Chapter 107 Extra 7: Letter to Xie Shiyu
Shoutout to nyanmaru for the commission!
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“Why are you investigating your sister’s case?”
Chu Feng opened a QQ chat window with Lan Shan.
Lan Qiuyue was the adopted daughter of the Lan family, while Lan Shan was their biological son. When Lan Qiuyue committed suicide at 17, Lan Shan was only 5 years old and probably didn’t remember much. Now, thirteen years later, his interest in the matter seemed unusual.
Moreover, Lan Qiuyue’s suicide due to school bullying appeared reasonable on the surface. So why didn’t Lan Shan believe it?
Chu Feng suspected that Lan Shan had found something in his sister’s belongings that made him question the suicide. If that was the case, this item might be crucial.
Buzz—
To show sincerity, Chu Feng sent Lan Shan the student file of Lan Qiuyue he had just obtained. The other side quickly received it.
[Thank you!!]
Lan Shan quickly sent his thanks, not expecting that a chance encounter with a stranger today would lead to someone actually helping him.
As a student, he didn’t have the authority to request his sister’s files from teachers or the principal. He couldn’t contact alumni from his sister’s class, and even if he could, they were unwilling to talk. His parents were also tight-lipped about her suicide.
No adult took his investigation seriously. Only today’s exceptionally handsome older brother was willing to help him.
Chu Feng sent over some teacher remarks and records of Lan Qiuyue’s awards, all of which Lan Shan received gratefully. Soon, he candidly shared with Chu Feng:
[When my sister committed suicide, I was only 5 years old. I don’t remember anything from that time. I only learned about it when I was in middle school.]
[Everyone who hears that my sister committed suicide due to school bullying feels sorry for her, but I didn’t believe it from the start.]
[When I was young, I was very fat. In first and second grade, I was bullied by my classmates, led by the prettiest girl in the class.]
[I was the group leader at the time. One day, that girl didn’t do her homework and asked me not to report her name, but I had already recorded the names of those who did their homework. The teacher would know if the count was off, so I didn’t listen to her and wrote her name down.]
[She was very angry and then rallied the class to isolate me. I was very fat and looked awkward when I ran. She gave me the nickname ‘Mother Pig’ and told the other classmates to call me that too. If I cried from being bullied, they would announce in the corridor that ‘Mother Pig’ was crying and invite students from other classes to watch.]
[I applied for a transfer in the third grade, and after growing up, I wasn’t as fat anymore. No one bullied me at my new school. But I always felt… maybe it’s a stereotype, but I believe that pretty girls are always domineering, surrounded by others, and can bully anyone they want, unlike someone like me who was invisible in class.]
[So after seeing my sister’s photos, I couldn’t believe that she would be bullied to the point of suicide.]
[The girl who bullied me was just the prettiest in the class. My sister… she must have been the most beautiful in the whole school. She sang so well and loved singing, often performing. She was completely different from someone like me who would be forgotten after graduation…]
[No matter how I think about it, I can’t understand it. So I started looking for my sister’s belongings. My parents didn’t like my sister and thought her things were unlucky. They didn’t want to throw everything away because they feared being called cold-hearted, so they stored her stuff in our old attic and even put up talismans, telling me to stay away from there since I was a child.]
[When I was in middle school, I sneaked into the attic. There were many of my sister’s things… I took photos. I’ll show you.]
Lan Shan sent 12 photos in a row. Chu Feng opened them one by one. The photos showed a dusty attic filled with old clothes, stationery, textbooks, and Lan Qiuyue’s homework.
Amidst this pile of junk, Chu Feng quickly noticed something crucial.
In an old cardboard box was a stack of paper items.
They appeared to be letters, postcards, and some award certificates, all neatly placed in envelopes, possibly sent to Lan Qiuyue by singing competition organizers.
[My sister seemed to have made some friends online who also liked singing.]
Lan Qiuyue sometimes posted her cover songs online without showing her face and made some friends that way. These friends often sent her postcards on holidays and birthdays, and they even planned to participate in national singing competitions together.
Seeing this, Chu Feng was more convinced that Lan Qiuyue’s suicide wasn’t due to school bullying. She could have endured it; something else must have driven her to death.
[I found this among my sister’s letters.]
Lan Shan sent a photo.
Chu Feng saw a small, palm-sized receipt, yellow on the top with black text on a white background.
It was a receipt for a registered letter from the post office.
Normal letters could easily get lost, and delivery was mostly a matter of luck. Registered mail cost a bit more but guaranteed delivery to the recipient. When sending a registered letter, the post office staff would attach a barcode to the envelope and give the sender a receipt, which could be used to track the letter, much like a courier service.
Lan Shan: [I tracked the registered letter using the receipt number and found this.]
He sent a screenshot of the letter’s tracking information. Chu Feng saw that the letter was sent on June 28.
Lan Qiuyue committed suicide on June 29.
Lan Shan: [My sister sent a registered letter the day before she committed suicide. I think she wrote the real reason for her suicide in that letter. It can’t just be school bullying.]
[But I can’t find the recipient of that letter. At first, I thought it was one of her online friends, but the tracking shows the letter never left our city.]
[So I’ve been trying to contact my sister’s classmates from that time, but I haven’t had any luck…]
Chu Feng looked at the tracking information:
Shunhe District Post Office → Delivered to Ziyun District Post Office → Assigned to a mail carrier → Out for delivery → Delivery failed: Recipient not found.
The registered letter was reattempted for delivery → Failed again: Recipient not found → Returned to the sender’s address.
The letter was then returned to Shunhe District Post Office → Assigned to a mail carrier → Returned to the sender’s address → Delivered successfully → Sender signed for it.
The letter was signed for seven days after Lan Qiuyue’s suicide.
Lan Shan: [My sister couldn’t have signed for the letter, and Shunhe District isn’t our home address. This letter couldn’t have been returned to our home. I think it was returned to someone else, possibly a friend of my sister…]
Lan Shan was still naive, thinking his sister might have had a few true friends left. Chu Feng knew that when Lan Qiuyue died, she had no one to talk to.
This letter was undoubtedly meant for Xie Shiyu.
Shunhe District, where the Second High School was located, and Ziyun District was Xie Shiyu’s home address in his first year of high school. Later, when his mother fell ill, and he couldn’t afford the rent, they moved out.
Lan Shan: [I also don’t understand why my sister sent a registered letter instead of a courier. A courier would have been faster and just as effective.]
Nowadays, people rarely send registered letters, preferring couriers for convenience unless sending official documents in bulk.
Chu Feng looked at the earlier photos Lan Shan sent. Among the letters, there were certificates from singing competitions, encased in envelopes with barcodes, yellow on top, white with black text, just like the registered letter.
The address on the envelope read: B City, Shunhe District, Second High School, Class 12, Lan Qiuyue (Recipient).
The puzzle pieces fell into place for Chu Feng. The situation was likely as follows:
First, Lan Qiuyue received her singing competition certificates via registered mail sent to her school, learning about this method and its difference from regular mail and couriers.
Regular couriers to the school were left at the front gate or other pickup points, and students had to use a code to retrieve them, often resulting in misdeliveries. If it was an unknown courier, Xie Shiyu might not even pick it up.
But registered mail sent to the school would be delivered directly to the class and handed to the recipient.
Chu Feng guessed that Lan Qiuyue found Xie Shiyu’s home address from the class list and wrote the following on the registered letter:
B City, Shunhe District, Second High School, Class 12, Xie Shiyu (Sender) B City, Ziyun District, XX Avenue, X Building, X0X, Xie Shiyu (Recipient)
The sender’s address was Xie Shiyu’s school address, and the recipient’s address was his home address.
Lan Qiuyue likely didn’t want the letter’s content to be exposed, so her first choice was to send it to Xie Shiyu’s home. If sent to the school, unaware classmates might see it when Xie Shiyu opened it.
However, she probably also knew about Xie Shiyu’s complicated family situation. If he had moved, the mail carrier wouldn’t find him.
In reality, this was the case. Chu Feng remembered that in his second year of high school, Xie Shiyu had to return the rent for his mother’s medical expenses and no longer lived in Ziyun District, spending most of his time in the hospital.
As a result, the registered letter followed the protocol and was returned to the sender’s address, the school, and then finally delivered to Xie Shiyu.
If it were any other student’s letter, it might have been maliciously opened, but no one dared to tamper with the school bully Xie Shiyu’s mail.
With this double insurance, the letter Lan Qiuyue sent before her suicide finally reached Xie Shiyu.
“Xie, you have a letter…”
Seventeen-year-old Xie Shiyu was packing his schoolbag. Today was the day Chu Feng was going to S City for summer training, and he was about to go see him off.
These past few days, Xie Shiyu couldn’t stop thinking about the dream involving the morgue and the dog. He wasn’t particularly superstitious, but in the last seventeen years, he had never dreamt of Chu Feng encountering an accident, especially not a fatal one. This only happened now that Chu Feng was leaving for S City alone.
Xie Shiyu decided to secretly follow Chu Feng to S City. He had already arranged for a caregiver for his mother, and he bought a ticket to S City and booked accommodation, using two months of advance wages from his part-time job. For the next two months, he would have to get by on the 1.25 meal option at the school cafeteria.
“Are you Xie Shiyu?”
Xie Shiyu looked up to see a postman in a green uniform standing at the classroom door.
“Your registered letter, returned because the recipient couldn’t be found…”
Xie Shiyu was puzzled. A registered letter? He took the letter and saw:
…Xie Shiyu (sender) …Xie Shiyu (recipient)
“You even send letters to yourself?” the postman teased, slinging his green mailbag over his shoulder and leaving.
The classmates curiously glanced at Xie Shiyu, who looked back at them, causing everyone to quickly avert their eyes. Xie Shiyu pinched the thick letter. The handwriting on the envelope wasn’t his. Someone had tried to mimic his writing but hadn’t done it well. It also wasn’t Chu Feng’s handwriting.
—Who sent it?
The sky outside was overcast, with grayish light filtering through the clouds.
Ding-ling—ding-ling—
The second-period bell rang. Xie Shiyu checked the time; there were 15 minutes left before Chu Feng’s bus departed.
He looked across at the opposite teaching building, where a teacher was leading ten students from the Rocket Class out. Chu Feng, looking still half-asleep, trailed at the end of the line.
Yan Wenbin, the class monitor also going to the summer training in S City, had packed his bag and left the classroom.
Not wanting to travel with Yan Wenbin, Xie Shiyu waited about a minute, then grabbed his bag and slipped out of the classroom. The teacher on the podium turned a blind eye.
[Second High School] Bus Stop.
“Chu Feng.”
Xie Shiyu stood under the bus stop sign. When Chu Feng saw him, his eyes brightened, and he looked less sleepy.
“Did you bring an umbrella? It might rain later.”
Xie Shiyu walked up and gently hugged this little maple tree, like a careful gardener.
“Mm.”
Chu Feng gently rested his head on Xie Shiyu’s shoulder and lightly rubbed against him, with a very subtle movement that neither the teacher nor classmates noticed.
Suddenly, Xie Shiyu’s heart felt a slight scratch, as if by a little kitten. He really wanted to take Chu Feng home like this, but he restrained himself and gradually let go of Chu Feng.
When bidding farewell, one should say some auspicious words, such as “have a safe journey,” “study hard,” or some affectionate words like “I will miss you.”
These words lingered in his throat, but in the end, Xie Shiyu only said to Chu Feng, “Be careful with everything.”
[If you’re not careful enough, it’s okay. I’ll follow you.]
At the bus station,
Xie Shiyu wore a black duckbill cap and stood behind in the waiting room, watching Chu Feng board the bus to City S.
Buses to City S came every 15 minutes. Xie Shiyu picked up his backpack and boarded the next one.
Zip— Xie Shiyu turned his head. Pea-sized raindrops splattered on the window, and with a rumble, a thunderstorm had arrived.
The bus wasn’t full. Xie Shiyu placed his bag on the seat next to him and took out the registered letter.
He weighed it with his hand; it was quite thick. Xie Shiyu took out a ruler from his pencil case, neatly cut open the seal, and pulled out a stack of letter paper, unfolding it.
The handwriting on it was completely different from the envelope, very elegant, like a girl’s handwriting:
Student Xie Shiyu:
Hello!
I am Lan Qiuyue.
Seventeen-year-old Xie Shiyu calmly read the letter. Lan Qiuyue’s suicide was indeed not simply due to school bullying.
It’s presumptuous of me to write to you. You probably don’t know me well, but I believe you should recognize me now. I am the classmate who recently committed suicide.
Before my suicide, I wanted to confide in someone about my true experiences. This person should not be close to me, should not have been involved in school bullying, but also should not be overly righteous. They should be able to understand what I have to say without being too shocked and should not spread it widely.
I don’t want my secret to burden someone else’s life or become gossip. Based on my observations, you seem to be a suitable choice.
If I’ve misjudged, after all, I’m not good at reading people, then please don’t continue reading.
If my observation is somewhat accurate, please turn to the next page.
Xie Shiyu gently turned the next page. The first line, in black ink on white paper, revealed the hidden truth:
“I did not commit suicide because of school bullying.”
I was raped.
Swish—
The bus slammed on the brakes, causing passengers without seat belts to lurch forward, hitting the seat backs and creating a noisy commotion.
Xie Shiyu, securely fastened with his seat belt, sat steadily in his seat. He lifted his head, glanced ahead to ensure there was no accident, reassuring himself that Chu Feng’s bus ahead should be fine. He then lowered his head and continued reading the letter.
The handwriting in the letter, though neat, had started to tremble slightly. The strokes became a bit rushed and messy. Lan Qiuyue’s narration was logical but written exceptionally quickly, as if she wanted to swiftly reveal everything:
“Two weeks before I committed suicide, Su Xiaoqian, my disgusting best friend, invited me to S City. Coincidentally, I had just won first place in the national singing competition for high school students, and she said it was to celebrate for me.”
“I agreed, not knowing her true intentions at the time, or that she was already with Wang Honghao, the wealthy second generation who bullied me. I went to S City with her, thinking it was a trip with a friend.”
“It was only in S City that I realized she had come to celebrate some 99-day anniversary for a senior schoolmate of hers, and this senior schoolmate covered all her expenses.”
“This senior schoolmate attends S City No. 1 High School, where we go for summer training sessions. However, she is not academically inclined and got in through connections. She’s dating the school bully there, and both come from wealthy families, often hosting lavish parties with a group of friends.”
Su Xiaoqian insisted I join her for dinner back then. I wasn’t keen, but she deliberately acted upset, claiming she was trying to help me move on from school bullying by introducing me to friends from another school. I didn’t appreciate her efforts, which really hurt her.
I actually fell for her act and went along with her.
The dinner wasn’t at a regular restaurant; it was more like a nightclub. I started regretting going in, but Su Xiaoqian kept reassuring me it was fine. I was surprised to see our class monitor, Yan Wenbin, was there too.
His parents are divorced, and his dad works in S City. Every summer break, Yan Wenbin comes up to live with his dad, and it seems he also associates with people from S City No. 1 High School.
Su Xiaoqian told me, “Look, even the class monitor is here. It’s okay. Why are you so timid? If it weren’t for my senior’s connections, we students wouldn’t be able to come to this place.”
By then, I already completely disliked Yan Wenbin, even detested his cowardice. But he was indeed a representative of our class’s good students. With him around, I naively thought nothing bad would happen.
Later, the senior’s boyfriend, the school bully from S City No. 1 High School, recognized me, perhaps because wealthy people often hang out together. Both the school bully and the senior knew Su Xiaoqian was Wang Honghao’s girlfriend and knew I was the one who slapped Wang Honghao.
They deliberately kept making me drink, and Su Xiaoqian even mentioned my singing award. They used congratulations as an excuse to coax me into drinking. It was my first time drinking, and after a couple of drinks, I started feeling dizzy. In my blurry state, I thought I heard the S City No. 1 High School bully making a phone call, saying something like, “Xiao Wang, come over quickly. Your chance has come!”
At that time, I was completely dazed and had no idea what was happening. I vaguely heard Su Xiaoqian sounding anxious amidst the noisy surroundings, saying something about her sugar daddy coming to pick her up…
It wasn’t until later that I understood what had happened. The bully from No. 1 High School saw that I was drunk and called Wang Honghao to pick me up. I didn’t know Wang Honghao was also in S City at that time. He rushed over, but Su Xiaoqian, afraid that I might steal her wealthy boyfriend, insisted on dragging Wang Honghao away, telling him:
“She has a sugar daddy to pick her up. Why are you worrying here for nothing?”
Wang Honghao believed her and left with Su Xiaoqian. Both of them trusted Chen Yuyi’s slanderous claims, believing I was involved in messy relationships and being kept by a wealthy old man. This man supposedly owned multiple properties in S City and used to pick me up from school every Monday evening and take me to a hotel…
In reality, this man was Chen Yuyi’s sugar daddy. That night, Su Xiaoqian even asked for the contact number of my “sugar daddy” from Chen Yuyi.
Chen Yuyi didn’t know my whereabouts. Su Xiaoqian asked for my sugar daddy’s contact, and Chen Yuyi, thinking her fabricated lie was being questioned, made up a number, which happened to be her mother’s old, now-deactivated number.
Su Xiaoqian texted the nonexistent sugar daddy to come pick me up, then dragged her wealthy boyfriend away. The No. 1 High School bully was also pulled away by that senior, and the rest of the people dispersed soon after.
By then, it was almost 10 PM, and I was completely drunk, left alone in that kind of place.
No sugar daddy was coming to pick me up.
Among all the people present at that dinner, only class monitor Yan Wenbin knew this truth.
According to Chen Yuyi’s slander, this old man with many properties in S City picked me up from school every Monday at 9 PM and took me to a hotel. But last Monday at 9:15 PM, Yan Wenbin saw me buying stationery at the school gate’s convenience store.
He knew that everything Chen Yuyi said was a lie. I didn’t have such a sugar daddy, and no one would receive Su Xiaoqian’s text. No one was coming to pick me up.
But he said nothing because everyone believed I had a sugar daddy. He didn’t want to be the one who stood out.
He quietly left, ignoring me being left alone there, uncared for.
Later, as I laid drunk and powerless on the table, I heard a strange sizzling sound…
When I regained consciousness, I felt very cold.
Beneath me was damp, earthy soil. I couldn’t see anything but felt the wet, cold air around me. It seemed like… the lakeside.
My clothes were disheveled, as if someone had taken them off and then hastily put them back on. I immediately realized I had been assaulted, and the person was behind me.
At first, I thought it was Wang Honghao, but soon realized it wasn’t…
This person was wearing gloves, possibly latex gloves, which gave off a plastic smell as he approached.
My legs and feet were completely bound.
Next to me was the lake.
I quickly realized this person intended to kill me and dispose of my body.
I felt no pain anywhere on my body; he had left no injuries. Even my lower body was meticulously cleaned, likely to prevent any DNA traces.
Wang Honghao wouldn’t have the guts or the intelligence to commit murder like this.
I didn’t struggle or move, pretending to remain unconscious. My eyes were covered, and I couldn’t see anything. He was always behind me, calm and methodical. I felt… he must have done this many times before, very composed and skilled.
I secretly took a deeper breath and then heard the sizzling sound—
He tore open a roll of cling film and wrapped it around my face three times, exactly three times, not more, not less. I immediately felt suffocated and began to hold my breath. Then he pushed me into the water and threw a large stone on me…
By then, I was already in the water. The stone hitting me hurt a bit but didn’t break any bones. I kept sinking without struggling. Though I couldn’t see, I instinctively knew he was on the shore, watching me…
Suddenly, it seemed like a car arrived at the lakeside. Though my eyes were covered, I could sense the light passing over the water. The person seemed startled and ran away.
The stone that was supposed to weigh me down had already sunk to the bottom. After holding my breath for another 30 seconds, I surfaced. The cling film wrapped around my face had loosened a bit from soaking in the water. I rubbed my face against the rough ground, encountering some protruding stones, and managed to peel off the cling film. The blindfold also loosened a bit. I frantically shook my head and rubbed it off completely.
The place was very dark, with the moon hidden behind clouds. By the faint light, I picked up a relatively sharp stone and kept rubbing it against the rope binding my wrists. I don’t know how long it took, but I finally cut through.
By then, it was already daylight. My wet hair had almost dried. I tidied up my clothes. Afraid the attacker might return, I didn’t dare leave anything at the scene. I tied the cling film, blindfold, and rope together with a stone and threw them into the lake before immediately leaving that place.
That morning, I fled S City. Afraid that the attacker would find me if he knew I was still alive, I returned to B City. I didn’t want to go home or see anyone. I didn’t know where to go, so I ended up squatting under a tree outside the police station.
In the end, I couldn’t muster the courage to go inside and report what had happened.
I had thought it through carefully. This incident had already happened, and I was already hurt. I saw only two options before me:
Report it to the police, in which case my parents, neighbors, schoolmates, and even the media would all know my story.
Even though I had done nothing, the school already painted a terrible picture of me. If people knew what really happened, what would they say about me?
My best friend was someone like Su Xiaoqian. The person I genuinely liked was someone like Yan Wenbin. And my supposed loving parents weren’t even my biological parents. I accidentally discovered while clearing our home computer’s history that my father had searched online: “How to dissolve an adoptive relationship with a foster child?” and “How much support should a grown foster daughter provide her parents?”
We weren’t particularly wealthy, and they felt that raising me was too wasteful. They wanted to focus their resources on their biological son. I loved singing and initially wanted to study liberal arts in high school and then pursue an arts college.
But they insisted I study science, saying it had better prospects and ridiculed my passion for singing.
I was resentful and had a big argument with them. During the fight, I learned I was adopted. They didn’t have the money to support an adopted daughter’s pursuit of the arts but didn’t want to say it outright. In the end, I obediently studied science and gave up my dream of an arts college.
But in the second semester of my second year, they suddenly changed their minds and asked if I could switch to liberal arts and even supported the idea of going to an arts college.
I wasn’t excited; I felt something was off. After secretly listening in on a conversation, I found out from my third aunt. She mentioned that my parents had taken my photos to a matchmaking session. Someone from our hometown was interested and was willing to offer a dowry of 1.8 million yuan and even support my college education.
At the end of the year, the man’s family gave my parents a deposit of 180,000 yuan as a gesture of sincerity. My parents were secretly planning to use the 1.8 million to buy my brother a house in the city center.
The man was 17 years older than me.
I couldn’t accept it.
I also couldn’t imagine how my parents would react if they knew what happened to me. Would their first thought be about losing the 1.8 million yuan dowry?
As Lan Qiuyue wrote this, her handwriting became smudged, indicating she cried several times. Her tears blurred the ink on the paper.
She wrote about school bullying with particular calmness and described the assault and attempted drowning without crying. Her narrative was clear and logical, but when it came to her parents, the words on the paper became smudged line after line.
I squatted under the tree outside the police station for fifteen minutes and finally decided not to report it.
If I spoke out, knowing my parents, friends, and classmates, I would suffer a secondary harm worse than the assault.
So I was left with the second option, to keep silent and bury this incident within me forever, pretending it never happened.
I tried to do that. But every night, every time I tried to sleep, I felt someone behind me, a man with latex gloves, tearing cling film, wrapping it tightly around my face, suffocating me, and pushing me into the icy lake…
I suffered from insomnia.
I couldn’t sleep and felt terrified even walking down the street during the day if any man came close, thinking they were coming to kill me…
If I had to live like this for decades, life would be too painful.
Looking back over my seventeen years, I found nothing worth holding onto: my parents, friends, classmates, and my crush. Singing and my online friends brought me comfort, but that bit of joy couldn’t outweigh the immense pain. Only the third option remained: suicide.
I needed a reason for suicide. For me, the best reason was school bullying. I wanted to get back at them one by one!
I wished they would die. If ghosts truly exist, I would haunt them. Of all of them, I wanted Yan Wenbin to die the most.
I hated him so much. Even though he didn’t break any laws that night, he had disgustingly talked about me once or several times, like other boys in the class, perhaps even less frequently.
He wasn’t like Chen Yuyi, who spread rumors, or Wang Honghao and Luo Huabin, who used violence, or Su Xiaoqian, who betrayed me.
I didn’t know what crime to pin on him. I couldn’t find evidence that he was worse than the others.
I could fabricate something, claiming he harmed me. Since I committed suicide, I’m the victim, and people would sympathize with me. The public would believe my allegations of school bullying were true and would also believe my accusations against Yan Wenbin, denouncing him and destroying his life as a good student!
I had thought many times about how to take revenge on him, but when it came time to post, I couldn’t bring myself to fabricate anything.
If I did, I would be no different from those who once slandered me. Since I was determined to die, I might as well die with a clean conscience. Everything I described in my post was the truth, supported by recordings, photos, and other evidence.
Once I made that decision, I stopped having insomnia and could finally sleep. However, in my dreams, I still saw that lake.
The cold lake water, with countless female corpses floating on the surface.
Some were newly dead, while others were decayed and swollen. Every corpse had eyes that stared lifelessly at me, standing unharmed on the shore, silently questioning:
“Why didn’t you speak up?”
I had a premonition that the person who took me that night was not committing a crime of passion but a premeditated act of rape and murder.
If he just wanted to dispose of a body, there were many ways to do it. But I felt he was obsessively following a ritual he had set for himself.
He would first clean the victim, bind her hands and feet, blindfold her, bring her to the lakeside, and without killing her, wrap her face three times with cling film, then throw her into the water, followed by a stone, and watch her struggle in agony… until she suffocated to death in front of him.
I had a premonition that he had killed many others before me and would continue to kill more.
How many more girls would he kill before being discovered? Before the police caught him? Or would he get away with it for life?
That night, if not for the car that happened to stop by the lake, I would have died just like them.
And now, as the sole survivor, I am planning to commit suicide.
If more girls fall victim in the future, part of the blame will be on me for not speaking out.
As someone who narrowly escaped the killer, it seems I have lost the right to commit suicide. I should courageously report to the police.
But I can’t do it.
I cannot pretend nothing happened and go on living as if nothing’s wrong.
Nor can I keep it all to myself and just die peacefully.
I want to confide in someone about all this so that when I die, I might not see the eyes of those dead girls.
I initially considered my online friends, but they are just like me, inexperienced girls. If one of my online friends suddenly sent me a letter detailing school bullying, rape, and an attempted murder, and then said she was committing suicide and asked me not to tell anyone…
I might break down for her, wanting to do something but being unable to do anything.
So I wanted to find someone who could hear such a secret without falling apart.
At first, I didn’t think of you. One time, when handing in homework, I saw the boy sitting in front of me, a bit chubby, secretly slipping his paper into yours.
He was always bullied by Luo Huabin. Luo often took his homework and threw it away, so the teacher thought he hadn’t done it and scolded him, but he didn’t dare speak up.
Later, that boy found a way to slip his homework into yours when handing it in. Luo Huabin and his gang would skip your name while searching, afraid to touch your things.
When the teacher graded the homework, each paper would be checked, so his work would be graded too.
When I noticed this, I found it interesting and decided to send this letter to you.
I’ve noted the location of that lake, and the detailed route is drawn on the next page. I also wrote down the time and place where I had dinner that day. If there are surveillance cameras around, they might have captured him taking me.
I hope after reading this, you won’t reveal my secret.
But if one day my secret becomes useful, you can disclose it to the police.
I have already chosen the place for my suicide, and my final post is ready to be published.
I feel that life is like a small steel ball rolling on the edge of a cliff. It may encounter terrible demons or the malice of those around us.
Sometimes the latter is more terrifying than the former. A slight malicious push can send the struggling steel ball into an abyss from which there is no return.
I’ve wondered many times, what if Yan Wenbin had said something that night?
Would things have been different if anyone around me had believed in me just a little more?
But there are no what-ifs in life. That bit of malice can neither be punished by law nor known to outsiders.
I encountered both demons and such malice that couldn’t be legally punished, and they pushed me into the abyss.
It feels good to finally say everything before my death.
Honestly, I don’t know you well. You might ridicule my experience and turn it into a bigger joke.
You might be the right person I imagined, or a worse demon.
But it doesn’t matter. By the time you read this letter, I will undoubtedly be dead.
The little steel ball, exhausted from rolling on the edge, now wants to stop and rest. The rest is eternal.
Lan Qiuyue
On the last day of my life.
Xie Shiyu quietly finished reading the letter. He turned to the last page, where Lan Qiuyue provided very detailed information about the perpetrator.
Opening his phone’s map, Xie Shiyu searched for the location of the lake, frowning slightly.
This lake, called Luolian Lake, was only an 18-minute drive from S City No. 1 High School, where Chu Feng was headed. The place where Lan Qiuyue had dinner was just a 15-minute drive from S City Middle School.
This confirmed one thing: the perpetrator likely operated in that area.
Xie Shiyu recalled that when he dismembered someone at the age of thirteen, it was in the southern suburbs, not far from their middle school. He chose that place because he was familiar with it.
Criminals tend to commit crimes in places they know well.
In the area Chu Feng was heading to, there was a heinous criminal, as well as a despicable person, Yan Wenbin.
Xie Shiyu carefully folded the letter and placed it in the inner pocket of his backpack.
Indeed, an ordinary person’s life is like a small steel ball.
Countless demons and scoundrels lurk on the cliffsides, and a gentle push from those around could lead to their destruction.
The rolling steel ball cannot perceive such imminent danger.
To ensure this small steel ball always travels along a normal and smooth path, living a safe and happy life, it requires a stronger external force to eliminate any factors that could hinder its progress.
Leaning against the bus seat, Xie Shiyu held his phone and without hesitation dialed Chu Feng’s number…
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