Chapter 359
I called Wang Yuanchao, "Uncle Wang, please find out which school the two victims attended."
Wang Yuanchao reported the information and sure enough, they were from the same high school.
"Were they in the same class?" I asked.
"I’m not quite sure,” answered Wang Yuanchao. “I’m at the school right now but they can’t find the files..."
"Tell me where you are and I’ll be right there!" I exclaimed.
Xiaotao and I arrived at the archives department of the school where Wang Yuanchao was at the moment. A stack of files was piled up on the desk. It seemed like finding the particular files we wanted would take a considerable amount of time. I reported the names of the three victims and asked the archives staff, "Aren’t they in the files?"
"Which year is this?"
After a moment’s contemplation, I ventured a guess. "Around 1995 or ‘96."
The person in charge looked through the files, mumbling to himself, "That’s strange. Why are they missing?" A while later, he came up with nothing.
"Let’s speak to the principal!" suggested Xiaotao.
The archives manager called the principal and learned that a fire broke out in the school six months ago, causing the loss of some files, including the ones from the graduating class of ‘95 and ‘96.
No wonder Wang Yuanchao couldn’t locate them—the original files were no longer available.
"Don’t you have them in storage?"
The principal looked rather embarrassed, "We’re just a regular school and we don’t get a lot of students each year so we can’t keep up with the funds. That’s why we don’t have the files in our storage!"
I thought to myself, Could the Imitator have caused the fire six months ago? If this was the case, then the serial murders were calculated.
Without the files, we could only speak to the teachers. When we brought up the names of the three victims, the teachers didn’t seem to have much of an impression. After all these years of teaching, they had too many students to specifically recall them.
However, one of the class teachers commented, "I seem to remember they didn’t have very good grades and often hung out together. I think they lived in the same dormitory."
"The same dormitory?" I mused. "There are usually four to a dorm. What’s the other student’s name?"
My intuition told me the fourth person might be the next victim or the murderer.
The class teacher tapped his bald head, scrambling to remember her name. "Was it Xiao Lan... Ji Xiaolan? No, no... Oh, I remember, Lin Xiaolan!"
"Are you sure?" I asked.
"Yes!” he nodded. “That’s because the girl won the Inspirational Essay Competition that year."
The teacher next to him echoed an affirmative as well.
When I asked what their relationship was like, the class teacher remarked they were good friends. But as a teacher, they were probably unaware of what was really going on in the girls’ dormitory.
There were only so many clues that could be found here. After leaving the school, Xiaotao looked up some information online.
"The Inspirational Essay Competition was published in Future Magazine so we should be able to find it online," Xiaotao explained.
"Oh, I hadn’t thought of that at all!"
“Didn’t you pay attention in school?" Xiaotao sneered.
"I got 30 marks for composition on the college entrance examination!" I admitted somewhat embarrassingly.
Xiaotao found the winning essay from that year and read it aloud, her voice filled with emotion. Halfway through, she suddenly stopped and said, "It’s too long. I’ll call the magazine and see if we can find the author."
She contacted Future Magazine and spoke for twenty minutes, successfully obtaining Lin Xiaolan’s last known address.
However, this address was given ten years ago so she might have moved elsewhere by now. Xiaotao assigned Wang Yuanchao the task of investigating Lin Xiaolan’s home. The man got moving without so much as a word, leaving the two of us alone once more.
In the car, Xiaotao continued, “Let’s read Lin Xiaolan’s works."
I grabbed my cell phone and clicked on the link Xiaotao sent me. As it turned out, Lin Xiaolan had written an autobiography, mainly describing her first awakening of love. Perhaps my low EQ made it difficult for me to enjoy the book so I quickly skimmed through the contents.
However, Xiaotao took her time savoring the book. "It’s really well written. The author must be a sensitive and fine young lady."
"I really admire these novelists,” I sighed. “It’s amazing how they can churn out so many words!"
Xiaotao rolled her eyes at me, "That’s because you’re carefree and lack sensitivity, so your ability to express emotions is poor."
I retorted with a sarcastic grimace. "Why? Have I hurt your feelings?” Xiaotao patted me on the shoulder. “You can’t be perfect."
"It’s alright,” I feigned comprehension and broad-mindedness. “I won’t take it to heart."
Reading such novels was almost torture for me. I could feel my eyelids getting heavy.
"Look at this!" Xiaotao exclaimed.
I leaned in and found Xiaotao reading a novel about bullying in school. The main character called herself Xiao Jing. Because Xiao Jing was poor and ugly, she became the object of collective bullying by her three roommates. The girls spat in her shoes, put chewing gum in her hair, read aloud her diary, and intentionally threw away her belongings.
Xiao Jing chose to submit to the humiliation but her three roommates didn’t stop there! They pushed her to the ground and repeatedly slapped her, dunked her head in the toilet, poured cold water on her while she was asleep and burned the sweater sent by her mother before her eyes.
The novel depicted the bullying in a calm, apathetic tone, though each word was shocking. I couldn’t help biting my finger as I read through the novel.
Later on, Xiao Jing met a boy. The joy of falling in love helped her forget her nightmarish roommates for a while. But a horrible incident occurred that sparked a lifelong grudge against the three girls!
On a rainy night, her three roommates robbed her of her cell phone and mockingly read out loud the text messages between the couple.
Xiao Jing shouted, "Give me my phone! Give it back!" But they paid her no attention.
They thought it would be a funny prank to send Xiao Jing’s boyfriend a text, feigning a high fever.
On his way here in the heavy rain, Xiao Jing’s boyfriend was run over and killed by a speeding truck.
After the accident, the three girls came to apologize, but their words were full of threats, warning Xiao Jing against speaking out. Xiao Jing chose to remain silent about the matter until one night when she stabbed them.
Kneeling in a pool of blood, Xiao Jing waited for judgment to fall, though her heart had long been empty.
The tragic ending made my heart sink like a plummet of lead. It took me quite some time to regain my breath. Xiaotao’s reaction was more severe than mine—tears dripped down her face and wet the screen of her cell phone.
Unsure of what to say, I comforted her, "Cry if you feel like it. There’s no one else here."
Throwing herself into my arms, the tears ran down her face like the opening of floodgates. "Were you reminded of something sad?" I gently patted her on the back.
Xiaotao nodded and sobbed uncontrollably. A short while later, she mustered, "When I was a child, I was bullied by an older girl... I couldn’t help but feel really sad at the thought of it..."
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