Chapter 156: Chapter 145: Teacher Xu_2
Noticing Yu Mi’s increasingly somber gaze, Yang Xiao seemed to understand some of it, "Stop! Don’t add your own drama, this suit isn’t the one that the Ghost wore, at most it’s just similar."
The Ghost was wearing a beige plaid suit, which Yang Xiao had clearly seen in the apartment, but this suit had no plaid pattern.
However, one thing was certain, this Teacher Xu must have been privy to past incidents, judging from the arrangement in the dormitory, she wasn’t very old, about the same age as Xia Xiuyan and Nie Hexiang, very likely a former student.
"Yu Mi, keep an eye on the outside, tell us immediately if someone comes." Song Yan didn’t trust Yu Mi to inspect the room.
Besides the suit, no key clues had been found in the room temporarily, but there was an old wooden wardrobe in the corner, and the bottom drawer of the wardrobe wouldn’t open.
"What’s going on?" Song Yan found it strange, as there was no lock on the drawer.
Yang Xiao walked over, crouched down, observed for a moment, and then slightly shifted the wardrobe, revealing a hole behind the drawer, just big enough for a hand to fit through.
He cautiously reached his hand in and felt a wooden wedge; with a gentle twist, he signaled to Song Yan with a look, and with a slight pull on the drawer from the outside, the drawer opened the next second.
"Well done, Chu Brother!" Song Yan couldn’t help but look up at Yang Xiao with admiration.
Yang Xiao pulled his hand out, dusting off the dirt, and whispered, "This Teacher Xu has some tricks up her sleeve; this method of hiding a secret compartment was originally invented by tomb robbers to prevent betrayal among their ranks, I didn’t expect this Teacher Xu to know it too."
There was a relatively large cloth bag in the drawer, along with a red fabric packet.
Song Yan reached out to grab the cloth bag, pulled hard, and heard a rustling sound.
At that moment, both Song Yan and Yang Xiao knew what was inside, and indeed, upon opening the cloth bag, there were more than a dozen goose egg stones.
The stones were of various sizes and shapes, but the two that broke the windows were obviously from this collection.
What was more surprising was that the goose egg stones had not been polished, and Yang Xiao took out one and saw on one side, carved in crooked letters, the words "University Student."
He switched to another, and this time the words on it read "Scientist."
Another one, "Singer," "Painter," "Boss," "Teacher..."
The handwriting on each stone was different, clearly done by different people.
Yang Xiao speculated that it must have been those students, and only they would refer to a singer as a "singer."
No wonder Nie Hexiang said these stones were Wish Stones; indeed, the engravings on these stones were the students’ wishes, delineating who they wanted to become in the future.
Driven by curiosity, Yang Xiao opened the red fabric packet, which contained two yellowed photographs with a sense of antiquity.
The first photo was a group picture, showing a bunch of students, precisely a bunch of female students, whose clothes were worn but whose faces were all radiant with joy.
In the center amongst these students was a male teacher, handsome, with bright eyes that gave a sense of optimism and positivity, and in his arms, he held a red-cased tape recorder.
Yang Xiao had seen this tape recorder before, in the script box, now he could be certain that this male teacher in the photo was the deceased "Beast Master of the Mountain Village."
Looking for their faces among those students, sure enough, he found the youthful Nie Hexiang, as well as Xia Xiuyan.
In the photo, Xia Xiuyan stood out with a bossy air, head raised, and the two girls naturally gravitated towards her on her left and right, with Nie Hexiang on the left.
Then came the second photo, and Yang Xiao’s pupils couldn’t help but tremble, it was an autographed paper with bright red blood handprints on them, and signatures over each, resembling some kind of joint statement.
Among the signatures, Yang Xiao also found the names of Nie Hexiang and Xia Xiuyan, and Yang Xiao had not expected the movie to replicate even the names.
Picking up the photos, Yang Xiao counted carefully and spotted the problem - there were a total of 27 blood handprints and signatures, but the first photo of the group had 28 students.
One student hadn’t signed, and it could almost be certain that this person was Teacher Xu.
Song Yan pulled out a cell phone, thankfully, the phone Director Ding had provided had a camera, and he took pictures of all these important clues, including the Wish Stones, the photos, and the hung beige suit.
After returning all the items to their original places and quickly dealing with the scene, Yang Xiao and Song Yan briefly discussed their plan to talk to Teacher Xu.
"Someone’s coming!" Yu Mi burst in, panicked.
"Who is it?"
"A woman, not too old, I saw her going up the stairs." Yu Mi barely dared to breathe.
At that moment, the door to the dorm was already closed. Yang Xiao and his two companions decided to hide in the room. If the person was indeed Teacher Xu, they would wait for her to enter then subdue her, present the evidence, and have a serious chat with her.
"Thud."
"Thud."
"Thud."
Footsteps approached from afar, and just as the three held their breath, someone neared the door, but then, a surprising scene unfolded.
The footsteps passed directly by without stopping, let alone opening the door.
Yang Xiao realized quickly that they had previously picked the door lock, and the lock was still in Song Yan’s pocket. Obviously, whoever it was saw the missing lock and knew something was up, so why would they walk into a trap?
After realizing the problem, the trio no longer hid and stepped out, only to see that the female teacher had just reached the end of the hallway. She took out a key, opened the door at the end, and walked in.
"We guessed wrong..."
The group felt quite disappointed, as it seemed this person was also a teacher at the school with her dorm at the very end.
Waiting there wasn’t leading anywhere, so they decided to go downstairs and ask the dorm keeper how long it would be before Teacher Xu returned.
The dorm keeper wasn’t in his room, so after searching around, they finally found him under a tree not far from the dorm.
"Excuse me, do you know how long until Teacher Xu returns?" Yang Xiao asked earnestly, "We have urgent business with her."
The dorm keeper was stunned for a moment, "Teacher Xu just got back, didn’t she? Didn’t you see her?"
He muttered to himself, "I even told her someone was looking for her."
Yang Xiao: "!!!"
The three immediately realized that the woman who had passed by the dorm door and then opened the last room was indeed Teacher Xu.
"Why does she have keys to other dorms?" Yu Mi seemed persistently unconvinced, "To the very last room down the hall!"
"What? That’s not a dorm room, it’s a storage room, and every female teacher on the second floor has keys to it," said the dorm keeper, clueless.
The three rushed back, but it was already too late. Teacher Xu was gone, and the last storage room had no trace of her.
The dorm they had previously searched had changed as well; the white suit that was hanging inside was gone, as well as the bag of Wish Stones and the two photographs.
"What is this? Destroying evidence?" Song Yan was also confused. They had been deceived right under their noses. Teacher Xu’s mental fortitude was impressive – she knew to "mend the pen after the sheep are stolen" and had realized early on that they were after her. She purposely came up just to destroy the evidence.
"Buzz..."
Song Yan’s phone vibrated in his pocket.
He took out the phone, saw that Director Ding was calling, and immediately answered.
Before Song Yan could say a word, he heard Director Ding roaring, "Where are you? Get back here for filming immediately!"
"Dammit! Those bastards even dared to call the police. This time we will shoot a harsh scene to expose all their crimes!"
