August 15, 2010. Contact with Shi Fei's mother, Ren Hua. Audio file 05820100815.wav.
"Hello, Ms. Ren. We'd like to ask you some questions about your son, Shi Fei."
"Did Feifei do something terrible? He's already gone... If he did something, please, please forgive him... sob... He, he was a good kid. He was just, just a little impulsive. He didn't mean any harm..."
"Ms. Ren, please accept our condolences. Could you tell us about Mr. Shi Fei? Especially about his death. We heard that he jumped off a building."
"I, I don't know what he was thinking at the time. He suddenly said he wanted to go out and have fun, to travel around. He was about to graduate, and he hadn't found a job, so I... I nagged him a little... If only... sob... sob sob... If only I hadn't pressured him or kept rushing him..."
"Please don't upset yourself, Ms. Ren. Did Mr. Shi travel alone, or did he arrange to go with a friend?"
"He went with that chubby boy from the Yuan family. They'd been at the same school since they were little. They were classmates in elementary and middle school, and they went to the same high school. When it came to college, they applied to the same one, too. They were very close. That chubby boy from the Yuan family used to be round and a little slow, but he slimmed down as he grew up and got a lot sharper. He was smarter than our Feifei. I was reassured when they went together and he could keep an eye on him. I even asked him to talk some sense into Feifei. He'd already been accepted into graduate school early. Feifei still hadn't figured out what he was going to do... It would've been