Shen Wenta knew that afterward, he would forget Shen Yi.
So he took out a pen and wrote in a notebook. Each time a name touched the page, his fingers tightened almost imperceptibly.
He couldn’t remember her, but he could remember the fact that he had forgotten her.
Like writing in a diary, Shen Wenta recorded what he would do next.
At present, he was able to write down, in full, the names of the people who had grinningly discussed Song Yi.
He had seen the expressions on their faces when they talked about her—that twisted, morbid delight. It was so disgusting it made him want to vomit.
The next day.
Shen Wenta saw the photographs strewn messily around the room. He got up and turned to the notebook, where rows upon rows of names had been written.
He read every single character, then silently repeated each name to himself.
…
Shen Yi had never intended to go looking for him the next day.
According to her experience, he would forget her after every meeting, and when they met again the following day, they would have to start the cycle all over again with questions like, “Who are you?”
She was exhausted.
But the sinister look on his face the night before gave Shen Yi the instinctive feeling that he was planning something.
And sure enough.
When she found him, Shen Wenta was carrying that heavy schoolbag out through a side entrance.
Today, he was dressed casually: a thin dark-gray jacket, with the collar of the shirt underneath left undone. He looked more relaxed than usual.
There was an unnatural bulge in Shen Wenta’s pocket. Shen Yi’s gaze fell on it, and she paused.
A gun.
He had simply ignored security checks and walked straight onto the school grounds.
The densely packed security guards at the entrance caught sight of him out of the corners of their eyes. Some even bowed to him, completely unaware that they had just allowed a dangerous individual inside.
At this school, Shen Wenta’s face was the best pass there was.
The school gate closed behind him.
No one realized what he was about to do.
Only Shen Yi did.
She caught up with him. Even though she was now resisting this school, which had once been so familiar to her, Shen Yi had no choice but to follow him inside.
“Why did you bring a gun?”
Shen Wenta didn’t stop walking.
“You’re called Song Yi, right?” When he saw her, he showed no surprise. Recalling the photographs of her he had seen after waking up, and combining them with the contents of his diary, Shen Wenta told her calmly, “You should be able to figure it out.”
He said, “I’m going to help you.”
Shen Yi felt her scalp prickle. “Wait. Your way of helping me is to bring a gun into school? That’s a little too extreme, don’t you think?”
She knew he was crazy, but she hadn’t realized he could take things this far.
Bringing a gun into school—even if he was a member of the Shen family, the trouble would still be considerable if word got out.
“Extreme?” Shen Wenta repeated the word with interest. He didn’t stop walking, and there was a trace of puzzled incomprehension in his voice. “I don’t think so. If they run too slowly and die, that can only mean they were unlucky. Who are they supposed to blame? Me?”
“…”
Having his memories erased was irreversible. Even after more than ten minutes, Shen Wenta still no longer remembered Shen Yi’s existence.
But he could still clearly sense the cold, viscous displeasure churning in his stomach when he saw the photographs of Song Yi being bullied.
He had never felt such emotions toward anyone before.
Shen Wenta knew too many people. Those who gathered around him to flatter him, hoping to get a share of what he had, came and went. Their faces were mass-produced on an assembly line, appearing in batches and disappearing in batches.
From beginning to end, they had only ever meant one of two things to him: useful or useless.
Not a single person had ever provoked in him such intense, almost furious discomfort.
Shen Wenta could infer that Shen Yi was important to him.
And now, the people who mattered to him had been treated this way by that group.
Then of course it was their fault.
So everyone needed to pay for that mistake.
And the first in line—
The ones who deserved to die most were his classmates.
…
When the classroom door was pushed open, only a few people were scattered inside.
They saw Shen Wenta enter and froze for a moment before greeting him with smiles.
Shen Wenta swept his gaze across the room and said directly, “Get out.”
The few people exchanged glances. Someone seemed about to say something, but the person beside him tugged at his arm.
One after another, they stood and filed out through the back door.
Soon, only Shen Wenta remained in the classroom.
He placed his schoolbag on the desk in the first row and unzipped it. He pulled out a gun, then another. Finally, he lined three guns up side by side on the desktop.
Shen Wenta had someone bring him the boy who had joked with him while discussing Song Yi the day before.
When the boy entered through the door, he was still laughing. “Wenta, what did you call me here for?”
But when he saw Shen Wenta sitting in the classroom, toying with a gun in his hand, his feet froze in place.
The smile on his face solidified.
“What are you holding?”
He backed away, his back striking the door. Gradually, his words became incoherent. “What are you trying to do…?”
Shen Wenta sauntered over to him. He raised his hand, pressing the cold barrel of the gun against the boy’s forehead.
“Before,” the boy said, his thin wrist not trembling in the slightest, “when you were discussing Song Yi, what was it you said?”
The boy let out several broken sounds, unable to form words.
Cold sweat slid down his brow along his brow ridge.
“Don’t remember?” The corners of Shen Wenta’s lips curved into a smile that could almost be called friendly. “Then I’ll help you recall it.”
“You said she was simply unlucky, and no one else could be blamed. Those were your exact words, weren’t they?”
The boy’s pupils contracted violently.
He had long since forgotten the words he’d spoken in the classroom that day. They were merely one fragment of countless casual conversations in his daily life.
Insignificant.
Nothing that would leave a trace in his memory.
But now, repeated from this person’s mouth, every word carried a chilling horror that made his scalp go numb.
Shen Wenta watched the terror on his face, and his expression turned utterly cold. The emotions in his eyes seemed to be abruptly drained away.
Only two pools of terrifyingly still darkness remained.
“Bang.”
The gunshot exploded inside the enclosed classroom.
The recoil made Shen Wenta’s right wrist jerk backward slightly before it quickly steadied.
The boy in front of the muzzle had already collapsed. His entire body went limp against the door, leaving a dark streak across its white surface.
Shen Wenta lowered his head and glanced at his sleeve.
Several dark-red specks had splattered across his gray jacket.
He withdrew his hand, turned the muzzle in another direction, stepped over the body on the floor, and pushed open the classroom door.
Shen Wenta had remained calm throughout. As he walked past the body, his detached appearance was almost identical to that of a killer in a movie.
The gunshot had clearly alarmed quite a few people.
A commotion erupted in the corridor.
Carrying the gun, he walked unhurriedly down the hallway and crossed a covered passage connecting the two teaching buildings.
A boy came running down the stairs and collided with him head-on. When he saw Shen Wenta’s face, he froze for a moment. Then his gaze dropped to the gun, and all the color drained from his face.
“Shen Wenta, you…”
He saw Shen Wenta’s movements and instinctively sensed that something was wrong. He turned and tried to run back, but Shen Wenta was faster.
He raised his hand, took aim, and pulled the trigger.
Three smooth, swift motions.
The boy’s body pitched forward, slamming into the wall at the stairwell landing before collapsing there in a twisted heap.
Shen Wenta stepped over him and continued upward.
He went up to the third floor, then took the staircase on the other side back down.
Along the way, he encountered several people whose faces he recognized—people who had once gathered to gossip about Song Yi, laughed at him, or taken part in those pranks.
Every last one of them.
All of them fell after being shot.
Shen Wenta had brought four guns in total. As the bullets gradually ran out, he took the next one from his schoolbag and replaced it.
Quite a few people were calling the police, shouting things like, “Shen Wenta’s gone crazy!”
Not long ago, the boy who had strutted around smugly in front of them, boasting about how he had bullied Shen Yi, was now cowering in a corner. His face was as pale as paper. The moment he saw Shen Wenta approaching, his legs gave out and he dropped to his knees.
“Don’t—don’t kill me. Please! I really didn’t do anything.”
Shen Wenta raised his hand, aiming the gun at the kneeling boy.
“Stop!”
The school’s security personnel had finally rushed over. More than a dozen dark gun barrels were pointed at him.
But the moment their eyes fell on his face, all those guns hesitated in unison.
The man in charge swallowed hard and shouted at him, “Y-you, put the gun down first…”
Shen Wenta ignored him completely. He showed no intention of lowering the weapon.
The hands of the security team, still gripping their guns, began to tremble.
Everyone knew who Shen Wenta was. They also knew that if they fired even one shot, the rest of their lives would be ruined.
Shen Wenta took aim at the person in front of him.
His finger rested lightly on the trigger.
Then he tightened it.
The second gunshot rang out.
Then came the third.
The security captain’s gun was aimed at Shen Wenta’s back, his index finger resting on the trigger, yet he never pulled it.
Neither did the men behind him.
Of everyone present carrying a gun, no one but Shen Wenta actually made a move.
An absurd silence fell over the entire corridor.
More than a dozen highly trained armed personnel had been forced into helplessness by a boy holding a gun.
Even the better-behaved students couldn’t help poking their heads out of the classroom windows and cursing at the armed personnel.
“Are you all blind? You’re just letting him shoot people here! Take him down, for fuck’s sake!”
Still, no one dared to move.
That day, in the school’s corridors and classrooms, nearly every student who was too slow to escape was hit by bullets.
And after doing all that, the only price Shen Wenta paid was withdrawing from Hejing and vanishing from the public eye for a long time.
He didn’t even need to say a single word of apology.
