You think this is too much? It's just kids bullying kids..." We were at the blocked subway entrance, and a crowd of curious people gathered nearby, their faces illuminated by the ambulance lights. Xia Mo's voice was close yet seemed to float from far away. "Xueming, don't hate me. If you ever have a chance to have children of your own, you'll understand how I feel."
I tried to calm myself down, to answer him without a trembling voice. Having been with Xu Tuo for so long, I thought I could handle any heavy-handed scene. But when I actually saw him push a child in school uniform, it felt like a taut string in my brain suddenly snapped.
"...The people you killed, did they have an uncontrolled desire to hunt? Doesn't that violate Class L's rules?"
"It's a kind of foresight—you can tell from a very young age whether a person will develop uncontrollable violent tendencies in the future." He looked at me gently, as if at a younger version of himself. "Don't you hate them? The kids who scream and fight outside, lacking parental guidance; the kids who appear lovable on the surface but bully their classmates behind the scenes; the kids who think they're still minors and can do vicious things without restraint... Some of these people can be guided back with love, but for others, their receptors for 'love' are broken, and you can only make them disappear. I want to protect those kind children, Xueming. Children are the hope and light of everything, harmless and pure... Anyone who dares to harm this pure white hope is my target."
"Aren't the targets you deal with limited to kids who bully other kids?"
"Of course. Parents who torture and abuse their children are more guilty than they are, but simply because they are 'parents', few of them often receive the punishment they deserve. To be able to do this to one's own children is more horrific than any other type of crime."
He said these words very seriously.
As more and more people gathered, Xia Mo took me away. He told me not to worry about the surveillance, as it had been "taken care of in advance."
The sound of the subway was still echoing in my mind until I got to my doorstep.
The key accidentally fell to the ground. When I was squatting down to pick it up, the door was opened from the inside.
——Xu Tuo, who had been away for two days, came back.
"You're back..." I breathed a sigh of relief and walked in slowly.
He grabbed my wrist and said, "What happened? You look so grim."
When I saw Xu Tuo, I finally relaxed, and then a kind of fatigue came in. I rested my head on his chest and breathed deeply.
Xu Tuo also knew the criteria that Teacher Xia used to select targets.
"That's why I said you're not from that world," he said. "At least he has clear criteria for his prey. Class L has even more bizarre criteria."
I was lying on the sofa in a daze when something suddenly occurred to me: "Does he have any children?"
"Teacher Xia? Yes. Why are you asking this suddenly?"
"He just mentioned…"
"I had a daughter, but she's passed away."
I turned over on the sofa: "Do you know what his wife is like?"
"We have known the teacher for more than 20 years, and we have never heard him mention who his daughter's mother is."
"You two have known each other for that long?"
"Well, he adopted me and Jackie when we were about ten years old. Class L had just appeared then, and we met that man a few times... He was the real controller of Class L."
I was quite surprised. Xu Tuo not only knew that person, but also had seen him?
"I don't like him. I thought the teacher didn't like him either, but as I grew older I realized that many things can't be judged simply by like or dislike."
He didn't say anything else, instead complaining about the guy named You Zili. Xia Mo asked Xu Tuo to get rid of this guy, but this guy had almost no contact with the rest of Class L, and his whereabouts were difficult to determine.
At this time, Uncle Zhou sent me a message saying that he was free - we had agreed to discuss the robbery and murder case.
Uncle Zhou asked me to go to his house directly. In the afternoon, the children were all home from school, and Qianqian was doing homework in the living room.
While Uncle Zhou was going downstairs to get the package, I asked her, "Teacher Xia said you were bullied at school?"
She nodded.
"Is it serious?"
"...It's okay now. I just received a message in the class group chat that the person is dead."
I thought about it for a few seconds.
"So how do you feel? Will it make you feel better now that he's dead?"
Qianqian wrote a few strokes of her homework, and I thought she wasn't going to answer. Uncle Zhou came back, and I heard the door unlock.
At this time, Qianqian looked up with a smile, and a light flashed in her quiet eyes.
"I feel so good." She smiled happily.
"What are you talking about so happily?" Uncle Zhou opened the door and put down the package. "--Xueming, let's go to the study and talk."
I gave him the document about the shoe prints. After reading it, Uncle Zhou asked the expected question: "What if they are counterfeit shoes?"
In that robbery and murder, besides the victim's footprints, there were three other individuals' footprints. Judging by their walking patterns and footprint size, they were likely young men around 1.7 meters tall. It was raining that day, and many details were obscured by the water. The patterns on the shoe prints have now been restored, and all three are from a well-known American sports brand.
"And it's a limited edition shoe model. Counterfeiting is certainly a possibility, but all three shoe prints are from limited editions of famous brands... Is it possible that these are three well-off young people?"
"That's one possibility. There's also a possibility that we suspect these three people are high school students."
This was likely inferred by Uncle Zhou and his team from nearby surveillance footage that hadn't been deactivated. At several key points, surveillance cameras at nearby convenience stores and roadsides showed three children in high school uniforms walking together. Judging by their walking speed and the timing of their movements, it's highly likely that three people passed by the crime scene.
Uncle Zhou's study was a mess; he was just that unkempt. The desk was cluttered with documents and books. I saw a copy of Criminal Psychology, an unidentified edition. The cover had a circle of indentations—a familiar mark on the cover. Anyone who's ever pressed a book against instant noodles knows where the indentation came from.
"Why are you reading psychology?" I took the book and flipped through it. It was an internal publication, mostly distributed as study material for police officers.
"Regular assessment, and a few new items have been added."
He cursed. I hadn't intended to read it, but as the pages turned, a word caught my attention—
"Psychologist Li Fen proposed the L-class concept..."
My blood froze instantly. I flipped it back and saw Class L—it was in this book!
Although it is only two short lines... In these texts, Class L is an extralegal organization concept proposed by a psychologist. This example is grouped together with other ideas of fighting violence with violence and recorded as a process of human beings trying to curb crime.
"Xueming?" Uncle Zhou called me. I came to my senses and closed the book. "I'm going to the office and help them review the surveillance footage again. If the shoes those three people were wearing are the same model as the ones you found...you can take this book if you want to read it." He quickly packed up and took me out. As he passed Qianqian doing her homework in the living room, he remembered something. "By the way, Xueming, are you free this Saturday afternoon?"
——He has an emergency meeting on Saturday, so Uncle Zhou asked me to pick up Qianqian to attend a test question prediction meeting. The location of the prediction meeting is very remote, and he is worried about his daughter going alone.
I'm getting ready to go home. If I'm home alone, I usually order some junk food and watch a few episodes of TV. However, the most important thing to do tonight is to look up information about Li Fen—there's very little online about him. He was Chinese American, and his family emigrated overseas during the war, eventually settling in the United States. He died over thirty years ago. He specialized in psychology and sociology, but left no notable theories or works. The idea for Class L is his only remaining work.
The clue is interrupted.
This information alone wasn't enough to reveal the existence of Class L. An unknown researcher, a conception barely documented in a textbook as part of their crime-fighting history... With the information at hand, there was no way to investigate further.
At that time, I was still immersed in a slight depression. I didn't know that my information had been leaked online for 24 hours. In the text of the anonymous leaker, the police were investigating a robbery and murder case that occurred on a rainy day. The key participant was named Dai Xueming, who might hold important clues...
My address and photos have all been exposed, but the consequences have not yet occurred.
Ten minutes later, I realized we were out of trash bags and wanted to go downstairs to ask my mom for a new one. When I got downstairs, I found the door was open and heard a woman crying softly from inside.
I walked in quickly: "Mom?"
"--Xue Ming!" Mom's voice came from inside - she and grandma were huddled on the sofa, and a strange boy in school pants was pointing a folding knife at them with a panicked look on his face.
"Don't shout! Don't shout!" His voice trembled slightly. "You, you are Dai Xueming?!"
"...I am." I slowly backed away to avoid making him more agitated. "Do you want money? I can give it to you."
"Shut up! Come in! Otherwise they will..." He waved the fruit knife randomly a few times, "Fuck! Why aren't you the one living here?!"
At this time, I saw his sneakers.
——Those are the same type of sneakers as the restored shoe prints.
Because it wasn't the dead of night, the neighbor quickly noticed something was wrong with my house. He became increasingly agitated and grabbed my mom, saying, "Everyone, stand back! Dai Xueming, come in! Close the door!"
"Let the old woman go. She has a bad heart." I said it was unlikely he would release both of them. We could only take it one step at a time. "Let the old woman go, and I'll do as you say."
He asked Grandma to come out. I went into the house and closed the door. He held Mom at knifepoint and forced me to get close and lie on the ground. This kid was targeting me.
He threw my mother away and put the knife on my neck. The boy used a lot of force and the blade cut my skin.
"Mom, you go out first," I said.
"Don't move!" he roared.
"Let her out. You only have one knife, you can't control both of us. Your only target is me, right?" I successfully got him to let my mother go, completing the final hostage exchange. "Who are you?"
It took me a while to figure out what had happened. The teenager who had kidnapped me was involved in a robbery and murder case. He'd seen me online investigating the case and made the most impulsive decision—to attack me.
However, no matter what, this case has little to do with me. I just helped Uncle Zhou to refine the restoration of the shoe prints. Even if I didn't investigate the model of the shoes, Uncle Zhou would have found it immediately.
So, who leaked my information? And why did they leak my information?
He tied me up with wire. This guy clearly hadn't done much preparation, wandering around my house like a blind chicken. Only when the police banged on the door did he hastily block the front door with tables and chairs and draw all the curtains.
"How old are you?" I asked.
"sixteen."
He has a strong physique for a 16-year-old and comes from a well-off family.
He originally planned to kill me directly at my house, but the address released by the leaker should be the address on my official record - my mom and her family live there now, and I actually live upstairs.
"Even if you succeed in killing me, things won't get better. I'm not in charge of this case. Even if I were, you'd already been completely exposed, and you've even added kidnapping." I urged him to calm down. "You have two companions, right? Why not tell me about them? You can try to reduce..."
Before I could finish my words, I was punched on the head. It hurt.
"I told them that I will take responsibility for any problems."
Oh, he's the type who likes to act like a real man. I've almost figured him out.
A wealthy family, impulsive, violent, and egocentric... This type, at only 16, is incredibly troublesome. You never know what he'll do next, something that will destroy him and his family.
"Why did you kill that middle-aged man? Did he have any conflict with you?"
"He stepped on my sneakers and didn't apologize."
The noise outside grew louder and louder. Then it suddenly became quiet.
It should be the negotiation expert coming.
Ten minutes of silence passed before there was a knock on the door. A gentle female voice said, "What's going on inside? Can you tell us about Dai Xueming?"
The boy's eyes flickered, and he didn't know how to respond. I said, "I'm fine."
"Okay, so what do you want to eat? Let's eat something first."
Based on the descriptions given by my mother and others, the experts outside have a rough idea of what type of people are inside.
"There's no point in tying me up any longer," I said. "This is a high-level place, you can't escape. Letting me go is a different matter. You're still young..."
"I know I'm not an adult yet," the teenager said in this high-pressure atmosphere. His mental state showed signs of danger. He sat in front of me, sweat pouring down his head, a stiff smile on his face. "No matter what I do, they can't do anything to me."
Suddenly, there was a noise coming from the bedroom, and he immediately became alert, thinking that it was the police coming in through the window.
Not the police. The police would choose to enter from the study room with a balcony because they can observe the living room from there and are closer.
That used to be my bedroom. Someone who was incorrigible and liked to come in through my bedroom...
"Yes, the police really can't do some things to you that they can only do to adults," I admitted.
"I've already killed someone, and now I've kidnapped you... let's just make a big fuss." He laughed miserably and walked towards me with a knife. "If we make a big fuss, we'll have some face when we get out later."
I saw a figure approaching silently: "But the police are not the only ones who can deal with you."
——The next second, Xu Tuo grabbed his arm from behind, and the folding knife flew far away on the floor after slipping out of his hand; I heard a click, which was the sound of human bones and joints separating.
The boy screamed and fell to the ground, clutching his shoulder.
"Okay, open the door and let the police handle it," I said.
Xu Tuo didn't do that. He looked quietly at the boy on the ground and spoke softly, a bit like Xia Mo.
"I was thinking, after the arm is removed, if I remove the fingers one by one and then twist off the knuckles one by one, wouldn't it feel very special?" He squatted in front of the boy. Because he had his back to me, I couldn't see his eyes. "How do you spell 'finger' in English? If you spell it right, I'll open the door and let the police in. If you spell it wrong..."
"fin...FI..."
He hesitated for a long time, not sure if he didn't know how to say it or was too nervous, but he kept failing to say it. I was lip-syncing to remind him, but Xu Tuo noticed and covered my face with a cushion.
My hands were still bound by wires, and my vision was obscured by mats. My perception was hazy, and I could only rely on my hearing to determine the current situation.
Xu Tuo quickly lost interest in the vocabulary test. He picked up the boy and pushed him into the bedroom. The bedroom window was open, but the curtains were still drawn.
"Stand on the windowsill," he said.
Like a frog staring at a snake, humans can sometimes sense a significant threat. After a few seconds of hesitation, the young man stood by the window. He realized the man before him was a snake, a highly venomous one, its poison undeniable.
"I'll give you two choices: jump down on your own accord, or stay here and play the finger-palm-wrist game with me." He made a "snapping" gesture expressionlessly. "And then, depending on the situation, there will be a special bonus of toes-ankles-knees."