A stack of cafeteria vouchers. A rough estimate puts it between six hundred and seven hundred.

Two pieces of seasonal clothing. Both are fast fashion brands. Not very expensive, but the fabric feels quite comfortable.

There are also a few books. They look old, but are fairly well preserved, with almost no damage.

The Vault picked up the phone, spun it twice in her palm, unlocked the screen, and sent a text message to Julian Grant.

The Vault: The financial aid for underprivileged students at No.1 High is pretty generous.

Julian Grant: How generous? Financial aid is usually just enough to cover basic needs—how could anyone get rich off it?

The Vault listed out the items in the bag and sent them over.

After reading, Julian Grant was shocked.

This living allowance is much higher than that of an average high school student.

Julian Grant: Is this for a whole semester? I think the government’s aid for underprivileged high schoolers in City A is about 1,500 yuan per academic year.

The Vault: The person who gave it said it’s for this month. There are a few similar bags behind the dorm cabinet, so it should indeed be distributed monthly.

Julian Grant: How is that possible?

Julian Grant: The owner of the convenience store said that Yvonne Thornton often bought things that were about to expire to save money, and sometimes had to rely on Nathan Sanders to treat her to meals. If her financial aid was this much, she wouldn’t need to do that at all.

The Vault: So the financial aid at No.1 High is tiered, and the gap between tiers is huge? Then what’s the standard for assessment? Grades? Personal preference?

There was a moment of silence from Julian Grant.

Julian Grant: Just got off a call.

Julian Grant: Because you mentioned before that both Yvonne Thornton and Quinn Sinclair are underprivileged students, I specifically looked up some related information after I got back.

The Vault: Are there a lot of underprivileged students at this school?

Julian Grant: Yes. To respond to the call, No.1 High specially recruited a batch of underprivileged students. The school has run many promotional ads, and the education bureau has used them as positive examples, giving quite a few benefits. [Image · News]

Julian Grant: No.1 High is a good school in City A, and has guaranteed admission partnerships with several universities. In recent years, they’ve secured a few extra spots for underprivileged students. Last year, and the year before, some underprivileged students were directly admitted to prestigious universities. It’s also attracted a lot of charitable donations from the public.

The Vault: What about this year? The guaranteed admission spots should be out by now, right?

Julian Grant: I just contacted someone at the education bureau to ask. I’ll let you know when the results are out.

Chapter 8: Threads

After seeing Quinn Sinclair’s financial aid, The Vault started to feel that something was odd in the dorm.

Quinn Sinclair receives such a high amount of financial aid, yet lives very simply. Most girls, if their financial situation allows, would find it hard to resist buying some pretty things—unless she has a very strong sense of crisis or financial management.

The Vault planned to borrow some money from Quinn Sinclair as a test, but it’s hard to find a reason to borrow money from an underprivileged student. While still thinking about how to phrase it, Julian Grant sent an update.

Julian Grant: Got it.

Julian Grant: Have you eaten? I suggest you eat first.

The Vault: Not hungry.

Julian Grant: Then I’ll tell you.

Julian Grant: Among this year’s underprivileged students who got guaranteed admission to top universities, there’s one named Melanie Spencer. Her grades have always been good. As for Quinn Sinclair, her grades are a bit lower, so she didn’t get a spot. But judging from her monthly exam results, it shouldn’t be too hard for her to get into a top-tier university on her own.

Julian Grant: They also gave me a list of underprivileged students. It’s interesting. [Image · Screenshot]

Julian Grant: Among the specially recruited underprivileged students at No.1 High, the gender ratio is very skewed. For this year’s senior class, the male-to-female ratio is 1:5, and in previous years it fluctuated between 1:6 and 1:7.

Julian Grant: According to the school, it’s because underprivileged girls face more difficulties than boys, and in compulsory education, girls’ grades are generally better than boys’. That’s why this situation has occurred.

The Vault: That makes sense.

The Vault didn’t feel that the above information would affect her appetite; what came next was the most crucial part.

Julian Grant: Because it involved the school, I just checked our department’s police dispatch records. In August two years ago, the police received a report from a No.1 High graduate. She claimed she had been threatened and sexually assaulted by school leaders, and had suffered from an improper relationship for years. She also reported that the school’s guaranteed admission system was fraudulent, and that school leaders were involved in exchanging benefits.

Julian Grant: The caller didn’t leave her name. The police tracked her down through her phone number, but she was very flustered, changed her statement several times, and later wanted to withdraw the case. In the end, she said it was because she didn’t get a guaranteed admission spot, so she maliciously framed the school leaders and didn’t want them to have it easy.

The Vault: The police didn’t investigate further?

Julian Grant: The police questioned several other underprivileged students, and they all said they hadn’t encountered anything similar. They also interviewed other teachers and students at the school, who all said they didn’t believe such accusations. Since there was no evidence, the case wasn’t pursued.

The Vault: Oh.

Julian Grant: The funding for underprivileged students at No.1 High comes not only from government grants, but also from donations by caring members of society and the school’s own subsidies. If someone specifically donates to a certain student, it wouldn’t be strange for Quinn Sinclair to receive this amount of money.

Julian Grant picked up the cold coffee on the table and took a big gulp.

When things shift from student-on-student bullying to the struggles of underprivileged students at the bottom of society, and finally connect back to the school itself, his sharp intuition and rich experience made him instinctively feel a sense of resistance.

The deeper he thought, the more disgusted he felt. It was as if he had uncovered a pool of bubbling, foul-smelling black mud—just stepping in made him want to retch.

Inside are class differences and cross-dimensional blows. The insignificance of minors and the cunning of adults.

Julian Grant doesn’t smoke, but for the sake of his persona, he always carries a pack of cigarettes. At this moment, looking at the red cigarette box on the corner of the table, he felt the urge to light one up.

He needed to do something to distract himself and stay calm.

Julian Grant: Bold hypothesis. If the contents of the report were true, and Yvonne Thornton committed suicide because of it—or maybe it wasn’t suicide—then this year’s guaranteed admission student, Melanie Spencer, is likely connected to the case. Nathan Sanders was close to Yvonne Thornton, so maybe she learned something from Yvonne Thornton, and after Yvonne Thornton’s death, was so traumatized that her depression flared up and she chose to end her life in the same place. The school, to cover things up, deliberately shifted the focus and responsibility onto Wendy Ward.

Julian Grant: Quinn Sinclair is very beautiful, and both Nathan Sanders and Yvonne Thornton had contact with her before they died. I suspect she knows the details, but I don’t know where she stands.

The Vault: Logically possible.

Julian Grant: What do you think?

The Vault’s reply came a moment later.

The Vault: Don’t overthink it. The further ahead you try to predict, the more likely you are to make mistakes. When the chain of evidence is incomplete, there’s no need to force all the cause and effect, and don’t try to overanalyze the details.

Seeing The Vault’s words, Julian Grant automatically pictured her calm, unruffled face in his mind. It seemed to have a special power that soothed his pounding heart.

Anger only clouds judgment; he needed to be even more clear-headed.

No matter how heavy the curtain, it had already been burned open by the blood of Yvonne Thornton and Nathan Sanders. What they needed to do was peer through the gap to find the truth, and drag the absurd performance behind the scenes into the open, forcing every “actor” with blood-stained hands to face the judgment of reality.

Julian Grant: Where do you think we should start the analysis?

The Vault: Wendy Ward’s suicide. The unresolved question from before.

The Vault: Why do students generally believe that her prank killed Nathan Sanders?

The Vault: The school’s authority does make it easy to guide students’ thinking and opinions. Why was Wendy Ward labeled as the culprit of campus bullying leading to death? Who is guiding public opinion? Only by figuring out who’s behind it can we make further progress.

Julian Grant: There must be traces of public opinion manipulation. If it really was the school, it should be easy to find evidence.

It’s all too easy for a school to guide campus atmosphere.

After Nathan Sanders’s suicide, they would definitely have gone to question her roommates right away.

If a roommate you got along with suddenly jumped to her death, anyone would be deeply affected.

The victim’s family, the police, the school—countless people would be watching them, hoping for answers. In that emotional state, people’s thinking easily becomes confused.

After repeated questioning from outsiders, they revealed the conflict between Wendy Ward and Nathan Sanders.

Even if at first they didn’t think Wendy Ward’s prank was serious bullying, or maybe they hadn’t even noticed it. But because of their trust in the school and sympathy for the family, they would subconsciously look for someone to pin their helpless emotions on. And Wendy Ward, who had always been at odds with Nathan Sanders, had given her the cold shoulder, and now seemed lost and guilty, naturally became the obvious choice.