Chapter 17 Clues

When they returned to the dormitory, Du Xiaonan was already awake. She sat on her bed, staring blankly outside. Even when the two of them entered, she showed no reaction at all.

"Xiaonan, you're awake? How are you feeling? Do you feel unwell anywhere?" Su Jin'er asked, standing by the bed.

Still, Du Xiaonan gave no response. She hugged her knees and leaned against the wall, completely motionless, like a statue.

Su Jin'er and Lin Yuan exchanged a glance. Then Su Jin'er climbed onto the bed beside Du Xiaonan.

"Xiaonan, where did you two go to investigate? What exactly happened?"

"She's here. She wants to kill us all. We're all going to die."

Her words tumbled out rapidly, like beans pouring from a bag. Her eyes were filled with fear, yet they still stared blankly ahead.

"Who? Who are you talking about?"

"She's here. Get away! Don't come looking for me!"

"Watch out!"

Suddenly, Du Xiaonan pushed Su Jin'er with all her strength, nearly knocking her off the bed. Su Jin'er had no time to brace herself.

Du Xiaonan curled into a corner, hugging her shoulders, staring fearfully out the window. But there was nothing outside. No one knew what she was seeing.

"What do we do now? In her current state, we can't get anything out of her. Qianqian has been missing for a whole day already. What if she's in danger?"

"Should we call the police?"

"Even if we do, they won't take action until 48 hours have passed. Let's first figure out what happened five years ago... and who this 'she' is that Du Xiaonan mentioned."

"But what about Xiaonan? Look at her…"

Su Jin'er turned to glance at the bed—and was shocked. Du Xiaonan was now lying down quietly, fast asleep.

"When did she fall asleep?" she asked, her voice trembling.

Lin Yuan shook her head. "I didn't even notice…"

What exactly had happened to Du Xiaonan? Why was she acting so strangely? Where had they gone that caused this?

Since Du Xiaonan was sleeping, Su Jin'er said, "Forget it. Let's focus on what happened five years ago."

They sat down and began going through the thick stack of documents.

Most of them were school records—events held, competitions joined, and so on. Not very useful. But in some of those records, Li Yiqing's name appeared. And alongside hers was another name that caught their attention: Liu Mengmeng.

From the records, Liu Mengmeng seemed to be Li Yiqing's close friend. They shared a dormitory—which meant Liu Mengmeng also lived in Room 414. But she didn't die. So where was she now? Could she know something?

"We should definitely look into this Liu Mengmeng," Su Jin'er said as she flipped through more papers.

"Jin'er, look at this!" Lin Yuan said. Su Jin'er leaned over.

"'76th class student Li Yiqing committed suicide due to academic pressure. Her best friend Liu Mengmeng, devastated by the news, fell seriously ill and withdrew from school.'"

"So Liu Mengmeng dropped out right after Li Yiqing's death. Their relationship must have been unusually close—close enough to make someone drop out of school. Something feels off here."

"And that's not all! Look—'During Liu Mengmeng's illness, another roommate, Zhuang Xiaoyan, visited her in the hospital and then returned to school and also committed suicide.' This is way too suspicious!"

"Zhuang Xiaoyan must be the second girl from Room 414 that Ouyang Chunxiao mentioned!" Su Jin'er rubbed her temples. "Why did they all kill themselves? What's the real story here?"

"Wait—this next page is torn out!" Lin Yuan frowned as she turned it.

Su Jin'er glanced over. "Someone must've taken it before we got here. That person might be the killer. Let's go find Chu Feifan."

At the pavilion.

They showed the documents to Chu Feifan and Zuo Yi.

Chu Feifan said, "Let's first organize all the clues we have. That might help us make sense of everything."

Everyone nodded in agreement.

The scent of autumn grew stronger. Most of the leaves had fallen. A few still clung to the branches, trembling in the cold wind, barely hanging on.

They began summarizing the series of strange events that had happened since they entered the school.

First, during military training, the ten of them encountered a strange woman burning something by the roadside. From her mouth, they heard a "curse"—though they still didn't know what the curse was.

Then, the first person to die, Xu Mengguang, saw a white shadow. Later, Su Jin'er heard someone crying, but no one paid attention. Zuo Yi, while finding the flag, saw a pile of white bones. And when they were about to return, they somehow got lost.

They all mysteriously fell asleep and had the same dream—except for Li Yiqian, whose dream was different. As for Xu Mengguang's dream, they had no way of knowing anymore, but they might still ask Zhang Junsheng.

"Have you ever talked to Zhang Junsheng? I feel like he's hiding something," Su Jin'er asked.

"No. After we returned to school, remember what Xu Lingling said? That she saw Xu Mengguang's body that morning?" Chu Feifan asked.

"Of course."

"Maybe she really did see his body, but by the time we got there, someone had already moved it."

"Let's figure out the details later. Right now, let's just get everything in order—I feel so confused." Lin Yuan sighed.

She wasn't the only one confused. All of them felt overwhelmed. It was as if someone had deliberately made the clues a tangled mess, preventing them from finding the truth.

"Then we returned to school. Xu Mengguang's body disappeared, then suddenly reappeared—falling from the girls' dormitory. After that, we heard knocking at our door, but no one was outside. And then there were those strange symbols on the wall, and Li Ran's death. How are all these events connected? Also—what about the monster we encountered last night?" Lin Yuan listed everything, deliberately skipping over the fact that Li Yiqian took Su Jin'er's underwear as a trade, and that Li Yiqing was her sister.

"I think Li Yiqian is suspicious. Wait—what's the relationship between the Li Yiqing who died five years ago and the Li Yiqian we know?" Zuo Yi suddenly asked.

Su Jin'er and Lin Yuan exchanged a glance. Although they were investigating this together with Chu Feifan and Zuo Yi, they still didn't know if they were truly friends or foes. So they kept some things to themselves.

Su Jin'er had no idea that this lack of trust would later lead to tragedy.

They shook their heads and replied, "Qianqian never said she knew Li Yiqing. A similar name doesn't mean they're related."

Chu Feifan and Zuo Yi nodded in agreement and said nothing. But Chu Feifan suspected they were still hiding something—and didn't want to confront them about it.

"Besides the student council president, who else has a key to the archive room?"

"What does that have to do with our case?"

"Well, some of the documents were torn out."

Everything they knew and didn't know was tangled together like a web. There was still no word from the missing Li Yiqian. And Du Xiaonan, clearly not herself, continued to sleep in the dorm. No one knew what had really happened to them.

Chu Feifan rubbed his nose and said, "So Li Yiqian is missing, and Du Xiaonan is acting strange. Maybe that's where we should start digging."

Su Jin'er brushed the windblown hair from her face. "I think so too. Lin Yuan and I went to the forest Xiaonan mentioned this morning. We found this."

She pulled a hairpin from her pocket and handed it over.

"You went to the forest this morning?"

"Yes," Lin Yuan said, watching Chu Feifan's face flush red. She remembered what they had seen in the forest and wanted to see how this handsome guy would explain it.

"Did you see anything else?" Chu Feifan's face went red, then pale.

Lin Yuan was about to speak when Su Jin'er stopped her. "Just this hairpin. I wanted to hear your thoughts."

Chu Feifan cleared his throat awkwardly. "I also thought Li Yiqian was strange. We only met her twice, but she always seemed secretive—like she was deliberately leading us toward ghost stories and superstitions."

Su Jin'er had felt the same. But knowing that Li Yiqian was seeking revenge for her sister, she thought the strange behavior might be understandable. Now, she wasn't sure if she should tell the two boys the truth. They still had no solid leads—anyone could be the killer. She couldn't let her guard down.

But why did she trust Li Yiqian so much? Didn't she secretly take her belongings and trade them with others?

Seeing Su Jin'er fall silent, Chu Feifan instinctively rubbed his nose and said, "Let's find Zhang Junsheng. Maybe he'll tell us something useful."

"You think we haven't tried? He refuses to say anything—just keeps warning us to stop investigating, says it's not good for us," Lin Yuan said with a pout.

Zuo Yi suddenly stood up. "Heh! That just makes me more curious. The more he wants us to stop, the more I want to keep digging. Let's go talk to him now." Then he bent down, speaking in a mysterious tone:

"And let's look into your roommate, Du Xiaonan, too."

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