Chapter 25: Don’t Smile at Me (1/2)
Regardless of other things, flattering Lu Chenzhou appeared to be effective; at the very least, he paid attention to her more now. Also, after arriving at the school, Lu Chenzhou shut his laptop and got out of the car with Cheng Xi.
But he didn’t go far. As Cheng Xi went to speak with the guard, he leaned against the side of the car, took out a cigarette, and started smoking.
The guard at the school gate was a middle-aged man in his forties. Cheng Xi revealed her identity and mentioned that she wanted to meet Chen Jiaman’s former homeroom teacher.
“She was sent away, sent away a long time ago.”
“Sent away?” Cheng Xi was shocked. “But what about her other teachers?”
“She was only here for a semester, so the other teachers don’t know her.”
“That’s alright, I’d like to ask them a few questions anyway.”
The guard was somewhat unwilling, but nonetheless, still made a call for her. Before long, a young teacher, who introduced himself as Mr. Liu, hurriedly walked outside.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Chen Jiaman’s defense lawyer, Ms. Cheng.”
“Nice to meet you.” As Mr. Liu said this, he looked at her somewhat strangely. “Isn’t Chen Jiaman suffering from mental illness? Why does she have a defense lawyer?”
”……”
She had forgotten that teachers knew more than the average old lady from a small town, and couldn’t help but smile awkwardly. “She hasn’t been fully diagnosed yet, so we still have to confirm her situation.”
Luckily, the teacher didn’t request to see her lawyer license or anything. He was very cooperative when Cheng Xi asked him her questions, but he didn’t know very much. “I only taught her a semester of math. That child didn’t like speaking very much, so it was easy for the teachers to forget about her.”
“How were her grades?”
“Alright. Not too good but not too bad either.”
“How were her relationships with her classmates?”
The teacher looked apologetic. “I’m not sure, sorry. I wasn’t her homeroom teacher, so I really knew very little about her.”
“Then, do you remember any important incidents that involved Chen Jiaman?”
“I only remember one thing, which I also told the police officers. There was one day where she wasn’t paying attention in class and was instead drawing in her notebook. I confiscated it, and her reaction was extreme: she screamed loudly, yelled, and even bit me.” As he spoke, he pointed at a section of his wrist. “Right here. The swelling only dissipated after several days.”
“She likes drawing?”
“Probably. At any rate, if she had nothing to do, she would just draw. However, she never let others see what she was drawing.”
“Then, do you know why she quit school?”
“I’m not too sure about this. At any rate, after a school break, she never came back to school again. Her former homeroom teacher even went to speak with her, but she seemed to have made her mind up to not come back.”
Cheng Xi frowned. A child whose grades weren’t too bad surely wouldn’t start hating school for no reason. Her final request was to meet with Chen Jiaman’s classmates, but the students who had been in Chen Jiaman’s year had already graduated and had gone to high school elsewhere, with only a scant few remaining in this region. And not only that, but neither they nor their parents were willing to talk about this classmate who had killed her own grandmother. So, meeting them wouldn’t have been very beneficial.
The math teacher was trying to decline Cheng Xi’s request politely. Cheng Xi didn’t push further either; it would have been useless. Once she left the school, she used purchasing things as an excuse to interview more people around the neighborhood, and even returned to Chen Jiaman’s elementary school. The information she received there was essentially the same as what Mr. Liu had told her.
Normally, Chen Jiaman seemed to be a quiet, introverted, untalkative, beautiful, but particularly gloomy girl.
Those who lived a stifling life were very likely to develop some sort of extreme mental condition. This was the conclusion that Cheng Xi arrived at after spending the entire afternoon collect information.
Seeing that it was past noon, Cheng Xi started to feel hungry. She asked Lu Chenzhou, “Do you want to eat anything? I’ll pay.”
Lu Chenzhou gazed at his surroundings and said nothing.
This meant that he was disdainful, so Cheng Xi turned around and asked the chauffeur, “Mr. Lu doesn’t seem to be hungry yet, but do you want to get lunch with me?”
The chauffeur looked at Lu Chenzhou, and, after seeing that he didn’t object, got out of the car and walked to a little restaurant that looked somewhat clean.
This place was quite far from the Chen family house, close to the middle of the town. From this restaurant, one could barely see the front gate of the middle school that Chen Jiaman had attended.
The owners of the restaurant were a middle-aged couple. Because it was already past lunchtime, there were only two people eating noodles in the restaurant. The wife was sitting at the door of the kitchen plucking vegetables, and the husband looking over bills from the counter. Seeing the two come in, he enthusiastically asked, “Would you like something to eat?”
Cheng Xi and the chauffeur looked at the menu and ordered three dishes and soup. The chauffeur was worried that his boss would be hungry, and so, he considerately asked for a new bowl from the owner, washed it, and then brought it over to Lu Chenzhou. However, it was returned in the exact same condition.