voice, making her tense nerves slowly relax.

However, a few seconds later, the phone she kept under her pillow suddenly rang.

That ringtone seemed to have some strange electric current mixed in with it, throwing it off-key. It sounded both strange and terrifying. 

The colour that had just returned to Liu Chengyin’s face instantly faded.

……There was no signal in the task worlds. 

Who was calling?

Liu Chengyin was so scared that her hands were trembling. She dug out her phone and pressed the power button, wanting to force her phone to shut off. 

But the phone didn’t listen to her orders.

She was practically crazed with fear, smashing her phone against the rails of her bed.

The screen was smashed into pieces, but the ringtone was relentless.

Trembling, she handed the phone out to Tian Guangbing. How could Tian Guangbing dare to answer it? He snatched the phone, and with a swing of his arm, threw it out the window. Then, he pulled his sobbing girlfriend into his arms, his face full of fear as he quietly comforted her. 

However, not long after that, the sound of footsteps came from the direction of the stairs.

Tap, tap, tap.

Along with the sound of the footsteps, came that same off-tune ringtone.

Those footsteps came to the door, and lightly stuffed the phone under the door. 

Seeing the situation, Liu Chengyin was already close to breaking. And as her fear progressed to its limit, it gradually fermented into an unspeakable anger and short-lived courage.

She stumbled over, picked up the phone, placed it to her ear, and said loudly, “……Hello?!”

There was no response. 

As her heart raced, her voice too subconsciously lowered, “Hello? ……”

Suddenly, a childish roar of anger sounded simultaneously from outside the door and the phone, “Laoshi, why didn’t you answer my call!?”

Liu Chengyin couldn’t hold back any longer. Letting out a piercing scream, she threw down the phone and hurriedly retreated to her bed by the window, half-falling, half-sitting on it. 

Just as she was about to cry, she spotted something out of the corner of her eye. Her almond-shaped eyes widened even further, and she screamed again as she backed away from the window.

Tian Guangbing was also given quite the scare by these situations that were coming one after another. His hand that was wrapped around Liu Chengyin was trembling slightly. As he stared out at the darkness outside the window, he asked, uneasy, “……What’s wrong? What did you see?”

Liu Chengyin cried, “There was a woman!”

“What woman?” 

“A woman, wearing a black hat, she was just in the courtyard!”

Tian Guangbing gathered up his courage. He rubbed Liu Chengyin’s shoulders in comfort, then slowly moved over to the window and looked down, but saw that there was no one in the courtyard. It was dead silent, where was this figure of a woman?