"Brain-dead, quickly think, what did I do back then, so I can mentally prepare myself!" Ansheng, floating above the kindergarten, vigorously rubbed his head trying to recall what happened at that time.
But he truly had no memory of the past.
Because Ansheng wasn't at the age for school. It was entirely because both of his parents were busy and Ansheng had caused trouble by running off with Uncle Goldfish, which prompted his parents to send him to kindergarten a year early.
At that age, being able to not wet your pants was already considered quite the achievement.
How could he possibly remember, and who could recall how many diapers they'd used as a child?
Meanwhile, as Master Fuli scratched his head, history continued to repeat itself within the kindergarten.
The kindergarten wasn't far from Ansheng's home, roughly three to four hundred meters away. In his pre-school class, he had some familiar buddies and cousins, so he wasn't completely out of place.
The little guy peered around here and ran over there to take a look, even charmingly got himself a cup of sweet tofu pudding to drink.
Until the pre-school teacher came for class.
The teacher was dumbfounded, looking at the class where a stranger suddenly appeared.
"Good morning, teacher!" Little Ansheng greeted the teacher quite skillfully and sat back in his seat.
Perhaps because of his confident demeanor and since the seats happened to be full, the teacher didn't inquire about Ansheng's origins and began teaching the phonetic lessons, instructing the kids on how to speak proper Mandarin.
Meanwhile, the lower class teacher and gatekeeper reconciled their accounts and burst into a doomsday-like wail at the door.
"Principal! The accounts aren't matching... pfft! The people aren't matching!"
The kindergarten principal's pupils had a great tremor, looking at the access and roll call sheets, launched a campus-wide inspection.
Ansheng contemplatively stared at the blackboard, reciting phonetic letters and mimicking the teacher's pronunciation of standard Mandarin.
On Ansheng's second day at school, the entire teacher-student body was overwhelmed by his presence, busier than when hosting an inspection by the Ministry of Education. The principal was completely numbed.
Teachers and students spent half an hour digging deep, finally extracting little Ansheng and forcefully stuffing him back into the lower class.
"Hello! I'm Goldfish..." Ansheng, speaking standard Mandarin, looked at the fellow student next to him, who was thoroughly confused, speaking in local dialect asked: Who are you?
Morning class ended.
Teachers trembled as they took a sip of tea to calm their nerves.
But there was still no sign of expelling him. Master Fuli gradually furrowed his brows, as if thoughts were forming in his mind, quietly swallowing a gulp of saliva.
He gazed beyond the kindergarten fence at the parking lot belonging to the logistics company.
And little Ansheng, who claimed to be Goldfish, swaggered into the cafeteria with a tray and started eating.
During the students' lunch, teachers took out the children's nap frames and mattresses and prepared the beds.
The little fellow lay on the bed, folding his arms and staring at the ceiling, completely sleepless.
Ansheng sat up.
The teacher pressed him back down.
After a few sit-ups, Ansheng was numb, nearly wetting himself in bed.
But the turning point came swiftly.
The teacher responsible for the children's nap also fell asleep. After a few sit-ups, Ansheng, seeing the teacher ignore him, unrestrainedly flung off the blanket and strode out the door.
Little Ansheng despised the teacher forcing him to sleep.
The campus was unusually quiet at noon, and little Ansheng started his grand adventure.
First, he ran into the music room, poking at the piano and mumbling a couple of words, then ran into the video room to watch discs.
Eventually.
Ansheng squeezed through the fence gaps, strolled out looking bored.
His home was nearby, and he was very familiar with the surroundings of the kindergarten, so he planned to go home and watch TV.
The logistics company was loading and unloading goods, throwing some damaged goods aside.
"Hmm?"
Looking at the pink package inside a damaged box, little Ansheng was curious. He pulled out a large package of off-brand sanitary pads and took one to play with.
"!"
After tearing off the wings and seeing its adhesiveness, little Ansheng seemed to have discovered a new world.
He stuck the pad to his clothes, jumped around twice, seeing it stay put, and revealed an amazed expression.
While the floating Master Fuli covered his face, unable to look directly, he recalled why he got expelled from kindergarten.
In his childhood, during the height of Hong Kong film, at an age where even controlling poop and pee was uncertain, how could Ansheng know what a sanitary pad was.
Seeing the stickiness, the first thing that came to his mind was the talismans from Lin Zhengying's zombie movies.
Little Ansheng discovered a new world.
Due to his fear of zombie films and his determination to combat the forces of darkness.
Despite his small stature, with great strength Ansheng dragged a box of damaged sanitary pads back to kindergarten.
"As above, so below, borrow power from heaven and earth!"
Little Ansheng tore the sanitary pad packaging, stuck it on the kindergarten walls, and began constructing his "Ansheng Daoist's Grand Barrier" to combat the forces of darkness.
Under the watchful face of Master Fuli shielding his eyes, Ansheng took advantage of the teachers' nap times to plaster the kindergarten's outer walls.
The cars in the parking lot were doomed.
The windshields plastered with sanitary pads.
White oil papers fluttering around, until Ansheng found out he ran out of spell-casting materials, he went back to the logistics company attempting to snatch another box when he was caught by one of the loaders.
When caught, Ansheng casually grabbed a bowl of off-brand Eight Treasures Porridge to drink.
The logistics company didn't trouble Ansheng, since his father barely considered himself a regular client of theirs.
Only while escorting him to the "Exorcism Institute" did the loader look suffocated gazing at the parking lot, then turned his head to look at Ansheng drinking Eight Treasures Porridge.
"It can't be... you, can it?"
"Awesome, right? It's super cool, oh, it's specifically arranged to combat zombies—"
"......."
The loader looked at the walls covered with sanitary pads, fluttering leisurely in the midday breeze, found it hard to hold his expression.
The loader paused, took out his little pager, and gathered workers to watch the spectacle.
When all the workers arrived.
Ansheng walked alone in the front, followed by more than a dozen burly men with contorted expressions, clearly struggling to hold in laughter. Only Ansheng, casually drinking his Eight Treasures Porridge, was unbothered.
Ansheng returned to the kindergarten.
All the teachers came out. The principal widened his eyes, looking at the domineering sight of the walls plastered with sanitary pads, and muttered "Holy crap" before swooning straight away.
The kindergarten lost its core strength, the morale collapsed.
Teachers flustered and hurried to get the principal medical help.
Little Ansheng, who should've faced expulsion coldly and ruthlessly on the second day of enrollment, due to severely affecting the principal and quelling the kindergarten's teachers' morale, only received expulsion after the principal woke up.
With a relaxed expression, Ansheng leisurely stepped home, bouncing with his little red backpack.
At night, because of the tiring afternoon's labor, he ate two extra bowls of rice, winning praise from his parents.
"If memory serves, the principal was hospitalized due to high blood pressure, only waking up at noon the next day..."
"On the third day, when I went to kindergarten, I was still there messing around thoughtlessly, even breaking the piano keys and wires..."
Master Fuli, floating in the sky, watching the little fellow enter kindergarten, teachers like facing formidable enemies, constantly supervising Xiaolan, couldn't help but show a wry smile and comment:
"My childhood, truly was rich..."
"I remember, I seemed to know phonetics and Mandarin without having learned..."
"Maybe it's not learning, but forgetting, making those pronunciations instinctual instead..."
"No wonder it's me in kindergarten, showing extraordinary hands-on ability from such a young age..."
"I recall, in fourth or fifth grade of primary school, I actually blew up the school, a literal big bang, detention lasted late that day..."
Master Fuli showed a contemplative look. After entering society he was very busy, either running sales or directly into the deep mountains to urge people to ship goods, having no time to recall the happiness of childhood.
Moreover, he disliked taking photos, which further blurred memories before moving when he was young.
But the one thing he remembered was...
His parents' evaluation of him during his infancy, summed up in a few words: Damn, simply genius!