Chapter 13
Chang Ting stuffed the last bite of his bun into his mouth, registered at the gate of the residential complex, drove inside, and parked in a temporary parking space in front of a villa-style courtyard. He rang the doorbell on the intercom, and the other party answered and opened the gate remotely...
There were so many checkpoints, no wonder Qiu Yue’s parents couldn’t see anyone and couldn’t make any noise.
Zhu Zangmo's home is truly a luxurious residence. Several oil paintings hang on the living room walls, all by Zhu Zangmo. He is best known for his oil paintings, which have won numerous awards both domestically and internationally.
The interior furniture and decorations have Chinese style elements, a harmonious blend of East and West. The artist's design ability is extraordinary.
But Chang Ting couldn't understand it. When he first came, he could only admire it wholeheartedly: "The house is so big!"
This time he blurted out: "The house is so spacious!"
He then asked, "It must be very hard to clean such a big house, right?"
Zhu Zangmo smiled modestly: "Fortunately, there is a nanny to clean up."
"Haha, I see." Chang Ting scratched his ear awkwardly. As expected, the gap between the rich and the poor limited one's thinking.
Zhu Zangmo is nearly fifty years old, but his skin is well maintained with almost no wrinkles. He is wearing a dark red home suit, which is casual yet decent, and his every move reveals the temperament of an artist.
After a few polite words, she invited Chang Ting to sit down at the rosewood tea table. The nanny came out and made tea for the two of them, then quietly left.
"This is the white tea given to me by a friend. Please have a taste, Officer Chang." Zhu Zangmo made a "please" gesture, still so elegant.
"Thank you." Chang Ting was thirsty after finishing the buns, so he picked up a small cup the size of half an egg shell and drank it in one gulp.
The cup was too small and I almost ate it.
Zhu Zangmo picked up the Gongdao cup and refilled his tea, saying, "Sorry, yesterday..."
"Let's cut the small talk." Chang Ting interrupted his small talk and pulled out a few pages of paper from his file bag and placed them on the table. "Today I'm mainly here to ask Principal Zhu why there's one person's name missing from this student list."
"Is there something missing?" Zhu Zangmo was a little surprised and picked up the list to look at it.
He thought for a while and said, "There was a fire at the base at that time. The paper list of students was in the office, and the electronic version was also stored in the office computer. They were all burned, so I don't have it.
"When you asked me for the list, I had to contact each homeroom teacher and ask them if they still had the list of their class. Fortunately, most of them still had it saved on their phones. For those who didn't, I asked the class leaders to help recount it. Finally, I finally compiled it and provided it to you. Is there anything I missed?"
Chang Ting frowned.
Zhu Zangmo was right. Training institutions are not like regular schools. They rely entirely on their own compilation of student records. The fire created such a mess.
The list Zhu Zangmo handed him at the time was a jumble of electronic and paper copies, though some omissions were understandable.
But why was Chen He missed?
Zhu Zangmo lowered his head and flipped through the list: "Who's missing?"
"Chen He."
Zhu Zangmo paused for a moment.
Chang Ting looked at him and asked, "Do you have any impression?"
"Chen He, I remember this kid. Why, she's not in the census? Which class is she in?" He flipped through several pieces of paper, thinking hard. "Oh, right, Class 1."
He pulled out the page for Class 1 and looked over it several times. "Oh, she's really not listed here. What's wrong with the head teacher of Class 1? She can't even remember how many students there are in her class!"
Chang Ting took the paper from Zhu Zangmo, took a look at it, and said, "This list is not handwritten, but printed, which means that an electronic version was provided at the time. If it was a handwritten count, it would be normal to miss one person. But it is not normal that the electronic version is missing a name." - It may have been deleted intentionally.
"I'll ask the class teacher what's going on." Zhu Zangmo's face showed dissatisfaction of a leader towards his subordinates. He immediately took out his mobile phone, looked through the address book, found a number and was about to call it.
"Hands-free." Chang Ting reminded.
"Ah?" Zhu Zangmo was stunned for a moment, "Oh, okay."
Chang Ting's attitude was serious, and Zhu Zangmo became a little nervous.
The call went through.
"Teacher Zhao... Do you remember that after the fire, I asked you for the list of students in your class..."
Five years have passed and Teacher Zhao seemed to have forgotten about this incident. It took him a long time to remember it.
Teacher Zhao's bewildered voice came from the phone: "No Chen He? How is that possible? ... Yes, I gave you the list, but I didn't save it on my phone at the time. I think I asked someone for it... Wait a minute, I haven't changed my phone in the past few years. I'll check the chat history to see if it's still there... List, the list of Class 1..."
Teacher Zhao was searching on WeChat over there.
"Found it. Our squad leader gave it to me. Let me see if I can still open the file... Oh, it can still be opened!... Hey? There's really no Chen He! What did the squad leader do? I'll ask him later."
Chang Ting had been listening intently when he suddenly spoke up, "Teacher Zhao, you don't need to ask anymore. We can verify it later. Could you please take a screenshot of the record of sending the list to the class monitor?"
The screenshot was sent over quickly. Chang Ting took a look and found that Chen He's name was indeed not on the list that the class monitor sent to Teacher Zhao.
The class monitor's family wasn't local, but Teacher Zhao still kept in touch with him occasionally. Chang Ting asked for the class monitor, Liu Qiang's, contact information. After hanging up, he wrote it down on his phone while asking Zhu Zangmo, "How much do you know about this student, Chen He?"
Zhu Zangmo recalled: "I occasionally taught classes, but the class hours were short and I didn't interact much with the students. I was deeply impressed by a few particularly talented students, such as Chen He. Chen He was particularly talented in art and had excellent academic performance. At the time, I was thinking of training her to attend Tsinghua Academy of Fine Arts. Unfortunately..."
Zhu Zangmo shook his head regretfully. "A fire destroyed my base. I wasn't able to teach that class of students until the end. I lost contact with them afterwards. I don't know which art school she got into."
Chang Ting checked Chen He's academic credentials. She didn't go to Tsinghua University or the Academy of Fine Arts, but rather to a local university, where her major had nothing to do with fine arts.
He fiddled with his phone and, without saying a word to Zhu Zangmo, made a call. It was the squad leader's number.
When the call was connected, he suddenly said, "Hello?" Then he stood up and walked into the yard to make a call.
Zhu Zangmo was still chatting and refilling his tea when he heard the sound and paused, pouring out some. He glanced up at Chang Ting's back, then lowered his head with good manners to continue refilling the teacup. But a fleeting expression seemed to say: How rude!
In the yard, Chang Ting briefly introduced himself into the phone, then went straight to the point and asked the other party why Chen He was deleted from the list.
He didn't say "missed", he said "deleted" directly.
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone, as Liu Qiang seemed to be recalling something. After a while, he said, "No, I didn't delete anyone. Oh, yeah, I remember now. Our class is the top class, and Chen He transferred in from another class a while after school started. I must have saved the old list in my phone, so..."
Chang Ting understood his reasons.
After hanging up the phone, Chang Ting returned to the living room and sat back down, asking Zhu Zangmo, "Principal Zhu, was Chen He originally in Class 1?"
Zhu Zangmo was reminded, as if remembering something, and said, "No, she was transferred to another class. Which class was this child originally in... I can't remember. But I clearly remember that after teaching her a few classes, I found that this child was very outstanding, so I specifically transferred her to the top class. Oh, this couldn't be the reason why she was missed!"
The words of the head teacher, the class monitor and Zhu Zangmo all made sense when put together, and provided a reasonable explanation for why one person was missing.
Was it really a coincidence? But why did Chen He, this evil guy, have to be left behind?
Sensing Chang Ting's suspicious gaze, Zhu Zangmo pointed at Taiyangxue and smiled wryly, "Officer Chang, I'm truly sorry for missing a student, but it really wasn't intentional. You know how overwhelmed I was at that time, and my mind wasn't working properly. Besides, I only collected the list from the teachers and handed it over to you. How could I have had the energy to look through it carefully at that time?"
Zhu Zangmo was right. After the incident, not only did Qiu Yue's parents block him at the gate of the community all day, but all the other students' parents demanded a refund of their tuition, some even demanded compensation and even sued him.
Because the intensive training in the third year of high school is very important, it is very difficult to change the training institution in the middle of the semester, which disrupts other people's children's study plans and directly affects the college entrance examination. It would be strange if parents are not angry.
Zhu Zangmo touched his hair and sighed, "My hair turned white at that time."
Chang Ting's gaze shifted to his exquisite black hairstyle.
Zhu Zangmo smiled awkwardly and said, "It's dyed."
The atmosphere of the conversation became much more relaxed amidst the jokes.
Chang Ting suddenly remembered something and asked, "Principal Zhu, do you know Lu Shuping?"
Zhu Zangmo was holding the teacup when his hand trembled slightly and some tea spilled on his fingers.
Chang Ting couldn't help but look at him again: "Do you remember her?"
Zhu Zangmo raised his head, a look of sadness on his face. "Oh, how could I forget this child? Which class was she from? I heard about her story. Such a promising child, how could she be so depressed! Why, Officer Chang and her..."
"Lu Shuping was my classmate in high school," said Chang Ting.
Lu Shuping, also an art student, trained at the Tibetan Ink Academy during his senior year of high school. Later... after completing his studies and leaving the base, he committed suicide before the college entrance exam for unknown reasons. He left no note, and the reason remains unknown. It's not uncommon for high school seniors to commit suicide due to depression caused by excessive academic pressure. It seems likely that Lu Shuping's actions were similar.
This incident was a trauma for the entire class of teachers and students. Thinking about it now, I still feel sad.
Zhu Zangmo also sighed with regret.
Chang Ting stood up and said goodbye: "Thank you for the hospitality. The tea is very good and very thirst-quenching, but the cup is a little small."
Zhu Zangmo laughed and said, "I'll get you a bigger cup next time."
Before leaving, Zhu Zangmo suddenly asked, "By the way, I saw on the news that a body was found in Mingzhu Mountain...was it Qiu Yue?"
"It's inconvenient to disclose."
"Oh, I understand, I understand."
Chang Ting suddenly turned around and looked at him and asked, "Do you think it's her?"
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