Chapter 29 Part 2

"Reporter Song?"

A voice came from above her head. Song Ran looked up in alarm, and it was actually Li Zan.

He was a little surprised and reached out to help her up. "What's going on?"

"Officer Li..." The moment Song Ran saw him, she let out a sob. She instinctively grabbed his sleeve and hurriedly hid behind him, refusing to come out.

The two police officers came forward and said, "You two know each other? That's great. Have a good talk with her and tell her to delete the photos. It's an order from above. We're in a tough spot too, aren't we?"

Li Zan looked back at the person behind him.

Song Ran's eyes were red. She clutched his elbow and choked out, "I won't!"

...

Li Zan looked at his two colleagues and said, "She's a reporter. Filming and reporting is her right. Forcing her to delete it like this, won't it be counterproductive?"

His colleague, Officer Yi, said, "We have orders from above. We'll brief the reporters after the situation is fully investigated. It's happened too many times before where reporters wrote carelessly, causing public opinion to spiral out of control. We have our reasons too."

"She won't write carelessly," Li Zan said with certainty. "I know this reporter very well. She's different from the others."

The two colleagues were usually on good terms with Li Zan and couldn't just dismiss him. They said, "Then you talk to her. Otherwise, if something really happens, both you and I will be held responsible."

"Okay."

...

Li Zan apologized to the sixth-floor resident for the disturbance and closed the door.

Song Ran stood in the hallway, her head lowered, not saying a word.

Li Zan asked, "You didn't get hurt when you fell, did you?"

"No." She shook her head and held up her palm for him to see. "Just scraped my hand."

The edge of her palm was red and swollen, and the skin was broken.

Li Zan glanced at it, then reached into his pocket and took out a bandage.

He said, "Give me your hand."

She silently held it out. He tore open the bandage and applied it for her. The girl's hand was slender and soft, feeling like it would melt in his grasp.

As he applied it, he discreetly glanced at her face.

Her small face was pale, her eyes downcast, the rims still a little red. Her lips were pressed together lightly. The tip of her small nose was also slightly red, and her nostrils flared gently as she controlled her emotions.

He knew she had been wronged.

Li Zan said softly, "My two colleagues, they're good people, just maybe a bit impulsive. Don't take it to heart."

Song Ran didn't reply, but her expression clearly showed that she had taken it to heart.

He knew she wouldn't get over it right away, so he asked, "How are you planning to write about this?"

Song Ran said, "I haven't decided yet."

Li Zan said gently, "Just report that the incident happened. As for the cause of death, don't jump to conclusions before the police issue a statement. He's a minor, a student. It could easily cause a huge uproar."

Song Ran, perhaps not really listening, just hummed in acknowledgment.

Li Zan watched her and noticed her mood was still off. He wanted to comfort her some more, but someone downstairs called him, "Ah Zan!"

He had to go down. Still worried, he said, "I'm leaving now."

"Okay."

After walking down a few steps, he turned back to add, "Be safe on your way."

"Okay."

Li Zan's footsteps quickly faded down the stairwell.

Song Ran picked up her camera and saw a small crack on the casing from the fall.

Just as she left the building, Xiao Qiu called, saying something had happened at Shiyan Middle School and that the station's leadership wanted her to investigate and record the truth at all costs.

Song Ran went online and saw that news media had already published stories about the student suicide at Shiyan Middle School.

Absurdly, many media outlets and so-called whistleblowers claimed that the student who jumped had been suffering from long-term depression due to immense pressure from his parents, and that failing the recent monthly exam was the final straw that led him to commit suicide.

"Kills himself just because he did poorly on a test? People like that are useless alive, better off dead."

"Blaming his parents' pressure for his own incompetence. Your mom and dad would have been better off raising a pig for the last seventeen years."

"Everyone who commits suicide deserves to die. Nothing to pity. A waste of attention."

Song Ran closed the social media platform and shoved her phone into her pocket as she walked back.

The cold wind blew. Her phone vibrated. It was Wang Han.

He was crying with anger on the phone. "How could they say that about Yanan?"

Song Ran arranged to meet him at a coffee shop with very few customers.

Just as Song Ran had imagined, Wang Han was a quiet, thin boy with a soft voice and little confidence—the kind of unremarkable and ordinary student who would get lost in a crowd.

Wang Han's eyes were still red and swollen. He recounted the events he had written about in his email.

Song Ran repeatedly confirmed every detail and found that his account of Zhu Yanan's private suffering was clear in its timeline, the events were distinct, and his answers were consistent and truthful. Several times, when he spoke of the humiliating details, he lowered his head and covered his face, almost unable to continue.

Song Ran asked, "Why were you also present when the teacher was verbally abusing and physically punishing Zhu Yanan?"

Wang Han raised his head and said, trembling, "Because the teacher hit and scolded me too. I was with Zhu Yanan. He called us pig-brained, retarded, and made us kneel and admit it..."

It turned out that both he and Zhu Yanan were students in Class 3 of the senior year, and the master teacher Zhao Yuanli was their homeroom teacher. Because their grades were so poor, they dragged down the class average in every exam, so they had long suffered Teacher Zhao's verbal abuse and corporal punishment.

Wang Han wiped his tears and pulled up his sleeve to show her. "Reporter Song, I'm really not lying."

There was a large bruise on his elbow.

Song Ran was shocked. "The teacher did this?"

"If you want to see more, I have some on my waist too. The teacher kicked me, and I hit the corner of a desk." Tears streamed from his eyes. "I was in so much pain I thought I was going to die, but the teacher was still cursing. Cursing me was one thing, but he also cursed my parents, really nasty stuff... It was the same for Zhu Yanan."

"I have proof here." Wang Han showed her his phone. It was a WeChat conversation between Zhu Yanan and Teacher Zhao.

Zhao: "Don't come to school anymore. I get annoyed just looking at you!"

Yanan: "Teacher, I'm begging you..."

Zhao: "There are dozens of students in this class, how come you're the only one who can't learn? Why bother going to school if your brain doesn't work? Go back to your parents and ask them how they gave birth to you!"

There was also a short video, a few seconds long. It was chaotic, showing someone being pushed over and hitting a desk. It was probably recorded by accident. In the video, a boy screamed, "Stop hitting me!"

The voice in the video wasn't Wang Han's.

"That's Zhu Yanan. He sent it to me before. It's on his phone too, the police will definitely see it."

Song Ran remained silent, surprisingly calm. She handed him a tissue.

Wang Han took the tissue and wiped his tears. His shoulders were hunched, humble and ashamed, as he sobbed quietly:

"I wanted to die, but then Yanan died, and I got scared. Reporter Song, he's a Master Teacher of Excellence, the director of the academic affairs office doesn't believe us at all. I went to report him, and the director scolded me for causing trouble. Please, help us. Yanan has been abused since he started his senior year last year until now. He was driven to his death, it's not like what they're saying online."

Song Ran took a deep breath and said, "First, hand over all the evidence you have to me."

...

Song Ran said goodbye to Wang Han at the shop's entrance.

After Wang Han left, Song Ran stood in the night for a long time, until her teeth were chattering and her legs were trembling. She gazed at the night view of Liang City and suddenly realized that this place was also an invisible battlefield.

She wrapped her scarf tighter and walked home, various emotions surging within her, impossible to suppress.

She went to a convenience store, bought a bottle of water, twisted the cap off at the entrance, and took a big gulp. Then she took out her antidepressants from her bag, put them in her mouth, and swallowed them.

She called Xiao Qiu and asked her to come over to her place tonight to help organize the materials and write the article.

Xiao Qiu rushed over without delay and helped her input the text, images, and audio recordings.

At eleven o'clock that night, Song Ran finished writing the article, "Another Voice (A Dialogue with a Student from Baixi Experimental Middle School)," and published it on major public platforms.

She did, after all, know restraint. She did not say that the teacher was directly related to the student's death, nor did she express any subjective opinions. She simply organized her conversation with Student Wang into an interview transcript, recording it factually and without any embellishment.

Before publishing, a fleeting thought crossed her mind: should she tell Li Zan?

But she didn't.

After publishing, she didn't check for any follow-up. She took a sleeping pill and went to sleep.