Chapter 355: The Nature of Cruelty

2022-05-20

Everyone froze at the sight inside the hole. Under the beam of our flashlights, we found it stuffed full of animal corpses. Most were already rotting, their bodies crawling with white maggots writhing in the heat of summer.

There were all kinds of animals—puppies, kittens, mice, birds—all crammed into a space that wasn’t even that large.

This scene made it chillingly clear just how dark Liang Zhengyu’s heart really was, even at only eleven years old.

“Let’s go.” The principal pinched his nose and told us, “We should talk somewhere farther away from here.”

But Liang Zhengkun shook his head. He carefully stacked the bricks back in place as he mumbled, “No, I can’t just leave it like this. If I don’t fix it, my brother will beat me when he comes back.”

Liang Zhengkun still didn’t know his brother was already dead.

After that, we retreated back to Liang Zhengkun’s house.

The principal was shaken that a child could do something so twisted. He just looked at Liang Zhengkun and kept shaking his head.

I asked, “Did your brother always kill animals like this?”

Liang Zhengkun nodded.

“When did it start?” I pressed.

“It’s been a while,” he answered. “Sometimes he’d even bring others to look at the corpses inside the hole. He’d tell his followers that if they stuck with him they’d get all sorts of treats, but if they didn’t listen, he’d threaten them like this. We were all really scared of him.”

Gu Chen let out a cold snort, “An eleven-year-old, already building his own gang and doing things this cruel. He’ll never settle down when he grows up.”

The principal said, “Neither of the boys’ parents are ever home. No one is around to teach them anything…”

I shook my head. “It depends on the person. Both boys grew up in the same place, but Liang Zhengkun didn’t turn out like that. Still, judging from what Liang Zhengyu did, he had some serious issues with how he treated others.”

I glanced at Liang Zhengkun and said gently, “Your parents will be home soon. Go wait in your room for them.”

Liang Zhengkun looked at me, nodded, and quietly went to his room.

I turned to the others. “The killer gave us a second task—to find another one. From all this, it’s obvious the killer wanted us to find Liang Zhengkun. But there’s a crucial detail here: the killer only murdered one boy, Liang Zhengyu. He knew Liang Zhengyu had a younger brother, but left him alone. Why?”

The principal wondered, “Maybe the brother came home straight after school, so the killer couldn’t get to him?”

I waved the idea away. “No. Look—the killer came prepared with fishing line, fishhooks and all that. He knew where all the kids would be after school. The killer was fully aware their parents wouldn’t be home until late. So, opportunity wasn’t the issue.”

“Then what was?” The principal frowned.

I explained, “From what we see, the killer killed Li Jun and Liang Zhengyu, but deliberately spared Liang Zhengkun and let us know he was still alive. That means, in the killer’s mind, this isn’t indiscriminate murder.”

I frowned. The killer was being selective, and seemed very familiar with Taishan Elementary. He knew where children liked to hang out and which spots were out of view of surveillance cameras. It really felt like he had some grudge against the school.

Taishan Elementary was basically the worst school in town. Weak teaching staff, only two classes per grade, so just 60 or 70 kids per year at most. The killer murdered two kids: one only eight, the other eleven. Not the same class, a big age gap. So what was the link between them?

Was there any real connection between the two boys?

From all we’ve found, these boys were far from innocent. Li Jun had kicked a pregnant woman off a car, and Liang Zhengyu tortured small animals. Maybe that’s what ties them together.

“Check!” I told the principal. “I want files on every student at your school, even the ones who transferred out.”

“What’s the point of that?” The principal asked, confused.

I said, “I’m after the killer’s motive. He picked your school—nowhere else. Even after we started investigating, he dared keep going. That’s fishy.”

The principal nodded, “Alright, I’ll make sure all the records are gathered by tomorrow.”

“Call Liang Zhengyu’s homeroom teacher,” I said. “We need to know what kind of kid he really was.”

After what happened, Liang Zhengyu’s teacher obviously couldn’t sleep a wink. The principal called, and she picked up right away. When I asked about Liang Zhengyu, she told us his story.

Liang Zhengyu was nothing like a good student. His grades were terrible, he talked back constantly in class, fought nearly every day. At first, the teachers tried calling his parents, but they were always too busy to show up, let alone discipline him.

Later, even the homeroom teacher gave up. There was just no point. But then something happened that shocked her, something she’d never reported since it would only put a stain on her record.

But now that Liang Zhengyu was dead, she wasn’t sure if what happened before had anything to do with it. In truth, she’d been waiting for our call.

What she told us next left everyone stunned.

By the time she’d stopped trying to manage him, Liang Zhengyu’s home life fell apart too. He quickly picked up smoking and drinking. The teacher said she’d caught him smoking a few times and told his parents, but their only response was to beat him—sometimes they even asked the teacher to punish him for them because they were too busy.

The teacher was helpless. If a child’s own parents didn’t care, how could she handle it? From then on, she just turned a blind eye. In her mind, Liang Zhengyu’s path was already set.

The kids who hung around Liang Zhengyu weren’t exactly model students either. After more than twenty years as a teacher, she’d seen it all. Most kids here were from the village—parents too busy to care, left to grow up on their own.

She’d watched class after class move on to middle school. She knew plenty of them would follow their parents straight to hard labor after graduation. The whole school felt hopeless—no drive to learn, just fighting, swearing, and smoking. She’d gotten so used to it, she barely bothered to intervene. Unless something serious happened, she’d just scold them a bit and move on.

Then one day, a student came running to tell her Liang Zhengyu and some kids were ‘fighting’ again. She’d heard that too many times to worry, so she strolled over at her own pace. But when she got there, she realized this ‘fight’ was nothing like the usual squabbles.

Seeing what was happening froze her in place. The scene had gone way past what anyone would call a fight. She saw kids who were supposed to be top students, their faces twisted with a crazed fervor.

That was when she realized it was out of her hands. She turned and walked away. She knew she couldn’t control this anymore—especially when even the model students were involved. She told herself that in a year, these kids would just move on. She just had to wait it out.

When you ignore a small crack in the dam, soon the whole thing collapses.

And with just one person, she could never stop the flood.

So she left without saying a word. She pretended none of it had happened.

But pretending to forget doesn’t mean it never happened.