CH 7

I could see Daning’s body lying in the grass even from afar. His face was bloodied and beyond recognition, but I knew those clothes.

By the time I arrived, the police had already cordoned off the area with police tape. I could see many people standing on the outside of the tape, pointing at Daning’s body while murmuring to each other. Their actions made me feel awful inside for some reason.

I remembered that in the past, no matter where in the school we walked to, there would always be someone pointing at our backs and laughing at us. Daning was already dead, but he was still subject to such treatment. I wondered if this would also happen to me if I really decided to end my life the same way on graduation day.

Sadness filled my heart, both for Daning and myself. I couldn’t stop these people from talking, but the least I could do was to cover Daning’s disfigured face and protect his last shred of dignity.

With that, I bent down to get under the police tape and ran quickly towards Daning’s body.

Some policemen tried to catch hold of me but failed, so some others began running after me. Daning’s body was only about 20 meters away from me and I ran as quickly as I could, but years of doing nothing but gaming through the night had weakened my body, so the police managed to pounce on me while I was still two or three meters away from the body.

In that moment, I recalled my conversation with Daning and started yelling with all my might, “His hand! His hand!”

Unfortunately, my shouts were quickly drowned out by the cheers of everyone watching. When I tried to yell again, a police officer twisted my arms behind my back and the terrible pain made me unable to utter a single word.

Just then, a tall and skinny police officer approached me. He waved at the police officer holding me down to let go of me, then spoke in a friendly voice to me, “I’m Inspector Ji, the inspector in charge of this case. Do you have something to say to me?”

I opened my mouth to speak but clamped my mouth shut again. Instead, I looked towards Daning’s right hand.

Inspector Ji followed my gaze and understood my hint. He walked over to the body, squatted down, and forced the deceased’s hand open.

But nothing was there.

Did I remember wrongly? I started glancing at Daning’s left hand and Inspector Ji hurried over to force the left hand open, only to find nothing as well.

What was going on now? Did he drop the button on the way down? Crap! As I thought about these things, I started looking around to hint to the inspector that there might be something important in the area around the body. Inspector Ji was afraid that he might miss it, so he ordered all his subordinates to do a thorough search of the area.

As I had expected, it didn’t take long for one of the police officers to discover that button. An observant person among the onlookers instantly recognized it as a button from one of Mr. Chen’s jackets, while someone else finally recognized Daning’s clothes. Another person even made things worse by claiming he had witnessed Daning and Mr. Chen arguing in the morning.

All sorts of rumors and conjectures started spreading through the crowd.

After hearing the discussion among the onlookers, Inspector Ji could see that this case was going to be solved really soon, so he quickly started trying to claim credit for the case by saying to the other police officers around him, “When the school first reported a student suicide, I had a strange feeling in my heart that this wasn’t the case and insisted on coming here to investigate personally. My worries weren’t unfounded after all!”

Since the inspector-in-charge was blowing his own trumpet, the other police officers quickly seized the chance to butter him up and praised him for being able to foretell the future like a god.

Inspector Ji laughed merrily and waved his hand to stop his subordinates from singing his praises. He magnanimously began sharing his thoughts with them, “Actually, when I saw this building from afar, I already felt that this student couldn’t have killed himself. Why? Because a platform has been built on the second story. If he had jumped from any window upstairs, he should have landed on this platform, but he landed on the ground instead. There’s only one explanation for this, and that is that the victim had been pushed out of the window!”

The onlookers murmured excitedly as they were enlightened by Inspector Ji’s analysis, so he continued analyzing the situation for them. “Later, when I saw the body, I was even more sure of my conjecture, because the victim had landed on his back. Think about it. Those who commit suicide by jumping off a building normally land flat on their faces. How could they possibly land on their back? And now that we’ve discovered this button near the victim’s body, I think we’ll be able to crack this case real soon!”

Inspector Ji remembered that he had gotten this far partly because of my contribution, so he looked intently at me and said, “Did you know the victim?”

Daning and I had played video games together for four whole years. I didn’t just know Daning. I knew Daning very well.

Inspector Ji asked a second question, “Then do you recognize this button?”

Mr. Chen had reprimanded me for four whole years and I hated him to the core. Of course I knew that button from his jacket.

Inspector Ji nodded and passed the button to another officer, instructing him to send this to the lab for testing and to report to him once the results were out.

The police officer was confused. Wouldn’t it be easier to just arrest the owner of this button and interrogate him? Why was there a need to send the button to the lab? But even though that police officer thought that way, he didn’t dare to say it out loud, so he tried to put it in another way, “Do you want me to take this Mr. Chen back to the police station too?”

Inspector Ji seemed the type who preferred fishing with a fishing rod instead of a large net and was in no hurry. “Don’t worry about that. Let’s go to the floor where the victim jumped off and take a look first before deciding what to do next.”

He turned to look at me and asked with a smile, “Could you show me the way?”