"Hey, where's my phone?" Chi Bo looked surprised as he tried to take out his phone to take a picture of Widow's Castle but couldn't find it anywhere.
The people he was with stopped and asked, "What's wrong?"
"I think I've lost my phone." After searching all over his body and not finding it, Chi Bo finally started to panic. Can modern people live without their phones?
"Lost your phone? Where did you lose it?"
"I don't know. It was still there when I left this morning. I took pictures of the peach blossom tree before." Although he knew that no one could see inside without a password, Chi Bo was still a little panicked. Everyone has a side they don't want others to see, and he was no exception. His other side was hidden in his phone.
Blackie thought for a moment: "Don't worry, it probably fell on the road. Let's go back and look for it now."
Widow's Castle isn't that big, and apart from horror enthusiasts, no one else was particularly interested. So they said, "There's nothing much to see here anyway, let's go back and look around. If you can't find anything, go back and apply to freeze your account."
That's all we can do now," Chi Bo nodded.
The boys split into two groups: one continued along the route, while the other, who weren't really interested, went back to help Chi Bo find his phone. They searched slowly in the direction they had come from.
They searched slowly, chatting to pass the time as they searched.
We've already graduated, and we'll all be going our separate ways from now on. There are so many things I want to know, and I can't help but ask them now.
Their conversation escalated, ranging from who had stuck chewing gum in whose book to who was secretly dating whom. Suddenly, Liu Jinjie asked, "Do you guys still remember Han Feifei?"
The group stopped what they were doing and looked at Liu Jinjie with surprise, wondering why he had asked that question.
The name Han Feifei is taboo in their class. Mentioning it in class will get you called a "crazy person".
"I don't know why, but I've suddenly been thinking about that name these past couple of days, and it's made me feel a bit down." Liu Jinjie scratched his head. "I'm wondering if we've really misunderstood her?"
Han Feifei was pure and sweet, a different type from the school beauty Xiang Xue, and many people in the class had a crush on her. So at first, when they said she was promiscuous and dating outsiders, many people didn't believe it until it was finally confirmed to be true.
Chi Bo's face was slightly pale, but he still calmly said, "You're overthinking it. Haven't you been sleeping well these past two days?"
The other two boys shared this view: "If we misunderstood her, why didn't she say so? She's simply chosen to be depraved. She's already done it, why can't she say it?"
"Perhaps I'm just overthinking it." Seeing that they all thought so, Liu Jinjie suppressed the vague sense of foreboding in his heart.
They searched all the way from Widow's Castle to the guesthouse where they started, but they couldn't find their phone; instead, they found a pack of cigarettes.
The pack of cigarettes was lying on the roadside, and Chi Bo was the first to spot it.
Having been tormented by his nicotine cravings all day, Chi Bo couldn't resist any longer. He looked around to make sure no one was watching, then bent down, picked up the cigarette, and stuffed it into his pocket: Was it Jiang Shaobo's? Oh well, never mind.
"Chibo." At that moment, a girl came out of the guesthouse and called out to him, "Did you drop your phone? The one with XX sports star on the back?"
"You found it?" Chi Bo was overjoyed.
"Yes, I saw it on the road ahead. I've already left it at the front desk for you. Go get it yourself."
"Did it fall on the road?" Chi Bo felt something was off; he remembered his phone was still there when he walked this road. But after thinking about it for a while, he couldn't find anything particularly unusual, so he put his doubts aside.
Anyway, it's good that the phone can be found.
A few boys went inside. As they passed Ren Yifei, who was sitting on a tree stump playing on his phone, he sat there like a shadow.
"Are you crazy?" Liu Jinjie cursed, then they went to the front desk to retrieve their phones. Chi Bo turned on his phone; nothing had changed. He then turned it off again: "Are we still going over there?"
"I'm not going. I just want to lie down until they call me."
"Yeah, it's so boring here."
After making their decision, the boys prepared to return to their rooms. They passed Ren Yifei again; though they couldn't see his expression through his glasses, they sensed a kind of oppressive aura surrounding him. Liu Jinjie snorted irritably and headed towards his room.
Hei Pi and Chi Bo's rooms were next to each other. Hei Pi went in first, and Chi Bo closed the door behind him.
The door slammed shut, and as soon as he entered the room, Chi Bo grabbed his lighter and went into the bathroom.
"Going to the toilet?" Dark-skinned man asked him.
"I found two leftovers in my pocket. I'll deal with those first."
He took out the cigarettes he had picked up on the road; they were even brand-name cigarettes, in soft packs: "This is fucking a treat."
Chi Bo skillfully tore open the foil packaging on the left side, made an opening, patted it, and poured out two sticks.
He took one and noticed it was a bit heavier than his usual cigarettes. But he didn't think much of it, lit it, put it in his mouth, took a satisfying deep drag, and then exhaled a cloud of smoke through his nose. He felt so relaxed that his entire face and brows relaxed, and he looked serene.
Outside the house, on a wooden bench in the small courtyard, Ren Yifei held his phone, his fingertips coated with a layer of clear nail polish, his eyes fixed on a silent video on the screen.
In the video, a girl with her clothes torn and her body exposed is huddled in a corner. She has been splashed with dirty paint, and murky sewage drips down her fair skin.
A foot appeared in the corner of the video, kicking her—in her stomach, thigh, and head.
The video had no sound, but he knew what the people in it were saying because he had already seen it once.
"...You slut! You pretend to be so innocent, but you're just a whore who sleeps with anyone! I thought you were so hard to get, but do you think a cup of milk tea is enough to get you to sleep with me?"
"I've heard that you art students are all very outgoing, and one man isn't enough, you need several?"
...
Ren Yifei also knew that the man outside the video then urinated on the girl in the corner, subjecting her to extreme humiliation. Finally, he threatened her, telling her not to tell anyone, or else the entire school, no, the whole world, would be admiring her body.
Having always lived in an ivory tower, this overly innocent girl didn't know how to protect herself. Faced with the world's malice, the only path she saw was death.
Sitting on the toilet, Chi Bo puffed on his cigarette, quickly finishing it before flicking the butt down the toilet and flushing it away. He then took out a second one. The cigarette tasted a bit strange, but it wasn't his usual brand, so it was normal.
After a day of thirst, his body relaxed completely when he smelled the familiar scent of nicotine. Chi Bo squinted, finally remembering his lost phone.
"Girls are definitely more meticulous than boys." Chi Bo thought with some satisfaction as he looked at the shiny phone's contact surface. There used to be his fingerprints on it, but now they were all wiped clean.
He always believed that women should be docile and gentle, and that they should be able to tolerate even a little ugliness.
With his phone battery half full, Chi Bo glanced at it and figured it could last a while longer, so he skillfully opened a certain adult website.
"Damn, a dragon and two phoenixes, mother and daughter double sex!" Chi Bo's nostrils flared, his breathing rapid, and a white ring appeared with each puff of his cigarette.
There were some noises coming from the restroom that most people would understand. Blackie didn't smoke, and the smell of smoke coming from under the door already bothered him, so this was too much for him. He stood up and walked out.
"Hmm?" Ren Yifei was nowhere to be seen outside. It was unclear whether he had gone out or returned to the house. Hei Pi only saw Liu Jinjie standing in the yard.
"What are you doing here? I was just about to ask you to play a game."
"It's too stuffy inside, I came out to get some fresh air." Liu Jinjie's gaze swept over the wooden stool, and he felt inexplicably irritated.
Liu Jinjie didn't know why he got angry just looking at this person; he wasn't usually such an impolite person. But from the first moment he saw this top student who had transferred schools, he started to dislike him.
It was an indescribable emotion that made Liu Jinjie dislike him, yet she didn't want to completely offend him.
"I've already graduated anyway," he thought.
At the same time, next door to Liu Jinjie.
"Hiss—" Standing in his room, Ren Yifei slowly peeled off the nail polish on his finger, tore it into pieces, and threw it into the toilet.
Looking at the bits of nail polish floating inside, he thought of a series of events that had happened before.
When he encountered Hei Pi and the others, he deliberately provoked them and then took Chi Bo's phone.
Afterwards, Ren Yifei returned to the guesthouse, ate his meal as if nothing had happened, and then went back to his room. Using his computer, he temporarily bypassed the password and copied a lot of videos, photos, and other data from the other party's phone.
After that, he went out for a while, left his phone on the road, and then dropped bait at the entrance of the guesthouse.
The original owner had done a lot of preparation, so Ren Yifei saved a lot of steps. He only needed to get the other party to take the cigarettes to be considered successful.
There were no security cameras inside the guesthouse, but for safety reasons, he still left his cigarette on the only path he would take before entering the guesthouse.
Since the other people don't smoke and the driver stayed in the guesthouse, there's a high probability that Chi Bo will pick up the pack of cigarettes. Even if it wasn't Chi Bo who picked it up, but someone else, given their 'friendship,' the cigarettes would end up in Chi Bo's hands anyway.
Of course, nothing in this world is 100% certain, so Ren Yifei was prepared for the possibility of failure. In that case, he might look for another solution.
They fabricated and publicized the younger sister's situation, causing both physical and psychological harm to the victim, yet escaped punishment due to 'insufficient evidence' and were able to continue attending school.
"Chibo." He silently murmured the name, then took off his glasses. His dark eyes seemed to be covered by frosted glass, deep and unreflective, unable to reflect any light.
So, who would be the person who revealed this to Chi Bo and then escaped unscathed?
This person must know Chi Bo very well, knowing his unrequited love and his psychological issues. This person must also know his younger sister well, knowing her harmlessness and naivety, her weakness and helplessness.
In her younger sister's posts, she always played with Xiangxue and Xiaomin, and Xiangxue, like her, was an art student preparing to go to art school.
Ren Yifei guessed that they were not only friends, but also roommates. Roommates have a natural advantage; they can quickly get along and become friends, or even best friends.
In the class group chat, all student ID numbers are arranged alphabetically by the first letter of their surnames. Their student ID numbers were reassigned after the class division, so the numbers are consecutive. The younger sister's name is Han Feifei, and her last name starts with the letter H.
Between He Xiangxue and Jiang Min, there is a missing student ID number, which corresponds to the surname H.
Generally, schools assign dorm rooms based on student ID numbers. So they were indeed roommates.
Excluding the quiet, academically gifted student who doesn't interact with others, the only two people left who had the opportunity to know about this and reveal it to Chi Bo were Xiang Xue and Xiao Min.
Xiangxue is the school beauty, and she has always maintained a good public image. Even when facing Xia Chuan, an unpopular classmate, she would ask with concern, "Are you carsick?"
Such a smart girl, even if she wanted to tell others, wouldn't leave any evidence against her.
Xiaomin, on the other hand, has always presented herself as "carefree" and "guileless," and gets along well with all the boys. It would be perfectly understandable if someone like that accidentally let something slip one day.
"Let's confirm with Chi Bo."
He pressed the flush button and watched the skin flakes being swept away by the water.
Amidst the rushing sound of the flushing water, he slowly raised his head, his androgynous face, devoid of glasses, frozen in a deathly stillness.
What would an ordinary person do if faced with such a dead end?
Sadness, the sadness of refusing to accept reality.
Anger stems from the inability to change the situation.
Pain is the pain of repeatedly struggling with loss and being wounded all over.
"And revenge." A smile slowly appeared on the face in the mirror. Some people are paranoid, crazy, and like to retaliate in kind; they are born evil.