"Then should we..." Zhang Shutong hesitated.
"Let's go. It's like a handover. It's time to go when her dad comes back," Teacher Song said comfortingly. "I'll treat you and Qinglian to dinner tonight. You should rest well. If there were things to do on the island, I'd take you two to a movie, and then you can go back and sleep peacefully. When Monday comes, you'll go to school as usual. Isn't it nice to go fishing with your friends like before?"
Zhang Shutong said he understood.
He subconsciously glanced in the direction of the nanny's room. Gu Qiumian was on the phone in there.
The moment he turned his head, the girl hung up the phone and came out.
"How is it, Qiumian?" Teacher Song asked.
"He has already sent people on the boat first and is going to buy some things in the city himself. I told him he didn't have to..." Gu Qiumian then asked, "Teacher, what do you guys want to eat tonight?"
"We won't stay. We won't stay. I suddenly remembered that the clothes I washed haven't been hung out yet. They'll probably be frozen solid in this weather... We'll leave as soon as your family arrives."
Gu Qiumian then looked at Zhang Shutong.
This time, there was truly silence between them.
Teacher Song wisely walked away, leaving the two of them alone again. Zhang Shutong opened his mouth and found there was nothing to say. Should he say that he was still a little worried? But what right did he have to say such a thing? That was her biological father. He thought for a moment and just told her to be careful and make sure to lock the doors and windows when she slept... To be honest, this was just nonsense.
"Especially the night from Saturday to Sunday," Zhang Shutong said seriously. "Tell them not to let their guard down, and to keep a few more people in the house, not all of them out on patrol."
Gu Qiumian nodded slightly.
But Zhang Shutong could also be a bit stubborn sometimes. He hesitated for a moment and then asked:
"Do you want to come with me, to go somewhere else?"
Gu Qiumian was silent this time.
After a while, she said:
"I know you've been concerned about me, ever since that day at school. You've been busy all this time. I also have to thank you for the Zhou Ziheng incident. But this time, nothing will really go wrong. You should also go back and rest. Besides..." she said in a low voice, "I don't want to see you so tired."
Zhang Shutong knew what she meant.
"Then be safe," Zhang Shutong reminded her one last time. He didn't know how many times he had said the words "safe" and "careful" today.
He returned to the sofa and drank some water. At this point, he no longer cared whose cup it was. He just picked it up and used it. Zhang Shutong felt that he should be slowly exhaling. He thought that although this murder case was not over yet, at least he could see its tail in the distance.
Someone else would help him catch that tail.
Soon, he heard the roar of an engine.
He went out to look and saw the Land Rover he had seen last time, followed by a Prado. Six men got out of them, all well-trained and bigger than Teacher Song.
These were the bodyguards and police officers.
He had miscalculated one number before. Including her father and the driver, there should be eight adult men in the villa for the next few days.
Zhang Shutong was finally relieved.
He subconsciously looked at the weapons on them. He could see extendable batons. Would the police be armed? Probably not, but this was reassuring enough.
At this moment, Zhang Shutong truly felt that his mission was complete.
Someone patted him on the shoulder. He turned his head and saw Teacher Song.
"Get in the car. I want to talk to you," Song Nanshan rattled his car keys. At this time, he should have greeted the bodyguards, but he just left with him.
Zhang Shutong followed the man into the small Ford car. His state of mind was also different from before. Before, he was either chasing a murderer or investigating in the car, but this time, it was just for a casual chat.
Zhang Shutong put on an attentive posture, knowing that Teacher Song would try to persuade him not to be so stubborn, but he wanted to say that he wasn't stubborn, or that being stubborn wouldn't change anything. From the moment her father got off the plane, everything was decided.
"Have you heard the story of the boy who cried wolf?" Teacher Song unexpectedly brought up an unrelated topic.
The boy who cried wolf? Of course, he had heard it. Who hadn't heard this well-known fable?
Zhang Shutong thought to himself.
He seemed to understand what Teacher Song meant. He was hinting that he was the shepherd boy, telling everyone again and again that there was a murderer and danger, but in reality, he hadn't even seen a shadow of a murderer. He also remembered Gu Qiumian's reaction just now. She probably no longer believed him.
This was a bit depressing.
But he didn't know how to explain how the murderer entered the villa. It wasn't that Zhang Shutong wanted to hide anything from anyone now. He also wanted to emphasize how incredible it was, but he had searched almost every inch of this area and still hadn't found any clues.
If he didn't explain, no one would believe him, but since he didn't even know, how could he explain?
"What are you thinking about now, kid?" Teacher Song leisurely lit a cigarette. "I didn't say you were the shepherd boy who only lies. In fact, everyone believes you."
"Gu Qiumian doesn't," Zhang Shutong sighed.
Teacher Song acted as if he didn't hear this. He squinted and said, "I'm not talking about the consequences of lying in the boy who cried wolf story. I just thought of this story. The theme is very suitable. Actually, I'm not talking about that."
"Then what is it?"
"It's the story of the sheep and the sheepdog."
"And then?" He was a little tired now. He didn't hold back in front of Teacher Song, so he reclined the passenger seat and lay down.
Teacher Song told the story with great expression:
"Once upon a time, there was a grassland. On the grassland, there was a flock of sheep. In this flock, there was a little lamb, and a sheepdog circled around it every day, afraid that it would be eaten by a wolf."
Zhang Shutong understood.
He was a little speechless and felt that this metaphor was terrible. After all this circling, he just wanted to say this. However, Gu Qiumian liked sheep, so comparing her to a lamb was fitting, but he was a little miserable.
He had become a dog.
"You're insulting me," Zhang Shutong rolled his eyes.
"What's wrong with a sheepdog? They're loyal, smart, and brave. Are you complaining, kid?" Teacher Song said justifiably.
"You'd better continue the story. Don't get sidetracked."
"At first, the lamb trusted the sheepdog a lot. It would do whatever the sheepdog told it to do. The sheepdog said, 'The wolf is coming, go and hide on the east hill,' so it ran over there. The sheepdog said again, 'The wolf has gone to the hill, you should go to the grassland below,' and the sheep followed. In the end..."
"Stop, stop," Zhang Shutong's head was pounding. "What do you want to say? Please don't use this kind of metaphor. It sounds so weird."
"Doesn't it make fables easier to understand?" Teacher Song said, and then probably felt it was too childish. He chuckled, "Actually, I just want to say that later, the lamb didn't listen to the sheepdog so much anymore."
"So?" Zhang Shutong immediately thought, so it's still the story of the boy who cried wolf. "Because the wolf never came, the lamb stopped believing it after a while?"
Teacher Song said he was wrong.
"Actually, she didn't believe there was a wolf in the first place, or she was half-skeptical, or maybe the point wasn't even about the wolf?"
"What do you mean?"
"Because she only believed what the sheepdog said. If you said there was a wolf, there was a wolf. If you said there was no wolf, there was no wolf. Even if you lied and said the wolf was coming and we should run, and you just wanted to have fun on the grassland, she would still go with you."
"But she doesn't believe it now?"
"How should I put it? It's not that she doesn't believe it. The little lamb can't keep running after you all day, can it?
"You know, after all, the girl isn't really a sheep, and you're not really a sheepdog. Everything gets complicated when it involves people, especially young people your age."
"Then why?"
"I don't know," Teacher Song flicked the cigarette ash bluntly. "I only know that there are some girls who are a little silly and some who are a little smart. But some people aren't actually silly. They are smart. It's just that before, she was willing to pretend to be silly, and now she doesn't want to pretend anymore, so you can't trick her."
Zhang Shutong remembered the conversation on that rainy night again.
But at that time, Song Nanshan clearly said that Gu Qiumian was a silly girl, and the definition of silly and smart was being able to distinguish what one wanted. Zhang Shutong had always remembered this sentence and had unconsciously taken it seriously, and he had been badly tricked.
Now he didn't dare to see Gu Qiumian as a silly girl.
A smart girl wouldn't just believe whatever he said and leave the island just because he said so. And it couldn't be said that she was in a bad mood and acting impulsively, because she was now surrounded by bodyguards. She really didn't have to worry about her personal safety. Staying in the villa was a very practical decision. Persuading her any more would just annoy her.
"Alright, alright, that's enough," the man rolled up the car window. "If I keep talking, I'll seem like a pervert. It's enough for you to understand some of the meaning. Of course, you can't get all emotional and decide not to leave again. I said all this just to comfort you because you looked a little lost just now."
"Was I?" Zhang Shutong sat up in the passenger seat, puzzled.
"Maybe. Or maybe it wasn't lost, but confused?" The man suddenly rubbed his hair and comforted him. "I can understand how you feel. It must have been hard coming down the mountain today. Are your shoes wet? Are your feet cold? It's not easy going up the mountain either. Ruoping said you got hurt by accident and have bruises on your chest and arms. And in the end, you had to rush back. It's like a sheepdog that's been running with its tongue out for a lifetime, getting many injuries and shedding a lot of blood, and then it's replaced by surveillance cameras and electronic fences. Who wouldn't be confused?"
Zhang Shutong felt the big hand on his head. His hair was ruffled, and he suddenly couldn't speak. He could only once again emphasize that he was not a dog.
"Actually, Shutong, you had a 'teacher's wife' back in the day, the kind that was about to get married," Teacher Song said abruptly.
Zhang Shutong was stunned, thinking why the other party would bring this up on his own.
He knew that Teacher Song's girlfriend had been in a car accident. Although his self in this timeline didn't know yet, to show respect, Zhang Shutong straightened his seat:
"And then?"
But Teacher Song didn't speak for a long time. After a while, Zhang Shutong even thought he had zoned out, and then he said:
"And then we broke up. What did you think? It's a cheesy romance movie?" The man smiled, his smile a little lonely, which suited the image of a bachelor. "Do you know why I've always believed you these past two days, even though you're always so jumpy and occasionally act crazy?"
Wasn't it because of the love between master and apprentice?
Zhang Shutong wanted to crack a joke to liven up the atmosphere, but he seemed to have guessed what Song Nanshan was going to say, so he fell silent.
"Because I see some shadows of the past in you."
The big hand on his head moved away and instead patted his shoulder hard:
"Don't let go when you have the ability to hold onto something, or you'll regret it one day."
Would he regret it?
Maybe.
Zhang Shutong looked at the car ceiling with a bit of a lost look. But now it wasn't a question of whether he had the ability to hold onto something and chose not to. It was that someone more capable than him had arrived.
In the end, Teacher Song didn't say the rest of the story.
Zhang Shutong was about to feel sad with him, but who knew the man would slap his shoulder carelessly:
"Speaking of which, I was close to marrying your 'teacher's wife,' which is why I've been so attached for so many years. But I've never understood why you're so concerned, kid. Was it love at first sight?"
"No."
"A secret crush."
"That doesn't exist either."
"Then what is it?" Teacher Song asked strangely.
Zhang Shutong also found this question strange.
Why did saving a girl have to be related to love?
She was going to die. If she really died in front of you, you would never see those spirited and beautiful eyes again, and that silver pendant would also be buried underground. It would be a great pity, wouldn't it?
As soon as he brought up this emotion, he immediately realized that he was being overly sentimental.
Because what happens next is no longer his business.