Seven years ago, Qi Si was fifteen, in his third year of middle school just like Lu Ming.
At the time, he had yet to transfer to a rural middle school. He attended a private school in Jiang City, where he was the least welcome child in the crowd—the "black sheep" isolated from every group.
Like the world's will rejecting an unwelcome guest, malice and exclusion pieced together the entirety of his memories, growing rather than diminishing as he got older.
He was like a rat that had scurried into the city, or an insect that had suddenly appeared in a greenhouse. People loathed his existence, yet could not help paying him excessive attention.
They expressed their disdain for him while watching his every move, waiting for a chance to mock him. Familiar surroundings made it easy to dig up someone's past, especially when the incident had been so well-known and those involved made no effort to hide it.
All sorts of stories about Qi Si spread among the students. Before long, most of the school knew that the withdrawn, gloomy, solitary boy was a peculiar monster unlike anyone else.
Not only did he frequently visit a psychiatric hospital for treatment and enjoy reading bloody, dark books, he also bore a curse of calamity and had supposedly caused the death of a former "friend."
Most children that age were curious about strange things. Upon hearing rumors they found novel, they whispered them from person to person. Some of the bolder ones even gathered around Qi Si and deliberately spoke loudly.
"Everyone, stay away from Qi Si. He's a jinx. Anyone who gets close to him comes to no good end. Haven't you heard? That good friend of his from elementary school died horribly!"
"Who hasn't heard? It was a huge