Shen Xinghe was a year older than Xu Xingzhou. If the information on his student records was accurate, he was currently in his third year of high school.
The next day, during the early morning reading period at Guangyuan High School, the head of the third-year tier was taking up the self-study time to review a test paper the students had taken a few days prior. She was suddenly interrupted by several criminal investigators. Standing on the podium, the tier head was at a complete loss: “Excuse me… is something the matter?”
A portion of Guangyuan’s classes were arranged according to academic performance. No matter how the subsequent classes were organized, the first three classes were always the advanced tracks. Only students with top-tier grades could enter these three classes.
Among them, Class 3-1 was the elite of the elite.
The moment Xie Lin stepped into the classroom, he saw a pile of award certificates—at least a dozen of them—plastered across half the wall. With just a single glance, he spotted the name “Shen Xinghe” printed on them. Averting his eyes, he offered a slight smile: “The entry point for the first sub-question of this problem is very precise, and I would love to hear you continue your analysis. However, I’m terribly sorry for disrupting your class. We’re here to see Shen Xinghe for a matter.”
“To see Shen Xinghe?” the teacher asked in surprise.
Ji Mingrui followed close behind and said, “Yes. He’s in your class, right?”
The teacher clearly had no idea why the police were looking for Shen Xinghe. She said, “He is in our class, it’s just…”
“Just what?”
Chi Qing, who was walking at the very back, followed the teacher’s gaze and looked toward a certain vacant seat in the back row.
Then, he heard the teacher say, “…It’s just that he didn’t come to school starting today.”
On the desk in the back row, a stack of books was piled up perfectly neatly. At the very top was the exam paper that had just been graded and handed back today. He had scored a perfect 150 in mathematics.
Everyone felt that the bright red “150” written on the test paper was incredibly glaring. If this student surnamed Shen was truly the killer, he had murdered so many people, yet after seeing the news, he was still able to take his exams completely unaffected and without making a single mistake…
Chi Qing’s curiosity toward this person increased by a few notches. At this exact moment, he genuinely wanted to meet this individual.
Xie Lin also cast a glance over, then suddenly asked, “The person who was caught by the teacher playing on his phone during class was him, right? What page was he browsing at the time?”
The teacher was still unable to grasp the intentions of these police officers. It just so happened that she was the one who had confiscated Shen Xinghe’s phone. Even if Shen Xinghe had excellent grades, she couldn’t just turn a blind eye and pretend she didn’t see it in front of so many students, so she had scolded him right then and there during class.
The teacher recalled the boy’s excuse back in the office: “He said he was preparing to look up study materials.”
Xie Lin: “I don’t care what he was ‘preparing’ to look up. I only care about what was displayed on his screen when you confiscated his phone.”
“…” The teacher finally replied, “It seemed to be the news.”
Shen Xinghe’s dormitory was on the sixth floor.
Guangyuan encouraged boarding. Although there were still “rebellious students” like Su Xiaobo in the school, the overall boarding rate remained very high, so the accommodation conditions provided by the school were exceptionally luxurious.
The dormitory was fully equipped with all the necessary amenities: an independent bathroom, desks and chairs, air conditioning, bookshelves, and a double bed.
Having gone to school for so many years, Ji Mingrui had never seen this kind of treatment: “The accommodations for students nowadays are way too good…”
Chi Qing: “Guangyuan wasn’t just built in the last few years. If your high school entrance exam score had been high enough back then, you could have lived here too.”
Ji Mingrui: “…”
This brother of his was still as terrible at making conversation as always, even after getting into a relationship.
Ji Mingrui discreetly pushed Chi Qing toward Xie Lin, wanting to keep him out of sight and out of mind.
Standing at the doorway, Xie Lin carefully inspected the items displayed in the corridor before being the last one to enter. He smoothly caught hold of Chi Qing, resting a hand on his shoulder and never letting go.
Watching Ji Mingrui’s retreating back, Chi Qing asked with a delayed realization, “Did I say something wrong just now?”
Xie Lin was biased to the point of completely discarding his emotional intelligence: “No. Weren’t you just stating facts? He’s the one who needs to self-reflect.”
Chi Qing nodded: “I think so too.”
“…” Ji Mingrui nearly choked on his own breath.
The group thoroughly searched Shen Xinghe’s dormitory. Everything was arranged in an orderly fashion, but the most important items—such as his phone, ID card, and wallet—were not in the room.
Xie Lin swept a glance around and said, “It looks like he realized something was wrong with the tip-off hotline.”
Chi Qing: “That’s normal. If he hadn’t been taking exams for three days, the time it took him to realize the tip-off hotline was a trap might not have been delayed until now.”
When they initially executed this plan, they had already prepared themselves psychologically. They just hadn’t expected to brush past this student in such a dramatic fashion.
Everyone stared at the empty bunk.
The blanket on the bed was folded perfectly neatly, resembling the square “tofu blocks” taught by instructors during military training. Their temples throbbed as they couldn’t help but think: This kid managed to escape right under our noses in a perfectly methodical manner. He even had the leisure to fold his blanket before leaving.
“He is very smart, always ranking first in every exam.”
“Many girls in the school like him.”
“I only worked hard to study and get into Class One because of him. I just wanted to be in the same class as him, to be closer to him. If… if we could go to the same university in the future, that would be even better.”
An empty classroom provided by the school became the place where they communicated with the students of Class 3-1.
This empty classroom only contained vacant desks and chairs that hadn’t been used for a long time, as well as a blackboard that had been secretly vandalized. This was probably a little base for some student who dreamed of painting; quite a few things were drawn on the blackboard with colored chalk.
Ji Mingrui and the others sat opposite the students who came in one by one for interviews. Every single person’s evaluation of Shen Xinghe consisted of praise. Furthermore, he was quite popular with the girls. However, a figure of this “deity” caliber naturally possessed a sense of distance from the other students, so these people weren’t actually very close to Shen Xinghe.
“The teachers like him a lot. Usually, if we have problems we don’t know how to solve, he will also teach us.”
“A younger brother? I’ve never heard him mention having a younger brother. Does he have one?”
“…”
The last male student to walk in was Shen Xinghe’s desk mate. This desk mate wore thick glasses, looking exactly like the type who burned the midnight oil studying every single night. Compared to the other students, this desk mate at least held a geographical advantage. Although they weren’t much closer just because they were desk mates, he still knew a bit more than the others.
The boy pushed up the frames on the bridge of his nose: “…I know he has a cell phone on him. Others might not know because he always hid it very well. I also saw it by chance. Our physical education classes are always free activities. That day, I wasn’t feeling very well, so I didn’t go to the badminton hall to play with them. I wanted to return to the classroom to grind out a few problems, and I heard a vibration sound coming from his desk drawer.”
“Roughly when did that happen?”
The boy replied, “About a few months ago, I guess.”
A few months ago—this also aligned with the timeframe when the killer quietly approached these people on the internet.
Because the seating in the front was limited and it was impossible for them to sit in a long row, Chi Qing and Xie Lin moved to sit in the empty seats at the back of the classroom.
While giving his statement, the boy stole a glance toward the back row.
The two men sitting over there were completely different from the police officers currently questioning him about the details of Shen Xinghe’s movements. They clearly looked like two external personnel, yet halfway through the questioning, the people in front of him would always glance back at them from time to time, seemingly waiting for their feedback. This made the boy pay extra attention to that corner.
After sitting for a while, drowsiness washed over Chi Qing, and he intended to lean against the desk to sleep. “I’m going to sleep for a bit.”
“Didn’t sleep well last night?” Xie Lin asked.
“Do you have the face to ask?” Chi Qing countered.
“…” Xie Lin coughed lightly, remembering something, and then fell silent.
Watching the person wearing black gloves publicly take a nap in such a solemn environment, the boy’s words stumbled slightly: “Shen Xinghe… he… he went to the library to borrow books a few days ago. I found this matter quite strange because what he borrowed weren’t study materials, but rather professional books on mechanics.”
After the boy finished speaking, he saw the man beside the black gloves lift his eyes to look over. His gaze collided with the man whose eyes rippled with a faint touch of amusement, after which he hurriedly averted his eyes, not daring to look further.
“Did something happen to Shen Xinghe?” the boy finally asked.
“No,” Ji Mingrui said, as no one could decisively declare Shen Xinghe a murderer before the case was finalized. “It’s his younger brother… something happened to him, and we are currently investigating.”
After questioning everyone in the entire class, the classroom emptied out. Ji Mingrui organized the files on hand: “The main bureau has already dispatched personnel to search the entire city. The information provided by the people of Class 3-1 is also limited. I didn’t expect that brat to escape right under our noses—”
Turning around with the files, he froze: “What are you two doing?”
Xie Lin rested an arm on the desk, turning sideways. Looking at them from afar, the two looked exactly like a pair of desk mates: “He’s sleeping, and I’m watching him sleep.”
Ji Mingrui: “…”
Xie Lin had asked Ji Mingrui about Chi Qing’s school days before, but the first time he asked, it was out of suspicion, merely wanting to test his background. This time, however, he genuinely cared.
他 hooked a finger toward Ji Mingrui: “Come over here.”
Thinking that Consultant Xie had some unique insight into the investigation just now, Ji Mingrui dragged a chair over to huddle close.
Xie Lin pointed at Chi Qing: “Does he usually like to catch up on sleep during class too?”
“…”
“Did he have a desk mate before?”
“His relationship with his desk mate must have been very bad, right? Forget it, if they had a good relationship, don’t tell me.”
Ji Mingrui: “?”
Xie Lin offered a slight smile: “I’m afraid I’ll get jealous.”
Ji Mingrui: “…I didn’t understand why so many companies ban workplace romances before, but now I understand a little.”
Because it was truly, deeply, annoying.
Xie Lin asked a few more questions, stepping right on the threshold of Ji Mingrui’s patience, before finally saying, “The information revealed by these students is limited, but they disclosed one very critical point.”
Ji Mingrui frowned, his mind also spinning rapidly. Sentence after sentence and face after face of the Class 3-1 students who had just sat before him flashed past his ears, finally stopping on the boy with the thick glasses.
——”Books on mechanics?”
