Chapter 138

Chapter 138

“That doesn’t necessarily mean no one else was alerted.”

Wen Miao froze, then asked him, “What do you mean?”

Nan Mu smiled and asked, “Didn’t you say they even helped them ask for leave from the dorm supervisor? That proves they understand the school’s rules and procedures very well, doesn’t it?”

Wen Miao nodded. They had even known to inform the dorm leaders so their roommates wouldn’t start looking for them.

“So, don’t you think it’s strange? Since they understood the school’s rules and procedures so clearly, why didn’t they just reply to your messages? If they had, you probably wouldn’t have noticed something was wrong so quickly.”

Wen Miao thought for a moment. “The requests for leave definitely weren’t sent by Wen Xin and Wen Tangtang themselves. That means the people controlling them sent them. If those people had their phones, then naturally they could see all the messages sent to them through their communication apps. But… nowadays, aside from private messages, everyone has tons of group messages too. Even if they only looked at unread messages, it would still take quite a while… So was it because there were too many messages and they didn’t see mine?”

“That makes sense too,” Nan Mu said, guiding her to think further. “Then what do you think? Was this done on impulse, or had it been planned for a long time?”

“It had to have been planned for a long time. Otherwise, how would they know who to message?” Wen Miao had only just finished speaking when she frowned. “Wait, that’s not right. If they had been planning this for a long time, why did they only account for their roommates and forget about me?”

Nan Mu smiled. “Exactly. Why did they forget you?”

If they had been ordinary students, notifying the dorm supervisor and the counselor about their leave would have been enough. The other course instructors wouldn’t come looking for them.

But Wen Xin and Wen Tangtang were not ordinary students. They had “family” at school. Unlike regular friends or classmates, if they were going to take leave, they would naturally inform their “family” as well.

So if the other party had planned this for a long time, it would have been impossible for them to investigate the school’s rules and procedures without looking into Wen Xin and Wen Tangtang’s interpersonal relationships. After all, the relationship between Wen Xin, Wen Tangtang, and Wen Miao was not exactly a secret at school. At the very least, their classmates and roommates all knew about it.

“So the only explanation is that those people hadn’t planned this for a long time. They acted on impulse. That’s why they treated Wen Xin and Wen Tangtang like ordinary students, thinking that as long as they notified the dorm supervisor and the counselor, they wouldn’t arouse anyone else’s suspicion. But they forgot about me.”

Nan Mu nodded. “Didn’t you say Wen Xin was originally planning to go see Wen Tangtang last night?”

Wen Miao sucked in a cold breath. “Ah… So Wen Xin accidentally ran into something, and that’s why they suddenly decided to take both of them away?”

Nan Mu nodded. “I think that’s extremely likely. And although these people acted on impulse, they still thought to notify the dorm supervisor and the counselor…”

Wen Miao shot to her feet and took a deep breath. When she looked at Nan Mu, her eyes were filled with shock. “They acted on impulse and didn’t understand their family situation, but at the same time, they knew the school’s rules and procedures very well… They’re people from the school?!”

Under Wen Miao’s incredulous gaze, Nan Mu nodded.

Confusion, bewilderment, and all kinds of emotions surged through her.

Wen Miao truly couldn’t understand what they could have encountered that would require people from the school to go to such lengths to control them.

“So… is it someone higher up in the school?”

“I’m not sure.” Nan Mu loosened his mask. “But if you go ask someone, you should find out very quickly.”
“Who?”

“Professor Hu.”

===

Nan Mu and Wen Miao arrived downstairs at the laboratory building together.

Since everyone in Professor Hu’s lab knew Nan Mu, and there was a chance he’d give himself away if they weren’t careful, Wen Miao went upstairs alone to find Professor Hu.

Nan Mu walked a circuit around the lobby by himself. Then, all of a sudden, he spotted a faint dark-red mark by the glass doors.

His heart gave a jolt, and he quickly strode over.

The mark on the door was close to the frame, positioned relatively low. It looked like someone had left it there while staggering out from the inside and grabbing the door handle for support. That was why Nan Mu hadn’t noticed it when he’d been standing above it earlier. Only after he stepped down below the stairs, lowering his line of sight, did he see it.

He lifted his head and glanced at the staircase facing the entrance, then hurried over and bent down.

The staircase railing had a dark-red wood grain finish, so red marks on it were far from obvious. Nan Mu practically pressed his eyes right up to the handrail, examining it carefully before he finally found a trace at the second-floor landing.

He didn’t know if he was overthinking it, or if students going up and down had accidentally wiped the rest away. But as he continued upward, he found no new traces on the railing.

Nan Mu could only return to the spot on the second floor where he’d found the mark. He took out a tissue and wiped at it. Aside from black dust, the tissue picked up dark-red clots that looked very much like blood.

Standing on the second floor, Nan Mu looked left and right. Then something flashed through his mind, and he walked in the direction the railing turned.

The second floor of the laboratory building was made up of offices.

The university-level administrators and Party branch offices were in a separate building; only the department heads and professors had their offices arranged inside their respective department buildings.

The teachers with offices on the second floor of the laboratory building were limited to the department heads of biology and chemistry, along with professors and instructors in related majors.

Because the offices were all occupied at the moment, Nan Mu could only pace back and forth down the second-floor corridor several times. At last, he found a stain that looked very much like blood on the pale-yellow tile outside one of the doors. In fact, the stain was so faint that the first time he saw it, he couldn’t even be sure whether it was one or not.

While he was studying it, Wen Miao came running down from upstairs, panting hard.

When she saw him, she quickly waved him over, then leaned close and said in a low voice, “I just asked. Professor Hu is in a pretty bad mood. He said Wen Tangtang wasn’t here today, and no one answered when he called her, so he went to ask her counselor. That’s when he found out from the counselor that Wen Tangtang was sick and had taken extended leave. He kept complaining that Wen Tangtang left too suddenly and didn’t even let him know in advance. He wasn’t mentally prepared at all, and now there’s no one to take over Wen Tangtang’s work.”

Nan Mu said, “With Wen Tangtang’s personality, do you think she’d take leave without even telling her own advisor?”

Wen Miao said, “Of course not.”

The reason Wen Tangtang had so many friends in the first place was that she was incredibly thoughtful in everything she did. She arranged things properly for everyone and always took everyone’s feelings into account. If she were taking leave, she would definitely have told Professor Hu herself.

Nan Mu said, “Right. So if the university was behind Wen Xin and Wen Tangtang being taken away, then as her advisor, Professor Hu couldn’t possibly have been kept in the dark. But judging from the way Professor Hu was complaining, this definitely wasn’t the university’s decision. So now we’re going to find the counselor… and see who helped them request leave. Whoever requested it must know what’s really going on.”