Chapter 224: 220 Blood Key

"In other words, the authenticity of this rumor cannot yet be confirmed." He Jia'an appeared to be in deep thought, but he felt that it was highly likely to be true; after all, the toilets at Kisaragi High School in this dimension were truly unusual.

Clang!

The blood-red text that had appeared on the ceiling slowly faded away after dripping for a while. When the final drop of blood hit the floor, the sharp-eyed He Jia'an noticed a metallic object that had fallen to the ground along with the blood.

Misaki Naomi noticed it too, but she didn't dare to step forward to check, only asking in confusion, "What was that just now?"

He Jia'an fished a stack of tissues out of his pocket—the ones he had swiped from the hotel during his first few days on Sakura Island, which he still hadn't finished using. He generously pulled out three sheets and used them to pick up the blood-bathed object.

"It's a key." He Jia'an rubbed and wiped the object with the tissues. The more he touched it, the more familiar it felt. After wiping it clean, he saw that it was indeed a key.

"It doesn't look like a door key; it looks like a key for a locker or something similar." Misaki Naomi stepped forward out of curiosity to take a look. After examining it for a moment, she guessed, "If it's a locker key, the only things in the school would be the desk drawers in the faculty office and the students' shoe lockers, right?"

"Would a locker in the changing room have a lock like this?" He Jia'an added.

"That's also possible." Misaki Naomi nodded, looking puzzled. "Why would a key suddenly fall out? Could it be that someone wants us to find clues?"

He Jia'an: "I don't know, but that should be it."

After leaving the toilet, the two walked straight toward the main entrance of the teaching building, where there was a large foyer, the place where students changed their shoes before entering the school.

They randomly chose a locker to try inserting it, only to find that the key did not match the lock type of the shoe lockers.

"Hey, this shoe locker was also maliciously vandalized." Although the two hadn't found the right place, they had made an unexpected discovery. Misaki Naomi pointed to one of the shoe lockers on the right side of the second row.

The two leaned in to look and discovered that this shoe locker had already been violently destroyed beforehand. The moment they opened the locker, a massive swarm of cockroaches and unknown foul-smelling bugs crawled out like a fountain, scaring He Jia'an and Misaki Naomi into immediately stepping back. They watched helplessly as those disgusting insects crawled into the crevices of surrounding objects and vanished in an instant; the sight of ten thousand insects crawling was enough to make one's scalp tingle.

"How cruel." Misaki Naomi saw the words "Curse your whole family to die suddenly (lol)" written on the inside of the locker door and felt the intense malice within.

He Jia'an pushed the locker door back and glanced at the nameplate on the front, which bore the name "Ju Xiuyi."

"If my guess is correct, the owner of this shoe locker is the same student who suffered inhumane treatment in that toilet stall earlier." He Jia'an tapped his finger on the vicious words on the inside of the door and frowned slightly. "These handwriting styles were also seen in that toilet stall just now. Unless I'm mistaken, they were written by the same bunch of bastards."

"Then did Ju Xiuyi die in the toilet, and was he... 'dealt with' by Hanako?" Misaki Naomi's voice trembled slightly.

"Whether he was dealt with by Hanako or not, I don't know, but this Ju Xiuyi is likely already gone." He Jia'an shook his head slightly, then looked at Misaki Naomi and said earnestly, "When dealing with an Abnormal, if you want to survive, don't try to overthink the unknowable, and definitely don't empathize with anyone. I once had a colleague who had a very strong ability to empathize, but later..."

He did not continue, only sighing.

"Was that colleague... your lover?"

"She was a very important partner." He Jia'an glanced at the young girl; girls of this age were indeed prone to romantic fantasies. He then took her by the wrist and walked toward the first-floor faculty office, saying, "Let's go. The longer we stay here, the less safe it is. Let's hurry and find clues."

They found the faculty office on the first floor and pushed the door open. The scene inside matched the average person's impression of an office, only it was more antiquated; there were no computers, replaced instead by many paper documents and a large number of notebooks.

"The lockers in this office are all the same; it looks like they were purchased as a set." He Jia'an made the confirmation after a quick scan. He took the key and randomly chose a keyhole to try, his eyes lighting up as he said with some surprise, "Found it. It's the locked drawer of a desk in the faculty office."

After some searching, the two quickly found a drawer that could be turned and opened by the key.

This desk belonged to a person named "Maso Shintaro," likely a math teacher, as math teaching materials were placed on the desk, along with uncorrected student math exams.

Of course, it might also be that he was the homeroom teacher of a certain class.

After opening the locked drawer, the two discovered the personal graduation intention survey forms for all students belonging to a single class, which was rarely seen with a regular teaching instructor.

In addition to the collected student graduation intention survey forms, there was also a black leather-bound notebook resting on top of the stack of documents.

He Jia'an and Misaki Naomi divided the work; he flipped through the notebook, and Misaki Naomi went to check the survey forms.

Misaki Naomi had a vague feeling; she knew what she was looking for because everything happening now had a very obvious sense of being guided.

Subsequently, Misaki Naomi raised an eyebrow. Without too much surprise, wearing an expression of "as expected," she found a familiar person among the stack of survey forms—it was that same student named Ju Xiuyi.

"Uncle, look." Misaki Naomi tugged on He Jia'an's sleeve and picked up the form to show him.

After reading it, He Jia'an did not show any expression of surprise either. He then showed his own discovery to her; he picked up the notebook and opened the page where he had made a special discovery. "This Ju Xiuyi really did meet with an accident. That time he was cornered in the toilet stall by a group, he suddenly let out a piercing scream and then vanished. Those who had cornered him only saw that after Ju Xiuyi let out a scream, that toilet stall suddenly erupted like a fountain, spraying a massive amount of blood that shot straight to the ceiling... Subsequent forensic analysis confirmed that the DNA in the large amount of blood left at the scene matched Ju Xiuyi."

"However, what's eerie is that the blood analysis results revealed that besides Ju Xiuyi, there was blood belonging to a second person. Subsequent testing confirmed it belonged to the daughter of a teacher named 'Takayama Keika,' but this is actually impossible, because Takayama Keika's daughter had already died long ago."

Misaki Naomi shuddered, her eyes widening: "Could that daughter be Hanako?"

"Hanako is a nickname; her actual name seems to be Huanin." He Jia'an nodded and said with a frown, "Whether Ju Xiuyi's mysterious disappearance has anything to do with Hanako is one thing, but the reason he was subjected to such treatment has a great deal to do with Hanako. This student was actually the only witness who saw the entire process of the perverted school janitor murdering Hanako. But he was threatened by the janitor, so when the whole school was under investigation, he didn't say a word, keeping his mouth shut. Later, it wasn't until the Enforcer pursued the case relentlessly, peeling back the layers, that the janitor was finally brought to justice. It was only after the janitor confessed and pleaded guilty that he honestly admitted the fact that Ju Xiuyi was a witness. After a confrontation, Ju Xiuyi couldn't withstand the pressure and was subsequently forced to admit the truth."