Seven years ago, Qi Si was fifteen, in his third year of middle school like Lu Ming.
At the time, he had not yet transferred to a rural middle school. He attended a private school in Jiang City, where he was the least welcome child among the crowd—the isolated "black sheep" of 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 aged.
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 disdain for him while watching his every move, waiting for something to mock. A familiar environment made it easy to dig up someone's past, especially when the incident had been so famous and those involved made no effort to hide it.
Stories about Qi Si circulated among the students. Before long, most of the school knew that the withdrawn, gloomy, solitary boy was a different sort of monster.
Not only did he frequently visit psychiatric hospitals for treatment and enjoy reading bloody, dark books, but he was also cursed with calamity and had supposedly caused the death of a former "friend."
Most children that age were curious about the strange and macabre. When they heard rumors they found novel, they whispered them from ear to ear. 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 close to him comes to a bad end. Haven't you heard? His best friend in elementary school died horribly!"
"Who doesn't know? It was a huge case! They didn't find him until a whole week after he