The day I was forced to be a detective pendant

"Ten minutes off!"

As soon as I said this, the guy standing opposite me immediately sat down on the ground as if his bones had been pulled out. I lowered my head helplessly and said, "What about it?"

"Huh...huh..." Zheng Yan is a freshman at the same level as me, panting like a dog at the moment, he shook his wrist and said weakly: "Help me get some water, it's so hot."

I took the water bottle for the two of them from outside the venue, handed it to him and said, "Look at your heat, but you don't sweat much."

"Yeah," he said vaguely, "I've been like this since I was a child."

A little envious, I wiped the sweat from my forehead with the wristband on my arm, put aside the practice stick used to replace the real sword, and sat on the floor to rest.Although the exercise stick weighs only one kilogram, the forearm is still a little sore after holding it in the hand for a long time and practicing chopping and thrusting.

The two of us sat side by side with our hands behind us, with our legs crossed facing the open old iron gate of the gymnasium. The sky was gradually turning red—the sun was going down.

After autumn, the weather finally cooled down a little bit, the loud cicadas outside stopped, and the club time after class was no longer so tormenting.A breeze blew through the hall—the activity area of ​​the old school building without air conditioning finally became a place for people to stay.

Including me, there are only five people in the Kendo club. Except for the senior president who only shows up once when recruiting new recruits, there are only these four people who usually practice—just two or two teams.

Five people is the minimum configuration of our school club, and if there are fewer members, the school will be forcibly disbanded.I learned kendo for a year in high school, but I stopped because of exam preparation in my senior year. After school started, I went to the recruiting booth of the club and happened to see the kendo club. , Signed the contract of selling himself in a fog.

It's just that although the five-person club barely avoided the fate of being disbanded, it didn't go so smoothly afterwards—the regular sports venues on the new campus were lent to basketball clubs, football clubs, taekwondo clubs, and track and field teams. We can only come to practice in this inaccessible old campus - this area is said to be demolished and built as a new student dormitory, but we have heard that the funds are not in place, so we have been dragging on.

This is bad news for me who was too late to live in the student dormitory, but it is probably good news for the Kendo Club.It's just that the cleaning aunt doesn't even care about this remote venue, so every Thursday practice time has to be set aside for sanitation.

Like today.

"Huh?" Zheng Yan suddenly said.

I raised my head subconsciously, and saw a figure passing by the door we were facing—a tall boy wearing glasses flashed by, and the lens reflected light in the setting sun.

"Why did you come here? Do you want to join the club?" I subconsciously denied myself when I asked this sentence—in just one month, I have deeply realized that the Kendo Club has almost zero sense of existence. , I couldn't help but wonder, "Don't go wrong."

"Ah... I know him." Zheng Yan said thoughtfully, "He's in our class."

I turned to look at him: "Eh? Is that the one who came to see you?"

"Probably not," Zheng Yan said, "We haven't talked since we started school."

"There are people you haven't talked to," I said subconsciously, and quickly changed my words after seeing Zheng Yan's expression: "I was saying that you have a kind, lively, outgoing and pleasant personality."

Zheng Yan hummed twice to accept this statement, and hesitated a bit: "Because of that...he is a little...difficult to get along with."

"I never take the initiative to talk to people, and I don't like to talk to them. I sleep most of the time in class." Zheng Yan scratched his hair, showing a tangled face: "Anyway, the girls in the class don't like him very much, they think he is too gloomy. and……"

Me: "And?"

Zheng Yan wrinkled his nose: "And I always have a strange smell on my body."

"Oh..." I nodded understandingly, "You don't fit in."

"One more point, it's pure gossip, I only remembered it when I saw your face." Zheng Yan said.

I asked curiously, "What?"

"A classmate met him outside a gay bar when he was out on weekends." Zheng Yan said, "It's a very hardcore gay."

"What kind of hardcore one..." I was halfway through the conversation, thinking something was wrong: "Wait, why do you think of such a thing when you look at my face?"

"Hahaha," Zheng Yan laughed disingenuously, "You are a handsome guy, so I wonder if he came to see you."

I stared at him speechlessly for a while, until the senior shouted: "The 10 minutes are over, two freshmen, stand up!"

"So fast!" Zheng Yan wailed, and was hit on the top of the head with a sponge stick, be honest.

After the practice, the two seniors packed up their things and locked them in the equipment room. Zheng Yan and I cleaned up in a procrastinating manner.After locking the bared iron gate, the other three walked towards the east gate, and I had no choice but to take over the garbage bags. After school started, I rented a single room outside the west gate of the school, and the garbage collection point was opened again. It happened to be next to the teacher's apartment on the way to Ximen, so throwing out trash became my daily routine.

There is only one class tomorrow morning, so I can start the weekend early in the afternoon, try to catch the school bus at [-] o’clock to go to another campus gate to eat delicious food, and go to a second-hand game store by the way... I was thinking about it in my heart while holding my hand. Walking forward with a garbage bag dangling.

The teachers’ apartments inside the campus are very small. There is no elevator on the sixth floor. Many old teachers have moved to new apartments outside the campus, so it is always quiet here.The exterior walls of these old buildings are earthy gray, but the bonsai at the entrance of the unit, the creepers on the corners, and the clothes rails on the balcony still retain a strong sense of life, quite nostalgic, very similar to the Tongzilou that grew up .

I saw a huge garbage iron box from afar, walked up to it in two steps, and stretched my shoulders. I swung the garbage bag in a semicircle, and it fell firmly into the opening of the iron box, and then made an astonishing muffled sound.

"boom!"

The sparrows on the tree above my head flew away with a clatter, and I was quite surprised-did I throw a shot put? Why was it so loud?

I stood still, blinked, and looked around blankly, then I realized that it wasn't the garbage bag I threw that made the loud noise—I was lying face down on the concrete floor ten meters behind me one person.

My mind was blank for ten seconds, my mind was buzzing, and I stood there motionless.

what?

It won't be what I thought it would be.

My unconscious legs took a small step forward—the person lying on the ground has short hair, but the skeleton is probably a girl, and the posture of her arms and legs is twisted almost comically, but she Motionless, as quiet as dead.

Soon, red blood slowly oozes from the cement floor under her face, not much, covered with the dust of the end of summer.It was totally different from anything I've seen in movies before - there was no big pool of blood, no one screaming around, it all happened and ended so quickly, it was fake calm.

She was lying on the concrete floor, bathed in the orange-red sunset, and I stood under the shade of a tree, my legs shivering from the cold in the sweltering early autumn.The two of us seem to be in two non-interfering worlds, silently watching each other's existence.

The tinnitus gradually disappeared, and the surrounding sounds came back—scattered cicadas chirping, birds chirping that had nothing to do with me, and the wind blowing the leaves, but none of them could cover my heartbeat like a drum.

I took two more steps forward, and finally walked out of the shadow of the trees above my head - I half-opened my mouth and raised my head dully - every balcony was empty, no one noticed what happened just now, only a few things Underwear hanging out to dry swayed in the breeze.

Then I saw it.

On the top-floor platform of Unit [-] of Building B, there was a person lying on the edge of the terrace and my eyes were looking up—although it was only for less than a second.He backed away quickly, leaving only a glint of light in his glasses.

Ten minutes later, the scene was surrounded by crowds, the lights of ambulances and police cars flashed, and the man did not come out of the stairs.

It's 08:30 in the evening, and I haven't been able to go home yet. I'm still sitting in the police station, wrapped in a fancy pink blanket, which is probably used by female police officers to take a nap.I remember reading it before, saying that a frightened person loses temperature in a state of fear, and that a blanket can be soothing.I was distracted thinking about whether this would be useful, and someone poured me a cup of hot water in front of me.

"Don't pour it for him, you see the boy is sweating." Another uncle policeman said.

It was only after I heard this that I regained my senses, shook off the pink blanket and fanned myself, feeling hungry and nauseated in my stomach at the same time, asked: "I, can I go back? What else do I need to do?"

The police uncle nodded, grabbed the document board and a pen with one hand and stood up, opened the stool and sat across from me, and said, "It's okay, I will check the record with you one last time."

Me: "OK."

"Zou...Chuyang, right?" Uncle police reported a series of addresses and said, "You said you rented a single room here, and you usually walk from the west gate of the school where there is less traffic after school. Due to club activities today, so You take a detour to the trash can in the teacher's apartment to throw out the trash."

Me: "Yes. Because the restaurants and Internet cafes around the school are all outside the east gate, even if there are students living in my area, they will eat first before going back. There are basically no people at the west gate."

The police uncle nodded: "According to you, the occupancy rate of the four buildings of the old teacher's apartment is also very low, so when the incident happened, you were the only one who saw it."

I was silent for a while, nodded and said: "Yes."

Uncle glanced at me from under his eyebrows and asked, "Why are you hesitating?"

So sharp!I trembled in my heart, and said: "I'm not sure whether it's true because of the low occupancy rate. I just heard that many of my professional teachers bought houses in off-campus communities. Even if the school arranges housing, such as My counselor, her dormitory is also off campus."

The uncle looked at me for another second, lowered his head again, and said, "You don't have to worry about this, we will verify and visit."

I nodded silently, and the uncle continued to ask: "Then when you were throwing out the trash, you heard a loud commotion, and when you looked back, the girl was already lying on the ground."

"Yes," I said with some difficulty, "I didn't react at first, thinking she had fallen or some kind of prank, but when I saw blood, I immediately called the police."

"About... 15 minutes, you'll be here."

大叔说：“接到你电话的时候是7点29分43秒，我们到达现场是7点41，一共12分钟。”

I was stunned and said, "Oh."

"Okay, if you think of anything else, just call me." The uncle put the board aside, looked at me, and I looked at him.

Uncle: "?"

Me: "I thought you were going to hand me a business card?"

His eyelids twitched, and he said, "Just scan WeChat, and return the business card. Are you a young man?"

Embarrassed, I took out my phone, stacked it with the cracked screen of my uncle, and scanned out a head portrait of an owl rolling its eyes.

"Can you go home alone? Do you want to ask your classmates to pick you up, or call your parents?" The female police officer came to collect the pink blanket. I waved my hands and stood up, still feeling a little top-heavy.

"It's okay, I can do it." I don't know who to tell.

"Little classmate, go back and take a hot bath at night, don't think too much." The police uncle said, "If necessary, make an appointment with the school psychologist."

I nodded in agreement, and was about to turn around and go out when I suddenly stopped and asked, "Excuse me... that girl, how did she do after she was sent to the hospital?"

Several policemen around me stopped what they were doing at the same time, looked up at me, and my heart skipped a beat.

The uncle looked straight into my eyes, shook his head and said, "It's a pity."

My chest collapsed while I was holding my breath, and he said again: "The whole body was broken and internal organs were bleeding. He probably died on the spot after jumping off. The ambulance was just a formality."

He used the word "jump down", indicating that the police had tacitly agreed that this was a suicide.I nodded: "Understood, thank you."

After walking out of the police station, I immediately took out my mobile phone and sent a message to Zheng Yan: The person who passed by the door during practice today, a classmate in your class, what is his name?

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