Before they even reached the surveillance room, they heard Zhou Qing’s voice inside, sharply tearing through the space:
“What do you mean the backup footage is gone? It was fine before and only broke now? How convenient. Tuition is over a hundred thousand a year—how many cameras could that buy? So it was all for nothing, huh?!”
Su Muzhi pulled Chen Zhanye aside and asked quietly:
“Can you recover deleted surveillance backups?”
Chen Zhanye nodded and sat down in front of the surveillance computer, starting his operations immediately.
“I can try.”
The school’s vice principal, Li Dong, who had been standing nearby apologizing to Zhou Yu, quickly stepped forward to stop him, but Su Muzhi blocked him.
“Vice Principal Li, my friend is a programmer. He can try to fix it. Why are you stopping him?”
Cold sweat formed on Li Dong’s shiny forehead as he quickly explained:
“These are school confidential systems. Outsiders can’t just interfere.”
After a few lines of code, Chen Zhanye frowned.
“It’s not a malfunction. It was manually deleted. I can only try to recover part of it.”
The restored video was incomplete. The girl’s face was unclear, but it clearly showed Wang Shanming filming beside her, and Zhou Qing hiding in a corner watching.
Zhou Yu immediately pointed at the screen, her voice sharp with anger:
“Look! That’s our Xiao Qing! She didn’t abuse any animals at all—you people didn’t even investigate before accusing her!”
Vice Principal Li kept apologizing, bowing repeatedly:
“This was our school’s mismanagement. We wrongly accused Zhou Qing. We will have her homeroom teacher apologize in front of the whole school on Monday—no, tomorrow.”
But Su Muzhi and Zhou Yu both stood with arms crossed, clearly dissatisfied.
“Just an apology? Shouldn’t the real culprit be exposed and apologize publicly? This has already gone online and seriously damaged my sister and my friend’s reputation.”
Li Dong’s back went cold. If this escalated further, it could ruin more than just his position. His attitude became increasingly deferential.
“Please don’t rush. Finding that girl will take time. Why don’t we first ask Wang Shanming whether he uploaded the video online?”
Wang Shanming arrived quickly, still looking as careless as before. But after seeing the recovered footage, his expression stiffened.
He had clearly deleted it himself—so how was it recovered?
“Go on,” Su Muzhi said coldly. “Explain what happened.”
Under Li Dong’s frantic signaling from behind, Wang Shanming’s expression collapsed. After a tense pause, he forced himself to speak, his voice trembling:
“It was me. The animal abuse video of Zhou Qing was AI face-swapped by me. I put the weasel in her dorm. I also posted the rumors online.”
Zhou Yu laughed in disbelief, anger rising.
“You’re proud of that? What did Xiao Qing even do to you?”
Still a minor, Wang Shanming faltered under her shouting. After a glance from Vice Principal Li, he forced himself to continue:
“I just couldn’t stand her. She’s good at studying, has a good personality, and isolates others!”
Chen Zhanye observed quietly from the side and whispered:
“He’s weak. He’s still hiding something.”
Su Muzhi also noticed. The only unresolved piece was the unidentified girl whose face never appeared in the footage. In a school like this—where most students were wealthy or influential—it would make sense that administrators and students were protecting her identity.
Zhou Yu exhaled sharply, pacing to suppress her anger. Su Muzhi pulled her aside and shared her inference.
“That girl without a face… she’s not ordinary. Li Dong and Wang Shanming are both protecting her.”
Zhou Yu froze.
Su Muzhi patted her shoulder.
“Whether you dig further or not—that’s your call. I’ll support you either way.”
Zhou Yu clenched her fists. After two seconds of silence, she looked up again—steady and resolute.
“You said you did it all. Then who is the girl in the video?”
Wang Shanming avoided her gaze. Li Dong quickly tried to intervene:
“Wang Shanming, did you threaten her?!”
Like grabbing a lifeline, Wang Shanming immediately nodded.
“Yes! I threatened her! It was all me!”
But Su Muzhi pressed further:
“In the video, she looked excited. Not like someone being threatened. You should understand—your posts online have already exceeded 50,000 reposts. This is enough for a criminal case.”
“If you reveal the mastermind, we can provide a leniency statement.”
Wang Shanming wavered.
After a long silence, he finally said:
“It was all me. There’s no one else.”
The moment he finished speaking, police sirens echoed across the campus.
He collapsed to the ground, eyes vacant.
As Su Muzhi passed him, she asked quietly:
“Was it worth it?”
But he didn’t hear it. By the time he looked up, they were already gone. He didn’t even notice when the police took him away.
Inside the car, Zhou Qing had not expected things to resolve so quickly. Seeing her sister again, she finally broke down. The two sisters hugged and cried.
Su Muzhi quietly moved to the passenger seat with the weasel, giving them space.
It was school dismissal time—crowded streets, luxury cars lined up outside the gate. They waited for the traffic to ease.
The weasel in her arms suddenly stiffened. It began trembling, breathing rapidly.
“What’s wrong?” Su Muzhi asked softly. “Are you uncomfortable?”
The weasel said urgently:
【I saw it… I saw the person who hurt me…】
Su Muzhi followed its gaze.
She saw only the back of a girl wearing a diamond hairpin.
The girl seemed to sense her stare and turned around—but a black car passed between them, blocking the view completely.
When the car left, the girl was gone.
All that remained was exhaust drifting through the air.