Chen Shi and Lin Dongxue exchanged looks, and Chen Shi asked over the phone, “What's your name?”

“Cao Lijuan.”

“Cao Lijuan, can we come and see you now? We want to know more about the situation.”

“Ah? It's so late...”

Lin Dongxue beckoned with her finger for the phone, and then said, “Little Sister, we just wanted to find out about some past events. We won’t take too long.”

“Okay, there's a cafe near my house. We can just meet there!”

After writing down the address, the two drove over. Lin Dongxue said on the road, “Wang Sunxu killed Boss Xu and forced him to call and apologize. I think Boss Xu may not be a gentleman after all.”

“My thoughts are the same,” Chen Shi agreed.

The two arrived at the coffee shop. A young girl in white stood at the door and waved at them. Cao Lijuan was surprised when she saw Lin Dongxue and exclaimed, “Wow, are you also a police officer? Elder Sister is so beautiful.”

Lin Dongxue smiled and said, “Let's go sit inside.”

The three walked into the cafe and ordered three drinks. Chen Shi had already discussed it with Lin Dongxue on the way and had decided to tell her about the death of Teacher Xu. So Lin Dongxue said, “The reason why we are looking for you is because Teacher Xu was murdered this morning.”

“What?!” Cao Lijuan was surprised.

After explaining the situation, Cao Lijuan said, “The person who killed him is Wang Sunxu, right?”

“How did you guess that?”

“After what happened back then, I guessed that one day it would end up like this.” Cao Lijuan said with a neutral face while holding a coffee cup.

“Tell me what happened back then!”

“What do you think of Teacher Xu?”

“Kind, upright, and caring with his students... This was the first impression he gave me.”

“Yes, this was the way he was in front of people. The whole world has been fooled by him. Teacher Xu always chooses the students who are the most disliked in the class to show concern about. Like a caring big brother, he had a book that recorded each student’s birthdays, preferences, and family backgrounds. At that time, because of my poor family, I was laughed at and bullied in class. Teacher Xu appeared like an angel, but later I realized that he was actually a demon!

“He was a man who was good at portraying himself as someone polite and weak. His words always made people believe him. Even if he was wrong, you would still think that he had his reasons or personal difficulties. We have a few in our class, including me who often went to see Teacher Xu after school. He would help us with our homework, especially before the exams. He would let us do ‘mock’ exams. Those exam papers contained questions from the exam. We thought it was Teacher Xu's way of caring for us. Sometimes, Teacher Xu would call us over to the dormitory to talk about the troubles we were facing at school. He liked to listen to music, and he listened to all kinds of artistic songs. Influenced by him, I once liked to listen to Pu Shu and Xu Wei[1]. Later, whenever I heard their songs, I would feel like vomiting.

“For a while, I found out that he often called a girl student over to the dormitory to stay until late at night. Out of curiosity, I once secretly listened to what they were talking about outside the door, but I could only hear those sounds. That is, men and women...”

“I understand!” Lin Dongxue said.

“Do you think that sleeping with students was his biggest secret? Compared to what he did to us, that was nothing at all. One day, Teacher Xu called me to come over to his dormitory. I’ve already forgotten what he said to me but his expression was a bit scary that day, and I was so scared that I said I was going home, but he pushed me down onto the bed and started to take off my clothes... After the incident, he repeatedly hinted that I shouldn’t say anything to anyone about it. If I did, he would use all the connections he had to make me drop out of school. At that time, I was already in the third year of junior middle school and my family was very poor. If I had dropped out at that time, I might never be able go to school again.

“I thought a lot about it. Why did he rape me? What did I do wrong? Or what did I do that made him dissatisfied? Or did he like me? Even then, I was still thinking that he must have had a reason, but later, from Wang Sunxu, I found out everything. You should know the family background of Wang Sunxu, right? His brother was a murderer, and all the teachers and his classmates avoided him. Only Teacher Xu cared about him, but in fact Teacher Xu was using him, and he asked Wang Sunxu to do something for him...”

Cao Lijuan's eyes were already moist. She wiped them and said, “There was a boy in the class and all of his family members were senior officials. Teacher Xu wanted to become acquainted with his family and transfer to a better school with their help but he was instead humiliated. In resentment, Teacher Xu got Wang Sunxu to deliberately knock over the sulfuric acid bottle in the chemistry class and hurt the boy. Due to this incident, Wang Sunxu almost dropped out of school and things only finally calmed down after the police got involved. Six months later, Teacher Xu and several others were competing for the position of teaching director. He thought of Wang Sunxu as his 'loyal servant', so he secretly instructed Wang Sunxu to harm another teacher. The other teacher almost died, but he didn’t expect that the teacher would become the teaching director anyway.

“Teacher Xu was very angry and felt that Wang Sunxu was not performing his duties properly. He said to him, 'You disappointed Teacher. Teacher will have to punish you so that you can really grow!' His punishment was me. Wang Sunxu secretly loved me, so Teacher Xu raped me, took pictures and showed it to Wang Sunxu... “

Lin Dongxue widened her eyes in shock.

Cao Lijuan tried her best to restrain her tears and went on to say, “Until Teacher Xu was reported to have sexually assaulted someone and left school, I was still investigating his affairs. He had been manipulating those poor students with gentle words and hints for them to do all sorts of things like invading other teachers' privacy, starting rumors in school, and harming top students, etc. Those undervalued students willingly acted as chess pieces for him in order to receive his attention, and he sat like a spider sitting in a web, secretly manipulating everything. I later learned that during Teacher Xu's tenure, many things that happened in school were all related to him, including a girl who committed suicide by jumping from a building. He was simply a demon. Unfortunately, he can only die once. I really wish that he had a hundred lives so that every student he harmed could kill him once!”

Lin Dongxue and Chen Shi finally understood why Teacher Xu was stabbed more than 90 times by Wang Sunxu. When they closed their eyes, they could almost see that Wang Sunxu's eyes were tearful and his teeth clenched as he madly abused Teacher Xu’s body.

Cao Lijuan looked down at her mobile phone, and there was silence at the table. Lin Dongxue didn't know what else to ask or say.

Chen Shi said, “Little Sister, how is your relationship with Wang Sunxu?”

“So-so, but later I found out that he liked me. Maybe I started paying more attention to him... But we didn't associate with each other and we didn't contact each other after graduation.”

“Did he not come to see you today?”

Lin Dongxue was surprised; she tugged his clothes underneath to suggest that he should not ask such questions.

Cao Lijuan looked up in surprise and Chen Shi looked at her with sharp eyes, “After taking care of Teacher Xu, the person that he must wish to contact the most is you. Have you received unfamiliar messages via phone or email?”

After a half-minute of silence, Cao Lijuan said, “He went to my house!”

1. Actual popular Chinese singers.