The boy burst into tears instantly. He didn't even know how to go on with his story. Choking with sobs, he was at a loss, his face filled with anger and sorrow.
"And then?" Qi Mingyang was also quite touched. He had been listening blankly. The three of them exchanged a look.
"Then I kept shouting, but no one answered. I rushed in and saw her disheveled, with blood on the corner of her mouth, tears on her face and marks of being beaten. She was such a pure and self - respecting girl, but the blood stained her whole white dress..."
As the three of them listened, they were instantly filled with horror.
It was in the school restroom! School was such a sacred and innocent place. Why did such a thing happen? And why was no one held accountable?
Yi Pin suddenly felt a bit guilty looking at the boy in front of him. He had been so reckless just now, dragging the boy over. Now that he thought about it, he felt he was really annoying sometimes.
"She kept telling me that she was dirty and would surely contaminate the wedding dress. She said I would definitely despise her... The angrier I got, the more I asked her who it was. I even wanted to kill that brute, but she just wouldn't say. No matter how I asked, she remained silent. I also went to the school monitoring room, but they said the school cameras were broken and useless! After that, for more than ten days, she went home and didn't want to see me anymore."
The boy blurted out what was in his heart in one breath. He was already in floods of tears and choking so much that he couldn't speak. Yi Pin handed him a tissue and said nervously, "Sorry, I was too excited just now!"
He suddenly felt a bit cruel, always prying into things that would make others cry bitterly.
He never expected there was such a connection.
"When did the incident happen?" Shen Yu asked coldly.
Yi Pin looked at him in a daze. While the other two seemed to be deeply involved in the story as if they could really empathize, Shen Yu remained calm and cold - hearted.
"It was in the autumn of the year before last. At that time, there were maple leaves all over the campus."
The boy wiped his tears and replied.
Shen Yu frowned. So it was a year after the incident that the girl chose to commit suicide!
What on earth did she go through that made her choose to end her own life?
"Did Xiaodan get better later?" Shen Yu continued to ask, his eyebrows tightly knitted.
"Sort of. After being depressed for a while, she got a bit better, but she didn't seem to smile as much as before. Even when she smiled, I could feel a kind of paleness and reluctance!"
After listening to the boy, the three of them let out a sigh. The atmosphere was a bit oppressive.
They looked at the dark clouds in the sky and the cold wind howling.
The air was filled with a heavy atmosphere.
"Were you still together later?"
Yi Pin swallowed hard, his brows furrowed.
"No. She said she didn't want to be with me anymore!"
Tears welled up in his eyes and kept swirling. It seemed that everything was like a catharsis. It was not hard to see his heart - rending pain.
For a moment, the scene was a bit surreal. The four boys just stood there blankly on the balcony, their faces showing indescribable sadness, sad about the girl's tragic death and blaming themselves for their own powerlessness.
After a period of silence, a ringing sound came.
The boy stood up. His tears had been dried by the wind, leaving only a trace of desolation.
He turned around and was about to walk into the classroom.
"Wait a minute. I have one last question for you." Shen Yu took off his glasses. Looking at the boy's back as he was about to leave, he said in a daze.
The boy stopped in his tracks.
"Why did you keep avoiding us just now?" Shen Yu frowned and asked in confusion.
"Because auntie said there were many people with bad intentions these days. She came to me and told me not to make a fuss or leak the matter out."
Just as the boy finished speaking and was about to leave, Yi Pin called him back.
"Then why did you tell us?"
The boy stopped again. He looked at the dark clouds in the sky, squinted his eyes, stood there for a while, and then slowly said,
"Xiaodan grew up in a family with domestic violence. Her mother always gave me a very scary feeling. She always beat and kicked uncle. Every time I tried to stop her, Xiaodan would also get beaten. She was so timid. She always came to class with swollen eyes the next day! There were many wounds on her body!"
After the boy finished speaking, he left the balcony.
The three of them were quite stunned. There really were people in the world who could be so merciless to their own children.
The three of them stood in the wind, feeling a bit disheveled.
According to this trend, the matter was getting more and more difficult.
Yi Pin suddenly felt he had been too hasty just now. He had even thought Shen Yu was cold - blooded.
He looked back at Shen Yu. Coincidentally, Shen Yu was also looking at him.
"Now the leads are Officer Liu, the deceased's mother, and the molester in the school!" Qi Mingyang frowned.
But now all the videos had been deleted. There was very little evidence that could prove anything. If the three of them spoke up, they weren't eyewitnesses. They would only be judged as making unfounded accusations.
Just when they were at a bottleneck and at a loss, they saw that the boy's schoolbag had been left beside them.
Qi Mingyang was just about to pick it up when he saw a USB drive. He was about to put it back, but Shen Yu stopped him.
"How can you just rummage through others' things without permission!" Qi Mingyang said helplessly.
"You're an officer, for goodness' sake. This is a lead. It's a lead he left on purpose."
Shen Yu squinted his eyes and said nervously.
So the three of them left the schoolbag where it was and took the USB drive away. They got in the car. When they played it, they saw the tragic scene in the surveillance video.
It showed Xiaodan being molested. Two boys were also punching and kicking her. It made one's blood boil.
The two boys looked quite young. They were still wearing school uniforms.
They looked like playboys, which made people feel irritated. Yi Pin even wanted to rush into the video and beat up those two disgusting male students.
After the three of them watched the video, the atmosphere was a bit oppressive. The content of the video kept echoing in their minds.
"Scumbags, degenerates, brutes!"
Yi Pin punched the table in a fit of rage. Just thinking about it made him feel irritated. The scared look of the girl in the video was unforgettable for life.
Shen Yu propped his chin up with his hand and clicked on another file.
He found it was an audio recording.
It was a bit noisy and hard to hear clearly.
But according to the conversation, it seemed to match the video just now.
"You're still resisting, still resisting, you bitch..."
Then came the sound of several slaps, deafening.
"I'm telling you, you won't end well. I still have the evidence from last year. If you keep doing this, I'll sue you for rape and murder..."
Xiaodan's urgent and terrified voice rang in their ears, full of grief.