Thriller Paradise

"So… you two knew each other in second year of high school…" Ruoyu held her chin in one hand and looked at Brother Jue on the other end of the table. At that moment, they were already seated inside the café. And their first topic was naturally what happened earlier.

"That depends on how you understand the concept of 'knew'…" Feng Bujue used the spoon to swirl the coffee in the cup and replied.

"Why don't you enlighten me then?" Ruoyu said.

"Hmm… I already knew before I entered high school." Feng Bujue explained.

"Oh? Is she famous? The beauty of the school?" Ruoyu enquired.

"No, well, I guess she can be considered the prettiest in her class… but that is not the point…" Brother Jue replied, "The point is I already knew everyone in the school before I stepped through the gates of the school."

"Hah?" Ruoyu was startled when she heard that but the next second, she understood what Brother Jue meant, "You… have already conducted your investigation?"

"Yes." Feng Bujue admitted calmly. "At the summer vacation of junior high, when my peers were busy with tuition, internet café, swimming pool and movies… I was conducting secret and serious investigation job." He paused for two seconds, took a sip of his coffee and continued, "First, I managed to get my hands on the name list of all the third year students in Qing Yue High though my connection…"

"Connection?" Ruoyu was confused.

"Yes, connection." Feng Bujue nodded. "I have my lackey in the education department."

"You… have… your lackey in the education department." Ruoyu looked at Brother Jue with the ghost of a smile and repeated his words. Then she added. "When you were fifteen…"

"yes…" Feng Bujue answered. "I was merely masquerading as a girl of 12 and pretended to be in a relationship with a married uncle for several moments. Then I managed to get some discriminatory pictures that he voluntarily sent to me and a large amount of salacious chat record… and since then on he was hanging on my every word."

"You…" Ruoyu did not really know how to comment.

"Technically, this was nothing to difficult." Feng Bujue added, "Many official servant's info can be found on the organization's website and then you can easily find their social account through these info and then add them as friends to proceed from then on." He took another sip of his coffee. "Hmph… in any case, if he's a serious person, he won't be hooked… all I can say is that he deserved it."

"I am not going to critique your motive for the moment… but what you were doing is considered blackmail…" Ruoyu said, "haven't you considered the consequence?"

"Hmph… Of course, I have." Feng Bujue scoffed and replied, "Because I know there will be no consequence… At the time, I was only 15, I only had responsibility to limited criminal code. Based on the law, for those over 14 but below 16, one will be responsible for crimes like manslaughter, attempt to murder, rape, burglar, selling drug, arson, explosion, and tossing dangerous substance. Other than these 8 crimes, the person will not be charged by any of the rest. At the same time, the law stated clearly, when those who are above 14 and less than 18 commit a crime, they should be given a softer sentence. Please note, in this clause, there is no crime of blackmail. Plus, the definition of blackmail is—using illegal method, to threaten the victim to demand the possession of their personal, monetary effect or asset. But in my case, I did not request any material or monetary substance from the target, in fact, when the person actively volunteered money to buy back those pictures and chat history, I firmly rejected him."

Feng Bujue finished all that in a long breath, he took a breather and then said, "based on that, even if you retreat for a hundred steps, even if he reported to the police, I won't be charged with anything. In contrast… he would be charged for underage solicitation. Even if it was not enough to amount to a real case, his family and career would be ruined; only this is exposed, he would 100 percent be fired and he would never be able to lift his head up again."

When Ruoyu heard all these, she too drunk her coffee to calm down. "Do your family know… you are already that evil when you were so young…"

"They probably don't…" Feng Bujue shrugged. "In any case, I am telling you all these is for you to have a concept of my working style from back then so that if you hear the term like 'connection' in the future…"

"I will not press for details anymore…" Ruoyu finished the sentence for him.

"Indeed." Feng Bujue nodded. He paused for 2 seconds and then circled the topic back. "Okay… other than the student's name list, their past exam result, family condition and so on, I also took a look at them." He lifted his eyes and said contemplatively. "A summer break was enough to memorize all these details. With regards to the teachers' and headmaster's information I have already investigated all of them clearly before I decided to register for this high school… everything was in my control."

"Why were you doing all these?" Ruoyu asked, "To become the man on top of the entire Qing Yue?"

"No, I just wanted my school life to be more easy and safe." Feng Bujue tapped at his temple lightly. "Messages or rather information is the most precious resource in this world. Holding information means you have the agency." He licked his lips. "Humans are a creature of disguise, especially in an unfamiliar environment and facing other species who are strangers… at a time like this, just objective deduction is not enough, one has to have load of information to support it, only then you can expose these people with the fake masks." He chuckled. "Because I understood that, I was able to tell on the first day of school… which of my schoolmates were gangsters, goodie two shoes, two faced bitches and people with murderous tendency…"

"Then did anyone find out you are a high intelligence sociopathic madman…" Ruoyu narrowed her eyes.

"Of course." Feng Bujue admitted, "But that was one year later, it was the time when Feng Bujue Elimination Committee and the Avengers were formed."

"For some reason, the names of these two organizations did not surprise me…" Ruoyu's tone was slowly being corrupted by Brother Jue's sarcasm.

"That's enough sidebar, back to what's her face…" Brother Jue continued, "Like I said, I already knew her when I entered the school, and she… indeed knew me when I was in second year of school. At the time, my name had reached its height among the underground world of the school… so as the pillar of the student body committee, she found out about me."

"Ha ha…" Ruoyu laughed drily twice, she was too lazy to comment about the many problems in that sentence. She only asked lightly. "And then… it was you who chased after her? Or?"

"Indeed, I was the one who made the move." Feng Bujue cut off Ruoyu, "But I did not like her at all, I just needed a girlfriend." From various meaning, if you just studied the statement further… you would come to a very horrible conclusion.

"You bastard…" Ruoyu's expression chilled immediately.

"Please don't misunderstand." Feng Bujue just realized how easily his words could be misunderstood. "That was not what I meant."

"Then what do you mean?" Ruoyu pressed.

"Erm… It is like this…" Feng Bujue explained, "You know that I have been in the same class with Xiao Tan since primary school, right?"

"Yes, I do know that." Ruoyu answered.

"And I do not need to go into detail about Xiao Tan's family background right?"

"Nope."

"It was still fine before junior high, after all, everyone was still young." Feng Bujue continued, "But after junior 2 and 3, there came trouble… from inside the class, in the school, even outside the school… there were girls with insidious motive who came to pursue Xiao Tan. Please note, I do have proof when I say they have ulterior motive… That was concluded after I have investigated in detail their family background and lifestyle habit…"

"That's enough… get to the point." Ruoyu really did not want to hear these details anymore.

"Okay…" Feng Bujue nodded. "And Xiao Tan, well, you know the man… he is not dumb but he is overly kind, it is not that he cannot discern these cheaters but most of the time, he was more willing to believe in the kindness of others. Of course, some would be really touched by his Jesus complex and could not bring themselves to harm him and some even really fell for him but those were in the minority… most of the time, I had to show my hands to deal with those horrible people."

"What does that have to do with your relationship with that girl again?" Ruoyu asked.

"Don't press, it'll get there soon enough." Brother Jue continued, "And then… we got to high school, where Xiao Tan was like a slab of meat among a pack of lioness… he was handsome, came from a very rich family and incredibly naïve… these days, as you know, many young girls were not as conservative as they once were… there are still so many news about fallen girls. These people all launched their attack on Xiao Tan, if I have recorded everything, I probably could have written a high school, romance, thriller, sci fi story already."

"So, you were jealous of his popularity and tried to even things up by attacking the class beauty?" Ruoyu pointed out.

"Why do you like to cut in so much?" Feng Bujue grumbled, "Let me just continue my tale…"

"Fine…" Ruoyu drunk her coffee with annoyance.

"Thankfully, Xiao Tan has me looking over him." Feng Bujue continued. "During the first year of high school, other than levelling the gang fight between the first year students, expanding my sources into the student body committee, changing the empty next to the headmaster's office into the club house for the 'detective club', pushing the lackey in the education department that he threatened suicide… I did not forget to keep a close watch on my childhood friend."

"if you were that busy, you should just forget all about him…" Ruoyu finally could not help but chide.

"With my protection from the dark, he had at least survived 3 STD, 6 scams and 15 youth pregnancies." Brother Jue continued.

Ruoyu was covered in cold sweat. "You sure have it hard…"

"It was fine. I did not have much friend, it was what I should have done." Feng Bujue finished his coffee and said, "However, because of that, I created many enemies… during the second year, the bunch of bitches joined together to come up with a horrible counter attack and spread the rumor among the school that I was a homosexual."

"Pfft…" Ruoyu spat out the coffee. She quickly grabbed the napkin to spot herself from ruining her image further. Actually by this point the misunderstanding was already solved and Ruoyu looked much more relaxed.

"Hmph… they were too innocent." Feng Bujue raised his brows. "With regards to such low-effort trick, I have already come up with the solution. The day the rumor appeared, I pulled out my 'potential girlfriend name list'…"

"Hey!" Ruoyu very rarely widened her eyes and yelped lightly. "What the hell is that!"

"That was merely a name list that came up with when I was doing my investigation out of boredom." Feng Bujue answered calmly. "I even have 'potential friend namelist', 'potential lackey name list', 'name list of students I can kill when necessary', 'Partner that I can consider should I realize I am really gay' and so on…" He paused. "Oh, I even have one called, 'the potential names for the children that I would have should I accidentally got my girlfriend pregnant', it recorded the various names that would pair with their mother according to their gender…"

The half of coffee in Ruoyu's cup ended on Brother Jue's face.

"Even though I know we were just acting like you normally would…" When Ruoyu put down the cup, she said, "But objectively speaking, I think you deserve that one."

For now, Brother Jue was not angry. He calmly wiped off his face and then used the napkin on the table to pat at his clothes. "Long story short… I filtered through the list and found one suitable…" he continued like this was nothing, "The second day, I went to her directly, asked whether she would be my girlfriend and she said yes."

"Hah?" Ruoyu turned around to give Brother Jue a side eye. "The girl was quite a beauty even today, why would she have said yes?"

"Well, I am not a bad catch either, am i?" Feng Bujue wiped his face and said, "But after they knew me, in a 100, 90 plus would have escaped and the few that remained perhaps would remain as my friend."

"Then… how did you guys separate?" Ruoyu asked, "Was it the study? Or it ended naturally after graduation…"

"There was no separation because we weren't together in the first place." Feng Bujue answered. "In the first few weeks, I accompanied her to the movies… the allowance for half the month was lost instantly in the dim movie theatre, it brought such a slump on me… then after the rumor faded away, I stopped talking to me." He said as he tore open another pack of napkin. "if you are talking about the official break up… it should happen half a year later. She was fed up with my attitude and wanted to me state my stance, so I told her, 'a man will only say 'I love you' once in his life and I will say that just before you die'… and then…"

"I suppose there was no more and then." Ruoyu added.

"Yup, there was no more and then." Brother Jue opened both of his arms and laughed.

"Sigh…" Ruoyu gave a soft sigh. "That is such a sad story…"