“Where’s Gong CaiCai?” The class leader asked, “Why didn’t she come to class?”
Xiong YaoYue abruptly exclaimed:
“Shoot, I just remembered I forgot about Gong CaiCai.”
“What do you mean?”
Xiong YaoYue grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the classroom without any explanations.
The class leader and Xiao Qin asked simultaneously: “Where are you guys going?”
“I have to borrow Ye Lin a bit to look for Gong CaiCai since I lost her.”
“Gong CaiCai is a grown person, where did you lose her?”
“That’s the problem.” Xiong YaoYue’s eyelids were jumping as she answered, “I forgot where I put her.”
“Where you put her? Are you treating her like an object?”
“To be accurate, it’s where I locked her.”
“Why did you lock her up? Is it another one of your pranks?”
Xiong YaoYue anxiously scratched her golden brown cheeks.
“Here’s the details of the case…”
“Case? Did you kill her?”
“She… should still be alive… but listen to me first.”
I listened seriously to her confess her crimes.
It turns out after class, Xiong YaoYue voluntarily suggested to help Gong CaiCai take the homework to the teacher’s office. Gong CaiCai agreed since Xiong YaoYue does have good intentions from time to time.
On the way to the teacher’s office, Xiong YaoYue had great behavior and never tried to flip Gong CaiCai’s skirt. That’s why after they left the office, Gong CaiCai dropped her vigilance and began chatting with Xiong YaoYue.
When they began to talk about the class leader’s OCD, Xiong YaoYue ridiculed the fact that the current generation all have bizarre sicknesses. She felt everyone would be better if there weren’t these sham ‘professionals’ making up these weird illnesses.
Gong CaiCai felt it wasn’t good to talk behind the class leader’s back and said:
“OCD is real, and… depression and trypophobia is also real… I might also have claustrophobia…”
“What’s claustrophobia?” Xiong YaoYue asked.
“It’s…. basically where I get scared if I’m trapped inside a small and dark room…”
Claustrophobia is actually pretty common. Even the host of ‘Man vs. Wild’ admitted he is a bit claustrophobic. It would be weird if a scaredy-cat like Gong CaiCai wasn’t afraid of small and dark places.
But Gong CaiCai should never have told Xiong YaoYue that she may be claustrophobic.
Xiong YaoYue clutched her stomach and laughed out loud. She flicked off the tears from the corners of her eye and said to Gong CaiCai:
“What claustrophobia? It’s all in your head. Humans have to challenge their weaknesses if they are alive. Cai Cai, listen to me, I can cure your strange sickness.”
Gong CaiCai had a bad premonition and asked with a tremble: “How… will you cure it?”
“I remember there was an episode of Ikkyū-san where there was a princess who would wet the bed every time they came into contact with water. The way they cured her was to let her play in water for a whole day.”
Gong CaiCai, who understood what Xiong YaoYue was about to do, desperately tried to escape from her grasps but it was only wasted effort.
“No, don’t shut me inside the cabinet. I’ll be scared, I’ll cry, I’ll really cry…”
Xiong YaoYue chose a cabinet with the least dust and pushed Gong CaiCai inside while ignoring her protests. Then she locked it from the outside.
Gong CaiCai initially knocked the door a few times and begged to be let out, but as the light disappeared inside, she turned weak and couldn’t even complete her sentences anymore.
“Save…. me…. let… me… out…”
Xiong YaoYue stood outside with her hands on her hips as she encouraged Gong CaiCai:
“Hold it in. If you can hold it for ten minutes, then you will be cured. Don’t give up halfway.”
While Gong CaiCai was begging to be released, Xiong YaoYue received a phone call. It was news about helping Ai Mi find team members for her ‘Golden Lightning’ LOL team.
Xiong YaoYue got too absorbed into the conversation and subconsciously walked a bit away from the cabinet. Once she finished her conversation, she spotted Loud Mouth holding a bag of sunflower seeds.
She became preoccupied trying to take sunflower seeds from Loud Mouth and messing around, and in the end she completely forgot about Gong CaiCai.
Even if had an inherently weak memory, even she began to feel like she forgot something important at the beginning of the class until the class leader pointed out Gong CaiCai’s absence.
Even though the teacher still hadn’t arrived when Xiong YaoYue and I left the class, it had already been 15 minutes since the bell rang. That means Gong CaiCai had already been locked in the dark and tight steel cabinet for over 20 minutes.
If you remembered, why did you call me instead of hurrying to run upstairs and freeing Gong CaiCai?
“That’s because…” Xiong YaoYue scratched the back of her head in embarrassment, “The third floor has a lot of unused steel cabinets scattered in four different places…. but I can’t remember where I locked Gong CaiCai….”
So after all that time, you wanted to bring me along to play ‘guess where Gong CaiCai is’?
But it’s true Xiong YaoYue made the right decision to call me to save Gong CaiCai.
Gong CaiCai usually kept her phone in her bag instead of carrying it with her, so we can’t really call her phone. The most effective method would be to split up and search for her.
Since it was during class time, there would be occassionally teachers on patrol in the hallways. Since we have to search each cabinet one by one, we would probably make a lot of noise and I’m the only one who could go ahead without worrying about interference from teachers.
As expected, Xiong YaoYue was calling out Gong CaiCai’s name while opening every single cabinet and the noise quickly attracted a teacher and she was caught and scolded.
But thanks to her I was able to search the cabinets without any interference. Finally, on the thirty-third cabinet, I found a trembling and pale Gong CaiCai who was hugging her knees.
Gong CaiCai, who had her eyes tightly shut while muttering ‘mommy save me’, suddenly felt light hitting herself. She lifted up face that was full of tears and saw me.
“Ye… Ye Lin classmate…”
Gong CaiCai cried out and quickly escaped from the steel cabinets. She would have fell hard on the floor if I didn’t support her with both hands.
I realized Gong CaiCai sweated a lot after I put my hands in her underarms to support her. Under the sunlight, I could even see the color of her bras through her sweat soaked shirt.
Also, growth really varies from person to person.
I didn’t really have any bad intentions as I put my arms out to support her, yet I felt like my thumbs were pressed onto a soft and bouncy spherical object.
But the exhausted Gong CaiCai didn’t notice at all. As for her who felt as if she just escaped from a dark prison cell, I was a trustworthy person.
When I saw Gong Cai Cai’s trembling body and dazed eyes, I knew there was no time to hesitate and I had to take her to the infirmary immediately, or at least let her lie down for a while to calm down.
Thus I bent down and put her in a princess carry and she didn’t resist at all.
The teacher who was scolding Xiong YaoYue saw me carrying a girl and felt annoyed, but didn’t want to call me out so they could only scold Xiong YaoYue more. Xiong YaoYue wasn’t the least bit concerned and she even sneaked a thumbs up at me.
As I walked downstairs, I made sure to be extra careful while also secretly comparing Gong CaiCai and Xiao Qin’s weight. Their weights seem to be around the same. While Gong CaiCai is shorter, it seems her breasts makes up the difference in weight.
Even if I tried to keep it as steady as possible, I couldn’t help but shake a bit as I descended the steps. Her moist shirt rubbed against my chest (more importantly, there were two large white rabbits inside the shirt), causing a strange sensation to rise in my heart.
Ah, I’m getting dirty thoughts again. Do I really deserve to be loved by Xiao Qin? Do I have the right to like the class leader?
I was able to successfully deliver her to the infirmary. After Chen YingRan saw the pale and sweaty Gong CaiCai, she asked a few questions and gave some sedatives to Gong CaiCai and let her sleep on the bed.
Before Xiong YaoYue locked Gong Cai Cai in the cabinet, Gong CaiCai should was simply afraid of the dark and cramped places, but after this “Reverse Therapy”, Gong CaiCai now officially has claustrophobia.
Xiong YaoYue, who had failed at trying to imitate Ikkyū-san, decided to punish herself. She told me to lock her in the steel cabinet for 2 hours during lunch break. She told me to not let her out no matter what and she wouldn’t eat lunch.