The Roommates Who Looked Down on Me Are All Dead

I returned to the police station again. It felt as familiar and natural as home.

I sat crookedly in the interrogation chair and asked Captain Li with a grin, “What’s for lunch today?” “Same as before, still boxed meals?” Captain Li had a steady temperament, and without even raising his head, he prepared for the interrogation.

The young officer beside him glared at me sternly and slammed the table hard. “Zhang Mingyuan, watch your attitude!” “Would we arrest you if we didn’t have evidence?” “Tell the truth, why did you kill them?” I spread my hands. “Who did I kill?” “Your three roommates!

They had excellent grades and conduct, and they were about to transfer into a bachelor’s program, but you ruined their lives!” “That really is such a pity!

I’m also very sorry about the deaths of those three good students. But why would I kill them?” “Because you—” “Ahem!

Xiao Wang—” Captain Li’s cough cut off the young officer’s words.

What a shame, I failed to bait out the “motive for murder” they had assigned me from their perspective. “Zhang Mingyuan, on March 11th, which was yesterday, what did you do?

Please describe it in detail, and don’t leave out any details.” Captain Li’s voice was still as steady and calm as ever.

I narrowed my eyes and started recalling. “Went to class!” “I have this habit where I can’t sleep in bed, but I can fall asleep during lectures.” Captain Li made a mark in his notebook. “Did you sleep all day?” “No, I left around two or three in the afternoon after sleeping until then, because my buddies asked me to help settle something, and I couldn’t just ignore it!

Too bad we didn’t end up fighting in the end, so we played mahjong for a while, otherwise I could’ve slept on a detention center bunk again, and those are even more comfortable than a luxury hotel...” Captain Li did not raise his head and made another mark in his notebook. “What time was it when you finished playing mahjong, and what did you do after that?” “A little after nine, and after eating I went to an internet café to stay overnight—” Captain Li suddenly raised his head, and the pen in his hand stopped moving. “Did you leave something out?” I paused, looking as if I had suddenly remembered. “Look at me, my brain’s gone dumb from sleeping too much.

You need an ID to use the internet, don’t you? So I went back to the dorm to get it.” “Captain Li, why are you looking at me like that?

Is it illegal to go back and get an ID?” “Oh no, don’t tell me those three good students were killed right around the time I went back?” “How did they die? Was it gruesome?

Do you have photos?” My unruly attitude made Xiao Wang unable to hold back, and he shouted, “Zhang Mingyuan, three roommates who lived with you day and night are dead, and this is your attitude?” I laughed. “What attitude should I have?” “I fucking didn’t kill anyone!” “You brought me here for questioning because I fight, because I’m ignorant and useless, and because I look like a suspect, didn’t you?”

In the three years I shared a dorm with those three roommates, we barely exchanged a few sentences in total. They looked down on me.

In other people’s eyes, I was a fierce little thug who got into fights and brawls.

But they knew very well that I was not fierce, and that I was only being controlled by someone who had something on me, so I had no choice but to follow a smalltime gang leader and drift through the underworld.

In their eyes, I was just trash. All three of them had powerful fathers, and they threw away my bedding and told me to get out of the dorm.

I couldn’t take it anymore and slapped one of them. As a result, they found people to break my leg, and my girlfriend was also taken away by the richest one, Ping Gaolei.

From then on, whenever they were in the dorm, I did not even have the right to go back.

I could only be like a rat in the gutter, sneaking in to get my things when they were not there... “Captain Li, if I remember correctly, when I went back last night to get my ID, I only stayed in the dorm for a few minutes, right?” “During those few minutes, I was the only person in the dorm, so may I ask how I killed anyone?” “If you want me to take the blame, Captain Li can just teach me what to say, and I’ll confess.

There’s no need to trouble yourselves by interrogating me again.” “But for the boxed meal at noon, adding an extra chicken drumstick shouldn’t be a problem, right?” Faced with my mockery, Xiao Wang slammed the table and stood up, but Captain Li stopped him.

Then he looked at me and sighed. “Zhang Mingyuan, our arrest of you has nothing to do with your criminal record, and we have no prejudice against you.” I laughed even louder. “Is that so?” “Then why were three good students killed last night, and I was detained this morning?” “When my leg was broken by Ping Gaolei’s men, why have you still not given me an explanation after a year?!” Captain Li’s steady gaze finally wavered, and he silently tapped the table.

Xiao Wang explained on Captain Li’s behalf, “There is no evidence showing that the people who hurt you were hired by Ping Gaolei.” “And Zhang Mingyuan, don’t make yourself look like some victim.

We handle things according to procedure, and we have not wronged you.” “You are all junior college students, so why were others working hard to transfer into a bachelor’s program while you willingly degraded yourself and became despised?” “Ping Gaolei merely found people to teach you a lesson, yet you killed everyone in the dorm for revenge?” His words fell.

The interrogation room sank into a deathly silence. My emotionless gaze stared straight at Xiao Wang.

After a dozen seconds of eye contact, his angry and scrutinizing eyes became guilty, evasive, and he touched his nose before sitting back down.

He wanted to provoke my emotions and then trick a confession out of me when I lost control. He failed.

That made me realize that they might have evidence pointing at me, but they had no way to convict me at all.

Otherwise, there would be no need to use this kind of tactic. “So you listed me as a suspect just because I had a motive to kill?” “Officer, you also said that Ping Gaolei merely taught me a lesson, and if I killed people over something like that, how many people would I have to kill?” “After I willingly degraded myself, I don’t even know how many times I’ve been stabbed!

I couldn’t possibly get revenge on all of them!” Xiao Wang was about to say something else when Captain Li suddenly stopped him and took him out.

A few minutes later, a takeout meal was delivered in front of me. I ate like a starving wolf. How nice, every time I came here, I could eat my fill.

The first time I entered the police station three years ago, I was the one who had been beaten, with my head split open and blood all over me.

I was also the only student among the two groups of thugs present. After finishing the statement, Captain Li looked at my file and frowned deeply. “Why aren’t you studying properly?

Why are you fooling around with people like this?

Stay away from them from now on.” As he spoke, Captain Li called my mother according to the phone number in my file and asked her to come pick me up.

On the other end, my mother seemed to be playing mahjong, and she said impatiently, “He and I have had nothing to do with each other for a long time.” Indeed, custody of me had been awarded to my father.

Before my father died, he left behind a mountain of gambling debt. But my life was better than when my father was still alive. At least I no longer had to be beaten.

I knocked my head raw borrowing money from relatives, and finally got a chance to continue going to school.

Everyone told me that only studying could change my fate, but I could not get into a university program, so I could only attend a junior college.

I thought the hardest days were already behind me, and as long as I worked a little harder, there would always be a way out...

After I rambled on about my past, Captain Li led me out and asked why I still fooled around with those people when I clearly knew what I should be doing.

At the time, I blinked blankly and said, “I didn’t know what they did.

I heard I could make a bit of money working with them, so I followed them in a daze.” When he heard my stomach still growling, Captain Li bought me a boxed meal.

Back then, I still knew gratitude, fear, and restraint. Several years passed.

I had completely become a shameless piece of trash, and I had become a hopeless regular at the police station in Captain Li’s eyes.

Over the next fortyplus hours, I was interrogated more than a dozen times without pause. My casual, arrogant, and selfdestructive attitude left them with no progress at all.

During the final interrogation, Captain Li sat across from me alone. “Zhang Mingyuan, whether you admit it now or not is no longer important.” “Surveillance footage shows that in the past week, apart from the three victims, only you entered and exited that dorm room.

On the victims’ water cups, we also extracted traces of residue that had not been wiped clean, so the killer can only be you.” I was so sleepy that I could barely stand it, and my mind was a mess.

But I still forced myself to raise the corner of my mouth. “Water cups? So they were poisoned to death, and you suspect that I drugged them?” “Fine, I admit it.

I gave them the most poisonous poison, cranetop red, so you can close the case and report back.” Captain Li suddenly barked coldly, “Where did the poison come from?” “I don’t know, picked it up off the ground?” “Anyway, I can’t make something like cranetop red, so you should go investigate the people from the Tang Sect!” Captain Li did not respond again, and after rubbing his bloodshot eyes, he got up and left.

A few minutes later, I was released. I learned that those three roommates had indeed all been poisoned to death.

The police checked my phone, as well as everyone connected to me, wanting to find the source of the poison, but they found nothing. So they could only hold me for fortyeight hours.

I cleared myself of the murder suspicion, but I was still expelled from school.

The sun was glaringly bright, shining so hard that I could not open my eyes, and I stood outside the school gate with a bag of luggage, not knowing where to go.

Countless pairs of eyes behind me looked at me, pointing and whispering.

A motorcycle suddenly stopped in front of me, and two gangsters waved machetes at me. “Come work with us tonight, you hear?” I sneered and spat viciously at them.

The price was that I was ambushed with a club that night and beaten until my head was covered in blood.

Cheap motels did not dare take me in, and I could not afford to go to the hospital, so I could only force myself to go to an abandoned factory on the outskirts of the city.

I was already cautious enough, but I never expected that Captain Li still followed me.

When I was about to pass out, Captain Li’s figure appeared in my field of vision. “Is this your secret base?” “Zhang Mingyuan, and you still say you’re not the killer?”

In the dark and filthy room, Captain Li held a flashlight and took photos to collect evidence. I gritted my teeth as I watched, my whole body turning cold.

On the wall in front of him were three photos and a few sheets of scrap paper.

The photos were of my three dead roommates, with red crosses drawn over them, and the papers recorded their living habits and daily movement patterns in detail.

On the table below were sleeping drugs, steel wire rope, and a knife. No matter how you looked at it, I had a plan to kill.

After taking the photos, Captain Li walked up to me and took out the handcuffs, with deep disappointment and disgust in his eyes. “Zhang Mingyuan, I really hoped you weren’t the killer, and that you could still be saved.” “But, hehe...” He gave a bitter laugh and used the handcuffs to lock me up.

I shoved him away hard and glared at him with my face covered in blood. “Are you laughing at me?

Why are you laughing at me?” When I was a child and my father beat me so badly that I could not get up, I gritted my teeth and endured it without breaking down.

When I was set up to owe tens of thousands in debt and forced to commit crimes that harmed people, I did not break down.

Even when my leg was broken, when I could only live in this abandoned factory in misery, and when I watched my girlfriend be taken away, I still did not break down.

But for some reason, Captain Li’s laughter made me lose control and break down! “You look down on me, don’t you?

You also think I’m rotten to the core and beyond saving, don’t you?” “You must already see me as the killer, right?

But I’m telling you, I did not kill anyone!” “I wanted to slaughter them, but I hadn’t had time to act yet. They were poisoned to death, so open your eyes and look carefully.

Is there any poison here?” My crazed appearance made Captain Li become even more guarded.

He found the right moment, charged over roughly, restrained me, and put the handcuffs on me.

Only after confirming that I was no threat did he say expressionlessly, “I do look down on you.” “Zhang Mingyuan, if you had walked down the wrong path because you were poor and helpless, I would help you.” “But to get revenge on your roommates, you chose murder, and now you are beyond saving.” “There truly is no poison here, but I will definitely find your purchase channel, find the evidence, and send you to court...” He could not do it!

Because I did not kill anyone. Or rather, I had not had time to act yet. When I was brought back, I had already calmed down.

No matter what they asked, I only replied with five words: “I am not the killer.” So what if they had found the abandoned factory?

Those things could only prove that I had murderous intent! “Captain Li, I really am beyond saving!

I dream of killing them, but my plan was to use a knife, to judge them with my own hands.” “I could never use poison, because poisoning them to death would be far too quick and easy for them!” In Captain Li’s eyes, I had already become a complete madman.

He did not even give me a boxed meal anymore, and his eyes held only deep disgust toward a murderer. “What right do you have to judge them?” “Ping Gaolei did hurt you, but if you had not bullied them and forced them to fall with you, how could they have come into conflict with you?” “Zhang Mingyuan, it’s bad enough that you rotted away yourself, but you still wanted to drag everyone else down with you?” Hehe...

In everyone’s eyes, Ping Gaolei and the others were motivated good students, and I was just a pile of social garbage. So their words were always more believable than mine.

But what if. What if the truth was not what they appeared to be? What if, from my point of view, the truth was a completely different story?

Before the abandoned factory was discovered, I could act without fear. But now, there were some things I could no longer hide...