58: Fifty-eight.

Flower of Evil 58: Fifty-eight.

Flower of Evil [Belfast today has seen a drizzle throughout, with the weather professor predicting the rainfall will persist until the rainy season arrives.]

Whirr—

Lu Li put down today’s newspaper.

The gloomy sky showed not a hint of sunshine, and the continuously emerging rain streaks on the window suggested that the rain was still falling.

The living room, somewhat dim, was tranquil in its quiet flow.

Perhaps because it had been raining for three straight days, the air carried a hint of dampness.

Anna was cleaning, trying to reduce the humidity.

Clumsy in her movements, but her pretty face was filled with earnest.

This warmth continued for a while, only to be interrupted by a sudden knock at the door.

Knock, knock, knock—

Anna, who was about to open a window in the bedroom for ventilation, instantly perked up her ears.

…

Empty in the bed, Mishelia descended and wafted into the living room.

She seemed not to see the noisy door, numbly turned her head and emotionlessly said to the empty dining table, “Mom and Dad, I’m off to the interview.”

She paused for a few seconds as if listening to something, then a smile appeared on her expressionless cheeks, and she nodded, replying, “Yes, I’ll be back before noon.”

She floated through the noisy, crowded entrance, over the gloomy corridor, and onto the street.

Under the overcast sky and the light drizzle, Mishelia drifted along a route she had walked countless times in life, floating to the side of the bustling street.

A carriage stopped at the roadside, and the coachman leaned out to ask, “Where to?”

“Please take me to Tulip Street”

“To Sailor Street,” the woman in front of the carriage answered.

“Come on up.” The driver lifted the curtain and reached out to help the woman onto the carriage.

Mishelia also sat down in the carriage.

“It’s really chilly out there…” Felt a draft of cold air entering the carriage, the driver shivered.

“It’s still better than the previous days, I felt like my asthma was about to act up,” the woman complained, wrapping her woollen overcoat tighter around her.

Twenty minutes later, the taxi stopped on Sailor Street.

As the woman and the driver haggled over the fare, the young girl floated out of the carriage and aimlessly drifted along the street.

Unconsciously avoiding pedestrians as if she were still alive, but no one could see her.

The residents who brushed past her only felt a chill permeate their skin, causing them to shiver.

When Mishelia drifted to a certain spot, as if attracted by some kind of scent, she floated into the doorway of a Long House.

…

Lu Li’s expression was indifferent.

The girl from the day before sat opposite him, her demeanor just as numb.

Anna was not as calm with the sight of one living and one dead, her pretty face marked with distaste and a tinge of pity.

“Shall we continue the story?” Lu Li asked.

“Yes.”

“Please.”

With two hours left before 12 o’clock, there was enough time for her to tell a very long, very long, very long story.

…

The girl, or Mishelia, continued yesterday’s story: the origin of the cataclysm.

A female classmate told Mishelia she saw her father entering and leaving noble residences.

Shen Jingjing didn’t answer because her father was only there to deliver water.

So, it was taken as tacit consent.

The next day, two students got into a conflict over personal matters at the academy and started fighting.

The justice-minded Mishelia stepped forward to intervene.

As everyone knows, the more one tries to break up a fight, the more the fighters try to show off their ferocity and bravery.

Consequently, Mishelia, caught off-guard, was knocked to the ground and broke her knee.

The two students temporarily stopped fighting, and at that moment, a voice shouted from among the onlookers,

“Her dad is a municipal official, do you honestly believe he won’t put pressure on the academy to punish you?”

The students whispered among themselves, and the teacher arrived in time to disperse the gathering students, and everything was dropped.

For the time being.

But a few days later, a rumor spread from the next classroom.

The rumor said that a girl at the academy was accidentally bumped and broke her knee.

The student that bumped into her had to compensate her with a thousand Shilling, or else she’d have her father, who works in the municipal office, pressure the academy.

The student who was said to have bumped into her was from a poor family and got beaten up several times because of this.

Although Pris Aristocrat Academy is a noble school, seventy to eighty percent of its students are commoners, which led to a foreseeable situation—the rumors spread uncontrollably throughout the whole school.

And soon, “the involved party Mishelia” was dug up.

Sharp and malicious comments followed one after another.

Remarks such as “The nobility from an official’s family is so noble, even their bruises are worth a fortune,” “I know this girl; she just enrolled this year,” “I heard she’s bad at studying, and a professor at the academy covertly changed her grades because of her official father,” “Who knows whether the knee was really broken in some nobleman’s bedroom,” and other foul language ensued.

At the time, Mishelia was completely unaware of this.

Of course, she knew about the rumors that had already spread throughout the school and was even indignant about them.

She had no idea that she was the person involved.

The rumors gradually fermented.

They took root, sprouted, grew, and bore fruit.

The fruit fell to the ground and continued to root, sprout…

Perhaps because academy life failed to fill the tedious lives of these young boys and girls, some new rumors appeared—someone claimed to be Mishelia’s former classmate, saying that she had an abortion at the age of fourteen due to pregnancy.

After the incident, her father, ashamed, moved to Belfast and brought Mishelia with him.

To make it seem more authentic, the rumor also detailed the time and place of her abortion.

Of course, the underage students couldn’t discern the truth of the matter, such as why the author of the rumor remembered the timing so clearly.

Rather than thinking independently, these people preferred to follow the majority.

“The black sheep effect,” Lu Li spoke up at this time.

When a person is in a group, their individual consciousness is replaced by the group consciousness.

The girl’s faint breath was changing.

Within the Detective Agency, a new and icy breath was taking shape.

“The flower of evil blooms in the darkest corners,”

she said.

The oblivious Mishelia gradually noticed changes in her classmates’ behavior towards her.

New friends kept their distance, students at the academy always looked her way and then whispered to each other, and occasionally boys would cast uncomfortable glances at her.

Later, it was a classmate from Alpha District who told her the truth.

The naive Mishelia at the time thought she could solve the problems on her own.

She tried to explain to her friends around her and defended herself by saying she had no boyfriend and had never had an abortion.

But nobody cared about what she said.

The rumors kept spreading, reaching beyond just the academy.

Lots of outsiders joined the discussion, and as they made the situation chaotic, they brought even more trouble and rumors.

Mishelia’s “everything” got exposed by the increasingly intense rumors.

Her childhood photos were printed and circulated; she was dark and chubby back then, so rumors of Mishelia having facial surgery emerged.

Her name was inserted into dirty novels, and her father was “discovered” to be an official at the Municipal Education Department.

Furthermore, someone claiming to be Mishelia’s ex-boyfriend stated that he accompanied her during the abortion, but the child wasn’t his—because his hair was brown, and the baby’s was red.

At that time, Mishelia was in unspeakable pain and felt utterly helpless, but that wasn’t the peak of her suffering and helplessness.

Because that came even later.