chapter 13
I was terrified.
Everything that had happened tonight flashed through my mind. Overwhelmed by emotion, I couldn’t hold it in and let out a scream that pierced the night sky.
The person outside heard me scream, and she screamed as well.
Only then did I see clearly-the person outside was my next-door neighbor.
Aunt Zhao.
Aunt Zhao is about the same age as my mom, and she’s also a member of the senior dance troupe.
She had been badly startled by me, clutching her chest and gasping for breath.
She said, “Oh my, why are you screaming? You scared me to death. In the middle of the night like this, if I had a heart condition, you’d have scared me to death for sure.”
Seeing it was someone I knew,
I finally felt relieved.
“Aunt Zhao, it’s so late-what are you doing on the fourth floor?”
As soon as I asked, Aunt Zhao looked startled.
She said, “What fourth floor? Isn’t this the sixteenth floor? I was about to ask you the same-why are you in the elevator? I didn’t see you get in just now. Did you come down from upstairs?”
Hearing her say that, I was completely confused.
Sixteenth floor? Didn’t I just press the button for the first floor in the elevator? I could feel the elevator moving down, so how could I still be on the sixteenth floor?
The voice-activated light behind Aunt Zhao went out again.
She clapped her hands, and the light came on in response.
I looked at the corridor again.
Red doormat, brown door, a deep green wooden sign hanging from the handle… This was definitely my home.
I glanced at the display screen inside the elevator.
What I saw made me jump.
Because the elevator display really showed the sixteenth floor.
There was no time to explain.
I hurriedly pulled Aunt Zhao into the elevator.
Then I frantically pressed the close door button.
Aunt Zhao noticed my face didn’t look good.
She asked in confusion, “What’s going on, Shengsheng? Where are you going so late? Where’s your mom?”
I didn’t know how to explain, so I just said, “My mom’s asleep. I have something urgent to do.”
Hearing that, she seemed thoughtful but didn’t press further.
But then a question occurred to me.
It’s so late.
Why was she going out? I looked her up and down. She was wearing a red dress, long enough to cover her ankles.
Aunt Zhao lives next door to me. She’s about the same age as my mother and is usually very health-conscious, going to bed before nine every night.
But it was already eleven o’clock. Why was she still going out? It was too strange.
Once the elevator doors closed, it was just the two of us in the small space.
The voltage was unstable at night, and after the elevator started, the lights inside flickered on and off.
I moved to the back, unable to contain my curiosity, and asked her, “By the way, Aunt Zhao, why are you going out so late?”
She stood in front of me, not turning around.
After a long pause, she finally said in a low voice, “I’m going out to dance.”
After she spoke, she let out a couple of giggles, then raised her hand, straightened her heel, and stood on tiptoe.
Her neck stretched upward, as if something was pulling her body up, making her stand perfectly straight.
In the flickering light, her body remained still, but her head twisted one hundred and eighty degrees.
She forced a stiff smile at me, her mouth stretching all the way to her ears, her tongue swirling inside.
Her mouth was smiling, but her eyes glared at me fiercely. She said, “This is the kind of square dancing I do.”