Chapter 6 Chapter Four

The first person who found Teacher Shan missing was Master Lu from the school cafeteria. Originally, it was summer vacation and the cafeteria was closed, but because Mr. Shan and Master Lu had a good relationship, Master Lu specially agreed to him——During the few days when Mr. Shan was delayed returning home, the cafeteria would still be open. But for several days, Teacher Shan never went to the cafeteria at all.Master Lu was curious - what did he eat these days? Finally, five days later, Master Lu couldn't help but came to Teacher Shan's single dormitory.He wanted to figure out what was going on.

Knock on the door, no response.Master Lu leaned over the window and looked in—there was no one there. Teacher Shan didn't say hello, so he left without saying goodbye?This was Master Lu's first reaction.But soon, he discovered that this was impossible—Teacher Shan's clothes were still hanging on the window sill, and his two suitcases were left motionless. After careful consideration, Master Lu felt that something was wrong with this matter. He hurriedly asked several families near the school—only to find that no one had seen Teacher Shan in the past few days. Master Lu's intuition told him that something happened to Mr. Shan.He immediately notified the local police station.

The police rushed to Mr. Shan's house and found nothing unusual.The director of the police station sent people to search and inquire about Mr. Shan's whereabouts in Nanxiang. But after searching for a day, I couldn't find Teacher Shan at all.When he called his hometown, the family said that Mr. Shan never came back. The news of Teacher Shan's disappearance spread quickly in Nanxiang, and well-meaning villagers spontaneously organized to find Teacher Shan—including the parents of the four of them. Everyone searched Nanxiang up and down, but they couldn't find Teacher Shan.They felt strange—a living person just disappeared?

A villager approached the director of the police station and said with some hesitation: "There is a sinkhole near the school. Mr. Shan could be..." The director frowned and thought for a while, then said: "Organize people to salvage in the pool immediately!" A few hours later, several strong laborers in the village took the initiative to find a large fishing net and tried to salvage it in the pool. They were not sure if they could really catch Teacher Shan's body. But Meide and Yuan Bin knew very well what the result of this salvage would be.They stood by the pool and watched the salvage operation with dozens of other onlookers—they had to know how the police would settle the case after recovering Teacher Shang Shan’s body.

It was past eight o'clock in the evening, and everyone lit torches and cast nets into the water.Meide and Yuan Bin glanced at each other in the swaying firelight, and they could tell from each other's expressions that their hearts were beating wildly. The salvage work lasted for about an hour, and only glass bottles, large handfuls of aquatic plants and some garbage came out of the fishing net.Teacher Shan's body was not found. "Okay, let's call it a day." The director said, "There can be no one in this pond." The villagers breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed that things were not what they thought. Teacher Shan just disappeared.Everyone began to speculate that maybe Mr. Shan just went to other places to do something and didn't tell anyone.

The villagers dispersed while discussing.The police also returned to the police station, and the matter was temporarily classified as a missing person case. The only ones left by the pool were the stunned four of Med. The four of them looked at each other, and everyone's face was full of fear and doubt—they didn't understand, what's going on? The four left with heavy steps. On the way, Yuan Bin stopped suddenly. "Mei De, Yu Hui, and Li Yuan. I... I'm terrified..." His voice was trembling, "Why isn't Teacher Shan's body in the pool? Where... will it go?"

"That's right... If it's a river or a river, it might have rushed downstream... But this... This is a pool! It's a pool of stagnant water!" Yu Hui also shuddered. Meide also began to feel dizzy: "Maybe, Teacher Shan is really not dead?" "But, we clearly saw him with our own eyes..." "Okay!" Med suddenly shouted, "This matter ends here! No one is allowed to say anything more!" Several people looked at him together. "From now on, we don't care whether Teacher Shan is dead or alive. We just need to remember one thing: Teacher Shan was not killed by us, he fell into the pool accidentally by himself, and has nothing to do with us!"

"But in fact..." Li Yuan wanted to say something. "Listen!" Med looked at him fiercely, "We didn't mean it! It was just an accident! Do you understand?" "Yes, that was just an accident." Yuan Bin echoed. "It was indeed an accident, not our fault." Yu Hui also looked at Li Yuan. "So, starting today, let's not bother with this matter anymore. Anyway, the police have already classified this case as a disappearance case. According to what we said before, we must never tell anyone the truth about this matter." May De said.

"I agree." Yuan Bin said. "I have no objection either." Yu Hui said. They looked at Li Yuan together. "Okay...then I... agree too." Li Yuan said helplessly. "Well, the four of us make an appointment: From now on, no one can mention this matter again, never! Of course, we must never reveal this secret that we guarded together!" Meade said. Several people looked at each other for a few seconds and nodded together.Subsequently, they superimposed their right hands. Since then, this incident has been characterized as one of hundreds of disappearances, just as they thought.The police were not at all suspicious of this result.

With the passage of time, Meide and others gradually forgot about the catastrophe they caused.After graduating from junior high school, they went to high school in the county.Leaving Nanxiang, they got rid of the psychological shadow and lived a normal life in peace. In a flash, ten years have passed.