“Jiang Yiyun has been teaching at Honghai No. 6 Middle School for nine years and has always been an outstanding teacher, except for last year when she failed to win the Outstanding Teacher award. However, the academic performance of the first-year Class 1 she taught last year was far from ideal, as there were too many students like Wang Yuan who refused to study.”
Ji Mingrui immediately began investigating Jiang Yiyun’s personal file after receiving the call.
“Her resume is quite normal, with no bad records. She has an apartment under her name and is currently paying off the mortgage every month. Her husband works at a state-owned enterprise, which doesn’t seem to have any major issues either,” Ji Mingrui said as he sat in his office, lifting the lid of his instant noodles. “You know, people who work in schools or state-owned enterprises care a lot about their personal records and won’t leave any black marks. We might not find anything by checking this.”
Leaning against the turn of the stairs, Chi Qing listened with lowered eyes and then murmured, “Got it.”
Ji Mingrui found it strange: “You suspect her?”
“Is there any evidence?”
Up until now in the investigation, there was no logical reason for Jiang Yiyun to be pulled into this.
Chi Qing couldn’t say that he had read it after touching Jiang Yiyun’s hand.
The woman’s inner voice was completely different from the words coming out of her mouth; on one hand, she was secretly gloating over the deaths of her former students, while on the other, she was hypocritically expressing grief.
In the end, he simply said, “Just asking casually.”
Chi Qing had used his gloved hand to hold the phone. His other hand, still damp from washing, hadn’t been gloved yet because he needed to use the touchscreen.
Xie Lin waited for him to finish dialing, then wrapped his hand around Chi Qing’s other wrist. Holding the black glove, he began sliding it onto Chi Qing’s hand, starting from the fingertips and working his way up.
Once it was securely on, he took the opportunity to firmly clasp his hand.
Xie Lin led him back the way they came toward the other end of the long corridor.
Chi Qing: “Where are we going?”
Xie Lin: “To find someone and figure out a way to interrogate her.”
“Find someone?”
Chi Qing couldn’t think of who they could possibly look for.
Xie Lin’s gaze swept over the immature faces of the students in the classroom: “Find someone… who usually seems to speak the least in class.”
On the other side, after hanging up the phone, Ji Mingrui focused on searching for Jiang Yiyun’s personal information.
“Go check all the call records for this person over the past three months,” Ji Mingrui said to Jiang Yu, quickly scribbling Jiang Yiyun’s phone number on a piece of paper and adding three other numbers behind it. “See if there has been any contact with these three phone numbers.”
Having been tempered by several cases, Ji Mingrui had become much more mature and steady in his approach.
Jiang Yu put down his current work and immediately set off to check the call logs. “Is she one of the suspects?”
Ji Mingrui shook his head. “She isn’t, but my brother just offhandedly mentioned her suspiciously. His mouth is like it’s been divinely blessed—whatever he says hits the bullseye… You have no idea, from the day I met him, he has never missed a mark.”
Ji Mingrui recalled back in high school when he had a friend he got along well with.
The two had agreed to go to an internet cafe together after school.
Chi Qing, who usually barely spared him a word, suddenly said to him coldly after packing his things: “I advise you not to go.”
“He’s not a good person,” the teenage Chi Qing said. “Cut ties with him early.”
At that time, it was the first time Ji Mingrui had ever argued with Chi Qing. Usually, he was always the one eagerly approaching Chi Qing with unrequited enthusiasm, so this was his first time snapping back. He slammed his schoolbag onto the desk: “Are you insane?! He’s my friend, I know exactly what kind of person he is. You don’t even know him, why would you say that about him?!”
“…”
The teenage Chi Qing capped his pen, his eyes dark. “Suit yourself.”
Ji Mingrui went to the internet cafe in anger.
But just as he arrived, he saw his “friend” surrounded by a group of sketchy, gangster-like individuals. When the gang leader saw him come in, he chuckled: “Are you sure this classmate brought money? If he doesn’t have any money either, don’t even think about leaving today.”
As Ji Mingrui was pinned down by a bunch of thugs who riffled through his bag for cash, his mind was entirely filled with one thought…
Chi Qing is a fortune teller?!
Jiang Yu checked very quickly. He scrolled with the mouse and precisely located several strings of numbers in a long list of call logs. “Something’s wrong, come take a look.”
Meanwhile.
Xie Lin led Chi Qing around half the school, waiting until class let out. During the lunch break, they found a student from the former first-year Class 1 and called him over near a pavilion. The boy was small and thin, wearing a pair of glasses. He looked anxious and ill at ease, unsure how to address them, so he called them “Police Uncles.”
If one were to say who the best observer in a classroom is, it must be the quietest person in the class. They don’t speak much, but they often act as silent observers.
Of course, Chi Qing held a skeptical attitude toward this: “I used to be the quietest person in class too.” But he didn’t care about anyone else’s life or death at all.
Xie Lin: “…You’re a special case, you don’t count.”
Following that, Xie Lin asked a question, and the boy answered.
“It’s fine, you don’t need to be nervous. No one will know we looked for you.”
Xie Lin said, “How was the relationship between Teacher Jiang and Wang Yuan’s group… in the past?”
The boy remained silent for a moment before saying, “Not very good.”
“Aside from not paying attention and having poor grades, were there any other conflicts?”
“I’m not entirely sure about the specifics. I just remember that at the beginning, Teacher Jiang was quite harsh with them and always made them write self-criticisms. Later on, Wang Yuan and the others refused to submit. They gathered together to plan how to mess with Teacher Jiang. After a while, Teacher Jiang stopped being harsh with them. Even if they slept in class, Teacher Jiang wouldn’t say much.”
The lunch break was short, and getting food at the cafeteria required a mad rush.
Xie Lin didn’t keep the boy for too long.
After sprinting out of the pavilion, the boy stopped in a spot where the two couldn’t see him. He cast a distant glance at the first-year teaching building, then looked back through the gaps in the leaves, staring at the two “police uncles” with an expression that suggested he wanted to say something but stopped himself.
In the end, he retracted his gaze, turned around, and continued running toward the cafeteria.
Half an hour later.
In the police station office, Ji Mingrui held a stack of printouts and called back: “Hello? It’s me.”
“Looking at the files earlier, this Teacher Jiang indeed didn’t seem suspicious. However, we checked her call records. Over the past three months, she has had close contact with the three deceased victims—they spoke on the phone almost every week.”
“The calls lasted around four to five minutes, all made after school hours. Furthermore, we learned that during the timeframes when Wang Yuan and Ma Hui died, she didn’t have any classes. However, the other teachers in her office were teaching, so no one can prove whether she remained in the office the entire time.”
Frequent phone calls with the victims before their deaths.
No alibi.
Poor relationship with the students.
Suspected of being “threatened by the students.”
…
Most importantly, there was Jiang Yiyun’s strange reaction.
However, with these phone records, they now had a valid reason to interrogate Jiang Yiyun.
The police investigated rapidly; that very afternoon, Jiang Yiyun was brought to the main bureau for questioning.
The criminal detective grabbed the case file notebook, preparing to head inside with the two consultants. However, the two consultants didn’t seem to intend to face Jiang Yiyun directly, turning into the observation room next door instead.
The detective: “Are you… not interrogating her together?”
Chi Qing glanced at Xie Lin: “Ask him.”
Xie Lin rubbed his nose. “I told Ms. Jiang that we are parents of a student. To prevent her from overthinking, it’s better for me and my ‘younger brother’ to excuse ourselves.”
“…” Chi Qing hadn’t expected him to still hold onto this point. “Who’s your younger brother?”
Xie Lin: “You are.”
“Come to think of it, I haven’t heard you call me…”
Chi Qing turned around, pushed open the door to the observation room, and left Xie Lin behind before he could finish his sentence.
Xie Lin chuckled.
He wasn’t wrong about the rebellious phase.
He truly was quite rebellious.
Inside the interrogation room.
Jiang Yiyun clearly hadn’t expected to be singled out by the police. She was somewhat uneasy, her gaze unconsciously drifting toward the door. However, her years of teaching experience allowed her to quickly suppress this emotion. By the time several detectives pushed the door open and entered, she was already sitting perfectly upright and nodded in greeting to them.
At first, she stuck to her initial rhetoric: “I didn’t have much contact with them. Since the classes were reshuffled in the second year, they had long ceased to be my students, so I don’t know much about their situation as second-years.”
However, faced with the densely packed call logs on the table, she fell into silence.
On the call records, the numbers associated with her had been circled with a red marker.
“Since there was no contact after the class reshuffle,” the detective tapped his finger on the log, “then why did you still call so frequently? What business did you have staying in touch?”
Chi Qing noticed that Jiang Yiyun’s fingers, hidden beneath the table, were unconsciously intertwined. Her polished nails dug deeply into her flesh.
Time ticked away slowly in the quiet, solemn atmosphere.
After the hands of the wall clock completed a full rotation around the dial, Jiang Yiyun slowly exhaled a breath. “I did have some conflicts with them. My teaching methods are quite strict, and I hoped my students could accept this management style. However, they were adolescent children after all, and I didn’t handle the conflicts between us well. This is something I’ve always felt guilty about.”
“Learning that they were still wild and untamed after entering their second year, I felt a part of the responsibility lay with me, so I maintained contact with them. The second year is a crucial turning point, right before the third year. I didn’t want them to waste their futures like this.”
A pack of lies.
These four words were the immediate reaction of almost everyone present.
If Jiang Yiyun were truly as she claimed, she wouldn’t have said in the beginning that she didn’t have deep contact with them.
But academic protocol aside, they couldn’t do a thing to her.
The three students were already dead, so at this moment, they could only rely on her one-sided account.
No one knew what the actual contents of those phone calls were.
After finishing her words, Jiang Yiyun sighed deeply and looked at the detectives again. “I understand your work completely and hope the killer can be caught soon… But the questions regarding me should be finished, right? I still have a class this afternoon. May I leave now?”
In the observation room, Chi Qing frowned.
He stood up at the same time Jiang Yiyun rose from her seat.
Xie Lin: “Where are you going?”
Chi Qing placed his fingers on the edge of his black glove. “To listen to what the contents of those phone calls actually were.”
The dead couldn’t speak, and there wasn’t a single word of truth coming out of Jiang Yiyun’s mouth, leaving only one remaining path—he would take off his glove and listen to what Jiang Yiyun was thinking right now.
However, just as he stood up, he was firmly pressed back down by Xie Lin.
Chi Qing was caught slightly off guard by being shoved back down. “?”
“Don’t take off your gloves,” Xie Lin’s hand pressed down firmly on Chi Qing’s shoulder. “There’s no need to listen either. If Jiang Yiyun refuses to speak, there will always be a way to make her talk. In any case, don’t go.”
Previously, he only knew that Chi Qing possessed this “ability” and guessed that whatever he read was never anything pleasant.
This was his first time being so close to Chi Qing’s ability.
At school this noon, how exactly was Jiang Yiyun gloating in her heart? What kind of twisted voices had Chi Qing heard? He didn’t dare to imagine.
But he knew that those voices could make a person become completely resistant to anyone else.
If a cure required this sort of process, then he would rather Chi Qing remain that emotionally detached person forever.
“If your illness can’t be cured, then let it remain uncured,” Xie Lin said. “As for what those people are thinking, it doesn’t matter at all.”
“There’s no need to listen, and no need to touch. When there are too many people, just hold my hand and hide behind me.”
