Chapter 1

At our class reunion, our drunken class monitor suddenly leaned in with a conspiratorial air.

“Let me tell you a secret. Huo Ran didn't kill herself back then. I saw someone push her off the roof with my own eyes.”

My heart clenched.

Instinctively, I looked at my old desk partner across the table.

He was looking at me too.

The moment our eyes met, we saw the same indescribable fear in each other's gaze.

Because the people who'd pushed Huo Ran off that roof...

Were us.

The laughter around the banquet table immediately vanished.

A deathly silence took its place.

It didn't last long.

A burst of laughter broke through.

“Come on, Monitor. Have you been drinking fake liquor? What are you talking about?”

“Exactly. Everyone knows Huo Ran killed herself. The police settled it.”

“It's been almost fifteen years since she died, hasn't it... Time flies.”

Everyone began chattering about high school again.

Seeing no one believed him, our old class monitor, Liang Bo, slammed the table.

“I'm not making it up! I really saw someone push her!”

He paused and took a deep breath.

“And the person who did it... is sitting among you.”

His searching gaze passed over us one by one.

My heart missed a beat.

He didn't look like someone spouting drunken nonsense.

But we'd locked him in the toilets that day.

Could he have escaped?

No.

He and Huo Ran had grown up together. Their parents had been close friends for years.

Her death had shattered him.

His grades plummeted. In the end, he got into an ordinary university.

After graduation, his family arranged for him to marry and have a child in a hurry.

Now, at our company, he was even my subordinate.

Her death had changed his entire life.

Besides, her mother had been so distraught she'd nearly killed herself.

If he'd really witnessed the crime, he could have gone to the police.

He'd never have waited until today.

I didn't know why he was doing this.

But I was certain he was lying.

I quietly breathed out and instinctively straightened in my chair.

My eyes met his anxious gaze.

Like a drowning man finding something to cling to, he looked at me.

“Old Lin... do you believe me?”

Everyone knows that when people feel most helpless, they instinctively turn to those closest to them.

After university, Liang Bo and I happened to join the same company.

Of everyone here, we were the closest.

But I couldn't tell whether he simply wanted comfort...

Or was testing me.

I forced a smile and was about to answer when a woman's puzzled voice came from behind me.

“If you saw it back then, why didn't you tell the police?”

All eyes returned to Liang Bo.

He clearly hadn't expected that question.

He stood frozen, his face red.

After a long time, he spoke hoarsely.

“I... didn't dare. He had something on me. If I went to the police, my life would be over.”

My pupils contracted.

I instinctively looked at He Ze.

No wonder he'd been so certain the case would be ruled a suicide.

There was a secret behind it even I didn't know.

Liang Bo's statement had played a major part in the case being closed so quickly.

The truth was, we hadn't originally intended to kill Huo Ran.

She only had herself to blame for meddling.

It was the day before the end-of-term exams.

After the usual interminable class meeting, our homeroom teacher told us to clear our books so the classroom could be arranged for the exams.

Exams meant different things to different students.

For top students like Huo Ran and Liang Bo, they were a chance to test what they'd learned. They always cooperated enthusiastically.

For the students seated beside the classroom bins, they just meant somewhere else to sleep.

The most worried were average students like He Ze and me.

His family was wealthy by county standards.

But he was lazy about studying. His father had to use money to make him study.

Bad results meant losing his allowance and getting a beating.

Before every exam, he bribed someone in the same room to pass him answers.

But he'd done so badly last time that, for this exam, the students assigned to his room were even worse than him.

He came up with another idea.

While the teacher wasn't looking, he pulled me into a corner of the stairwell.

“What are you going to do this time?”

I shrugged.

“Same as always. Copy from the front, back, left, and right. Can't let my nearsighted eyes and their 5.2 vision go to waste.”

He swore.

“Fuck. Everyone in my room's stupider than me.”

As he complained, his eyes suddenly lit up.

“Old Lin. What if... we steal the exam papers?”

Fifteen years ago, exams weren't supervised as strictly as they are now.

And this was only a small town.

I backed away.

“Are you mad? We'll be expelled if we're caught.”

He argued and persuaded me at length, finally guaranteeing nothing would go wrong.

Remembering how both my parents had beaten me after my last failed attempt to copy, I let impulse take over.

I agreed.

That night, the chemistry teacher was on duty.

We secretly put a laxative in his water and slipped into the staffroom while he rushed to the toilet.

We thought we'd planned it perfectly.

Then Huo Ran caught us.

She froze in the doorway, her large eyes fixed on us.

We pleaded and begged, stopping just short of dropping to our knees.

Finally, the girl relented and gave us three days.

If we didn't confess to the teachers within that time, she'd report us.

Watching her leave, He Ze said coldly, “Why don't we just kill her?”

I was so frightened my eyes nearly popped out.

But he said she'd been talking about depression for ages.

He'd even found a suicide note she'd written.

If we did it carefully, the death would be ruled a suicide.

He looked at me and said only one thing.

“Expulsion... or kill her. You choose.”

The three days passed quickly.

We arranged to talk to her on the roof.

Only then did we learn she'd asked Liang Bo to come too. She wanted to tell him everything.

While He Ze pretended to negotiate, I secretly locked Liang Bo in the toilets.

At first, He Ze offered Huo Ran a hundred thousand yuan.

She still insisted on reporting us.

He Ze and I exchanged a look.

The next moment, she fell from the roof.

We hurried back to the internet café where we'd reserved places and pretended we'd never left all evening.

The case was soon closed.

The conclusion: severe depression. Suicide.

The note she'd written was released too.

It described insomnia, anxiety, and mental distress caused by academic pressure.

Liang Bo testified that she'd told him many times she wanted to die.

That she'd had enough of life.

At first, our classmates still spoke of her often.

As time passed, everyone gradually forgot.

Until tonight.