[Holy crap, if that's what happened, no wonder I've seen Q University students in the comments saying they'd never heard of Sha Chuan several times before.]
[No wonder he always hemmed and hawed whenever fans asked him to film the campus or share his study methods. Out in the world, you really can give yourself whatever identity you want.]
[Sha Chuan's different. His girlfriend gave him his identity.]
[You're so savage. I love it.]
[I was wondering why he posted his student ID and then kept quietly milking it for publicity without ever spelling anything out. Turns out it was all smoke and mirrors.]
[Fuck. As in, the plant.]
[Aaaaaah, help! When I recommended him to my friends before, I actually said he was handsome, highly educated, and devoted. Oh no, now this is part of my embarrassing internet history.]
After dropping that bombshell, Jiang Huaguo took a deep breath and steadied herself, but tears still swirled uncontrollably in her eyes.
Seeing this, Lili and the others hurried to comfort her, urging her to remember that the dead were gone and think more about the living.
With their reassurance, Jiang Huaguo turned away from the camera and wiped her tears before continuing, "I'm sorry... let's keep going. At first, Xuexue didn't know Sha Chuan was using her student ID to show off. When she found out, she fought with him about it, but Sha Chuan said he'd specifically included a picture of two little figures when he posted the photo. Those figures were supposed to represent him and Xuexue, and he was laying the groundwork for announcing their relationship later. He said he'd never expected Xuexue to think of him that way, and that he was very hurt."
[What the fuck, that actually worked?]
[Uh... Xuexue was a little too easy to fool.]
[Sigh, scumbags really have one trick after another.]
"When the other two girls in our dorm and I heard about this, our first reaction was to tell Xuexue to break up with him. But Xuexue really liked Sha Chuan, so she kept putting it off. After that... Sha Chuan often gave her things, and whenever anything came up, he was there at her beck and call. He was incredibly attentive. We figured he'd just had a momentary lapse before and was treating Xuexue pretty well now, so we stopped urging them to break up."
"Then graduation season came. I was busy getting used to a new job and a new place to live, while Xuexue had shut herself away to prepare for the postgraduate entrance exam, so we didn't keep in touch much during that time. Later, when I learned she'd failed the exam, I took a several-hour trip back to the capital specifically to comfort her. She seemed to be doing pretty well then. She even told me she planned to find a job to tide her over for six months, then keep working toward the exam in the second half of the year. She showed me the notebook of mistakes she carried in her bag, too. She'd put so much care into it... Seeing that she was doing well and still motivated, I went back to work with my mind at ease. Who knew that less than two months later, I'd see the news on the Campus Forum that Xuexue had jumped off a building?"
"Thinking back carefully now, I feel like something was already a little off with Xuexue then. Her family was middle-class, and her parents gave her five thousand a month for living expenses. By rights, she could have lived relatively comfortably. But when we met that time, I suggested going to a newly opened internet-famous restaurant, and she thought it was expensive and not good enough value. In the end, we ate at a roadside stall. While we were eating, I suggested buying some milk tea, and Xuexue thought that was expensive too... She used to be obsessed with checking out internet-famous restaurants and could down a cup of milk tea every day. After we ate, we went shopping. Someone along the way was selling roasted sweet potatoes, and when we asked, they were fifteen each. I thought that was expensive, but Xuexue said Sha Chuan liked them, so she wanted to buy one to take back." As Jiang Huaguo reached this point, little flames blazed in her eyes.
[Hiss... sounds a lot like psychological manipulation.]
[Exactly. Otherwise, how could someone change so drastically all of a sudden?]
[If I'm not mistaken, Xu Xue probably grew up with fairly strict parents who still doted on her. Girls like that are the easiest for men to fool with a few words.]
[From what her roommate's describing, it sounds like Sha Chuan manipulated her with things like, "We're building a life together. You can't keep spending so freely," and, "Milk tea is so expensive, over twenty a cup. Wouldn't it be better to save that money and buy some meat?"]
[But if it was only that kind of manipulation, surely it wouldn't have driven her to suicide?]
[Whatever ultimately caused Xu Xue's suicide, there's no question that Sha Chuan is a cheating, manipulative scumbag. If I don't roast him to death today, I lose!]
[Count me in! The internet's number one trash-talker requests permission to deploy!]
Perhaps it was a kind of unspoken coordination: as Lili stepped forward to expose Sha Chuan, Sha Chuan saw his popularity rising, decided he had what it took again, and put even more effort into his performance.
Gazing at the full moon, he murmured softly, as though he didn't want the microphones to catch it, "May we live long, sharing this beautiful moon though a thousand miles apart."
Yet he was standing very close to a nearby microphone, practically wishing he could press himself against it, for fear that his wistful remark wouldn't be recorded.
After doing this, he deliberately stole a seemingly casual glance at the screen, feeling extremely pleased with himself and thinking that line would probably win him another wave of fans.
But this time, what he saw was a screen full of abuse.
[Sha Chuan, get out of showbiz and get off Investigating the Strange!]
[You cheating bastard, just fucking die!]
[Did you cause Xu Xue's death? Tell the truth!]
[Holy shit, this Sha Chuan is disgusting. He manipulated her, then gained fans after her death by selling his devoted-partner persona.]
[I know Sha Chuan. Xu Xue's parents are my next-door neighbors, and I've loved Xuexue like a little sister since we were kids... He's still in touch with Xu Xue's parents now. Probably hoping to inherit their estate.]
[???? That's insane. He caused their daughter's death, and now he wants their inheritance?]
[You can't exactly say Sha Chuan killed her. Xu Xue did commit suicide, after all, and she didn't leave a note. No one knows why she did it.]
[Holy shit, I'm about to throw up my dinner.]
[Is he really going to strip Xu Xue's whole family to the bone and devour every last scrap?]
Cold sweat streamed down Sha Chuan's temples and soon soaked his back. His outdoor jacket clung wetly to his spine, and when the night wind blew, he shivered uncontrollably.
But he was thick-skinned, after all. Even in this situation, amid his terror, he managed to pick out the key information revealed in the comments: the viewers only knew about his cheating and manipulation. They didn't know anything more...
If that was all, he wouldn't have to bear any legal responsibility at all!
In other words, there was still a chance to turn things around!
Just as Sha Chuan's mind raced, trying to figure out how to escape his predicament, his phone rang abruptly in the biting mountain wind. The shock nearly made him throw it straight off the cliff-because he'd seen the caller ID. It was Xuexue's mother.
In the middle of the night, had those two old bastards actually found out about his cheating and manipulation right away too?!
Answering was out of the question. He was still on the show. Who knew what unexpected incident might happen if he picked up, leaving the situation beyond repair?
Sha Chuan instinctively moved to reject the call, but in his haste, he made a mistake and accidentally exposed his phone screen to the camera.
[Holy shit, it's actually the victim's parents calling.]
[Sha Chuan definitely won't dare answer. He has a guilty conscience!]
[Exactly. If he doesn't answer, that'll confirm what he did.]
[If his conscience is clear, why can't he answer and explain everything?]
As he watched the screen fill with similar comments, Sha Chuan's hand froze in midair, and for a long time, he didn't press the button to reject the call.
Why not take a gamble!
No one knew about that incident anyway. Of the only two people who knew, one would never speak, and the other could never speak again. So he would bet that fate was still on his side this time.
What Sha Chuan didn't know was that the instant he decided to answer the call, Qi Gu saw more in the hazy black threads winding around him.
Before you continue