Chapter 169

Chapter 169

Li Xiting was grateful to Zhao Yingguo and thanked her. “Thank you, classmate.”

Zhao Yingguo smiled and shook her head. “It’s fine. But honestly, you should go to the police. From the look of them, they’re not going to let you off.”

Li Xiting pressed her lips together and shook her head. She did not say anything more to Zhao Yingguo. She simply got to her feet, wrapped her arms around herself, and ran off into the distance.

Zhao Yingguo watched Li Xiting leave and sighed helplessly. But she also knew that with things like this, outsiders could not do much. In the end, the person had to stand up for herself. At that moment, Zhao Yingguo never imagined that before long, she and Li Xiting would have traded places.

Zhao Yingguo soon met Li Xiting again in the dormitory.

When Zhao Yingguo saw Li Xiting, she was pleasantly surprised. But by then, in Li Xiting’s mind, there was no gratitude left at all-only fear.

She was afraid Zhao Yingguo would expose what had happened to her. She was afraid…

Li Xiting’s fear made her wary of Zhao Yingguo from the very beginning. Or rather, it planted the first seeds of something ugly in her heart.

When Zhao Yingguo treated her well, Li Xiting wondered if she was laughing at her behind her back. When Zhao Yingguo talked to other people and smiled in her direction, Li Xiting wondered if Zhao Yingguo had revealed her secret.

In the document, Zhao Yingguo wrote one sentence.

“Only later did I find out that Shen Jin was also one of the people who had abused Li Xiting.

“That careless thing I said hurt Li Xiting. And she thought I had done it on purpose. Maybe it was at that moment that she decided she was going to destroy me.”

Seeing this, the others could only sigh.

Li Xiting’s malice had not formed all at once.

At first, although she had always believed Zhao Yingguo might tell people about her shameful past, it had only stayed in her head-until that careless remark from Zhao Yingguo.

It was true that Zhao Yingguo did not know Shen Jin, and Li Xiting wanted to believe that. But the problem was the sentence Zhao Yingguo added afterward-

How could Shen Jin possibly like her? In that instant, Li Xiting became certain that Zhao Yingguo had said it on purpose.

Li Xiting did not have the courage to confront the people who bullied her. Instead, she chose to turn on Zhao Yingguo, who was right beside her.

In the document, Zhao Yingguo wrote that the first time she was stopped by that group, she could not beat them. They stripped off her clothes and took photos of her.

“At that time, the first thing I thought of was calling the police, but Li Xiting talked me out of it.

“She told me, Yingguo, they aren’t joking. They really will do it. My photos… back then, they were spread all over my high school. I wanted to kill myself at the time, but I didn’t succeed. Instead, when my mom tried to save me, she fell from the rooftop.

“I was shocked. But I had to admit, Li Xiting’s words, and the bloody past she laid bare, intimidated me.

“I was a coward.”

“It wasn’t until a long time later that I found out Li Xiting was the one who told that group where I would be that day. She had also dissected her past in front of me on purpose, because she wanted to drag me into hell with her.”

“She was so good to me.”

Zhao Yingguo had written that line in the document like a sigh.

Zhao Yingguo had clearly saved Li Xiting, yet Li Xiting had wanted to drag Zhao Yingguo down into the abyss with her. Everyone felt sick at heart.

But the contents of the document did not end there.

Zhao Yingguo began to replace Li Xiting as the person that group most wanted to bully. During that time, Li Xiting stayed constantly by Zhao Yingguo’s side. She could not let Zhao Yingguo go to the police, and she could not let Zhao Yingguo expose these things. It was also during that period that Zhao Yingguo learned about Li Xiting’s past.

Li Xiting was a local, and the group who bullied her were locals too.
Li Xiting had a grudge with the girl leading the group.

Li Xiting’s mother was a mistress. Because Li Xiting’s mother had destroyed that girl’s family, the girl had targeted Li Xiting like this, even bringing her pack of rotten friends all the way to university to keep after her.

She had bullied Li Xiting for so many years that, truthfully, her anger had long since been vented. It was just that the behavior had become a habit. So when Li Xiting pushed Zhao Yingguo out in front of her, the girl quickly shifted targets. And with Li Xiting egging her on, she even became more and more excessive.

Zhao Yingguo had originally been an outgoing, brave girl.

But under those people’s humiliation and Li Xiting’s tight control, her personality gradually began to change.

In truth, even back then, she had vaguely sensed that something was wrong with Li Xiting. So she slowly began to distance herself from Li Xiting. And it was at that point that the dormitory supervisor appeared.

When Lin Junruo reached this part, she abruptly turned her head away. She no longer wanted to keep reading. How tragic must this have been for Zhao Yingguo?

She had wanted to break free, but someone had desperately tried to keep her pressed down beneath the darkness. She had escaped Li Xiting, only to fall into the dormitory supervisor’s gentle poison. In the end, there was no way back for her at all.

“Life seems to have become a stretch of gray. I keep thinking about what the meaning of my life is. I want to find myself a reason to live, but I realized there isn’t one. My existence has lost all meaning.”

“I’ve prepared my own death. But I want to be brave one last time.”

“Filthy as I am, I shouldn’t live in this world. They shouldn’t either.”

“Let’s go to hell together.”

“I heard that if you die wearing red, you’ll become a vengeful ghost.”

“As for Li Xiting… forget it. She’s a victim too. Consider it my last bit of kindness.”

When Mu Xin read this far, she almost couldn’t hold herself back.

How was Li Xiting worthy of Zhao Yingguo’s kindness? And this was also why Li Xiting hadn’t died. It wasn’t at all what they had guessed earlier.

The document, however, had not ended yet. But the contents became fragmented.

“I discovered that I really did become a ghost, but my eyes hurt so much. It also feels like a Fire is roasting me. I want to find water. Water… I think I’ve lost my reason. I think I killed someone again.”

“I killed so many people. Why did I become like this?”

“…”

“Zhao Yingguo, you’ve changed.”

“I shouldn’t continue to exist. If some kindhearted person sees this, please kill me.”

That was the final line.

Everyone was stunned.

There had never been another person. From beginning to end, there had only been Zhao Yingguo.

Her mind had been full of contradictions.

She hated those people, but at the same time, kindness remained in her heart. She had prepared herself, wanting to become a vengeful ghost, but she had also intended to perish together with them and forget everything that had happened before.

But in the end, her kindness collapsed in death. Filled with resentment, clad in red, she became a vengeful ghost. She lost her reason and went on to torture and kill others. Yet a trace of goodness still remained within her. When she was lucid, she wrote all of this down. But she was also unwilling to simply disappear, so she added several more layers of leverage to it.

This outcome was something none of them had ever expected.

And what about Li Xiting?

After Zhao Yingguo died, Li Xiting had probably long since forgotten her. Zhao Yingguo was trapped inside this dormitory building, while Li Xiting would probably finish her studies, enter society, and find a job. Without those people who had always bullied her, she could probably live quite well.

But did she deserve to?

Li Xiting was also a pitiful person, but she had made a choice completely different from Zhao Yingguo’s.