11 A History Lesson

 

Captain Zhao pulled out his pocket and the only thing he could produce was a box of cigarettes and several candies. He turned to Mary awkwardly. We all knew what he meant. However, my allowance all came from Captain Zhao. I could only open my hands awkwardly. Mary and Gu Chen took out several hundred RMB from their pockets and placed them in my open palm. I took several steps forward and pushed it into the old lady’s only hand. The old lady pushed the money back to me. In our back and forth, several coins dropped to the ground. I bent down to pick them up and saw that there were several spoons and used cigarette butts under the simple bed. When we left, the old lady thanked us again and again.

An once model student ended up as a drug addict, none of us knew what happened to him. Similarly, we had no idea why Lin Su killed when he was 15. To know more, Captain Zhao pulled up the case file. According to Lin Su’s testimony, when he was asked for his motive, he only said, ‘he deserved to die.’ Captain Zhao held Lin Su’s files and pressed his temple. “Lin Su probably has left Long Ze already, we’ve casted our net a bit too late. He probably left by taxi or buses, public transport that doesn’t need id verification.”

Had Lin Su really left? I closed my eyes to ponder that question. If I was Lin Su, what would I do?

…

Moments later, I came up with the answer, I will not leave Long Ze. First, I am a drug addict. If I leave this place, where will I find a new drug supplier in short notice? I am most familiar with Long Ze City. Furthermore, my grandmother is here.

…

I personally believed we should find out why Lin Su committed that murder way back when, it might help us understand Lin Su better. “Captain Zhao, we should split up.” I shared my views, “I wish to investigate Lin Su’s teenhood case further while the search for Lin Su continues. But I also think we should send a few people to watch over the old lady’s home. I found some spoons and cigarette butts under her bed. She might be lying.”

Mary rolled her eyes. “Everyone is a criminal in your cynical eye.”

I shook my head and explained, “I merely understand the human heart better.” Captain Zhao was basically immune to our bickering already. He turned to Gu Chen. “I’ll leave you with the surveillance of the old lady, if Lin Su ever comes back to see his grandmother, report to us immediately.”

Searching for someone’s information could be extremely easy or extremely hard. The hardest problem was that none of the schools wished to admit that Lin Su was one of their students, after all, no institution wanted to have their reputation tainted by having a murderer as their alumni, even though said student had also been their model student for several years. In any case, I still managed to contact Lin Su’s former class teacher and from him, I got to know another version of Lin Su. A person could have different personas depending on the person they interacted with, all of them combined together might not even be their actual self. According to his class teacher, Lin Su had always been the perfect student. When Lin Su was sent to juvie, basically all of his classmates and teachers went to send him off. They all wished him that he would come out to be a better person.

Clearly, juvie had left an opposite impact on Lin Su.

When asked about the murder, the class teacher sighed. It happened more than 10 years ago, the day was as hot as it was today. The students were clearly bored out of their mind, a boredom that was intensified further by the fact that it was a history class. The teacher was teaching them the story about Jing Ke’s assassination attempt on the King of Qin. The story of historical and political intrigue became a dry and mind-numbing tale thanks to a monotonous lecture.

To understand Lin Su’s crime, one first had to be introduced to another character called Wang Liqun. Wang Liqun was the supposed leader of the class. The boy was already 1.8 metres tall when he was in secondary school, his physical stature lent weight behind his words. And his words carried more clout than the spiel of the boring history teacher on the podium. As an example of Wang Liqun’s tyranny, he once beat a student until he begged Wang Liqun for mercy simply because he did not bow to the king of the class when they crossed paths. Wang Liqun’s favorite hobby, other than bullying, was to gather his ‘gangs’ and block people’s way in the middle of the corridor. Whenever the girls passed, he would slap at their butt. Seeing the girls all flustered as they ran away, Wang Liqun felt rejuvenated and validated. The people that Wang Liqun hated and looked down the most were the goody-two-shoes in class because they were all brains and no brawns. They were just a bunch of flimsy bookworms.

Lin Su was the best student in class, a prime bookworm in Wang Liqun’s eyes. Therefore, Wang Liqun often bullied Lin Su for no other reason than because he wanted to.

One time, Wang Liqun poured his own pee into Lin Su’s bottle. He and his buddies held in their laughter while they waited to see Lin Su make a fool of himself. Some of the girls wanted to warn Lin Su but under Wang Liqun’s warning gaze, none of them dared to speak up. Lin Su drank the water and instantly Wang Liqun and his gang burst out laughter, “You just drank my pee.”

Lin Su did not react in any way, he merely stopped drinking and tossed the bottle away. Lin Su should be greatly humiliated but the fact that he wasn’t placed a greater humiliation on Wang Liqun instead. Even until his death, Wang Liqun never understood that you couldn’t humiliate someone who was fully secure in themselves. Lin Su did not even deign to give him a response. Each individual approached the world in their own different ways, that was just common sense but so many people did not get it.

Wang Liqun’s biggest idols were Bill Gates and Steve Jobs because they were school dropouts. However, in the end, they had people from famous universities working underneath them. But what Wang Liqun did not understand was these people gained success in spite of being a dropout but not because they were dropouts. People always preferred an underdog story and that merely reflected the anxiety that was prevalent in all of us. The human mind was the best at finding excuses for oneself.

Lin Su though knew perfectly well that to change his own fate, he had to rely on his own two hands and for now, education was his only way.

“Jing Ke slowly unfurled the map.” The teacher lectured, “And the dagger was shown.” At the same time, the dagger hidden under Lin Su’s history textbook was shown as well. “Jing Ke grabbed the dagger and stabbed his target!” The teacher continued in a robotic drone. Lin Su grabbed the dagger and stabbed his target.

Jing Ke missed but Lin Su’s dagger plunged right through Wang Liqun’s heart. They were both warriors prepared to face the consequences of their actions.

One could learn from secondary biology class that after one’s aorta was sliced, the blood would spurt out and splatter everywhere. The textbook was correct because when Lin Su pulled out the knife, the blood inside Wang Liqun’s body gushed out like a fountain. Wang Liqun only had a few seconds to understand why he was attacked and why Lin Su dared to come after him. Before people could fathom what was happening, Lin Su dropped the weapon to the ground and turned to the teacher, “Call the police, I’ve killed someone.”

From then on, the history teacher’s class was no longer robotic. She saw for herself an actual murder, it was gory and senseless. Finally she understood what exactly Ke Jing felt when he was on that one-way mission.

Lin Su was sent into juvie and Wang Liqun died.

“Sir, do you know anyone who was close friends with Wang Liqun back then?” I asked.

“Matter of fact I do, I keep all of my students numbers.” The class teacher said responsibly, “But I’m not sure whether they’ve changed their number or not.”

The evening of the second afternoon, I found a classmate from Lin Su’s class. When I found him at the construction site, he was pouring two pails of cement into the foundation. When I asked him about Wang Liqun’s death, this young man who was supposed to be 20 but looked 40 sighed, “I didn’t get it at the time but looking back, I should have seen it sooner.” I had no idea what he meant so I asked him to explain. A decade had passed since then but there were certain things that you would never forget.

One day after school, Wang Liqun and his gang were hanging out at a stall near the school when an old lady appeared before them. She reached for Wang Liqun’s can of drink because there was only a little bit left in it.

“Fuck, old lady, what are you doing?!” Wang Liqun cursed loudly, “Can’t you see that I haven’t finished the drink yet? Are you blind or senile?” The loud curses attracted the attention of a secondary school student, he was carrying a gunny sack of empty cans over his shoulders. Seeing him, Wang Liqun laughed even louder, “Wait, isn’t this the model student from our school, the great Lin Su? So this garbage-picking hag is your grandmother?! Ha ha, an old garbage leading a young garbage, truly have you ever seen a sight sadder than this?”

Lin Su ignored him. He pulled on his grandmother’s arm and ushered her away. Wang Liqun though still hadn’t had his fun. This was a rare chance that he got to ruffle Lin Su’s feathers so naturally he wasn’t going to let it go so easily. Wang Liqun ran forward and yanked at the sack Lin Su was carrying. Instantly, the bag of cans clattered noisily to the ground. The old woman never once imagined that her one act of carelessness could lead to such consequences, in any case, she apologized profusely to the young man, “I’m sorry, this is all my fault.”

Lin Su glanced at Wang Liqun and then bent down to help his grandmother pick up the cans. But that was the last straw for Wang Liqun. Everyone at school would either show fear or admiration when they ran into Wang Liqun but this Lin Su acted like he couldn’t even see Wang Liqun, being ignored was the biggest offense to Wang Liqun. With a kick, he sent a can flying and its sharp edge knocked into the old lady’s head. Lin Su could take anything Wang Liqun did to him without retaliation but even the gentlest creature had their bottomline. However at that moment, Lin Su still did not do anything other than to straighten up and help his grandmother. Under the streetlights, amidst the crowd, with the delicious smell of food wafting around them, this young man wearing a tattered shirt had a barely discernible smile on his face when he told Wang Liqun softly, “Be prepared, I will kill you tomorrow.”

So many nights later, Wang Liqun’s former friend would still dream of that young man in his nightmare. The young man’s name was Lin Su, he was a person of few words but everything that he said had come true.

The construction worker remembered striking up a conservation with Lin Su on the first day of school. At the time, no one knew anyone, the pecking order still hadn’t been established. Lin Su introduced himself by saying, “I came from a small village, I don’t know much but I swear to be the first-place student every year in class.”

And Lin Su had never gotten a placement worse than that.