Chapter 175
Wang Hanshuang choked for a moment before speaking again: "Xiaoping went home after the training camp and was supposed to prepare for the joint entrance exam. But I soon realized that she was not in the right state.
"She couldn't sleep all night, her hair was falling out in clumps, she couldn't eat, and she lost more than ten pounds. When asked what was wrong, she wouldn't say anything and locked herself in her room. She even cut her arms with a knife...
"I knew Xiaoping had mental problems, so I took her to see a doctor. The doctor diagnosed her with severe depression and suicidal tendencies, and recommended hospitalization.
"This condition requires hospitalization in a mental health center, a psychiatric hospital. I felt bad about sending her to that kind of place. But Xiaoping was very cooperative.
"I want to get better soon. I want to go back to school. I want to take the college entrance exam. My mother worked so hard to raise me and send me to school. I can't let her down." These were her exact words to the doctor.
Tears rolled down Wang Hanshuang's cheeks.
"Foolishly, I was pleased with my daughter's understanding after hearing her say that. Little did I know that 'understanding' itself is a burden.
"The so-called grace of raising my daughter became the last straw that broke the camel's back."
Lu Shuping must have been desperate to get better. She must have tried her best.
But that was a disease, and she couldn't get better just by trying hard enough.
The more anxious she became, the worse her symptoms became. She hurt herself many times and the doctor had to use a restraint belt.
Late one night during Lu Shuping's second month in the hospital, he finally gave up struggling like a drowning man and, using a restraint belt, hung himself from the window grille of the ward...
Wang Hanshuang took out a tissue from her travel bag, pressed her eyes, and took a deep breath.
After a while, he removed his hand and continued, "After Xiaoping's accident, I felt like I had lost my soul. I was in a daze. It took me a long time to regain my ability to think.
“Only when I think about it more carefully do I start to wonder if something happened to her at the base.
"I contacted the teacher at the base. But the teacher denied it, saying that Xiaoping was fine there, and there was nothing unusual except that she was a bit introverted and didn't like to talk much.
"The teacher also said that it is not uncommon for high school students to become depressed or commit suicide due to academic pressure, and the same should be true for small screens.
"I thought, maybe it was because I had too high expectations of Xiaoping, which put too much pressure on her, that she became ill. I didn't want to admit that I was the culprit who killed Xiaoping, so I blamed this and that.
"I lived like a wooden man with his heart dug out, a walking corpse. Until that year..."
That year, Wang Hanshuang had retired from the hospital and was staying at home alone, feeling that time was becoming increasingly empty.
Whenever I couldn't sleep late at night, I would go into the room where my daughter used to live, organize her belongings and books over and over again, sweep away every speck of dust, and keep the room tidy, as if Xiaoping would come home tomorrow.
This cleaning became so obsessive that one time, when he was cleaning the underside of the desk, he heard a "bang" and a booklet stuck in the gap under the drawer fell out.
The booklet didn't look like it was stuck there accidentally, but rather hidden on purpose.
It's a 16K sketchbook.
…
Wang Hanshuang took out a sketchbook from her travel bag and handed it to Song Zhou.
Song Zhou took it and flipped open the yellowed pages.
The first page of the book depicts a man hanging by his neck in mid-air.
"I recognized this face right away," Wang Hanshuang said to Song Zhou. "When I was choosing an art training institution for Xiaoping, Zhu Zangmo's photo was used as a signboard and printed on the recruitment advertisement."
Song Zhou flipped through the pages of paper. Page after page, they all depicted the same protagonist.
About the various ways Zhu Zangmo died.
Lu Shuping used sketching to kill Zhu Zangmo over and over again in this notebook.
Some were pierced by thousands of arrows, some were disemboweled, some were cut into pieces... Every page and every stroke of the pen revealed a deep hatred.
The entire book looks like an execution ground built specifically for Zhu Cangmo.
"I was shocked when I saw this book," Wang Hanshuang said. "Zhu Zangmo was Xiaoping's teacher. Why did Xiaoping hate him so much?
"That's when I realized there might be another reason for Xiaoping's illness. She must have encountered something terrible during her time at the Zangmo base... just like Qiu Yue."
She suddenly mentioned Qiu Yue's name and turned to look at Song Zhou: "Qiu Song, do you know what Qiu Yue encountered?"
Song Zhou closed the notebook and took a deep breath. "I... I don't know the details..."
"I know." Wang Hanshuang said, "I read her diary."
Song Zhou looked up suddenly: "Diary? What diary? Where is it?"
Wang Hanshuang gestured with her chin to the phone in his hand. "It's on her Weibo, a diary written in the form of a private Weibo account. You can open it and take a look."
Song Zhou's fingers trembled. After pressing several times, he finally hit the power button. The screen lit up and the password page popped up.
Wang Hanshuang only said, "The password is Qiu Yue's six-digit birthday."
Song Zhou became suspicious again: "I don't even know Xiaoyue's password, how did you know it?"
Wang Hanshuang smiled and sighed, "For Xiaoping's sake, I've been lurking around Zhu Zangmo and his wife for two years and have uncovered many things. A phone's power-on password is nothing."
Song Zhou was plagued by doubts, but the sketchbook convinced him that Wang Hanshuang was also a family member of the victim and was likely on the same side as him.
Furthermore, he was too eager to know what Qiu Yue had experienced and too eager to read Qiu Yue's diary, so his vigilance dropped again and again.
I entered Qiu Yue's birthday, and it unlocked successfully. I opened Weibo... no internet connection.
"Oh, Xing Yao pulled out the SIM card a long time ago," Wang Hanshuang said, "Connect to your own mobile hotspot."
"I didn't bring my cell phone..." Song Zhou said.
"Then let's use mine." Wang Hanshuang took out her smartphone and started operating it.
Song Zhou watched from the side and said, "You seem very familiar with your phone."
Wang Hanshuang laughed: "Do you think someone my age can only use an old phone to make a call?"
Song Zhou was embarrassed for a moment: "That's not what I meant."
Wang Hanshuang said with emotion: "In fact, I was like most people. As I got older, I became an increasingly incompetent old man.
"Before, I didn't know how to hail a ride-hailing service or how to use electronic payments. But after deciding to research small screens, I learned a lot on my own..."
As he was talking, his phone connected to the hotspot and the first Weibo post on Qiu Yue's homepage appeared.
It's a private Weibo post.
Release time: October 26, 201X, 22:22.
It was the night Qiu Yue disappeared.
[He has a special class this afternoon, and the class monitor specifically told me to go. I don’t dare not go…]
The order of the Weibo posts is reversed. It's like walking back in time, retracing the path Qiu Yue has walked, a path paved with daggers.
Song Zhou flipped through the microblogs one by one, and each microblog became a piercing arrow, shooting him into a hornet's nest.
Wang Hanshuang next to him suddenly said, "It's so cold. Take your time and watch. I'll go turn on the heater."
Song Zhou was completely focused on his phone and barely heard the words.
Every breath felt like a saw pulling at my chest, and my body and mind plunged into a swamp of pain.
I vaguely knew that Wang Hanshuang opened the back door, got out of the car, went to the driver's seat, and turned on the heater.
Song Zhou faintly smelled a hint of fruity fragrance, thinking it was the smell of incense in the car and didn't take it seriously at all.
His vision gradually fogged up. He thought he had cried, so he raised his hand to wipe his eyes, but he still couldn't see the phone screen clearly.
I wanted to wipe it again, but suddenly found that I couldn't lift my hand.
He then realized something was wrong and tried to look up, but his neck felt weak. The phone slipped from his fingers, and he slumped uncontrollably in the back seat. His blurred vision made it impossible to see Wang Hanshuang.
Wang Hanshuang had left the driver's seat at some point and was not in the car at all.
Out of the corner of my eye, between the two front seats, I caught a glimpse of a thermos cup standing on the cup holder.
There seemed to be a leak in the bottle cap, and it was making a slight hissing sound, mixed with the sound of the warm air from the air conditioner. If you didn't listen carefully, it would be difficult to distinguish.
Anesthetic gas.
These four words popped up in his mind like bubbles, while his consciousness went in the opposite direction and sank to the bottom of the water.
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