It’s Him – Ch20

Truth

Sun Ning had not intended for Li Xun, a high school senior, to get involved in this matter. As an adult, how could she allow a child to be caught up in such things?

Therefore, she did not tell Li Xun about the suicide note, nor did she mention the events she had experienced herself.

But Li Xun had her phone number, and whenever he had the chance, he would message her:

“Teacher Sun, are you asleep?”

“I can’t sleep today. I’ve been thinking about you. Since I’m also a student, I have a different perspective on this, though I’m not sure if it’s right.”

What could Sun Ning do? Could she reply, telling the child to stop thinking about it and keep those thoughts to himself?

But Li Xun couldn’t hold back, and his thoughts were transmitted through his phone:

“As high school students, we like to discuss things with our friends. We usually can’t keep secrets.”

“Teacher Sun, you can try asking Li Hao’s good friends from back then. They might know something.”

“Although they might not have dared to speak up back then, they would definitely want to speak out now.”

Sun Ning was shocked. She had thought of what Li Xun was suggesting, but after so many years since graduation, she had long lost contact with those students.

Li Xun’s messages soon came again.

“They’ve graduated for so long, so you might not be able to find their contact information. But since you still have their parents’ contact details, the older generation usually doesn’t change their phone numbers as long as they’re alive. You can ask their parents for the number.”

Sun Ning: “…You’re right.”

The mind of a high school senior is really sharp.

Sun Ning opened her email.

When she first became a teacher, the social security situation was very bad, and it was easy to lose a phone. So, she had developed a habit of saving important information in folders and emailing them to herself. This way, even if her phone was lost, it wouldn’t matter.

That class was her lifelong regret, her experience, and it was all stored in her email.

She quickly found one of her former students’ parents’ phone numbers.

Li Xun was right; as long as they’re alive, the older generation doesn’t change their phone numbers.

She tried calling.

The person on the other end said it was a wrong number.

Sun Ning found another contact. She remembered that the four of them had been particularly close, always doing everything together and talking about brotherhood.

The second call went through, and an elderly voice answered. She asked if they knew XX, and the person immediately asked who she was.

She replied that she was their high school teacher and asked for XX’s phone number. The person immediately hung up.

Sun Ning thought that the parent must have remembered her and didn’t want to talk.

In fact, the person on the other end sighed and said to an elderly woman beside them, “Another debt collector. How much money did your son owe outside?”

Then came the third call.

Sun Ning wasn’t expecting much, but this time it went smoothly. The person on the other end heard that she was a high school teacher, chatted with her for a while, and then gave her the student’s phone number.

She dialed the number.

No one answered.

She tried again twice, but still no one picked up.

During this time, a student came in to ask her a question, so she put the phone aside and explained the topic to the student.

When the student left, she saw two missed calls on her phone.

She quickly dialed the number back.

A middle-aged man answered, sounding very enthusiastic: “This is the Knight Repair Shop. Do you need anything repaired?”

Sun Ning was stunned. She hadn’t been paying attention to her former students’ situations. During that time, she was barely surviving herself, trying to keep her emotions in check and pretending to be a normal person while teaching her class and not letting her personal matters affect her students.

In such a situation, how could she have the energy to follow up on her previous students?

Sun Ning was silent for a while, and the person on the other end remained patient. “Can you hear me? Is the signal bad?”

Sun Ning said, “I’m your high school English teacher, Sun Ning.”

The person on the other end went silent.

Sun Ning continued, “I want to ask you something.”

The person’s tone noticeably changed, as if trying to smooth over the awkwardness: “Is… is that so? What would you like to ask me, Teacher?”

After being tempered by society, the person had become much more docile and composed.

Sun Ning asked, “How much do you know about Li Hao’s situation?”

The person on the other end became visibly uncomfortable, handling the awkwardness with a typical adult’s way of diffusing it.

However, there was no sense of guilt or remorse.

“Teacher Sun, we were all wrong to you back then.” The apology was said lightly, almost as if it meant nothing.

“Wrong about what?”

The person went silent again.

Sun Ning said, “All these years have passed. If I was too strict with you back then, then I’ve already been punished. I have the right to know the truth.”

“You’re an adult now. Do you think I was wrong back then?”

“You can speak now, it won’t harm you in any way.”

Only then did the person attempt to sound casual, as if trying to play down the matter: “At that time, Li Hao just wanted to play a prank and scare you.”

He spoke with the typical skill of a middle-aged man trying to downplay a big issue.

“The rest was an accident, and we were also upset for a long time. I didn’t do well in the college entrance exams because of this.”

One joke. One person lost their life. The other carried the weight of taking a life.

Sun Ning didn’t feel any relief.

She leaned back in her office chair, feeling a deep soul weariness.

This was the truth she had wanted to know but never dared to think about.

In fact, people had always known.

The person on the other end continued explaining: “We were young and didn’t understand, we didn’t realize your concern. Now that I have children, I know how foolish we were.”

Sun Ning remained silent.

The person on the other end continued talking, as if desperate to prove that he had matured and become stable.

Sun Ning asked again, “Did Zhao Laoshi participate in your plan?”

The person replied, “No, Zhao Laoshi didn’t participate.”

Sun Ning then asked, “How did you know which university I attended?”

“Zhao Laoshi told us,” came the reply.

“My former school and my students’ grades, was that also something Zhao Laoshi told you?”

The person confirmed it.

Suddenly, Sun Ning realized something. She said, “If Zhao Laoshi didn’t participate in your plan, how did the suicide note end up in his hands?”

“We don’t know,” came the reply. “That suicide note was supposed to be given to the principal. We forgot when we were leaving.” The person paused, thinking back, “We ran into Zhao Laoshi when we were going downstairs. We told him about Li Hao wanting to commit suicide.”

“That was probably when Zhao Laoshi went upstairs to persuade Li Hao and took the suicide note.”

At that moment, her phone beeped. She opened it without thinking, forgetting that she was still on the call.

It was a message from Li Xun.

“Teacher, the more I think about it, the more I feel that Li Hao might have been killed by Zhao Laoshi himself.”

With this combination of revelations, Sun Ning could no longer view Li Xun as just an ordinary high school student.