Live From the Murder Scene - Chapter 09

Chapter 9: Night Attack

 　　Qiong Cang finished sorting out the known information and sat there in trance for a while before coming out of Xiang Qingxi's room.

　　The night quickly darkened, the school's evening self-study officially ended, and the students followed the bell and returned to their dormitories.

　　Qiong Cang’s several roommates also appeared one after another.

　　Because of what happened yesterday, the atmosphere in the dormitory was extremely awkward.

　　Several girls were chatting and laughing, but when they opened the door and caught a glimpse of the Qiong Cang, they unanimously chose to keep their mouths shut. Then they took small steps and ran towards their beds.

　　Qiongchang had no intention of getting along with them. She was wearing daytime clothes, with her hands folded across her chest, and an enigmatic attitude, sitting in front of the table.

　　Soon, the dormitory fell into darkness as the lights went out.

　　Qiong Cang's eyelids were half-closed, and she stared blankly at the time that kept ticking on her phone. After the steps of the teacher on duty gradually faded away, the same beam of light as yesterday came in through the window.

　　Qiong Cang moved, ready to stand up. The chair slid on the ground with an extremely harsh sound, and the girl on the first bed yelled, "It's not me! It has nothing to do with me!"

　　Qiong Cang was not frightened by the person outside the window, but she was startled by the girl's shout. She went to the door and grabbed the clothes drying rod she just bought today, pushed a high-power flashlight away, stuffed it into her pocket, and walked to the balcony.

　　Her dormitory was on the first floor. There was a small step at the bottom. She climbed over the small balcony and jumped directly to the grass behind.

　　Qiong Cang adjusted the position of the flashlight and looked at the light source. Behind the light, a dark figure was clearly captured. The other person was standing not far away, fiddling with the lighting equipment in his hand.

　　When Qiong Cang appeared suddenly, the black shadow's movements obviously paused, as if he didn't expect her to show up. After being surprised, he immediately turned around and ran away.

　　At this time, the distance between the two was no more than two meters. Qiong Cang reacted faster than him and jumped forward. At the same time, she held the stick in her hand and pushed it against the opponent's back.

　　This piece of grass was not flat. With its back to the main road, it would not affect the appearance of the school, and few people came there, so the school did not send anyone to repair it carefully. There was a lot of gravel hidden in the overgrown weeds.

　　The black shadow was obviously not familiar with this area. While running in panic, he accidentally stumbled in his footsteps, and then was hit by Qiong Cang again in the back, almost falling down. In just one staggering moment, Qiong Cang had already caught up with him and hit him on the leg with another stick.

　　"Fuck!"

　　Qiong Cang heard a familiar tone from these two short words.

　　"Xu You!"

　　She knew it! She didn’t understand the love between high school students. But that was not her fault, because this was not love at all!

　　Seeing that he couldn't hide, Xu You simply turned around and pulled off the hat on his head, exposing it openly in front of her.

　　He asked preemptively: "What do you want to do?"

　　Qiong Cang made him laugh: "You come to ask me this? Then do you have to ask me if you want to be shameless?"

　　Xu You: "You don't know what I want to do?"

　　"When speaking, use less rhetorical questions and more declarative sentences." Qiong Cang said frankly, "I don't know."

　　She took out the flashlight, avoided Xu You's eyes, and waved it in the air: "Be honest and speak for yourself."

　　Xu You's eyes turned red: "Don't tell me, you don't know how Nansong died!"

　　Qiong Cang: "Jump off the building."

　　"You forced it! If you hadn't deliberately excluded and threatened her, she wouldn't have suffered a depression and jumped off the building to commit suicide. The school helped you compensate, apologized, and appeased the family. But let me tell you, it's not that simple. Do you think that as long as Is it enough to write two self-criticisms? Everyone knows this, and you will never have an easy time in your life!" Xu You sneered and said, "Why, this is unbearable? I just let you experience what it was like when she was alive, that’s what you should be responsible for!”

　　Qiong Cang thought about it and said with a smile: "I have never done what you did. Don't blame the wrong deductions you made from the exaggerated spreading rumors."

　　Xu You: "I heard it all! Before Nansong died, she called her mother and said that she was fed up with the fearful life. You scared her overtly and covertly. Who knows what else you did behind the scenes?"

　　Countless curious people poked their heads out from the balcony, hiding in the darkness of the night, peering and eavesdropping.

　　Qiong Cang chuckled and said, "You idiot."

　　Xu You gritted his teeth hard and trembled with excitement when he heard her accusation: "I'm the idiot? What's wrong with me being an idiot? I tell you, the murderer is the murderer, no matter how you cover it up, it can't be changed! You are the murderer!"

　　"You call me a murderer and you can relax?" Qiong Cang's tone even sounded a bit frivolous in the dark night, "Is your justice so cheap and so easy to be satisfied?"

　　Xu You was shocked in disbelief: "Don't you feel any guilt at all?"

　　"Why should I feel guilty towards you?" Qiong Cang asked, "Have I done anything to make you sorry? Or has Zhou Nansong entrusted you to seek revenge on me?"

　　Xu You roared, rushed up and grabbed her collar fiercely.

　　In order to pry his hand away, Qiong Cang dropped the flashlight to the ground and rolled to the side.

　　Their faces were blurred in the night, only their anger was extremely clear. There was a circle of gasping sounds all around. Some people were even encouraging Xu You to take action quickly.

　　All the restless emotions were stimulating the young man's nerves.

　　The flat voice of Qiong Cang even seemed a little out of place in this manic torrent. "It's ridiculously wrong," she said.

　　Xu You yelled: "What's wrong with me!"

　　"Everyone feels that they are not wrong, and then no one does the right thing. Right?" Qiong Cang raised the corner of her mouth, and the muscles on her face twitched stiffly. She was really angry and laughed, "Okay, come, let's calculate it. If the things I have done are not worthy of regret, then what should you, you, do now to repay the things that are even more excessive than mine? Ah? With your completely untenable justice? "

　　Xu You: "No matter how you think I am untenable, you can't deny the dirty things you have done!"

　　Qiong Cang pulled away the opponent's hand inch by inch: "You think you have a legitimate reason to send an army*, so you are not wrong?"

*The Chinese idiom "师出有名" has a meaning of 'to doing things for the right reasons'. Originated from a Peking's Opera, The Harmony of Generals and Prime Ministers. Thank you to the comment for the correction!

　　She grabbed Xu You's wrist and pushed forward: "Go to the prison and ask how many people are born to be murderers and violent maniacs. Ask them to tell you how they were forced by life. In the last step, how did they become a sinner in the universal sense? Each of them can tell a deeper and more reasonable past than you. You are not even a high-sounding person! But what about that? How about it? Has the law let them go? Have their crimes been forgiven? Can their responsibilities be written off? Do you think those people are right? The stability and right and wrong of this society, is it measured by your personal morality? All these years of compulsory education have only taught you this?"

　　Xu You struggled to free his arm and shouted loudly: "Don't push me!"

　　Qiong Cang slapped him directly.

　　Xu You stared at her, confused and horrified. After a long while, he slowly raised his hand and covered his face.

　　The world was quiet.

　　Xu You: "You..."

　　"Yes, it's me." Qiong Cang said, "If I were you, I'd be smarter. Find out the evidence, throw it in other people's faces, and beat or scold them. Don't rely on so-called guessing and reasoning, and you must be moral, want revenge again, doing some scandalous things in private that cannot be brought to light, holding a plaque of justice in your hand. You are amazing! You are so powerful that you can only bully honest people. If you really meet someone who will fight you to death, will it end with just a slap in the face? If Wang Dongyan was a ruthless character, she would have called the police on you on the first day, you idiot!"

　　The noise between the two alarmed the dormitory administrator, and the teacher on duty who was notified finally rushed over.

　　"What are you people doing over there!"

　　Two faint rays of light swayed over, Qiong Cang narrowed her eyes and let go of her hand.

　　"Don't move!" The two teachers on duty were running in confusion, fearing that they would escape, so they shouted, "Name! Class! Who is your teacher! Don't move!"

　　Qiong Cang twisted her neck, feeling a little wet on her hands and a burning pain on her skin.

　　In the dispute just now, Xu You's hand was scratched by Qiong Cang and made several cuts, and her neck also left marks. She could imagine her embarrassment at this time, but it should be much better than the unkempt Xu You.

　　There was a chaos of war, and Xu You was dragged away with a face full of resentment, and sharp eyes still fell on her. The teacher on duty urged Qiong Cang from behind: "You come with me too! It's outrageous, alright? All of you! Everyone goes to sleep! We will check the dormitory later, and any dormitory with sound will have double the class points deducted!"

　　A series of regretful sighs sounded in the corridor. Qiong Cang sees that the character's suicide progress was constantly rising.

　　·

　　In the communication between NPCs, Qiong Cang basically has no room to interfere.

　　The scenes that followed were quickly finalized just like in a feature film.

　　The head teacher and school leaders who had fallen asleep were called out from their beds and rushed to the school. A group of middle-aged people were discussing how to deal with students in the duty room. The two students who were causing trouble were sitting in the next room, on cold wooden chairs, under the supervision of the teacher, waiting for the school's decision.

　　Qiong Cang raised her head, smelling the slight musty smell in the air, and stared blankly at the cobwebs in the corner.

　　When the clock on the wall turned to two o'clock in the morning, a group of people rushed in front of them and announced coldly and unquestionably: "Tomorrow morning, I will speak under the red flag to make a self-examination. Also, call your parents over, I want to have a good talk with them.”

　　Qiong Cang sat up straight and turned her gaze away.

　　With two people committing suicide by jumping off a building in a row, the overall mood of the students was agitated, and this dispute was closely related to the previous two incidents. The most common approach for the school should be to appease the students, minimize the major issue, and suppress all subsequent impacts, so as not to cause erratic following behavior.

　　But they asked Xu You and Wang Dongyan to come on stage to do a self-examination.

　　She didn't see the school's desire to keep things quiet. On the contrary, they were really preparing to stamp out the issue of school bullying to death.

　　The person involved was emotionally unstable, how can she do a good self-examination? Instead she might take the opportunity to cause trouble.

　　This section was probably the active plot that pushed Wang Dongyan to commit suicide.

　　Qiong Cang followed their request and called the person marked as "Mom" in the address book, then handed the phone to several teachers and asked them to communicate.

　　·

　　At dawn, the command podium next to the flagpole.

　　Thousands of students stood on the plastic track in the playground, staring intently at Xu You's review on the stage.

　　Xu You took the microphone, cleared his throat, and said to everyone: "My name is Xu You, and Zhou Nansong is my girlfriend."

　　Qiong Cang curled her lips and smiled.

　　There was a commotion around the school. The teacher on duty took two steps toward the middle, hesitated for a moment, and finally stepped back.

　　"Not long ago, she committed suicide by jumping off a building."

　　"Before she jumped off the building, she called her mother. She said, 'I'm very tired. I've had enough of the fearful life. I didn't expect that the school would become like this one day. I'm not a brave person. I betrayed Tian Yun's trust in me. I may not be able to continue. I hope you can avenge me.'. That's what she said, but after she died, the people who should be responsible are still at large. And I stand here today to apologize to her."

　　In an instant, countless eyes rushed towards Qiong Cang.

　　"I'm sorry." Xu You said perfunctorily, and then walked off the stage.

　　Qiong Cang took the microphone in her hand and walked slowly up to the command podium.

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