Back to Auntie’s School Days - Chapter 38

The moment she saw Auntie Tan, Jian Hao knew for certain—she had truly traveled back.

Looking at that face, which was identical to Tan Yanqing’s, Jian Hao felt an inexplicable surge of guilt. She instinctively dodged Auntie Tan’s gaze, her eyes falling to the calendar on the floor. She crouched down and picked it up.

As she placed the calendar back on the table and turned around, Auntie Tan was walking toward her holding a pair of slippers.

They were fluffy, white-and-pink, thick-soled bunny slippers—she had her own slippers at Auntie Tan’s house, both summer and winter styles.

Auntie Tan’s face was expressionless, so much so that Jian Hao couldn’t find a single clue in her features. Auntie Tan didn’t speak, and Jian Hao didn’t dare be the first to open her mouth.

Finally, Auntie Tan leaned over and placed the slippers at her feet.

“Why aren’t you wearing shoes?”

Her voice was soft, like mist on glass. Although her emotions were still unreadable, it at least allowed Jian Hao’s tensed nerves to relax slightly.

Tan Yanqing gave Jian Hao a look as she stood up, said nothing more, and turned toward the sofa. She sat in a single-seater armchair and took her phone out of her pocket, dialing someone.

Jian Hao put on the shoes and followed the path Tan Yanqing had taken. She sat on the long sofa beside her, head lowered, staring at the bunny pattern on her slippers while she tried to steady her spirit.

“I found her. She’s with me. Mhm, drive slowly, don’t rush.”

Hearing Auntie Tan hang up, Jian Hao instinctively looked toward her.

The 10:00 AM sun wasn’t as fierce as the midday heat, and since it was October, there was already a chill in the air. The light streaming through the glass felt as if it had been coated in a layer of winter frost; it seemed to shine only for the sake of illuminating, possessing no warmth. A single beam of light struck Tan Yanqing’s side.

The misty light and shadow played across Tan Yanqing’s face and her rimless glasses, making her look like a patch of the deep seabed pierced by a ray of light; to see anything clearly, one had to stare fixedly at a single spot to make out a faint outline.

Jian Hao was full of questions, but she didn’t dare stare at Auntie Tan’s face.

This face, just yesterday, was still Tan Yanqing.

What was Tan Yanqing’s face like? It was like a book read for the first time. Her features held the youthful rawness and softness of a seventeen-year-old; her cheeks still had a touch of lingering baby fat. Even when she was cold, she was like an ice cube in sparkling water—bubbling with a sense of approachability. To say Tan Yanqing was like a book read once meant that you remembered a specific scene but forgot the exact wording, making you want to open it again and read it slowly.

And Auntie Tan? She was a book read a thousand times, where every paragraph and sentence was etched into memory, perhaps even memorized in full, yet you still wanted to open it again and again.

Auntie Tan wasn’t interested in makeup or skincare, but her friend Jian You owned a beauty salon. Jian You couldn’t stand her “roughness” and often used her as a practice model. So, even with occasional overnight shifts, her skin remained excellent—dense and poreless like steamed egg custard. From her ears to her jawline, it was as if a blade had sliced through paper, leaving a perfectly straight, clean line. She was so thin she looked as if she were mostly bone.

She was still in her police uniform. The navy blue fabric made her naturally pale face look even colder and whiter. They say “whiteness covers a hundred flaws,” but it couldn’t cover exhaustion. Even as her glasses cast a faint shadow under her eyes, they failed to hide the fatigue in her gaze.

She must have worked overtime again, which was why she was home at this odd hour.

After graduating, Auntie Tan had worked as a household registration officer at a local police station. The workload varied; sometimes she couldn’t sleep for days, and sometimes she was idle all day. Overall, the job wasn’t grueling; as Grandma put it, it was a job you could retire in. But Auntie Tan only did it for seven years. In her eighth year—2021—she used the PhD she’d earned in the interim to transfer to the Municipal Bureau’s criminal investigation unit. Although she was in a technical role and didn’t have to lead charges like the Captain, the heavy workload and constant overtime meant she was rarely at leisure.

Jian You had asked her why she switched jobs—did she find the repetitive, mundane tasks of the old post boring? She had been silent for a while before replying: “It wasn’t boring. When I first started, the census showed five million people in Nanqing, but in reality, there were many more, because that didn’t include those without registered information. They had no legal identity; our job was to give them one.”

Over five years, the police systems were updated and refined. More people were registered, from the cities down to the most remote villages…

But among all those added people, Tan Yanqing couldn’t find the one she was looking for. In her sixth year, she decided to transfer.

Jian Hao had seen her look exhausted after overtime many times. Even though her heart was still thinking of the Tan Yanqing from last night, looking at the Auntie Tan before her, she couldn’t help but feel pained. She took the initiative to speak: “Auntie, do you want some water? Or is there something you want to eat? I’ll make it for you.”

Tan Yanqing raised a hand, signaling her to stay seated. Her gaze fell on Jian Hao’s pajamas.

This was the set Jian Hao had been wearing when she traveled. This was… the clothing she wore the first time she and the young Tan Yanqing met. She wondered if Auntie Tan would remember, because Jian Hao wasn’t sure if her time travel had been to a parallel universe or through her own past, present, and future.

But Auntie Tan would definitely remember these pajamas; after all, she had bought them for her.

But why is she staring at them? …Perhaps for no reason at all. Her sudden appearance at Tan Yanqing’s house, especially wearing only pajamas, was certainly strange.

Jian Hao lowered her head, not knowing how to explain.

Auntie Tan spoke at that moment.

“Nothing you want to tell me?”

Jian Hao’s legs were pressed together, her hands hanging between them, fingers twisting together.

She had so much to say! But she didn’t know how to say it! She wasn’t even sure if she could say it!

She shook her head. She lifted her gaze slightly toward Tan Yanqing.

Tan Yanqing gave a faint nod and, surprisingly, didn’t press her further. Instead, she looked down at her phone.

What is she looking at?

Tan Yanqing’s house had two smart cameras—one upstairs and one in the living room. The entire area from the door to the sofa was within their range.

Tan Yanqing glanced at the girl who was staring at the floor, then opened her surveillance app with an unchanged expression.

Everything was normal before 10:00 AM. But at 10:10 AM, both cameras had gone black. A power outage? Unstable signal? They stayed black for ten minutes. When they came back on, a figure was on the sofa.

Jian Hao had a spare key to her house. But when Jian Hao went missing, she had checked the girl’s bedroom, and the spare key was still there. So… how did Jian Hao get in? And why, after entering her house, did she fall into a deep sleep on the sofa?

Tan Yanqing watched the footage in silence until she saw Jian Hao roll off the sofa, then she turned off the screen.

She looked up. Seeing that Jian Hao was still staring at the floor, she stood up and said softly, “Follow me.”

Jian Hao obediently followed Tan Yanqing into her first-floor bedroom. Oh, wait—it wasn’t “her” bedroom now; it was Tan Yanqing’s guest room.

Tan Yanqing found a set of clothes in the wardrobe and handed them to her. “Your mom is coming to pick you up in a bit. Change and go back with her. You’re not allowed to run away from home again.”

?!

Run… run away from home?!

Jian Hao’s eyes snapped wide.

She gripped the clothes tightly. Seeing Tan Yanqing about to leave the room, she said hurriedly, “Auntie Tan… can I use your phone for a second?”

Tan Yanqing looked back at her. She didn’t ask what she needed it for; she just paused, handed it to her, and closed the bedroom door as she left.

Jian Hao plopped down onto the bed.

She didn’t want the phone for anything other than… checking the date.

The screen clearly displayed: October 28, 2025.

Her birthday was October 23rd.

Five days…

That meant that during the two months she had spent in the past, five days had passed in this world. So that was why Auntie Tan said she’d run away.

Jian Hao immediately thought of that dream. Her mother crying on the sofa, Auntie Zhu comforting her, and Auntie Tan looking solemn. So that wasn’t a dream? It was real? She had seen her mother crying because she had disappeared?

Jian Hao’s heart felt a dull, sudden ache. She set the phone down, quickly changed her clothes, went out to return the phone to Tan Yanqing, and prepared to wait by the door.

But just as she moved, she stiffened.

She turned to Tan Yanqing and stammered, “Will my mom… will she hit me?”

Tan Yanqing had just poured two glasses of water. She took one for herself and handed the other to Jian Hao. Her sleeves were rolled up slightly, revealing pale wrists that nonetheless possessed a visible sense of strength.

“Why would she hit you?”

“I…”

How could I NOT get hit after this?

Jian Hao hesitated, took a sip of water, and then said, “If she tries to hit me, Auntie Tan, could you please help hold her back?”

“I can’t hold her back.” Tan Yanqing sat on the sofa and placed her glass on the coffee table. “Besides, when she arrives, I’ll be busy enough just trying to stay out of her way.”

“Ah? Why?”

Jian Hao paced over to the sofa and stood there, looking at Tan Yanqing.

Tan Yanqing: “What do you think?”

“…I don’t know.”

The clothes Tan Yanqing had found for her were all cream-white. The mock-neck slim-fit knit sweater offered a heavy warmth, paired with light-colored wide-leg trousers that felt soft to the touch and looked even softer. She stood there timidly clutching her glass, looking so cute that even the sunlight in the room seemed to warm up.

“She thinks you ran away because you confessed to me and I rejected you. Even if she didn’t say it, she definitely suspects I ‘groomed’ you as you were growing up. Otherwise, why would you fall for someone so much older than you?”

“If she doesn’t hit you, she’ll hit me. She already wants to hit me, and you want me to hold her back? What if she hits me to death?”

Tan Yanqing’s eyes narrowed slightly as she looked at Jian Hao with a half-smile. “Do you blame me for hiding?”

Jian Hao: “…”

She gave a dry cough. “You told her everything?”

Tan Yanqing looked at her. “Mhm. When you went missing so mysteriously, I had to investigate the cause. Between ‘exam stress’ and ‘confession rejected,’ which one sounds like the reason for a drunken, impulsive flight from home?”

It was definitely the latter. And that had surely caused Tan Yanqing a lot of trouble.

So when Auntie Tan asked if she had anything to tell her, she was asking about this?

“…I’m sorry.”

She lifted her gaze to Tan Yanqing, her heart racing for several seconds. “My disappearance… no, my running away… had nothing to do with you.”

Jian Hao was terrified Tan Yanqing would ask why she had run away then. How was she supposed to answer? She couldn’t tell the truth; she’d be treated like a lunatic.

She scrambled for a list of reasons in her head.

But before she could think of a single plausible lie, a flat sentence came from the sofa:

“I know.”