After a brief silence, the police began asking some more questions. He seemed to be asking casually this time, since he didn’t write anything down in the record; the questions were more about Fiona Bennett’s personal situation, such as whether she was particularly sensitive, whether she had ever had similar suspicions before, even back in middle school, how her relationships with classmates were, and whether there had been any disputes among students. Fiona Bennett answered each question, but felt increasingly stifled inside, until she finally raised her voice and said, “It’s true, officer, it’s true, someone wants to harm Susan Wright!”

“Oh.” The police officer remained unmoved.

“You insist that someone wants to harm Susan Wright. Did she do something to make people hate her?”

“Of course not, she’s a wonderful person, she’s the best I’ve ever met.” Fiona Bennett couldn’t accept anyone doubting Susan Wright’s character, and all the unease and frustration she’d been holding in suddenly burst out. But she immediately realized that saying this would only make the police doubt the poisoning even more, and just as she was about to try to fix it, there was a knock at the door.

Susan Wright had arrived.

When she came in, she looked deeply at Fiona Bennett. Fiona Bennett met her gaze, nodded at her, and held her hand.

“You wait outside for a moment,” the police officer said to Fiona Bennett.

Susan Wright gently patted Fiona Bennett’s hand, signaling her to let go. As she left the room, Fiona Bennett heard the police officer’s question behind her.

“Your classmate just reported that someone tried to poison you. Is it true?”

“No, it’s not true at all.” That was Susan Wright’s reply.

Fiona Bennett turned back in surprise, but she couldn’t see Susan Wright’s expression—only her hands clasped behind her back.

“Please step outside,” the police officer said.

“Susan, how could you say that!”

Susan Wright didn’t answer, nor did she turn around. Her fingers moved between the knuckles of her other hand, and the rhythm of it made Fiona Bennett feel suffocated.

The police officer stood up, walked to the door, and pulled it open. Standing outside, Harold Rogers grabbed Fiona Bennett and pulled her out.

Harold Rogers started asking a lot of questions, but Fiona Bennett didn’t hear any of them. In the pauses, she could faintly hear the police officer’s voice from behind the door. The conversation was short and quick; although she couldn’t make out Susan Wright’s words, there was only one kind of answer that could be so brief—denial, denial, denial.

It felt as if something had been drawn out of her body. Fiona Bennett suddenly felt weak, all strength gone, and she slid down the wall until she was squatting on the ground. She wanted to laugh, wanted to cry, but in the end, she could do neither.

Harold Rogers bent down, patted Fiona Bennett on the shoulder, said something else, and then his voice stopped and his shoes moved out of Fiona Bennett’s line of sight.

The door opened. Fiona Bennett heard a heavy exhale, and a pair of white, round-toed short boots stopped in front of her eyes. They were elegant, beautiful leather boots, probably polished that morning, with a soft shine. Fiona Bennett had never looked at them so closely before, and now the scuffs on the toes and the tiny scratches on the leather were impossible to miss. She even noticed that the zipper pull on one boot was a different color from the zipper itself, as if it had been replaced. Fiona Bennett looked up at Susan Wright, a breeze brushed past her nose, and then she was gone. The white long skirt swayed urgently, and finally she broke into a run, fleeing from Fiona Bennett’s sight.

After that, the police officer and Harold Rogers each said a few more words to her.

That part of her memory was blurry anyway, and none of it seemed important. It seemed like Harold Rogers first said he was going to punish her, but then, seeing how absent-minded she was, he changed his tone and told Fiona Bennett to pay attention to unity in the future. Before Harold Rogers had even finished speaking, Fiona Bennett ran off. She ran back to the dorm, dug out the bottle of mineral water wrapped in layers of plastic film from her suitcase, and rode her bike out of the school gates. The police officer was standing at the entrance of the local police station, smoking and chatting with a colleague. Fiona Bennett walked up, shoved the bottle of water into his arms, and turned to leave.

3

That weekend, Fiona Bennett didn’t go home. She made up a clumsy lie, saying the anatomy professor had specially opened the lab for her to do dissections and catch up on missed progress. Her father told her to practice well and not to hesitate with the scalpel, then started talking about Gabriel Adams, saying it was a pity she wouldn’t see him since he was doing well at the police academy, but it didn’t matter, he’d probably come to visit her at school. For the first time, Fiona Bennett snapped at her father, saying, don’t let him come, I don’t want to see him, can you stop trying to set us up, I want to study, I don’t want to date. She was startled by her own words, and when she heard a “bang” on the other end of the phone, she braced herself for a scolding. Unexpectedly, Frederick Bennett just slapped the table and said fine, if you don’t like him just say so, and then hung up. Fiona Bennett held the receiver in a daze for a while, but in the end didn’t call back.

Saturday was a sunny day. At ten in the morning, Fiona Bennett sat on a stone bench at the edge of the pine grove. There was sunlight here, and it felt warm on her body.

The sound of the xiao was plaintive. Susan Wright had been sitting here playing the xiao since early on, and Fiona Bennett had followed the sound to find her. Now, she was playing “Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute.” At first, the melancholy notes pressed into her heart, dense and suffocating, yet piercing straight through, making her want to cry. After a while, she gradually calmed down, as if she had sunk to the bottom and finally touched solid ground, no longer drifting and lost.

Susan Wright’s fingers moved along the xiao, reminding Fiona Bennett of how yesterday she had stood with her back to her, her fingertips dancing between her knuckles.

Yesterday, it wasn’t until lunchtime that Fiona Bennett saw Susan Wright again. During that meal, Fiona Bennett didn’t speak; it was the first time she’d ever been angry at Susan Wright.

Susan Wright apologized, saying she just couldn’t say it to the police. The hospital couldn’t find any trace of poisoning in her body, and the bottle of water didn’t test positive for toxins. There was no evidence for any of it. The police would think she was imagining things, the shredded photos would be seen as a prank, and she herself would become a joke.

Yes, a joke, Fiona Bennett thought at the time. The report to the police had already spread throughout the class, and soon even more people would know. Just sitting in the cafeteria, she could already feel many strange looks cast her way.

During that lunch, Susan Wright said a lot, including her worries. This was the most sought-after sponsored class in the whole school, under the spotlight, with countless eyes watching. If things got out, no matter what the outcome, it couldn’t just be described as “bringing shame to the class.” And she was the class monitor; she didn’t want the sponsored class to become a joke either. She wanted to find that person herself and stop her. Whatever the conflict was, it could be resolved privately. Everyone was still young, and they would all become doctors in big hospitals, saving lives.

I don’t think she really wants to kill me, maybe she didn’t even actually poison me, maybe she just pretended to, to put psychological pressure on me. You know, too much psychological pressure can also have physical effects. Susan Wright smiled at Fiona Bennett.

Fiona Bennett noticed that her right hand, holding the spoon, was trembling ever so slightly. It wasn’t the kind of trembling caused by nervousness or fear—no, it wasn’t. There were so many things she could have argued with, but Fiona Bennett said nothing.

It wasn’t until they walked out of the cafeteria together that she said to Susan Wright, “You’re not like yourself anymore.”

This morning, Fiona Bennett regretted saying that yesterday.

She walked into the pine grove to the sound of the xiao and sat down beside Susan Wright. Before, when she heard it, she thought it was a gentle, sorrowful beauty, but today, it shook her soul. Knowing and feeling are completely different—just like when she saw the shattered face, the sound of the xiao led her to touch a corner of the girl’s heart beside her. She knew that someone being targeted for harm would feel immense fear and confusion, and now, she could feel it herself.

Once she felt it, Fiona Bennett let go of everything from yesterday and felt guilty. She had actually blamed her for something like that. If she were in Susan Wright’s position, under that much pressure, who knows how much weaker she would have been.

The sunlight slowly shifted. Fiona Bennett thought, I’ll probably remember this scene forever. And then, the scene was shattered by a flying basketball.

When the basketball whizzed past the tip of her nose, Fiona Bennett didn’t react at all. The ball slammed into a nearby pine tree, bounced off Susan Wright’s leg, and then was stopped by another tree before finally coming to a halt.

The “Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute” came to an abrupt stop.

Fiona Bennett’s heart was pounding—she’d been startled. She stood up and looked out toward the basketball court.

The group on the court without a ball were all classmates: Marcus Hamilton, Christopher Brooks, Frank Bishop, and Matthew Mitchell. She didn’t know who had thrown the ball, but Marcus Hamilton was standing closest, one hand on his hip, looking over and beckoning to Fiona Bennett.

“Come get it yourself!” Fiona Bennett shouted. The ball had come flying hard and flat just now—it didn’t seem like an accidental pass. Marcus Hamilton strode over in big steps, and no one said a word during that time; the atmosphere grew tense. He picked up the ball and was about to leave, but Fiona Bennett couldn’t hold back and said, “Throwing the ball like that is dangerous, you know. Aren’t you going to say sorry?”

Marcus Hamilton snorted and said, “Sorry, Miss Police Reporter.”

He turned to leave with the ball, but after a few steps, he turned back and walked up to Susan Wright.

“Do you still remember William Williams? Have you already forgotten him?” he asked, looking down at Susan Wright.

Fiona Bennett knew about William Williams—he was the student from the sponsored class who jumped off a building after being screened out last semester. Before that, he and Marcus Hamilton and Charles Brooks had played in several three-on-three basketball games on campus together; they were regular teammates.

But why was Marcus Hamilton asking this?

“What do you want me to say?” Susan Wright replied. “So just now, you missed on purpose, didn’t you?”

Frank Bishop ran over.