Chapter 54: The Lonely Killer – 3
First, she took a turn at the school gate, then walked down the hallway and into the main hall. Tang Yingli looked around like a tourist.
The bulletin board was covered with awards from students’ off-campus competitions. She pushed up her glasses and browsed, letting out a small “Oh.”
The cafeteria was right next to the gymnasium, and from there, you could easily hear the shouts of people playing ball.
The menu posted outside was very tempting, and the inside was filled with the aroma of food. She stared at a large pot of simmering sweet soup and raised her index finger. “A bowl of red bean soup, please.”
“No problem.” Perhaps because her clothes were eye-catching, the staff member asked, “Are you a student’s parent?”
“No, I’m here to find someone.”
“Oh, the police were just here asking, and a lot of people came.”
“Yes, I’m assisting the police with their investigation.” Yingli brought up a photo. “This little girl didn’t come to school today. Do you remember her?”
He frowned and shook his head. “Um… no. There are too many students, I can’t remember.”
“It’s alright, thank you.”
As she was carrying her soup and choosing a seat, the bell for the end of class rang. A large number of female students flooded in, and in the crowded environment, she leisurely drank her soup.
Until a gritted-teeth voice boomed— “You actually came here to cool off.”
“Officer Zhou.” She waved her hand coolly, without any guilt. “Did you ask the homeroom teacher?”
“Aren’t you going to explain why you suddenly ran off to here? And you even ordered red bean soup.” To get to Yingli’s side, she had had to fight her way through the crowd.
“Didn’t I tell you? Sweets can effectively supply the brain with nutrients, which is very helpful for thinking.” She winked and put a finger to her lips. “Especially since I love red bean soup.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Here, sit down.” She reached out and pulled her to her side to avoid being swallowed by the students in green uniforms. “Have some. I don’t want you to have another low blood sugar episode like before.”
That was when they were at the riverside park. “That time was…”
Yingli wiped her mouth and interrupted, “Where’s Officer Cai?”
“He went to find Ou Anpo’s classmates.” She looked around the crowded cafeteria, worried that he would miss them in the classroom.
“Oh, that’s a good job for him.” Seeing that Zhou Jinglin was still serious, she raised an eyebrow. “Since you’re not going to say anything, then I will.”
“Huh?”
“I’ve observed the area from the school gate to the gymnasium and the sports field. The walls here are not very high, and it would be easy to climb over them, but climbing over the wall is too conspicuous. It would be easier to just walk out the school gate.”
“So you’re saying she left on her own?”
“Yes, otherwise the school security would have noticed.” She rested her chin on her hand. “As for the reason, compared to family problems, I’m more concerned about her social situation.”
“What do you mean?”
“Her academic performance is excellent, and I also found her award information on the bulletin board, although it was from last semester. She won first prize in a national competition.”
“I think she plays the violin… but so what?”
“With an instrument like the violin, it takes a lot of time just to play the correct scales.” Yingli tilted her chin up, her posture as if she were holding a violin. “To be able to stand out in a competitive Western music competition proves that she has invested a considerable amount of time in practicing… does she have a club?”
“Yes, but it has nothing to do with her musical talent.”
“What’s the homeroom teacher’s opinion of her?”
Zhou Jinglin briefly repeated it, and the students who had come for food had also started to disperse. “…The more I hear, the more I think the problem is with the director and his wife. To control their daughter like that, and not even let her have free contact with her classmates, I really don’t know how she’s supposed to adapt to group life.”
“I think you’re jumping to conclusions.” Yingli shook her head slightly. “Although their educational methods are a bit controversial, I think this is their way of protecting their daughter.”
She exclaimed, her eyes wide, “What kind of protection is that?”
Yingli did not answer directly, but continued on her own, “But this kind of protection has side effects. After all, people often only care about external dangers and ignore the harm that ‘loneliness’ can cause to a person.”
“Loneliness to a person…” she was silent, and what came to her mind were the words Yingli had written in her diary.
“Do you remember when I said ‘humans are social animals’?”
She immediately thought of the golden hamster. “Was that when you were talking about mimicking expressions?”
“Yes, mirror neurons. Not bad, you still remember.” Yingli smiled. “In the 1940s, the Premack siblings began to study human social skills, and subsequent researchers confirmed that even six-month-old infants will choose individuals who are helpful and develop various altruistic behaviors. Simply put, they proved through studying infants that humans are born with social skills.”
“Oh, oh.”
“On the contrary, loneliness can indeed affect one’s physical state and, to some extent, interfere with one’s health. The mortality rate of people who subjectively perceive themselves as ‘lonely’ is 14% higher, and it also increases inflammation and affects immune function.”
Zhou Jinglin’s eyes widened in surprise. “Fourteen? So much.”
“The data is for reference only, but the negative impact of loneliness on health has been proven. Back to this case…” Yingli said, as if with some feeling, “geniuses are always lonely. Sometimes being ‘excellent’ is enough to make her an insulator.”
“Huh?”
“Let me ask you,” Yingli met her questioning gaze, “how do you feel about the students in your class with excellent grades?”
“Um… just normal classmates? And I think they’re amazing. After all, my grades have never been very good.”
“Isn’t there a kind of indescribable distance? Or do you feel that their thinking is jumpy and difficult to communicate with? Especially the math and science gifted students.”
“I don’t think so. It could also be that I’ve never met one.” She shrugged. “So, you think the reason for the distance is that she’s too excellent?”
“I’ll say this first, this is almost pure intuition.” Yingli’s smile faded. “Ou Anpo must not have many friends. From her academic and artistic performance, I deduce that she is not good at communication. The photo of her also shows a sense of isolation. The parents’ restrictions are likely the result, not the cause.”
“Then what’s the cause?”
“That’s a bit more complicated…” In the middle of their conversation, Zhou Jinglin’s phone rang.
“Ah Wei is asking where we are.” It seemed he had finished his investigation. “I hope he got some useful information.”
“By the way,” while she was replying to the message, Yingli said nonchalantly, “Officer Cai seems to be more proactive than usual today.”
“Yes, he was the first to raise his hand.” Her typing suddenly paused, and she guessed, “Maybe it’s because he doesn’t have to touch a corpse?”
“Did he tell you the reason?” Seeing that she was not interested in the red bean soup, Yingli finished the rest.
“He didn’t say. By the way, I’m more concerned about Senior Big Head’s reaction, not to mention the director immediately handed over the case of his daughter’s search to the Criminal Investigation Division… it feels more complicated than I thought.” She rubbed her temples.
The sweet soup touched her lips, and Yingli said thoughtfully, “In any case, let’s first figure out the reason for Ou Anpo’s disappearance.”
**
Yingli’s deduction seemed to have hit the nail on the head. After they met up, Cai Yuwei said with a troubled expression, “Ou Anpo’s connection with her classmates is very weak,” indicating her lack of interpersonal relationships.
“She only has one close friend, but even she doesn’t know much about Ou Anpo, whether it’s her family or her social life.”
What surprised him the most was that classmate’s attitude. When he told her that Ou Anpo was still missing after the police had been dispatched to search for her, she did not show any concern, but instead said, “It’s no big deal.”
That attitude was as casual as if she were talking about a stranger. “Did she say why she thought it was no big deal?”
“I didn’t ask, but I did ask others for their opinion of Ou Anpo.”
“What did the others say?” Zhou Jinglin asked.
“They all said it was hard to communicate with her, especially about schoolwork. They either said they couldn’t understand what Ou Anpo was saying, or that she had a ‘why don’t you understand’ attitude… so a lot of people thought she was arrogant and proud.”
“Ah.”
“Teacher, what’s wrong?”
“I was right,” she covered her mouth, “but she’s not like me.”
She must have come up with some strange association again. “What do you mean, ‘not like’?”
“Her language and abstract thinking are not coordinated.” She crossed her arms and nodded as if she had just had an epiphany. “No wonder her classmates said ‘it’s no big deal’.”
“You’re not going to talk about the left brain and right brain again, are you?” Zhou Jinglin was about to cover her ears.
“That’s right. For right-handed people, the left brain, or the dominant hemisphere, is responsible for language, controlling words and expression, while the right brain is for abstract reasoning and spatial concepts. The ability to understand abstract reasoning is sometimes innate, but language expression must be learned…” Yingli seemed to be lost in her academic theories, rambling on.
“Oh, a girl who is not understood… it’s a shame that to others, it’s not a big deal if she disappears.” From an angle the two of them couldn’t see, she gave a bitter, small smile.
“Hey.” She pulled Yingli to the side of the service vehicle. “Be careful what you say. She is the daughter of a precinct director, after all.”
“Don’t you think it’s sad? She’s so outstanding. Oh, so that’s why she joined that kind of static club…”
“No one is ‘a shame to disappear’.”
The two of them turned to Cai Yuwei at the same time, and saw that his eyes had become sharp, and his voice was extremely suppressed.
“No matter how annoying she is on the surface, how unpopular she is, as long as there is one person…” he took a deep breath, “as long as there is someone who remembers her, she is not the kind of person who is ‘a shame to disappear’.”
“Ah Wei?”
“Aren’t her parents still worried to death?” His anger was all directed at Yingli. “And her sister who was in the photo with her… aren’t we here for the people who are worried about her?”
“Uh, I think the teacher was just… talking casually.” Zhou Jinglin gave a dry laugh. “You didn’t mean any harm, right?”
“It seems you’re not the only one who was spurred on by that sentence from Chief Fang.” She shrugged. “And I’m not the only one who was reminded of the past by this case.”
Cai Yuwei’s face was tense. Yingli met his gaze and gave a knowing smile.
“In any case, that’s probably all for the school.” She got into the service vehicle. “Let’s go to her house and take a look.”
The two detectives looked at each other, and she crossed her legs leisurely.
“This is getting more and more interesting.”
