Death Revealed
I found out the address of Liu Ning's home from senior classmates I knew and called Yang Fan.
The next day, he and I met at the appointed place. When I was about to ring the doorbell, a courier bicycle stopped beside me.
"Is this the Liu Ning family?" the courier took out a thick envelope from his backpack and asked me.
Before I could say anything, Yang Fan came up and said, "I'm Liu Ning." I looked at him in surprise, wondering what he was up to. The courier didn't have any doubts, handed him the letter, asked him to sign the order and left.
Yang Fan glanced at the handwriting that filled in the recipient's name and address on the letter, and tore open the sealed letter.
"Isn't it okay to tell others to believe it privately?" I wanted to stop it, but it was too late. He took out the letter and scanned it hastily, put it in his pocket, pressed the doorbell, and told me: "The murderer heard your voice last night. He will come in soon, but you must not make a sound." I nodded.
The person who opened the door was Liu Qi, Liu Ning's freshman brother. He looked a bit like Liu Ning, tall and thin.
Liu Qi looked haggard, but his attitude was very alert. Yang Fan lied that we were Liu Ning's classmates, and he let us enter the house. As soon as I entered the door, I saw a room full of flowers. The fragrance of flowers was fragrant, but it still couldn't hide the strong stench of decay. It turned out that Liu Ning's coffin was parked in the center of the living room. The lid of the coffin is sealed, and all kinds of fragrant flowers are sprinkled on it. I gave him a creepy look and turned my attention to Yang Fan. He was very calm and even picked up a lily on the coffin and smelled it.
"Sorry!" Liu Qi invited us to his room, which was also the room where Liu Ning was alive. The gauze curtains in the room were closed tightly, and the light was a bit blurry. Liu Qi repeatedly apologized to us for the coffin in the living room, "The murderer has not been brought to justice. As a family member, how can we watch him die and go to the crematorium? So…"
"Well, uncle and aunt are not at home?" Yang Fan looked around the room and interrupted Liu Qi.
"I went to the police station." Liu Qi was a little embarrassed, "It's about my brother…"
"I've always found it strange," Yang Fan interrupted him again, "Why do you think Liu Ning was murdered by someone in the school?"
"Not yet…" The words he was about to say were swallowed back by Liu Qi. He clenched his hands and lowered his head, as if enduring unbearable pain, "Are you really my brother's classmates?"
Yang Fan didn't answer, staring at Liu Qi's haggard face, his eyes flashing with a cold light like an ice lake.
After being silent for a few seconds, Yang Fan suddenly said in a weird tone: "It wasn't the head teacher who discovered the body first. When he was recording a statement at the police station, he said: 'I saw Liu Ning moving the car through the window of the lounge. I picked up a chair and sneaked into the woods. I didn’t know what he was going to do. Later I heard that he hung himself there. I can prove that he committed suicide! "
When Yang Fan paused, Liu Qi and I looked at him in shock, neither of us spoke.
He continued: "Even if the police went to the scene to investigate and confirmed the testimony, Liu Ning had been living well, why did he commit suicide? Also, if the head teacher saw everything, why didn't he stop it? After thinking about it, , the head teacher who testified was the most suspicious! Wasn't he the first to discover the body? He must have set up the scene after killing Liu Ning, so that the police who arrived later also fell into a trap. If I commit suicide and refuse to punish the murderer, then I will have to use my own method to take revenge…"
"What on earth do you want to say!" Liu Qi stood up, his face filled with anger, "Do you want to say that I want to kill my brother's head teacher?"
"Isn't it?" Yang Fan's tone returned to normal, "Isn't it you who sent an anonymous letter to Li Chen and pretended to be a dead person to commit murder last night?"
"What evidence do you have!"
Yang Fan raised his eyebrows regretfully: "The paper mask you wore last night was burned long ago, right?"
Liu Qi stared at Yang Fan without saying anything, his face turning into a ferocious expression.
Yang Fan smiled: "I still have evidence." He quickly moved to the window, yanked open the curtains, and pushed open the window. There was a row of clothes hanging to dry under the eaves. He pulled off one of the black suits and threw it to Liu Qi.
This time, Liu Qi smiled instead: "It's the clothes I wore at the funeral. Even if it's the same as what my brother wore after his death, it doesn't prove that I wore it last night…"
"It's not the clothes, it's the things in the collar pocket." Yang Fan pointed out with a smile.
Liu Qi stared at Yang Fan suspiciously and put his hand into his collar pocket. As soon as he put his hand in, his expression suddenly froze.
"Take it out and take a look?"
Yang Fan's words were like a spell, causing Liu Qi to take out something from his pocket – half a starched note. Liu Qi silently opened the note. There is half a line of typeface on it: Three days later, the soul of the dead will personally take you to hell.
"The remaining half is here." Yang Fan took out the other half from his pocket and waved it in front of Liu Qi.
The "mark left behind" he mentioned turned out to be half of an anonymous letter that was secretly put into the murderer's pocket during the fight last night.
"What do you want?" Liu Qi crumpled half of the note into his palm and stared at me and Yang Fan with bloodshot eyes, "You want to report me to the police station?"
Yang Fan shrugged his shoulders fearlessly, looked back at me, and then turned to Liu Qi: "If I wanted you to go to jail, I would never put the evidence in your hands. Li Chen must have thought so too. He just broke up the Street Lamp Gang last night. You run away."
Liu Qi didn't seem to believe Yang Fan's words, and tightened his lips, as if he could pounce on us at any time.
"If you don't believe it, take a look at this." Yang Fan took out the crumpled letter, "This should be your brother's last message, and it is also one of the evidences."
Liu Qi still stared at him and did not move. Yang Fan unfolded the letter himself and handed it to Liu Qi's eyes: "Is it your brother's handwriting? Read it out." He seemed to be giving an order.
A small part of the letter was written in red ink, and a large part was written in blue ink, with different handwriting.
Liu Qi glanced at the letter and suddenly fell into the chair behind him, his face pale.
Yang Fan snorted coldly and read aloud in a strange tone: "I wrote this text just to clarify that my death has nothing to do with anyone. Everything is my own decision and the result of my repeated thinking. If I have to point out a murderer in reality, it would be the unfair system that pushed me to the road of death, and…" After a brief silence, Yang Fan sighed, "and my family's incomprehension…"
The atmosphere became heavier and no one spoke anymore. During this time, I noticed a change in Liu Qi's expression. And he still sat there, motionless. Two minutes later, Yang Fan's reading sound started again, which should be the blue ink part: "I don't think I need to say that when you see this letter, you will definitely know who I am. I am sending this letter only in the hope that Liu Ning I could rest in peace. That day, I rushed to the grove, before I found the body, and found this letter under the door of the lounge. I didn't realize its importance until I read it. , I think it was the main reason that prompted Liu Ning to commit suicide. Liu Ning failed to answer the test questions because of a stomachache in his second year of high school. After school started, he was assigned to the underachieving class, which was Class C. He was very upset about this. , discussed with me several times, hoping that I could transfer him back to Class A for the sake of his excellent performance in the past. I also communicated with the school repeatedly, but the school was obsessed with the system and rejected the request, regardless of liberal arts and science. Anyone assigned to Class C will not be eligible to apply for key universities according to the admission regulations…"
After hearing this, I realized that the second half of the letter was written by Li Chen.
"Liu Ning must have hoped that his feelings would be known to his relatives, so he stuffed the suicide note under my door. I was afraid that my career as a teacher would be ruined because of this, and I didn't have the courage to tell him about the suicide note. It wasn't until I received the anonymous letter that I realized my suicide note. Selfish. I wanted to atone for my sins, send a suicide note, and use it to clarify my innocence – after all, my negligence and cowardice caused Liu Ning's death and caused various misunderstandings among the family members of the deceased. If I knew that Liu Ning moved at that time. He was going to commit suicide by sitting on the chair. I would definitely stop him, but when I realized this, it was too late! I was determined to meet the person who wanted to avenge Liu Ning. No matter how much risk I took, I must bring him the suicide note in person. , I apologized to him, but unfortunately I couldn't do it. I had to write my inner words together with Liu Ning's last words, and pray for forgiveness. In addition, I will not report the person who wants to kill me, so I will atone for myself." Yang Fan's voice suddenly broke out. Stop.
The room was quiet, the breeze blew through the white gauze curtains, and the light filtered through, trembling, and enveloped Liu Qi, who was in tears.
"We know the school's rules. When he said he failed the test, his parents did scold him! But no one expected that he would not be able to think about it! If I knew that he cared more than us, I should have persuaded him… Liu Qi fell in his chair dejectedly and covered his face with his hands. "He has been afraid of others saying he is a 'bad student' since he was a child, so he has been studying hard. In fact, it doesn't matter what kind of student he is, as long as he can survive." Being happy is better than anything else…"
"If you really want to avenge Liu Ning, let the school's unfair system die." Yang Fan said softly and put the other half of the anonymous letter and suicide note in Liu Qi's hand.
Dark black suit,
Starched white shirt,
The slightly reflective snow-white gloves under the night sky…
Everything has been carefully taken care of,
Tunzhi is like a corpse that is about to be put into a coffin,
Or maybe,
It is the soul of the dead who has just crawled out of the coffin.
who is he?
He was dressed exactly the same as the dead Liu Ning!
Death of Liu Ning
Liu Ning, who is in Class C of the third year of high school science, looks like a wax figure, wearing a black suit and a black silk tie. He is lying in a coffin covered with purple silk. The white handkerchief on his face prevents the onlookers from seeing his death expression. .
His father and brother wore the same mourning clothes as him, and pushed the coffin on the coffin slowly through the corridor with solemn expressions. The sound of iron wheels running over stone bricks echoed harshly, as if it was a groan from another world. Liu Ning's mother followed the coffin, crying and complaining to the teachers and students on both sides: "My son died inexplicably in the school. The school not only refused to admit it, but also lied to the police! It's so unconscionable!"
Everyone looked at her with sympathy, and no one dared to say a word.
The security guard pushed through the crowd and rushed over, dragging Liu Ning's mother who was crying: "Who told you to cause trouble? Don't interfere with the normal order of the school!" As he said this, he forcibly dragged the coffin down the steps. Their rough movements removed the handkerchief from Liu Ning's face, completely exposing the deceased's face to the public eye.
After a brief silence, screams broke out and the corridor was in chaos. The teacher who was also frightened was helpless in the face of the students who were fleeing everywhere. Liu Ning's family took advantage of the chaos and got into a fight with the security guards.
"Zhang Cong, what are you doing?" Yang Fan walked out of the classroom sleepily and walked next to me.
My deskmate is probably the only one who can still remain calm now. This guy only does two things when he comes to school every day: sleep and read comics. Even so, his results never fell below the top three in his grade. Because of this, the teacher always turned a blind eye to his behavior.
Yang Fan drowsily glanced at the out-of-control crowd and asked me, "Are you having a group fight?"
I hadn't recovered from the shock, so I glanced at him and said nothing. He quickly understood: "What, it's still about Liu Ning!"
The preparation bell rang repeatedly, and the chaotic scene became more and more out of control. People just want to stay away from the coffin, but contrary to their wishes, they rush into it again and again. The coffin was finally knocked over, and Liu Ning rolled and fell like a limp dough bag, face upward, calmly laughing at everyone present with his pale death expression.
This time, no one screamed. Everyone seemed to be stung by a scorpion, flinching and stunned.
Exploring the woods
Throughout the morning, neither students nor teachers were interested in attending classes, so all classes were changed to self-study. While the teacher was leaving the classroom, my deskmate poked me and suggested in a low voice: "How about we go on an adventure?"
"Adventure?" I didn't understand what Yang Fan meant. Yang Fan lowered his voice: "Don't you want to know the truth about Liu Ning's death?"
"Huh? Do you have a clue?"
"a little bit."
"What is it?" I became excited.
Yang Fan pretended to be mysterious and shook his head: "Further confirmation is needed. Anyway, are you coming?" Before I could think about it, he stood up from his seat, lied to the monitor about going to the toilet, and walked out of the classroom in a big show. I held my stomach and said I needed to go to the bathroom, but ran away before the suspicious squad leader asked.
We walked toward the deepest part of the campus, the grove where Liu Ning’s body was found. Dense clumps of branches intertwined into a natural scaffolding above the head. The sunlight filtered through, and the light and shadow underfoot was mottled. Three days ago, Liu Ning's class teacher was here and found Liu Ning hanging from a tree.
A faded wooden sign stuck on the moss-covered soft mud says: No Approach. At this moment, even without this warning, no one in the school dares to set foot here.
Yesterday's accumulated rain formed puddles in large and small soft mud puddles, glowing with a faint green light, reflecting the gray coirnets, pale tree trunks, and the teaching building not far away. Rows of hollow windows that look like eyes.
The wind blew by, making the surrounding vegetation hiss, and an unusual smell accompanied by the fishy smell of the puddles hit our faces. I stared at the puddles and the strange upside-down images on the water. Suddenly I smelled that the strange smell came from the uneasiness in my heart, so I subconsciously searched for Yang Fan's figure with daylight, and saw him bending down and groping under a tree. . He pushed aside the grass, looked at the soft mud under the tree, pointed to what he found on the ground, and said to me, "Do you see?"
There are traces of chairs and stools placed under the tree, and although some rainwater has accumulated in the hollows where the feet were pressed, they are still clearly visible.
"Liu Ning hanged himself on this tree, right?"
Yang Fan confirmed to me, looked up at the tree, kept moving around the tree, and looked up at the teaching building from various angles. The sunlight finally locked on the middle window on the fourth floor. That's the lounge of Liu Ning's head teacher. Yang Fan seemed to have discovered something and ran quickly to the teaching building excitedly. I asked him urgently: "What did you find?"
He smiled and was about to answer when he was interrupted by the sudden bell. The noise suddenly filled the entire campus.
At Yang Fan's instigation, I went with him to the fourth floor of the teaching building. This floor is a dedicated floor for senior high school teachers and students. The three classrooms on the left are liberal arts classes. They are divided into top class A, middle class B, and low-achieving class C according to the results before entering school. The three classrooms on the right are divided in the same way for science classes. classes; the two offices in the middle were temporarily divided into small private rooms and became a special lounge for the graduating class teachers.
I looked around the silent senior high school floor carefully and asked Yang Fan in the sunlight: Are you sure this is true? He nodded firmly. I plucked up the courage, ran to the lounge of class teacher Liu Ning, knocked on the door, and shouted: "Teacher! Teacher, open the door quickly!"
Li Chen, the head teacher of Class C of the senior high school science course, opened the door wearing thick bottle-bottom glasses. Before he could speak, I dragged him downstairs and said, "There's a fight! Teacher, go and stop it, otherwise someone will die!"
"Which grade are you in?" Li Chen looked at me nervously, "Why don't you ask your class teacher?"
"Because, because…" I tried my best to make up lies that I was not good at, praying that Yang Fan had sneaked into the lounge before he had time to lock the door, "because our class teacher was so frightened by what happened to Liu Ning this morning that he ran away!"
I led Li Chen around twice on the first floor, then ran to the second floor and walked around slowly.
No one was fighting at all, so Li Chen asked me what was going on. Just when I couldn't think of a reason, Yang Fan appeared. He calmly raised his thumb in the direction behind him: "Two guys with bruises and swollen faces ran over." Thank God! He came just in time! Li Chen looked at us repeatedly with a suspicious face, pushed up his glasses, and went upstairs without saying a word.
"How?" I asked him quickly.
"I found this in the wastebasket." Yang Fan took out the paper ball that was torn in half from his pocket.
I opened the ball of paper and pieced it together. I saw a row of typefaces printed on it:
Three days later, the dead soul will personally pick you up to dance with you in hell. x day x month x year.
I was puzzled: "Is this related to Liu Ning's death?" Yang Fan shrugged and said, "If we want to catch the real culprit, we must take a risk."
Park Terror
According to Yang Fan's inference, the date on the anonymous letter was the day after Liu Ning's body was discovered, so Li Chen's death was undoubtedly today. After school, Yang Fan and I couldn't wait to stuff our eye-catching school uniform jackets into our schoolbags to prevent the "murderers" from prying, and we took turns wandering near the school gate.
It was not until 9:30 in the evening that Li Chen left the school with his briefcase. really weird! I looked at him and thought: Why did I delay it until so late when I knew my life was in danger?
I followed Yang Fan and blended in with the crowd, trailing behind Li Chen. We chased him through intersections, through deserted alleys and into the park. Li Chen hugged his briefcase tightly and sat down on the bench under the street lamp while looking around.
Yang Fan took me to hide among the green plants fifty steps away from Li Chen, and said softly: "It would be bad to cover your face if others see you." As he said that, he picked up the soft mud on the grass. , smeared it all over my face and mine.
At this time, this garden, which resembles an Amazon wild forest, is extremely peaceful. The noise of the street market echoed faintly like the crashing of waves in the distance; redwoods and paulownia trees struggling toward the sky stretched out to cover the starry sky; vines clung to plants that were stronger than themselves, threatening the dim street lights with their claws and teeth. Allow it to scatter some tiny halos before our eyes.
The mud on my face was filled with the smell of rotting leaves, which made me feel sick to my stomach. I couldn't help but reach out and flick the bushes in front of me to imitate the breeze to relieve my inner uneasiness, but Yang Fan silently stopped me. I told him with my eyes that I couldn't stand the suffocating feeling anymore. He just frowned and shook his head at me.
Suddenly, the grass and trees in front started to move. The slight sound of crushing dead branches and leaves slowly reached my ears, and then was drowned in the urban noise like a sea wave. I just wanted to put my head in to see clearly, but Yang Fan pushed me down. He quickly dropped to the ground and motioned with his eyes for me to follow suit. We quietly retreated into the darker depths of the bush.
The shadows of the trees swayed, and the mottled light shivered. A soft thing, like a slippery snake, silently brushed over the top of the grass and swept across my eyes, scaring me so much that I almost screamed. I quickly covered my mouth with both hands, calmed down, and saw clearly that the thing was just a black silk tie.
A stronger wind suddenly tore open a corner of the green human curtain, and the moonlight suddenly leaked out. In an instant, I distinguished the layers of light and dark in the dense forest – some hazy unknown objects were embedded with patches of darkness. I saw a light-moving figure dragging a rippling black silk tie across the patch of light. Moving quickly and silently through the darkness. Sometimes he walked into the "ghost's mouth", and sometimes he was swallowed by the "ghost". He contained a dangerous aura and gradually approached the unsuspecting prey on the bench.
The dark black suit, the starched white shirt, the slightly reflective snow-white gloves under the night sky… everything has been carefully taken care of, just like a corpse that is about to enter the coffin, or perhaps, a dead soul that has just crawled out of the coffin. . who is he? He was dressed exactly the same as the dead Liu Ning!
Damn it! The thick shadow always slanted heavily on his face. Although after a while, he turned into the halo of the street lamp again, his back was turned to me! The "human figure" suddenly straightened the tie of the handkerchief, threw himself behind Li Chen, and strangled him tightly by the throat. Li Chen struggled without any prediction. The intermittent breathing irritated my eardrums, and I saw the bench shaking violently as he struggled. The black murderer stood against the light and cast a large, thick shadow within my reach. The shadow pulled and stretched, making various terrifying movements that could be fatal. If Yang Fan hadn't grabbed my sleeves and elbows tightly to prevent me from moving rashly, I would have pounced on the murderer the moment he pounced on the bench.
"…Listen, listen to me!" I don't know whether the murderer relaxed his strength or whether Li Chen struggled to take a breath. He only heard Li Chen gasping, "I know you are…and…" The words were cut off by the sudden tightening of the hand. In strength.
If you continue to sit back and do nothing, Li Chen will die! I threw away Yang Fan who was trying his best to stop me, rushed forward desperately, and threw the murderer onto the bench. They both rolled to the ground. Even the surprised Li Chen was thrown down by me.
The murderer and I were entangled, our four hands grasping each other, each trying to subdue the other. Li Chen touched his briefcase and climbed up in panic. I didn't have the energy to pay attention to him, so I could only shout to others: "Run! Run!" He didn't run away. He grabbed the glasses with broken lenses and hung them on his ears. He took a few steps back helplessly and watched me fighting with the murderer. Rolling, one by one, they rolled under the street lamp.
The vision suddenly turned white. The murderer and I were both stunned when we saw each other's faces clearly. He was probably frightened by my muddy face, so he hesitated slightly, and then knocked me to the ground in a cold sweat. I couldn't fight back because I was frightened by his face. Under the dazzling light, his face was extremely pale, and the loneliness unique to death showed his distorted facial features – it was Liu Ning! It's Liu Ning's face!
The black soul that came out of hell stood up slowly and took out something shiny from his sleeve. When I watched him raise the thing in his hand above his head, his figure was blurred in the reflection; when I realized that it was a knife in his hand, he had knocked me down, and the blade was pressed against my cheek. .
I stared at the knife, knowing that if I moved it, my left eye would be destroyed immediately. I endured the pain of the wound on the left side of my face and tried not to look at the cold weapon. I turned all my attention to the murderer's face and stared into his eyes.
Only then did I notice that his face was unnatural and a little stiff, but not stiff like a dead person; his eye sockets and eyeballs were clearly separated. I immediately realized that the guy in front of me was just wearing a poor-quality paper mask!
Yang Fan silently slipped behind the murderer and looked at the trembling Li Chen with his muddy face. He forced Li Chen away with the cold sunlight, turned to me, made a silent gesture to me, and hugged the murderer from behind without hesitation.
I took the opportunity to escape and unmask the murderer at the same time. At this moment, the street lamp above the head suddenly made a crackling sound, a few sparks jumped, and then went out. Half of the broken bricks flew to my feet, which scared me so much that I jumped so high.
The murderer twisted his body wildly, scratched the back of Yang Fan's hand with a knife, threw him far away, turned around and fled into the lush grass. Looking back at the direction where the bricks flew just now, I saw a fleeting reflection from the glass.
"That is……"
"It's Teacher Li Chen." Yang Fan covered the wound on the back of his hand, "He broke the street lamp."
The mud on the face mixed with sweat seeped into the wound, and the wound stung unbearably. While wiping the blood stains on my face with my sleeve, I asked: "Li Chen is obviously the victim, why did he let his murderer go? What should I do next?" I took the schoolbag handed by Yang Fan.
"What's next?" Yang Fan wiped his face with his school uniform jacket and sighed, "Things that could have been settled without our showing up have been screwed up by you!"
"What do you mean, don't save me until you die?"
"Li Chen will not die." Yang Fan said firmly, "On the contrary, he will convince the murderer to give up the idea of committing murder."
"S-So, you already knew who the murderer was?"
"Probably." Yang Fan smiled slyly, "I left a mark on him."
"Should I call the police?" I was eager to try again.
Yang Fan thought for a while and shook his head: "No need. Let's find out the address of Liu Ning's home tonight. Tomorrow is the weekend, go to his house to ask about the situation. Let's call him!"