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Chapter 154: The Story Becomes Reality (Part Two)
She was so frightened that she fell to the ground. Wang Xiangxiang's death confirmed her thoughts. She originally believed that if Zhuo Xiaoman did not commit suicide, then the next person to die would be Hao Hongtao. However, she never expected it would be Zhuo Xiaoman's best friend, and in such a manner. She was now certain that someone was using Zhuo Xiaoman's story to kill, but what was this person's motive?
Captain Xing, puzzled by Zhuo Xiaoman's suicide, had been conducting a secret investigation at the school. Upon hearing of another death, he quickly rushed over.
The police and forensic experts arrived shortly after. The body was dragged out; she had died from fright, her pupils clearly dilated, indicating she must have seen something terrifying before her death.
Su Jin'er stared blankly at her twisted arm, which resembled the arm of the Paper Man she had seen the night before, twisted as if it had been turned three hundred sixty degrees.
The forensic expert picked up her arm and discovered that the bone was broken, as if it had been forcibly twisted. The bone protruded through the skin, and the blood had already congealed into a black color.
"She has been dead for over ten hours," the forensic expert said.
"Do you know the exact time?" Captain Xing asked.
They had seen her last night; it should have been after nine o'clock in the evening, and now it was eight in the morning. So it was not yet twelve hours. If it truly had been over ten hours, it should have been within twelve hours.
"If I am not mistaken, she likely died yesterday afternoon," the forensic expert said.
"What? We saw her last night!" Ruan Hongmei exclaimed in surprise.
"Who told you to be here? Get out," the forensic expert glared at Ruan Hongmei and scolded.
"It's fine; let them stay!" Before Ruan Hongmei could speak further, Captain Xing interjected.
Ruan Hongmei wrinkled her nose at the forensic expert and said, "Right! You must be mistaken; we saw her last night!"
"Impossible. The livor mortis on her body is already very evident, and the blood on her arm has congealed into black. Didn't you smell anything foul?"
There was indeed a foul smell, but a corpse that had been dead for over ten hours would not emit just this little odor. Moreover, didn't anyone in their dormitory notice it?
Su Jin'er stepped out of the dormitory, where another girl was standing outside, trembling.
"Did she stay in the dorm last night?" Su Jin'er asked, pointing at the corpse on the ground.
"I don't know. I went to bed early last night. I vaguely heard someone crying around ten o'clock, but I was so tired that I didn't pay much attention and quickly fell asleep again."
"Didn't you smell anything?"
"The bathroom in our dorm has been broken for the past few days, so there's been a bad smell coming from it. Even if there was another smell, we wouldn't have noticed."
The girl was shaking continuously, but compared to the other girl, she seemed relatively brave.
"Is your relationship with her not good?"
"Well, there are four of us in the dorm. I have a good relationship with the girl who fainted, while Wang Xiangxiang and Zhuo Xiaoman get along well. Since Xiaoying and Zhuo Xiaoman had a fight, our relationships became tense, and we hardly spoke even though we were in the same dorm."
Su Jin'er nodded. "Why did they argue?"
"Because—because of Hao Hongtao."
Su Jin'er frowned. "Can you elaborate?"
The girl seemed stunned; she didn't even realize that it was Su Jin'er asking her questions instead of the police, so she answered all of her inquiries.
"Xiaoying and Hao Hongtao were high school classmates, and Xiaoying has always liked Hao Hongtao. They promised to be a couple when they got to university. However, once they arrived at university, he met Zhuo Xiaoman and fell for her. Because of this, Xiaoying didn't like Zhuo Xiaoman very much, which led to their argument. After that, Xiaoying never spoke to Hao Hongtao again."
Was it love again?
"What about her relationship with Zhuo Xiaoman? Do they often argue?"
"No, Xiaoying has a strong personality. She knows that the person she likes has fallen for someone else, and that someone is her roommate. Although she feels angry and resentful, Xiaoying is not unreasonable. She simply told Zhuo Xiaoman that they are strangers and shouldn't talk to each other, so they don't speak in the dormitory."
"What was her reaction after Zhuo Xiaoman died?" Su Jin'er knew this question was pointless, but she asked anyway.
"She was very calm, neither sad nor happy. However, on the afternoon of Zhuo Xiaoman's death, she sat alone in the dormitory for a long time."
Su Jin'er didn't ask anything further but turned to look at Captain Xing beside her, wanting to know if he had any insights.
He shook his head.
The police inside were still collecting evidence and taking photos.
Afterward, the police took the body away, while Captain Xing stayed behind. He just told them to report to him immediately once the Autopsy Report was out, and then hurriedly left the girls' dormitory. Since they had just woken up and hadn't washed up yet, they all returned to their rooms. Su Jin'er remained silent; she found it hard to understand. If the Killer really killed according to that story, then Hao Hongtao should have been the one dead. Killing Wang Xiangxiang seemed illogical.
"Jin'er, what are you thinking about? You’re not trying to create a flood in the girls' dormitory, are you?" Ruan Hongmei said as she turned off the faucet and looked at the dazed Su Jin'er.
She glanced down and realized that water had already overflowed from the sink. Feeling embarrassed, she smiled lightly, wiped her hands, and walked out.
"What's wrong?" Ruan Hongmei followed her outside.
She shook her head and said, "I just feel like this incident might be related to what happened last night. You saw Wang Xiangxiang's body; her arm was broken and twisted. That twisting is similar to what I saw with that Paper Man last night."
Right, the Paper Man—the one she brought back yesterday. She had kicked it under the bed with plans to throw it away at night but forgot because of Chu Feifan's incident. Thinking of this, she bent down to retrieve it for disposal but found nothing under the bed.
"Hongmei, did you throw away that Paper Man?"
"No! Didn't you kick it under the bed?"
"But it's gone now." Her voice trembled slightly. She hadn't discarded it, Ruan Hongmei hadn't discarded it either, and the Paper Man couldn't have just run away on its own. Where could it have gone?
Next, the two of them searched the entire dormitory but still couldn't find the Paper Man. It couldn't have vanished into thin air, or perhaps the administrator had come in and taken it away. However, the school had regulations that prohibited administrators from entering students' rooms without permission.
Could it be that the Paper Man left on its own?
How could that be possible?
She was startled by her own thoughts, but the Paper Man was indeed missing. How could this be explained?
The two sat on the bed, staring at each other.
After a long while, Ruan Hongmei suddenly said, "Jin'er, I'm really scared. Can we just forget about this? I feel like this situation is really serious."
"Why?"
"Because my grandfather once said that the Paper Man is used for burying the dead. If you hadn't just held onto that Paper Man the night before last, I would never have let it into the dormitory. Associating with things related to the dead is not a good thing. My grandfather also said that you shouldn't touch things belonging to the dead, let alone desecrate them. I didn't manage to stop you yesterday morning before you kicked it with your foot. I'm... I'm sorry!"
As she spoke, she began to cry. Su Jin'er hadn't thought much of it and wasn't superstitious; she never believed in such things.
She smiled slightly and said, "It's fine. Don't be too superstitious. In rural areas, when someone dies, aren't there people holding onto those Paper Men and paper horses? They haven't encountered any problems, right? Don't overthink it."
She reached out to wipe away Ruan Hongmei's tears.
"I don't want to believe it either, but now that the Paper Man is missing, how can we explain this? And what about what you saw the night before last? Are you going to say you were seeing things?"
Ruan Hongmei's words left her speechless. She sat there in a daze; there was indeed no way to explain what had happened that night. Or could it be that the Paper Man was hollow inside? After she fainted, someone inside could have crawled out, placed the Paper Man in their arms, and then left.
"Hongmei, let's not scare ourselves over things we aren't sure about. None of us have seen those dirty things, so we can't confirm their existence. I've heard that if a certain magnetic field is created around a person's brain, it can give a very real feeling. The British once conducted research that confirmed this phenomenon."
"But there are indeed some things that science cannot explain! Like fortune-telling, they can be surprisingly accurate!" Ruan Hongmei remembered her grandfather once saying that she would meet a girl, and some strange things would happen around this girl. She had almost forgotten about it, but after getting to know Su Jin'er, she realized her grandfather was right. However, to avoid scaring Su Jin'er, she didn't tell her.
"Those are just scams; I don't really believe in them."
"But my grandfather said I would meet a girl, and strange things would happen to her. I didn't believe it at first, but after meeting you, I realized he was talking about you."
Su Jin'er frowned.
"And I know you're not a non-believer; you just don't want to believe. Otherwise, what is that on your wrist? The moment I saw those prayer beads, I knew they were for warding off evil." Ruan Hongmei said as she grabbed her wrist.
"That's right; these are the prayer beads my grandmother got for me. But I wear them not because I believe in such things, but because I don't want to upset my grandmother. Eventually, I just got used to it."
"How long do you plan to keep lying to yourself? You actually do believe in it; why deceive yourself?" Ruan Hongmei exclaimed.
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