The Secret of the Dormitory

After Wang Dali left, Huang Xiaotao and I went to Deng Chao's dormitory. The filthiness of the boys' dormitory was beyond imagination. Huang Xiaotao frowned all the way.

Just then, a guy wearing big pants rushed out of a bedroom and walked around knocking on doors in a very unrestrained manner to borrow some shampoo. Suddenly seeing Huang Xiaotao, the guy was stunned for a moment and quickly covered his bottom part and slipped back.

Huang Xiaotao frowned, "You guys are just like pigs. Song Yang, are you like this too?"

"How could I be like this? I pay the most attention to personal cultivation. My bed is always folded neatly like tofu blocks. You can ask Wang Dali later if you don't believe me," I said.

"Is that so? Then I'll take a look around later," said Huang Xiaotao.

I felt very awkward. If Huang Xiaotao knew that I was also one of the 'pigs', it would be very damaging to my image. I hurriedly said, "Let's focus on the investigation first. There will be time to look around later."

Huang Xiaotao gave a knowing, cold laugh.

We asked around and arrived at Deng Chao's dormitory. A long-haired guy was sitting on a desk playing the guitar. He had probably never seen a girl come to this dormitory before, especially a mature beauty with an aloof temperament like Huang Xiaotao. Seeing us come in, he immediately stood up and nervously asked, "Who...who are you looking for?"

Huang Xiaotao flashed her police ID and went straight to the point, "Deng Chao lives in this dorm, right?"

"You're a cop! Come on in and sit down. Would you like some water? I heard someone hanged himself on campus this morning. That was Zhang Kai, Deng Chao's best buddy. That guy didn't come back all night last night. Could he be in trouble too?" asked the long-haired guy.

"He was murdered," Huang Xiaotao replied.

Just then, someone on the bed next to me suddenly sat up, giving me a shock. The sturdy-looking guy said in a loud voice, "Really? Who killed Chao?"

"The police are still investigating. May I ask who Deng Chao had conflicts with?" asked Huang Xiaotao.

The long-haired guy thought for a moment, "There are a few people in our class who don't get along with him. To put it bluntly, Chao is the kind of person who easily arouses envy in others..."

"Why do you say that?" asked Huang Xiaotao.

"You probably don't know, but he's a real academically-gifted student!" said the long-haired guy enviously.

"He has very good grades?" Huang Xiaotao continued asking.

"Yeah, this guy is so smart. He hardly ever goes to class but still scores over 90 on every exam. He gets scholarships every year! To be honest, sometimes I feel a little unbalanced. He plays around and sleeps in like the rest of us, yet we fail exams while he can ace them just by reviewing a little bit of the books... Don't get me wrong, I would never kill someone over such a trivial matter."

"Who did he have conflicts with?" Huang Xiaotao took out a notebook, preparing to take notes.

The long-haired guy thought back and listed several names. Huang Xiaotao wrote them all down.

Just then, the loud guy suddenly said, "It couldn't have been any of them. If Chao is dead, he must have been killed by that guy!"

"Who?" Huang Xiaotao asked excitedly.

The loud guy sat up, took out a pack of cigarettes from under his pillow, lit one and took a puff before starting to talk about Deng Chao's history.

He seemed to know Deng Chao very well. Deng Chao was very smart indeed. It was said that his IQ tested over 140 in the college entrance exam year. He could easily ace his school exams just by reviewing a little.

Recently, Deng Chao wrote a paper that was highly praised by the professor, who recommended it higher up. As a result, Deng Chao won guaranteed admission for graduate school, for which there were only four spots in each department.

However, a while ago, a schoolmate named Ma Baobao accused Deng Chao of plagiarism in his paper and submitted evidence to the school. Consequently, not only was Deng Chao's guaranteed admission canceled, but the school also demanded return of two previous scholarship amounts totaling 17,000 yuan.

At the same time, the freed up admission spot was taken by Ma Baobao. This made people suspect his motive for accusing Deng Chao...

Speaking of Ma Baobao, he was quite ungracious. He flaunted the matter everywhere and even suspected Deng Chao's previous test scores were fraudulent.

Even the teachers could hardly stand his gloating.

When these malicious rumors reached Deng Chao's ears, he was furious. Once he smashed the balcony glass with his fist in anger, requiring five stitches on his hand.

However, Deng Chao was not someone to be trifled with. He had a typical Scorpio's vengeful personality.

Earlier this summer, one evening Ma Baobao was returning from self-study when a figure suddenly rushed out from the bushes and cut him with a small knife. Ma Baobao was so frightened he abandoned his books and ran for his life. The knife only injured his skin, but strangely, Ma Baobao fell ill with high fever after that. He had to return home early and was bedridden for over three months before slowly recovering, spending tens of thousands of yuan on medical bills.

After returning to school, Ma Baobao became dispirited. He no longer dared to speak ill of Deng Chao, but he often vaguely referred to a certain person trying to kill him on Weibo!

Was this indeed done by Deng Chao? Deng Chao did not say a word about it. But the loud guy vaguely felt it was Deng Chao's doing. Perhaps there were some bacteria on the knife, and Deng Chao was also accidentally infected, because lately he had been wearing gloves all the time.

The loud guy speculated that Ma Baobao harbored resentment over the matter and simply did away with Deng Chao.

After listening to all this, Huang Xiaotao asked, "Which desk belonged to Deng Chao?"

"This one," the loud guy pointed to the desk in the middle.

We looked through Deng Chao's belongings. His desk was covered with books and magazines. The closet contained only clothes. I noticed a basketball team photo indicating Deng Chao's interest in basketball. I asked the loud guy to point out Deng Chao.

He immediately pointed to a chubby white guy in the middle wearing a number 0 jersey, smiling broadly with his arm around another guy's shoulder, looking very intimate.

"Who's that next to Deng Chao?" I asked.

"His best buddy Zhang Kai, the one who hanged himself this morning," said the loud guy.

"Best buddy?" Huang Xiaotao exclaimed in surprise, "Were they in that kind of relationship?"

"No no, you've got it wrong. 'Best buddy' is used more broadly, very close sworn brothers can also be called that," I quickly explained to her.

"Yeah, they were just best friends," the loud guy affirmed. "This buddy Zhang Kai was really loyal. He always helped me review lessons before exams and lent me his class notes to photocopy. Once when we went out for dinner together, I got drunk, and he was the one who carried me back to the dorm on his back."

"So you knew him too?" I asked.

"Of course. We were in the same department, and played basketball together before. I used to be the team's ace player, but ever since I injured my knee..."

We weren't interested in listening to him boast about his glorious past, so we continued looking through Deng Chao's things. One item caught my interest - a plastic surgery brochure tucked inside a book.

I browsed through the list of services, which was quite comprehensive, including facial liposuction, chin augmentation, lip augmentation, double eyelid surgery, hand reconstruction, leg reshaping and so on.

This brochure seemed to have been used as a bookmark and stuffed casually into the book. The loud guy was still going on, "Back in the days, in that championship game against the medical school team, when the game entered white-hot stage, the score was 57 to 55..."

Huang Xiaotao interrupted him bluntly, "Did Deng Chao have plastic surgery?"

"What? Plastic surgery?" The loud guy was baffled for a moment. "He didn't have anything done. He's a dude, what would he get that for? It's expensive as hell."

I folded up the brochure casually and put it in my pocket, because I felt there were clues on it!

Then I said to the loud guy, "You said Zhang Kai lent you his class notes to photocopy. Do you still have them?"

"Sure, but what do you want those for?" asked the loud guy, puzzled.

Just as I was trying to think of an excuse, the loud guy had already gotten down from his bed, "I'll get them for you if you want them. They're useless now anyway, just a bunch of waste paper..."

He took out a stack of photocopies from the drawer for me, even found a plastic bag to put them in. I thanked him.

The loud man looked me up and down and said, "Brother, you don't look like a cop to me."

"Actually, I'm a fourth-year electronics major. The police brought me on as a special consultant," I told him truthfully.

The loud man was surprised and gave me a thumbs up, "Damn, a young detective, Detective Di Renjie! Impressive! Our school really produces exceptional talents."

"You flatter me!" I modestly nodded my head.

Seeing there was nothing left to investigate, we took our leave. After we got out, Huang Xiaotao sneered, "Humph, I thought you were pretty low-key, turns out you have that smug streak too. Are all you guys like this?"

"You misunderstood me. I actually just had an idea when I saw this photocopy of class notes," I said.

"What is it?" Huang Xiaotao asked.

"Let's not get into that yet. Let me discuss the case with you first. I can already guess the truth of this whole case pretty closely!" I said confidently with a smile.

(PS: Everyone, take a guess, what is the truth?)