Chapter Nine: The Mysterious Black Cat

Outside the ICU ward of the First People's Hospital of M City, Zixuan Wang had been standing for an hour. Eventually, she slipped inside. While no one was paying attention, she carefully placed a chip on Xiaowan Lin’s head, concealing it beneath her hair.

Leaning close to Xiaowan’s ear, she whispered, “If you have grievances, seek redress; if you have enmity, seek vengeance. When everything is over, I’ll come for you.”

Without looking back, she turned and left. After her departure, the mysterious figure who had been tailing her appeared once more, flashed a sinister grin, and vanished. No one noticed any of this.

At Chaoyang High School in M City, a graceful beauty was elegantly playing the piano and dancing. Suddenly, a gust of wind knocked a golf ball off the table, sending it rolling to the floor. Distracted, the beauty stepped squarely on it and tumbled forward, her eye striking the protruding edge of a bookshelf with fatal force. She died instantly. At that moment, her phone lit up, displaying the image of a black cat—one of its eyes missing.

Zixuan Wang watched the scene quietly from a distance, murmuring to herself, “I’m merely a ferryman, unable to decide life or death. But I can watch in silence, can’t I?”

A strange smile curled on her lips as she finished her words.

Xiaomei, the newly hired teacher at Chaoyang High, was about to begin her first day of work. As she got into her car, she noticed a black cat crouched on the hood, a tag dangling from its neck. Assuming it belonged to a neighbor, she leaned in to read the tag, but before she could, a flowerpot crashed down beside her car. When she looked up again, the black cat had vanished. Though unsettled, Xiaomei paid it little mind.

On her way to work, Xiaomei stumbled upon a violent scuffle. The ringleader, ruthless and cold-blooded, nearly went too far. Driven by a sense of responsibility, Xiaomei reported the incident to the school board. To her surprise, the dean of students took it upon himself to let the culprits go, all because the ringleader’s girlfriend, Sweetie, held special status.

This not only shocked Xiaomei but also infuriated the soon-to-retire principal, who had long resented the dean’s arrogance and overbearing manner. Yet, because the dean enjoyed the protection of powerful officials, the principal had always turned a blind eye. But this time, the dean had embarrassed him in front of the new teacher, and the principal could no longer tolerate it. After work, as he drove home, he called other board members, intent on orchestrating the dean’s dismissal.

At that moment, his car was sideswiped by a construction vehicle. The principal got out to confront the driver, but unexpectedly, a steel plate being hoisted by the truck broke loose, crashing down and crushing him instantly.

Xiaomei, passing by, witnessed the entire tragedy. She was so shocked that she didn’t recover her wits until she was at the police station giving her statement. The police ruled it an accident but noticed something odd: at the time of the incident, a black cat sticker had appeared on the principal’s phone screen.

Similarly, the death of the beauty in the music room the previous week had also featured this same black cat sticker.

“Xiaomei,” the officer asked, “do you know if there’s any connection between these two incidents?”

Completely bewildered, Xiaomei shook her head. “It’s my first day here. I had no idea anything like this had happened at the school.”

On her way home after giving her statement, she couldn’t stop thinking about the events that had transpired.