The present merged with the past. Reality melted away between his hands. He sat in his elementary school classroom again. The day was already advanced, but not over. There was a knock at the door. An official talked to the teacher. 

“Zhuang Wenjie, the gentlemen would like to speak to you.” 

Wenjie got up and followed the teacher out. He already knew what the officials were going to say. He heard them speak as if through absorbent cotton. That was how surreal the past seemed to him. Or was everything he had experienced a nightmare? A nightmare that had become reality. 

The voice was still there. Quiet. Barely audible. It whispered that none of this was true. Xu Zhengqing. When he whispered the name, nothing happened. Instead, he felt the ground beneath his feet, tasted the air. The handshake of the female officer, who led him out, was so warm. Her voice was gentle and caring, like his mother's. 

They took him away, home to his parents' house. From there they went on to the orphanage. As if in a trance, the boy let everything happen to him. He was already used to it. What followed was bullying at the new school. The isolation. A smeared desk. 

“Son of a thief.” Banana peels and leaves lay on the table. His father was no longer a thief. He wiped the tabletop with tears in his eyes. In his growing despair, he scribbled Xu Zhengqing on the table with a pen. That didn't change anything either. The past held him fast.

The university, Captain Luo, Ding Shenghuo. Xiao Dao - had he only dreamed about it? A premonition of his father's death? No, no, Zhuang Yaobai was not dead. He didn't believe it. He would prove it to them. 

But his classmates made it difficult for him to concentrate during the lessons. He was alone during the breaks. That's when he saw the stranger. He wear a beret and the clothes of an archaeologist. He sat alone at a table in the park next to the school playground. He sat there every day and played a game of weiqi with himself. 

He paid no attention to the children, who passed by until Wenjie spoke to him after watching his game for a while. “If white puts a stone there -” He pointed to an empty spot. “Then it provokes black to put it there and gains an advantage over black.” 

The man paused and looked at him. Wenjie shivered slightly. It was Xu Zhengqing. A younger version of him. The older man smiled. “That would be a move a good friend of mine would have made.”

“Zhuang Yaobai,” Wenjie whispered. 

Xu Zhengqing nodded. “Would you like to play with me? Don't you have any friends?” 

Wenjie's gaze wandered to the school building and back to the older boy. “You play alone too.”

Xu Zhengqing laughed. Then a melancholy expression came over his features. 

“You miss him.” A feeling of unease spread through him. The silence that fell between them intensified it. “Why don't you ask how I know that you know him?” His fingers trembled at that. 

“You're his son.”

Wenjie swallowed. “You're here because of me?”

“Yes and no. If your father is still alive, I was hoping he would come for you.” He sighed deeply. “I can't believe a father would be so cruel. That he would leave you alone. His family meant everything to him. He gave up his old life for this.”

Wenjie pressed his lips together and buried his hands in his jacket pockets. His gaze focused on the Weiqi board. Xu Zhengqing said the same thing as when they had first met, if they had met at all. 

“Maybe,” Xu Zhengqing continued speaking. “The police caught him. But then why do they say he's dead?”

“He's not dead.” Wenjie looked him in the face again. “And he's not a thief.”

“At least he wanted to leave this life behind.” Xu Zhengqing took the stones off the board and packed them up. Then he closed the board too, tucked it under his arm and stood up. 

“Xu Zhengqing.” Saying the name didn't change anything. At least not what Wenjie would have hoped for. No shattering of reality, no glimpse behind the illusion. Was it real? All those years? Had he just dreamed it all? It had never happened. 

Only one thing happened. The man who had been about to leave turned back to him. “You know my name?”

“My father told me about you,” he lied quickly. He wouldn't believe the truth. 

“I hope he only told you good things.”

Well. Heat rose in his cheeks. “He only talked about you when we played Weiqi. Then, he talked about his youth and his friends.”

Xu Zhengqing gave him another smile. Then he reached out a hand and touched his head gently. “You're a good boy. If you want, we can play tomorrow. Or would you like to accompany me for a bit?”

Wenjie hesitated. 

Xu Zhengqing looked past him to the school building. “Do you like your school?”

Wenjie swallowed noticeably. 

“It makes me sad to see you alone in the playground every day.”

Wenjie chewed his lower lip and tightened the straps of his satchel. “They say my father is a thief.”

“I'm sorry about that. I guess it's my fault too. I shouldn't have asked your father for help.” 

It was on the tip of Wenjie's tongue to tell him directly, that he didn't need to pretend anything. But what if everything he thought was the truth was a delusion? What if Xu Zhengqing was not Monsieur? He was only fooling himself. He opened his mouth, only to close it again immediately. 

“Do you think I can make up for it?”

Wenjie shook his head instinctively. 

“What if I help you find him?”

“You think he's alive too?” Hope sprouted in him. 

“If anyone can survive an accident like that, it's your father.” His gaze wandered to the school building again. 

Wenjie also looked around. There was no one around except them. Xu Zhengqing could just take him with him. But he made no move to take him away. On the contrary. His behavior even signaled that he would leave him alone. “Do you think he'll show up if I go with you?”

“I don't know.” He looked at him thoughtfully. “Is that what you want?”

Wenjie thought of the children at school. “Sometimes I'd like to go far away, somewhere where nobody knows me.”

Xu Zhengqing gently touched his shoulder. “I can fulfill your wish.”

to be continued ...