Chapter 108 Extra 8: A More Formidable School Bully
Shoutout to nyanmaru for the commission!
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“Hello?”
Chu Feng’s voice came through the phone.
“It’s me.” Xie Shiyu thought up an excuse, saying the boss of the part-time job shop was coming to S City to restock, and he tagged along.
“Really?” Chu Feng sounded delighted on the other end. “Where in S City are you guys going?”
S City was large, and different areas could be an hour’s drive apart.
Xie Shiyu replied, “Jin’an District, I think… around Hongshan Avenue.”
Chu Feng quickly searched on the map, “That’s quite close to No. 1 High School. Are you coming over today? Let’s have dinner tonight.”
“Sure, I’ll come to pick you up at your school. What time do you finish classes?”
“Not sure yet, they’ll probably arrange it when we get there…” Some classmates on the bus were asleep, and Chu Feng lowered his voice, “I’ll send you the schedule if we get one. What time is your bus?”
Xie Shiyu, already on the bus, fabricated, “3 o’clock in the afternoon.”
“Okay, so you’ll probably arrive around… close to 5.”
“Do you have any specific cravings? I’ll look around the school area later,” Chu Feng asked.
“Anything is fine. You know I’m not picky.”
Xie Shiyu opened the map on his phone to S City No. 1 High School, zooming in on the surrounding area, observing the street layout.
It was just past ten in the morning, and they would soon arrive in S City. Xie Shiyu planned to thoroughly familiarize himself with the environment of No. 1 High School during the afternoon.
According to Lan Qiuyue’s letter, this area not only had a serial killer but also a formidable school bully at the school.
Xie Shiyu clicked on the S City No. 1 High School forum and casually searched, quickly finding illustrious deeds of the school bully there:
“Duan Yanfeng, whose family owns Tianyuan Grand Hotel, is very wealthy but also domineering and morally questionable.”
“At a banquet, knowing that Su Xiaoqian was dating the rich second-generation Wang Honghao, he deliberately got Lan Qiuyue drunk and called Wang Honghao, saying, ‘Your chance has come.'”
“If Wang Honghao had successfully taken Lan Qiuyue away that day, she might not have experienced the ‘corpse dumping’ by the lake, but nothing good would have happened either.”
Xie Shiyu casually browsed through the S City No. 1 High School forum and soon saw a new post:
“So annoying, out-of-town students are coming again this summer vacation.”
“They beg every year during summer vacation, so annoying. Go back to your own school for extra classes!”
“Yeah, and they expect us to vacate our dorms for them. Ridiculous.”
“Oh my god, are they really going to make us high school freshmen vacate our rooms? Unbelievable, I don’t want out-of-town monkeys in my bed. Just thinking about it is disgusting. How am I supposed to sleep in my bed when school starts?”
Xie Shiyu glanced through the posts. It seemed that students at No. 1 High School were quite exclusive. After students from other schools like Chu Feng arrived, there wouldn’t be enough dorm space, so they were being placed in the freshmen dorms because freshmen didn’t have extra classes during the summer, and their dorms were all cleared.
“Hasn’t last year’s school bully beaten them yet? Will they still come this year?”
“Hope School bully Duan has a good year and gives them a good beating this year. Don’t come next summer.”
“Agreed!”
B City Second High School’s school bully Xie Shiyu, staring at the one-by-one proposal on the phone screen, squinted.
He looked up some information in the forum. This school bully from S City No. 1 High School, Duan Yanfeng, had terrible scores in the high school entrance exam and had absolutely no chance of getting into S City No. 1 High School. He got in by paying money and using connections, posing as a student with special athletic talents. During the summer after his first year of high school, he beat a student from another school so badly that the student suffered fractured ribs.
Students from other schools who come to S City for summer training generally don’t have any connections there. They are unfamiliar with the place, even those like Chu Feng, whose family is quite well-off but whose government official relatives are all in City B.
However, this school bully seems to have never assaulted students from City B. Although City B isn’t the provincial capital, it has a relatively developed economy. Randomly attacking someone there could end up targeting individuals he can’t afford to offend. Xie Shiyu carefully reviewed the types of students this bully chose to beat up:
Mostly they were from cities like Z City and N City, which aren’t as economically developed. These were kids from ordinary working-class families, with neither money nor connections. They were typically average-looking and slightly above average in academic performance. Most of these students kept silent after being beaten. If the injuries were severe, like fractured ribs, the bully would just pay some money to settle the matter.
What made the situation worse was that the out-of-town students coming for training each year were housed in the first-year dormitory building. This building was adjacent to the dormitory for athletes. Given their close proximity, Duan Yanfeng could easily find his intended victims.
Xie Shiyu saved a photo of the school bully, Duan Yanfeng, from the forum and stored it in his phone’s photo album. He marked a small X in the bottom right corner of the photo.
Buzz Buzz—
[Do you want to have spicy hot pot tonight?]
Messages from Chu Feng popped up on Xie Shiyu’s phone, and he smiled to himself. The combination of a serial killer, a school bully who beat up students from other schools, and a morally dubious class monitor didn’t surprise Xie Shiyu with the potential trouble they could stir up. Meanwhile, Chu Feng, oblivious to all this, was happily asking him what they should have for dinner:
“Or how about Chongqing Chicken Hot Pot? I found a place near No. 1 High School…”
“Great, let’s go there.”
Xie Shiyu sent a cheerful smiley face: “Let me know when your classes end, I’ll come to pick you up at school.”
“OK.”
Chu Feng gestured and then suddenly, the bus shook as it entered the toll station on the expressway. Chu Feng looked up and saw a large sign at the toll station:
“Welcome to S City!”
“Do you have a friend coming?” Chu Feng turned around in surprise. He had just looked up at the toll station, holding his phone in his hand, and the classmate sitting beside him… from the parallel class, had sneakily read his conversation with Xie Shiyu.
Chu Feng felt uncomfortable being snooped on and immediately put away his phone, giving a fake smile to the classmate beside him without responding.
“Oh…” The classmate seemed to have a curious itch, lowering his voice intentionally. “Is she… your girlfriend?”
Chu Feng: “…”
Yan Wenbin sat next to Chu Feng and tried hard to strike up a conversation. He hadn’t seen Chu Feng’s phone screen very clearly, only catching a few lines about dinner… picking you up at school later… He thought it might involve a girlfriend, which was plausible.
Thinking his cleverness would be appreciated, Yan Wenbin expected Chu Feng to start talking about his girlfriend. Talking about girls was an easy way for guys to bond…
To Yan Wenbin’s surprise, however, this high-achieving Chu Feng from the Rocket Class seemed to ignore him completely, as if he hadn’t heard anything, and closed his eyes to sleep.
Disappointed, Yan Wenbin tried to connect with another classmate who came with them from the parallel class, a girl from Class 8, but she ignored him too.
Due to the rumors about Lan Qiuyue’s suicide, many girls were spreading gossip, saying Lan Qiuyue’s last post was about him. Yan Wenbin felt uneasy about this. Even though he denied it vehemently, he couldn’t stop the rumors from spreading. Now, many girls were biased against him and didn’t want to talk to him.
In the past, girls like Lan Qiuyue used to secretly admire him, which greatly boosted his self-esteem. He had even noticed Lan Qiuyue’s feelings for him before, but because of the harsh rumors, he didn’t dare to treat her nicely. Otherwise, he would lose face.
Now, he couldn’t get along with the girls anymore. Obviously, he couldn’t communicate with the girls in Class 8, so he could only try to get closer to the Rocket Class students during the summer training.
“Are you… Chu Feng from Class 16? I’m Yan Wenbin, Class Monitor from Class 12. Nice to meet you.”
Yan Wenbin greeted Chu Feng with a bright smile, like an optimistic and cheerful class monitor. He racked his brains and finally remembered something he could use to connect with Chu Feng:
“By the way, our class has Xie Shiyu. You seem to know him too, right?”
When Chu Feng heard Xie Shiyu’s name, he opened his eyes and coldly assessed the person in front of him.
Hearing another guy smiling brightly and saying “Xie Shiyu in our class,” the 17-year-old Chu Feng subtly felt annoyed. He completely didn’t want to deal with this person named Yan Wenbin.
Yan Wenbin didn’t expect his attempt to connect to fail. He thought maybe Xie Shiyu wasn’t likable, so he changed to a slightly pitiful tone:
“Are you all so aloof in the Rocket Class?”
Chu Feng was indifferent to his attempt: “No, I’m carsick.”
While “carsick,” he took out his phone and typed on the keypad, secretly complaining to Xie Shiyu:
“That class monitor is so annoying.”
Xie Shiyu replied instantly: “Is he trying to get close to you?”
Chu Feng sent an expression of helplessness.
Xie Shiyu: “Just ignore him.”
Chu Feng: “Yeah!”
Xie Shiyu: “Pat pat.jpg”
Upon arriving at No. 1 High School, the school began arranging accommodations.
Students from various cities gathered downstairs in the dormitory building, orderly ascending the stairs, with each room already labeled with a student’s name.
When Chu Feng carried his luggage inside, he noticed another group of people gathering outside the dormitory building, eyeing them with unfriendly looks.
“Stop looking and go inside,” Yan Wenbin nudged Chu Feng. “The guy in the middle of that group is the school bully at No. 1 High School. He’s not someone you want to mess with.”
Chu Feng hadn’t planned on looking further, but upon hearing that the guy was similar to Xie Shiyu, the school bully at the school, he glanced at him again.
After a brief look, Chu Feng concluded that No. 1 High School wasn’t all that daunting; this school bully was much shorter than Xie Shiyu.
Yan Wenbin pretended to kindly introduce Chu Feng, “This guy is fierce in fights. Last year, he broke a rib of an out-of-town student and settled it with about fifty thousand. His family is wealthy and well-connected. We’d better not provoke him.”
Chu Feng didn’t say a word, found his own dormitory, and walked straight in.
Another classmate couldn’t help asking, “Hey, the school bully from S City No. 1 High School, who’s more formidable, him or our school bully?”
Yan Wenbin replied, “It’s definitely the one from No. 1 High School.”
Every summer vacation, he would come to S City and had seen the scene last year where the No. 1 High School bully, along with a group of people, brutally beat up a student from another school, breaking his ribs. It was really vicious. But Xie Shiyu… he had only heard about his reputation and never actually seen the bully from No. 2 High School fight anyone.
Chu Feng firmly believed that Xie Shiyu was definitely more formidable.
However, it was strange to mention it. From childhood to now, seventeen years in total, he had never actually seen Xie Shiyu use violence or even shout loudly. Also, due to his father’s drug addiction, when he was young, Xie Shiyu was bullied by other classmates, mocked.
But Chu Feng had a vague intuition that if there were ever a violent conflict, Xie Shiyu would undoubtedly achieve overwhelming victory.
Xie Shiyu sat in a wonton noodle shop near the gate of No. 1 High School, searching recent missing female cases in S City. His accommodation was right behind the noodle shop, a clean and safe chain hotel. In case Chu Feng’s accommodation arrangements were inappropriate, he could always move Chu Feng to a safer place.
Recently, most of the missing people in S City were children, infants, and elderly people with dementia. Xie Shiyu put away his phone. This sign… was worth pondering. From the perspective of the perpetrator, Lan Qiuyue was the only victim he had let go, posing a significant threat to him. The perpetrator would surely try everything to eliminate her.
But what he might not have realized was that Lan Qiuyue was not from S City and had already returned to City B that very day.
Unable to find Lan Qiuyue, the perpetrator might panic. He believed his crime was flawless, but it had left a huge loophole now that Lan Qiuyue had committed suicide. Moreover, it had caused a stir on the internet, and the perpetrator should be aware that his crime had not been exposed. This girl chose silence and would never speak again.
Such a perpetrator wouldn’t reform; he would only completely let his guard down and then act again in a frenzy, possibly even more boldly than before.
This person would likely choose to act again in this area. Typically, serial crimes involve theft or robbery for financial gain. These serial killings were different; once committed, they often stayed in the same area:
[“Just want to see, how many people do I have to kill before someone notices me?”]
Referring to Ji Shiming he met as a child, this guy had been committing crimes in California, M Country, for a long time. Each dismemberment had more pieces than the last, trying to see how many cases he could complete before the M Country police caught him.
With each crime committed without being caught, it became a deeper provocation and put immense pressure on the police.
Finally, after twelve cases, he returned home triumphantly. When he was finally imprisoned, Ji Shiming would rather face the death penalty there than be extradited back to M Country, fearing reprisal from the police there.
Di di di…
Outside the wonton shop, the rain started pouring again, thunder rumbling in the sky. Xie Shiyu opened his umbrella and walked into the alley.
If there hadn’t been any recent female disappearances, it could mean… the perpetrator hadn’t struck again yet.
Such a person wouldn’t repent; they would only escalate, possibly celebrating the fact that Lan Qiuyue had committed suicide and planning their next crime, which could happen very soon.
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