The third teaching building, rooftop.

The rooftop of the third teaching building is the highest place in the entire Minghua Middle School. Every evening at dusk, if you open the heavy iron door and climb the stairs, you can see the huge, perfect and slowly sinking orange-red sunset behind the railings.

It is really a beautiful scenery, with big flaming clouds dyeing the blue sky into an orange color. It is not a small outline, but a large rendering. Under such a sunset, people who look back and see it will also

It's like being infected by the sunset, glowing, and even the trembling sound will be filled with the aroma of oranges.

It didn't take him long to reach the rooftop. He took out the key he had stolen long ago, opened the locked iron door, and walked up the long stairs, step by step, as if he was familiar with it, as if he had done it countless times before.

It's like fate has arranged all this long ago.

Two months ago, on the same rainy night, Yan Xi died. He did not see the torn body as rumored. He only saw scarlet blood stains on the floor tiles that could not be washed away after returning to school.

Because he has never seen the truth, he always lacks some real sense of it. It is like leaving the class, going to the toilet or eating, and still seeing that person, with his head lowered and shoulders hunched, walking cautiously on the road for fear of bumping into someone else.

Like a person.

He doesn't even dare to bump into strangers, he doesn't even dare to say hello to his classmates. How can a timid person who is afraid of the dark and ghosts have the courage to die?

The person who once had the courage to die was himself, wasn't he? It's just...

'Do you...do you want to read the novel I wrote?'

After arriving in Class C, Xu Chi, who was immersed in the huge frustration of both studies and family, faced the text message from his parents that "they don't want him to disturb" on the day before the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, so he packed up his last book and

After the whole class left the classroom, they walked onto the rooftop alone.

However, at the moment before jumping down, I heard an anxious voice coming from behind: "Classmate Xu Chi!"

When I turned around, I saw the young man holding a broom, panting and with beads of sweat on his head, which was a bit funny.

He knew that this man, a well-known good guy in the class, had taken over his friend's duty today, so he stayed in school after the class left.

He originally thought that this person would say something random like "life is precious", but he only saw that the person got stuck after shouting his name. It took him a long time before he stuttered and said: "You, do you want it?"

Read my novel?"

Read novels?

This should have been a very funny scene. After all, although the two people are classmates, one is withdrawn and the other is introverted. Before today, the two had no other interactions except knowing each other's names.

But he still followed him down by some strange mistake. The novel was written in a dark red notebook. It is a campus mystery novel. In the words and sentences, you can clearly see the traces of the author's influence from Japanese novels.

It tells a story: several murders occurred in the school, but the reason was just the revenge of a boy who was bullied. Yan Xi looked at him turning the pages of the book and said with some embarrassment: "I write this kind of novel... it's very difficult for me to write this kind of novel..."

Weird, right? Haha..."

The story was not finished and stayed at Chapter 7: The Book of Pride. Xu Chi then asked him: "Who will be killed in this chapter?"

Yan Xi thought for a while and said, "It must be that young man. After all, he killed someone and shouldn't escape the punishment of the law."

"If possible, I want to be China's Keigo Higashino in the future." Yan Xi said, "I will start writing after I go to college...you must be the first reader by then."

"You won't want to write when you get to college."

"How could it be? Isn't the purpose of getting into a good university just to go somewhere other than high school and realize your dreams? I won't give up easily before I achieve this goal." Yan Xi argued, "Isn't that what humans are?

Do you live because you have a goal?"

The way he argued was really naive and idiotic, but he was so optimistic that he seemed to be glowing. It was completely different from his usually shrinking head.

Xu Chi didn't know whether the boy who was always silent sitting behind him discovered his intention just before he walked out of the classroom that day, or whether he felt that he was always staring at the blackboard in a daze at the back of the desk in front of him.

, giving him a feeling of "never coming back again".

An idiot like him who even writes messy novels may just have a premonition of danger that he doesn't know where it comes from. He rushes to the rooftop with him without even thinking, and then he is "introverted and not sociable"

Due to the limitations of my personality, my head got hot and I said nonsense like "Do you want to read my novel?"

But perhaps he himself had never thought that his idiotic words, which did not make sense, were like a ray of light at that moment, shining from the horizon to the deep water, and shining on his classmates as if they were falling into the deep sea.

As for the parting of ways due to misunderstanding, the late-night phone call he made because of anger, and the news the next day that Yan Xi jumped from a building to his death last night on his cell phone, it all happened later.

From Class B, he was transferred back to Class C to investigate Yan Xi's death. After questioning Shen You who had spread the rumors, he found out that she had died after accidentally falling into the water. He used some tricks to scare Tang Feng by pretending to be a ghost, but it led to her committing suicide due to excessive psychological pressure.

, also happened later.

After the first two deaths that could be described as coincidences, Xu Chi took the only relic left to him by Yan Xi - a dark red notebook.

This is the last relic left in this world by the boy who dreamed of becoming "China's Keigo Higashino".

It is also his last work.

There is nothing he can do for him. Death is like a lamp going out. All revenge is just a helpless roar, a wail that exists in reality but cannot be conveyed. But there is at least one thing he can do - that is,

Improve Yan Xi's novel full of loopholes in crime tactics and turn it into reality.

Revenge against those people, all his irreversible past, and the future that the boy can no longer have. And then after everything is over - the one who will be punished in the end will be himself.

When he used the mechanism to knock down the rows of bookshelves, he could no longer look back.

The last sin of the Seven Deadly Sins is arrogance. In the name of "arrogance", he misunderstood Yan Xi and broke up with him; in the name of "arrogance", he hung up the last phone call he made before his death.

He didn't know how desperate Yan Xi was at that moment.

After everything is over, he will choose death and jump off the building, just like Yan Xi's choice on the rooftop that day.

Now, Yu Xingjian has been put to death. When he saw the tragic scene on the flagpole, his head began to throb and his heart tightened.

It's like... something unexpected happened.

It's like... something is coming out.

In the heavy rain, Xu Chi, wearing a blue and white school uniform, stood by the railing and looked at the floor tiles more than ten meters below.

That was the place where my only friend once lay.

I wonder what Yan Xi felt when he stood here and jumped down?

Will he be afraid of heights? Will he be afraid of the dark? Will he feel... pain?

It is said that people who jump from a building will die in an instant and break their necks, so they will not feel severe pain. When Xu Chi first saw this trite knowledge, he just scoffed.

But now he hopes that this knowledge will really work on Yan Xi.

It is said that the moment people fall from a height, they will think of many things in their lives. All kinds of past events will come one after another like a revolving door. At the moment of falling from the rooftop, Xu Chi thought of many things.

He thought about how when he was promoted to Class B, he said to Yan Xi who was still in Class C: "I'll wait for you in Class B."

He thought that he had been waiting under the neon lights all night with the gift, and Yan Xi, who was locked at home by his quarreling parents, did not come.

He thought that when he was in the office, he saw Yu Xingjian showing false affection to Yan Xi. Adhering to his ridiculous pride and self-esteem, he did not ask and refused to listen to any of his explanations.

He thought that Yan Xi would definitely hate him, right? A person as timid as him would be afraid... even if he were alone in the underworld.

If a person becomes a ghost, will he be afraid of other ghosts?

If he becomes a ghost, will he be bullied by other ghosts?

At the moment when he jumped over the rooftop, he didn't feel that it would be a pity to jump. He just regretted that it was raining late at night and he couldn't see the sunset.

And...he remembered what that inexplicable young teacher said to him.

'If you have a chance in the future, let's go see places other than Yangshui City.'

But he had sinned so deeply that he was beyond redemption and had lost the chance to leave this place.

ah……

He wants to be punished, he needs to be punished.

What he wants is revenge from that person.

Then.

Light footsteps stopped beside him. Xu Chi turned his head and saw a blood-red face.

He stood there, his face pale and cold, with a vicious expression. He looked at him, just like Wall-E, the god of vengeance in mythology, looking at his destined enemy, Hodel.

Under the gaze of such vicious eyes, Xu Chi suddenly felt... from the bottom of his heart...

Relaxed.

"You're here." He said slowly, as if he was about to cry.

Come kill me, do whatever you want to me, take revenge on me, vent your anger on me -

Just like you do every time.

He walked towards the blood-red face step by step, not as if he was walking towards the execution platform, but as if he was walking towards his paradise.

Finally, he stood in front of the blood-red Yanxi.

Then he closed his eyes.

The feeling of weightlessness came suddenly. What followed was an endless fall.

The blood-red color pushed him down.

And he completed another reincarnation of revenge and atonement!

He is about to fall into the abyss, and with his death, blood will break out of his shell, and the evil ghost Xu Chi will soon wake up.

However, at this moment——
To be continued...