By Zephyria 
Chapter 20: Hacked in Reverse
Xie Qingcheng, who had previously skimmed through the guestbook, shifted his gaze back after hearing He Yu’s words. In the far corner of the A4-sized paper, there was a category labeled ‘Sodomy Community.’ For some reason, Xie Qingcheng’s name appeared frequently in that category.
“…….”
He had an ominous feeling.
His intuition did not fail him. The two of them read down the entries side by side. To his utter dismay, this community was a gathering place specifically for bottoms among gay men.
These men were heatedly debating which nearby high school had the cutest boys. Honestly, they claimed there were no tops here, only a swarm of bottoms.
The first person to mention Xie Qingcheng’s name had written with a ballpoint pen. The faded ink suggested a considerable amount of time had passed. The content was as follows: I heard a new professor arrived at the medical college next door. His name is Xie Qingcheng and he is seriously handsome. A-grade aura and a cool personality. I want to be pinned down by him once.
Below that, a critical comment was left: Is that all you think about?
However, as new comments appeared below, the atmosphere began to shift.
[Fucking hell, don’t mock the seniors in the comments above. If you ever see this guestbook again, go to the medical college yourself. He’s seriously so hot I want to be pinned. Long legs, broad shoulders, and a slender waist—he stands straight like a javelin, and when he wears a suit and tie, I seriously thought I’d die of excitement. I’ve had dreams about doing it with Professor Xie for three days straight after meeting him…….]
The following comments were even more absurd.
[I want to cry while being pinned by Oppa.]
[Didn’t they say Professor Xie got divorced? He might be one of us.]
[Hul, seriously? If he’s on this side, I want to be pinned by him just once. I could live as a bachelor for the rest of my life after that.]
After reading the comments, He Yu remained silent for a long time. His patience had reached its limit.
If he didn’t mock Xie Qingcheng now, despite his own low mood, he would be a complete fool. Heaven had practically laid out the red carpet for him to laugh out loud!
Thus, He Yu spoke with a smirk.
“Mr. Xie, this is unexpected. It seems you were an idol for gay men. Everyone wants to sleep with you. Since things have come to this, why don’t you sacrifice your body and make someone a ‘successful fan’?”
Xie Qingcheng, his face turning ashen, tried to flip the page.
He Yu pressed down on the guestbook with his fingertip and said, “I haven’t finished reading yet.”
“Flip it.”
“Just a little more.”
“I said flip it.”
A sneer played on He Yu’s lips.
“Just a bit.”
Feeling that his dignity had been compromised, Xie Qingcheng applied force and flipped the page. He Yu laughed vilely and scanned the guestbook again. He was curious about the solo stage Xie Qingcheng might have on the later pages.
However, after flipping a few more pages, he could no longer laugh.
It was because his own name caught his eye.
As expected, it was the same ‘Sodomy Community.’ Xie Qingcheng, noticing this, read the content alongside He Yu.
[Why did this become a bottom community? This is a top community. Please recommend any pretty boys at the school.]
After a series of unfamiliar names, He Yu’s name appeared.
[He Yu looks humble wherever he goes, but that aristocratic vibe of drawing a line between himself and others is insane. Pure appearance, tall, and skin as white as a woman’s. I saw him playing basketball and he’s strong; I bet he’d be tight in bed.]
[Is the comment above crazy? How dare you touch the young master of the He family.]
[That’s exactly why it’s fun to take him down because of his status!! Seriously exciting.]
[……Basketball is a given, but he probably beats people up well too? His face is definitely pure. But didn’t you see He Yu naked at the school pool? His body is totally at a swimmer’s level…… you might actually die if you get hit by him once.]
[Still, I’d love to pin him down once.]
After reading through the comments, Xie Qingcheng looked at He Yu, whose face had turned the color of lead, and spoke.
“Impressive. From now on, carry a stun gun whenever you go out at night. If you’re really scared, you can call me. Since we have a long-standing connection, I can at least escort you home.”
“Flip the page.”
Xie Qingcheng pressed the notebook firmly with his fingertip and said calmly, “I’m not finished reading yet.”
“…….”
He Yu fell silent, radiating a gloomy aura. Perhaps not wanting to waste energy on such a squabble, he eventually tore out the two pages where his name appeared and set them on fire with a lighter.
Then, with an expressionless face, he took out a tissue and thoroughly wiped the fingers that had touched the pages.
While He Yu was doing that with a haughty look, Xie Qingcheng ignored him and continued flipping through the guestbook.
A long silence filled the cave. Outside, a heavy downpour was in full swing.
Summer rain tends to pour suddenly and stop just as quickly. By the time the number ‘8’ appeared on the phone screen, the heavy shower had turned into a drizzling rain. As Xie Qingcheng raised his pale hand to close the guestbook, he sensed a strange anomaly just before it shut. His gaze instinctively fell upon the corner of a page.
“…….”
Xie Qingcheng’s hand froze. Adjusting the lantern to be brighter, he fixed his gaze on that corner with a stiff expression.
A few seconds later, He Yu heard Xie Qingcheng’s voice from behind him, sounding strangely cold.
“He Yu, come here and look at this.”
It was a single sentence tucked away in a very small corner.
[WZL will be murdered soon.]
Written with a fountain pen, the handwriting was crooked, as if written with the left hand. However, the eye-catching part was that the author had left their name at the end of the sentence.
It was a name no one had expected.
[Jiang Lanpei]
A muffled sound of thunder echoed from outside. Inside the cave, it was so quiet that one could hear a pin drop.
“…….”
“Jiang Lanpei was locked in a psychiatric hospital for twenty years, wasn’t she?”
He Yu’s low voice broke the silence.
Xie Qingcheng frowned, lost in thought.
“……Since she got the key, she would have had many opportunities to go out freely, but……”
“Even if she went out, it would have been at least within the confines of Qingkang Psychiatric Hospital,” He Yu countered.
“Do you think it makes sense for a psychiatric patient to sneak out and return without anyone knowing? And then come all the way to the dreamy island cave at Huzhou University to leave such a message in a shabby secret guestbook?”
Naturally, the answer was that it made no sense.
“Even look at this handwriting. Judging by the traces, it looks like it was written just a few days ago.”
Xie Qingcheng shone the flashlight and carefully examined the red letters written in the guestbook.
“Who is WZL……”
The two of them pondered over the tattered guestbook for a long time.
Then, He Yu suddenly spoke up.
“I just remembered, I heard a rumor circulating on campus these past few days.”
“A rumor?”
“I don’t know who made it up, but I guess Jiang Lanpei seemed like a miserable figure with a tragic story, even if she was scary. After all, when she died, she was wearing a red skirt, which is said to be the favorite of evil spirits. So, rumors about a curse started spreading. If you imagine how to kill someone you hate, write that method in red ink on a piece of paper, and finally add Jiang Lanpei’s name, the ghost of Jiang Lanpei will kill the enemy for you.”
After a brief pause, He Yu continued.
“Instead, the enemy must be a man; it doesn’t work for women.”
“Why?”
“It’s probably a setting based on Jiang Lanpei’s past history reported in the newspapers. The student who made up the rumor must have thought Jiang Lanpei only hated men.”
He Yu checked the writing in the diary once more and said, “You know, maybe someone came here recently and flipped through the guestbook. Then, seeing the previous entries, they remembered the legend of Jiang Lanpei’s ghost. Perhaps that person also hated this man named WZL, just like the person who wrote the previous entry, and wrote it in a fit of rage, and then it actually triggered a real curse.”
Xie Qingcheng shook his head, took out his phone to take a photo for the records, and then spoke.
“I’ll have to hand this guestbook over to the police later. It seems this person, Jiang Lanpei, has a close connection to Huzhou University.”
He Yu’s eyes wavered slightly. He spoke in a low voice.
“I think so too.”
“What?”
“The school uniform.”
Xie Qingcheng sighed. His gaze froze heavily.
“For once, we’re on the same page. The police seem to be thinking similarly. I’ve seen plainclothes officers wandering around your school lately. They were veteran detectives who used to work with my parents; they seemed to be investigating something.”
On the day Jiang Lanpei murdered Liang Jicheng, there was a small but suspicious point.
—Why did Jiang Lanpei strip the Huzhou University staff uniform that Xie Xue was wearing and put it on the dead Liang Jicheng before brutally mutilating the body?
“Generally, there is a reason behind the actions of a mentally ill person. Especially when they perform such targeted, abnormal behavior.”
Xie Qingcheng added one more thing.
“While investigating the Jiang Lanpei case, some people from your school might be caught soon.”
At those words, He Yu raised his hand and smiled brightly.
“At least it won’t be me.”
“…….”
“Because I wasn’t even born when Jiang Lanpei was locked up.”
Xie Qingcheng muttered with an absurd expression.
“Anyway, it’s none of our business. We just need to go out and hand this over as investigative material.”
Replying with a “Yes,” He Yu seemed to remember something when the mention of Qingkang Psychiatric Hospital came up and spoke out of the blue.
“Ah, right.”
“Hmm?”
“I’ve been thinking about this for a few days. If Xie Xue had actually been murdered when we arrived that day, how would we be doing now?”
Xie Qingcheng turned his cold, black eyes toward He Yu.
“Can’t you think of something a bit more positive?”
“I’m the person who wants Xie Xue to be happy more than anyone else, you know?”
Feeling displeased, Xie Qingcheng didn’t even grasp the meaning of He Yu’s words and replied dismissively.
“I feel the same. However, if something really happened to Xie Xue—as long as I’m not dead, I would live exactly as I do now.”
—He had experienced something similar.
At that time, there wasn’t even a sign of things improving, let alone any room for recovery.
The cold bodies of his parents lying beneath a pouring rain. Behind him, a police line of alternating yellow and white was erected. The slow sound of sirens pierced his eardrums. A cargo truck was burning fiercely, and amidst the flames soaring into the sky, he looked at his mother, of whom only half remained. His mother stared blankly in the direction where he stood with wide-open eyes. A hand, severed after being crushed by the truck’s wheel, lay right in front of the toes of his shoes.
At that time, he thought he could no longer go on living.
Nevertheless, nineteen years had already passed.
Unaware of Xie Qingcheng’s inner thoughts, He Yu remained silent for a while after hearing the answer, then looked at Xie Qingcheng’s face with a subtle gaze. Finally, a low, cold laugh escaped him.
“Xie Qingcheng. You really… just as your name suggests, how can you live every single second so coldly? Even if you made a fool of yourself for your whole life, it would probably only last a minute.”
“A person cannot live in sorrow for their entire life. Even if they cannot immediately accept a tragedy that has occurred, it is bound to be slowly digested as time passes. Rather than collapsing in pain, it is right to correct oneself without wasting time and diligently perform the tasks given to me so that the same tragedy does not happen again.”
“……Wow.”
He Yu muttered softly.
“A Buddha has descended.”
He no longer wanted to be stuck in the cave with Xie Qingcheng. Seeing that the rain had thinned, he simply walked outside.
By the time he had caught his breath around 12 o’clock sharp, signs of a person began to be heard from the opposite shore.
The senior, who was certain about getting the job done as much as he was paid, had completed his mission and rowed back in the swan boat.
As soon as the senior saw He Yu, he became extremely excited and waved desperately while standing in the wobbling swan boat.
“How was it! I kept the time perfectly, right! President He, was the confession a success?”
Then, like a puppy that needed to pee, he glanced behind He Yu.
“Eh? Where’s the Madam?”
Confession?
What kind of confession would he make to a Buddha who had attained enlightenment in life?
He Yu gave a bright smile to the idiot standing in the swan boat.
“I don’t think it’s anything for you to worry about, senior.”
“Look at him being shy. Ahaha. Right, I get it, I get it.”
Winking suggestively, the senior held up a phone payment QR code.
“Please pay the balance.”
Stunned, He Yu silently rolled his eyes, then took out his phone, which had been without signal, and held it out coldly.
“……Please unlock the signal jammer first.”
The senior, having unlocked the jammer, asked in an excited voice, “Did you see the message I sent? To the other phone.”
“What message?”
Only then did He Yu take out the other phone to check.
[President He, there’s a first-aid kit in the island cave. There are condoms in the second compartment. If you need them, take out the box and look. Don’t forget to send the payment once you’ve used them all…….]
The senior made a meaningful expression, then lowered his voice and approached quietly.
“It’s the version that extends the erection time, so the Madam’s legs will definitely lose all their strength.”
“…….”
He Yu spoke with a smile.
“Please don’t put things like that in first-aid kits in the future. It’s too immoral. Don’t you agree, senior?”
The senior noticed the capitalist’s unpleasant emotion.
For a moment, he was dazed, but then he realized instantly. He didn’t use them!
He felt a level of respect for the veiled 180cm beauty.
He thought the beauty had been weakened by receiving royal favor and that only He Yu had come out.
Apparently, that beauty was a cold beauty who was wealthy and sexually abstinent.
Poor Young Master He. How did he end up liking such a difficult partner? Tsk tsk tsk, he just wasted his money…….
Anyway, having received the settlement and had some fun, the senior shut his mouth. Instead, he called another friend to bring a canoe from the warehouse, and after leaving the swan boat at the island’s shore so He Yu could leave later, he departed with his friend.
Now that the scene had been cleared, it was time to go back to the cave and call Xie Qingcheng. Thinking this, He Yu turned around and suddenly froze.
In the moonlit forest, a man with his hands thrust into his trouser pockets was leaning against a arborvitae tree, looking at him with an expressionless face. Regardless of how much he had heard, the sight of him standing under the shade of the tree was quite chilling.
“…….”
Xie Qingcheng lit a cigarette. His indifferent expression almost looked like he was interrogating a criminal.
“I’ll give you a chance to explain.”
Slowly, he exhaled the pale blue cigarette smoke.
“Go ahead and tell me.”