Chapter 105 Extra 5: High School Memories
Shoutout to nyanmaru for the commission!
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After the summer rain, the air was filled with the scent of grass and damp soil, and the rain-soaked leaves were lush and verdant.
“Second High School station has arrived. Passengers who wish to alight, please use the rear door…”
Chu Feng stood at the high school’s station from years ago, with verdant banyan trees casting deep shades behind him. Over a decade had passed, yet the station sign was still made of tin, with rust spots at the edges. It hadn’t been replaced with a digital screen like those in the city center, which could display the arrival times of buses in real-time. Passengers could only stand under the tin sign and wait for unknown bus schedules.
Chu Feng remembered that when it rained, small droplets would condense on the tin surface. He reached out and touched the cold metal of the station sign, feeling the chill on his fingertips.
The sound of wheels rolling on the ground, the brakes—
A bus slowly pulled into the station. The bus’s broadcast floated out through the windows like a breeze landing on the platform.
The back door opened—
Students wearing blue and white school uniforms poured out of the bus like a flock of seagulls, their chatter about homework, games, and gossip reaching Chu Feng’s ears:
“Hey, did you see that just now?”
“What?”
“That guy at the station, wearing a white shirt! Handsome!!”
“Where? Where?”
“Don’t look back so obviously… over there, below the sign…”
“…Where? I don’t see anyone… Oh, I see our classmate… Is that who you’re talking about? Your taste is… Ah! Ah!! I see him now!… So handsome, oh my god, so handsome!”
Chu Feng lowered his head and saw the reflection of the rainwater at his feet revealing the small girl behind him, discreetly taking out her phone…
“He’s really handsome! I’ll definitely submit it to the Handsome Guy Bot later, it’ll definitely go viral!”
They thought they were discussing quietly, but Chu Feng, who had his back to them, heard everything clearly. He felt awkward about exposing them directly, so he pretended to turn his head and glanced sideways…
The girls were startled and quickly put away their phones. One of them tugged at the other’s school uniform sleeve:
“Don’t take pictures, let’s go, be careful not to get caught…”
“Okay okay…” The two girls walked towards the school gate.
Click—
Chu Feng turned slightly and happened to see a little boy standing behind the sign, holding his phone up towards him, caught in the act.
“S-Sorry…”
The boy panicked and tried to run, but Chu Feng wasn’t as polite to him as he was to the girls. He took a step forward, grabbed the boy’s backpack, and said coldly:
“Delete it.”
“I-I’m sorry!!”
The boy blushed with embarrassment, keeping his head down in front of Chu Feng.
Same-sex marriage had been legalized for ten years, and expressing same-sex affection in daily life was no longer as discreet as before. Seeing Chu Feng on the platform today, especially looking so handsome, he wanted to take a photo as a keepsake.
“I-I’m really sorry! I’ll… I’ll delete it right away!”
The boy frantically pressed the [delete] button and showed Chu Feng the [photo album].
“Recycle bin,” Chu Feng said. “Empty it.”
Deleted photos could still be recovered from the recycle bin.
“Oh! Sorry, I forgot, I’m really sorry for bothering you…”
The high school boy apologized incoherently, and Chu Feng let go of his backpack:
“It’s fine, as long as it’s deleted.”
In the past, Chu Feng wouldn’t have bothered with students more than ten years younger than himself. Even if they occasionally took a sneaky photo, he wouldn’t have cared much. But now was different.
If his photo taken today were posted online and someone recognized him and Xie Shiyu’s relationship, those marketing accounts would probably start posting:
“[Shocking! President Xie’s tumultuous life: survived a disaster only to suffer a divorce, wife left overnight, went to see a male high school student?!]”
Those gossip reporters were eagerly waiting for any signs of President Xie’s marital troubles, ready to embellish even the slightest rumor.
…
“Are you… here to visit our alma mater?”
The boy who had just deleted the photos didn’t leave immediately. He thought Chu Feng looked a lot like the successful senior who graduated from their school before.
Chu Feng paused for a moment, shook his head, and calmly lied, “I’m not from this school.”
Chu Feng’s purpose in coming to school today wasn’t pure. He was very cautious in his every move and word, not wanting to be photographed or recognized as a member of this school. Because he couldn’t predict others’ actions, would anyone find out that Xie Shiyu also graduated from this high school after learning that Chu Feng did?
If Xie Shiyu had been well-behaved during high school, Chu Feng wouldn’t have been so cautious. Unfortunately, Xie Shiyu had done something big at the age of 17, like an old landmine waiting to explode at any moment.
If someone sneaked a photo of him today, posted it online, and was recognized by someone else, and then people found out that both him and Xie Shiyu graduated from this high school, thousands of netizens would dig into their past together. If, by any chance, they dug up something about 17-year-old Xie Shiyu… that would be the end of everything.
Xie Shiyu’s secret could only be known to himself. Being extra cautious about it wouldn’t hurt.
“I thought… you were our senior.” The high school boy looked disappointed. He had hoped that this good-looking big brother was a graduate of their school, so he could get closer to him.
Chu Feng smiled faintly and once again expressed that he wasn’t from around here. The high school boy seemed to have no intention of leaving yet, still pondering whether he could strike up a conversation with Chu Feng.
High school students, being pure and straightforward, wore their thoughts on their faces. In the eyes of Chu Feng, a thirty-year-old adult, it could be said that everything was laid bare. He intentionally or unintentionally raised his left hand, and the wedding ring on his ring finger flashed in the sunlight after the rain, its brilliance dazzling.
Upon seeing that glimmer of light, a sound like a bursting bubble echoed in the high school boy’s ears, his disappointment evident on his face.
Chu Feng paid no more attention. Being married was great; he didn’t need to figure out if the other person had any ulterior motives towards him. Just by showing his ring, without saying a word, he could crush all expectations and avoid any entanglements.
He quietly left the bus station and, following the map on his phone, headed towards the old teaching building at the back of the school.
On the screen of his phone, the actions of the 17-year-old character Little Xie in Dream City were displayed. Previously, Chu Feng had compared this trajectory with the map of the surroundings of B City’s Second High School and found several overlapping areas.
The first overlapping point was the Second High School bus station.
When Xie Shiyu was in high school, his home was a bit far from the school. He took bus route 52 to school every day, but route 52 only stopped at “Second High School East Gate,” not at “Second High School” itself. The buses that passed by “Second High School” were routes 2 and 41, as well as smaller minibus routes 6 and 29. These buses all went in the opposite direction of Xie Shiyu’s home. Chu Feng remembered his own home address, which was also in a different direction from these buses.
In other words, when 17-year-old Xie Shiyu went out at night, he wasn’t taking the bus home or going to his house; he was going somewhere else.
The second overlapping point… Chu Feng lifted his head and glanced across the school’s slope, landing on the school’s back gate.
Over a decade ago, when he and Xie Shiyu were studying, there was an old teaching building at the school’s back gate, also the site where the mountain torrent nearly collapsed in Dream City.
Now, the old teaching building had been demolished and rebuilt into a shiny new one.
But the school’s back gate remained as dilapidated as ever.
A gray iron gate with a damaged brick wall in front of it. When Xie Shiyu was the school bully, he often climbed out from the iron gate and leaped over the brick wall.
Chu Feng approached this brick wall and found several gaps in it, with green moss growing in the cracks.
He hadn’t expected to still be climbing walls at nearly thirty. Chu Feng stepped into one of the gaps in the brick wall, reached out, grabbed the gray iron bar of the gate, and pushed with force. His whole body soared and then landed—
With a loud bang, his landing feet tingled slightly. Chu Feng squatted on the ground for a while before standing up. His physical strength was indeed not what it used to be. During high school, he could climb walls with Xie Shiyu several times, but now, at the age of thirty, his body wasn’t as agile as a teenager’s. It might also be because Xie Shiyu had left for two years, during which Chu Feng had been neglecting his health.
After entering the school campus, Chu Feng walked silently. Perhaps from playing too much in Dream City, Chu Feng, dressed in a white shirt and suit pants, exuded a teacher’s aura as he walked on campus. Many male and female students were happy to greet him with a “Hello, teacher!”
Then they would chatter away, guessing when such a handsome teacher had arrived at the school and which class he taught.
Chu Feng nodded as if playing along. When he reached the entrance of the teaching building, several security guards saw Chu Feng’s appearance but didn’t suspect anything. Chu Feng, the “teacher,” smoothly blended into the building.
He glanced at the class number: High School Sophomore (16) Class.
It was his old class number.
“Wow, your class has air conditioning. The students in the rocket class are indeed different. It’s so cool!”
Chu Feng saw the two girls he had encountered at the bus station talking at the back door of the classroom.
“It’s not that amazing,” the other girl said somewhat embarrassedly. “I’m going in first. You should hurry too, don’t be late!”
The two girls parted ways here, and the other girl left from the next staircase. It seemed that they weren’t in the same class.
Over a decade had passed, Chu Feng thought to himself, and this tradition hadn’t changed. High school still had rocket classes and regular classes.
During the high school entrance exam, Chu Feng had already secured a spot through recommendation. The exam was just for experience. In junior high, they were ranked based on their three-year average scores, and if they were in the top 50 in their year group, they could qualify for admission to a key high school in the city.
All the students admitted to high schools in the city were divided into five classes, collectively called the Rocket Reserves Class. Other students who entered high school through the exam were placed in other classes, called regular classes.
When it came to the second year of high school, when they were divided into science and liberal arts classes, they selected 100 outstanding students from the candidates who chose science based on their performance throughout the first year and divided them into two classes called rocket classes. They could occupy the newest teaching building in the school, with the best faculty, equipment, and teaching environment: Rocket classes were equipped with air conditioning and free water dispensers.
As for regular classes, they only had electric fans, and students had to bring their own water from home, with teachers randomly assigning the duty.
Over a decade had passed, and the school had expanded significantly. The rocket class, from its original two classes, had now grown to five classes. From Class 16 to Class 20 in this new teaching building, they were all rocket classes.
The corridor was so clean that it could reflect shadows. Chu Feng looked at the new tiles and thought that this old teaching building used to be for the regular classes before it was rebuilt.
Xie Shiyu originally had classes in this building, while Chu Feng was in the building opposite. Thirteen years had passed in the blink of an eye. The new building opposite had now become old, and the regular classes went there, while this old building had been demolished and replaced with a new one. So the rocket classes came to this new building for their lessons. Throughout high school, Chu Feng and Xie Shiyu never ended up in the same class.
Coupled with the major upheaval Xie Shiyu experienced with his mother’s cancer, Chu Feng faced unprecedented academic pressure in the rocket class. Apart from walking a short distance together after school, Chu Feng hardly ever saw Xie Shiyu. Even though he knew that the seventeen-year-old Xie had done something significant and had found several overlapping locations, revisiting these places now, Chu Feng still felt somewhat lost, without any specific clues to follow.
The old building where Xie Shiyu used to study had been completely demolished, leaving nothing behind. Chu Feng walked around the corridor, and passing students all glanced at him.
The teachers who taught rocket class students were all the best teachers in the school and wouldn’t be replaced by new teachers. The students eyed Chu Feng curiously, wondering what this teacher was here for.
Afraid of bumping into other faculty members and blowing his cover, Chu Feng turned towards the staircase and ascended to the next floor.
This floor was for the senior rocket classes, from Senior Three (16) to Senior Three (20). The seniors were even quieter than the juniors, and even though classes hadn’t started yet, the entire corridor was deserted.
The atmosphere in the rocket class was too intense. After the teacher left, there wouldn’t be any noise in the classroom. Every student sat quietly, pouring over their books, and the only sound was the scratching of pens on paper.
Chu Feng recalled his three years in high school, during which he hardly attended any physical education classes. When it was time for PE, every student in the class would have a notebook in their pockets. The PE teacher also knew they were from the rocket class and would let them walk around the field a couple of times before ignoring them.
Students would sit in groups of two or three on the field, by the grass, or on the steps of the stairs, taking out their notebooks and pens from their pockets, and starting to work.
Chu Feng had always been the top student in his class since childhood, often ranking first in all subjects. But in the rocket class in high school, everyone was the best of the best, so his grades could only maintain within the top few in the class. He could easily fall out of that range with a slight mistake.
If one ranked in the top 10 in the year group during exams, they would be in the top 5 in the rocket class, and their name wouldn’t even be mentioned when the teacher praised the students.
Chu Feng remembered when he attended parent-teacher conferences in high school, his parents found it strange. Previously, their son was always praised by the teachers to the point of being numb, but now, the high school teachers only occasionally praised him. Generally, only the top student’s grades would be mentioned.
In junior high, Chu Feng could top all nine subjects—Chinese, math, English, physics, chemistry, biology, politics, history, and geography. But in high school, hardly anyone could achieve that, and many students who ranked first in individual subjects or overall weren’t the same person.
Walking through the quiet and high-pressure corridor of the senior year, Chu Feng went up the stairs.
If he went up further, it would be the rooftop.
It was the most story-rich place on campus: fights, confessions, enjoying the scenery—all could happen there.
But Chu Feng never came here during high school.
The door to the rooftop of the rocket class teaching building was tightly locked, and Chu Feng rarely visited the regular class teaching building.
In his three years of high school, Chu Feng hardly heard any gossip, fights, or various campus news. During breaks, the only sound he heard was the scratching of pens on paper. Most students were completely absorbed in their studies.
So much so that by the time Chu Feng was about to graduate from high school, he still wasn’t very familiar with the names of the top students in the class. He barely spoke more than a couple of sentences with them in a semester.
He was more familiar with those around him: the students in front, behind, and next to him, but even they didn’t keep in touch much now. Because for two years of high school, everyone was busy with their own studies, there weren’t many group activities, and after graduation, their friendships had faded. They couldn’t even gather for a reunion.
Chu Feng stood on the top floor of the teaching building, facing a small wooden door, beyond which was the rooftop. The door appeared locked, but the lock had been recently tampered with.
Pushing the door open, the wind on the rooftop whistled past his ears. Chu Feng walked onto the rooftop, and soon, he spotted a student standing near the edge.
A bad thought flashed through Chu Feng’s mind: suicide?
The academic pressure in the senior year of high school was indeed very high. Chu Feng restrained his emotions and asked softly, “Classmate, what are you doing here?”
The student standing at the edge of the rooftop turned around, and Chu Feng saw that it was the young boy he had encountered at the bus station!
He was holding his phone, looking somewhat dazed.
“I… I’m taking pictures of our campus scenery… Ah!” The student seemed to realize that he had become too engrossed in taking pictures and had ended up at the edge of the rooftop, looking like he was about to jump off. “You misunderstood, right? I don’t have any suicidal thoughts.” He quickly stepped back a few steps from the edge, then began to carefully inspect the scenery he had captured in his album.
—He seemed to be a photography enthusiast, Chu Feng thought. Maybe carrying a camera to school was too conspicuous, or maybe his family couldn’t afford to buy an SLR camera, so he used his phone to take pictures instead.
Seeing Chu Feng again seemed to excite the young boy, who looked at Chu Feng, who had blended into the teaching building, and asked, “Are you… the new teacher here?”
Chu Feng shook his head, unsure what he could find by coming to the rooftop now. As he had thought, even if he found the overlapping points on the map, it would be difficult to investigate what had happened over a decade ago.
It’s better to use some connections to ask the principal or older teachers.
“Did you unlock the lock on the rooftop door?” Chu Feng asked. “If you’ve finished taking photos, it’s better to head back to class. Standing so high up isn’t very safe.”
Chu Feng was about to turn and leave—
“How do you know it’s not very safe?”
The young boy suddenly asked.
Chu Feng found it strange. Feeling unsafe standing near the edge of such a high rooftop seemed to be a common human reaction, without needing any particular reason. But the young boy’s face showed some excitement as he ran towards Chu Feng.
“Do you know something?!” He exclaimed.
Chu Feng felt puzzled, but he maintained a calm expression on his face. The young boy couldn’t contain his excitement and quickly revealed his thoughts.
“Three people have died on this rooftop.”
Chu Feng was shaken, but then he remembered that every school would have some strange rumors from time to time. For example, there was once a rumor among their class that someone had died in the girls’ bathroom five years ago, and strange noises could be heard at night.
But such rumors were never confirmed by the school.
The rooftop was also a place where rumors often spread on campus. It didn’t necessarily mean they were true.
Chu Feng didn’t show excessive surprise or eagerness for the young boy to continue speaking. He knew that some people, the more eager the listener, the less they wanted to talk, but the more indifferent the listener, the more they wanted to talk and attract attention.
Chu Feng shrugged and said, “Is that so? I heard it was two people.”
“No, it’s three!” The high school boy firmly denied, “Three people died. The earliest one, hmm, about 12 years ago, no, it’s been 13 years.”
A suicide incident thirteen years ago.
The layers of memory gradually loosened, and Chu Feng seemed to vaguely recall something. Every few years, there would be a student jumping off a building in each school, maybe even one every year. Chu Feng had heard news of suicides during high school and even during graduate school.
But he only heard about them from friends, without delving into the details of the incidents.
Moreover, when such incidents occurred, the school would try its best to suppress the news, not allowing it to spread among students, and even prohibiting them from discussing it.
During high school, Chu Feng didn’t know much. He and the regular class were separated by a teaching building, like being separated by a sea, especially during high school when none of them brought their phones to the rocket class.
“Though the ears are deaf to the outside world, the heart is solely devoted to reading the classics.” No one’s scores were achieved by chance. They were the result of diligent and devoted studying every day. Chu Feng also knew some of his rocket class classmates who didn’t even have QQ or Weibo, never played games, and after school, they would immerse themselves completely in studying.
In such a class atmosphere, and under the deliberate concealment by the teachers, even if such a big suicide incident happened in the school, Chu Feng only had a vague impression and didn’t understand it fully.
Xie Shiyu, who studied in the regular class, should know about these things, but for some reason, he had never mentioned it to Chu Feng.
Ding, ding—the bell for class rang.
The young boy with the phone was about to leave the rooftop and return to class. As he was leaving, he said to Chu Feng, “My name is Lan Shan. The student who committed suicide thirteen years ago was my sister. I’ve always wanted to find out about the situation from the seniors of that year, but none of them are willing to talk.”
Lan Shan looked at Chu Feng, who was much taller than him, and asked timidly, “If… if you know anything, could you tell me?”
Although Chu Feng told him that he wasn’t a former senior of this school, even if it was from another school, there should have been some rumors about suicides at other schools as well.
Afraid that asking for Chu Feng’s contact information on the spot would fail, Lan Shan left a note with Chu Feng’s QQ number on it before leaving the rooftop.
The wind on the top floor made his sleeves flutter. Chu Feng took out his notebook and recorded the clues he had discovered:
- [Second High School] Bus stop;
- Suicide incident on the old teaching building’s rooftop.
“Lan” is not a common surname. Chu Feng quickly used his connections to obtain information from the school.
The incident from thirteen years ago was already too long ago. The current principal and leadership had long been replaced, and they didn’t hide the suicide incidents that happened during the previous term or even the term before that. They generously took out the files for Chu Feng to see:
“The girl who committed suicide was this one, Lan Qiuyue…”
Chu Feng lowered his head to look at the student file. The photo showed a very beautiful girl, even her ID photo exuded a star-like aura, her features were very three-dimensional, and she looked very attractive in front of the camera. There were several awards listed in the special awards section: singing awards won at the provincial and even national levels. If she had taken the arts entrance exam, she would have been very suitable.
Such a girl, at the age of seventeen, jumped from the rooftop and committed suicide.
“What was the reason for the suicide?” Chu Feng asked.
The principal fell silent for a moment, then said, “It’s just… teenagers… sometimes, how should I put it, they feel hopeless. Maybe her classmates isolated her a bit, or bullied her a bit, and maybe her parents didn’t provide timely guidance. Sigh, that’s how it goes, it’s quite unfortunate.”
Chu Feng remained silent. Sometimes, the devastating blow to a person, even if the world is beautiful, they can’t bear to live another second. However, afterwards, in the mouths of others, everything becomes trivial: a bit of bullying, a bit of suffering, just not being able to cope for a moment.
Chu Feng: “She has a younger brother named Lan Shan, who seems to be attending the school now.”
“Yes. The family of this Lan Qiuyue is quite special,” the principal said. “She was adopted. The couple who adopted her were originally unable to conceive, but when she was about to graduate from elementary school, they suddenly conceived a child, a son.”
When Lan Qiuyue was twelve years old, her biological brother, Lan Shan, arrived in this world and swiftly took away all her status and affection within the family.
Chu Feng continued to flip through Lan Qiuyue’s student file, which recorded some of her grades in the first and second year of high school. Chu Feng noticed that although Lan Qiuyue was better in the humanities in the first year, she chose to study science in the second year, the class was…
Second year (12) class.
—Xie Shiyu’s class.
“Teacher, do you remember this girl?” Chu Feng found the teacher who taught the second year (12) class thirteen years ago and began his new round of investigation.
“I remember this girl,” the biology teacher said, “She was particularly good at biology. But in the first semester of the second year of high school, her grades suddenly plummeted, which I found strange. It was only during a home visit that I learned about Lan Qiuyue’s family situation.”
At first, Lan Qiuyue didn’t know she was adopted. When she was preparing to choose between humanities and sciences in the second half of the first year of high school, Lan Qiuyue wanted to choose the subject she was better at, but her parents scolded her, saying that studying science had a future, and that studying humanities would lead to unemployment. They forced her to study science, and when Lan Qiuyue argued with her parents, her parents blurted out the truth.
Only then did Lan Qiuyue realize that she was adopted, and coupled with the unfair changes in the family after her brother was born, she felt particularly distressed.
In the second year of high school, she was studying a subject she didn’t like, with only Chinese, English, and biology, which was somewhat like humanities, being acceptable. But as the difficulty increased, Lan Qiuyue’s grades plummeted, even in biology, which she was relatively good at.
Chu Feng: “Do you know the reason she ultimately committed suicide?”
“It seems to be campus bullying…” the biology teacher recalled, “They said some girls in her year, including some boys and girls in her class, were saying bad things about her.”
The teacher paused for a moment and repeated:
“Bad things.”
Chu Feng: “What kind of things?”
“Sigh. Teenagers always like to spread… nonsense, baseless rumors. There are also those who like to form cliques and isolate classmates. This girl… might have been bullied at school, and being an adopted child at home, she felt uncomfortable psychologically, didn’t think it through for a moment, and ran to the rooftop, and that’s how… it ended for her, sigh—”
Chu Feng didn’t quite believe such words.
A 17-year-old already has the judgment of a basic adult. If Lan Qiuyue’s experience of being bullied at school was just as the teachers and principal said: a few harmless rumors, this girl wouldn’t have been forced to such an extent.
More importantly, what was the connection between Lan Qiuyue’s suicide case and Xie Shiyu, who was active at the age of 17?
Judging by the time of death, Lan Qiuyue’s suicide occurred on a sunny day in June, during the school day: after the third class in the morning.
And the impression of [Xie Shiyu, active at the age of 17] came from one night, when Xie Shiyu casually came to the school gate to find him.
Chu Feng tentatively asked, “Teacher, do you still remember Xie Shiyu? He was also a student in her class at the time…”
“Who doesn’t know Little Xie! At that time, such a child, unexpectedly grew up to be such a big CEO, the most famous alumni of our school, I just saw him on the news! How about you? Are you still in touch with him…”
Chu Feng was afraid that the topic would lead to his marriage with Xie Shiyu and he wouldn’t be able to bring it back, so he hurriedly said:
“I didn’t expect… that there was such a big incident in his class. He never mentioned it to me before.”
“Maybe he didn’t know much either,” the teacher replied, “You also know, at that time, Little Xie’s mother had stomach cancer and was hospitalized, his father disappeared, and there was no one else in the family. He was the one taking care of her in the hospital, almost never coming to school,
“And also, his drug-addicted father, although he had been missing for many years, wasn’t bothering them at the time, but he owed a lot of high-interest loans. That group of loan sharks seemed to have been arrested once, I don’t know the specifics, but anyway, later the loan shark boss came out of prison and harassed Little Xie and his mother in the hospital.
“Anyway, he either showed up at school, or mingled in the outside world to deal with those loan sharks, or took care of his mother in the hospital. It was quite hard. Basically, he couldn’t study.”
The teacher seemed to be full of emotion:
“I didn’t expect, a child like this, to repeat a year and still get into the top 5 national universities. Wasn’t it the university you went to? Ah, my colleague and I were really amazed!”
Chu Feng smiled. Xie Shiyu was someone who could achieve anything he set his mind to. Studying was already the thing he was worst at.
But even the worst subject of study, Xie Shiyu always followed him to the same school.
During the high school entrance examination, Chu Feng was admitted to the city’s key high school, while Xie Shiyu worked hard in his third year of junior high school. His exam score was just on the admission line, and he barely squeezed into the city’s key high school.
During high school, he couldn’t rely on his cleverness to get by. Chu Feng was in the rocket class, Xie Shiyu was in the parallel class, often absent from school.
According to Xie Shiyu’s pre-test scores in high school, he absolutely couldn’t get into a university.
“In fact, before Xie took the college entrance examination, I talked to him several times,” the teacher laughed:
“Given his grades at the time, we all advised him to apply to vocational schools to properly plan for his future. Becoming a blue-collar worker doesn’t earn less than those college graduates and might even offer better job prospects, avoiding the risk of graduating unemployed.
“Several students with similar grades to Little Xie decided to apply to vocational schools. I heard that after the college entrance exam, they even pulled Xie Shiyu along to choose schools and majors together.
“But then, the exam results came out! Hey, that little brat scored more than ten points above the undergraduate cut-off!
“All the teachers and students were stunned, thinking Xie Shiyu had incredible luck.
“Just when everyone thought Xie Shiyu would be joyfully heading to college…
“Xie Shiyu resolutely gave up his exam results.
“He decided to repeat the year.
“I strongly advised him not to act impulsively,” the teacher told Chu Feng.
“Many teachers tried to persuade him as well, saying that scoring that well was a stroke of luck and that he shouldn’t be too greedy. Repeating a year is very stressful, and many people end up doing worse than their first attempt, wasting a year for nothing!”
Chu Feng didn’t respond. He already knew about these things from Xie Shiyu.
“At that time, he was standing right there…” The teacher pointed outside the window, “at the school gate. Yes, where the exam results were posted. He kept staring at the red list. At first, I didn’t think much of it, but now I realize he might have been looking at you then.”
Almost nineteen, Xie Shiyu stood in front of the results board, ignoring everyone’s advice. He looked at Chu Feng’s acceptance into a national Top 5 university, with only one thought in his mind:
[I must repeat the year.]
Later, Chu Feng learned the outcome. In the high school entrance exam a year later, Xie Shiyu’s score soared by over two hundred points, successfully reaching the cutoff score for Chu Feng’s Top 5 university.
For his first choice, Xie Shiyu chose the prestigious major that Chu Feng attended, which required a score of at least ten to twenty points above the school’s cutoff line. Xie Shiyu tried his luck, hoping to slip through the cracks. For the remaining five majors, he randomly filled them in and selected [Adjustable].
In the end, Xie Shiyu couldn’t find a loophole in the prestigious major, so he ended up in a very average major at the Top 5 university. Nevertheless, he finally managed to enter the same school as Chu Feng.
On the first day of school, Chu Feng went to the school gate to meet the association members, and they stood together at the school gate, facing the prestigious name of the school, and took a commemorative photo.
The teacher glanced at the wedding ring sparkling on Chu Feng’s ring finger and smiled, “How’s it going now? You and Little Xie are doing well, aren’t you?”
Chu Feng also smiled politely, “It’s… alright.”
As for the cause of Lan Qiuyue’s suicide, neither the principal nor the teacher could make heads or tails of it, so Chu Feng prepared to exchange pleasantries and take his leave.
The teacher said, “It’s pretty good… getting into early relationships in high school, isn’t it?”
Chu Feng was shocked. He didn’t expect their relationship with Xie Shiyu to be noticed by their class teacher.
“I saw it a long time ago!” The teacher smiled kindly, wrinkles forming at the corners of their eyes. “To tell you the truth, at my age, we teachers can see through whatever little tricks you students are up to!
“Before, when I rode my bike home, I saw you two leaving school hand in hand, hiding in that alley behind the school gate, all sticky and affectionate. It didn’t look like an ordinary friendship.”
Chu Feng was even more shocked. He didn’t expect their secret to be discovered by a school teacher, completely unaware.
“I was thinking, waiting there to see what you two were up to, and then figuring out what to do the next day. But before I could leave, Little Xie spotted me.”
He described the situation to Chu Feng. Xie Shiyu was as alert as a wild animal and immediately spotted the bike behind the bushes.
Xie Shiyu walked over with a smile, looking like a flattering fox, his voice still carrying a student-like tone, sounding somewhat sweet, “Teacher, please, don’t tell anyone about this.”
The teacher gave Xie Shiyu a stern look, but the second-year Xie Shiyu refused to relent:
“Teacher, please! Please! I know you need someone to clean the lab recently, I’ll help you!”
“You clumsy thing, you hardly ever come to class, how would you know how to clean a lab? You’ll break all my glassware, forget it!”
The teacher was about to ride off on their bike, but Xie Shiyu had too much strength. Placing his hand on the handlebars, the teacher couldn’t ride off for quite some time.
Xie Shiyu kept pleading, and the teacher, though sharp-tongued, was not heartless. Eventually, they relented, turning a blind eye and warning Xie Shiyu:
“Chu Feng is a top student in the Rocket Class, don’t you dare interfere with his studies. Got it?”
“I know.” Little Xie nodded solemnly. “I won’t interfere with him.”
Later, the teacher paid attention to Chu Feng’s grades. Every monthly test, midterm, and final, Chu Feng’s grades were among the best.
He thought that top students in advanced classes might be under a lot of pressure, and having a relationship might relieve some of that pressure. Besides, he wasn’t the homeroom teacher or the dean, just a biology teacher. He focused on teaching biology, and didn’t want to meddle in other matters.
This teacher didn’t report Chu Feng and Xie Shiyu’s relationship. Otherwise, the revelation of a same-sex relationship would have shocked the entire school at the time.
Apart from the biology teacher, Chu Feng asked several other subject teachers about their impressions of Xie Shiyu but didn’t get any new information. Some teachers, although they knew Xie Shiyu, had completely forgotten what he was like as a student:
“There’s nothing I can do… That child really didn’t come to school often. After thirteen years, I’m starting to forget…”
“It’s okay, thank you, teachers.”
Chu Feng bid them farewell.
With his current understanding, it seemed that there was no connection between Xie Shiyu and Lan Qiuyue’s suicide.
In fact, several subject teachers even suspected that with Xie Shiyu’s attendance rate, he couldn’t even name the students in his own class, let alone pinpoint who Lan Qiuyue was.
As Chu Feng walked through the campus, he made some notes in his small notebook.
Could it be that the investigation was going in the wrong direction?
The suicide of Lan Qiuyue and the secret of 17-year-old Little Xie seemed to be two completely independent events, with no connection.
Chu Feng drew two unconnected circles on the notebook, indicating that in mathematics, the two events were completely independent, with no correlation.
Could it be this coincidental?
If Lan Qiuyue was a student in another class, Chu Feng might still believe that these were unrelated events. However, Lan Qiuyue happened to be in the same class as Xie Shiyu, so there should be some connection.
…Some connection.
Suddenly, Chu Feng had a revelation and thought of something:
The principal and the teachers said that Lan Qiuyue’s suicide was due to being unable to bear campus bullying, and the ones bullying her were her classmates and the gossip among the students.
In that case, Xie Shiyu, with his low attendance rate, was the only person who didn’t participate in the bullying incident.
Generally speaking, campus bullying is actually led by a few people. The rest of the students, fearing the influence of these few, and fearing being isolated themselves, continuously echo them, exacerbating the psychological and verbal abuse against the victim.
Lan Qiuyue may have been gradually forced to her death in this way.
However, Xie Shiyu didn’t have this problem.
The classmates dared not to approach Xie Shiyu like they did with others. In fact, they would even voluntarily distance themselves from him. To the classmates who shared a classroom with him, Xie Shiyu, the school bully with a drug-addicted father, a mother battling cancer, a family chased by high-interest loans, and chaotic social connections, seemed like a monster from another world. No one dared to provoke him, nor did they dare to imagine him trying to get along with them. Furthermore, they didn’t dare to isolate Xie Shiyu, the school bully.
So, Xie Shiyu, who rarely attended classes, became a very subtle presence in the class.
However, even after analyzing this far, there was still no connection between the suicide of Lan Qiuyue and the secret of seventeen-year-old Xie Shiyu. Especially since the drawings Xie Shiyu made in his sketchbook were of vehicles, which must have been his modus operandi, as there were no indications of school or rooftops in the doodle book.
If one were to forcibly link the two, then according to common logic, it could only be assumed that Xie Shiyu, out of justice, disguised the classmates who led the bullying in the class as victims of a car accident murder. However, this logic doesn’t hold up at all. Chu Feng thought that this couldn’t explain why the seventeen-year-old Little Xie, who went out at night, came to him as if… to confirm his safety.
Moreover, Xie Shiyu wasn’t a person with a strong sense of justice, or one could even say he had no sense of justice at all. He grew up in the criminal world.
In the eyes of Xie Shiyu, who had committed murder and dismemberment at the age of thirteen, the fights between students from different schools, the street fights of local ruffians, and the campus bullying of classmates were all like children’s squabbles in kindergarten, very childish.
Chu Feng sat on the edge of the campus playground, opened WeChat, and scrolled through his contacts, finding a female student who was in the parallel class at the time. They participated in a math competition together during their senior year.
This female student’s academic performance in the freshman year was not outstanding, and she didn’t make it into the advanced class in her sophomore year. However, she worked hard in the parallel class and eventually ranked first in the parallel class in the college entrance examination, going to a top 10 university.
Chu Feng saw her competing for the national scholarship during university, although they hadn’t chatted in a long time, their relationship was still good.
-Hi.
Chu Feng sent a message on WeChat: [I want to ask you something about high school, are you free?]
The other side replied instantly, probably bored at work and procrastinating:
[It’s rare, the busy CEO Chu has time to contact me (smirking emoji).]
The female classmate teased:
[What do you want to ask? Why would it be inconvenient?]
Chu Feng: [Do you still remember Lan Qiuyue’s incident?]
The other side was typing, and soon sent a message:
[Of course I remember! That incident caused quite a stir. Didn’t your Rocket Class hear about it?]
Chu Feng sent a few ellipses: [We’re cut off from the world.]
The female classmate: [Speechless cat.jpg]
Female classmate: [You have seen Lan Qiuyue, have you? She was the one who sang at the freshman ceremony in high school, super beautiful. At that time, I thought she’d definitely become a celebrity.]
Chu Feng: [And then?]
Female classmate: [Later, for some reason, by the second semester of our freshman year…well, just before sophomore year, a lot of people started saying she was… working as a prostitute.]
Chu Feng paused.
Female classmate: [At the time, I was half skeptical, but so many people were saying it so convincingly. I thought there’s no smoke without fire; even if she wasn’t actually doing it, maybe there were some borderline things.
[Looking back now, it was baseless. She was just too pretty, and people were jealous. By the way, do you know Chen Yunyi?]
Chu Feng: [Rocket class… out of the loop.]
Female classmate: […You guys are out of the loop to outer space! She’s another girl who danced at the freshman ceremony. She’s… quite good-looking, but nowhere near Lan Qiuyue.]
[This girl got to know one or several sugar daddies outside, and had some… messy dealings. She might have been afraid of being exposed by us or by the school, so she first threw dirt on Lan Qiuyue, saying she had relations with several older men outside, and even claimed that she had been a prostitute since junior high, a school prostitute, who had relations with many boys, and so on.]
[Thinking back now, it’s really ridiculous. How could anyone believe such things? But at the time, it was spreading like wildfire. Many people believed it, and even those who didn’t, had their doubts.]
[Do you also know about Luo Huabin, the section bully in our sophomore year back then?]
Chu Feng: “[Who’s that again? Isn’t the section bully Xie Shiyu?”
Female classmate: “Your husband is the school bully, feared even in senior year. Don’t suddenly downgrade yourself. ‘Section Bully’ refers to Luo Huabin from our sophomore year, someone no one remembers once they’re out of that year.”
“In short, back then, Chen Yuyi and ‘Section Bully’ Luo Huabin were involved, but ‘Section Bully’ actually had a thing for Lan Qiuyue. Because she was really good-looking, even I as a girl wanted to be close to her.”
“But Lan Qiuyue had a somewhat arrogant personality and completely ignored him. This made ‘Section Bully’ Luo feel embarrassed. After he got together with Chen Yuyi, she decided to tarnish Lan Qiuyue’s reputation. The two of them collaborated perfectly.”
“Chen Yuyi started spreading rumors about Lan Qiuyue, her little friends helped spread them too, and ‘Section Bully’ Luo took the opportunity to boast in front of the boys, saying Lan Qiuyue was infatuated with him, annoying him every weekend at his place until he got fed up.”
“Those guys were disgusted but indulged in fantasies. They never even looked in the mirror to see if Lan Qiuyue would be interested in them.”
Chu Feng watched silently. Based on what he knew now, Lan Qiuyue was a very beautiful girl with a proud personality and a good singing voice. Rumors about such a campus goddess being involved in prostitution and promiscuity spread with vivid details, fitting the sexual fantasies of some trashy boys and feeding the jealousy of some girls, fulfilling the darkest expectations of human nature.
“So without any evidence, many people believed it and joined the crowd pointing fingers at Lan Qiuyue. The rest of the students watched impassively, thinking there was no benefit in proving Lan Qiuyue’s innocence. It would only offend Chen Yuyi and ‘Bully’ Luo, who had many little sisters supporting them, so they all remained silent.”
Female classmate: “[The rumors spread like this, and everyone thought ‘if so many people say it about you, you must have a problem’. Lan Qiuyue couldn’t clear her name. It was so exaggerated that the rumors even spread to other schools. They say during a break, Lan Qiuyue was once cornered by some troublemakers from the county who came to her. She only managed to escape by claiming she was from Second High School.]”
Chu Feng found it a bit strange: [Why would claiming to be from our school help her escape?]
Female classmate: [?! Do you really not know, or what! Of course, it’s because your husband’s influence extends to our school.]
Chu Feng felt it was a bit exaggerated; no matter how strong his aura was, it couldn’t have reached the county.
Female classmate: [You really don’t know? When we were in the first year, there were quite a few hooligans around the school, some from other schools, and some idle students from the county. It was quite chaotic. One of the seniors from the Rocket Class in our senior year even got hospitalized after being beaten up, affecting the college entrance exam.]
[Then in the second semester of the first year… almost to the beginning of the second year, anyone from other schools who had caused trouble for our school was beaten up by your husband and sent to the hospital. Your husband even went to the county to beat people up. After the beatings, when the second year started, there were no more troublemakers around the school. Otherwise, where do you think your husband’s reputation as the school bully came from?]
Chu Feng was stunned for a moment; he really didn’t know about these things. Back when he was in the second year, Chu Feng had asked Xie Shiyu:
“Strange, why do people call you the school bully?”
Seventeen-year-old Xie Shiyu looked like a pitiful little teddy bear, clinging to Chu Feng from behind, burying his face in Chu Feng’s neck, rubbing against it:
“I don’t know either… They probably saw that I’m tall and got a bit scared of me, so they spread rumors like that. It’s really bothering me.”
Chu Feng patted Xie Shiyu’s fluffy head, his short spiky hair slightly prickly: “Did you get into fights with classmates?”
“How could that be?” Xie Shiyu looked innocent, aggrieved, “How could I do something so violent…”
Looking at his boyfriend’s cute and innocent appearance, seventeen-year-old Chu Feng believed it without a doubt:
Xie Shiyu was a good school bully who, although he seemed a bit crazy and intimidating, didn’t actually fight and got along well with his classmates.
Chu Feng: [So, what happened the day Lan Qiuyue jumped off the building?]
Female classmate: [Let me explain slowly. In the second year, weren’t there separate classes for liberal arts and science? Unfortunately, Chen Yuyi, Section Bully Luo, and their group were in the same class as Lan Qiuyue because your husband was also in that class. So when the school bully was around, Section Bully Luo restrained himself more, but when the school bully wasn’t around, Section Bully Luo ran wild. Lan Qiuyue probably had a rough time during that period.]
[In the second semester of the second year, it got even worse. A second-generation rich kid transferred to our class, his family was very wealthy, his name is Wang Honghao, do you know him?]
Chu Feng: …
He didn’t know that Second High School was so turbulent.
Female Classmate: [Alright, you guys in the Rocket Class must have been launched into outer space. Did you even know anyone in high school besides your husband?]
Chu Feng: /smiles.
Female Classmate: [Anyway, let me continue. This rich second-generation guy named Wang was really disgusting. After he transferred, he heard the rumors and saw how beautiful Lan Qiu Yue was, so he wanted to mess with her. He actually went looking for trouble with her, but Lan Qiuyue slapped him across the face and walked away.
[Wang was a coward. He held a grudge and paid a senior girl who was a gang leader. She then got several lower-grade girls to corner Lan Qiuyue in the school bathroom and slapped her until her face was swollen and she had to go to the hospital. They even took photos of her injured face, edited them, and anonymously posted them on the school forum to mock her.]
The classmate had seen the post at that time, and the title was extremely offensive:
[Click to see the school prostitute’s pig face.]
The post included several pictures of Lan Qiuyue’s severely swollen face.
The anonymous comments were even more appalling:
[She still looks kinda pretty even after being beaten like that. Ah, I’ll use this tonight. /pervy]
[Big brother, you’re so strong. You’d even get off to this?]
[Not wrong, she’s still a bit pretty. /drooling]
[Hehe, how could she be a prostitute without being good-looking?]
[How does this girl still come to school? Doesn’t she have any shame? /vomit]
[I want her contact info. How can I arrange a meeting?]
[Careful you don’t catch something.]
…
Female classmate: [To be honest, I quite understand that she committed suicide, if it were me, I wouldn’t want to live. It’s okay if there were friends and family who support me wholeheartedly, but she was an adopted daughter. Alas, the only friend she had was disgusting for a lifetime. Lan Qiuyue had a best friend. Her name was called Su Xiaoqian, the flower of the next class.]
[Su was also a two-faced white lotus. She seemed very gentle and kind on the surface and intentionally befriended Lan Qiuyue when she heard about her being bullied, pretending to be her best friend. It’s disgusting. Remember I told you that the rich second-generation guy Wang Honghao liked Lan Qiuyue, but she didn’t pay any attention to him? He felt humiliated and thought he’d lose face if he didn’t have a girlfriend, so he pursued Su Xiaoqian, who immediately agreed and secretly dated him behind Lan Qiuyue’s back.]
[I think Su Xiaoqian was also jealous of Lan Qiuyue. Even though Su was the class beauty, standing next to Lan Qiuyue made the comparison cruelly obvious. There’s a famous saying: ‘For the ugly, scrutiny is a kind of cruelty…’]
Chu Feng looked at the paragraphs sent by the female classmate across from him, holding a pen and sorting out the relationships of the five people in his notebook.
Female Classmate: [So, to summarize, Chen Yuyi and Luo Huabin spread the rumors, the rich kid Wang Honghao joined in, and together they violently bullied Lan Qiuyue. The other classmates remained silent and isolated her. Lan Qiuyue finally found a friend in Su Xiaoqian from the neighboring class, whom she considered her best and only friend, but Su turned out to be a two-faced white lotus, secretly dating the rich kid who bullied her!]
[Adding to Lan Qiuyue’s family situation, I heard she found out she was adopted in her first year of high school. That probably made her relationship with her parents strained for a year or two, and combined with the long-term bullying, she couldn’t take it anymore and jumped to her death.]
Female Classmate: [That’s mostly what I know. I didn’t see clearly on the day she jumped. They just said someone had jumped, then the ambulance came, and by the afternoon, they said she didn’t make it. The one who died was Lan Qiuyue from Class 12.]
[By the way, I was in Class 8, four classes away from Class 12. Wasn’t your husband in the same class as Lan Qiuyue? Did he come to school on the day she jumped? Why don’t you ask him?]
Chu Feng: (Because I’m currently digging into his secrets and can’t ask him directly.)
Chu Feng: [He’s busy with company matters right now. I’m just asking out of curiosity, suddenly hearing that there was a suicide case at our school.]
Female Classmate: [It’s not really surprising. Almost every school has students jumping. Anyway, I genuinely think it’s such a pity about Lan Qiuyue. I have high standards for looks, and from childhood to now, she was the first girl who stunned me at first sight. I couldn’t stop staring at her; she was incredibly beautiful.]
Chu Feng, looking at the screen and reading the messages, couldn’t believe that just a building away, the world was so different. For him, high school was three years of monotonous studying, with most classmates focused solely on their work and having no time for gossip.
Female Classmate: [Oh, by the way, I heard that Lan Qiuyue had a crush on their class monitor. Chen Yuyi deliberately seduced the monitor to spite Lan Qiuyue, and they were even together for a while.]
Chu Feng: [Wait, didn’t you say Chen Yuyi was with Luo, the class bully?]
Female Classmate: [Oh, they broke up after two months. They kept getting together and breaking up, unlike you and Xie Shiyu. Meanwhile, Luo also dated other girls. Their class’s relationships were quite messy. I, who love gossip, can’t even keep track.]
In the second semester of her sophomore year, Lan Qiuyue couldn’t bear it anymore and committed suicide. She didn’t just endure silently; before taking her own life, she exposed all those who had bullied her on the internet! She harshly retaliated against them!
Chufeng: “Did she post online?”
Female Classmate: “Yes! Chen Yuyi, Luo Duanba, Wang, and her ‘white lotus’ friend Su Xiaoqian. She exposed all their names, phone numbers, school classes, home addresses, and parents’ workplaces online. Then she took her own life, and the internet went crazy supporting her and attacking them.”
The campus, seemingly a sunny and beautiful place, was a prison of darkness for Lan Qiuyue. These people incited rumors and violent bullying, turning her once beautiful high school life into h*ll. Before her death, Lan Qiuyue used her life to nail these evildoers to the pillar of shame and sent them to an even bigger prison: the internet.
The topic of a student bullied to death on campus itself sparked intense discussions. Soon, these four individuals became enemies of the internet, facing attacks from all corners of the web.
Bullying on campus forced a classmate to suicide, a topic of intense discussion itself. Soon, these four individuals became public enemies online, subjected to attacks from across the internet.
The online insults were on a scale vastly different from schoolyard dynamics, involving tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of people hurling abuse and launching personal attacks. Harassing phone calls flooded the phones of those four students, while their home addresses and their parents’ workplaces were besieged by the media.
Female Student: [I heard their parents eventually lost their jobs, and later all these people transferred schools. I don’t know how they are doing now. What’s most satisfying is that Lan Qiuyue even captured intimate photos of Chen Yuyi with several older men… sitting in different luxury cars, all posted online, completely debunking the rumors that haunted her for so long.]
Chu Feng vaguely felt something was amiss: [Then why did she still commit suicide? Simply publishing Chen Yuyi’s photos online could have sufficed.]
Once the conclusive photos were released, the rumors would collapse on their own, and the situation would immediately reverse, with Chen Yuyi being the one mocked and ridiculed across school forums.
Female Student: “[I… am not sure. Maybe it was out of spite, thinking that only by dying, by being forced to death by them, would these people have to carry the burden of taking a life for the rest of their lives, enduring perpetual moral condemnation.]”
After finishing the WeChat conversation, Chu Feng opened his phone’s internet browser and tried to search: “Suicide of Lan Qiuyue at B City Second High School.”
The internet never forgets; at that time, Lan Qiuyue’s posts had already been deleted, but screenshots had been archived by someone.
Chu Feng meticulously examined the contents of the screenshots, line by line, every word heart-wrenching:
[My name is Lan Qiuyue. In the past year, I’ve been tormented to the brink by campus bullying.]
[I don’t want to spend another second in this world, but at the moment of my death, I refuse to let those villains off. I want each of them exposed in broad daylight!]
Following this, Lan Qiuyue recounted her experiences, accompanied by crucial evidence such as photos of Chen Yuyi in intimate poses with different older men’s luxury cars, photos of injuries from being cornered and beaten in the restroom, audio recordings of Su Xiaoqian claiming we are lifelong best friends, and recordings of her being disparaged in front of Wang Honghao…
All of these matched the narrative of the female student, and the evidence was compelling. Each statement was supported by photos and recordings, presented logically and clearly throughout the entire narrative, offering a thorough understanding of the situation.
At the end of the post, Lan Qiuyue wrote:
“In my bleak high school life, I once genuinely liked someone, whom I regarded as the only light in my life.”
“But that was just my illusion. The light I liked was actually just a reflection from the darkness, a gleam from maggots nestled within.”
“One day, after evening self-study, he went to the school store to buy snacks, and I happened to be inside picking a pencil case.”
“It was 9:15 in the evening, I remember it very clearly, the early summer breeze was cool, and I was excited, being so close to him for the first time.”
“However, a week later, Chen Yuyi slandered me, saying that I went out to find sugar daddies that night at nine o’clock, and went into a hotel with several men… That scum Luo Huabin, accompanied by his gang, circled around this topic, saying many disgusting things about me.”
“I was hoping he would refute it, because he saw me, he saw that at that time I was just buying stationery at the school store.”
“I was hoping for his refutation, or at least, for him to remain silent.”
“But he didn’t.”
“He didn’t want to appear as someone who doesn’t fit in, so he joined the discussion of those boys, discussing how I went to the hotel and did shameful things.”
“At that moment, I hated him, even more than I hated Chen Yuyi and his scummy friends.”
“But his guilt is not unforgivable. He never made any promises to me, he is neither my friend nor my boyfriend, he is just a weak ordinary person.”
“I hate my past self, who sincerely liked him in such a pathetic way.”
“So, here, I won’t expose him.”
“I also won’t expose other classmates who tacitly allowed this bullying to exist, as well as classmates from other classes who spread rumors about me without knowing the truth. You are all not innocent.”
“I won’t expose you, but I want you all to remember that when I took this step from the rooftop today, each of you pushed me a little.”
“Goodbye, this pitiful world.”
After this post, akin to a suicide note, it caused a huge uproar online. The four individuals exposed by Lan Qiuyue undoubtedly received severe punishment, almost unable to live normally. Other classmates faced moral condemnation online, and many netizens dug up information about many students in their class and school, taking turns to insult them online, making everyone taste the same ridicule and mockery that Lan Qiuyue had faced when she was posted on the campus forum.
At this point, it seems like the whole truth has been revealed.
Chu Feng furrowed his brows slightly and drew a relationship diagram on his notebook. There are two points of interest in the whole event.
Generally, people who die from bullying in schools, by the time they reach the brink of death, their mental state is extremely chaotic, possibly suffering from severe depression, experiencing auditory and visual hallucinations. It’s very unlikely for someone like Lan Qiuyue, with a clear mind, full of determination, logically posting on the internet, accurately igniting the anger of netizens, and using it as her final weapon to retaliate against those who bullied her.
If Lan Qiuyue’s goal was revenge, she’s different from some victims of school bullying. Most of those victims are transparent in the class, unnoticed like air, average in academics, appearance, and family background, timid in character, bullied but afraid to speak up, and even if they do, no one helps them, they can only continue to be bullied…
But Lan Qiuyue is very beautiful, overwhelmingly so, and she has a talent for singing. She could easily win the support of a group of boys with a wave of her hand, and she even took photos of Chen Yuyi outside with older men. As long as she sent them out, she could immediately wash away the dirt on herself and completely turn the tables, winning a complete victory.
But she committed suicide.
The second point is the little boy Chu Feng met at school today, Lan Shan.
He’s Lan Qiuyue’s brother, not by blood, but by being adopted into the same family.
Lan Qiuyue was adopted. When she committed suicide at the age of 17, her brother should have been only 5 years old, so it’s unlikely that he would have had a deep affection for his adoptive sister.
But it’s been thirteen years since then, and Lan Shan secretly pried open the door lock on the rooftop, wandered around there, secretly investigated his sister’s affairs, and even wanted to ask the graduated seniors and sisters about it, not knowing if he sensed something suspicious.
Chu Feng boldly speculated that Lan Qiuyue’s suicide might have been because… something happened that she couldn’t bear, couldn’t accept, couldn’t continue living in this world with, in other words, she had to die.
But she wasn’t resigned to just die like that, so she took revenge on those who had bullied her before.
This implies that behind Lan Qiuyue’s suicide, it’s not just simple school bullying, there’s another truth.
And the person who knows the truth might be only Xie Shiyu.
From Lan Qiuyue’s perspective, her parents weren’t her biological parents, and after her brother was born, they no longer cared for her. Her supposedly sincere best friend turned out to be a two-faced hypocrite, who had long been secretly flirting with those who bullied her. The person she genuinely liked was actually a weak and ordinary guy, who not only didn’t dare to speak up for her but couldn’t even remain silent and had to join the chorus of slandering her with that group of people.
In this situation, when Chu Feng puts himself in Lan Qiuyue’s shoes and thinks about who she might choose as a confidant to reveal the truth about her death, there seems to be only one option…
It appears that only Xie Shiyu, a classmate who hasn’t spoken much, might be the best choice. Despite his low attendance, Xie Shiyu is familiar with the classmates in their class, although he isn’t entirely aware of what happened. Nevertheless, he has at least some basic background knowledge, making it easy for Lan Qiuyue to talk to him. Moreover, as a school bully, even if Xie Shiyu knows some secrets, no one dares to do anything to him. Plus, Xie Shiyu is usually quiet and doesn’t have many friends, making him seem like a reliable confidant.
So what is the truth behind the matter? Why did Lan Qiuyue commit suicide? Most importantly, what connection could this truth have with 17-year-old Xie Shiyu?
Chu Feng carefully reexamined the post. The four individuals who bullied Lan Qiuyue have already been punished. The only ones mentioned in the post who haven’t faced consequences are the male classmate she had feelings for and the other classmates who ignored her. Just now, the female classmate mentioned that Lan Qiuyue seemed to… have had feelings for the class monitor.
Chu Feng quickly made a call, asking the principal to check the records of all students from Class 12 in the 12th grade thirteen years ago.
Class monitor… class monitor… class monitor…
Soon, Chu Feng saw a name in the form, with “class monitor” written beside it:
Yan Wenbin.
When Chu Feng sees this name, he finally recalled.
In an instant, at the age of 17, in the 12th grade, at the bus stop… a continuous story unfolds in his mind.
***
11th grade. The weather was hot, with cicadas chirping incessantly in the trees. The students from the rocket class were enjoying the cool air conditioning, while the class teacher on the stage was making an announcement:
“The list for summer training is out. Five students from our class, five from the neighboring class, and two outstanding students from the parallel class will participate in the summer training in City S. Let me read the names: Chu Feng…”
Chu Feng, a student in the 11th grade, sat upright in his seat, looking like a diligent student.
“Wow, Chu Feng, you’re amazing! Hey, when we finish the summer training, can I borrow your notes?”
Chu Feng nodded.
“We agreed, you can’t go back on your word!”
Summer training. Chu Feng thought lightly in his heart; to put it bluntly, it was a bit like “cheating” a year ahead of the college entrance examination.
The college entrance exam papers were still provincial papers at that time, usually set by well-known teachers within the province. These teachers usually taught in schools in the provincial capital, City S.
When the grades were high enough, and the top students were familiar with various knowledge, during the college entrance exam, it was sometimes just about that bit of mental state and luck.
The top students from the schools in the provincial capital usually performed exceptionally well because they had been doing papers set by their own teachers for a long time and were accustomed to their styles.
To be honest, the topics were more or less the same, and the top students could extrapolate from one to another without needing leaked questions. When it came to the college entrance exam, upon seeing the familiar style of questions set by their own teachers, the top students from City S were in control, doing the paper smoothly, and naturally getting higher scores than students from other cities in the province.
This couldn’t be attributed to the teacher leaking questions or violating regulations; it could only be said that education itself is unfair.
As a student from City B, Chu Feng didn’t have the opportunity to encounter these papers set by those teachers. The only chance was the summer vacation training in the 11th grade.
The principal would arrange a group of the best students to mix into the intensified classes in schools in City S for remedial lessons and to do a large number of papers set by those well-known teachers to understand their styles.
If they waited until the 12th grade to attend the training, it would be a bit too sensitive.
This year, City S sent 12 places for summer training. Originally, there were two rocket classes, with six places for each class.
The best students from the parallel class, ranked only up to 41st in the year group, had been taken up by the top 40 students from the two rocket classes. However, to show fairness, the principal still allocated two places to the parallel class, allowing the two best students from the parallel class to go together.
The other rocket class students who couldn’t go pleaded with those who were going to prepare extra copies of papers and share their notes.
Chu Feng agreed to all of them.
On the day they were leaving, the school had a special teacher take them.
Twelve people gathered at the bus stop at the school gate [Second High School]. They would first take the No. 2 bus to Red Autumn Moon Bus Station and then transfer to a coach to go to City S.
That day, Xie Shiyu also came to see him off, Chu Feng remembered very clearly.
That guy was leisurely waiting under the sign. He insisted on carrying his black double-shoulder backpack on one shoulder, with his school uniform jacket casually draped over it. With a very clean buzz cut, his 1.9-meter height made him tall and handsome. Passersby would discreetly ask, “Which class is he in?”
The selected twelve outstanding students boarded the bus one after another, including the representative from the parallel class, the class monitor from Xie Shiyu’s class, and the object of Lan Qiuyue’s secret admiration: Yan Wenbin.
At that time, Chu Feng didn’t know anything; he deliberately lingered at the end of the queue to board the bus.
Xie Shiyu came forward and, like a good brother, lightly hugged Chu Feng’s shoulder.
Chu Feng knew he was reluctant to part ways and wanted to say some farewell words. Xie Shiyu did say something, but it wasn’t “study hard and work hard” or “I’ll miss you.”
What Xie Shiyu said to him at the time was:
“Be careful with everything.”
17-year-old Chu Feng found it strange, but the bus was about to leave, and he didn’t have time to ask more questions. He simply understood this sentence as:
[Have a safe journey.]
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