Summer's Rose

Chapter 16: Police Intervention

The hum of low chatter filled the air, broken only by the piercing curiosity of a question. "Did you hear? Someone tried to kill themselves."

Yong Ming’s head snapped up from his desk. “What? From which class?”

The girl replied, "Class Seven. I heard she used to be pretty good academically, but her grades have been dropping recently. Maybe it's because of all the pressure."

Yong Ming nudged Zhou Nan, who was playing on his phone: "Zhou Nan, a girl from Class Seven committed suicide."

Zhou Nan paused, then turned off his phone screen: "Class Seven?"

"Yeah, Class Seven," Yong Ming confirmed.

The two exchanged glances, and Zhou Nan's suspicions were confirmed—it must be the girl from a few days ago.

The corridor was crowded with people, and an ambulance was parked outside the school.

Miss Loh also heard about the incident and was somewhat dismayed. She saw students standing outside: "Don't just stand there, class is starting, hurry up and go back in."

The students slowly filed back into the classroom.

"Students, if you're feeling pressured or troubled, please talk to your teachers, parents, or friends. Don't keep it to yourself. Keeping it inside for too long can lead to serious issues."

Zhou Nan and the others were very clear that it wasn’t just academic pressure. The girl had likely been mentally scarred by something that left her with an indelible psychological trauma.

Hannah was saved.

She opened her eyes to a white hospital room.

Her mother's eyes were swollen from crying when she saw Hannah awake: "Why did you suddenly cut your wrists? Are you crazy? Doesn't it hurt?"

A nurse softly reminded her: "The patient has just woken up, and her emotions might not be stable. It's better not to trigger her."

Hannah stared blankly at the ceiling and then looked at the bandaged wrist. She hadn’t died—she had been saved again.

She didn’t know how long it had been, but eventually, she whispered, "Mom."

Her mother took her hand: "Mom is here. I’ll never push you to study hard again. I just wanted you to study well, get into a good school, and have a good future. I never meant to put so much pressure on you."

Hannah shook her head: "It wasn’t because of that."

"Then what was it? Tell me, I’m your mom."

Hannah bit her lip, tears falling down her face.

"Is it because someone at school bullied you? Should I talk to the teacher?"

"No." Actually, Zhou Nan had saved her, and it was a good deed, but because of her good student identity, unfounded rumors were spreading. She gathered her courage and said, "I need to tell you something. After I say it, you might be angry and feel embarrassed, but I still have to say it."

After hearing Hannah's story, her mother cried uncontrollably, trembling as she hugged her daughter in the hospital bed: "Are you dumb? Why didn’t you tell me about this? Why didn’t you tell me,your mother?"

Hannah spoke: "I was planning to tell you, but you made me go back to school. After that, I just gave up on telling you."

Her mother regretted deeply and almost wanted to strangle herself. Her anger almost consumed her: "I’m going to the school to tear him apart. How dare he do this to my daughter?"

"If those three guys hadn’t come, I...”

Her mother’s heart broke. She blamed herself endlessly for not listening to her daughter that day.

"Mom, do you think I embarrassed you?"

"How could this be your fault? It’s clearly his fault. I’m going to call the police. That bastard is still sitting in class while my daughter is lying in a hospital bed. Why should he get away with this?"

"Mom, don’t you think calling the police would embarrass you?"

"Foolish child, don’t think about that. Sleep now."

Not long after the ambulance left, the police car arrived.

The sound of the siren echoed throughout the campus.

Everyone was curious about what had happened at school to warrant police involvement.

A man in a police uniform suddenly arrived at Class 17 and called out: "I need to see Zhou Nan."

Miss Loh, who was teaching, was taken aback when she saw the police, and said, "Someone’s here to see you."

Zhou Nan stood up, still looking half-asleep, and walked out.

Yong Ming and Hao Ming had a rough idea of what was going on and followed Zhou Nan, speaking to Miss Loh: "We’ll go with him."

"Alright," Miss Loh replied, sighing, then spoke to the students: "Let’s continue class."

The police officer pointed to a bench when Zhou Nan and the other two walked in: "Sit down."

Zhou Nan glanced at Lucius before sitting down.

"Were you three witnesses?" the officer asked.

Zhou Nan answered, "Yes."

"Please describe what happened."

Zhou Nan’s voice was calm, his tone neither rushed nor slow: "We were walking past the field, heard a noise inside, and then suddenly someone screamed for help. We broke the door and went in." He glanced at Lucius: "We saw him trying to do something inappropriate to a girl and even took secret photos of her."

The officer nodded, noting down what Zhou Nan had said. It matched closely with what the girl’s parents had reported.

Lucius put on an air of righteousness: "Officer, they’re slandering me! I’ve never done anything to that girl. We don’t even interact at school, so how could I do something like that? Plus, I spend all my free time studying. I don’t have time for this."

What the police had heard from the class teacher also matched Lucius’s claims—he and the girl had little to no interaction, and Lucius was an outstanding student. The officer asked him, "Then how do you explain the report from the girl’s parents saying you tried to molest her and took secret photos of her?"

Lucius pointed at Zhou Nan: "He’s always causing trouble, always fighting. It’s clearly him who threatened Hannah, and that’s why she tried to commit suicide. They even beat me up. All the injuries on my face are from them. This has nothing to do with me."

Lucius was good at pretending to be a model student. Although Zhou Nan had deleted the photos on his phone, Lucius had no proof to deny the incident. As long as he didn’t admit it, there was no evidence, and they couldn’t do anything to him.

Yong Ming laughed at Lucius’s twisted version of the story: "Lucius, stop pretending. You know very well what you did. Now you’re trying to act like a good student, but no one is buying your act anymore."

Lucius, pretending to be scared, moved back slightly with exaggerated caution: "The police are here, you can’t do anything to me. So stop threatening me—it won’t work this time."

Zhou Nan couldn’t be bothered to waste time on him and calmly said, with a quiet confidence: "I have evidence to back everything up."