Chapter 109
Chapter 109
Over the past few days, they had been trying to sound Fan Jiangnan out within the limits of their character settings. Fan Jiangnan herself, however, always kept to herself. Asking her questions about schoolwork was fine, but she had almost no close friends.
At first, Ning Shuo and the others did not think Fan Jiangnan knew many more details. After all, judging from the illustration, A High School had become City No. 1 High School by stepping on You Ge. Fan Jiangnan should not have had any connection to You Ge, who was supposed to have met with an accident several years ago.
However, on the weekend night, Luo Li, who shared a dorm room with Fan Jiangnan, was awakened by a strange noise. When she opened her eyes, she saw Fan Jiangnan leaving in the middle of the night.
It was dark, windy, and ominous. Of course Luo Li was not going to go out alone and follow her. Who knew if she would even make it back?
She noted down this suspicious point. After the meeting on Monday, she exchanged points for a Camera. Before Fan Jiangnan went to sleep, Luo Li used the excuse of asking her a question, then quietly stuck the nearly invisible Camera to the hem of Fan Jiangnan’s clothes. She kept herself awake the entire time and only turned on the switch after Fan Jiangnan left the room.
On Tuesday morning, after they got up, Luo Li silently retrieved the same-colored Camera from the hem of Fan Jiangnan’s pajamas.
This type of Camera had a time limit. It was the same kind Ning Shuo had used before in Rose Castle. Usually, it only lasted one to two hours, depending on the circumstances.
On Tuesday afternoon, they gathered again instead of going to the cafeteria. Qin Genan chewed on a piece of bread, grumbling that she had already eaten bread for several meals in a row, but her eyes never left the projected footage.
The recording was one hour long. Time was limited, so they watched it at double speed and skipped ahead a little.
In the fast-forwarding darkness, Fan Jiangnan walked alone toward a teaching building. The night air was as cold as water, and the surroundings were completely empty.
Because the Camera was attached to the hem of Fan Jiangnan’s clothes, the footage was in first person, but the angle was much lower than normal.
Fan Jiangnan entered the teaching building, went up the stairs to the second floor, and turned into a classroom with mirrors pasted across two of its walls.
The layout was similar to Sui Chunsheng’s dance studio. Ning Shuo was certain this was a dance classroom.
But that was very strange.
He looked at Ning Wang and read the same message in each other’s eyes: the chemistry lab was downstairs. Over the past two weeks, after finishing their chemistry experiments, they had used the opportunity to investigate the entire building.
There had never been any dance classroom there at all.
In the footage, Fan Jiangnan danced ballet again and again. In the mirrors, they could see the focused expression on her face.
…Even though her eyes were closed.
Was this sleepwalking?
Could sleepwalking make someone who did not know ballet start dancing ballet?
Suddenly, Ning Shuo caught a glimpse of something. At the same time, Ning Wang immediately said, “Pause!”
He pointed to one corner of the mirror and asked, “Look here. Is that a foot?”
It was actually very indistinct. They could only see a bit of a toe, and it was reflected through the mirror at that.
But with that slight difference in color, they could still make out that someone was standing outside the classroom, even though only the tip of one foot was visible.
Luo Li changed the playback speed from double to quadruple, and finally to eight times speed.
But the video was only an hour long. Including the time when Fan Jiangnan left the dorm room, the progress bar reached the end before they ever saw footage of Fan Jiangnan leaving the classroom.
The person outside the door was most likely You Ge.
Since it had something to do with You Ge, perhaps Fan Jiangnan also knew something about You Ge being bullied on campus.
That was why Ning Shuo had played along with the situation. When he reported to the teacher that he was going to the restroom, he deliberately put on a troubled expression right when Fan Jiangnan looked at him.
He had only been taking a gamble on whether she would come. Winning that bet was still something of a pleasant surprise.
Ning Shuo looked as though someone had exposed his privacy, and his expression was not good. He had just been about to help Fan Jiangnan up when he saw the fallen girl immediately scramble to her feet and block Ning Shuo behind her. “Y-you can’t bully people on campus!”
Ning Shuo looked at the girl standing in front of him, who was even shorter than he was, and for some reason, he laughed.
It wasn’t mockery. He patted Fan Jiangnan on the shoulder, and when she turned back in astonishment, he tucked away his smile. “Classmate, I’m a boy. I don’t think you can protect me.”
He was putting it mildly. If they were really comparing combat ability, Fan Jiangnan might be the one who needed protecting.
Fan Jiangnan hurried to argue back, her voice sounding as if she didn’t want Ning Wang behind her to hear how guilty she was. “I practiced taekwondo! I’ve been practicing for months!”
That said, with a senior-year schedule, those few months probably only amounted to practicing on Saturdays when she went home.
During the school term, the pressure of senior year was already overwhelming. Who would still have the energy to practice taekwondo?
But Fan Jiangnan clearly wanted to protect him, and Ning Shuo, as the person being protected, found himself unable to be that cruel. He shot Ning Wang a look. Ning Wang put on an act of barely holding himself together. “Taekwondo? Who’s-who’s afraid of who? Come on, then.”
Fan Jiangnan squeezed her eyes shut, immediately took a stance, then raised her leg toward Ning Wang-
She was so nervous she nearly fell over.
But her foot did, in fact, kick Ning Wang. Ning Wang took the opportunity to fall to the ground, then said viciously, “Looks like you’ve got a few tricks. Just you wait!”
Ning Wang ran out through the front door. Ning Shuo had just been about to take the opportunity to see if he could get something out of Fan Jiangnan, only to see her collapse to the floor as if all her strength had left her, murmuring to herself, “I did it… This time, I did it…”
This time?
Ning Shuo held his breath, wanting to keep listening, but Fan Jiangnan said nothing more.
She gathered herself, returning to her usual distant self, the kind of person who kept everyone at arm’s length. That adorable rescue just now had been a moment when she couldn’t help letting the truth slip through her disguise.
As he brushed past Fan Jiangnan, Ning Shuo said softly, “Thank you.”
Fan Jiangnan pressed her lips together and said, “When it comes to campus bullying, it’s best to tell a teacher as soon as possible…”
But if the teachers would do anything, You Ge wouldn’t have disappeared. Ning Shuo thought.
Fan Jiangnan seemed to have thought of the same thing, because she paused at the word “teacher.” In the end, she hastily left him with, “Protect yourself,” and walked away.
After she left, Ning Shuo followed her out, thinking as he walked about what Fan Jiangnan had meant by “this time.”
Had there been another time when she failed to step in and save someone, so this time she had managed it?
But… Fan Jiangnan wasn’t from You Ge’s year. She wasn’t even in the years immediately before or after her. How could she have saved her?
Ning Shuo was still thinking when he placed his hand on the switch for the classroom’s back door and turned it.
It wouldn’t open.
His breath caught slightly. Only then did he realize he had been too absorbed in thought.
He had actually failed to notice that, at some point, everything around him had become impossibly quiet.
The moonlight was dim, but just bright enough to fall through the window onto a desk.
On the desktop, a line of text stood out with perfect clarity: [There is a score at A High School that cannot be surpassed. Do you know what it is?]
At that moment, Ning Shuo was incredibly grateful to Ningning, and grateful for his own astonishing powers of observation.
Because on that desktop, there was not only that question, but also a sheet of paper. On the paper were three blurred illustrations.
As luck would have it, the blurred parts of those illustrations just so happened to include the score Ning Wang had seen when he was being controlled.
If Ning Shuo hadn’t already known the answer, then he definitely would have stared at those illustrations and tried to find a way to make them out.
But the longer he stared, the stronger an impulse rose inside him.
The impulse to read aloud the lines of verse beside them.
What would happen after he read them?
Earlier, Ning Wang had said, “Countless hands were pulling me, pulling me into the abyss of death.”