"But don't laugh at me."
"I'm not sure if what I'm saying is even true."
The girl gave them a warning in advance.
"Mm, just say whatever you want to say."
Xiao Xiao smiled. "We'll decide what to make of it."
"...Okay."
The girl looked at Brother Xiao Xiao, then at the police officer nodding to her, and nodded firmly.
"Although Xiao Rui wasn't in the same class as me, we went to the same middle school."
It was a somewhat unexpected opening, but Meng Jixi, who knew all the details of the four suicide cases, quickly caught on. "Xiao Rui? You mean Han Rui, the second student who died by suicide?"
"Mm."
The girl nodded. "We were pretty close."
"Probably because we were both the quiet, studious type."
"So we were comfortable around each other, and we had a lot of common ground when it came to studying."
The next part seemed difficult to say. The girl hesitated for a long while before speaking softly. "Neither of us was very smart."
It wasn't easy for an ambitious, hardworking teenager to admit something like that.
"We put in so much effort, but our grades never lived up to it."
"In middle school, we were always near the top of our class. But when we got to this high school, our grades only hovered around the middle and upper ranks. We couldn't improve any further."
"We were both really discouraged."
"Xiao Rui was under even more pressure than I was."
"Xiao Rui's dad was always busy with work and hardly paid any attention to her."
"Her mom favored boys over girls. The only thing she cared about when it came to Xiao Rui was her grades."
"Xiao Rui's good grades were something her mom could brag about."
"She