57 The Youth

 

Three individuals chose to end their own lives in their own way. Two chose to leave with dignity, leaving behind not a ripple; the other was loud and eye-grabbing, using his life to bloom into a blood red flower. “Do you think this case is related to the other two suicides?” Gu Chen walked around the room. I nodded. “Yes, his valued brush is missing.” I said as I pointed at an exquisite calligraphy rack. There should be a brush hanging there. The brush was Lee Zhinan’s weapon and his memory. The man ended his life for his first love, that was rather sad. Gu Chen stopped moving and tapped his feet. “What do you think is this murderer’s purpose anyway? Going around helping others to commit suicide and then take away something previous from them.”

“The term murderer is not that accurate here.” I scratched my head. “Plus don’t you find one thing that is quite strange about all 3 cases? Their suicide motives are way too easily discovered. Wang Yiman placed her family portrait on her vanity table and now Lee Zhinan placed his diary right in the open.” I pulled on my hair. “Wouldn’t you normally hide something private like a diary in a drawer somewhere? But the notebook was placed at the spot where we would definitely notice it, as if it was waiting for us to discover it.”

“Is there a meaning behind that?” Guan Zhenglin asked.

I nodded. “The victims openly displayed their suicide motives so that we would close the case easily and quickly. They were afraid of exposing this, for the lack of a better term, murderer. Albeit the most recent victims were not as subtle as Gao Rui, they were all covering for the murderer.”

Guan Zhenglin sighed, “That is strange. Someone pushed them towards suicide but these people helped to cover their track in return, what kind of relationship is that?”

“Was it possible that the victims were hypnotized?” Gu Chen suggested.

“Is that a possibility?” I turned to Guan Zhenglin.

Guan Zhenglin shrugged, “It’s not impossible, but I don’t think there is such a good hypnotist in the world. To hypnotize someone to take their own lives is incredibly hard and it will need a long preparation time to manipulate the victims’ psychology. We know Gao Rui, is there such a person in his social circle?”

I scratched my head. Hypnosis was something that I was completely unfamiliar with. Perhaps someone could do something like this, at least I wouldn’t be able to. My phone rang, it was from Xiao Liu.

“What’s up, my brother Liu?” I picked. “What do you have for me?’

“We found the cyanide thief.” Xiao Liu said, “You better come over now.”

Looking at the junior high students before us, my feelings were complicated. The thief was not the staff but a few students. Xiao Liu took my advice and expanded his search. Since he got nothing from the staff, he turned his attention to the student body. After some asking around, a few students entered Xiao Liu’s radar. After some pushing, one of them finally admitted the truth. There were 5 junior high students who participated in the theft, 3 males and 2 females. They were in their teens, definitely not someone persuasive enough to convince adults to take their own lives.

While Xiao Liu sequestered the kids inside the classroom to get them to explain the process, we were outside the classroom to get to know these kids from their teachers. The students didn’t come from the same class but they hung out together because they all came from single-parent families. The leader of this group was Lee Taida, according to the teachers, he was a rebel. The doodles on his school uniform were Gothic in nature, there were skulls, crows, monsters and so on. The other male student’s name was Zhao Erming, he had a sour face and looked hard to be with. The final male student’s name was Zhou Guo. He looked skittish and it was him who spilled the beans.

Of the two girls, the one named Lin Rou was the female version of Lee Taida, she too was Goth all over. The other girl, Zhang Xue, looked surprisingly cute and innocent. But in comparison to the rest of the students, they were definitely the outlaws. They often talked back to the teachers, played nasty tricks, got into fights and had premature sex. They had done everything a bad student should.

“I knew these students couldn’t be controlled. Eventually something like this was bound to happen.” A few teachers whispered among themselves.

Gu Chen was indignant on the students’ behalf. “If you ask me, the kids have such unique and individualistic characters. They just know how to express themselves better than the other students. Brother Wu, you understand what I’m saying, right?”

I shook my head. “Since I came from prison, I have to be bad in my studies? Actually I was one of those good students when I was in school. I merely excelled more in my extra-curricular activities.”

“Bro, whose side are you on?!”

“They’re all children of single-parent families.” Guan Zhenglin looked at them through the window and uttered softly, “They just lack familial guidance.”

I shook my head again. “I am an orphan too but I turn out perfectly fine. A person’s nature comes from within, the without can only influence them that much. I’ve met the kindest person who came from the dirtiest and most despicable background and I’ve encountered horrible criminals who were loved all their lives. Of course, that is not to say we should judge these kids before we meet them ourselves.” I said and opened the classroom door.

When we walked in, everyone’s eyes turned towards us. From Xiao Liu, we found out the truth. They were all students in third year junior high. During one of their chemistry classes, Lee Taida wanted to do something dangerous because he was bored. Zhao Erming suggested they could steal some cyanide. Based on what he heard, the poison was so powerful that a small pinch of it could kill an adult in seconds. And it acted very fast. However, Lee Taida and Zhao Erming were so bad in their studies that they couldn’t identify cyanide among the many chemicals. Therefore, they found a third member, which was Lin Rou. Lin Rou knew the chemical but she also knew it would be locked because it was poisonous. To overcome that, they found Zhang Xue, not because Zhang Xue had the key but because the one who had the key had a crush on Zhang Xue. That person was Zhou Guo. Zhou Guo was often bullied but he carried a torch for Zhang Xue, furthermore, he was the chemistry lab assistant. The lab assistant had the responsibility to clean up the lab after the students used them. Based on school rules, the teachers should be present during the cleaning process but since the students’ experiments normally didn’t involve any dangerous substance, they would leave the job to the assistant and left to enjoy their own break.

That was how Zhou Guo got the key. Zhang Xue went to beg Zhou Guo for help. Zhou Guo was usually very timid but he could be courageous for Zhang Xue. Therefore, on the day when he was on duty, Zhou Guo used the key to open the lock, stole a piece of cyanide and locked the door. No one was none the wiser.

To be fair, the kids never even considered the issue of surveillance, they had no idea the junior high department didn’t have surveillance cameras. It was us who thought it had to be someone who was familiar with the layout of the school who was behind the theft. However, to the kids, they only saw this as nothing more than a dare. Zhou Guo gave the cyanide to Zhang Xue and Zhang Xue handed the cyanide to Lee Taida’s group. That was the whole truth, just a bunch of kids being naughty.

I looked at the kids and said, “Don’t be afraid. Just answer my questions honestly. Where is the cyanide now?”

Zhou Guo burst into tears immediately. “I don’t know. I gave it to them after I took it out, I never used it at all.” Looks like Xiao Liu had given them quite a scare but then again, these were just kids, it was natural for them to feel nervous around the police. However, this Zhao Guo was a bit too easily scared, he cried before I even got to the hard part. Guan Zhenglin hurried forward to comfort the boy. I turned to the others.

Zhao Erming scoffed. “We split the thing into pieces and each of us took some. I heard it was highly toxic but I wanted to see it with my own eyes so I melted it into a bowl of water and fed it to a stray dog. The thing did die after a few minutes.” The expression on the boy’s face didn’t change like killing a dog was an everyday event for him. I couldn’t help but frown. This was a sign of psychopathy. Would he have kept some of the cyanide and used it on humans?

“Where is the dog now?” I demanded. “If the dog was picked up by some dog meat seller, do you know how big the consequence would be?”

Zhao Erming chuckled. “Consequences? So people will die. Big deal.” Seeing how nonchalant he was, my heart burned with fury. “Xiao Liu, send a team to escort him to retrieve the dog’s body.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Zhao Erming announced.

“Say that again?” Gu Chen rose to his full height and gave the boy his death glare. The gaze was so penetrating that even I was frightened for a moment. Zhao Erming’s lips moved but in the end he wisely kept his mouth shut. He followed the officer and left the classroom.

“What about you?” I turned to Lee Taida.

The boy was silent for a long time before he said quite happily, “Well, to be honest, I’ve used it to murder someone.”

 

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