Chapter 7 Cactus Poison

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Chapter 7 Cactus Poison Zheng Lili looked careful as she tried to remember, then she said, “there wasn’t anything too odd. She said she was nauseous during the evening study session. I remember her drinking a lot of cola. I said maybe she had a cold, why else would she feel weird. Her face looked pale, said she didn’t sleep well lately. She went back to her room around eight. I didn’t know it’d be the last time I saw her.” She looked sad at the recollection. Nauseous? I saw this in the notes about her too, but couldn’t think of its connection to Lin Xiao at the moment. “Do you know the relations.h.i.+p between Lin Xiao and the other three girls?”  “Pretty good. Lin Xiao was easy to get along with, a very sunny person. She was from a rich family but not stuck-up. She was also generous to the other three girls. She always shared her snacks. I’ve never heard of anything unpleasant.” Lili answered.  “What about Li Ling? She was from a different background than Lin Xiao. Do you know her well?” I asked her casually. Lili hesitated on hearing Li Ling’s name, then continued without much certainty. “I don’t know her that well. We were from the same cla.s.s but I’ve not seen her much. I heard she either worked or studied. Lin Xiao has said Ling’s family was poor and felt sorry for her, and always treated her well. Li Ling would help them by doing laundry or getting hot water for the room. She did all the housekeeping. They seemed to get along well.” After the conversation continued some more without more useful information, I walked out of the cla.s.sroom with Lili. Teng and Haoran were waiting for me, so Lili left as I walked over to them.  “How did it go? Got anything?” Teng asked anxiously. Seeing his reaction, I could tell they didn’t get anything substantial. “Not much different from our notes. Lin Xiao’s nausea before her death could be a clue, but there’s nothing definite so far.” Teng sighed, “same here. Sun Tao didn’t know anything.  He said Lin Xiao never told him she liked him, or knew about her liking him.” Things seemed to be stuck at this point. Teng went back to the precinct for online research on Li Ling’s contacts and any communications. Haoran and I paced by the girls’ dorm. He suddenly turned around to look at the cla.s.sroom building across from the dorm. I also stopped pacing, startled by a thought. Medical school, all the medical students... Could Lin Xiao’s nausea be caused by some kind of medical substance? Energized, I felt more motivated. Haoran also spoke, “let’s talk to Li Ling’s advisor again.”  Li Ling’s advisor was a woman in her 40s. She wore gla.s.ses and looked well-educated. Her a.s.sessment of Li Ling was quite high, she said Ling was hard-working and already published a few papers. She readily agreed to my request of seeing the papers and told us to wait just a moment. Half-hour later, I stared at an academic paper. I didn’t understand everything, but my eyes were glued to a few lines. Mescaline, found in high amounts in lophophora plants, is considered a hallucinogen. First isolated in 1896, its molecular components are C11H17NO3, it is an alkaloid related to adrenaline. Often extracted from peyote cactus, it is then crystallized, but it could also be synthesized. Mescaline could cause visual hallucinations but not auditory hallucinations. Side effects include nausea and vomiting. Mescaline? Nausea? Visual hallucinations? These words entered my mind and resolved a lot of my doubts, maybe I already know what happened. At the same time, Haoran also looked over the paper. He breathed a sigh of relief after a while. ”Your instincts are correct.” He said this since so far, my instincts and guesses have been accurate and rarely off. Although I don’t think they were instincts but more from observing psychology. The princ.i.p.al walked us out of the school. His face looked rather grim and tired. All of these deaths have placed a lot of pressure on him. He said thanks for our hard work and hoped for answers soon. After we were back in the office. I organized all of the information: from the pen oracle game to Lin Xiao’s death. Seven days later, Zhao Qi died, and this morning, Zhou Nan died too. Li Ling is the only one left in the four-girls dorm room. Li Ling made all of this happen. I wasn’t certain before, after reading her paper, however, I know. I just needed to find out the details.   “Don’t be staring in s.p.a.ce, tell me your thoughts.” Haoran came over without my noticing.  “Can you not spook me like that? Always so quiet.” I quirked my lips, hopefully my mouth won’t get stuck like that. It was good I was thinking of the case and nothing else. Haoran shrugged. “I’m not afraid of anything. I haven’t done anything to be guilty of, have you?” I almost bit my tongue at his words, I knew I couldn’t out-argue him so I rolled my eyes. “I think Li Ling’s mentality is not quite normal due to her family. After she came to college, she has realized the world was different from what she knew. The other girls around her lived so much better, whether it was living standards or att.i.tude.”  “Her mentality has made her think of others’ sympathy and kindness in a twisted way, like charity or they looked down on her. When her frustrations reached a certain level, they exploded. Maybe that was when she learned a girl from the dorm jumped to her death five years ago, and decided to use the pen oracle game as an excuse. She also gave the other girls the mescaline, made them have hallucinations and jump.” Hearing my statement, Haoran nodded. “If I’m not wrong, they should find mescaline in Zhou Nan’s stomach.” I was about to agree when Teng marched inside. “I found something.” Teng has been working on Li Ling’s background since the early morning. He has looked into her childhood and social media. According to my theory, her life when young was probably worth pity. But again, I had no one when I was sixteen-years-old, and to me, life was wonderful as long as one’s parents were around, even without money.  “Research showed Li Ling had an impoverished childhood. With so many kids in her family, she was always working, like farming, getting firewood, she did it all.” Her parents favored boys over girls, they didn't care for their daughters at all. Her father would yell at her or even hit her after drinking, and saved all his love and attention on their only son, Li Ling's younger brother.