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"Is that really the reason?" Xu Yiman said. "You treated Xiao Xuanmiao that way because she didn't return the clothes on time. But after you got the clothes back, you just threw them away?"
Ge Dongyun shrugged and replied nonchalantly, "Yeah, I'd rather throw the clothes away than let her wear them. What's wrong with that?"
Xu Yiman stared at Ge Dongyun, wanting to say something but ultimately remained silent.
"Alright. I have one more question for you. Do others know why you bullied Xiao Xuanmiao?" Old Shao asked.
Ge Dongyun shook her head. "They don't know. I just asked them to help me bully someone. They're all my friends, and when they heard I wanted to pick on someone, they agreed. It's that simple."
"Do they all know each other?" Old Shao inquired further.
"They don't." Ge Dongyun answered almost immediately. "To be precise, some do and some don't. The girls among us all know each other. Among the boys, Li Liangcai and Deng Xiangyu are classmates, but I don't know much about Deng Xiangyu; he came with Li Liangcai."
"As for Wang Liguo..." Ge Dongyun frowned and tapped her forehead. "I didn't inform Wang Liguo when I was looking for people, but somehow he found out and showed up."
Old Shao nodded; Ge Dongyun's words matched what Wang Liguo had said earlier. However, it seemed that Ge Dongyun had a strong aversion to Wang Liguo. Suddenly, Old Shao recalled a previous conversation with Wang Liguo where he admitted to liking Ge Dongyun.
With this in mind, Old Shao asked, "What kind of person is Wang Liguo? It seems like no one at school is friends with him."
Ge Dongyun leaned back in her chair, pondering for a moment before looking at Old Shao. "Everyone at our school knows that Wang Liguo has killed someone before. No one dared to mess with him throughout middle school or even high school, so naturally, no one wanted to be friends with him; everyone keeps their distance."
"Previously, when Wang Liguo mentioned he had killed someone, I thought he was just bluffing," Xu Yiman reminded.
Old Shao stood up and paced around the room a few times. As he walked, he said, "Guan Deng, check into what exactly Wang Liguo has done and see if he has a criminal record."
Guan Deng nodded and curled up in the corner while pulling out his phone.
Jiang He noticed a detail: Guan Deng's phone wasn't a touchscreen but a flip phone. He watched as Guan Deng flipped it open, revealing a twenty-six-key keypad below the screen. Then came the sound of rapid tapping as he began typing.
Guan Deng's attention was completely focused on his phone, utterly absorbed. At that moment, he entered a world that belonged solely to him, a world where no one else existed—only him. In this realm, Guan Deng was the king.
His fingers danced across the screen like lively sprites, moving swiftly and gracefully. Xu Yiman had no doubt that if Guan Deng hadn't become a hacker, he could have easily been an excellent pianist.
However, Guan Deng did not provide everyone with a satisfactory answer.
When his fingers finally stopped, he blushed and held the phone close to his chest, the screen displaying nothing but emptiness.
"Can't you find any record of Wang Liguo's murder?" Old Shao looked at Guan Deng.
Guan Deng nodded, his face still flushed.
Old Shao sat back down in his chair and explained to everyone, "Even for minors, committing murder will leave a record. Our country's criminal law only states that once a minor becomes an adult, they are not required to disclose their criminal history to employers. However, the police will definitely keep a record."
"Then there are only two possibilities," Shao the Elder continued. "Either Wang Liguo has never killed anyone at all, or he did kill someone but there wasn't enough evidence at the time to prove he was the murderer."
Xu Yiman added, "He's only sixteen or seventeen this year. If it was three or four years ago, he wouldn't have even turned fourteen yet. Minors under fourteen are not held criminally responsible, so it's very possible that no record was left behind."
Old Shao nodded but then shook his head. "That is indeed a possibility. However, looking at Wang Liguo's father, he doesn't seem like the type who would go out of his way to protect his child. He spends every penny he has on gambling. Still, every person involved in this case must be investigated thoroughly; all truths must be uncovered—even those from years or decades ago."
"Guan Deng, you need to start investigating this matter right away and find some clues," Shao the Elder instructed.
Guan Deng nodded.
Old Shao turned back to Ge Dongyun. "What do you know about Wang Liguo and the murder?"
Ge Dongyun ran his fingers through his short hair, sounding somewhat impatient. "I don't know much about Wang Liguo. The rumors started circulating among students from his school and then spread widely; almost all the students in our school know about it now. Some teachers have mentioned it too—saying that Wang Liguo has killed someone and we should keep our distance from him."
"Can you be more specific?" Old Shao asked again.
Ge Dongyun closed his eyes and after a while opened them again, saying, "I can't say for sure what's true or false; I can only share what I've heard from others."
He continued slowly, "What I've heard is that Wang Liguo's mother is a drug addict, and his father is a gambler. His parents never had the time or energy to take care of him. It seems they divorced long ago, but neither wanted him when they did."
"Anyway, no money was ever spent on him at home. I heard that while he was in school, he relied on bullying classmates for money and food to survive. No one dared to provoke him; he was the kind of person who would get extremely violent, as if he wanted to kill someone."
"Everyone knows that in the fourth grade, he killed a child. That kid probably didn’t give him money or food, so he just killed him." Ge Dongyun stared at Old Shao.
"How did he kill him?" Old Shao also fixed his gaze on Ge Dongyun.
Ge Dongyun replied slowly, "I heard he drowned the kid."
"Drowned?" Old Shao asked.
Ge Dongyun frowned. "That's right. I heard from others that there was a river near their school. At that time, Wang Liguo cornered the kid behind the school. No one dared to help because everyone knew Wang Liguo was not someone to mess with; they didn't want to get into trouble."
"Wang Liguo beat the kid up, but the kid was stubborn and refused to give him anything. So Wang Liguo took the kid to the riverbank. It was evening after school, and all the other students had gone home; it was just the two of them."
"Then Wang Liguo threw the kid into the water. The kid couldn’t swim but struggled to reach the shore. I heard that the river wasn’t very swift, so he managed to paddle towards the bank. But as soon as he reached it, Wang Liguo kicked him back into the water."
"The kid kept getting kicked back into the river three or four times until he was exhausted and had no strength left to swim back. Eventually, he sank slowly into the river while Wang Liguo sat by and watched him drown."
"Afterward, it seems a bystander happened to pass by and witnessed the kid sinking into the river. They hurriedly jumped in to save him. By the time the bystander got the kid out, Wang Liguo had already disappeared. But that person recognized Wang Liguo because his parents were notorious in their community."
"Then the kid was taken to the hospital but apparently didn’t make it and died. Later, police went looking for Wang Liguo's family, but somehow nothing happened to him. A week later, he was back in school as usual."
"On the other hand, that kid never returned to school again; some said he died before reaching the hospital. After that incident, everyone knew Wang Liguo was capable of murder, and no one dared to provoke him anymore. Who would dare challenge someone who could kill? At first, some brave souls tried asking Wang Liguo about it, but when he openly admitted to killing someone, no one dared ask again."
"Our middle school was divided by districts, and that school belonged to our middle school area. Many students from Wang Liguo's school ended up coming to ours, and that's how these stories spread."
After listening, Old Shao did not rush to conclusions, as most hearsay was unreliable. It was even more difficult to find clues from such rumors. However, any rumor had to have some basis; the premise of hearing the wind was that there must indeed be wind.
After a brief silence, Old Shao asked Ge Dongyun, "So how did you meet Wang Liguo?"
Ge Dongyun furrowed her brows, pinching her chin as she replied, "I can't really remember how I got to know him. I just recall that during the second half of my first year in middle school, he kept appearing in front of me without doing anything in particular."
"Do you dislike him?" Old Shao inquired further.
Ge Dongyun shook her head. "It's not that I dislike him; I just don't know him. I don't care if he has killed someone before. The issue is that some of my friends are afraid of him and don't want to be around him, so naturally, I don't have much interaction with him either. But for some inexplicable reason, he always shows up in front of me."
It was unclear whether Ge Dongyun was pretending not to understand or genuinely could not see that Wang Liguo actually liked her.
At that moment, Old Shao's phone rang.
"Not good," came the voice of Captain Liu from the other end.
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