The streets were filled with elementary school students wearing uniforms of different colors.

Most of the children were picked up by their parents.

David Carter was all alone, growing lonelier with every step.

But the reason she felt lonely wasn’t because of Old Carter. It was when she passed by the familiar magazine stand and snack shop that she felt the loneliness belonging to the cheese world, the loneliness that belonged to little David Carter.

Every day, going to and from school, the solitary little David Carter would miss the parents she had never met. She wished someone could hold her hand and buy her the mechanical pencil and exercise book she had wanted for so long from the shop.

She would call them Dad or Mom, act spoiled, and be a good, filial child.

Such a simple and pure wish made David Carter’s eyes inexplicably redden.

She tapped her own nose: You’re so easy to please, little girl.

Author’s note:

Economy, environment, green, low-carbon... parallel worlds... returning to three past segments... How could there not be Henry Clark and Old Carter? I’m such a Mary Sue (hey)

Chapter 8 Zhuanzhu

The school building was bright, the grass lush and green.

David Carter, wearing the Red Star Elementary School uniform, stood at the gate of Anning City Experimental Primary School, peering inside.

Sunlight poured down, and inside the gate were faces full of youthful energy.

Boys wore suits and ties, girls wore short skirts and white socks. In those days, schools were gradually reforming uniforms, but only the best elementary schools provided students with a complete set.

If the earlier loneliness belonged to little David Carter, then the loneliness she felt now definitely belonged to grown-up David Carter.

This beautiful little courtyard before her eyes was once her school, but now, she couldn’t get in.

Because this was the City Experimental Primary School, the best elementary school in the city. The neighborhood school for the Red Star Welfare Institute was Red Star Elementary, on the other end of the street, not even ranked in the city.

Just a few hours ago, she was still complaining about how she and Henry Clark had attended the same school but never the same class, and how their lives never intersected. Now, even the “same school” setting was gone—this was truly no intersection at all.

The cheese world was truly cruel.

Reality had slapped her hard in the face. Dejected, she bumped her head against the stainless steel railing, making a loud clang.

The security guard at the Experimental Primary School was not far away. Startled, he waved at her to hurry up and leave.

She looked down at her red school pants, now faded to pink, and her gray sneakers, then silently turned and walked away.

Even though it was just a few streets apart, a distance of seven or eight hundred meters, there was a world of difference between the neighborhood school and the Experimental Primary School.

Red Star Elementary was neither a city nor a district key school; it was just a regular new village elementary, covering a large area. There were many students, a shortage of classrooms, and everything looked rather old and shabby.

She also stood for a while at the gate of Red Star Elementary, and during that time, she even saw upper-grade students extorting lower-grade students.

Without hesitation, she turned and left, continuing her journey to find her dad.

She was a college student—skipping class was as normal to her as eating or drinking water, and she felt no guilt at all.

……

Zhuanzhu Lane was very close to both schools, just a five-minute walk.

Back then, Old Carter had spent tens of thousands of yuan in school selection fees to get her into the Experimental Primary School. After emptying his savings, he even rented a not-so-cheap little courtyard next to the Experimental Primary School, just so she could sleep a bit longer every day.

And when it came to renting a house, Old Carter immediately took a liking to Zhuanzhu Lane.

Zhuanzhu was an ancient assassin who hid a sword in a fish’s belly to assassinate King Liao—that’s the story.

Old Carter was a math guy, lacking in literary knowledge.

When the rental agent was telling the story of “Zhuanzhu,” boasting about the long history of the lane, Old Carter just sighed, “So there used to be a river nearby, but I didn’t see it.”

The agent took a few seconds to react, his face turning ashen, and got angry together with the landlord—they almost didn’t rent the house to them.

Walking deeper into the alley, everywhere looked the same: pink walls and black tiles. Her steps slowed, and David Carter was at a loss again.

It wasn’t that she had no sense of direction, but she wasn’t good at remembering house numbers. When they first moved in, she knocked on the wrong door twice and was sent back by neighbors. Old Carter came up with a solution: he wrote a math formula on their door in red paint as a landmark for her.

She walked from No. 1 Zhuanzhu Lane to No. 299, but didn’t see a door with a math formula, feeling complicated.

She felt disappointed at possibly not being able to find Old Carter here, but also relieved that maybe there wasn’t another David Carter in the cheese world.

She walked the alley again, and by forcefully recalling the neighbors on either side, she finally found the little courtyard where she and Old Carter had once lived.

The door looked about the same as she remembered—a white iron door studded with brass nails. The family next door kept a Chihuahua, fierce as ever, still barking now.

Accompanied by the Chihuahua’s barking, she took a step back, looked up, and continued to observe the courtyard, comparing it to her memories.

The pattern on the frosted window paper? She couldn’t remember.

The style of the door lock? She couldn’t remember.

The shape of the moss on the wall? How could she possibly remember that!

In the end, she stared for a long time at the grapevine poking over the courtyard wall...

Lush and green, swaying in the wind—hmm, that seemed about right.

But just looking from the outside, it was still hard to be sure. David Carter keenly noticed a hole in the window paper.

She moved a few bricks over, made sure no one was around, then climbed onto the bricks, clung to the windowsill like a thief, and wobbled as she poked her head through the hole.

The room was dim and simply furnished.