Bold self-expression, others have no reason to despise you

The first sleepless night I spent at the Public Security Bureau.

I asked to call my fiancée, but was not allowed to do so. Officer Huang Hai promised I would inform her, and he knew who Gu Qiusha's father was. However, until dawn, there was no news at all. There was no mirror in the detention room, so I couldn't see my face, and I was afraid that I had boiled up dark circles under my eyes. I couldn't eat anything, my stomach was killing me, and my breakfast box was still on the floor.

June 6, 1995, morning, first interrogation.

"What was found from my dormitory?"

Before the officer could speak, I snatched the question, and Huang Hai replied sullenly, "The plastic bottle, found on top of your closet. Although the bottle was empty, there were residual extracts of oleander juice, which was tested in the last few days."

"Are you saying that I distilled the oleander venom and poisoned Liuman the night before last?"

"Now, you are the biggest suspect, but it does not mean that you are the murderer."

There was no need to explain further, everyone treated me as a murderer - it was decided that I had an immoral relationship with Liuman, and as I was about to get married and embark on a career, she became the biggest stumbling block, and would probably keep coming to harass and pester me after graduation. I live in the school dormitory, there are natural conditions for the crime, not to mention the campus is full of oleander, go out in the middle of the night to get some juice like a bag. The library attic such a place, no one dares to go up at night, and only I can possibly trick Liuman up ......

"I didn't kill anyone!"

Swear to God, does it work? I am so stupid ah.

"I investigated your records in detail when you were in college, and you actually took toxicology, isn't that strange for a Chinese student?"

"Then have you checked how my mother died?"

Huang Hai sped out the answer, "She was killed by your father, when you were seven years old."

"The point is - she was poisoned to death." I regained my composure, like I was recounting a piece of social news, "He poisoned the medicine my mother drank every day. On the day my mom died, I didn't shed a single tear, but escaped from the house and hugged a police officer's thigh and bit him hard before sending my mom for an autopsy to find out the real cause of death."

"Last night I accessed the file, your father was sentenced to death by firing squad, I'm sorry! So - you took toxicology in college because your mom was poisoned?"

"Is there any other reason? Could I have been forewarned? Know that I wanted to kill Yanuman years ago, and therefore learn the art of poisoning people first?"

"Affirmation, what about the rumors circulating in the school about your flirtation with Yanuman?"

"That was never a thing! She just often came to ask me questions and sometimes said some strange things, but I knew the proper proportion between teachers and students, especially for pretty girls like her, I was extra careful from the beginning."

"You're very popular with the high school girls, aren't you?"

I subconsciously bowed my head and never felt that I was a handsome man, I can only say that my features are correct and my eyes are sharp, I look like a righteous face at an advanced recognition meeting. Occasionally someone compliments me on my imposing appearance, the face hides the hero's life to get ahead.

Nowadays, girls will like my type?

"I don't know, probably because my character is relatively mild, usually not too many words, free time will write some classical poetry, you know eighteen-year-old girls are sentimental, some admiration for men like me, after two more years to grow up, they will certainly change."

I am incoherent what ah? Isn't this an admission that Liuman is attracted to me?

The transcriber next to me quickly jotted down these words, and Officer Huang Hai nodded slightly, "Okay, let's change the subject, affirmation, can you tell us about your past?"

"My past?"

"Let's start from high school days, we talked too hastily yesterday, I heard that you were guaranteed to enter Peking University?"

"Yes, I volunteered to fill in Peking University, but wasn't sure I could get in. But a month before the college entrance exam, almost seven years ago today, something big happened across the street from Nanming High School - at that time, in addition to the wilderness and factories on Nanming Road, there were also some broken illegal buildings, shacks built by foreign vagrants, and a fire broke out for some unknown reason. Many students climbed the fence to watch the fire that night, but I was the only one who rushed across the road and threw myself into the fire to save others, and managed to recover a life. I won a citywide commendation for that, plus I joined the party in my senior year, and I was interviewed by TV and newspapers and almost made the news."

"So, you got the golden opportunity to bail out."

"Officer Huang, do you believe in fate?"

"No, I don't believe."

"I don't believe in it either, but - I studied very hard in college, almost didn't listen to anything outside the window, my grades were among the best, and when I graduated, I suffered injustice, many of my classmates were much worse than me in their homework, some were downright terrible, yet they were assigned to the central government. And I was actually sent back to my hometown and became a high school language teacher."

"But you've been given the best opportunity now." Officer Huang Hai lit up a cigarette and puffed it into the air above my head, "I heard you're getting married soon, can you talk about your fiancée?"

"Two years ago, I took a bus back to school and found someone stealing her purse, the whole bus was indifferent and the conductor actually opened the door. Just as the thief fled the bus, I defiantly rushed up and pinned him to the ground and eventually twisted him to the police station. I got to know Gu Qiusha in this way, and she was so grateful that she invited me to several dinners in succession. She worked at the Education Publishing House and was in charge of editing high school language textbooks, so she and I got to talking and soon became my girlfriend."

"Have you ever been in love before?"

"No, she was my first." Faced with the smoke in the mouth of Huang Hai, I subconsciously leaned back, "talked for six months, I learned that her father, a former leader of the Education Bureau, is now the president of the university. She grew up without a mother and was doted on by her father. I'm afraid that anyone who comes from a parentless background like mine would resent it. But her father was impressed with me, coincidentally also graduated from BYU, his secretary went home to have a baby, I was seconded from Nanming High School to the university and temporarily did three months as the principal's secretary. I worked extra hard, day and night to follow around, not only to serve him comfortably, the leaders and professors up and down, also praised me."

Suddenly, I stopped and did not continue, why would my future father-in-law think highly of me? I was a poor boy from a poor background, but I was given the opportunity to jump from a carp to a dragon? The president of the Valley only a daughter, the future must be someone to take up the beam, so as not to retire in the evening, rather than find a high cadre son of marriage, rather than personally cultivate a diligent young man, but also to die loyalty.

Officer Huang Hai broke the silence: "I heard that in March, you held an engagement ceremony."

Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that the engagement ceremony would be so grand, with university and education committee leaders coming, and even various socially prominent figures, from TV hosts to the president of the Writers' Association, simply flattered me. That was the good intention of my future father-in-law to bring me into his social circle, with so many connections, everything would be convenient - like getting me out of the Public Security Bureau.

I don't want to talk to the police about these useless, grasp the key: "A month ago, the school received a notice from the higher level that I will be transferred out of my teaching position after the entrance exams and enter the Youth League Committee of the Municipal Education Bureau, it just so happens that I am also the secretary of the Youth League Committee of Nanming Middle School. My fiancée, Gu Qiusha, told me that because of his father's relationship, I had been designated internally by the leadership and would take over as secretary of the league committee of the city's education system in two years' time - the news quickly spread in the circle."

"Therefore, there will be many people jealous of you!" He extinguished his cigarette and tapped the table with his knuckles, "That's the point you want to tell me, right?"

"Officer Huang, have you read 'The Chronicles of Monte Cristo'?"

"I don't have time to read novels, but I know what you mean. Well, please tell me, who do you think is trying to set you up? I said set up, not jealousy - and to hear you say that, even I can't help it! Head on the waistband of the pants for more than a decade, catch a lot of murderers, covered with scars, not even a house, and you kid to turn the corner, normal people are not jealous!"

"I understand that by killing people to plant evidence, such people are not just jealous, can you give me paper and pen?"

Officer Huang Hai stared into my eyes, while pushing the paper and pen over, I picked up the pen and wrote two beautiful words - stern.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)