The sound of the faucet was incessant, and Yue Qingqing found it noisy, as did the others.
"If you keep this up, I’m going to tell the teacher," one said.
"It’s so annoying, why waste water?" another complained.
The girls were all blaming the person who had turned on the tap—a girl surrounded in the middle.
She wore her hair in twin ponytails with an eerie expression on her face.
Her eyes trembled slightly, almost bulging out.
It seemed she was frightened of something.
Her hands were soaked in the sink, but it was unclear how long they had been there.
"I’ve said it several times, the teacher told us not to waste water," a girl muttered as she moved to turn off the tap.
But as she reached out, she was abruptly grasped by the twin-ponytailed girl.
Her five fingers, swollen and whitened from being in the water too long, clamped onto the girl’s wrist like a vise.
In pain, the girl screamed, "Luo Jie, what are you doing? It’s so cold! It hurts!"
The others tried to pull her away, but the girl with twin ponytails held on until her fingers were pried off one by one by three people.
Looking at the red mark on her wrist, the girl’s eyes welled up with tears from the pain.
"You wait, I’m going to tell the teacher!"
A group of girls rushed toward the office, the girl called Luo Jie didn’t even glance at them.
She trembled, moving slowly, soaking her hands in the sink again with the same fearful, numb expression on her face.
Qu Ruorui was too scared to even enter the restroom, clinging tightly to Yue Qingqing’s side.
"This is so scary... is she..." Qu Ruorui circled her temple with her index finger, implying the girl was not right in her head.
Just as Yue Qingqing was about to speak, Luo Jie suddenly shivered.
With a blank face, the twin-ponytailed girl looked down at the row of faucets that were turned on and inexplicably pulled her hands out of the sink.
Yue Qingqing watched as Luo Jie turned each tap off one by one and then walked away.
Qu Ruorui felt even more certain that this girl was not right in the head and pulled Yue Qingqing to leave.
"Class is about to start, let’s come back after the lesson," she suggested.
Yue Qingqing nodded and left the restroom.
They passed a female teacher from class three who had been called by the students.
"Where did she go? Teacher, Luo Jie was just here..."
"Really, she had turned on all the taps, everyone saw it."
As the class bell rang, the voices behind them gradually faded away.
Throughout the class, Yue Qingqing was absent-minded, her gaze resting on the textbook but her thoughts unknown.
"Yue Qingqing, answer the question I just asked," the math teacher, noticing the girl’s distraction, called her out with a displeased expression.
Even though she was first in her class, she should not ignore the teacher .
"The even power of a negative number is positive, the answer is 81," she replied.
"Very good, please sit down."
Yue Qingqing continued to daydream with her chin in her hand.
So... what exactly was going on?
After school, Yue Qingqing was still lost in thought, while the other girls didn’t pay much attention and chattered among themselves.
Qu Ruorui recounted what she had seen during the class break, startling Jun Feifei with each detail.
Wei Rong was chewing on spicy strips, her words muffled, "That can’t be, I know Luo Jie, she seems fine."
Jun Feifei, disdainful, retorted, "There’s no one in our grade you don’t know, and stop talking with food in your mouth, it gets everywhere."
Unperturbed, Wei Rong wiped her mouth and said, "Drama queen!"
She then took another bite of her sandwich.
Left hand with a spicy strip, right hand with a sandwich.
No one knew when it started, but Wei Rong seemed to be eating constantly.
Everyone had unconsciously grown accustomed to it.
But contrary to her food intake, Wei Rong’s face noticeably thinned at a visible pace.
Her round apple cheeks were almost turning into sharp angles, her chin noticeably sharper.