Chapter 929: Hidden Truths

Xu Wenbang stepped forward: "Hello Captain Lu, I’m Xu Wenbang, the director of the instruction at Third Middle School."

Lu Chuan nodded and stood up to shake hands: "Lu Chuan, captain of the Criminal Investigation Team in High-tech Zone."

After everyone sat down, Wang Jinde said: "Old Xu, Captain Lu and his team are here this time primarily to learn about what happened last year, or roughly six months ago, with a student named Qin Ruirui, the one you mentioned who had an enormous amount of academic pressure and ended up jumping off a building."

"Who was responsible for investigating this situation in the city? Give Captain Lu the detailed rundown."

Wang Jinde continued: "Also, six months ago, there was a student named Zhang Tao who transferred from here to Ninth Middle School, what’s the situation with that? Compared to us, Ninth Middle School is quite far off the mark. What were the parents thinking?"

Upon hearing these two questions posed by Wang Jinde, Xu Wenbang didn’t know how to answer.

Because these two incidents are interconnected, and Xu Wenbang is quite aware of the underlying circumstances.

"Principal, Captain Lu, the situation at that time was roughly like this..."

Xu Wenbang knew he couldn’t avoid it, and he also knew that yesterday Sun Biao had already come to the school to gather information from teachers and students.

So repeating the same rhetoric now wouldn’t convince anyone, nor would it hold any real significance.

"At that time, there were some conflicts between Zhang Tao and Qin Ruirui..."

"Conflicts?"

Sun Biao suddenly interjected: "Director Xu, using the term ’conflicts’ to describe their relationship seems somewhat inappropriate, doesn’t it?"

"From what I know, ever since the beginning of high school, Zhang Tao had been pursuing Qin Ruirui."

Although Sun Biao didn’t meet with Director Xu or Principal Wang yesterday, he did gather information from some teachers and students.

"Due to Zhang Tao’s pursuit, Qin Ruirui’s academic performance plummeted, and later Zhang Tao publicly confessed his love to Qin Ruirui, but after being rejected, he became enraged and had a violent clash with her. Is there any truth to this?"

Xu Wenbang was startled.

Wang Jinde immediately recognized that something was wrong.

"Director Xu, didn’t you tell me Qin Ruirui jumped off a building because of academic pressure?"

"What does Zhang Tao have to do with this?"

"Is Qin Ruirui’s suicide linked to him?"

Although Wang Jinde doesn’t oversee all aspects of school operations, focusing on specialized education, he is not naive.

Qin Ruirui jumped off a building six months ago, and it turns out Lu Chuan just mentioned that Zhang Tao transferred from Third Middle School six months ago.

What kind of place is Third Middle School?

Even the worst students from Third Middle School can make it into a mediocre undergraduate program.

Yes, that’s the confidence of Third Middle School; their university entrance rate has been 100% and never broken, which is why many parents want to enroll their children there.

But then Zhang Tao left Third Middle School and transferred to Ninth Middle School, which sounds suspicious if there’s nothing fishy involved.

So both Qin Ruirui’s jumping and Zhang Tao’s transfer seem abnormal, and there might be more to these situations, especially now that the police have come to investigate.

Xu Wenbang looked troubled.

He initially thought he could gloss over the details, but didn’t expect Wang Jinde to be so shrewd, and now the police are digging into the full story...

"Principal Wang, Captain Lu, actually... there are indeed some hidden aspects to this."

"Six months ago..."

This time, Xu Wenbang told them everything he knew about the situation.

"They were in the second semester of their second year, and the learning atmosphere was already quite intense."

In Shandong, the management of first- and second-year high school students had become increasingly strict; in the first year, students are all day scholars and there are no evening classes, but it’s different by the second year.

"Starting from the second semester of sophomore year, all students needed to attend night classes."

However, the night classes for sophomores are different from those for seniors.

"To ensure every student’s preparation for university entrance exams in the third year, we dispatched all subject teachers from first, second, and third grades to oversee the senior night classes and provide comprehensive tutoring to all students."

This was a major initiative left by the former principal, and Wang Jinde has continued to implement it.

Third Middle School, in reality, doesn’t have that large of an educational scope, with fewer than 1,000 third-year students.

And combining all the teaching and administrative staff of Third Middle School, there are roughly 300 people.

Every night, these 300 people fully supervise the 1,000 students attending night class, averaging one teacher tutoring three students—this coverage ratio is actually quite alarming.

"Due to these circumstances, our sophomore night classes are self-study without teacher supervision."

"The result... six months ago, in May, something happened..."

Next, Xu Wenbang narrated some details of Qin Ruirui’s incident.

At the time, Qin Ruirui jumped off the building from within the bathroom. The reason was claimed to be Qin Ruirui’s own decision to jump, but in reality, Zhang Tao seemed to have made inappropriate physical advances towards her.

"This was Qin Ruirui’s own account, but there were no eyewitnesses, and Zhang Tao categorically denied it."

"What about the surveillance footage?"

Lu Chuan suddenly asked: "Just now, as I was walking through the hallway of your teaching building, it seemed like there was surveillance on each floor, wasn’t there?"

"There is surveillance footage, and when Qin Ruirui’s parents came to the school to protest, they also demanded to see it."

Xu Wenbang continued: "But at the time, the surveillance only showed Qin Ruirui first entering the bathroom, followed shortly by Zhang Tao, and the time was very brief during this interval..."

Lu Chuan interrupted Xu Wenbang, asking: "Qin Ruirui entered the bathroom first, meaning she first went into the women’s bathroom, and Zhang Tao followed her, essentially entering the women’s bathroom too. Do you think this situation is normal?"

"This..."

"Old Xu!"

Wang Jinde suddenly spoke up: "What was the situation back then? What’s going on here? Such an obvious matter—how did you handle it?"

How did they handle it?

Xu Wenbang sighed.

"Principal Wang..."

"Old Xu, at this point, given that the police are here, you need to tell the truth. Did you take any bribes? What does Zhang Tao’s family do?"

"Principal Wang! I swear to the heavens! I didn’t take any money!"

Xu Wenbang quickly explained.

With regard to Xu Wenbang, Wang Jinde knew him well and didn’t believe he would take bribes.

"Then you need to speak clearly, what exactly happened!"

"It’s..."

Xu Wenbang thought for a moment and explained: "The situation back then was like this..."

Apparently, there was indeed something hidden behind the scenes!

"Half a year ago, our school planned to acquire some teaching equipment, which required 3 million, but the finance bureau wouldn’t approve the budget."

Xu Wenbang began to explain: "I visited the finance bureau several times to find Zhang Tao’s father, who is Vice Director Zhang Haibin at the bureau. At that time, Zhang Tao entered Third Middle School because Vice Director Zhang arranged it..."