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墨書 Inktalez
The girl was known as Angel. Her original name was not Angel; she had a very ordinary name from the countryside. Angel was a name she gave herself, derived from the English word "angel," meaning a messenger or a being with wings. She believed that angels could fly out of the mountains and see the world beyond.
However, she never imagined that the world was far from the beautiful tales she had heard. Before she could even take flight, her wings were broken by someone she had never wronged—her classmate. She couldn't understand what she had done to deserve such treatment or why others would act this way toward her.
The Young Man from the Flower Tea House knew about this incident because he was the one who saved Angel that day. At that time, he was just a young boy in his first year of middle school, and in front of so many people, he didn’t dare to step forward immediately. Even now, he felt a deep sense of guilt.
I patted his shoulder, signaling him that he didn’t need to blame himself. For those indifferent people, he had already done enough. No one should be criticized for not rushing to help immediately, nor should anyone nitpick at the actions of those who do good simply because they made mistakes. The fact that he stood up at all was commendable.
He had taken off his cotton jacket and draped it over Angel before rescuing her from the bare flagpole. At thirteen, it was the first time he had seen a woman cry so desperately. The sight left him utterly stunned; he didn’t know how to react.
That night, Angel declared it would be her last time crying. She vowed that she would never let anyone bully her again. At fifteen, Angel experienced the world's cruelty for the first time. After saying this, she pulled out the stick that had been used against her and walked away wearing the Young Man's jacket.
In later years, the Young Man often recalled that silhouette.
He didn’t know what attitude Angel’s family had when she returned home; all he knew was that he never saw her in class again. Life continued as usual for everyone else. After Angel’s downfall, there were no more top students in their class—only those who wasted their days away, turning into a group of failures.
Now, these failures worked at the bottom of society, doing whatever they could to survive while completely forgetting how they once were in their youth. Eight years later, when Angel and the Young Man met again, she shared what happened after she left that day.
Angel had always been a strong person—not in body but in spirit. In an environment where everyone else slacked off, only Angel persisted in her studies despite being treated poorly. She still dreamed of one day leaving her village.
If it hadn’t been for that incident, perhaps Angel could have endured it; no, maybe even after it happened, she could have endured it. But losing her clothes and being assaulted with a stick made it impossible to hide from her parents. When she returned home, Angel didn’t cry or panic; instead, she told her parents everything that had happened.
She thought that if she acted as if nothing mattered, her parents would allow her to continue studying. However, after the incident, instead of seeking justice from the school or reporting it to the police or condemning those responsible, her parents lashed out at their own daughter. They called her a disgrace and questioned why it happened to her instead of someone else.
Angel felt utterly hopeless because she believed she hadn’t done anything wrong. If loving to learn was considered a fault, then indeed she had been gravely mistaken. As a victim, hearing her own parents call her names while receiving no support from school or classmates left her feeling abandoned; ultimately, she was expelled from school.
What is a person's life really like? We all know that no one's life is smooth sailing, and that most of a person's life is filled with sorrow. But when faced with such circumstances, who is to blame? Did Angel make a mistake? Where did the majority of those students who willingly fell into depravity learn such values?
We do not know what kind of feelings Angel experienced during those days, nor do we know what happened to her over the past ten years. It had been eight years since Young Man last saw Angel. Eight years later, Angel gave Young Man the cotton jacket she had worn eight years ago.
The jacket was well-preserved, and upon seeing it, Young Man couldn't help but cry. His academic performance was average, yet he understood who was right and who was wrong in that school. However, reality made him realize that often in this world, there is no clear distinction between good and evil. When there are many people, evil becomes good; when there are few, good becomes evil.
Eight years later, Angel candidly told Young Man that she had become a prostitute—one of those who sell themselves. She spoke so casually, as if sharing that she had pizza for lunch, as if it were not a significant matter at all.
This was not how Angel's life was supposed to be. A person's life cannot be rewritten, but if ten years ago she hadn't gone through those experiences, if she had been born into a relatively affluent family, if the teachers had stepped in to stop the violence immediately, if her parents had been more open-minded—would Angel have had a different life and walked a different path?
We can make assumptions, but they remain just that—assumptions. Now, Angel has become an accomplice to Guo Guoqing, someone willing to do anything for money. Could this possibly be unrelated to her past experiences? At this point, Young Man's eyes turned red as tears streamed down his face.
He said to us, "You know, I liked Angel since the first year of middle school. She was different from others; she had a unique charm. That's why I always paid attention to her. But I never expected what happened later. I would wake up from dreams in shock. If only I had stood up to stop them that night, those people might not have dared to act like that, and Angel might not have been harmed."
"But I was cowardly; I was weak; I didn't dare to stand up." As Young Man continued speaking through his tears, he said, "Then eight years later, Angel said she became a prostitute and made a lot of money. But the Angel I knew wasn't like that; she was the quiet girl who studied hard—not a prostitute."
I truly found it hard to respond to Young Man's words and could only pat his shoulder. I rubbed my temples with my fingers and closed my eyes. What could I say? What difference would it make? The situation has developed to this point today; although we all know it must have affected her—she was a good person before she turned fifteen. But now she has become an accomplice to a murderer.
When someone stays in darkness for too long, they inevitably become part of it.
Young Man continued: "She said that before she turned fifteen, her parents supported her. Regardless of whether they wanted to or not, that fact couldn't be changed. So after she turned fourteen, she supported her parents for fifteen years. After those fifteen years passed, whether her parents were poor or rich, alive or dead—it no longer mattered to her."
"But after that incident, she never came back again. Eight years later, somehow she got my phone number and contacted me, asking me to send money to her parents every month. This year marks the second year; her parents have always taken the money without ever asking about her."
Young Man sighed and said: "Well, that's basically how things are now. A good girl has ended up like this... I can't bear to think about it; every time I remember it feels like I'm dreaming. And none of those people faced any punishment for what they did. The reason I'm telling you this is because you are police officers—does what happened back then still count?"
Looking at Young Man's expression, I truly felt reluctant to tell him that even if Angel reported those people now, it would likely be futile. They were all under sixteen at the time of the incident; moreover, ten years have passed since then. Even if an investigation were initiated now, these individuals would only spend a few days in court at most—what good would that do?
But how could I bear to say those words?
I remained silent, not responding, and simply asked lightly, "So now, can you contact Angel?"
"I don't know," the Young Man replied. "She prepared a year's worth of money a few months ago for me to give to her parents monthly and on time, and after that, I lost contact with her. She came by yesterday and asked if I had been giving the money on time. When I asked her why she didn't tell me her phone number, she didn't answer."
"We might not be from the same world anymore," the Young Man said with a sigh.
I nodded. What the four drivers had said aligned with this, and Boss Huang had mentioned that Angel changed her phone number later on. But where could Angel be now? I continued to ask, "Did she have any favorite places to go, or is there anything else we could talk about?"
After pondering for a moment, the Young Man said, "If we're talking about places Angel liked to go, there is one. But it's been ten years now, so I don't know if she still goes there. Before she turned fifteen, I often watched her go out alone on weekends to read, right on the grass under White Sand Bridge."
"Sometimes she'd come out at noon and stay for the whole afternoon. I'd watch her from a distance; at that time, she really looked like an angel. While reading, she'd sometimes furrow her brow and sometimes smile with her silver teeth showing. At times she'd secretly wipe away tears and at other times burst into laughter. It seemed like she was happy for the protagonist in the book but also cried for them..."
"She looked just like an angel..."
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