Sheriff Uncle, open the door quickly! I've come to solve a case!

"I don't really know either..."

That was a week ago.

Xia Lan felt that Xu Shuang had been acting strangely lately.

She never skipped evening self-study sessions before, but that night she unusually skipped them and didn't return until they ended.

Xia Lan asked her where she had gone, and she just laughed it off, saying that she wasn't feeling well and had gone to the infirmary to sit for a while.

Xia Lan didn't ask too many questions. Xu Shuang was a good student, so maybe she really wasn't feeling well.

Until she skipped school for a whole week.

On the day of the incident, Xia Lan finally couldn't bear it anymore and found a time in the dormitory to stop Xu Shuang. She felt very wronged by being abandoned by her friend.

"Shuangshuang, what have you been doing lately? Aren't we friends? You haven't told me anything, and it makes me very sad. Don't you consider me a friend?"

Xu Shuang quickly comforted her, "Of course I consider you a friend, Lanlan. It's just that I've really been busy lately. I didn't mean to neglect you."

"Is something wrong? I can help you."

Xu Shuang hesitated, "It's not that I've encountered anything difficult..."

"Then why didn't you tell me!"

"Okay, I can only tell you a little bit." Xu Shuang couldn't do anything with Xia Lan, so she quietly pulled her to the balcony: "Actually, I recently met someone."

Xia Lan immediately became interested in hearing gossip, staring at it curiously with wide eyes: "Online friends?"

"Yes, he asked me to meet him tonight."

Xia Lan immediately gave her a knowing look, but then her expression quickly turned to worry: "Isn't it a bad idea to meet at night? What if there's any danger?"

Xu Shuang patted her on the shoulder: "What are you thinking about? It's not that kind of relationship."

"We're definitely not in that kind of relationship. He needs help, and I feel like I can help him, so I'm planning to meet him tonight."

Xia Lan: "What kind of busy work are you doing?"

Xu Shuang mumbled, "Oh, I can't explain it clearly. Wait for me to come back, and I'll tell you when I've figured it out."

Xia Lan suddenly remembered something and grabbed Xu Shuang's shoulders, refusing to let go: "Where have you been these past few nights? Didn't you just meet that person tonight? Tell me! Don't try to lie to me!"

Xu Shuang didn't expect Xia Lan to still press her like this: "I've been at school these past few days, really, I haven't gone anywhere."

……

Qin Qingzhou tapped the table lightly, lost in thought.

This sounds exactly like someone who met someone online and encountered misfortune; anyone in that situation might have thought the same thing.

But Qin Qingzhou felt that something was not right.

But if you really want to pinpoint what's wrong, you can't quite put your finger on it.

These clues are scattered and lack something to connect them.

Perhaps this thing is the truth behind Xu Shuang's death.

Qin Qingzhou put away her notebook and nodded slightly to Xia Lan: "Thank you for your cooperation. You can go back to class now."

Xia Lan bit her lower lip and got up.

"Don't tell your classmates about the investigation."

"OK."

After Xia Lan left, the police called in their class's homeroom teacher.

The homeroom teacher was a woman in her forties, wearing red-rimmed glasses, with a reassuring appearance that put parents at ease.

But as soon as she came in, she started yelling, "You keep asking, asking, asking! Haven't I already told you? What else do you want to ask? I still have to prepare my lessons! Don't you know that the workload for senior high school students is extremely heavy?"

Qin Qingzhou waited until she finished arguing before calmly asking, "Has Xu Shuang been acting strangely lately?"

"There's nothing wrong with it. The kids just say they're dating."

Qin Qingzhou tapped the table lightly, her tone calm yet carrying an undeniable air of authority: "I heard?"

"Did you see it with your own eyes what you heard?"

The homeroom teacher shrugged, toning down her assertive tone: "No... but Xu Shuang is pretty, so it's not impossible for her to have a boyfriend."

"Do you want to be arrested for defamation?" Qin Qingzhou asked.

"I'm warning you, this is not a simple suicide case. It is very likely a murder case. You had better answer carefully, or we'll have you taken to the police station."

"A murder?" The homeroom teacher's face changed drastically. "How is that possible? Why would a murder happen at school?"

"Isn't it just Xia Lan talking nonsense? Officer, don't listen to that child's side of the story. She's close to Xu Shuang and can't accept death, so she's making things up..."

Qin Qingzhou didn't say anything more. The homeroom teacher's voice grew softer and softer until he could only sit quietly.

Did Xu Shuang contact you before the incident?

"Ha..." The homeroom teacher sighed deeply, his voice barely audible, barely a buzzing sound: "Yes..."

She took out her phone and opened Xu Shuang's WeChat.

Qin Qingzhou glanced at it.

It was a voice call around 9 p.m. on the night of the incident, but the homeroom teacher didn't answer.

It wasn't until the next morning that Xu Shuang was discovered to have jumped from the building; her homeroom teacher had witnessed her fall.

In other words, she didn't return any of her students' calls.

Why wasn't this information given to the police?

The homeroom teacher avoided looking at Qin Qingzhou: "Isn't this a case of preferring to avoid trouble...?"

"Then why didn't you answer?"

"The child was already asleep at that time, and I didn't want to wake the child, so I didn't answer the phone."

Qin Qingzhou's gaze grew colder: "What if this is Xu Shuang calling for help?"

The homeroom teacher didn't know how to respond, so she could only change the subject.

"Officer, it's not that I deliberately didn't answer. Our school is a boarding school, and students are allowed to bring cell phones as long as it doesn't affect their studies. This often leads to kids calling late at night, either about homework or conflicts with classmates. I can't possibly answer all of them, can I?"

"I have my own life too!"

Qin Qingzhou didn't answer her, but simply remembered Xu Shuang's WeChat ID and sent it to the technical department.

After doing all this, Qin Qingzhou continued, "Did you know that Xu Shuang didn't attend evening self-study sessions in the days leading up to the accident?"

The homeroom teacher was somewhat embarrassed: "I don't know..."

She doesn't actually care about anything in the class.

She didn't care about the students' grades or their safety at all.

Anyway, she has connections, so all she has to do every day is clock in and out. She can keep going to school even if she makes a mess of things with the students.

It was only when she was suddenly put in the open that she felt ashamed.

Qin Qingzhou realized he couldn't get any useful information from the homeroom teacher, so he shook his head in disappointment and let her go.

Li Ku pushed open the door to the meeting room and came in. He had just asked a few students to take their statements.

The two looked at each other, clearly neither of them had any useful clues.

"Let's go back to the police station first." Qin Qingzhou stood up and walked ahead.

When they reached the end of the corridor, the two stopped.

Going down is downstairs, going up is the roof.

The rooftop was blocked by a rusty iron gate and was now cordoned off.