Student 37

Watching Xu Yuan let out a bone-chilling howl at his own photograph, an indescribable sense of strangeness crossed everyone's faces.

The two police officers gripping Xu Yuan’s shoulders looked up, and as their eyes met, they saw the same shock reflected in each other. Fortunately, Xu Yuan had no spare attention to observe their reactions.

Captain Feng held up the crumpled photo, let out a long sigh, and sat back down. His voice was filled with a sincere desire to have a heart-to-heart talk: "Tell me about it—the justice you were seeking. Say whatever comes to mind; we have plenty of time."

Captain Feng gestured for the two officers to ease their grip as Xu Yuan’s mood seemed to stabilize. They complied, though they remained on high alert, standing on either side of the hospital bed, ready to restrain him should he erupt again. Xu Yuan remained calm.

Captain Feng slapped the photo onto the nightstand. "Start with this person."

Xu Yuan lay flat, only then feeling a dull ache in his left hand. The dense, prickling sensation of pain gave him a grounding sense of being alive. Most of the time, he had been forced to swallow his grievances and suppress his emotions; now that he finally had an audience, he found himself unsure of how to list those long, drawn-out torments. Anything he said felt insipid, like begging for a meager scrap of pity—a futile effort with a predictable outcome.

Yet, as if driven by some strange impulse, he began to speak.

"Our middle school dormitory housed four people. From the first day I moved in, the other three didn't like me. But the one who first turned on me wasn't Liang Yizheng; it was this little bastard in the photo.

"After lights out at night, he would say I was polluting the air. He’d lock me out on the balcony, forbidding me from coming back in and ordering me to stay perfectly quiet. I would stand outside the glass sliding door holding my washbasin, and he would poke his head out from under the covers, laughing at me incessantly. I never understood why he laughed."

Xu Yuan’s face, pale as if dusted with white ash, stared out with hollow, lifeless eyes. His speech was slow and steady, as if he were recounting something mundane. "My compliance and my roommates' tacit approval only fueled his desire to torment me. Once he realized I was isolated and had no one to turn to, he would secretly use my toothbrush to scrub the toilet, throw my quilt into puddles, push me into trash heaps on purpose, and lead the class in humiliating and beating me."

Xu Yuan licked the dead skin on his lips and recited as if reading from a script: "I developed a high tolerance for this kind of psychological torture. Because I didn't wail in agony or shrink away in shame, nobody noticed I was being subjected to abnormal ostracization. Even the teachers simply assumed I was shameless and incorrigible. When they walked past me, they would exaggerate by covering their noses and mouths, loudly asking the students around me how they could stand the stench on my body, repeatedly mentioning the need for ventilation in the classroom, which would trigger echoes and gossip from everyone else. Sometimes, if they were in a bad mood, they would just find an excuse to banish me from the classroom entirely."

"I thought at the time that I should be strong and avoid causing more trouble for others. Reflecting on it later, perhaps it was this cold, detached reaction of mine that disappointed them. What they wanted to hear were the cries and pleas of someone they considered inferior."

When Xu Yuan spoke of these things, there should have been a deep, soul-searing pain, but in reality, there was only an eerie, world-weary calm. He was like an entirely different person from the youth who had been flying into rages just moments before.

Xu Yuan curled the corner of his mouth, remaining motionless as he dutifully recited: "Twisted malice dons the armor of justice and wields a butcher's knife, aiming it at a weak prey."

Everyone held their breath, feeling only waves of chilling cold. It was as if the person sitting before them was not Xu Yuan, but a wandering soul from an unknown dimension that had borrowed his shell.

Xu Yuan continued his dull narration: "In their eyes, I was perhaps no different from the insects they dissected for sport. The sight of blood excited them rather than causing fear. They enjoyed the process of destroying a person through torment, and it began to escalate."

"During a PE class, the teacher let us have free time. They cornered me in the clearing behind the equipment room. Two of them pinned my limbs while another moved to strip my pants. Liang Yizheng stood to the side, watching. I realized they wouldn't stop, because their expressions were like those of people possessed—filled with the manic excitement and curiosity of a sadist."

Ji He glanced over and almost mistook the person speaking on the hospital bed for Yan Jieyuan.

The latter extended his five fingers, staring at his own fingertips as if gazing at some drifting phantom. He spoke of his past in the same calm, detached tone he used in interviews, tinged with a slight weariness.

"I didn't actually hold any extra hatred for Liang Yizheng. When I broke free from their grip and grabbed a rock from the ground to fight back, all I saw in my field of vision was Liang Yizheng. So, I threw myself at him with everything I had, smashing into his eye."

"My intention was only to stop him. When the blood sprayed onto my face, I heard them scream. The sound of many people screaming, all mixed together—that shrill, miserable wailing that hooks into your nerve endings and drags them out."

"I felt as if my brain had left my body. I was far more terrified than Liang Yizheng. By the time I came to my senses, I was already running home. The pulse of my heart occupied my entire body, a signal like a bomb about to go off, reminding me that my end had come."

The room fell into silence. The deafening heartbeat of that boy from over twenty years ago seemed to echo once more against everyone's eardrums as time flowed backward.

Captain Feng asked hoarsely: "How did your 'end' begin?"

...

"Teacher Ye." Fang Qingzhou put down the photo. "You hated this student, and from there, you blamed his genes and his family. You don't seem like the type to do home visits, so why is the image of his father beating him so vivid in your memory? If I’m not mistaken, it wasn't until after the incident with Liang Yizheng that you went to the student's home to confront his family, and that was when you first learned about his home life."

Teacher Ye threw away the tissue she had been using to wipe off water stains. She stood far from Fang Qingzhou, her back against the wall, and offered a forced smile. "What do you mean 'confront'? I was simply trying to fulfill my duties as a homeroom teacher."

Fang Qingzhou’s tone was frigid: "What duties? Which ones? What did you say at the scene to persuade that father and son to take responsibility for intentional injury?"

Teacher Ye’s face turned deathly pale, as if struck in a sore spot. Her whole body trembled uncontrollably. After a moment, her lips quivered: "That’s enough. I’m calling security. You need to leave."

She reached for her pockets, realized her phone was on her desk, and moved to get it, but Zhou Suirong blocked her path.

Teacher Ye suddenly became agitated, shouting, "What are you people doing!"

Fang Qingzhou said: "I met Liang Yizheng before and specifically brought up his injury in front of him. I made up a story on the spot, questioning his status as a victim. He didn't defend himself, nor did he refute the insufficiency of my reasoning; instead, he emphasized that my viewpoint would be attacked by netizens and was an unjust act. I wasn't sure before, but his reaction gave me the answer. I don't believe he is a simple victim. I’ve reached this conclusion—what about you? Could it be that because no one ever challenged the narrative, you followed suit, convinced yourself, and accepted this 'fact' with peace of mind?"

Teacher Ye shoved Zhou Suirong and, ignoring the students in the nearby classrooms, screamed at the top of her lungs: "I can call the police! Who the hell are you people? Get out!"

Fang Qingzhou asked: "Regarding the whereabouts of that student—many say he was beaten to death by his father by accident, and that his father fled to avoid punishment. Have these rumors ever reached your ears? In all these years that he has been missing, have you ever taken them seriously?"

Teacher Ye paced in a state of panic, her expression crumbling, no longer composed. "Shut up!"

The sound of lectures in the surrounding rooms died down; it seemed they were holding their breath, listening to the commotion.

Fang Qingzhou asked: "Do you dream of him occasionally? What does that thin, frail child look like in your dreams? Is he still filthy and unkempt, standing outside the crowd with messy, neglected hair? Or is he being beaten to the ground by his father because of your own few words of intimidation, bruised and battered, begging you to save him?"

Fang Qingzhou’s words were like a thousand cuts, stripping away her polished golden exterior to reveal the pathetic clay figure beneath.

Teacher Ye’s body shook violently as she shouted: "Stop it!"

Fang Qingzhou continued: "Did you step in to stop it? Did you take him to the hospital? Or were you just as cowardly in the face of that violence, watching with cold eyes before running away? Or perhaps, did you feel a twisted sense of satisfaction, believing that the beating was the retribution he deserved?"

Teacher Ye overturned the documents on her desk, smashing everything within reach. She let out a hysterical cry, collapsing to her knees, covering her ears with both hands. She only wanted to block out Fang Qingzhou’s voice; she wished to hear nothing at all.

Fang Qingzhou stood there, unmoved. "What was your state of mind when you looked at him? Was it the disgust of your first meeting, or were you relieved by his disappearance? What kind of look did he have when he looked at you? Was it respect? Or perhaps you never paid attention at all? When you heard Liang Yizheng label him with groundless crimes, and watched netizens cruelly condemn him, what were you thinking?"

Teacher Ye had no strength left. The sound of her ragged breathing was like a raging flood pouring into her limbs, forming a high-speed vortex in the center of her body, grinding her thoughts and perceptions into countless fragments that swirled and drifted through her soul.

Her eyes wide, she saw the floor shaking, and large drops of water fell in strings, soaking into the gray ground, seeping out in mottled colors.

"Respected... teacher," she heard Fang Qingzhou say, the words rolling off his tongue one by one. "You rang his delayed death knell."

Thunderous roaring echoed in Teacher Ye’s ears.

"Teacher?"

"Teacher, are you okay?"

Confused, murmuring voices drifted over.

Teacher Ye stiffened her neck and looked toward the sound. She saw dozens of students crowded three layers deep at the office door, drawn by her screams, looking at her with concern.

"He’s back," Fang Qingzhou told her from above. "He’s back to find the truth."

...

"I didn't really want to kill Liang Yizheng. My grudge against him was, for all intents and purposes, settled the moment I blinded his eye," Xu Yuan said. "Most of the problems weren't created by him. They were created by the people around him who fanned the flames."

Captain Feng had the urge to remind him that just five minutes ago, he had been screaming at the top of his lungs that he wanted to kill Liang Yizheng.

Xu Yuan’s eyes were distant. "My teacher said our family would face millions in compensation. My father, as my guardian, would have to bear joint liability. That time, my dad really wanted to beat me to death."

Captain Feng: "So you hate him?"

"Hate? Who do I hate?" Xu Yuan looked surprised for a few seconds before replying. "Hatred is, to a large extent, based on self-esteem. At that age, in that environment, I had no self-esteem. I only wanted to please. I loved him. I craved a fractured fatherly love, even if it was just a false handout. I blamed all of his violence toward me on my own incompetence. Everything I could access—society, books, teachers, everything—told me that parents must love their children; it is human nature. How could he not love me? It must have been my fault."

"You don't hate him, and you don't hate Liang Yizheng, so then—" Captain Feng stopped, asking with difficulty, "What about the other person?"

Xu Yuan said: "He’s dead."