"Mommy, daddy said that when you're in class, you can't talk, you can't sleep, you can't eat..."
"Mommy has to be good, Xiao Nian and daddy will pick you up after school!"
...
Her precious son earnestly reminded her, line by line, while Xiaoqiao bit her chopsticks and responded to each phrase, feeling more and more like the son...
It had been three whole years since she'd left the campus, years spent in inexplicable anxiety and haunted by shadows of the past.
Upon returning to the classroom, Xiaoqiao sat in the spacious lecture hall, listening to the professor who had once taught her, and her emotions felt as though they had been filtered of all heaviness and sorrow, rejuvenated anew.
Xiaoqiao entered the classroom wearing large sunglasses and only took them off to sit at the back after she arrived.
Her hair had returned to its natural black color, and it was now shoulder-length. It was hot in summer, so she had casually tied it into a bun at the back.
