Nightmare Apostle

Chapter 185: Chapter 163: Anniversary of Death

Yang Xiao had once caught a glimpse of Teacher Wang from a distance, and that chilling long neck left him with an indelible memory of terror.

"Back then, you were the only one in the class who didn’t stab him in the back; that was probably his only solace," Song Yan sighed with rare sincerity.

"My grandmother taught me from a young age that although we are poor, we must have integrity and not take ill-gotten gains; even more, we must know how to be grateful and repay kindness."

"Teacher Wang was a good person. He found out about my grandmother’s illness during a home visit and since then he took great care of me and my grandmother. He would cook eggs for me to supplement my nutrition and even ask someone to buy medicine from the town for my grandmother. No one has ever been so kind to us."

As Xu Yu recounted the past, a light gradually appeared in her eyes, but perhaps thinking of Teacher Wang’s tragic end, that light slowly faded again, pulling at the heartstrings of those who saw it.

"If only your classmates had half your conscience, they wouldn’t have done such beastly things." Yang Xiao thought of Xia Xiuyan and Nie Hexiang’s faces and felt a strong sense of injustice for Teacher Wang.

Xu Yu shook her head gently and took out a yellowed photo from her purse. It was a signed statement with bright red fingerprints on it, each fingerprint below a signature. Yang Xiao remembered it was the joint accusation found in Xu Yu’s dorm, orchestrated by the parents of those students at the time.

"Things aren’t as you think. In fact, many classmates were unwilling to accuse Teacher Wang, but they were just children, how could they possibly dictate their parents’ decisions? If you look closely at these signatures, although signed with students’ names, the handwriting is mostly that of adults."

"What happened to these classmates of yours after the incident?" Song Yan curiously asked.

"Most of them dropped out and went to work elsewhere. In a small rural place like ours, this kind of thing is taken very seriously. Regardless of the truth, their reputations are ruined, and if they continued to stay, they would only be gossiped about behind their backs."

"What about their parents? They received a large sum of money, enough to cover their daughters’ living expenses," Song Yan suspected there was more to it. frёewebnoѵēl.com

Hearing this, Xu Yu snorted coldly, "Them? Do they even deserve to be parents? Once they got the money, they ran off to the city to buy a house, putting the deed in their son’s name, and then paying for him to attend a good school. To them, a daughter is nothing more than a cash cow, and when it comes time for her to marry, they can make another profit."

"Don’t be fooled by their pretense during the settlement, saying all manner of nice things, how gender equality matters and a daughter is the apple of their eye, that purity is paramount – it’s all a ruse, just to extort more money. These people would lose face all for the sake of money!"

Thinking of these people’s faces, Xu Yu trembled with anger, clenching her fists tightly.

"My grandmother... it was because they held a grudge against her that she died!"

At these words, Yang Xiao immediately thought of Teacher Zhao, who had hesitated to speak. He had also mentioned Xu Yu’s grandmother, "What happened to her?"

"Those people intended to demand a king’s ransom at first, but because of my grandmother’s persistence, they didn’t get my signature. They had to settle for less. And because of this, they bore a grudge against my grandmother. They stole the coal she had saved up in the old house for the winter."

"Without the coal, the house was too cold to live in during winter, and my grandmother couldn’t afford to buy more, so she had no choice but to gather dead branches from the mountains to burn for warmth. She didn’t want to delay my school, so she wouldn’t tell me."

"One evening, when I came home from school, I found that my grandmother wasn’t there, and it was already dark. I begged the neighbors to go out and look for her, and finally... we found her at the foot of the mountain, but it was too late."

"The police, after surveying the scene, said my grandmother had lost her footing and tumbled down the slope. With her advanced age and frail health, she had tried for a long time but couldn’t get up again." freёwebnovel.com

Imagining the scene, Yang Xiao and Song Yan fell into a rare silence, reflecting on how many people in this world pay the price for upholding the truth.

As Xu Yu spoke of these old matters, her eyes reddened with difficulty holding back tears. After deliberating, Yang Xiao still asked the question that had been buried in his heart for so long, "Teacher Xu Yu, I believe you, but may I ask if you have any substantive evidence to prove they are lying?"

Evidence matters, as even the most moving stories need evidence for support; otherwise, who could prove this isn’t simply the beginning of another tragedy?

Xu Yu wiped her tears with the back of her hand, then nodded firmly, "Yes, just wait a moment."

Standing up, Xu Yu quickly walked to an old wooden cabinet, crouched down, and pulled out a manila envelope.

Inside the envelope was a thick stack of documents. Xu Yu took out a few sheets and handed them to Yang Xiao, "These are records of some of the students’ parents being questioned by the police. Take a look."

Song Yan also leaned in, and they carefully examined the records, which had sections marked in red. Several parents of the students, as if by agreement, all mentioned Teacher Wang’s red tape recorder, stating that during the assaults, Teacher Wang deliberately turned up the volume of the recorder to muffle any sound.

And after the assaults occurred, in order to soothe the victims, he would cook them some eggs as compensation, ordering them not to speak of these events or face consequences.

"These people are completely fabricating lies! They don’t know that in order to afford my grandmother’s medical care, Teacher Wang had long ago sold his tape recorder. But Teacher Wang was a man of dignity, so he bought a similar empty shell of that tape recorder with very little money and displayed it in his dorm room. That so-called tape recorder was just a model; how could it possibly play music?!"