Overly Intense [Criminal Investigation] 32

Chapter 32: Cut Off His Tongue

After much thought, Qin Luo finally entrusted Guo Rui to her.

Qin Luo was a very thorough person. She said softly, “I’ll help you push your bike back to school. You can have Shen Yiyi take you home, and you can come back to get it another day.”

And just like that, Guo Rui got in the car with Shen Yiyi.

From then on, Qin Luo and Shen Yiyi had a strange connection.

Shen Yiyi didn’t sit in the passenger seat, but sat in the back with Guo Rui. Although the car was dim, she could still see Guo Rui’s tear-stained face.

She didn’t ask Guo Rui what had happened, just took out a full pack of tissues from her pocket and handed it to her, then leaned against the window, using the streetlights to look at her English vocabulary.

Whether Guo Rui was there or not, the father and daughter would be silent.

“Where do you live?”

“Poli Village.”

Shen Qinwen was a little surprised. “Your home is very far. Do you commute every day?”

“She lives at school,” Shen Yiyi answered for her, then turned a page of her book, as if to remind her father not to overstep.

Guo Rui’s grades had been good when she first started school, but after being pestered by boys for a semester, her grades had been slipping.

She had been able to say a few words to Shen Yiyi before, but now that their grades were getting further and further apart, and their family backgrounds were worlds apart, she didn’t dare to say much.

She was timid. She was afraid that Shen Yiyi would look down on her.

Shen Qinwen followed Guo Rui’s directions, winding through the narrow roads of the village. The bumpy road almost sent Shen Yiyi’s book flying.

Shen Yiyi simply stopped reading, put her hands in her pockets, and said softly under the dim moonlight, “Don’t be afraid of them. The more you’re afraid, the more they’ll bother you.”

Shen Qinwen heard and agreed, “Don’t be afraid. If they still bother you next semester, tell me. I’ll go talk to the school leaders.”

Guo Rui waved her hand. “No need to trouble you.”

“It’s fine. This kind of small—”

Shen Yiyi interrupted her dad. “Dad, just watch the road.”

Shen Qinwen shut up and parked the car in front of the door. Then a burst of barking came from outside.

Guo Rui expressed her gratitude again and repeatedly told Uncle Shen not to alert the teachers. She was very afraid that the school would alert her grandmother. Her slipping grades were already enough to worry her. If she knew about this, she would be sleepless.

Shen Qinwen agreed and then left with his daughter.

On the way back, Shen Qinwen asked his daughter curiously, “What’s that girl’s name?”

“Which one?” Shen Yiyi replied, cupping her chin.

“The tall and thin one.”

“Tall and thin” referred to Qin Luo. Her figure immediately appeared in Shen Yiyi’s mind.

A neat ponytail, clear eyes, always shrugging when she spoke to her, and always a few literary digest magazines on her desk.

Oh, her handwriting was also very beautiful.

Clear.

Everything about Qin Luo was clearly visible, easier to describe than others. It wasn’t like the blurry shadow she had thought about ten thousand times, which made her feel comfortable.

“Her name is Qin Luo.”

“This girl seems to have a good personality, brave and generous.”

Generous?

Shen Yiyi really thought her dad had misjudged her at the time.

“Qin Luo’s studies in class—”

“I’m hungry.” Shen Yiyi leaned back in her seat and slammed on the brakes for her dad. “You should hurry home and cook.”

Hearing that his daughter was hungry, Shen Qinwen stepped on the gas. As soon as he got home, he put down his briefcase and started washing his hands and cooking.

Shen Qinwen made two dishes and a soup, a balanced meal of meat and vegetables suitable for a high school student. He was also an expert at making soup.

He ladled a bowl of soup for his daughter and mustered the courage to ask, “Yiyi, is there… any boy you like?”

Shen Yiyi felt it was a boring question. “No.”

“What about someone you have a good impression of?”

Shen Yiyi looked up and glared at Shen Qinwen. “I’m not interested in people.”

…

Shen Qinwen’s heart tightened. He didn’t think his daughter was talking nonsense.

Shen Yiyi was indeed completely uninterested in love.

She never read romance novels or idol dramas, and she didn’t even like listening to love songs. Every time she turned on the TV, it was either Lecture Room or Cross-Strait, and she didn’t even want to watch cartoons.

“When people reach puberty, their bodies change, and the hormones in their bodies will change with their physiology—”

Shen Yiyi put down her chopsticks. “I’m full.”

“Whether you’re full or not, I still have to say it.” Shen Qinwen used both hard and soft tactics. He also put down his chopsticks, his tone becoming serious. “From a developmental perspective, it’s very normal to like someone in high school. I won’t object. But from a mental maturity perspective, your behavior can’t be too extreme. It should be based on emotion, but stop at propriety…”

Shen Yiyi closed her eyes. “I know.”

“Based on emotion means—”

Shen Yiyi stood up directly. “Dad, I’m really not interested in people, and I’m not interested in sex. You’ve told me this many times. If I have someone I like, I will definitely tell you, and I will protect myself. Can you please rest assured?”

It was rare for Shen Qinwen to see Shen Yiyi get angry. He nodded. “Alright, alright, I know. Sit down and eat.”

“I don’t want to eat anymore.”

***

After just one summer vacation, Han Cheng had shot up in height.

On the first day of the second year of high school, Han Cheng was singled out and criticized by the head teacher in class.

This had happened during a meeting at the Education Bureau over the summer.

Shen Qinwen had run into the principal of Fengjiang High School and had casually brought it up.

The principal knew about what had happened to Shen Yiyi’s mother. Out of sympathy, he had asked about Shen Yiyi’s academic progress in class.

The two had chatted briefly about safety issues, and then Shen’s father had mentioned the incident that had happened at the school gate.

The disgraced principal had called the supervising leader, who had then given the head teacher a harsh scolding.

The head teacher, Old Li, had held a grudge all summer. As soon as the class meeting began, he made Han Cheng stand in punishment next to the podium, a clear example of killing a chicken to scare the monkeys.

Han Cheng, who had shot up in height, was now half a head taller than the head teacher.

He stood with his hands in his pockets, his leg shaking nonchalantly, his eyes narrowed into slits as he stared straight at Guo Rui, completely disregarding the short man.

Those afflicted with masculine hysteria often forget their own names, their own abilities. Those afflicted with masculine hysteria want the world’s attention to be solely on them, to be praised to the heavens.

That very evening, Han Cheng went looking for Guo Rui.

He cornered her downstairs at the dormitory, saying he wanted to have a “good talk” with her, asking why she had gone to the teacher. He claimed that letting people know about this “relationship” would be even worse for her reputation.

Fortunately, there were many people downstairs at the dormitory, so Han Cheng didn’t dare to do anything too outrageous.

But his shameless persistence alone was enough to make Guo Rui tremble.

Yet, she didn’t tell anyone about Han Cheng coming to find her.

The more Guo Rui ignored Han Cheng, the more his pranks escalated.

He would occupy the seat next to Guo Rui after class, sitting uncomfortably close to her. During breaks, he would secretly hide her textbooks, tear up her diary, and even publicly beat up any boy who spoke with her.

He was as persistent as a ghost, trailing behind her, whistling. The group of boys who followed him would even jokingly call her “sister-in-law” when they saw her.

And so it went, until rumors about Guo Rui began to spread to the neighboring classes.

Some said she was playing hard to get, deliberately stringing Han Cheng along while pretending not to be interested.

Some said Guo Rui had slept with Han Cheng, and that they would fool around in the alleys.

Others claimed Han Cheng would climb the school walls at night to meet her, and the two would get intimate at the bottom of the building.

The rumors grew uglier, eventually morphing into stories of Guo Rui frequently fooling around with boys, that she was a “little gangster girl” from the pool hall. Everywhere Guo Rui went, people would watch her, curious about her, testing her. Slowly, the girls in her class began to avoid her, she was ostracized in the dormitory, and the boys didn’t dare to interact with her.

Guo Rui felt surrounded, as if Han Cheng had pressed her into an airtight concrete wall.

She didn’t dare to cry for help anymore, afraid that the teachers couldn’t stop this disaster and would only fan the flames, as if no one could kill this masculine hysteria ghost. She could only endure, waiting in silence, hoping he would lose interest in her.

Qin Luo saw that Guo Rui couldn’t eat, that she was listless every day, and that her ranking in the mid-term exams had plummeted, nearly hitting the bottom of the class.

So she tried to intervene and help, but as soon as she got close to Guo Rui, Han Cheng would come looking for trouble, playing the same little tricks on her.

Liu Jia, in the neighboring class, heard that Qin Luo was being bullied because of Guo Rui.

She would persuade Qin Luo on the way to and from school every day, telling her not to be impulsive, not to fight with those maggots. If she wasn’t careful and they latched onto her, she would be the one to suffer.

But what about Guo Rui?

Qin Luo knew that Guo Rui’s disabled father had died early, and her mother had remarried and cared little for her daughter.

Guo Rui only had her uneducated grandmother to protect her. Her grandmother even missed parent-teacher conferences to earn money to support her granddaughter. The reason Guo Rui was so patient was that she didn’t want her grandmother to know. She would rather bear these false accusations herself.

How long would Guo Rui have to endure?

As a bystander, Qin Luo’s imagined morality and her real-world abilities clashed. She was shattered by her cowardice, thrown into a furnace by her empathy. The fist she couldn’t raise made her feel suffocated.

In the end, Qin Luo compromised with the suffering.

Qin Luo had once persuaded herself that Guo Rui’s inability to change was the result of a chain reaction. She had no family to love her, her body was too frail, she had no friends to rely on, and no one to guide her.

She was just a small, pessimistic microcosm. There were many things like this around her that she was powerless to change.

Since it was difficult to change, it was better to turn a deaf ear.

Qin Luo could only secretly write letters to Guo Rui, letters of support and encouragement. In the letters, she would copy interesting short stories, share interesting things from her life, and her complaints.

She treated those letters as an unseen friend, pouring out her adolescence in words.

Qin Luo secretly stuffed the letters into Guo Rui’s schoolbag.

One letter a week. Qin Luo persisted like this for half a semester, until those letters were found by Han Cheng.

Han Cheng had heard from someone that someone was writing love letters to Guo Rui. After class, he went straight to Guo Rui’s desk and, with a casual flip, saw the conspicuous folder.

A stack of letters was neatly arranged by date by Guo Rui. The folder was also new. It was clear how much she treasured these letters.

Han Cheng was quick to anger. Without a word, he tore the folder apart and randomly picked one to read.

His originally furious face, after seeing the first line of words, his pupils trembled slightly, and then his eyes narrowed, a mocking smile on his lips.

Guo Rui, behind him, tried to snatch the letters back, anxiously pulling at his clothes. “Han Cheng, give them back to me.”

Han Cheng thought it had probably been about two months.

In these two months, Guo Rui had remained unfazed by his attacks. She was aloof, untroubled, and could eat and sleep well, ignoring him like trash, which made him lose face in front of his friends.

Now, seeing Guo Rui anxious like a hopping lamb, her hand grabbing his clothes as if begging for mercy, made his heart feel a burst of satisfaction.

Han Cheng pushed Guo Rui away and, in front of the whole class, read the letter in his hand aloud. He wanted Guo Rui to remember this feeling of being ridiculed for her disobedience.

“I think if I don’t get glasses soon, I really won’t be able to see the blackboard clearly, not even Old Li’s ugly, conspicuous handwriting…”

Just as Han Cheng finished reading a sentence, Qin Luo suddenly stood up from her seat.

That was the letter she had written.

In the letter, she had complained about her mother, complained that her mom couldn’t even squeeze out the time to take her to get glasses, complained about her parents’ love-hate relationship, all secrets she had never told anyone.

“I asked my mom to take me to get glasses, and she always said okay, but she procrastinated every day. Do you know how annoying it is to not be able to see the world clearly when you open your eyes? But my mom—”

Bang—

Han Cheng’s emotional reading was interrupted by a loud noise. A crushed mineral water bottle rolled off the podium.

“Annoying, isn’t it?”

Shen Yiyi said this and then took another bottle of mineral water from her schoolbag. In front of the stunned Han Cheng, she threw it at the podium again.

This time, it not only made a louder noise, but it also almost hit his head.

Shen Yiyi looked down at her book and muttered, “Shut your mouth. No one wants to hear you talk.”

The top students chimed in in agreement, and the class president also came out to maintain order. The students who had been standing and watching the show all sat down, leaving him standing there, out of place.

The girl didn’t even lift her head, and he had lost all face in front of everyone. “It must be hard for you to understand words with such poor grades. But aren’t you tired of yourself? Don’t you think you’re very noisy every day? Do you love showing off that you’re a long-tongued man?”