I grabbed Lin Chujing's weekly journal and rushed to the evening self-study classroom to find her, my heart pounding.

I couldn't imagine how a teenager could spend this week after witnessing her mom kill her dad with her own hands.

Maybe she couldn't hold such a big secret in her heart, or maybe out of trust in me, she wrote this secret in her journal.

So, what does she hope this only reader of hers will do for her?

Does she want me to help her keep this secret?

How should I refuse her?

I called Lin Chujing out, still thinking in my mind which anecdote to use to explain the righteousness of denouncing one's relatives.

But Lin Chujing calmly said to me:

"Teacher, can you go to the police with me?"

She didn't need me to persuade her; she just needed me to accompany her.

"The first period last Thursday was PE. I asked the teacher for leave to go home and get a mistake correction book.

The study door was open. I remember my dad had the day off on Thursdays. He was probably in the study reading a book. He didn't like to be disturbed when reading, so I went straight to my room.

When leaving, I glanced at the study and saw mom was there too. Mom shouldn't have been off on Thursday. I felt it was strange, so I took an extra look.

Then I saw mom pick up a gun and aim it at dad's head.

Boom——

Lin Chujing lowered her head. This scene must have been a great shock to her. She might have been replaying it over and over in her mind this whole week.

Saying it out loud might make her feel a bit better.

"I'm sorry, I don't remember what happened afterward. I forgot how I got back to school, and then you guys came looking for me..."

I patted Lin Chujing. She was very brave to tell everything.

"Does your dad hit your mom?" Qin Chuan asked.

Lin Chujing lowered her head, biting her lip, not saying a word.

Qin Chuan took out a tube of ointment and placed it in front of Lin Chujing.

"Do you recognize this tube of ointment?"

Lin Chujing looked up at it briefly, then lowered her head again, her fingers fiddling with the zipper of her uniform.

"Your mom wears very loose clothes with long sleeves. I'm not familiar with women's fashion, so I didn't notice at first.

Later, a policewoman observed that when she went to wash her hands, she rolled up her sleeves, and her arms were covered with various new and old wounds.

We checked, and she had no medical records. She probably bought these medicines at a pharmacy and applied them herself, right?"

Qin Chuan asked Lin Chujing.

Lin Chujing's voice was very soft: "I usually live at school; I don't know..."

"When I went to your house, I remember your house was very warm. Your mom usually wouldn't wear long sleeves at home, right?

After all, it's not convenient to cover up with clothes after applying ointment. Didn't your mom often accidentally rub it onto something?"

Qin Chuan pursued the question.

"I already said... I live at school..."

"In fact, we did find a small amount of this ointment on the sofa, chairs, and even on the wall. It must have been rubbed off accidentally when your mom was doing chores.

Do you remember what your dad was wearing at the time of the incident?

Did your mom accidentally rub the ointment onto his clothes..."

Lin Chujing bowed her head and stopped speaking entirely, trembling more and more. I couldn't stand it anymore.

"What do you mean?" I got a little angry. "That's her mom! Her flesh and blood!

She's just a teenager. It was already hard enough for her to have the courage to report her mom. What else do you want her to identify?

What else do you want to know from her?

She's about to take the high school entrance exam! It's a lifelong event for her! You can't push a child just to solve a case!"

It took a lot of effort to get some information out of her, but I interrupted, which made Qin Chuan very angry too.

"What? As her homeroom teacher, didn't you know Xia Rong is her stepmother?"

Qin Chuan's words left me speechless. I really didn't know.

Seeing the deep bond between them in the police station's lobby, I naturally thought they were biological mother and daughter.

But now that I think about it, Xia Rong was indeed a bit young to be Lin Chujing's mom.

"But so what?"

Can't a stepmother and stepdaughter have feelings for each other?

"Yes, dad always hit mom!" Lin Chujing almost shouted.

We immediately shut up and looked at her.

"The food was cold, he would hit;

The water was hot, he would hit;

Why did you come home looking so sad, he would hit;

Why did you come home so happy, are you flirting with men outside? He would hit...

Even when she did nothing, just breathed, if her breathing was loud, he would hit.

But dad wouldn't hit her face, only her arms and legs. Old wounds would never heal before she got new ones.

Mom didn't dare go to the hospital or the pharmacy. This ointment was given to me by the PE teacher when I fell during PE class..."

Lin Chujing looked at Qin Chuan and said: "Although she's my stepmother, she's very good to me. If it weren't for her, I might have been the one getting beaten."

Lin Chujing didn't need to say anything more because I blocked all of Qin Chuan's questions.

Lin Chujing had done enough. She had said everything she knew.

That was her dearest mother. If she had to send her mother to jail with her own hands, she would live in guilt for the rest of her life...

However, what happened later proved that I was too naive.