Chapter Seventy-Three: The Murderer Who Killed the Girl and the Rules

Several teachers stood nearby, their voices hushed as they wept softly. A few students knelt in the corner, the air thick with a pungent, acrid odor wafting from their trousers.

One of them knelt motionless, as if she had chosen her posture before her body stiffened. Her mouth hung open, and the lower half of her face—from the nostrils downward—was swollen and flushed a deep red, the tissue puffed up by several centimeters. The skin inside her mouth had blistered; perhaps “blisters” was an inadequate word. It was the separation of skin seen in severe scalding.

Her hands, too, were swollen and red; beside her knees lay a hot water kettle, spilling water across the floor, and a mobile phone, dry and untouched, a little farther away.

He swallowed, his expression grave as he approached the corpse. Gently, he reached out and pried apart her swollen, fused lips with his fingertips. A blast of searing heat surged from her mouth.

“She…”

Bu Zhaozhao finished the words Chen Qing had started. “She drank an entire kettle of boiling water—one hundred degrees—killing herself by suffocation?”

“A kettle of boiling water… no matter how hot, it shouldn’t cause instant death…” Chen Qing murmured, his gaze shifting to the hastily arriving Dean of Discipline.

“What did she do? Did anyone witness it?” The Dean wiped his brow, nodded, and pointed at the students slumped on the ground not far away. “Don’t ask now… they’re in no state to talk.”

Chen Qing nodded in understanding and stepped closer, eyes fixed on the lifeless gaze that had not closed in death. Perhaps it was the terror of his actions that jarred the students back to awareness. They shuffled backward, their movement rustling, and only after catching Chen Qing’s attention did they begin, hesitantly, to speak.

“She… she died from drinking water!” one wailed, repeating the words as if to make them true.

Chen Qing furrowed his brow and questioned, “Drinking water? How much did she drink?”

“A lot! A lot! She was standing in front of the hot water dispenser—filled a kettle and drank straight from it, then filled another and drank, over and over! I don’t know how much she drank! She kept drinking until just now, suddenly smiled at us, and then… this happened!”

He sobbed, repeating himself, the memory of her figure blurred in his tears, yet unable to stop recounting the events.

“She kept drinking! The water overflowed from her mouth, and she forced more in!”

Chen Qing’s expression grew even more solemn. He stared at the corpse and gently pressed his hand to her chest. In that moment, he understood—the student’s account was accurate. He understood the cause of her death.

Yes, severe burns alone could not account for immediate death. She had not died from scalding, but from ruptured stomach: boiling water had flooded her abdominal cavity, steaming her alive from within. Whether by massive hemorrhage or infection, death had come by these means.

He took out his phone and documented the victim, each photograph of the horrific burns stirring an unavoidable pity within him. He shivered, then turned to the students, asking, “You haven’t looked at her phone, have you?”

“No! No! We haven’t seen it at all!” they replied in unison.

He then looked to the teachers, who, pale-faced, nodded as well. Satisfied none had touched it, Chen Qing rose and walked to the phone.

He picked it up; before unlocking it, the faces of the four dead police officers appeared on the screen. They tore at each other’s bodies, each face filling a corner of the display. Smiling, they dug at each other’s eye sockets with their fingertips.

“Time…” he muttered. Judging by their wounds, the photo seemed to have been taken earlier than those found with the two henchmen. But if the students had received the photos before the others, why had the victim only appeared today?

He frowned. Could the rumors online be true? If you forward the photo, you’ll be safe. But if so, who first devised this rule?

He shook his head, dismissing unrelated thoughts, then turned again to the students. “Did she get along well with anyone, or badly?”

They exchanged glances, wary of speaking.

“Her death likely has nothing to do with others,” Chen Qing reassured, reading their minds. “Don’t worry, the police will ask these questions again later.”

“With…” One raised a hand, pointing to a class behind Chen Qing. “She was close with Deng Hanyan in the class. As for enemies…”

They thought for a moment, then shook their heads.

“Teachers, please take these students to the conference room to prepare,” Chen Qing nodded, then spoke to the Dean, “And arrange an office for me—I need to question Deng Hanyan about this case.”

The Dean seemed almost relieved, having long wished to clear the area but lacking confidence in handling the tragedy. Now, with Chen Qing’s command, the students and teachers departed together for the library atop the building, empty and suitable for them to wait.

Deng Hanyan arrived with Chen Qing in less than half a minute, entering the office reserved for their grade. As the Dean tried to join them, Chen Qing shook his head.

“No eavesdropping, no peeking. I’ll record the entire interrogation and call the station so officers can listen in. You needn’t worry about safety.”

His words were firm, dispelling the Dean’s desire to listen.

Once the surroundings were confirmed empty, Chen Qing’s demeanor turned stern.

“Did you send the photo?”

The girl bowed her head, hands clutching her sleeves. Her school uniform carried a faint fragrance, as if just sprayed. Her face was tense, lips bitten in anxiety, eyes darting away, and at the question, she did not dare look up.

“I don’t know… I don’t know anything…”

Her emotions churned; her heart thudded wildly in her chest. She kept her head lowered, but in that moment, suddenly met Chen Qing’s gaze.

“She’s dead! She died because of you! Did you see how she died?! She suffered more than ten minutes of torment!”

Though his voice was low, the anger was unmistakable, embodying the girl’s fury: “She never imagined… her friend would be the one to kill her.”

Deng Hanyan’s face turned deathly pale. She watched Chen Qing sit up, her fingertips numb, clutching her trousers, muscles taut as she whispered in protest, “No… it’s not like that…”

Tears streamed down her cheeks, reddening her eyes.

“I didn’t want to hurt her!”

“When did you send the photo?”

She fell silent, her face drooping lower.

“When did you send the photo?” His voice was harsh, the phone screen displaying the image of the girl’s death. He gripped Deng Hanyan’s chin, forcing her to look at the phone. “Look at her! Her entire esophagus is scalded by boiling water! Her abdomen is bleached white! All because of you! And you still refuse to tell me the truth?!”

She trembled, sweat beading on her forehead, her teeth chattering audibly.

“It was me… I sent it to her…”

“Why?”

“They said… said whoever receives the photo will have bad luck…”

“Where did you hear that?”

“Online… on a forum.”

Her hands, twisted and unable to stretch freely, fumbled in her pocket for her device. She looked at Chen Qing, her eyes sorrowful. “Did I… Did I really kill her?”

“That depends on how you answer next,” Chen Qing replied, shaking his head, but his words evaded the question.

He took the device from her hand, the forum open on the screen.

There were several posts of this kind.

First: “Explosive! A few cops died in the station! Save quickly, might be deleted any day!”

Second: “Strange, have you noticed since saving the photo, bad luck keeps happening? Lucky I used the homeroom teacher’s device.”

Third: “Don’t save! Never save! If you do, forward it within seven days! There’s a ghost in the picture!”

These posts ranked first, second, and third in popularity. Reasonable enough, but the original photo had already been blocked and could not be viewed. The third post, however, was filled with gruesome, bloody images.

Chen Qing frowned, scrolling through. Most users claimed to have harmed themselves after saving the image, though not seriously—just superficial wounds, but with alarming amounts of blood. At the bottom, most replies turned into requests for the original photo.

“You saved the original?”

Her face grew even paler. “I—I didn’t know it would turn out like this! I just…”

She bit her lip, a whiff of acrid scent escaping. “I just wanted her to take a break from school!”

“I never thought it would be like this… I never wanted this…”

She clutched her head, her sobs growing louder.

Chen Qing frowned, unlocking the victim’s phone. He examined the received images, asking with curiosity, “How did you send it to her?”

“Penguin…”

In the Penguin chat, the record stopped at a day ago. Deng Hanyan began by claiming it was a ghost photo that could bring luck—the longer you kept it, the better—and advised setting it as wallpaper. Then followed several screenshots from the forum, authenticity unknown, possibly trolls, but she had indeed captured them.

And the victim believed it.

Finally, at 5:25 p.m. the previous afternoon, Deng Hanyan asked if the victim could send her a copy of the photo. The victim never replied, ending the conversation.

Yes, she truly hadn’t meant to kill her friend. Yet, she had become the one who slowly tortured her dearest companion to death.