茶杯狐 -CUPFOX

This was Citong City. A week earlier, she, together with Gao Shu and Zhou Rui, had come here to take over a laboratory of a subsidiary company of Divine Technology. Their duty was to deal with the samples they gathered near Wushu Mountain. Fangping Fang, Li Shibao, Ye Chong, and other members of their research team were still at Wushu Mountain, continuing their field investigation.

However, the lab they found provisionally wasn’t well-equipped. Some experiments could not be carried out, so a few days ago, Zhou Rui took some of the samples to Yangcheng, to a secret research base of Divine Technology, for processing. He didn’t return until late last night.

Last night, Mijoe and Gao Shu went to pick up Zhou Rui. Due to bad weather, most of the flights were delayed. It was late at night when they finally picked up Zhou Rui. And then, their car broke down, and they couldn’t get it started!

After trying and failing for a long time, Gao Shu finally called for a tow truck and ordered a cab on an app to pick them up. But then Zhou Rui tried starting the car again, and to their surprise, it started running! Mijoe was so mad that she nearly flipped the car over—well, if she could have, that is.

So, they didn’t get home until past two in the morning-really worn out. They had planned to get something to eat after picking up Zhou Rui, but they were so tired at that point that they passed out as soon as they entered their beds.

Mijoe had actually expected to sleep until at least nine o’clock, but she woke up much earlier than anticipated.

The rising sun spread its tangerine glow quickly across the land, making the world seem like it had been thoroughly cleansed, all shiny and new.

But standing in front of the window, watching this sunrise, Mijoe had a slight furrow in her brow. She didn’t look happy, seeming deep in thought of some difficult problem.

Last night she had a dream. She dreamed of swinging on a swing in her grandmother’s courtyard, eating chilled watermelon slices cut by her grandma.

This was not a nightmare. Quite the opposite-if she could dream like this every night, she’d be very happy. The swing in her grandmother’s courtyard and the chilled watermelons were some of her fondest memories from childhood.

But, the problem was, she had a faint feeling that she had forgotten something. Like before she swung on the swing and ate the watermelon, had she dreamed of something else?

No matter how hard she elaborated on that memory, she could not recall what that other dream was about. However, she had a faint sense that the mood in that dream differed from the one where she was swinging, it felt serious and solemn.

Another thing that struck Mijoe as odd was that in her swing dream, the one pushing the swing was a comically-drawn panda paper man.

Looking at the paper man, it felt unfamiliar, but also like she’d seen it somewhere before, somewhat like a panda emoji she’d seen on a chat app.

In her dream, she didn’t find this strange at all. It seemed perfectly normal that this panda emoji was there, pushing her on the swing.

But after waking up, the thought of the panda emoji from her dream gave her a bizarre, even creepy feeling.

Though she knew that the panda was from an emoji pack, she rarely used such packs when chatting on apps.

Nowadays, she mostly chatted with other members of their research group. Although they would use video calls on internal devices or meet face-to-face for formal discussions, most of the time, they used an internal communication app developed by Divine Technology for fragmented discussion. They had a group in which they discussed work-related issues and also occasionally joked around and chatted casually.

Mijoe took out her phone and scrolled through the chat history of their group, and eventually came across a sticker Zhou Rui posted in the group yesterday when he said he was at the airport.

It was a panda emoji with the face of Jacky Cheung and a caption below that read: “I, brother Fly, am back!”

Although the face and the details were slightly different than the panda in her dream, it was indeed a panda sticker that she saw yesterday. Hence, it was undeniable. The culprit was found!

Mijoe heaved a little sigh of relief.

So, when it was past eight in the morning and she was eating breakfast in the living room and saw a bleary-eyed Zhou Rui emerge from the bedroom, Mijoe couldn’t resist but complain, “Zhou Rui! Don’t send those messy stickers and pictures in the group anymore. They made an appearance in my dream last night, it was so weird!”

Hearing this, Zhou Rui, who had just woken up, widened his eyes, the hair on his back standing on end, and broke out in a cold sweat. Did he accidentally post the off-topic pictures that were meant for his gaming buddies’ group on WeChat to their research group in the company’s app because he was too tired and confused last night?

Those pictures were actually quite harmless. Men would just chuckle at them, but if women saw them… well, his image would be ruined! Not to mention that Dr. Fang was in the group too!!!

Frightened, Zhou Rui dashed back to his room, grabbed his phone and began checking through his chats.

But after checking his WeChat and the company app, he found that he hadn’t posted the wrong images in the wrong place. There were no mistake texts or pictures in the company’s groupchat either, right?

Confused, Zhou Rui returned to the living room, sat down at the dining table, and asked Mijoe about it.

When he found out that the “messy sticker and picture” that Mijoe referred to was the panda body with Jacky Cheung’s face sticker, he was stunned for a moment and then asked, “Did you dream about Jacky Cheung… or a panda?”

Star City.

Just after eleven in the afternoon.

Having just finished her extracurricular class, Liu Shiling returns to her apartment complex with Shiling’s Mom, to find Xiao Mei waiting downstairs with a courier envelope. It seems she’s been waiting specifically for them.

“Hello, Aunt Lin!” Xiao Mei politely greets Shiling’s Mom before handing the envelope to Little Fatty Girl, “Shiling, this is something ‘Da Lu’ sent to you. She doesn’t know your home phone number, so she sent it to me first.”

Despite having chastised ‘Da Lu’ for Liu Shiling’s sake last time they played together downstairs, most of the children in their complex grew up together. Even though they squabble, argue, and even fight, at their core, they’re all friends who’ve grown up playing together. When Xiao Mei learned that ‘Da Lu’ had been hurt by her father, she was devastated. Even the little boy who had been repeatedly bullied by ‘Da Lu’, and made to bend over and be her ‘little table’, had picked up his plastic version of the glowing Green Dragon Crescent Blade and expressed a wish to ‘sort things out’ with Uncle Zhou. He eventually desisted when he found out Uncle Zhou had been locked up.

Receiving a package from ‘Da Lu’ came as a surprise to Liu Shiling as well. After accepting the envelope, she thanked Xiao Mei.

Seeing Xiao Mei still waiting around after delivering the envelope, Shiling’s Mom invited her, “Xiao Mei, why don’t you come over to our place? I can cook you something tasty for lunch.”

Xiao Mei shook her head, “Thank you, Auntie, but my mom has already made lunch. I need to get back home.”

However, she stood there without moving, watching the envelope in Liu Shiling’s hand. After a moment of hesitation, she asked shyly, “Shiling, can I see what ‘Da Lu’ sent you? She wouldn’t tell me on the phone, saying that it’s a secret. I’m just a little curious…”

She distinctly remembered that just the afternoon before ‘Da Lu’ left, she had had a quarrel with Liu Shiling. Why would ‘Da Lu’ send her something now? She was a bit apprehensive; was it something nasty? If it was, and she was the deliverer, would Liu Shiling end up disliking her as well?

Liu Shiling nodded, “Sure.”

Then, right there at the stairwell, she started to open the courier envelope, with Shiling’s Mom also looking on curiously from behind the two girls.

Liu Shiling pulled out a page from the envelope. It was a colourfully drawn piece of art.

Under the blue sky and white clouds, there was a two-seater fighter jet, with both cockpits open. The person piloting the jet was a short-haired girl with large eyes, a round nose, and a beaming smile that revealed white teeth. It was clearly an image of ‘Da Lu’ Zhou Lutong herself. The person seated behind was a chubby, adorable little girl, also laughing happily. It was obviously Liu Shiling.

Moreover, Liu Shiling, seated in the rear of the jet, had one hand outstretched, holding a magic wand, leaving a trail of star-shaped ribbons.

Below the jet on the ground was a big orange cat running after the plane.

The drawing was done very delicately. Whether it was the characters, the plane, the cat, or the clouds, everything was detailed and looked like a lot of effort had been put into it. It didn’t seem like a drawing done by a first grade student. However, having played paper airplane with ‘Da Lu’ before, Liu Shiling was familiar with ‘Da Lu’s’ artistry and knew that this was indeed her handiwork.

“Wow! — ‘Da Lu’ is getting better and better!” While looking at the drawing, Xiao Mei couldn’t help but admire it. Then she asked curiously, “Shiling, when did you and ‘Da Lu’ make up?” It’s obvious that this was not something someone you had a falling out with would give you, this drawing clearly took a lot of effort and thought.

Liu Shiling scratched her head and said, “I gave her a paper airplane.” She remembered the night when she and ‘Da Lu’ were on their respective balconies, communicating by throwing paper airplanes at each other, and the words “sorry” that she had written on one of them.

“Oh~” Xiao Mei seemed to understand, but did not rush Liu Shiling to explain when she had given ‘Da Lu’ the paper airplane. After all, she also had a paper airplane given to her by Liu Shiling, along with other origami. Well, she also had a drawing from ‘Da Lu’, although it had been made a few years ago and was not as intricate as this one.

After saying goodbye to Xiao Mei, Shiling’s Mom and her daughter got into the elevator.

Two middle-aged housewives living on higher floors happened to be returning home and shared the elevator with them.

Shiling’s Mom overheard the two housewives talking about the young man surnamed Li, who lived on the 15th floor, claiming to have seen a monster two weeks ago.

Shiling’s Mom had heard about this before. The young man was adamant about his account of seeing a monster, but when they checked all the surveillance cameras in the area, they found nothing. And the young man’s descriptions were too strange to be believed, so no one took it seriously.

“Wasn’t it said that Mr. Li was mistaken?” Shiling’s Mom couldn’t help but intervene.

One of the housewives immediately explained, “That’s what we thought too, but he is insistent that he saw it. So he’s been looking for surveillance footage everywhere, checking traffic cameras, looking for passing cars to see if any dash cams captured anything…”

Shiling’s Mom nodded, “Right, he even knocked on our door, asking if we had any 24-hour recording devices that captured the outside of our window.”

“He actually found a video.” The other homemaker said cryptically.

Hearing this, Liu Shiling, who had been looking down at the drawing sent by ‘Da Lu’, suddenly perked up, her heart tingling with anxiety.