Author: 长洱 / Chang’er

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 54

On the student square, Jiang Chao’s men controlled the field. The onlookers gradually dispersed, but there were still some stubborn students who were still standing on the outermost edge of the cordon, looking around, refusing to leave.

Vice Captain Jiang got out of the police car. He had received a report that another fucking student had jumped off a building at Yongchuan University, making a total count of three. When he saw the students didn’t listen to the police’s orders, combined with the three corpses they had in the wings, he was furious. He sneered and shouted to the students outside the cordon, “Come here. Since you seem to have so much free time, come and make a statement. None of you are allowed to leave!”

After Jiang Chao finished speaking, he gave a wink to the policeman who was maintaining order, who then ordered a group of policemen to surround the remaining students.

Since they were ordinary students, seeing such an onslaught, they suddenly fled in all directions.

The square abruptly became empty. Although they didn’t know how many people were watching in the surrounding buildings as the police collected evidence, at least the area finally quieted down.

As soon as things got quiet, a faint cry sounded.

Jiang Chao followed the noise and found several girls sitting in a flowerbed by the square, crying.

They were several officers of the student council. When Xu Haozhen and the other two jumped off the building, they were standing in the most central position and were overly frightened. Two policewomen were there with them, patting them on the back as they tried to ask them questions.

Behind the flower bed, Lin Chen and Xing Conglian were standing there. They were very close to each other and was having a conversation that couldn’t be heard.

Jiang Chao thought for a while, but in the end, he still went around the flower bed and patted Lao Xing on the shoulder.

“I must say, Lao Xing, you’re too cruel. Those little girls are crying like that, yet you don’t go comfort them and help take a statement or something!”

Jiang Chao didn’t realize how hard he had smacked Xing Conglian, but it caught him off guard and almost made him fall into the flower bed.

“Keep your voice down.” Xing Conglian turned his head and saw Jiang Chao staring at Lin Chen. It was obvious that he had different intentions*. He made a silent gesture to Jiang Chao and pulled the man back.

*The drunkard’s intentions lies not in the wine (醉翁之意不在酒) Idiom referring to having a ulterior motive.

“Those little girls in your department are asking good questions. Just listen quietly.”

“This is stifling. I have to ask, when will he go? Can you do me a favor and have Consultant Lin collect some statements? It’s best if they include awesome details!” Jiang Chao leaned close to Xing Conglian’s ears and whispered. He had seen the files of the “Candy Bandit” case. Lin Chen’s ability to evoke sporadic memories from a witness with just a single phone call was simply amazing.

He wanted to say more, but a slightly cold voice sounded in his ears.

“Actually, I don’t need to.” Lin Chen crossed his arms and stood in front of Jiang Chao and said, “I’m a witness. I watched Xu Haozhen jump off the rooftop with my own eyes.”

Jiang Chao dug in his ears, thinking that he had a hearing problem.

Xing Conglian’s gaze swept across Lin Chen’s face. Though his face looked solemn and his eyes were clear, his complexion was extremely pale. Xing Conglian suddenly regretted that he hadn’t taken Lin Chen away from the scene just now.

“You—What’s going on?” Jiang Chao immediately pulled the two away and asked in a low voice.

“At that time, I was in the classroom of the psychology department. I received a call from Captain Xing saying that Jiang Liu had appeared and gone to the teaching building where I was. When I hung up the phone, someone had already jumped off the building. It was the boy. Thinking of the previous case, I was afraid things wouldn’t be so simple. Soon, another person jumped off the building again. When I rushed to the rooftop, I happened to see Xu Haozhen sitting on the edge of the building.”

Lin Chen’s words were concise as he briefly described to Jiang Chao what happened.

Although he spoke briefly, Jiang Chao felt goosebumps all over his body. “You just said that Xu Haozhen jumped in front of you?”

“Yes.”

“Did… she say anything at the end?”

“She did.”

“What did she say?”

“She said, shixiong, farewell. You must refuel.”

Lin Chen’s tone was very flat, and his voice was a little cold as he fully stated what he heard at that time.

Jiang Chao’s eyes widened, and he felt the creeps. “Isn’t this sick? Who would ask someone to refuel before committing suicide? Refuel what?”

“I don’t know.” Lin Chen’s mind was full of the girl’s smile before she ended her life.

How could he put it? Xu Haozhen was sober at the time. She coherently knew what she was doing, and she was delighted from the bottom of her heart, as if she could sublimate her life and soul by jumping off the building.

“Holy shit…” Jiang Chao rubbed his arms and couldn’t help but curse. “Is this school cursed? It’s not just one or two, but six people have died!”

“I’m afraid there’s no sorcery at work here. Xu Haozhen really died, and she had planned this for a long time. Two hours before she jumped off the building, I met with her. At that time, she deliberately said goodbye to me…”

“Then why didn’t you…” When Jiang Chao heard this, he wanted to speak, but was glared at by Xing Conglian. Seeing that, he abruptly swallowed back his words.

“How come I didn’t notice her suicidal tendencies?” Lin Chen faintly looked at Xing Conglian.

“In fact, there’s still a problem with this case,” Xing Conglian interrupted Lin Chen, not giving him the opportunity to continue. “Just now, there were too many people gathered in the square. The officers of the student council were organizing activities to find Jiang Liu. Lao Jiang knows that we didn’t entrust the student council to mobilize teachers and students to find her. Even the news of Jiang Liu’s disappearance was only known to a few. Why was it so coincidental that those three kids would choose to commit suicide at this point in time, in such a densely crowded place?”

Lin Chen raised his head and looked at Xing Conglian, speechless.

On the flower bed in the distance, the girls were still sobbing. The missing person flyers all over the ground looked as if it were a silent mockery.

Lin Chen bent down and picked up one that landed at his feet. Jiang Liu in the photo was smiling brightly, just like Xu Haozhen.

He finally looked at Jiang Chao, nodded, and said, “I’ll do it.”

Xing Conglian was slightly startled.

The amount of information just now was too large. Jiang Chao felt that his brain was already fried, so he just nodded and saw Lin Chen turn around and walk towards the girls by the flowerbed.

“I… I really can’t remember.” The girl’s interment crying came with the wind. “Please don’t ask me, okay?”

Lin Chen walked up to the girl, squatted down, and gazed at her flushed eyes.

Before the people around him could react, his hand was already gently touching the girl’s eyes. His voice was soft and quiet, but tender enough to soothe the trauma. “I don’t need you to answer any questions. Please close your eyes, take three deep breaths with me, and then open your eyes, okay?”

The girl sobbed for a while, then nodded.

“One, inhale…”

“Two, exhale…”

“Three, please open your eyes.”

Lin Chen’s hand moved away from the girl’s eyes.

The girl opened her eyes, and there was a finger in front of her. That finger was very thin and white. Then she heard someone in front of her say, “Please look at my finger and gaze to the right.”

Despite the fact that she had no idea what was going on, the girl couldn’t help but stare at the finger and look to the right obediently. Then, her gaze followed the finger again and slowly moved to the left.

Jiang Chao stood on tiptoe, looking at Lin Chen, who was squatting on the ground and was slowly moving his finger. He tugged hard on Xing Conglian and asked in a low voice, “What is he doing?”

“Didn’t you want him to ask questions? It’s probably a technique to calm people down.” There was a bit of coldness in Xing Conglian’s voice that he himself didn’t even notice.

Time passed for about half a minute, and the surrounding area became silent.

Lin Chen’s slowly moving finger finally stopped.

“If you feel better now, can you answer a few questions for me? You can just nod,” he said.

The girl was strangely calm. She sniffled twice, and most of her original resistance disappeared.

“You… can ask.”

Seeing this, Jiang Chao became extremely excited and tugged at Xing Conglian again. “It looks like hypnosis. This is amazing.”

“Why were you handing out flyers here? Who told you to come?”

Lin Chen’s voice hadn’t fallen yet, but another girl sitting next to the one he was questioning suddenly let out a howling cry. “It’s… It was Senior Xu who asked us to do this. She said—she said…”

The policewoman on the side hurriedly handed over a tissue. Lin Chen didn’t speak but just looked at the girl in front of him quietly.

“Senior Xu?”

“Senior… Xu said… Jiang Liu is missing, and her situation might be dire. As her classmates, we can help a little…”

“Senior Xu, as in Xu Haozhen?”

The girl nodded. Her eyes filled with tears again. “Did Senior Xu deliberately deceive us and let us watch her commit suicide?”

Looking at the girl in pain in front of him, Lin Chen didn’t answer. He slowly stood up, took out a pen from his pocket, then opened the palm of the girl’s hand and wrote down a string of numbers.

“This is the number to the counseling center at school. You must find professional help.”

As he spoke, he looked at the policewoman on the flowerbed. “Later, please make sure to send them to see a psychiatrist.”

——

After the noise, there was only silence until death.

The number of people in the square gradually decreased. Lin Chen remained silent the entire time. While Jiang Chao presided over the work, Xing Conglian left quietly with Lin Chen from the square.

It was class time, so there were no students around campus. Everything seemed too quiet.

Unknowingly, the two walked to the edge of the big lake.

The sky was shining brightly above them, glistening the entire lake surface, which gave it a weird misty halo that gently floated on the lake.

The banyan tree was still full of branches and leaves. Under the tree, there were many commemorative garlands, and even candles that were spontaneously lit by students. The candles hadn’t burned out yet, and their candlelight gently swayed.

Xing Conglian patted Lin Chen on the shoulder, but he didn’t know what to say.

Just after Lin Chen had spoken with the police officer just now, he had remained silent the entire time.

For 18- or 19-year-old college students, witnessing someone commit suicide was probably the most horrible thing they would experience in their lives.

But what about Lin Chen? His shimei had leapt to her death just a few steps away from him. He had failed to save her. Any normal person would blame himself and be in anguish.

In fact, it was clear even now that Lin Chen didn’t want to make a statement because he himself was still confused. He wasn’t ready, but at the request of Jiang Chao, he quickly collected himself and, even to the end, didn’t forget to remind those children to see a psychiatrist.

He was really too fucking dedicated.

Looking at the slightly thin back of the person in front of him, Xing Conglian felt inexplicably irritable.

The force on the shoulders became heavier. Lin Chen came back to his senses and saw that Xing Conglian was frowning. He remembered the conversation between him and Jiang Chao that was deliberately interrupted by Xing Conglian just now. “Don’t worry. I won’t be sad. Even an ordinary psychologist can’t see that the patient has suicidal tendencies, which is considered a dereliction of duty, let alone me?”

Xing Conglian withdrew his hand and asked solemnly, “You haven’t noticed that you have a serious problem. Have you always felt that you’re omnipotent?”

It was ridiculous to feel that he was responsible for everyone; thinking that failure to save lives was negligence on his part.

“I know very well that I’m not a god, I cannot save everyone, and I don’t have the mentality of a saint, so I won’t attribute all mistakes to myself.” The corner of Lin Chen’s mouth showed a self-depreciating smile. “Maybe I used to be, but after experiencing some things, you will find that people’s abilities are always limited, and if you can’t do it, that’s simply that.”

“Then why do you think this is a dereliction of duty? Take a step back. This isn’t even our case at all. It has nothing to do with your duties!”

“I’m just discussing the subject…”

“You’re taking the bull by the horns.”

Before Xing Conglian’s words fell, he felt a tightness around his waist. Lin Chen had suddenly turned around and hugged him.

The hug was very short. Lin Chen’s arms were wrapped around Xing Conglian’s waist, and then he leaned his head onto his shoulders. Before Xing Conglian could react, Lin Chen backed away, but there was still the lingering breath that belonged to the psychologist. Although it was short, it was clearly a very sincere hug.

Lin Chen said, “Thank you.”

Xing Conglian was stunned. Damn, who is comforting who?

“Thinking about it another way, even I didn’t pick up that Xu Haozhen was suicidal. Don’t you think this is very strange?”

After all, this was Lin Chen, a person who was really good at shifting topics quietly. Xing Conglian didn’t even remember what he was going to say just now. His attention quickly shifted away from the hug. He only felt that this sentence would be extremely conceited, but coming from Lin Chen, it sounded reasonable.

“I also think that this isn’t your mistake. Perhaps these children jumped off the building to commit suicide, but not in the traditional sense?”

Xu Haozhen had arranged for her classmates to distribute flyers, looking for Jiang Liu to deliberately gather a crowd. She then said goodbye to Lin Chen before jumping off. Judging from these small details, this was no longer a simple plan that could be easily summarized. Therefore, this, of course, wasn’t just a desperate suicide caused by negative emotions in the ordinary sense.

If this were excluded, the remaining motivation for suicide would become terrifying.

“Of course it’s different. This is like a suicide according to a script.”

Lin Chen squatted down and stroked the soft soil in front of him. Early yesterday morning, the bodies of three students were found one after another by the lake, and a day later, three more students jumped off the teaching building one after another.

One, two, three corpses.

One, two, three jumpers.

From shock to fright and then from fright to horror, the mood of any bystander would look like a rollercoaster. After twists and turns, they would experience the ultimate fear of rushing to hell.

The ups and downs in these two episodes were too subtle. It felt too much like a story in which someone had written a script and then performed it scene by scene.

There was silence all around.

Xing Conglian took a deep breath, only to feel that Lin Chen’s inference was too bold, but because of its boldness, it was terribly reasonable.

Perhaps it was because it was too quiet that the sound of the phone ringing was much louder than expected and broke the silence.

When the phone was connected, Wang Chao’s voice jumped out. “Captain, Captain, are you at Yongchuan University? Did someone jump off a building in the school just now?”

The boy’s voice had a rare trembling.

“How do you know?”

Lin Chen brushed himself up and gazed at Xing Conglian with burning eyes.

Xing Conglian quickly realized the problem.

Wang Chao should be working alone at the hotel right now. Neither he nor Lin Chen had time to tell him about the suicide case, so how did he know?

“I… I seem to have found a live broadcast…” the boy said fearfully.

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