Chapter 101 The Singer, Oh, the Singer 34

Stepping out of 1206, the Ghostification duration hadn't expired yet. Feeling it would be a waste to dispel it now, Lin Xiangjun decided to take a look around Unit 1, Room 408, which Zhang Minxian was renting.

The apartment was no different from any other two-bedroom unit. The furnishings looked like they had been used for many years, and a thin layer of dust coated the windows.

Zhang Minxian wasn't there; she had gone out to gather clues, though by what means, Lin Xiangjun didn't know.

Lin Xiangjun had topped up her funds this morning to ensure she wouldn't be restricted when asking around for information, and then left her to her own devices.

Room 408 had three bedrooms. The master bedroom looked like it belonged to a married couple.

This room seemed to have been unoccupied for a very long time. Although it appeared to be cleaned periodically—the dust on the bedside wardrobe wasn't thick—the styles of the clothes inside were very outdated. Touching a leather jacket left her hand covered in crumbling residue.

Of the other two bedrooms, one seemed to be used as a storage room, filled with things like laundry detergent and toilet paper that looked like they were bought on sale at a supermarket.

The last room appeared to be a student's. On the desk were exam papers and study materials that had been hastily gathered, along with a pencil case containing pens, a utility knife, pencils, erasers, and other school supplies.

The other two rooms yielded nothing, and Lin Xiangjun hadn't expected to find any clues in this room either.

She absentmindedly flipped through the bookshelf.

However, with that flip, she happened upon a graduation photo.

The photo was laminated and not very large; it was a single class photo.

At the very top of the photo hung a red banner with large white characters that read 'Feicui Lake Middle School, Grade 9 Class 6 Graduation Photo.' The students wore blue and white school uniforms, their faces filled with vibrant, youthful, and happy smiles.

In this graduation photo, the girls were all standing in the front row. Lin Xiangjun easily recognized a familiar face among them.

Hu Zhengzheng.

She casually flipped open the nearby study materials. However, the owner of this room wasn't Hu Zhengzheng, but a girl named 'Xia Suhe.' The most recent study materials were for the 12th grade, specifically for a liberal arts student.

By this time, the perfume's duration had expired, which was actually convenient for her to search for things.

Draped in her cloak, she rummaged through all the drawers and successfully found an ID photo stuck in a gap, allowing her to identify Xia Suhe in the group photo.

She was a rather short girl with see-through bangs and dark brown hair. She had a pointed face but round eyes and a slight overbite, making her look a bit like a little hamster.

Because of her height, she was placed in the first row. Hu Zhengzheng stood behind her, affectionately spreading her arms to hook them around her neck. She was holding Hu Zhengzheng's hand, their heads pressed together, looking like they were very close.

However, there were no phones or computers in this room, nor did Lin Xiangjun find any diaries. She could only turn her attention to the study materials.

In the past, she used to write on the back of notebooks and the margins of textbooks during class to secretly chat with her deskmate.

She wanted to see if her junior schoolmates had inherited this fine tradition.

Most were normal, but once she flipped open the politics notebook, several pages at the back were filled with writing.

The two had been chatting secretly in class, and their handwriting was equally secretive; one slanted to the left and the other to the right. She had to keep turning the notebook as she read.

But at least it was a clue.

"Don't be sad anymore. About Hu Zhengzheng... nobody wanted that to happen."

"How could I not be sad? You know what a good person Zheng Zheng was. Back then when my period made my stomach hurt so much I couldn't move from my desk, and I had a headache and felt nauseous, it was Hu Zhengzheng who went to the infirmary to buy Ibuprofen for me. How could such a good person just die like that? And in that way."

"Actually... I heard something."

"What?"

"I'll tell you, but don't tell anyone else. You absolutely must not spread it, and you definitely can't tell anyone I was the one who said it!"

The exclamation mark at the end of this sentence was written especially heavily, leaving a deep indentation in the already thin notebook.

"I won't tell anyone, I promise."

The other person seemed to hesitate for a moment; there were several meaningless, worm-like scribbles at the beginning of the sentence, but she finally made up her mind.

"The person who did that to Hu Zhengzheng... might be Hou Pan."

Hou Pan.

A new character, and a major suspect at that.

Lin Xiangjun raised an eyebrow and committed the name to memory.

Xia Suhe seemed very shocked as well. Her writing speed increased significantly, and her handwriting became even more frantic.

"Hou Pan? I remember he was sent to juvenile detention before finishing middle school because he raped a girl in his class!"

"He was released a long time ago. He was under sixteen at the time, so he was only sent in for three months of education before coming out."

"On what grounds? Scum like him should be locked up for life! Let him stay in there until he dies!"

Xia Suhe grew even more furious, tearing the notebook paper three times with a single sentence. The two were forced to move to the next page to continue writing.

"Calm down, keep it down. The politics teacher just looked at us. I really don't want to copy the key points three times... if you want to curse him, we'll do it together after class. For now, let me finish telling you..."

"Fine, you tell me. I'll be quieter."

"Hou Pan—you know exactly what he did, right?"

"Not exactly. He was in the class next to ours. I only heard that he was incredibly disgusting. In class, he loved to stare at the girls in his class and then put his hand in his pants... anyway, just super gross."

"Right, but he didn't just do that. Did you know that he used to sneak into the girls' bathroom after school and steal used sanitary pads to stick them inside his own underwear?"

"Holy crap..." Lin Xiangjun's eyes widened suddenly, unable to believe that these words could form a sentence.

Are these even Chinese characters?

Do I even know how to read?

Am I hallucinating, or has the whole world gone mad?!

What did I just see?!

My eyes! My eyes!

Help! Help!

Lin Xiangjun took two deep breaths to mentally prepare herself before gathering the courage to open the book again.

Xia Suhe was clearly even more shocked than Lin Xiangjun.

Her writing area was just a mess of meaningless lines and ink blots. Clearly, her linguistic system had collapsed, and she couldn't even manage to write words anymore.

But the other person didn't let her off; instead, she seemed to get more addicted to the telling as she went on.

"Do you know how this was discovered? It's because he was putting those tiny hidden cameras in the girls' bathroom—the kind with memory cards. One girl was quite vigilant and noticed something was wrong before using the toilet. She checked the stall and pulled the camera down.

"There were only ten stalls in the school's girls' bathroom at the time, and that son of a * put up eleven cameras! One camera per stall, and he put another one in the boys' bathroom!"

"...Why would he monitor the boys' bathroom? Is he gay?"