Li Mazi became enraged and slammed the table. “What do you mean?”

Shiso pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “There are so many scammers these days, so I have to be cautious. Moreover, I’m just a poor student that called for help over the Internet. If you came because of money, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed…”

“What?!” Li Mazi gritted his teeth. “Little student, you are a scammer yourself. If you don’t have money, how could you ask someone to help you? Do you think we have time to waste with you here?”

Li Mazi was so loud that the other customers in the coffee shop had turned to look at him. I silently pulled the hem of his shirt. “Watch your image.”

Li Mazi shouted at the others. “What are you looking at? Am I that handsome?”

Then, he placed his cup of coffee back on the table. “Little Brother Zhang, why are you still sitting here? Get the bill and leave. Let’s not waste our time here.”

Shiso looked disappointed. He looked at me and didn’t dare to say anything.

I smiled at Li Mazi. “Li Mazi, did you contact him first?”

Li Mazi nodded. “That’s right.”

“You also set up this appointment, right?” I continued.

Li Mazi replied, “Yes, I did…”

“In that case, enough nonsense. Let’s work on this.” I waved my hands.

Li Mazi turned to me as he couldn’t believe what he had just heard. “Little Brother Zhang, since when have we worked without receiving any payment? If other people in the Circle know about this, we will lose our face.”

I lowered my voice and said, “If you and I keep our mouths shut, who will know? Furthermore, this case has piqued my interest. Otherwise… Why don’t you go back to playing mahjong with Senior Shu?”

“We should work on this case.” Li Mazi paled.

It seemed that playing mahjong with Senior Shu had traumatized Li Mazi.

He took a seat, still angry. He didn’t even try to sound polite. “Little student, it’s your lucky day today as we’re doing charity work to help the poor. We won’t charge you this time, but you shouldn’t linger and waste our time. Tell us the story, quickly.”

Li Mazi’s fierce face made Shiso shiver in fear.

I found his reaction funny. “You posted that thread a few days ago, right?”

Shiso nodded. He was still shivering.

“Have many people reacted to your post?”

Shiso shook his head.

I smiled. “I see. It seems no one has responded to your post except the two of us. First, don’t ask why we have approached you. If you don’t mind, just tell us the story. Perhaps I can help you.”

Shiso considered it for a while then said, “All right, I’m a second-year student at Wuhan University. It’s not convenient to tell you my real name. Just call me Shiso. The student who committed suicide was Li Xiaoling, my classmate. She was an introverted person and wasn’t good at interacting with other people. After she had committed suicide, people started to know about her existence. We had cooperated on a project before, so we had developed some friendship…”

Li Mazi impatiently knocked on the table with his knuckles. “Just tell us the important details!”

Shiso blushed and continued, “We were just normal friends. My concerns about her are within this boundary. She committed suicide on the seventh day of last month. She used black stockings to hang herself in the dorm room…”

“Wait a second. Didn’t Li Xiaoling die at night time? Why was there nobody in her dorm? Why didn’t anybody stop her?”

“Oh, because the seventh day of last month was a Saturday.” Shiso smiled gently. “That day happened to be her roommate's birthday. Her roommate invited people to dinner and karaoke. However, they didn’t invite Li Xiaoling because she didn’t have a good relationship with the other girls in the dorm. She liked to be alone at school. They found her dead around noon the next day when they came back…”

When Shiso told us this, he lowered his head and looked regretful.

“How many people are there in one dorm at Wuhan University?” I asked.

“Six.”

I thought then asked, “Did anybody in her dorm get their lips sewed?”

“Of course,” said Shiso. “After Li Xiaoling died, five people were staying in that room. Four of them got their lips sewed together. Moreover, the first victim of the lip-sewing incident at Wuhan University was Tang Shuangshuang, who had also stayed in that dorm. Tang Shuangshuang is a…”

Li Mazi lost his patience. “Why do you talk so much? Get straight to the point!”

Shiso was embarrassed and explained himself. “I’m telling you the important details.”

Li Mazi shot him a disdainful look then said to me, “This coffee shop is too cold due to the air-conditioner. I don’t feel well. I’m going out for some fresh air.”

I squeezed a smile and gave him a nod.

Li Mazi got up and left the coffee shop.

After the villain was gone, Shiso felt better and less nervous. “Where did I leave off?”

“Tang Shuangshuang.”

“Oh yeah.” Shiso palmed his forehead. “That Tang Shuangshuang’s a mobile gossip device. She especially likes to fabricate rumors! Some girl had just kissed in class, and she made up rumors that they had rented a hotel room. At first, people thought that she was an interesting person, so they liked to be with her. After all, these people are young and very curious. However, later on, they discovered that Tang Shuangshuang wasn’t a good person. It seemed she enjoyed it when people surrounded her and treated her as if she was an idol. To maintain her fame, she started to fabricate a lot of stories. Many people have suffered from her lies. Later on, when people saw her, they kept a good distance from her.”

Then, Shiso suddenly leaned forward. “After her incident, many students here have said that… perhaps one of her victims had hired someone to sew her mouth as revenge. They didn’t pity her and felt that she deserved it. But when the second and the third cases happened, they started to panic.”

I was somewhat curious and asked, “So, why do you connect the lip-sewing incidents with Li Xiaoling’s death?”

When I asked that, Shiso’s face turned pale. He looked worried and checked our surroundings. Then, he lowered his voice and muttered, “Because before Li Xiaoling died, she wore a red dress! There are so many stories on the Internet that say that if a woman wears a red dress and commits suicide, she will become a scary ghost.”

“She wore a red dress? How did you know that?” I frowned. My voice turned serious.

Shiso was right that a person shouldn’t be wearing red clothes before they die. If they committed suicide with a great grudge and wore a red dress, their grudge would be magnified countless times. They would likely become evil ghosts. It would be pretty hard to deal with them then.

“Everybody in the school knows this.” Shiso said it as a matter of fact. “Before she committed suicide, she deliberately put on light makeup and changed into a new red dress she had just bought. She seemed to be determined to kill herself. I’m sure of this because she had even cut her wrist before hanging herself. When her roommates found her, there was a lot of blood on the ground. Her body was like a wind chime that hung from the ceiling fan. I heard that two girls fainted right at the scene.”

“Why did she want to kill herself? Although she had some flaws in her personality, it wasn’t enough of a reason to kill herself. She didn’t need to cut her wrist and hang herself from the ceiling, right?”

Shiso contemplated. “I don’t know, but people have come up with all sorts of explanations. It is… It is somewhat weird. Before she killed herself, she was like air. People didn’t feel her existence. If it wasn’t for her death, many people among us wouldn't have known that we had a girl like her in our university. After she died, people started saying that she was depressed and that it was weighing down on her. Some said her boyfriend had dumped her. Others said that she got in a big fight with her family… Everything you could imagine. It was more melodramatic than a soap opera.”

“If the campus is this chaotic, why haven’t we heard anything on the news?” I asked.

Shiso pouted his lips and answered cynically, “It’s because of our university. They’ve muted the press. After the incident, the school leaders held a meeting. Since they were afraid that this news would create a crisis and affect the enrollment for the new semester, they used their relationships with the television stations and some news agencies. As such, the reporters had to ignore the cases. I’ve posted my thread six or seven times. The previous ones were all deleted.”

“How do they treat the victims of this incident?” I asked.

“They were all sent to the school clinic. The ones with serious wounds like Tang Shuangshuang were sent to the hospital. To comfort the victims, the school leaders agreed to grant them scholarships.”

Shiso wore a cynical expression typical of the young generation. He gulped down several swigs of cold lemonade then assessed me from head to toe.

“Hey… What do you think about this incident?”

I smiled. “It’s strange.”

Shiso looked a little disappointed when he didn’t hear the answer he had expected. “Do you think there’s a relationship between this lip-sewing incident and Li Xiaoling’s suicidal death?”

“I’m not so certain.”

The suspicion in Shiso’s eyes grew higher. “Are you a real expert or what? You are a reporter from some channel, right?”

Then, he tensed up and checked the table. “Where’s your hidden camera?”

Kids these days always think they are the victims of some conspiracy...

I kicked his leg and said, “Be honest. Don’t babble nonsense. Tell me if Li Xiaoling’s roommates are still staying in the dorm.”

“Yeah, I think one of them is. She’s called Zhuang Ning.”

Shiso thought for a moment then said, “She’s the only girl in their dorm that didn’t get her lips sewn shut. Everybody says that she’s got the halo of the main character protecting her.”

“Can you take me to see her?” I asked.

“No, I can’t!” Shiso hurried to express his denial. “First of all, I don’t know who you are, and I haven’t verified your identity yet. I can’t trust you. Besides, except for attending classes, I’m in the dorm room most of the time, watching movies or playing video games. I don’t have many friends, and I don’t know Zhuang Ning, either.”

Shiso had a similar existence to Li Xiaoling. Was it the reason why he had paid a lot of attention to Li Xiaoling’s suicide?

I thought about it then offered a solution that got the young man’s attention. “How about this, you think about a way to get me into Wuhan University. I’ll investigate the rest myself.”

Shiso thought about it, but he was still worried.

I had to use my ace. “You want to know why Li Xiaoling killed herself, right? Do you want to know if the lip-sewing incident is related to her or not?”

People are always curious.

Indeed, Shiso’s eyes lit up. “All right, I’ll take you to my school. But if something happens, please don’t disclose anything about me!”

I nodded.

While hanging out with a poor student like Shiso, the task of paying the bill fell on me.

While I paid for our drinks, I saw Li Mazi smoking outside the window.

Does that bastard not want to pay for his drink? Is that why he quickly ran outside?

After we stepped out of the coffee shop, I decided to bring Li Mazi with me. However, Shiso denied my request. “No, he can’t go! After those incidents, my university’s security has become so strict. Previously, we could freely enter the school, but now we have to show our student ID cards. You look young, but he…” Shiso looked at Li Mazi with disgust. “He looks like he could be a student’s parent.”

Li Mazi was furious. “Are you saying that I look old?”

“You don’t just look like…” It seemed Shiso didn’t get the meaning of Li Mazi’s words. “You are old.”

Li Mazi almost vomited blood out in anger. “Little Brother Zhang, I’ll wait for you here! If I stay one more second with this brat, someone will die. If he doesn’t die, I will be the one to die.”

I rarely saw Li Mazi lose control like this. I joked, “Shiso also doesn’t think twice before speaking his mind. He matches you well.”

Li Mazi glared at me. I could tell that he was thinking, You bastard!

He walked away and waited in a distant corner to smoke.

I followed Shiso and headed to Wuhan University.