The calico cat was hanging upside down from the shower handrail, tightly bound by black shoelaces.
Its abdomen had been slashed open with a long, deep wound, exposing its internal organs.
Because of its struggles, some organs were even on the verge of falling out.
Blood dripped continuously, soaking the cat’s chin before splattering onto the old white tiled floor.
It let out pitiful cries, but most of the sound was drowned out by the deliberately loud television.
The young man probably hadn’t expected someone to forcibly break in without his consent.
The bathroom was left completely unattended, and a pair of blood-stained gloves had been hastily thrown onto the sink.
Zhou Huaixia stared at him coldly.
She suspected that the two dreams she had before had already happened in reality.
“How many cats have you killed?”
The young man had been frozen in place ever since she pushed open the bathroom door.
Panic flashed across his face.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.
This cat fell.
I was trying to save it.”
Beside him, Lü Jin had already noticed the heavy scent of blood in the room.
After hearing Zhou Huaixia’s words, she was struck with horror.
She immediately let go of the young man and rushed to the bathroom.
Upon seeing the scene inside, she finally realized what was happening and turned around angrily.
“You’re talking nonsense!
We saw this cat perfectly fine just now on the first floor!”
Her voice was loud enough to overpower the sound of the television.
The door to the apartment had been left open, and the girl from the opposite unit had already been peeking inside out of curiosity.
At the same time, Professor Yang, who had heard Zhou Huaixia knocking aggressively on the door earlier, was making his way upstairs.
Seeing more people approaching, the girl from the opposite unit suddenly felt emboldened.
She quickly stepped inside and joined the group crowding around the bathroom.
When she saw what was inside, she gasped sharply, but at the same time, she discreetly took out her phone and began recording.
Lü Jin had already scanned the surroundings.
She dragged a wooden chair from the living room into the bathroom.
Placing it near the wall-mounted handrail, she took off her backpack and rummaged inside, pulling out a large pack of supplies.
Using scissors, she directly cut through the shoelaces.
Then, she carefully supported the cat with one hand and placed it gently onto the chair, trying to minimize its movements as much as possible.
“What’s going on here?”
Professor Yang stood at the doorway, frowning at the confrontation between the students.
He had come upstairs out of concern after hearing the noise.
Zhou Huaixia spoke up.
“Professor, this person has been abusing and killing animals for a long time.”
Hearing this, Professor Yang immediately stepped forward.
“Liu Wen, what’s going on?”
This student was a graduate researcher at the medical school.
Professor Yang knew his advisor, so they occasionally exchanged greetings when passing each other in the building.
Liu Wen quickly denied it.
“I don’t know what she’s talking about.”
“The cat has already been cut open, and you still don’t know what she’s talking about?”
The girl from the opposite unit stood inside the bathroom, anger visible in her expression.
“Professor, just take a look, and you’ll see for yourself.”
Frowning, Professor Yang walked to the bathroom door.
There, he saw Lü Jin wearing gloves, carefully pouring saline solution onto sterile gauze.
On the chair lay a blood-soaked cat with its abdomen cut open.
Lü Jin’s hands moved swiftly as she wrapped and secured the cat’s wound with the damp gauze.
“Liu Wen, did you do this?”
Professor Yang turned back, his face filled with shock and anger.
Liu Wen’s lips twitched slightly.
“I just wanted to practice my suturing skills.”
Professor Yang stared at him, his brows furrowed.
“Liu Wen, I’m a doctor too.
Are you lying to me?
You can practice suturing on silicone skin, pig trotters, or even chicken meat.
But you chose a living cat?”
Liu Wen’s face showed anxiety and guilt.
He bowed deeply.
“Professor Yang, I’m sorry.
I was just curious and acted on impulse.
This is my first and last time.
I will never do this again.”
Zhou Huaixia suddenly chuckled coldly.
“Your first time?
On September 22nd, around 1:15 PM, didn’t you kill a white cat with a black tail that you caught in the Bamboo Garden?”
Liu Wen, who had just straightened up, suddenly froze.
His pupils shrank, and his cheek muscles twitched.
“W-What?”
The dreams Zhou Huaixia had weren’t from a first-person perspective.
She wasn’t sure if they had happened in real life, like the medical student who hanged herself.
But now, she was testing him.
And from Liu Wen’s reaction, she was certain.
“On September 22nd, at 10:17 PM, you put the dismembered body of that cat into a black plastic bag.
You walked to Fifth Avenue near the second library, opened maintenance hole 013, and dumped the remains inside.”
Zhou Huaixia’s expression was ice-cold.
She stared at Liu Wen, whose face was full of fake guilt.
“Did you think that just because there were no surveillance cameras, no one would ever find out?”
“I saw everything.”
She took out her phone.
“The video is right here.”
Liu Wen’s chapped lips trembled.
His hand, hanging loosely at his side, clenched into a tight fist.
His eyes locked onto her phone with a deadly glare, but he said nothing.
“You realized that cameras had been installed at the second library and Bamboo Garden, so you haven’t found another chance to catch a cat lately, have you?”
Zhou Huaixia continued speaking, her tone calm as she fabricated the story.
“Because I’ve already submitted the video to the principal’s office and the security department.
They’ve been watching you for a long time.”
She added coldly.
“Liu Wen, you are not a first-time offender.
You have been killing cats for a long time.”
Professor Yang and the girl from the opposite unit stood frozen in the living room, completely shocked.
Professor Yang looked at Zhou Huaixia, then at Liu Wen.
“You”
He never expected that a seemingly normal, even somewhat shy, male student would be capable of doing such things over a long period.
“What Bamboo Garden?”
Lü Jin carefully carried the chair and brought the cat out of the bathroom.
She had only caught part of the conversation.
After setting the chair down, she looked at Zhou Huaixia.
In a flash of realization, she asked, “Are you talking about the white cat with the black tail that I used to pet?”
Liu Wen’s face twitched violently for a moment, then he suddenly calmed down, wearing an indifferent expression.
“So what?”
He shrugged nonchalantly.
“I was under too much pressure and needed a way to release it.”
He even seemed relaxed.
“What, are you going to arrest me and throw me in jail? Killing cats isn’t illegal, is it?”
Seeing the stunned expressions of the three people in the room, Liu Wen burst out laughing.
“At most, the school will give me some psychological counseling.
Maybe I’ll even realize how serious my actions were.”
“F***!”
Lü Jin was furious and pointed a finger at Liu Wen.
“I have connections.
Forget the school even the entire S City hospital system will make sure you don’t have a future!”
“Xiao Lü, don’t talk nonsense!”
Professor Yang pressed down on Lü Jin’s shoulder and glanced at the cat on the chair.
“Take the cat to a hospital immediately and find a veterinarian to treat it.”
Some things couldn’t be openly discussed.
After making a few phone calls, Professor Yang turned to the others.
“Liu Wen, you can’t act like this.
If you’re under psychological stress, get treatment.
Your advisor and counselor will be here soon.
The three of you shouldn’t stay here either.”
Since they couldn’t just carry a chair to the animal hospital, Lü Jin borrowed a cutting board from the girl next door.
She wrapped it in a towel, using it as a makeshift stretcher to transport the cat more easily.
By the time she finished preparing, Zhou Huaixia was still leaning against the stairwell wall, fiddling with her phone.
Lü Jin’s backpack lay at her feet.
Lü Jin carefully carried the improvised stretcher.
“Zhou Huaixia, let’s go.”
Zhou Huaixia picked up the backpack and stopped at the neighbor’s door.
“Were you posting online just now?”
The girl looked slightly embarrassed.
“You saw that?”
Zhou Huaixia pulled out her phone.
“I have a recording of Liu Wen admitting to long-term animal abuse.
Do you want it?”
She had edited out the fabricated parts about the video and surveillance, along with the statements from Lü Jin and Professor Yang.
“I do!”
The girl eagerly accepted the audio file.
Then, hesitating, she asked, “Is that it?
Is this all that will happen to him?”
Zhou Huaixia almost laughed at herself.
“Liu Wen wasn’t wrong.
Even if he has been killing cats for a long time, there’s nothing we can really do to him.”
She glanced at the girl’s phone.
“Hopefully, your post will have some effect at least enough to make the school keep an eye on him.”
The two of them left Dormitory Building 3.
The car they had called was already waiting downstairs.
Lü Jin and Zhou Huaixia carried the cutting board and got into the car, heading to the animal hospital.
The calico cat survived.
Because it was found in time and Lü Jin had performed emergency care, the veterinarian at the hospital was able to save it.
But the white cat that had been dismembered and thrown into the sewer its body was never even recovered.
As for Liu Wen, things played out exactly as he expected.
The school arranged psychological counseling for him and contacted his parents.
Since multiple witnesses testified, he received a disciplinary record according to school regulations.
That was all.
The only real backlash came from the school forum.
The girl’s post, with its shocking title and gruesome photos, immediately drew attention.
And Liu Wen’s psychopathic behavior only made it more sensational.
Within a single night, the post spread across the entire campus.
Everyone now knew Liu Wen was a cat abuser.
People were furious with the school’s decision.
But the only solid evidence was the few photos the girl had taken of the blood-soaked calico cat in the bathroom.
That was the limit of what the school could do.
“There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask.”
Inside Dorm Room 407, Lü Jin spun her chair around.
She looked at Zhou Huaixia, who sat with her arms hanging limp at her sides, face pressed against the desk, eyes closed in sleep.
“How did you know Liu Wen had caught that calico cat?
We were together the whole time.”
Zhou Huaixia muttered, “I dreamed about it.”
Lü Jin stared.
“…I’m asking seriously.”
Zhou Huaixia didn’t even twitch.
Lü Jin tried again.
“Did you really see Liu Wen throw the white cat into the sewer with your own eyes?”
Zhou Huaixia: “Mhm.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Lü Jin adjusted her glasses.
“You gave the recording to the girl next door but didn’t share any video.
And you edited out the part where you said you submitted evidence to the principal and security office.”
She concluded, “You weren’t at the scene.”
Zhou Huaixia fell silent.
Lü Jin pressed on.
“It’s weird.
You pinpointed the exact time of the white cat’s death down to the minute.
At first, I thought maybe you had hidden micro-cameras on the school’s cats.
But you had no video to back it up.
And Liu Wen didn’t notice anything, which means there were no cameras.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“Zhou Huaixia, how exactly did you do it?”
Zhou Huaixia still had her face pressed against the desk, only her lips moving.
“I just made up the time based on when he returned to the dorm.
And you actually believed it?”
Lü Jin suddenly scrolled through her call history.
“Wait.
At 10:20 PM on September 22nd, Zhou Huaixia, you randomly called me.
And at 11 PM, when the second library closed, what were you doing with security at the entrance?”
The more she thought about it, the more contradictions she found.
“Hm.”
Zhou Huaixia’s eyelids fluttered.
“That was when I saw his silhouette throwing the cat away.
I wanted to check inside the manhole, but the security guard caught me.”
Lü Jin still felt something was off.
“I think you’re lying to me.”
Zhou Huaixia opened her eyes, lazily sat up, and pointed two fingers at her own eyes before directing them at Lü Jin.
“I have a special ability.
I can see all sins.”
Lü Jin remained expressionless.
“…Ha. Ha.”
Zhou Huaixia raised an eyebrow and said nothing more.
She leaned back in her chair and opened Weibo to pass the time.
Her gaze lingered on a trending topic.
She suddenly paused.
After clicking on it and reading for a moment, she slowly stood up.
“Liu Wen is definitely getting expelled.”