Chapter 539: Chapter 467: Archive Room
Cigarettes and mobile phones are items that should always be on a person, Yang Xiao quickly deduced the truth based on the situation at the scene. Last night, A Qiang wasn’t at the rental at all; he had hidden outside but didn’t dare go too far, thinking of spending the night in the corridor.
Worried that the ghost might escape from the room, he had bought a chain lock to secure the outside folding door, but even so, he didn’t escape the ghost’s pursuit.
Upon hearing this, Ju Juan asked in confusion, "But why did he run back to the rental room in the end?"
Monk Wukong, who usually adhered to the principle of silence is golden, suddenly spoke up, "Master Ju, your statement is incorrect. I think at that moment, A Qiang had no control over his own actions."
Apart from A Qiang, who died in the rental room, no one knew what had actually happened last night.
Seeing one teammate after another meet a tragic fate gave everyone a strong sense of urgency. After a brief discussion, they decided to split up as planned the day before and each went to search for clues.
Now, with two people dead and one missing, only six remained. Among them, Lian Jinsun and Che Xuexiang continued to investigate the bar hostess Fang Qingyun; Yang Xiao and Ju Juan went to the vocational school to investigate the social relationships of the first three victims, Fei Yong, Sha Meihui, and Hu Yuan; and Monk Wukong volunteered to stay, accompanying Zhang Man at the hotel.
The three groups immediately sprang into action. Yang Xiao and Ju Juan knew the name of the vocational school and quickly hailed a cab, arriving at the school gate.
Donghui Vocational Technical School, after getting out of the cab, Yang Xiao saw the school name on a large sign outside the gate.
Yang Xiao and Ju Juan posed as alumni who had graduated many years ago, and with a pack of cigarettes as a bribe, they fooled the guard into letting them in.
Their target was clear: the school’s archive room. But just as they were skulking around the entrance of the archive room, they were caught red-handed by a young woman dressed plainly and holding a gray cloth bag, "Who are you?"
"I am Mr. Chu, here to retrieve some documents from the archive room." Yang Xiao put on the airs of a teacher, nailing the act perfectly.
But unexpectedly, he was exposed the next second, "You’re not a teacher, I know all the teachers here. Who are you really?" the young woman demanded, "Speak up, or I’ll call the police!"
"Well, I won’t lie to you now. I used to be a student here. I have a fondness for my old school and thought to come back for a visit and also look up some of my own records from back in the day." Yang Xiao said with a smile, reaching into his pocket and pulling out an old 50-yuan note, "You’re so young and beautiful, teacher, could you do me a favor?"
The young female teacher didn’t even glance at the money, "You’re students, from which class and which year?"
Yang Xiao naturally reported the year of Fei Yong, Sha Meihui, and Hu Yuan; after all, he was here to find clues about them. But as soon as he did, the teacher’s expression darkened, "You’re lying! I graduated in that year; how come I don’t recognize you!"
Initially, Yang Xiao thought she was trying to scam him, so he threw out three real names, "Teacher, do you know Fei Yong, Sha Meihui, and Hu Yuan then?"
The next second, the teacher’s expression changed drastically, becoming visibly nervous, "What... what do you want with them? Who exactly are you?"
This change confirmed to Yang Xiao that the teacher knew these three people and knew quite a bit about them. Without further ado, he got straight to the point, "Teacher, I won’t hide it from you, we were asked by someone to come and gather some information about these three."
The teacher seemed thoughtful and nodded, "I know who you are now. You were sent by Fei Yong’s sister, right?"
Caught off guard by her accurate guess, Yang Xiao and Ju Juan were shocked, neither admitting nor denying her statement until the teacher took out a key and opened the door to the archive room, "Let’s talk inside."
Once inside the archive room, noticing the teacher’s familiarity with the place, they realized she was the archive room teacher.
"Personally, I regret what happened to the three of them, but that does not mean that their deplorable actions at the school should be forgiven. You should go back and relay to Fei Yong’s sister to stop worrying. The school’s decision regarding their cases will never change, and this penalty will be kept in the records permanently as a warning to others." The young teacher spoke decisively.
"What did they do?" Yang Xiao remembered that Fei Rou had said her brother and his friends were hardworking, good kids."
"Do I really have to spell it out?" the young teacher frowned, clearly dissatisfied with Yang Xiao and Ju Juan’s feigned ignorance, "Then I’ll say it again. They bullied other students, insulted them, and widely spread private photos they had taken secretly. Merely by their actions, they were utterly despicable, so the school’s decision to expel them was justified."
"No way, aren’t they..."
Before Ju Juan could finish speaking, Yang Xiao interrupted her, "That...We’ve heard about these things, but do you have any evidence?"
The young female teacher snorted coldly, immediately stood up, and walked over to the metal filing cabinet behind her. With practiced ease, she pulled out a thick bag made of kraft paper. Inside, there were several books and a notebook, about a dozen photos, and some papers held together with paper clips.
As she spread out the photos, Yang Xiao saw that these were some surreptitious snaps. Both men and women were photographed, some with obvious injuries on their bodies. However, the faces of these people were all blacked out. Yang Xiao thought this was the school’s way of protecting the privacy of the students who were bullied.
Yang Xiao casually opened a page of the notebook and his brow furrowed. The page had neatly written notes with a fountain pen, but someone had used a red marker to scribble all over it, writing words like "death", "go die", "slut", and "freak" — all highly insulting words. The sizes of the characters varied, and the strokes were so forceful that they had even torn the paper.
This page was the same photo Yang Xiao had seen in the script box. He knew his investigative approach was correct, which was crucial.
"Did those three do all this?" Yang Xiao continued to confirm.
"What else?" The young female teacher stared at Yang Xiao and his companion, "I was also one of the victims of their bullying back then. Those papers are complaint letters written by students. If you still don’t believe me, I can show you mine."
"No, I believe you. How about this, I want to take some evidence to Fei Yong’s sister to make her give up hope," Yang Xiao asked.
"No, these photos contain the students’ privacy. I cannot harm them a second time," the female teacher firmly refused.
However, after Yang Xiao’s repeated requests, she finally agreed to let him take a book or notebook, leaving it to Yang Xiao to convince Fei Yong’s sister.
Yang Xiao decisively chose the notebook he had initially opened, the one appearing in the photo, filled with malicious curses.
"Teacher, were there any other direct reasons that the school expelled them that year?" Yang Xiao asked, "Was it because a student committed suicide?"
The words made the female teacher’s face darken, visibly angered, "Does it have to result in death to count as bullying?"
"No, no, you misunderstood me. I was just asking," Yang Xiao immediately explained. He was just confirming that the female ghost wasn’t a student from the school.
Seeing that the female teacher’s expression was worsening, Yang Xiao and his companion quickly left the archive room, walking through the campus. Ju Juan remarked pensively that the three truly deserved to die. In school, they had misbehaved, and even after being expelled, they had taken photos of deceased victims and invented stories for fun, sheer scum.
"What are you thinking about?" Seeing that Yang Xiao didn’t respond, Ju Juan asked curiously.
"I am thinking about that ghost," Yang Xiao frowned.
Ju Juan shrugged indifferently, "I told you, handsome, don’t be too tense. Lian Jinsun and the others have gone to check it out, and results will be out soon."
Yang Xiao nodded and let out a slight breath of relief. From what he could gather about the ghost, the first clue was high heels, the stiletto type, and the second was death in a car accident. Both matched Che Xuexiang, and it could be her without surprises.
Before Yang Xiao could think further, his phone in the pocket suddenly vibrated. It was Lian Jinsun calling. Yang Xiao instinctively felt that the other side had results from the investigation, but as soon as he answered, he heard a roar from the other side, "Wrong, all wrong!!"
"What’s wrong?" Yang Xiao was taken aback.
"The female ghost isn’t Fang Qingyun!" Lian Jinsun said frustratedly, "Fang Qingyun just got seriously injured in the car accident that year; she didn’t die!"
"What?!"
