Chapter 3: The Attempted Murder

Bang.

A grown man falling several meters into the water makes a loud noise, especially deafening in the dead of night. The loud splash startled the three of them, and the young man looked around for a while before finally letting out a sigh of relief when he found no one else nearby.

The female student who started it all—who had called the boyfriend and the rich kid who assaulted the man, and who had been the most vocal in her calls for violence—now that someone had actually been killed, most of her anger had suddenly subsided. She seemed to realize just how serious the matter they had committed.

Her boyfriend and the young master were leaning against the railing, exhaling the cold air, when her boyfriend suddenly saw Shiyue’s head pop up on the water again.

Shi Yue seemed to have lost her schoolbag. She finally surfaced and was breathing heavily, her mouth and nose exposed.

“Hey, she’s not dead… Look, she’s not dead!”

The boyfriend immediately patted his girlfriend and the young man, pointing to the wet head in the water, his face filled with fear. For a moment, the girl panicked too; the two looked at each other, saying things like, “What do we do?”, “Should we run?”, “If she calls the police, it’ll be over.” At this moment, the young man was the first to calm down; he decisively said:

“Stones…Quick, go get some stones…I’ll go to the shore and block her, you guys throw stones at her!”

The young master’s words were like a tranquilizer, and the two men felt as if the clouds had parted and the sun was shining: “Yes! Smash her to death! Pick the biggest one!”

The girl was still a little scared, but seeing that her boyfriend and the young master were both very determined, she felt emboldened by their numbers. She crouched down and crawled into the bushes. She and her boyfriend each threw a pebble towards the moon in the water!

The sounds of splashing and thudding rang out as all three stones fell into the water. One of the stones hit Shi Yue squarely in the back, causing her to tumble into the water. Encouraged, the two frantically buried their heads in stones, continuing to throw them at each other.

Half of the stones they threw missed their mark, but even a single hit was potentially fatal. Shi Yue’s head, back, and arms would be severely injured if she dared to surface. Swimming ashore was out of the question; even breathing would be difficult. The night was exceptionally dark, and the two men, preoccupied with throwing stones, couldn’t see clearly what was happening in the water. They could only vaguely discern that Shi Yue’s struggles were growing weaker, and guessed that this witness must be bleeding profusely. But they dared not stop throwing stones, lest they let her escape their grasp.

The young master also went around to a shallow area by Mo Chang Lake, picked up a stone from the water, and thought he could throw it at the witness if she swam ashore. From a distance, he could only see stones splashing into the water from the bridge. Shi Yue had already been hit by stones more than a dozen times, and she, who had wanted to swim ashore, was almost too afraid to surface. The young master breathed a sigh of relief and also picked up a stone and started throwing stones. The sound of stones hitting the water filled the lake, and Shi Yue was eventually suffocated underwater.

Finally, Shi Yue stopped peeking out. The three of them waited by the lake for a few more minutes, confirming that Shi Yue had completely drowned and that no one else had witnessed it. Only then did they breathe a sigh of relief and collapse to the ground, gasping for breath.

The three of them calmed down in an instant. “Look what you’ve done,” the young master scolded the two men with difficulty. “I knew I shouldn’t have come.” As he spoke, he stood up, hoisted the drugged girl onto his shoulder, and waved to them: “Okay, hurry up and leave. There are no surveillance cameras here, and no one is around. If you don’t say anything and I don’t say anything, no one will know. I’m taking the girl back. You guys be careful too. If it really comes to it, I’ll ask my dad to find a solution. This little thing is no problem.”

Hearing the young master’s words, the two men regained their confidence and were able to stand up and walk again. At this moment, the female student calmed down, and remembering that she had just killed someone, a terrifying image of a prison flashed before her eyes. Snot and tears immediately welled up in her eyes, and her boyfriend hurriedly and tremblingly pulled her into his arms: “It’s okay, it’s okay, I’m here, I’ll protect you…”

The three went home separately, still shaken even as they lay in bed. The next day, the male and female students met at school. They first looked at the news together, reading it whenever they had time during breaks, one article after another, completely absorbed in their work all day, but there was no sign of their affair being exposed.

After school, the two met up with the young master at the school gate and received the same result: the body of the murdered person did not seem to have been found yet.

“That’s great…” They finally breathed a sigh of relief; the imprisonment that had been looming over them seemed to have largely disappeared.

“Don’t rush… Let’s wait until tomorrow or the day after. If there’s no news in three days, it’s probably a cold case, then we can celebrate properly.” The young master replied calmly, glancing at the girl and unable to resist scolding, “It’s all your fault! You’re such a troublemaker, you scared me half to death all day!”

“Didn’t you say to smash it with stones…?”

“Shh!!! Okay, okay, I’ll treat you in a couple of days. This is too scary.”

Whether it was truly divine intervention or not, for the next two days, there was absolutely no word about what happened that night. It seemed the girl’s body really hadn’t been found. Perhaps, given enough time, the matter would simply fade into oblivion. From the initial anxiety of the first day to finally feeling completely at ease on the third day, the three of them discussed at the school gate today that they would go to a nightclub on the pedestrian street of Mochang Lake tomorrow to dance and have some good food, hoping to shake off the stress of the past few days.

On the way home, the boyfriend parted ways with his girlfriend and brother. A chilly wind blew in the night. His home was near the school; although it was a highly desirable, affluent area during the day, the shadows of the trees were still eerie at night. Halfway home, he felt something lurking behind him. On his way back, he looked back three times, but only saw the autumn wind howling. It seemed he’d been really overreacting these past few days; he really needed to relax.

It was the fourth day, Friday. After school, the three of them met at the school gate as usual. The rich kid also brought four of his brothers along, and the seven of them went out to have some fun.

The nightclubs in Mo Changhu District are notorious in Huangzhou. Compared to the places in the bustling city center where ordinary people indulge in a life of debauchery, the nightclubs in Mo Changhu are not only safe and legitimate, but also have an exceptionally luxurious atmosphere. Especially the one they visited today, which seemed to have been converted from an entire shopping mall. Not only was it magnificent, but each floor also had its own unique features. A huge colored light hung high in the central hall of the nightclub. Every night, it, along with the thin mist, the pervasive smell of alcohol, and the loud music, would pull the throngs of wealthy men and women from all over Mo Changhu District into a bottomless dream.

The seven of them first rented a private room for karaoke and ate appetizers. However, the couple gradually got a little bored and suggested going out on a date first, and then having a late-night snack together after they finished dancing. The two of them, hand in hand, had just come back to their senses from the dazzling lights of the nightclub when the boy suggested that they go to a quiet alley by the roadside to enjoy some alone time.

When the young master and his friends realized it was almost time, they went to the lobby on the first floor to dance and chat with girls. They quickly managed to get a few girls to sing with them later. The group had a blast in the crowd, especially the young master, who was finally able to forget the unpleasantness of that night!

In the alley, the male and female students, seeing that no one was around, couldn’t wait to get intimate.

“Ugh~ This place is crowded and noisy, isn’t it dangerous?”

“What are you afraid of? I’ll protect you.”

What if someone sees us?

“Then let them see it!”

“Ugh~”

The two teenagers, still in middle school, were cuddling and kissing. The girl was nothing like her fierce self from that night; she nestled affectionately in her boyfriend’s arms, like an ordinary young girl in love, dreaming of romantic vows.

While they were being affectionate, the girl suddenly noticed a figure behind the boy. Thinking she was seeing things, she blinked again to make sure it was a person. She quickly patted her boyfriend’s back and pinched him hard, telling him to turn around.

The boy was pinched so hard by her that he reluctantly let go: “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Following the direction his girlfriend pointed, the boy immediately spotted a disheveled, or rather, broken, figure.