Who Are You, Exactly?

At this school, a person's popularity might have something to do with their family background.

Yu An clicked search and found many posts about Sheng Yilin, including plenty of confession posts. He was very popular and indeed a professional swimmer. He had recently gone abroad for a competition and had only returned to school today.

He had even won an award. He was quite capable and highly career-driven.

He swam at the school every Saturday afternoon.

There was even information on his favorite brand of body wash.

How detailed. Forums really were useful things.

Wait, he and Sheng Xize were cousins.

A member of the protagonist group?

It didn't matter.

He should look at the school's surveillance camera layout too.

When Yu An got up, he checked the weather first. It said there would be light rain. He got up and pushed open the window. Sure enough, it was already raining.

He made a simple breakfast, cleaned up the room, worked through a set of practice questions, and booked a somewhat less-than-legitimate study room online. After lunch, he packed his things and headed out.

Because he had stuffed a raincoat into it, his backpack was bulging, and he felt uncomfortable carrying it.

When he arrived at the study room, he received a message from Song Yuechi.

[Song Yuechi]: Going out to have fun

[Yu An]: [Photo] Studying

He took a picture of his desk and sent it to Song Yuechi.

[Song Yuechi]: [Ah, I'm dead.jpg] I'll come find you when you're done studying

[Yu An]: Mm

After exiting the chat app, he opened another program for remotely controlling a computer and checked the school's surveillance cameras.

He had also taught himself how to make the remote-control program in the past. Perhaps because the novel world lacked logical rigor, the school's surveillance system was even easier to infiltrate than he had expected, and he had erased the traces cleanly.

Sheng Yilin appeared on the thirty-fifth camera feed.

The forum information was very accurate.

Sheng Yilin entered the swimming hall and spoke to the staff. Everyone else promptly left.

It looked like he was clearing the place out.

Privileges were always rather irritating when they appeared on someone else.

Yu An put down his phone and took the raincoat, baseball cap, and mask from his bag. Once he had put them on properly, he pushed open the door and left, locking it behind him.

He had carefully selected this study room. The shop's varied negative reviews had condemned its fire safety, hygiene, security, and everything else. Its surveillance cameras were useless in all but name. As long as he kept his hands clean enough, there was a good chance he could get away with anything here.

Yu An first went to the supermarket and paid cash for the things he needed. Then he contacted a truck heading toward the school through a secondhand marketplace app.

The driver looked disdainfully at his raincoat soaking the seat. "Take off your raincoat."

Yu An silently handed over two bills of the largest denomination.

The driver's drooping eyes immediately lifted. "It's better to keep the raincoat on. Keeps you warm."

Yu An hid completely inside the black raincoat and slowly adjusted his mask and cap brim, making sure his face was entirely concealed.

Before getting out, he checked the surveillance interference settings once more.

Everything was normal.

On a rainy day, storm clouds blocked out the sunlight, making the sky dim but not dark enough for the streetlights to come on. No one noticed Yu An, wrapped from head to toe in black rain gear.

He entered the swimming hall without incident.

He lit up his phone screen. Five o'clock sharp.

It was exactly the time Sheng Yilin would finish swimming and head to the changing room to shower and change.

Yu An walked inside. From a distance, he could hear the sound of running water and someone talking in the private shower room. He was probably on the phone.

"What the hell is Sheng Xize? Grandpa must be senile to value him so much. Don't worry, I've got plenty of ways to deal with him..."

It seemed he did not have a good relationship with the protagonist named Sheng Xize.

In a novel, someone like Sheng Yilin was probably called a villain. More precisely, perhaps a disposable villain?

While listening to Sheng Yilin insult Sheng Xize, Yu An took out the same brand of body wash he had bought at the supermarket and patiently squeezed it through the gap beneath the door.

When he had showered here yesterday, he had noticed that the floor tiles were extremely slippery. Song Yuechi had said students often fell in the shower rooms.

"All right, let's leave it at that. I'll be there in a bit..."

The body wash dispersed under the water, filling the floor with foam. Sheng Yilin ended the call, failed to notice his footing, and instinctively lifted a foot to shift position.

Bang!

It was the deafening sound of something heavy hitting the ground.

Yu An stopped squeezing more body wash inside and listened to the movement within.

Sheng Yilin gritted his teeth and cursed, "Sooner or later, I'm smashing this damn shower room..."

From the sounds inside, he seemed to be struggling to get up, but soon there came another heavy crash, followed by intermittent clattering.

He had probably tried to grab the showerhead to pull himself up, only to break it.

This time, Sheng Yilin's voice turned pained. He no longer tried to get up and instead shouted hoarsely outside, "Is anyone there?"

It seemed he could not get up.

The door lock clicked twice, and the door opened a crack.

Humid, hot mist drifted out. Yu An stepped back half a pace and peered through the gap. The fallen showerhead was still spraying water, gathering a faint reddish stream that flowed toward the drain.

It was diluted blood.

Beneath his mask, Yu An's lips curved slightly.

Sheng Yilin noticed Yu An outside the door. "What are you standing there for? Come help me up! Call an ambulance!"

He had been using waterproof sports earbuds for the call just now, and his phone was in the storage locker outside.

Yu An examined him carefully, confirmed that his head was injured, pushed open the door, and picked up the overhead showerhead.

Only then did Sheng Yilin clearly see Yu An's attire, and his face changed at once. "You... Who are you?"

This person was wrapped up so tightly that not a single gap showed, wearing gloves and shoe covers. Even though he could not see Yu An's face at all, Sheng Yilin could sense the terrifying, bone-chilling aura clinging to him like an incurable disease.

Yu An said nothing. Holding the showerhead, he looked at Sheng Yilin's head to confirm the position, then smashed it down hard.

Sheng Yilin cried out in pain, fear mixed into his voice. "Who are you..."

He had wrapped himself up so thoroughly, yet Sheng Yilin was still asking such a meaningless question.

By the third blow, Sheng Yilin gradually lost consciousness.

Yu An tossed the showerhead onto him and calmly watched the bloodied water washed out by the spray continuously seep from beneath his body.

When he had been very young, Yu An had understood one principle.

Not everyone in this world could be reformed.

For example, there was the child next door who had tricked his younger sister into retrieving a ball from the middle of the road, then later pushed Yu An into the water and watched him struggle on the verge of death.

Afterward, that child had obediently admitted his mistake before the adults, only to push his younger sister off a three-meter-high slide platform the next day.

People like that would never be reformed as long as they lived.

Sheng Yilin was the same kind of person.

He preyed on the weak and had absolute privilege. There were not many effective ways to stop him.

But it was not as though there were none at all.

It would just take some effort.

Yu An checked the time.

His timing was perfect. If he hurried back now, he would arrive just in time for the study room to close and for the incineration time at the garbage station beside it.