Chapter 148: Fishing Skills
Tu Lanxun sighed in confusion: "You don't recognize him?"
Li Ao was confused: "Should I know him?"
Tu Lanxun's eyes widened. "Zong Li, doesn't he look exactly like Zong Li?"
Zong Li was the ghost who had played a suicide trap on Tu Lanxun at Junxi Manor. Tu Lanxun immediately remembered that Zong Li and the old ghost had almost identical brow bones, nose bridges, and lips. They also both had small, uneven ears that were neither square nor round.
Li Ao paused, "Don't tell me it's true..."
The little ghost and the old ghost were both taken aside. Tu Lanxun was still wondering why the old ghost used Sun Zhongyi's body to impersonate Wang Dahui. The souls of Sun Zhongyi, Wang Dahui, and Tian Feng were all safe in their bodies and had not suffered much damage.
Why is that? Isn't he afraid of being easily discovered?
"I feel like there's something fishy about Sun Zhongyi." Tu Lanxun said to Li Ao, "Now, let's see what happened in the principal's office."
The school sent another teacher, who, as luck would have it, was Liu Maosheng's daughter. Teacher Liu wore a short ponytail, narrow, crystal-red square-framed glasses, a preppy shirt and jeans, and a microphone tucked into her waist. She practically embodied the word "teacher."
"I arrived early today." Teacher Liu's voice was slightly hoarse as she got straight to the point. "I was going to the principal's office to discuss work matters with him, but on the way I ran into our school worker, Sun Zhongyi. He was also on that floor, unclogging the toilet drain."
Tu Lanxun nodded: "And then?"
Li Ao interrupted softly: "Wait, Teacher Liu, what did you talk to the principal about this morning? Also, this is the top floor, and there are usually only three or four people going there. Will the public restroom be congested?" He showed an expression of disbelief on his face.
Teacher Liu glanced toward the principal's office. She seemed to have heard all sorts of rumors, and though a little scared, she still explained, "I went to the principal to tell him about my file transfer. I want to work in another provincial capital. We've already made the arrangements with the other school, but the principal keeps trying to dissuade me..."
Tu Lanxun was slightly surprised. This was big news, especially for Liu Maosheng.
If Teacher Liu moves to another city to work, will Liu Maosheng stay in Lucheng Development Zone?
"Alright, Teacher Liu." Just as Teacher Liu was about to talk about the time the principal had each conversation with her, what kind of tea they drank, and who saw them, Li Ao politely stopped her, "I'm not doubting you. Please continue with what happened this morning."
Teacher Liu breathed a sigh of relief. "Nothing much. Then I came here with the school janitor, Sun Zhongyi. He went into the bathroom, and I went straight to knock on the principal's office door." Teacher Liu showed the chat history. "The principal sent me a message at 5:55 this morning, asking if I was in school and if we could chat."
Tu Lanxun asked curiously, "He's talked to you so many times, the price for keeping him should have increased a lot, right?"
Teacher Liu gave a wry smile: "What? It hasn't increased at all. We just had a chat."
After walking through the bathroom for a few seconds, Teacher Liu stood at the door of the principal's office. The door was ajar, but she still knocked politely. Someone inside answered, or maybe no one answered.
"What does this mean? Also, why did your principal come to school at 5:55?" Li Ao asked.
"I knocked on the door and heard a long, hoarse 'Come in!' or maybe a 'creak!'" Teacher Liu rubbed the goose bumps on her neck and reluctantly recalled, "It was hard to tell if it was a terrible human voice or the scraping of a stool being dragged. It was sharp, hoarse, and extremely indistinct... If it was a human voice, it must have been someone with a bad cold or someone being strangled."
"Is that the voice of your principal?"
"I can't tell. I told you, it doesn't sound human at all."
"So after you went in, did you see your principal's body?"
Teacher Liu's face turned pale. She asked, "Officer, have you seen our principal's body?"
Li Ao and Tu Lanxun exchanged a glance. They had arrived in such a hurry that they hadn't even seen the body. However, a nearby police officer had asked the medical examiner, who immediately replied, "He was hanged, wasn't he?"
Teacher Liu shuddered and nodded, "Yes, he was hanged."
When Teacher Liu entered the principal's office, the chair behind the desk was empty, and the sofa next to it was also empty. There were only two white porcelain cups with the aroma of tea on the coffee table. There was no mist and they were completely cold.
Where is the principal?
Teacher Liu glanced around and saw she was indeed the only one in the office. Could it be that the principal had gone to the restroom? But who had said, "Come in—" just now?
She thought about giving the principal a try on her cell phone. Outside the school, there were already one or two children who had arrived early laughing. She had to be careful not to let her job change go wrong and make it known to everyone.
Teacher Liu thought this as she walked over to the display case in the principal's office. There were many trophies there, all representing major honors in the school's teaching and athletics fields. There were also several medals, seemingly belonging to the principal personally. This one was for a personal skills competition, that one for a first aid training competition. Oh, back then, he was just an ordinary teacher, just like her...
A marathon medal in the middle suddenly caught Teacher Liu's attention. The medal was rose gold in color, bright pink, with a large area of smooth polishing, like a pale rose-colored mirror moon. Engraved at the bottom were an antelope pattern, the year of the competition, and a small logo of a charity organization.
It turned out to be a marathon for charity to save endangered antelopes.
Teacher Liu looked over curiously. The rose gold medal reflected her face. The outline was a little distorted, but the facial features were very clear, and her eyes were big and black like a puppy's.
Oh, and it even reflects the desk and coffee table behind her, everything condensed into this pink poppy-eye medal. A shadow seems to be falling from the ceiling. Is it the angle of the trophy's polish? Or could that thick shadow connect to the antelope pattern, like an exaggerated, cartoonish, and arrogant horn?
It's quite a design...
Wait, what's behind her?
Teacher Liu suddenly realized she had two heads on her shoulders in the medal. She blinked in confusion. One was her face, the other a dark, sideways head, seemingly sprouting from the back of her cervical vertebrae, like a twin flower...
Then the black head turned, and Teacher Liu could feel something furry brushing against the skin of his neck, and then something even colder touched him. It was cold and soft, with a hissing eerie airflow that might have been an illusion, making his hair stand on end.
The face of the black skull was also reflected by the medal, and the principal's hazy face appeared behind her head, resting on the back of her neck.
The face's eyes were half-open, its nose seemed shorter, and its mouth was half-closed, with the corners slightly raised, revealing uneven teeth, as if it were smiling or complaining. But it was clearly dead.
She then realized that there was something else very special about the principal's face: his chin was on top and his forehead was on the bottom.
Oh, that makes sense then. The principal's mouth isn't pointing upwards in a smile; in fact, it should be pointing downwards, like a crying face.
The window of the principal's office at the back was open, and the winter morning breeze poured in, soaking through Teacher Liu's jeans and thermal pants, making her feel like she was soaked in cold water. She trembled and turned around, avoiding the principal's head, took two steps back, looked up, and almost fell to the ground.
The principal was hanged upside down.
The huge antelope horns that appeared in the medal were not actually horns, but the principal's body hanging upside down from the ceiling.
"You might not understand what I'm saying." Teacher Liu's panic subsided at this point. He rubbed his face and said, "His feet were hanging from the ceiling, right there."
Following the direction Teacher Liu pointed, everyone saw a sturdy-looking iron hook on the ceiling. Teacher Liu explained, "This building wasn't originally a primary school building, but an office building for a government agency. This wasn't originally the principal's office, but a fitness equipment room inside the agency. I guess that hook is..."
"It's used to hang boxing sandbags." Tu Lanxun added.
The principal's feet were hung upside down from the ceiling. How did he get hanged in such an incredible posture?
"Officer, have you ever seen an ancient technique for tying fish? It's called the bowfish technique..." Teacher Liu said, "It involves passing the rope through the fish's gills and mouth, and tying it as tightly as possible to the tail, making the fish's head and body taut and bent like a full bow..."
The principal's death was just like the so-called bow-fishing technique.
His feet were tied to iron hooks in the ceiling, and a second rope extended from his feet. This second rope passed through the loop of the main rope, crossed over his body, and wrapped around the principal's neck. Even when the second rope was stretched straight, it was shorter than an adult's body length.
In other words, if the principal did not maintain the arched shape of a fish out of water in the air, his neck would be stressed and he would soon be strangled to death.
No one knows how long the principal struggled in his office. He was good at sports and perhaps lived a little longer than an average person, with more despair.
In the end, the principal was bent to death like the "antelope horns" in the medal, his face fixed with a strained, subdued expression.
"What kind of person is your principal? Why doesn't he let you go?" Tu Lanxun understood the school's appreciation for outstanding teachers, but such matters usually ended amicably. "Did you sign a service agreement?"
"The agreement expired long ago," Teacher Liu sighed. "Our principal isn't a bad person. He's led the school to progress, loves public welfare and sports, and treats students and teachers well. But when things get tough, he becomes incredibly annoying. He doesn't do anything despicable, but he's incredibly obsessed with the school and his own personal interests. If I don't deal with him, he'll jump ship—and honestly, the education systems in neighboring provinces all know each other a little bit—and he'll definitely use legal but underhanded means to squeeze my living space. He believes this is a form of moral justice."
Li Ao raised his eyebrows, "Besides you, is there anyone else who hates him?"
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