Final Day of School

Section 1: A Familiar Beggar

Lawson stepped out of the DVD store and stopped on the sidewalk. Across the street, a brightly lit sign immediately caught his eye: THE FORBIDDEN GARDEN. It belonged to a massage parlor with darkened windows and a narrow entrance beneath the sign.

Near the entrance sat a beggar with a battered bowl. As two men approached, he suddenly jumped up and wrapped both arms around one man’s leg. “Please! Give me some money! I haven’t eaten all day!”

“Get off me, you loser!” The man kicked him away and kept walking. The beggar rolled across the sidewalk, nearly losing his bowl in the process.

Lawson watched from across the street and shook his head. “Amateur. Keep begging like that and you’ll still be a low-level beggar ten years from now. You don’t understand professional begging at all.”

The pathetic display reminded Lawson of something that had happened years ago, back when he was still in college.

One afternoon, he was walking past Skyview Mall when he noticed a beggar sitting on the sidewalk with a chipped old bowl. Whenever someone passed, the man gently shook it and called out in a humble voice, “Spare a little rice money… kind folks…”

Lawson stopped to watch. The voice, the expression, even the gentle movement of the bowl—everything was perfectly calculated to make people feel sorry for him. Lawson found the performance surprisingly moving. More importantly, he was impressed by the man’s talent for deception.

Of course, Lawson didn’t give him a cent.

Lawson continued walking, but after a few steps, he stopped. Something about that beggar seemed strangely familiar.

He slowly turned his head and looked again. The man’s hair was long and messy, his clothes were old and torn, and his face was covered in dirt. But Lawson recognized him immediately. At the same moment, the beggar recognized Lawson as well.

Section 2: The Senior Begging Specialist

The beggar’s eyes widened. “Lawson… could it truly be you?”

Lawson froze, tears welling up in his eyes. “Principal! Dear Principal! Is that really you? I… I am so sorry.”

“It’s all right.” The former principal lowered his head. “For all these years, I’ve been the one carrying the guilt. Back then, I couldn’t truly help you. Not a single day has gone by without me regretting it.”

“You already did more than enough for me,” Lawson said. “You tried to help me when nobody else would. In the end, you even lost your job because of me.”

Lawson looked at the principal’s filthy clothes, then at the chipped bowl in his hand. His voice grew heavier. “And now… look what you’ve become.”

Neither of them said another word. An awkward silence settled between them.

The former principal lowered his head even further. His expression darkened. “Actually…”

Lawson immediately squatted beside him and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, Principal. I’m studying Mechanical Engineering now. Once I graduate and start making money, if you ever have financial problems, I’ll do everything I can to help you.”

The former principal turned and stared at him. “Oh, no. That’s not what I meant. I’m doing extremely well. I’m a Senior Begging Specialist now. I make several times what I used to make as a principal.”

Lawson’s hand slowly slipped from his shoulder.

The former principal proudly lifted his chipped bowl. “In fact, today is my last day on the job. I’m retiring tomorrow. I’ve already reached financial freedom. My family and I are going to travel around the world.”

“Say what?”

Lawson stared at him in shock. It took him several seconds to process what he had just heard. “Oh… well, I’m glad to hear that. Really. I’m happy for you.”

Then Lawson fell silent again. He had already prepared an entire speech to comfort his former principal, but apparently none of it was needed anymore.

For a moment, he genuinely had no idea what to say.

The former principal glanced at his watch. “Oh. It’s exactly five. My shift is over.” He looked down at the chipped bowl in his hands and smiled. “I guess this is the end of my begging career. Tomorrow, a new chapter of my life begins.”

He held the bowl out to Lawson. “This old thing means a lot to me, but I won’t need it anymore. Why don’t you take it? Consider it a gift from me. Whenever you see this bowl, perhaps you’ll remember your old principal.”

Lawson accepted it and looked it over. It was just an ordinary chipped bowl. He had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to do with it. Still, he nodded politely. “Thanks, Principal.”

By the time he looked up again, the former principal was already walking away in the distance.

A breeze swept through the street, making the old man’s ragged clothes flutter behind him. Without turning around, the former principal simply raised one hand in farewell and continued on his way.

Section 3: The Railway Internship

Not long after that, Lawson and the rest of his class began their mandatory internships. The entire class was assigned to a railway maintenance division, where they would spend the next few weeks working alongside actual maintenance crews.

On the first morning, each student was handed an old-fashioned railway worker’s uniform that looked like something straight out of the 1950s. Lawson changed into his and looked himself over.

“Huh. Not bad.”

For some reason, the outdated uniform suited him perfectly. Lawson liked it so much that he decided to keep wearing it even after the internship was over.

The internship turned out to be considerably more dangerous than Lawson had expected. On his very first day, he was inspecting a section of track when a subway train suddenly came roaring toward him.

Lawson looked up. “Oh, shit.”

He immediately jumped out of the way. The classmate working behind him, however, never noticed the train coming.

By the time he turned around, it was already too late. The train struck him at full speed and tore him in half at the waist. Lawson stared for a second as the train continued roaring down the tunnel.

“Damn.”

Then he went back to work.

The work itself wasn’t much better. Lawson spent the rest of the day climbing up and down maintenance platforms, crawling beneath equipment, and carrying heavy tools and parts from one end of the worksite to the other. For someone with his small frame, it was exhausting. By the afternoon, his arms were shaking and his legs felt like they were about to give out.

His new partner wasn’t doing much better. Exhausted and barely paying attention, the student accidentally connected his equipment across the wrong terminals.

Lawson noticed. “Wait, you—”

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

A violent burst of electricity flashed around the student’s body. He stiffened in place as sparks erupted from his tools and uniform. A few seconds later, the current finally stopped, and what remained of Lawson’s partner collapsed onto the floor, completely charred.

By the time the shift finally ended, Lawson felt completely drained. The students lined up to collect their pay, and each of them was handed a small envelope.

Lawson opened his. Inside was a single one-hundred-dollar bill.

A classmate beside him raised his own money into the air. “Oh, yeah! Now I’m rich! I can buy whatever I want! I’m the king of the world!”

Lawson stared at the hundred dollars in his hand. The Forbidden Garden charged $150 for its premium special service.

He looked at the bill again.

“Damn it.”

Section 4: The Final Night of College

That night, after everyone had showered and returned to the dorm, Mildy was already lying flat on his bed, completely motionless. Normally, he would have spent the evening studying and conducting his Advanced Human Biology research.

One of the other roommates looked over at him. “What’s wrong with you, Mildy? No Advanced Human Biology research tonight? You’re not going to dedicate yourself to science?”

“Forget it,” Mildy groaned without moving. “I’m exhausted. Maybe another day. Scientific progress doesn’t happen overnight.”

Lawson sat nearby and listened to his roommates joking around. Somehow, none of it seemed funny anymore. If anything, it sounded a little pathetic. Finally, he spoke.

“Hey, guys. I’ve decided something. Starting tomorrow, I’m dropping out of college.”

Mildy immediately sat up. “What? Are you out of your mind? We’ve already spent two years here. Two more years and we’ll graduate. Then we can get six-figure jobs!”

Another roommate thought about it for a moment. “Maybe it’s okay, Mildy. After today, I don’t even know what the right career choice is anymore.”

No one had much to say after that. The room gradually fell silent, and in that silence, Lawson and his roommates spent their final night together.

Section 5: Golden Bowl

The next morning, Lawson quietly left the campus, just as quietly as he had once arrived.

He took nothing with him except that old 1950s railway worker’s uniform.

Still wearing the uniform, Lawson slowly made his way into Local Alley with the chipped bowl his former principal had given him tucked under one arm. People streamed past in both directions as he walked with his head lowered, searching for the perfect spot.

When he reached one of the busiest corners of the alley, Lawson suddenly squatted down. One leg began bouncing beneath him. He extended the chipped bowl with one hand, gave it a gentle shake, and repeated the words he had heard from his former principal.

“Spare a little rice money… kind folks…”

Lawson could feel the eyes of Local Alley upon him. For a moment, he imagined that everyone around him was witnessing the birth of a rising star in the begging industry.

In reality, almost nobody was paying attention.

A little boy passing by finally pointed at him. “Mom, what the fuck is that old man doing? Why is he squatting there like he’s taking a shit?”

His mother quickly pulled him along. “Don’t look at him. This is what happens when you don’t study hard. You end up begging on the street.”

Lawson heard every word, but he didn’t care. The corner of his mouth slowly curled into a devious smile. He raised the chipped bowl again and continued shaking it.

“Spare a little rice money… kind folks…”

Lawson concentrated and began channeling his mental energy into the bowl.

Suddenly, the chipped bowl began to glow with golden light.

The mother and her son stopped walking. Their eyes locked onto the glow, and a moment later, they slowly turned around and approached him.

“Oh, you poor old geezer,” the mother murmured, her eyes filling with sympathy.

Lawson held out the bowl. “Okay. You know what to do. All your money.”

As she began emptying her wallet and taking off her jewelry, Lawson smiled to himself. What did she know about going to college, huh? Now it was payback time.

“I work so hard every day as a janitor, cleaning toilets just to survive,” the woman said, placing two thousand dollars into his bowl. “This is everything I have. I won’t be able to pay my rent next month. I won’t even be able to feed that failure of a son of mine. Even if he starves to death, I don’t care. You need this more than we do. You deserve my help.”

Section 6: The Forbidden Garden

The memory faded, bringing Lawson back to the present.

“I can still remember my very first customer,” Lawson said to himself as he continued walking along the busy street. “The first money I ever made as a professional beggar.”

When he finished monologuing, he looked up and found The Forbidden Garden already right in front of him. “Those good old days.”

Lawson pushed open the door and walked inside. The young woman behind the front desk looked up at him. “Welcome, old-timer. Which girl would you like today?”

Without saying a word, Lawson reached into his pocket, pulled out ten crisp hundred-dollar bills, and slammed them onto the counter. “The best prostitute this place can offer.”

A door behind the front desk opened, and a woman around 160 centimeters tall stepped through. Her long hair fell to her chest, and her face was carefully made up. She wore a silky floral shirt with all of its buttons undone, revealing a lace-patterned bra underneath, along with a short patterned skirt. Extending from all ten fingers were extraordinarily long manicured nails, each nearly ten centimeters in length.

Lawson’s eyes widened. “Whoa, now that’s what I call sassy!”

The woman gave him a playful smile.

“Hey, honey. The name’s Linda. Tonight, I’ll be all yours.”