A Certain Someone ( The On1y One ) Chapter 006 – To Catch Someone

Where Are You Going? Don’t You Know How to Open the Door?

“Hello, is this Xiao-Tian? I’m your Uncle Sheng.” The person on the other side on the phone, Sheng Mingyang, thought that it was already a different person, and immediately was much more polite.
Sheng Wang checked around, his mouth moved: “Hello Uncle Sheng, I’m your son Sheng Wang.”
Sheng Mingyang: “……”

“Goddamn it.” Sheng Mingyang asked, annoyed: “Didn’t you say that you will pass the phone to Xiao-Tian?”
“I did, but he disappeared.”
“What do you mean?” Sheng Mingyang was clearly baffled, “What do you mean by disappeared?”
“In any case he isn’t in the classroom now.”

On the other side, Sheng Mingyang removed his phone from his ears and murmured something to someone else, and then told Sheng Wang: “Wait for a bit before you hang up, I’ll get your Auntie Jiang to ask.”
Sheng Wang rolled his eyes, and tossed his phone onto the table.

Previously, there were some students who were walking towards him, appearing like they wanted to chat with him about the test. They pulled the brakes the moment they saw that he was on the phone, bid farewell to him and left.
In the sheer span of a few minutes, there was only Sheng Wang left in the classroom.

He played with his bag straps in extreme boredom, listening to the chatter of people slowly fade into the distance like lowering of tides, from the corridor to the staircase, and then completely disappearing. The entire top floor was filled with silence.

He looked at the phone screen that displayed “in call”, and suddenly recalled that it was like this when he was young for a while too. Back then his mom just passed away, possibly out of fear that he would be left to his own thoughts, Sheng Mingyang was determined to fetch him from school everyday. The crucial time period in business was always busy and chaotic, Sheng Mingyang was often late, Sheng Wang just did his homework as he waited. By the time Sheng Mingyang finally rushed over, he would have already completed his homework and every student had left, and Sheng Mingyang could carry his bag and apologise profusely with “Wang-zai” here and “Wang-zai” there.
Afterwards, there was Xiao-Chen the chauffeur, did Sheng Wang need not to wait so often anymore. Later, Sheng Mingyang rarely called him “Wang-zai” after quite a few protests from him.

The corridor suddenly clicked with the “du-du-du” of high heels, Sheng Wang came back to himself and looked in that direction. A figure with long hair flitted past the windows, from the bearing alone one could tell that it was their English teacher, Yang Jing.

It had been three days since Sheng Wang arrived, he did not attend a single English lesson, and it was this teacher that left the deepest impression on him. This was because the old foxes, Class A, changed colours whenever they spoke of the “Jing”, the moment they hear the words “Jing-jie is looking for you”, they would visibly pale in teror.
From their words alone, Sheng Wang thought that the one who taught them English was a Yaksha.
It was later when he saw her then he realised it was not a Yaksha. Yang Jing was tall and willowy, her features were not much to speak of. Her cheek bones were a little high, but she would definitely be the most outstanding one when placed in a crowd.

Du-du-du.
Yang Jing walked past the door and came back again, her chin lifted up and she knocked.
“Jing——” Sheng Wang was brainwashed for too long, and almost let a “Jing-jie” escape his mouth, luckily he stopped in time: “Teacher Yang.”
“En.” Yang Jing asked: “You’re still here? What for?”
She spoke quickly and her chin was always slightly pointed up, a perfectly normal sentence felt like an interrogation when it came from her mouth.

However, Sheng Wang was never scared of teachers, he smiled and said: “I’m waiting for someone.”
“Oh.” Yang Qing shot a glance at his table, “How bold of you, you really just place your phone right under my nose?”
Sheng Wang was stumped, he grabbed his phone and wordlessly passed it to her.
To act like he was well-behaved was one of the young master’s top tricks, Yang Jing raised her long and thin eyebrow, took a look around the empty classroom first, and then sized him up again: “What are you giving it to me for, my surname isn’t Xu. Go give it to the admin office yourself.”
After she spoke, she left with her high heels clacking.

Sheng Wang settled his phone on the desk, just as he was about to let go, the person inside let out a “Hello”.
“Am here, speak.” Sheng Wang answered half-heartedly.
“Jiang Ou called him.”
“Called who?” Sheng Wang nearly did not catch what he was asking, he then went “Oh” and said: “It’s Jiang Tian, right, he brought his phone? I never would have guessed that he’s the daring kind too.”
Sheng Mingyang said, completely done: “Who are you trying to speak bad of with your talk? Call him ge next time.”
“No way, don’t even think about it.” There was no one around, Sheng Wang was explicit with his reply.

Sheng Mingyang was still quite the pro when it came to dealing with his own son, Sheng Wang refused to call him that, so he changed the address himself first: “Jiang Ou said that your older brother has been summoned to the office by a teacher.”
What the……
Sheng Wang silently swore.
“You think that I wouldn’t know what you said even if you didn’t sound it?” Sheng Mingyang teased him, “Fine, you come back with Uncle Xiao-Chen first.”
“Oh, I don’t need to wait anymore?” Sheng Wang asked emotionlessly.

He vaguely heard what Jiang Ou said softly on the other side: “It’s probably an olympiad or something else, it’s like this in the past too, by the time he reached home it was usually eleven. Quick, don’t keep Xiao-Wang hanging anymore, let him come back already.”

Who’s the teacher that was so powerful so as to waste time with him till eleven? Sheng Wang carried his bag, and was puzzled as he went towards the entrance.
“Sure then, come back first. I’ll get Xiao-Chen to make another trip later.” Sheng Mingyang said, and urged again: “Make sure to let your older brother know before you leave.”
In your dreams.
Sheng Wang switched off the lights in the classroom with a “pop”, and hung up without a second word.

Walking past the office was a compulsory part of the journey downstairs, he said in your dreams earlier on, but when he walked past he still deigned himself to cast a glance inside, only to see that all five heads were buried in work in the office. In front of them was either test papers or the teaching plan. As for the Jiang Tian who was summoned to the office or so the legend foretold, not a single trace of him was to be found.

Sheng Wang paused in his steps, his head full of question marks: Do certain people not bother making sure he gets his alibi straight before he starts making up bullshit? Isn’t he worried about getting exposed? Or……he really is not in this office, but in another place?

He looked left and right. He initially wanted to ask the teacher, but Uncle Xiao-Chen already sent a message, saying that he was at the school entrance, he could not park for long there.
Therefore he hesitated a few seconds, and decided to continue downstairs anyways.

The key school within the city did not consist of Fuzhong alone, but most of them sat in the outskirts, far from the urban district and far from the people, all looking like they were dying to religiously seclude themselves.
Fuzhong was the rare exception. It was built early, and somehow managed to acquire a fortunately situated piece of land in the middle of the urban district, the moment it was built it stayed there for 130 years. Eventually as the surroundings gradually bustled and flourished, they surrounded the school and living area with a huge patch of woods, separating them from the noise.

The school named that patch of woods and greenery “Garden of Conduct”, the students called them “Magpie Bridge.”
Adult couples of human society would cross the roads, hand in hand, the pre-maturely dating young couples of the temple, in order to avoid being caught and exposed, could only cross the mud in the woods. At night, they were really more like ghosts.
The three days Sheng Wang was here, he already got spooked for quite a few times by these hauntings.

There were a few residential zones right outside the school gates, what constituted as residents were very simple, just three kinds——staff, students, and those who rented to accompany their child for school.
Sheng Wang left the school gates as he walked along the haunted road, and saw Uncle Xiao-Chen gesture at him after he rolled down the car window.

He stood at the school gates and waited for Xiao-Chen to turn the car around, when he suddenly heard the sound of people talking from the residential block nearby. The lamp here appeared to be spoilt, and flickered non-stop.
Sheng Wang vaguely spotted two figures, one following the other in exiting from the block, and turning into another road.
“The street lamps are a little short-circuited, it’s quite dark. How about I accompany you there?”
“No need.”

He dimly heard a conversation like this, but it was muffled through the fence around the area and the traffic. He only felt that the person who replied had a cold tone, and it was familiar for some reason.

“Xiao-Wang.” Uncle Xiao-Chen called him.
Sheng Wang answered, lifted his foot and walked towards the car.

Out of the corner of his eyes, the figure beneath the residential block seemingly looked back, but perhaps it was just an illusion from the overlapping shadows from the trees. Sheng Wang sat at the back, his head against the window, and wanted to take a nap.
When the lights in his vision blurred together, then did he realise why that voice was so familiar. It was because it sounded a little like Jiang Tian, but yet it could not really be true, why would Jiang Tian go there?

Sheng Wang woke up for a bit, then slowly gave in to drowsiness once more, and did not think too much of it.
After all, no matter if it was Jiang Ou or Jiang Tian, although they may be living under the same roof, they were only Sheng Mingyang’s guests, and had nothing to do with him.

Despite the new people moving in, there were no major changes to his home, what changed were the details.
When Sheng Wang entered, Sheng Mingyang and Jiang Ou stood at the door, looking like they had been waiting for a long time. The housekeeper who was usually there was the one who was already gone instead.
He did not even look up, opened the shoe cabinet, only to see that there was an extra row of unfamiliar looking shoes. One part was nearly the same type as sports shoes he owned, the other was women’s shoes.
Ever since his mom passed away, things like these had not appeared in the house for a long long time.

“Your slippers are right here.” Sheng Mingyang bent over and passed his slippers to him, “I already prepared it for you.”
Sheng Wang lowered his eyelids and stood in front of the cabinet for a while, then closed the door again, busying himself with untying his shoelaces.

“You were still fine on the phone just now, why are you so closed off the moment you enter the doors?”

Sheng Mingyang patted Jiang Ou’s shoulder, adjusted the material of his trousers, and half squatted in front of Sheng Wang, asking: “I was on the phone with Old Xu, oh, your Dean, just now. He said that my son did quite well in school, the teachers in class all like you very much, and I hear that your tests yesterday went quite well?”
After hearing this, Sheng Wang’s fingers, which were previously occupied with changing his shoes, paused.

He lifted his head and gave Sheng Mingyang a glance, straightened up, carried the bag on his shoulder and said: “It’s quite fine, I failed three subjects.”
After that he sped past them and went upstairs.

Sheng Mingyang and Jiang Ou both looked at each other in dismay, and stood rigidly in awkwardness.
“I already told you it’s better if I’m not standing here.” Jiang Ou said.
“He will have to get used to this one way or another.” Sheng Mingyang heard the bedroom door on the second door close with a “bang”, and sighed: “This kid is all harsh words but deep down he’s soft, he can rationally tell who’s good and who’s bad, it isn’t that he’s out to get you, he’s just……”
“He just misses his mom, I understand.” Jiang Ou said.

She peered at the kitchen, and said to Sheng Mingyang: “I won’t be bringing the porridge to him then, you should do it.”
“He’s probably still angry for now, he wouldn’t open the door for me.” Sheng Mingyang let out a fake laugh, and said: “Who do you think the sign that says do not knock on the door is for? Warm the porridge and leave it there first, he would come down to eat when he’s hungry.”

“I feel like the way you and Xiao-Wang interact have some issues……” Jiang Ou could not help but say.
“Nah, we already got along like this for so many years.” Sheng Mingyang said, not sounding pleased.
Jiang Ou looked upstairs in concern.
“Don’t look, it’s not a big deal if he doesn’t cry.”

Sheng Mingyang said in all confidence.
Jiang Ou: “???”

Second floor bedroom, Sheng Wang was entirely clueless about his father’s words.
He dug out a packet of melon seeds from the snack cabinet, curled up beside the table, and munched on it as he listened to Crab ramble on in voice messages.

StarAniseCrab: “That grandson got full marks? So what if it’s fu-full marks? Did you not score many full marks in the past? After you get through the books thoroughly, full marks are as easy as abc!”
Sheng Wang swept away melon seed shells on his hand, and answered: “Don’t stutter, you can say it properly.”

“Say it properly?” Crab whimpered: “I will go kowtow in front of my ancestors if I ever score full marks in any life I live in. Still, you scored this much with a only day of studying, can you imagine the possibilities with a week?”
“Did you drink?”
“I didn’t.”
“Then why are you speaking like you’re drunk.” Sheng Wang said: “All my marks are free marks, the kind that anyone can score after going through the teaching material once, if I can score full marks with a week of studying, then what’s the point of me going to school?”
“Why do I never realise that there’s so many free marks?” Crab aggrieved.
“You’re blind.”

“Fine, do you still want any papers? I can go ask the year twos again.” Crab was always eager to help.
Sheng Wang flipped through the assignments he received, and said: “For now, no need. I bought a few assessment books, I’ll do them first.”

He managed to finish off two comprehension passages for language as well as the foundational questions for the three sciences, math physics and chem, during night self study. The remaining he planned to slowly grind his way through while learning them, slowly chip away at it at night. In the end, the chipping away took two hours straight.

Crab was probably doing questions too, he felt a little like he did not want to be left out. He popped up and asked Sheng Wang: “Sheng-ge, how’s it going Sheng-ge, do you feel like you are one with the heavens all your arteries and veins are unblocked everything’s flowing like cloud and water and you got everything down at one go?”
Sheng Wang let out a dry laugh, and said: “I can’t do it”
Crab: “Huh? How?”

Sheng Wang was also despondent.
He was usually a very good self-learner, even though this may make him sound shameless, but he was pretty self-aware. There were three things spreaded across the table in front of him, on the left was the teaching material, the centre the test paper, and on the right the assessment books.

He always looked at the question on the test first, circled out what piece of information was he getting tested on, speedily read through the relevant portion in the teaching material, next go to the right to get a feel of the question with two similar question types, and then attempt the question on the test.
With this series of steps, with more deduction, he would be able to solve similar questions.

He quickly finished most of the assignments with this method, and yet only the last question for physics was still blank, as he was unable to find a corresponding question type.

“Really? It can’t be?” Crab said, “Send a pic of the question to me.”
“What, you’re helping me solve it?”
“You jest!” Crab said, “I’m seeking help from the audience. There’s a couple of pretty smart seniors living next dorm over, let me go ask them.”

Sheng Wang sent a picture to him, and directly went online on his computer to search too.
Around half an hour later, Crab came back with his tail between his legs: “The seniors turned on the torch light and went to solve the question on their stomachs. As they tried they kept yelling at me, saying that I’m out to get them, if they can’t solve it by tonight, they won’t be able to get any rest.”

Sheng Wang bit his lips as he glared at the computer screen, and did not reply.
Crab sent three messages in a row again, and in the end he went straight for a voice message.

The moment he got to Sheng Wang he asked: “How is it?”
Sheng Wang went reticently: “I found something that looks kinda similar.”
Crab: “Oh! Then it’s fine already, just do it!”
“The hell with doing it, it’s an olympiad question.”
Crab: “…… Why is your homework so hardcore?”
Wasn’t it a little too screwed up to get someone who did not even learn the content to do an olympiad question?

“I’ll hang up first, I need to go down for some ice water to calm down.” Sheng Wang spoke, cutting off the voice message and grumbled on his way down.
The living room was already dark, with only the light at the entrance being left on. He shot a look at the clock before realising that it was already 11pm. He brought out a bottle of ice water from the fridge and went upstairs, leaned against the window and chugged two mouthfuls. Just as he prepared to return and chip away at the question, he suddenly spotted someone standing next to the street lamp outside the courtyard.

That person carried a bag on the shoulders, and was on the phone.
Maybe it was the street lamp being bright enough, maybe it was his eyesight that was good enough. Sheng Wang could see the irritation and vexation on the person’s face all the way through the window pane and across the courtyard.

Who’s on the other side on the phone that caused so much anger?
Sheng Wang was a little curious. He saw Jiang Tian tap the screen once, and stuffed his phone into his pants’ pocket with a cold look on his face. Yet, he did not immediately enter the courtyard, but rather he stood out there by himself for quite a bit, before turning to look at the building.

Sheng Wang closed the curtains on instinct in order to shield himself, only after closing the curtains then he realised that this was more obvious instead.

Fine whatever this was too dumb.
After some thinking he opened the curtains again, and unabashedly looked outside the window, only to see that Jiang Tian had already turned around, and was walking in the opposite direction.

“Eh?” Sheng Wang was dumbfounded.
By the time he realised, he already opened the window, and yelled at the person outside the courtyard: “Where are you going? Don’t you know how to open the door?”
The commotion was a little bit loud. When he was done, the bedroom window downstairs also opened.
Sheng Mingyang stuck his head out and looked at him: “Who are you talking to?”
Without needing Sheng Wang’s reply, he immediately realised: “Jiang Tian?”

“If not who else? A thief?” Sheng Wang said.
But he soon came to regret it.

Two minutes later, Jiang Tian who initially planned to leave was dragged into the living room by his mom and Sheng Mingyang, and was besieged at the intersection of the first and second floor.
Young master Sheng Wang cracked open the door, wanting to watch the show. Just as he revealed a single eye he directly met Jiang Tian’s icy gaze. With some thought, he silently shut the door once more.

TO BE CONTINUED.