White Olive Tree

Chapter 29

The first policeman also said angrily: "You reporters will write nonsense all day long to discredit the government's credibility."
Song Ran retorted word for word: "Public credibility relies on restoring the truth, not concealing and deceiving."
The other party was too lazy to talk nonsense with her: "Will you delete it yourself or should I delete it?"
Song Ran refused to hand over the camera, so the other party snatched it away.
Song Ran struggled to push the other person away and wanted to run out, but was restrained by the person behind him, and fell to the ground. The camera rolled out and hit the feet of another person who came from outside.
The man bent down to pick it up, and Song Ran immediately climbed up and opened his hand, snatched the camera and held it in his arms.
"Reporter Song?"
A voice fell from above the head.  Song Ran looked up in panic and saw that it was Li Zan.
He was a little surprised and reached out to help her up: "What's going on?"
"Officer Li..." Song Ran whimpered when she saw him. She couldn't help but grab his sleeves and hurriedly hid behind him.
The two policemen came up and said, "Do you know each other? That's great. You can talk to her and ask her to delete the photos. We are also in trouble with the order from above, aren't we?"
Li Zan looked back at the people behind him,
Song Ran's eyes were red, she grabbed his sleeves and elbows, and choked out: "I don't want it!" 
……
Li Zan looked at his two colleagues and said: "She is a reporter, and it is her right to shoot and report. Will such forced deletion be self-defeating?"
Colleague Xiao Yi said: "I have been given an order from above to inform reporters after the situation is investigated. It has happened too many times before, and reporters' random writing has made it difficult to control public opinion. We also have our own reasons."
"She won't write randomly." Li Zan said with certainty, "I know this reporter very well, she is different from others."
The two colleagues got along very well with Li Zan on weekdays, so they couldn't help but betray him and said, "Then you tell her. Otherwise, if something happens, you and I will be responsible."
   "good."
……
Li Zan said "Excuse me" to the residents on the sixth floor and closed the door.
Song Ran stood in the corridor, lowering his head and saying nothing.
Li Zan asked: "You weren't hurt by the fall, were you?"
"No." She shook her head and raised her palms to him, "I just wiped my hands."
The edges of her palms were bruised and bruised.
Li Zan glanced at it, lowered his head and dug into his pocket, and took out a band-aid.
He said: "Stretch out your hand."
She stretched out her hand silently, and he tore off the bandage and put it on her.  The girl's hands were so thin and soft that they seemed to melt when she pinched them.
As he pressed against her, he glanced at her face calmly.
Her face was pale, her eyes were downcast, her eye circles were still a little red, her lips were slightly pursed, her small nose was also slightly red, and her nostrils were gently wagging to control her emotions.
He knew she had been wronged.
Li Zan said softly: "My two colleagues are good people, but they may be a little impatient. Don't take it to heart."
Song Ran remained silent, her expression clearly showing that she was thinking deeply.
He knew that she would not be able to recover for a while, so he asked: "How do you plan to write?"

Song Ran said: "I haven't thought about it."
Li Zanhe said: "Just report that this happened. As for the cause of death, don't jump to conclusions before the police issue a notice. Minors and students can easily cause an uproar."
Song Ran didn't know whether to listen or not, and said "hmm".
Li Zan observed her and found that her mood was still a little wrong. He wanted to comfort her a few more words, but someone downstairs called him: "A-Zan!"
When he had to go down, he felt uneasy and said, "I'm leaving first."
   "Um."
After walking down a few steps, he turned back and warned: "Be careful on the road."
   "good."
Li Zan's footsteps quickly disappeared in the corridor.
Song Ran picked up the camera and saw a small crack on the camera casing.
Just after leaving the corridor, Xiaoqiu called and said that something happened at the Experimental Middle School. The leader in the station asked her to investigate and record the truth.
Song Ran went online and saw that the news media had published the case of a student from an experimental middle school jumping off a building.
Absurdly, many media and so-called whistleblowers claimed that the student who jumped from the building was depressed for a long time due to too much pressure from his parents. Failure to do well in the monthly exam was the trigger and he finally committed suicide by jumping off the building.
"You commit suicide if you don't do well in the exam? It's useless for such a person to live. It would be better to die."
"I blame my parents for putting me under pressure. Your parents might as well have raised a pig in the past seventeen years."
"Everyone who commits suicide deserves to die. It's nothing to pity. It's a waste of attention."
Song Ran exited the social platform, put her phone in her pocket and walked back.
The cold wind blew and the phone vibrated. It was Wang Han.
He was so angry that he cried on the phone: "How could they say that about Yanan?"
Song Ran made an appointment with him at a coffee shop with few customers.
Just as Song Ran imagined, Wang Han was a quiet and thin boy with a small voice and lack of confidence. He was the most inconspicuous and ordinary type among the students.
Wang Han's eye circles were still red and swollen, so he stated what he wrote in the email.
Song Ran repeatedly confirmed the details and found that the time points and events he had about Zhu Yanan's several experiences in private were clear, and his answers were consistent and true.  Several times, when he recounted the details of his humiliation, he lowered his head and covered his face, almost unable to continue.
Song Ran asked: "Why were you present when the teacher insulted and corporally punished Zhu Yanan?"
Wang Han raised his head and trembled: "Because the teacher also beat me and scolded me, Zhu Yanan and I were together. He called us pig-brained and retarded, and asked us to kneel down and admit..."
It turned out that he and Zhu Yanan were both students in Class 3 of Senior High School, and special teacher Zhao Yuanli was their class teacher.  Because their grades were so poor, their average score in the class was lowered every time they took exams, so they suffered long-term abuse and corporal punishment from Teacher Zhao.
Wang Han wiped away his tears and opened his sleeves to show her: "Reporter Song, I really didn't lie."
There were large bruises on his elbows.
Song Ran was surprised: "Did the teacher hit you?"
"If you still want to see it, I also have it on my waist. The teacher kicked me and I hit the corner of the table." Tears rolled down his eyes. "I was in so much pain that I was about to die. The teacher was still scolding me.  I forgot about it and scolded my parents in a very unpleasant way... Zhu Yanan did the same."
"I have evidence here." Wang Han showed her his phone. It was the WeChat conversation between Zhu Yanan and Teacher Zhao.
Zhao: "Don't come to school. I'll get angry when I see you!"
Yanan: "Teacher, please..."
Zhao: "There are dozens of students in a class, why can't you learn well? Why go to school if you don't have a good brain? Go back to your parents and ask them how they gave birth to you!"
There is also a video of a few seconds, which is very confusing. It shows someone being pushed and knocking over the table. It must have been recorded by accidentally touching the mobile phone.  In the video, the boy screams: "Stop fighting!"
The voice in the video is not Wang Han.
"This is Zhu Yanan. He sent it to me before. He also has it on his mobile phone. The police will definitely be able to see it."
Song Ran remained silent, surprisingly calm, and handed him a piece of tissue.
Wang Han took the tissue and wiped his tears. His shoulders were hunched, humble and ashamed, and he sobbed softly:
"I want to die, but Yanan is dead and I'm scared. Reporter Song, he is a super outstanding teacher, and the director of the teaching department doesn't believe us at all. I went to report it, and the director scolded me for looking for trouble. Please help us.  . Yanan has been abused since he was a senior in high school last year until now. He was forced to death, not like what is said on the Internet."
Song Ran took a breath and said, "First hand over all the evidence in your hand to me."
……
Song Ran and Wang Han said goodbye at the door of the store.
After Wang Han left, Song Ran stood for a long time at night until her teeth chattered and her legs trembled.  Looking at the night view of Liangcheng, she suddenly realized that this was also an invisible battlefield.
She wrapped her scarf tightly and walked home, feeling all sorts of emotions in her heart that she couldn't suppress.
She walked to the convenience store and bought a bottle of water, unscrewed the cap at the door, took a big sip, took out the antidepressant from her bag, stuffed it into her mouth and swallowed it.
She hung up the phone to Xiaoqiu and asked her to come to her house tonight to help organize information and write a manuscript.
Xiaoqiu rushed over non-stop to help her input text, pictures and audio recordings.
At eleven o'clock that night, Song Ran finished writing the manuscript "Another Voice (Dialogue between Students of Baixi Experimental Middle School)" and published it on major public platforms.
After all, she knew how to restrain herself. She did not say that the teacher was directly related to the student's death, nor did she express any subjective opinions. She just compiled the conversation between herself and the student Wang into a transcript of the interview, seeking truth from facts and recording it without adding any embellishment.
Before publishing, a thought crossed my mind, whether I should tell Li Zan.
But she didn't,
After it was released, she didn’t read the follow-up, took sleeping pills and fell asleep.