Chapter 108 Ink and Blood
The ink smeared onto the school trousers once again.
Yang Chuyue lowered her head and wiped the area repeatedly with a tissue, her fingertips turning white from the force.
Xu Rui leaned against the back door of the classroom, looking at her slender figure, and felt a surge of inexplicable irritation.
"What are you looking at so intently?" His best friend came over, followed his gaze, and immediately whistled loudly.
Several boys gathered around upon hearing the noise, pointing and whispering about Yang Chuyue.
“Some people are just filthy.” Xu Rui heard his raised voice echo in the classroom. “Can you smell it? The smell of poverty mixed with the stench of ink.”
Yang Chuyue paused for a moment while wiping, but quickly continued, as if she hadn't heard anything.
This disregard infuriated Xu Rui even more.
He would rather she cry, he would rather she rebel, he would even rather she glare at him.
But she was always so calm, so calm that it made him uneasy.
After gym class that day, the girls went to the restroom in twos and threes to change their clothes.
Yang Chuyue was the last to come out, and her pants were accidentally stained with blood.
The classroom erupted in chaos.
Wow! Look!
"How disgusting..."
"Does she not know?"
When Xu Rui saw Yang Chuyue's pale face, he blurted out, "Disgusting! Does someone like that deserve to be in our class?"
He spoke the loudest and laughed the most exaggeratedly.
After PE class, the back door of the classroom was kicked open, and Xu Rui led five or six boys in, laughing and joking.
He was waving an unopened sanitary napkin in his hand, the packaging gleaming brightly in the sunlight.
"Hey, look!" Xu Rui announced deliberately in a voice loud enough for the whole class to hear, "We brought a gift for Yang Chuyue!"
The boys burst into laughter.
Some people whistled, while others banged on the table and cheered.
The girls huddled together in twos and threes, whispering among themselves.
Yang Chuyue was writing with her head down when she heard a noise, her fingers trembled, and the pencil lead snapped.
She slowly raised her head and saw Xu Rui walking towards her, the white package in his hand resembling a victory flag.
"I heard you can't afford this?" Xu Rui stopped in front of her table, a malicious smile on his lips.
The classroom fell eerily quiet instantly.
In front of the whole class, he slapped the sanitary napkin onto her chair.
The wrapping paper was roughly torn open, exposing the white cotton surface to the air like a glaring wound.
“Use it,” Xu Rui leaned down, deliberately lowering his voice, “Didn’t your mother teach you?”
Yang Chuyue slowly stood up.
The classroom suddenly fell silent; everyone held their breath, waiting for her to erupt or cry.
But then they suddenly noticed that Yang Chuyue was smiling.
The smiles were terrifyingly empty, as if they could see far, far away through them.
As she turned to leave, the sanitary napkin lay forlornly on the ground, its snow-white surface covered in dust.
The next day, Yang Chuyue's seat was empty.
Later, Xu Rui heard that she had transferred schools.
Later... he heard some even more terrible news.
One day, his best friend shoved his phone in front of him, and on the screen was a news article: "High school girl falls to her death."
Xu Rui was about to frown and push it away when he caught a glimpse of a blurry face in the news photo.
"Holy crap, look at this," my best friend whispered, tapping the screen twice to zoom in on the photo. "They say this is Yang Chuyue."
Xu Rui's breathing suddenly stopped.
"Really?" He heard his own voice was incredibly dry. "Didn't she transfer schools?"
My best friend mysteriously scrolled to the end of the news: "Look what it says here. It is said that the student's parents are divorced and she is usually taciturn. Isn't that her?"
The cold words in the news danced before his eyes: failed rescue attempt, teenage girl, suicide by jumping off a building.
Xu Rui suddenly stood up, causing the desks and chairs to screech.
"What's wrong?" His best friend looked at him, puzzled. "You don't actually care about that quiet guy, do you?"
Xu Rui opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
He suddenly remembered that one day after school, he had inexplicably returned to the classroom and saw Yang Chuyue's open diary on her desk, which was filled with the words "Mom".
That diary will never have a next page.
The classroom quickly returned to calm, as if no one had ever sat in that corner.
Xu Rui remained a good student, the class monitor, and a model of excellent character and academic performance in the eyes of the teachers.
He was admitted to a top-tier high school.
In the dead of night, he would always think of Yang Chuyue and every vicious word he had uttered.
Recently, the pressure of studying has been increasing, and Yang Chuyue has been appearing in his dreams more and more frequently.
In his dream, he stood at the classroom door and saw Yang Chuyue wiping away ink stains with her head down.
But as he approached, she suddenly looked up.
The pale face had no features, only a blurry mass of flesh and blood, as if it had been forcibly smoothed out by something.
"Xu Rui..." Her voice seemed to come from a great distance, or perhaps it echoed directly in his mind, "Why did you bully me?"
He woke up with a start, his pajamas soaked with cold sweat.
Later, she would even appear during the day.
The sound of chalk writing on the blackboard would suddenly turn into the rustling sound of Yang Chuyue wiping the desk with a tissue.
The laughter of the girls in the corridor would transform into the piercing mockery that followed PE class that day.
The scariest thing was that he could always see a blurry figure at the very back of the crowd, a faded Mickey Mouse backpack, and a head that was always bowed.
Sensing his gaze, the figure would slowly raise its head.
It has no face.
On his way home from school, as he passed through the alley behind the school, he faintly heard a cat meowing.
Turning my head, I saw several stray cats surrounding a plastic bag, inside which was half-opened cat food packaging, with dark red stains on the bag.
The plastic bag suddenly moved.
A pale hand emerged from within, its five fingers twisted, its fingernails filled with blue ink.
Xu Rui stood on the edge of the rooftop, the night wind blowing into his school uniform, as cold as Yang Chuyue's last look at him.
He didn't know how he got up there.
It's as if a piece of my memory has been forcibly ripped out by something.
One second he was sitting in the classroom doing his homework, and the next second he was standing here.
My phone vibrated in my pocket.
He trembled as he pulled it out; the screen displayed a text message from an unknown number:
Why are you bullying me?
Xu Rui's breathing froze.
“I...I like you, and I want to get your attention!” he shouted.
Cold fingers suddenly wrapped around his wrist.
Xu Rui turned around abruptly, but saw nothing.
But the sensation on his wrist was terrifyingly real; five slender fingers, with blue ink seeping from their nail crevices, were slowly dragging him toward the edge.
"Let me go!" He frantically swung his arms, but the force did not budge.
"Like me? How ridiculous." Yang Chuyue's voice came from all directions, carrying a rotten, damp smell. "Then come and keep me company."
Xu Rui's leg suddenly moved out of control.
"No, no!"
But his body was already leaning forward.
In the instant of his fall, the last thing he saw was that figure standing on the edge of the rooftop—
Yang Chuyue finally raised her head, which had been hanging down, and gave him a sinister smile.
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