"No, wait," Xia Jin said suddenly after he was no longer afraid, "how did you come out of the toilet just now?"
Li Yuanyuan was about to walk out of the women"s toilet with me. When she heard Xia Jin"s words, she immediately hurried over to the last stall as if floating, opened the door, and prepared to stick her head into the toilet.
I quickly grabbed her and said to Xia Jin, "You just saw wrong, stop bothering other people about it."
Xia Jin grabbed at his spa.r.s.e hair and looked perplexed. "Weird. I clearly saw…"
He saw Li Yuanyuan looking longingly at the women"s toilet and shook his head. "Forget it, let"s say I saw wrong. Take her home and keep an eye on her. She can"t go around everywhere scaring people."
"Of course." I looked at Li Yuanyuan with her muddled expression. I really didn"t know how to get through to her. It seemed that Liu Sishun had a pretty good understanding of Li Yuanyuan. When we got back, I"d have Teacher Liu try to have a word with her.
The three of us went one after the other towards an elevator. The mall was empty. The elevator soon reached the fourth floor. Xia Jin said to us, "Let me drive you back."
Then he glared at Li Yuanyuan and said, "You didn"t really jump in the toilet just now, right? You can"t get in my car otherwise."
I smelled Li Yuanyuan"s clothes. There was no unusual odor. The white dress was clean. So I shook my head at Xia Jin. Xia Jin was relieved and went into the elevator.
I followed, but Li Yuanyuan stared at the elevator.
"What"s the matter?" I said to Li Yuanyuan. "Let"s go. Xia Jin is my schoolmate. His bark is worse than his bite. He"s a very upstanding person. If he"s willing to drive you, it means he doesn"t mind anymore."
Li Yuanyuan pointed to the elevator: "The elevator…"
"Oh, how can you be afraid the elevator?" Li Yuanyuan liked small s.p.a.ces like bathroom stalls. She couldn"t be claustrophobic. Was she afraid of elevators?
Li Yuanyuan shook her head. "I"m not afraid."
"Then let"s go home and rest." I gave her a tug.
Li Yuanyuan nodded and walked in slowly with me.
Xia Jin pressed "-1" to send the elevator directly to the parking lot on the first subfloor. The elevator in the shopping mall was of good quality. It glided all the way to the first subfloor, but it didn"t stop. It kept going down.
"Well," Xia Jin pressed the elevator b.u.t.ton a few more times, "what"s the matter? It"s still going down."
I took a closer look at the floors shown on the elevator. The lowest floor was the second subfloor. There were two parking lots underground. "Could someone have called the elevator from the second subfloor?"
The elevator didn"t stop after it reached the second subfloor but instead went back up to the fourth floor.
"What"s the matter?" Xia Jin pressed the "-1" b.u.t.ton and watched the elevator pa.s.s the first subfloor, go to the fourth floor, then go down again, and then climb to the fourth floor again.
Xia Jin and I were speechless.
"What"s going on?" Xia Jin was tired from working all day, and his face was full of fatigue. After work, he had been scared by Li Yuanyuan, and now the elevator had malfunctioned. After the elevator reached the fourth floor for the third time and started going down, his face was already greenish.
"The elevator must be malfunctioning." I quickly pressed all the b.u.t.tons on the elevator, had Xia Jin and Li Yuanyuan stand firmly against the elevator wall, and immediately pressed the alarm b.u.t.ton.
Normally, as long as the elevator was running, there would be staff on standby, but the intercom rang for a long time without anyone answering.
As an HR manager, Xia Jin was overcome with anger. "I"ll deduct their wages tomorrow, I"ll deduct all their wages!"
"It"s not necessarily the staff"s dereliction of duty," I put in. "Since there"s a problem with elevator, it"s also possible the intercom is broken. Tomorrow, you need to check the CCTV, find someone to repair the elevator, confirm who is responsible, and then decide how to deal with it."
Perhaps because the elevator hadn"t stopped and was even running pretty smoothly, Xia Jin and I weren"t especially afraid and took out our phones to call for help.
But the signal in the elevator was weak. Our calls couldn"t make it out.
Li Yuanyuan must not have brought her phone. She just looked on calmly at the two of us.
To be honest, I was scared of this type of situation. Faced with a murderer, at least I had the ability to fight back. But in the face of such an emergency, I was just an ordinary person; what resistance could I put up against reinforced concrete?
But with Li Yuanyuan and Xia Jin there, I couldn"t waver, and I definitely couldn"t panic. Panic is contagious in an enclosed environment. If that type of emotion spreads, the chances of being able to get help go down.
I was very calm in front of the two of them, leaning against the elevator wall with one hand and opening up WeChat with the other. I couldn"t dial out because the signal was bad, and if I kept trying to dial, the phone would run out of power. But WeChat didn"t need a constant signal. If the signal was good for a moment, the message might get out. I sent a request for help to my recently contacted friends, hoping someone would see the information.
Princ.i.p.al Zhang: You"re trapped in the elevator?
The first person to reply to my message was Princ.i.p.al Zhang, who was always out of signal range.
Yes, yes, Princ.i.p.al Zhang, please call the police or 119! I sent back immediately.
At this time, the message tone sounded again. I checked my phone —
Superst.i.tious Xiao Ning: Are you a virgin? In this case, a virgin"s urine is most effective to dispel evil.
"..."
"Superst.i.tious Xiao Ning" was my nickname for Ning Tiance. His real WeChat name was Ning Tiance; he wasn"t part of any friend group. His profile was simple, with only his WeChat name and a Yin-Yang symbol as his profile picture.
To someone of my s.e.xual orientation, Comrade Xiao Ning"s words were clear s.e.xual hara.s.sment — and s.e.xual hara.s.sment full of feudal superst.i.tion!
I didn"t know how to reply to him. Just then, Li Yuanyuan jabbed the elevator b.u.t.ton. She pressed so weakly it didn"t even make a sound, but Xia Jin was still startled. He said, "Don"t just push it, there was already a malfunction, what are we supposed to do if you break the b.u.t.ton?"
As he spoke, the elevator stopped. Ding. The door of the elevator opened. It had stopped at the parking lot on the first subfloor.
Xia Jin rushed out of the elevator, gulping large gasps of air. My legs also felt a little weak, but I still walked out of the elevator steadily. With my feet on firm ground, I finally relaxed. I turned back and said to Li Yuanyuan, "Although that was a risky move, it seems to have done the trick. You really saved the day."
Li Yuanyuan raised her head and smiled at me. "That toilet… you gave me. I like it very much."
Her appearance was ordinary; it would be hard to pick her out of a crowd. But her little smile had a hint of grace, quite different from the girl I had seen staring obsessively at the toilet.
"Can I venture to ask why you like the toilet so much?" I asked boldly.
Li Yuanyuan shook her head and said, "I don"t like it. I hate it."
"And why is that?" I was entirely confused.
"Before... people... would push my head into the toilet and force me to drink," said Li Yuanyuan, starting to cry. "I didn"t like it, but I couldn"t leave it."
I looked at her quietly, not knowing what to do.
I wasn"t into girls. Under these circ.u.mstances, I couldn"t let her cry on my shoulder. It would be wrong to give a girl who had suffered like this the wrong idea.
"Now, I don"t hate it anymore." Li Yuanyuan wiped away her tears before they could fall. "Someone pulled me out of the toilet."
"That"s good," I said with a slight sigh of relief, reaching out to her. "It"s late. Let"s go home and rest."
Li Yuanyuan nodded, put her hand in mine, and whispered, "I don"t want to take his car."
I looked at Xia Jin, who was still shivering. "I don"t think he"ll be driving today. It"s cramped in the car, too uncomfortable after an experience like that. Let"s take a bikeshare back. It"s environmentally friendly and healthy."
I"ve always been a supporter of energy conservation and emissions reduction. A bicycle is a means of transportation that saves money and keeps you fit. It"s my first choice.
Xia Jin agreed with me. He wanted to be out in the open now.
We walked out of the parking lot, safely taking the stairs. As soon as we were outside, I heard the WeChat notification.
Princ.i.p.al Zhang: I sent the school bus to help you.
The bus with the license plate number "444" had stopped in front of the parking lot.
"My new boss is very good to me. She sent the school bus to pick me up." I look at Xia Jin. "Don"t you live on the way to the Farther Sh.o.r.e Estate? Do you want to ride with us?"
Xia Jin didn"t see the license plate number, but looked at the s.p.a.cious inside of the bus. Seeing that it wasn"t like the suffocating interior of the elevator, he nodded after a moment"s pause.
So I led Xia Jin and Li Yuanyuan onto the school bus.