In the nick of time, Ji Xun raised his hand, preparing to push Classmate Zhou away!
His hand had already touched Classmate Zhou’s clothes, but Classmate Zhou, like a slippery fish, dodged Ji Xun’s fingers with a slight, almost imperceptible movement. In that instant, it was less that Yu Xiaoyu had stabbed him and more that he had met the tip of Yu Xiaoyu’s blade.
The silver gleam streaked across Classmate Zhou’s shoulder, its light breaking to trail a red tail.
The splash of blood splattered in front of several people in the room, splattering in Yu Xiaoyu’s eyes.
The already frenzied girl froze for a moment in the crimson… and it was at this moment that Classmate Zhou grabbed Yu Xiaoyu’s hand. He didn’t snatch the knife. He held her hand, which held the knife, and aimed the blade at his own chest. His voice was light, light and even joyful, like ice pearls falling onto a jade plate:
“Want to kill me? Stabbing an arm won’t kill anyone. You have to stab here, the heart. Do you dare?”
No one truly understood Yu Xiaoyu, the pain beneath her fragile exterior; just as no one truly understood Classmate Zhou, the madness beneath his silent exterior.
In that instant, in that room, it was quite possible that Yu Xiaoyu and Classmate Zhou—they were the ones who could better comprehend each other’s hearts, suppressed to the extreme of despair. They saw themselves in each other, a similar yet different self in the mirror, a detestable self.
“…Drop the knife!” the police officer’s belated shout rang out.
The shout jolted Ji Xun awake.
In a flash, Ji Xun made a decision that, while not entirely correct, was perhaps the most valuable for the current situation.
“Right, calm down, put down the knife, it’s useless for you to hold it—”
He seemed to be cheering on the police, but in reality, he took a diagonal step forward, inserting himself between the officer and Yu Xiaoyu, blocking the officer’s path towards her and protecting the space for Classmate Zhou’s one-on-one confrontation.
A few short days.
Yes, after just a few short days of interaction, less than 96 hours from start to finish, he had gotten to know Classmate Zhou, made contact with him, and finally, chose to trust him.
He believed that everything Classmate Zhou was doing at this moment was the result of careful consideration.
He believed that Classmate Zhou’s carefully considered decision would be beneficial to solving the case.
He chose to help Classmate Zhou!
The moment was both short and long.
Two seconds. Blood rolled like beads from the blade’s edge. The glint of the knife reflected on Yu Xiaoyu’s face, that cold silver light illuminating her eyes, which burst with a frosty coldness.
“Kill me, and even if you’re not yet 18, you’ll go to a juvenile detention center.”
Classmate Zhou gradually relaxed his hand. He no longer stopped Yu Xiaoyu. She held the knife with both hands; with just a bit of force, a reckless thrust, the blade would pierce the heart of the person she hated.
A great joy, arriving late, filled her heart. It seemed an invisible force was pushing her hands. She watched with delight as the tip of the knife indented the clothes and pressed against the beating heart. The beat of his heart was already traveling up the handle, all the way to her, stimulating her mind and body…
Just a little more, just a little bit more, she thought. Soon, it’ll be over soon.
“And then,” Classmate Zhou said softly, “you’ll never see Xu Shijin again.”
Yu Xiaoyu froze.
“No one will bring Xu Shijin food anymore,” Classmate Zhou continued. “No one will be with her when she’s hurt, to comfort her… and, to help her get revenge.”
He looked at Yu Xiaoyu and saw tears welling up in her eyes.
He spoke his last sentence: “And, there will be no one to be with you when you are hurt, to comfort you, to cheer you up.”
The force pushing her hands suddenly vanished—no, it didn’t vanish, it transformed into an opposing force, binding her hands. She looked at Classmate Zhou, and what appeared in her eyes was no longer the face of the person she hated, but a world blurred by tears, the face of Xu Shijin blurred by tears.
The soft clinking of porcelain sounded in the room.
Listening closely, it was the sound of Yu Xiaoyu’s teeth chattering. The collision of her teeth traveled to her shoulders, then to her hands. The knife, held tightly, slipped from her grasp and fell to the floor. Accompanied by the sound of the small knife dropping, she screamed:
“I’ll talk—”
Her voice was the last strength supporting her body. As the sound rushed out of her throat, she collapsed to the ground.
“I’ll talk! I’ll tell you everything! I’ll tell you all of it!” she sobbed and pleaded. “Let me bring her food! Let me see her… sob… I beg you, I want to see her… She needs me…”
Ji Xun didn’t listen to how the police controlled Yu Xiaoyu next, or what else she said, nor did he give Classmate Zhou the chance to listen. He grabbed Classmate Zhou’s hand before the police could deal with them, left the room, and retreated to the stairwell outside.
Only the two of them were on the stairs.
Ji Xun frowned, first pulling at Classmate Zhou’s torn clothes: “Is it serious?”
Classmate Zhou: “Not serious, it just broke the skin a little.”
“You still need to disinfect it with alcohol and wrap it with gauze…” Ji Xun’s frown didn’t relax.
“Mm,” Classmate Zhou replied distractedly, his gaze fixed on the open door of the room below. They could still faintly hear sounds coming from the room. “Where do you think Yu Xiaoyu is keeping Xu Shijin?”
“…Still thinking about that?”
“Isn’t that our ultimate goal?”
“I thought your ultimate goal was to have Yu Xiaoyu stab you to death,” said Ji Xun.
“Why would you think that?”
“Shouldn’t I think that?”
“You shouldn’t,” Classmate Zhou said, looking at Ji Xun seriously. “If I wanted a random person on the street to stab me to death, what difference is there from me just finding a bridge and jumping off? Yu Xiaoyu chose Xu Shijin. I didn’t choose Yu Xiaoyu. The one I chose is…”
A flick on the forehead stopped Classmate Zhou’s words.
Classmate Zhou clutched his head, stunned.
Ji Xun: “Little classmate, be more mature. Your life isn’t in anyone’s hands; your life is only in your own hands. I don’t know who you’ve chosen, but I hope that person will say this to you. If they won’t—promise me, tell them to get lost.”
“…”
“Also,” Ji Xun tried to hold back, but couldn’t help nagging Classmate Zhou, “solving cases is an intellectual job, not a dangerous one. Don’t just chase excitement, like bravely raiding a drug den yesterday and facing a blade empty-handed today. There are clearly safer and more efficient solutions—”
“…Let’s not talk about yesterday. But today, what if, while you were all slowly and gently looking for Yu Xiaoyu’s mental weakness, the imprisoned Xu Shijin had starved to death? Yu Xiaoyu was so anxious to bring Xu Shijin food, one can more or less guess that there wasn’t much food stored where Xu Shijin was being held, right?” Classmate Zhou said, his eyes glinting.
“That’s impossible. Yu Xiaoyu values Xu Shijin very much and wouldn’t do anything to truly harm her. So the police were destined to win this game,” Ji Xun cut in, negating his point. “Besides, when I went in just now, I saw a printer and paper samples in the study. A normal family wouldn’t have so many paper samples. From this, we can infer that Yu Xiaoyu’s parents are in a printing-related business—and further infer that they might have a warehouse, which would most likely be near the city’s printing factory. The factory is very noisy when operating, so if Yu Xiaoyu locked Xu Shijin there, she wouldn’t have to worry about Xu Shijin’s screams attracting anyone. In summary, I’m eighty percent sure I could have guessed where Yu Xiaoyu was hiding Xu Shijin. There was really no need for you to play this self-harm trick.”
“You’re so confident in your reasoning,” Classmate Zhou snorted softly. “I’m also very confident in my abilities. You have your way of solving cases, and I have my solutions.”
Shedding his feigned silence, he was like an uncut gemstone, so sharp-edged and brilliant.
“So, Ji Xun,” he lowered the hand covering his forehead and gave Ji Xun a deep look. “Don’t use the same confidence we both have to control me with a straight face. I won’t just be your little follower…”
Their conversation ended there.
Inside the room, Yu Xiaoyu had confessed everything—about the poisoning, the arson, the kidnapping of Xu Shijin, she admitted to it all. According to her, Xu Shijin knew nothing about any of it; everything was done by her to avenge her best friend.
The police didn’t fully believe her confession.
But the top priority was to rescue the imprisoned Xu Shijin. Two police officers, taking Yu Xiaoyu, along with Ji Xun and Classmate Zhou—it had reached a point where the police could only keep them under their watch to prevent any more accidents—went together to the warehouse Yu Xiaoyu had mentioned.
As the car set off, Ji Xun, who had been busy all morning, finally had a moment of leisure. He casually took out his phone and saw an incoming call from Meng Fushan. Before this call, Meng Fushan had already called him 10 times and left 2 voice messages.
Ji Xun quickly answered: “Hello?”
Meng Fushan sneered: “I thought you were dead.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Ji Xun said. “Something just came up, my phone was on silent. What’s so urgent?”
“You disappeared for three days. The counselor is looking for you.”
“Uh…”
“He’s thinking of telling everyone in the dorm to convince you to drop out.”
“Uh uh.”
“Stop uh-ing,” Meng Fushan said. “I can’t cover for you. Write your own self-criticism letter. I’m not writing it for you. Ask the other two.”
“I still have some loose ends to tie up here…” Ji Xun said with a pained expression.
“So you don’t want your university diploma,” Meng Fushan stated flatly. “You have to pay me back the money. I probably can’t go to your house for winter break. Your parents will break your legs.”
“Alright, alright, I get it…”
“Tomorrow morning, before class starts, you must be here. I suggest you buy a ticket for this afternoon,” Meng Fushan emphasized again, then hung up coldly. “See you.”
Ji Xun held his head in his hands, frowning deeply.
Classmate Zhou was sitting right beside him. Ji Xun hadn’t avoided him while on the phone, so he had heard most of it and understood the trouble Ji Xun was in. “If you have things to do, you should go back first. I can stay here and follow through until the end, until the truth comes out…”
Ji Xun shook his head: “He’ll cover for me, that’s not the point. I just feel like I’ve forgotten a very important clue.”
The trouble came from Meng Fushan’s call. Ji Xun repeatedly scrolled through the closely spaced call records in his contacts, trying to see something. Then he opened the two voice messages.
Meng Fushan’s messages were as concise as his words.
First message: Your attendance check-in trick has been exposed. The counselor is looking for you.
Second message: Stop playing dead.
Very normal… very Meng Fushan.
What exactly was wrong?
The warehouse wasn’t far. Officer Qin stepped on the gas and quickly reached the destination. He stopped and turned to Ji Xun, “Stop looking down at your phone all the time. I see many of you can’t be without it for a second, it’s bad for your eyesight. Get out of the car.”
Ji Xun suddenly looked up.
He suddenly understood the clue he had missed—if Xu Shijin was being held captive, how could her phone signal from the call she made to vent at Chen Ya appear at the school?
He had always assumed the person and the phone were together, but since she was imprisoned, her phone could have been taken by Yu Xiaoyu, and that call could have been made by Yu Xiaoyu. Yu Xiaoyu was at school, so the signal would be at the school.
And that tirade from Xu Shijin cursing Chen Ya, not only did it not mention anything else, but it also had no subject.
It could have been something Xu Shijin said at another time, recorded by Yu Xiaoyu just like Meng Fushan’s voicemail message, and played for Chen Ya at that moment.
The vicious curses that Chen Ya had relayed echoed in Ji Xun’s ears again.
“It’s all your fault! If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be like this! It’s all your fault! It’s all your fault!”
What if this wasn’t Xu Shijin cursing Chen Ya? What if this sentence, this sentence was directed at—!
Ji Xun’s breath caught. If his current deduction was correct, then—it was as if mud had sprung up from under his feet, submerging his ankles, hindering his steps forward.
He watched Classmate Zhou’s back, watched Yu Xiaoyu’s back, watched as they opened the warehouse and rushed in…
The warehouse’s roller door rattled up.
Yu Xiaoyu ducked down, clutching the lunchbox in her hands, and hurried into the warehouse. Before she was even inside, she called out loudly:
“Shijin, Shijin, I’m here! Did you sleep well last night—”
The police followed behind her. They soon saw a female student locked up with an iron chain inside the warehouse. The student’s clothes and face were a bit dirty, and she was sitting on a “bed”—which was actually just a few benches pushed together with a quilt on top, forming a temporary bed.
She looked blankly at the people coming in. When she saw a certain figure, a look of joyful surprise flashed across her face. She jumped up from the bed and ran forward quickly.
Such beautiful sunlight slanted in from the high windows of the factory.
It lit up the ends of Xu Shijin’s hair and the hem of her skirt as she ran, it lit up the silvery chain dragging on the ground, it lit up the gold-flecked floral pattern on the dark blue cloth protecting Yu Xiaoyu’s hands.
It lit up Xu Shijin’s face, full of surprise and joy, and it also lit up the cold indifference with which she brushed past Yu Xiaoyu.
Ji Xun saw, in Classmate Zhou’s completely unguarded astonishment, Xu Shijin hug Classmate Zhou, crying and laughing with the relief of surviving a disaster: “You’re here to save me, right? That’s great, that’s great! I thought… I thought I’d never see you again!”
He looked at Classmate Zhou, then saw Yu Xiaoyu looking at Xu Shijin, just as he was looking at Classmate Zhou.
He suddenly remembered that poem, the poem Yu Xiaoyu held, the poem Xu Shijin had asked Classmate Zhou to write on the blackboard.
The poem on the blackboard, so high, so high that Yu Xiaoyu couldn’t reach it.
It was a position Classmate Zhou didn’t care about, but it was the position its master had wanted it to be in from the very beginning.
She had so angrily erased the heart with Zhou Zhaonan and Yu Xiaoyu’s names on the blackboard, shouting at everyone: “What’s so funny? Which bastard wrote this!”
Ji Xun looked at Yu Xiaoyu’s dazed face, her dazed eyes, dazed as she watched Xu Shijin and Classmate Zhou embrace.
…Yes, that sentence was what Xu Shijin said to Yu Xiaoyu.
Such sharp, bone-chilling curses. Yu Xiaoyu, alone in her parents’ empty house, listened to them over and over with those white earphones, cutting her flesh with a knife, burning her skin with cigarettes.
But no matter how she self-harmed, it was useless.
Just as Classmate Zhou had never looked back at Xu Shijin.
Xu Shijin would never look back at her.
Yu Xiaoyu’s tears fell like rain.
