Chapter 48: The Bunny Really Cares About You
“Child, come back quickly! Are you really going to let your dad and mom be heartbroken for the rest of their lives?”
When Lin Jiangye came up holding the rabbit, he heard someone say that. His steps paused slightly. The corners of his mouth dipped, and a trace of disdain showed on his face.
On the way up, he had already learned the situation from the other officers—A senior girl at this high school had “suddenly” snapped and run to the rooftop, trying to end her life.
After her homeroom teacher failed to talk her down, the police were called. By the time the police arrived, the girl’s parents had rushed over too.
But after the three parties took turns trying to persuade her, the girl was still on the verge of collapse.
When he reached the rooftop, Lin Jiangye saw a familiar face again—Hong Xingwang, the head of Gao City’s major crimes unit.
After the last case, Hong Xingwang and the others had apparently been chewed out badly—people said they were even punished with writing a two-thousand-word self-criticism. That was also why, the moment they saw Lin Jiangye, their bodies practically jolted.
When Hong Xingwang spotted the young man here, surprise flickered across his usually irritated face. Then he noticed the huge white rabbit in the young man’s arms, and the subordinate standing behind him. In just a few seconds, he understood something.
Everyone else who saw Lin Jiangye looked confused—Who was this? And why was he bringing a rabbit up here?
The homeroom teacher and the parents who had been trying to talk the girl down also froze. Then they watched as the young man stopped about five meters away from the girl, lifted the big white rabbit high, and said to her:
“Do you remember this rabbit?”
The girl sitting on the low wall looked over through tear-blurred eyes. The moment she saw the familiar rabbit, she completely broke down and cried.
“I thought you disappeared!”
She cried so hard it hurt to listen to. Behind them, her parents’ faces twisted with pain, and they moved as if to drag this intruding young man away.
But the moment they stepped forward, Hong Xingwang blocked them.
“Don’t go over. Let’s just watch.”
As someone who had personally witnessed Lin Jiangye’s “mysterious” methods, he knew Lin Jiangye wouldn’t appear here for no reason.
And that rabbit might be the key to saving this girl.
Lin Jiangye set the rabbit on the low wall too, gave its butt a little shove, and watched it hop over to the girl. Only then did he speak lazily:
“It broke out a few days ago. It’s normal you couldn’t find it. Guess where I found it?”
The girl’s sobbing gradually quieted. She carefully stroked the rabbit’s head. When it tried to stand, she jolted and quickly steadied it with both hands.
If she died, fine. But she couldn’t drag this rabbit down with her.
Lin Jiangye caught that instinctive reaction, and his gaze softened.
Looks like this “big one and little one” were both running toward each other.
The girl sniffed and shook her head blankly. The rabbit kept trying to nuzzle into her arms, so she adjusted her posture—straddling the low wall instead.
The instant she changed positions, Hong Xingwang and the rescue workers’ eyes lit up.
That posture was still dangerous, but at least half her body was inside. If anything happened… they might be able to rush in and grab one of her legs.
They’d spent half an hour persuading her and gotten nowhere. This young man had done more in a few minutes.
“I found it on Qinghu Road in Wen’an District, Yue City. The distance from here… let me check.” Lin Jiangye pulled out his phone, searched, and quickly got the result. “A straight line is 135 kilometers. Its little stubby legs were practically sparking from running.”
The rabbit instantly sprang up, furious at being insulted, and screamed toward him as if arguing that its legs were not short at all.
And honestly, it wasn’t wrong.
[Rabbit’s legs aren’t short! Human, you’re the short one!]
The girl froze. Then she hugged her rabbit tightly, and her crying eased a little. Her hand kept stroking the rabbit’s soft fur—just like before, when she used it to smooth down the pain inside her.
Hong Xingwang had guessed right. With the rabbit here, the girl’s emotions finally calmed.
After a long moment, she seemed to recover a sliver of breath. She asked the rabbit softly, “Why did you run so far?”
The rabbit’s disappearance had been the last straw for her. She’d thought even the rabbit had abandoned her, and the pressure that had been piling up finally crushed her. That was why she’d run to the rooftop without thinking.
But even with the rabbit back now, she had already lost the will to live.
Then Lin Jiangye said something that made everyone present freeze.
“Because it keeps seeing you bullied by other kids, and you keep crying to it. It got furious and decided to find me and ask me to come help you.”
The girl went completely still. Tears slid down her cheeks and dripped onto the rabbit’s head.
The big white rabbit looked up, raised its tiny paws to cup her face, and licked her cheek.
[Don’t cry, don’t cry! Rabbit’s here! Rabbit will help the little cub beat up everyone who bullies you!]
A smile flickered in Lin Jiangye’s eyes. He lifted his chin toward the girl and said:
“You’ve got a rabbit that loves you. It doesn’t understand why those people bully you. It told you to hit back, but you couldn’t understand it. So to save you, it broke out in the cold, kept asking for directions the whole way, and finally made it to Wen’an District.”
He recounted the places the rabbit had passed through one by one. The straight-line distance was over a hundred kilometers, but with the rabbit’s actual route, it had walked close to two hundred.
A rabbit searching for someone—It sounded like a fairy tale.
But when Lin Jiangye stated his identity, the girl’s eyes suddenly lit up.
“I remember you… you were the one who brought an adult Northeast tiger to subdue an adolescent one.”
Lin Jiangye grinned and nodded, puffing his chest out proudly.
“That was Taibai Mountain’s mountain god. Also my tiger mom.”
The girl had never heard anyone call a tiger “tiger mom.” She stared at him with curiosity and a probing fascination.
“The major crimes captain here knows me too. Otherwise he wouldn’t have let me come up here to find you.”
Maybe he was tired of standing. Lin Jiangye walked over, braced one hand on the low wall, and sat down.
He whistled once.
From below, a big and a small black bird shot out of a dark vehicle—two crows.
“You see? These are the little crow and the raven I raise. Pretty, right?”
He lifted his long arm, letting the two birds land. Opal and Bixi were raised beautifully, each wearing a different-colored scarf, with one or two sparkling gemstones embedded. And with today’s sunlight, those stones threw off bright, dazzling fire.
“…Pretty,” the girl whispered, completely mesmerized.
With a flick of his hand, the two crows flew to her side and even leaned in to rub their heads against her.
She hadn’t expected them to approach her on their own. Listening to their ga-ga calls, she looked at Lin Jiangye, confused.
“They… what are they saying?”
She believed in his ability. If so, he definitely knew what they were saying.
Lin Jiangye propped one foot on the low wall, rested his elbow on his knee, and held his chin.
“Opal is asking why you did something so dangerous. Bixi is asking if you’re scared. If you’re scared, it’ll carry you down.”
Then he thoughtfully pointed out which one was Bixi and which one was Opal.
Bixi spread its wings smugly, showing off that it absolutely had the power to protect her.
The girl realized—this raven’s proud little manner looked exactly like the young man’s earlier “chin up, chest out” pose.
Meanwhile, as the two of them sat on the low wall chatting, the girl’s parents grew frantic.
“What are they wasting time talking for? Hurry up and make her come down!” the girl’s father snapped, his tone full of irritation toward Lin Jiangye.
Hong Xingwang and the rescue workers glanced at him. Then they exchanged a look. From each other’s eyes, it was obvious they both wanted to roll their eyes.
This man still called himself a father? Couldn’t he see the girl’s emotions had stabilized?
Once she calmed down fully, she could return to safety on her own. That was the safest, best approach for her.
The homeroom teacher tried to soothe him, but her expression didn’t look very good either.
Just then, Hong Xingwang asked, “Teacher, do you have any idea about the bullying this kid’s been facing?”
The teacher reacted like a startled bird. She almost jumped.
“N-No! Of course not! Our school is famous for being a good school—how could something like that happen?”
But her answer only earned Hong Xingwang a suspicious, contemptuous look.
Before Lin Jiangye arrived, they’d asked the teacher why the girl wanted to jump. The answer they got was: pressure from the college entrance exam, psychological stress.
Now it seemed… there was more.
Feeling the care from the two crows, tears welled in the girl’s eyes again, dripping onto the crows and the big white rabbit. The three little ones weren’t scared of the height at all—they simply leaned in and rubbed against her.
[Don’t cry, don’t cry! Crow will protect you!]
[Rabbit will help you beat them up!]
The crows’ ga-ga mixed with the rabbit’s cries, and the girl felt dizzy from it all—yet she could clearly feel the concern shining from their eyes.
“I…” The girl hesitated, as if weighing whether to tell the truth.
She looked toward the rooftop door. Over there stood police, her parents, and her homeroom teacher.
Seeing the three faces—anxiety mixed with anger—she suddenly laughed. Then she began laughing wildly, laughing while tears poured down.
At that moment, Lin Jiangye noticed a drone approaching in the distance, its red light blinking. Some media outlet was filming with a drone.
He coldly glanced at it, lifted his hand, and waved, signaling it to stay farther away.
Maybe the controller behind the drone got scared by that look—because the drone obediently drifted aside.
Perhaps her “support” had returned, because the girl’s courage returned too. After laughing herself out, she went blank again, face dead and empty.
“Why did I do something so dangerous? I didn’t want to. But I really can’t live anymore.”
“They keep bullying me at school. I told the teacher, and she ignored me…”
Before she could finish, the homeroom teacher screamed angrily, “What nonsense are you talking about?!”
Without turning his head, Lin Jiangye waved toward the other side.
“Captain Hong, get her out of here.”
Hong Xingwang didn’t hesitate—he grabbed the teacher and hauled her away. Only after a long while did he return.
And outside the teaching building, the teacher immediately saw other school leaders and a ring of reporters waiting to film. Her vision went black.
But what truly made her faint was a reporter’s casual line:
“Our drones recorded everything, right?”
“Recorded, recorded! Every word is crystal clear.”
She was finished. Half her career was already dead. If the girl really jumped, then she’d be completely ruined.
Once the seal was broken, the rest came spilling out.
The girl clutched the rabbit and told everything—every single way she’d been bullied: forced to take freezing showers in winter, cornered and beaten as an outlet, shoved from behind on staircases, and more.
That dead, hollow gaze made everyone’s hearts ache.
How much had she endured?
“Getting bullied was bad enough. Being ignored by teachers was bad enough. But I don’t understand—I don’t understand! Why can’t my parents understand me too?!”
Her voice grew sharper, her emotions surging toward the edge again.
“I said I wanted to transfer schools, but they forced me to stay here. I said I was bullied every day, and they insisted I must have provoked it first! But I didn’t! I didn’t! I really didn’t!”
Lin Jiangye twitched his fingers.
The next second, the girl felt something warm settle over her head.
She looked up. The big raven had spread its wings over her head like a cloak and gently patted her, as if soothing her.
The raven’s body was warm, and there was a faint, pleasant scent above her head. The girl—who had been furious a moment ago—deflated like a punctured balloon.
“They never believed me. They let me struggle in hell, and they called it ‘for my own good’…”
She was too exhausted to even form an expression.
To her parents, though, those words were all excuses.
“She should think about it—this is the best school in the city. The kids here can’t be bad,” her parents said, still unable to accept it.
Hong Xingwang flipped open the class roster and said coldly, “Not necessarily. Some people can buy their way in—what do you call it, a ‘sponsorship fee’?”
He honestly couldn’t understand it. If they had money for a “sponsorship,” why not go to a private school? With grades like that, getting into a good university domestically was almost impossible anyway—better to go straight to a private school’s international program and study abroad.
Hong Xingwang’s words were a cold, hard slap across their faces.
“B-But… people can’t just hit someone for no reason, right?” They still refused to give up.
The girl closed her eyes, disappointment written plainly across her face.
Hong Xingwang really wanted to roll his eyes. He’d never seen parents so determined to find fault in their own child.
What was this—couldn’t they accept the fact their child was being bullied?
Lin Jiangye stared at them for a second, then swung himself down and walked toward them.
“Two choices. Either you handle withdrawal and transfer her to another school—” he said evenly, expressionless, talking about death as casually as eating or drinking—“or you let your daughter jump.”
The two of them fell silent.
It was such a simple multiple-choice question, yet to them it looked like a choice that would kill them.
“Is it hard?” Lin Jiangye tilted his head slightly. Everyone else looked equally baffled.
Yeah. Was that really hard?
The girl’s mother’s lips trembled. She lowered her head and mumbled, “But this is the best school. If she stays here, she can get into a good university.”
They were both uneducated. When their daughter got into this high school, it had given them a huge boost in pride.
As for what their daughter said about being bullied—now that things had blown up this big, the school surely wouldn’t dare do it again in the future.
Besides, there were only half a year left until the college entrance exam. If she just endured it a little, wouldn’t it all pass?
Why make such a fuss?
Listening to them, Hong Xingwang and the others felt their hearts go cold. These two… did they truly not care about their daughter’s state of mind at all?
And looking at the girl again—there wasn’t even a flicker of surprise on her face. Clearly, they had said this more than once. Even now, when their daughter’s life was hanging by a thread, they still stubbornly clung to the same idea.
Lin Jiangye watched them for a while. Seeing they truly wouldn’t change their minds, he said to the girl, “Your parents refuse to keep you alive. Then you might as well jump. After the rabbit dies, I’ll bury it with you. In your next life, don’t choose people like this as your parents.”
Hong Xingwang turned pale and rushed forward, slapping a hand over Lin Jiangye’s mouth.
He’d already experienced this man’s temperament before, but he hadn’t expected Lin Jiangye to be this wild!
Everyone around them was startled. The girl’s parents’ faces changed completely.
“We didn’t! We really are doing this for her own good!”
Unexpectedly, after Lin Jiangye said that, the girl actually smiled.
It was a bitter smile, but the suffocating deadness around her seemed to lighten a little.
“You’re the first person who’s ever talked to me like that.” Everyone else was begging her not to jump—yet Lin Jiangye said, with parents like that, maybe dying wasn’t such a bad option.
After pulling Hong Xingwang’s hand away, Lin Jiangye spoke without caring that her parents were right there.
“With parents like yours, you’ve suffered.”
The girl’s lips trembled. No one had ever said that to her either.
She knew her parents wanted her to get good grades, enter a good university, then find a good job, so her life wouldn’t be as exhausting as theirs.
So she studied desperately, pushing her scores upward every time.
With her current grades, she could get into almost any top-tier university in China. From this point on it would mostly be review—so even if she transferred schools, or even if she stayed home and drilled practice questions nonstop, she was confident her scores wouldn’t drop.
But even that tiny wish… her parents wouldn’t allow it.
She couldn’t take it anymore. She was so tired, so tired. Facing those people again—she’d rather just die.
Her parents kept explaining, but Lin Jiangye didn’t listen to a word. He only coldly asked, “Do you enjoy forcing your only child to death that much? This isn’t something you can control anymore. Don’t you understand?”
Faced with his indifferent questioning, both of them fell silent.
They knew. They just stubbornly wanted their daughter to bow her head.
The next second, something icy touched their necks.
“Ahhh! What are you doing?!” To everyone watching, a flash of silver swept past—Lin Jiangye seemed to be holding something and was about to stab for their throats.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I was wrong! Don’t kill me!” The two of them collapsed onto the ground, terrified.
Just as everyone thought Lin Jiangye was about to commit murder in public, he stopped—then, under everyone’s gaze, he opened his hand.
That “knife,” that silver gleam… was actually just a flat, silver spoon.
A spoon. Something with zero lethality.
When the crowd saw it, every face went blank.
And the two parents on the ground—besides being stunned—felt a surge of hatred. If they’d known it was a spoon, they wouldn’t have humiliated themselves like that.
Hong Xingwang was drenched in cold sweat. He felt like he’d narrowly defused a bomb—his vision almost went black.
So the man’s name really wasn’t wrong: wild, reckless, acting like he didn’t put anyone in his eyes. If he’d known it would be like this, he’d have called Shang Fuyan over first—if that man were here to keep watch… maybe Lin Jiangye would have restrained himself a little.
Lin Jiangye squatted with a grin, mockery written all over his face.
“When your life is threatened, you know how to scream for help. So how do you manage to ignore your child’s life? Is it because the knife didn’t go into your body?”
As he spoke, he yanked the girl’s father up by the collar.
“Look over there.” He pointed toward the rooftop. The drone was still dutifully filming.
“The face you want? It’s already gone today. From now on, whenever people mention you, they’ll only remember you as a pair of incompetent parents who claim it’s ‘for the child’s good’ but actually ignore her life, ignore her pain. Because you’re useless, you dump every expectation for the future onto your child—forcing her to struggle in a hellish environment.”
“Whether your daughter lives today or not, the moment you step outside, everyone will know—oh! Those are the incompetent spouses who forced their kid to death~”
His words were vicious—so vicious that the two pride-obsessed parents could barely breathe just imagining it.
A nearby officer wanted to step in, but Hong Xingwang stopped him.
“Let him talk. If he doesn’t hit hard enough, even if the girl comes down today, she’ll be back up there again before long.”
Hong Xingwang’s expression was complicated—guilt, sorrow, regret tangled together—as if he had once witnessed a tragedy just like this long ago.
When the couple saw the drone’s blinking red camera light, they finally cracked.
“W-We…” We just wanted what was best for her! It wasn’t for our face!
But when they lifted their heads and saw their daughter straddling the low wall—those eyes empty of life—their stubbornness loosened, just a little.
Lin Jiangye watched their expressions. When he judged the pressure was about enough, he finally let go.
Hong Xingwang hurriedly helped them up, afraid Lin Jiangye might grab them again.
Lin Jiangye walked straight to the girl and held out his hand.
“Come on. Let’s go down.”
That calm tone didn’t sound like someone persuading a girl on the brink of jumping—it sounded like an older brother calling a mischievous kid home after she’d climbed somewhere dangerous to play.
The girl sat frozen. Lin Jiangye didn’t rush her. Instead, he asked, “Have you ever thought about what you want to do in the future?”
The question came out of nowhere, leaving her eyes blank.
But after a moment, she rasped, “I… I once wanted to be a veterinarian…”
As she spoke, she lowered her eyes to the big white rabbit in her arms. It leaned quietly against her—docile and still—just like it had been through countless times listening to her cry.
Her parents behind her tried to speak again, but Hong Xingwang clamped a hand over their mouths.
“A vet, huh. Not bad. After your parents transfer you, when you finish the exam, want to come work part-time at my pet hospital? Consider it preparation. If your parents try to use tuition and living expenses to force you to switch majors, I can sponsor you—but after you graduate, you have to work for me four years before you’re allowed to jump ship.”
He didn’t even lower his voice. The parents trembled with rage.
This man… this young man… was absolutely vile!
But under Lin Jiangye’s “temptation,” the girl’s emotions gradually stabilized. She reached out and placed her hand in his, letting him help her back from the low wall.
The moment both feet landed safely, rescue workers rushed to support her.
She’d been perched there too long, plus she’d already exploded emotionally—she probably had no strength left. It was safer to get her checked at a hospital.
“Oh right—do an injury assessment,” Lin Jiangye added. “The rabbit said she’s covered in injuries. This is beyond ‘school bullying.’”
It should be classified as intentional assault.
Hong Xingwang’s face turned icy. He strode to the girl, forcibly tugged up her sleeve—and sure enough, it was covered in scars and bruises.
The school leaders who had just rushed onto the roof saw this and felt their hearts die.
With injuries like these, they couldn’t argue it was just accidental bumps and scrapes. The only “comfort” was that, for now, these wounds didn’t yet meet the threshold for criminal charges.
As the girl passed her parents, she suddenly stopped. She looked at the two faces that were both familiar and unfamiliar—then looked back at the young man holding the rabbit.
Maybe the rabbit lent her courage. For the first time in more than ten years of obedience, she said firmly:
“I’m withdrawing from school.”
“Whether you regret it later or not, I’m withdrawing this time. If you go back on it, then I’ll flip the whole school upside down again until the school is forced to let me withdraw.”
The school leaders instantly shut their mouths.
Alright then. The student had grown a spine.
Her parents said nothing. Maybe they didn’t know what to say. They just stood there.
The girl didn’t wait for their response. She turned around and waved at the rabbit and the young man.
“Thank you. After I finish the exam, I’ll definitely come find you!”
That last line was clearly for the rabbit alone.
After everything settled and people began leaving, Hong Xingwang wiped cold sweat from his forehead and walked to Lin Jiangye, weakly saying, “Mr. Lin… aren’t you afraid they’ll sue you later…”
Lin Jiangye sneered. “Sue me for what? I didn’t actually lay a hand on them.”
If he had really hit them, they wouldn’t have been walking to the hospital—he’d held back for a long time already!
Hong Xingwang rubbed his nose. When Lin Jiangye staged that “attack,” the rage in him hadn’t looked fake at all—no wonder Hong Xingwang had believed it.
Honestly, sometimes Hong Xingwang wanted to hit people too—if only he weren’t wearing this uniform.
“Haha…” He laughed awkwardly and hurried Lin Jiangye downstairs.
In Lin Jiangye’s arms, the big white rabbit lifted its head, sniffed, and asked:
[Rabbit is going back now?]
Lin Jiangye stroked its head and thought for a moment, then shook his head.
“Forget it. Your little human cub is about to leave too. Better you come with me. When she comes to my pet hospital to work part-time during summer vacation, you’ll see her again.”
Didn’t she just promise she’d come after the exam? He believed her.
The jump incident ended well enough. The bullying case, however, was no longer Hong Xingwang’s problem.
Lin Jiangye carried the rabbit toward his vehicle.
But just as he was about to get in, the German Shepherd clamped onto his pant leg and tugged him outward.
[Over there—there’s a strange smell.]
Lin Jiangye’s relaxed expression instantly froze. He looked at Hong Xingwang, who had just opened the car door. Hong Xingwang caught his look too—his face twitched, dread surging up.
“Not again, not again, not again… please, no!!!”
But no matter how he screamed internally, he couldn’t fight Lin Jiangye’s beckoning hand.
“Come take a look with me.”
Hong Xingwang’s eyes were full of despair. He stared at the German Shepherd by Lin Jiangye’s leg and asked stubbornly, “Is there any chance… it just wants to play with you?”
Lin Jiangye’s next sentence crushed his last shred of hope:
“This German Shepherd used to be a police dog.”
A professionally trained police dog. If it was pulling like this, something bad was definitely there.
Hong Xingwang’s despair was complete. He clawed at his hair irritably, looking like a disheveled lion.
The major crimes team members, who had been about to head back to the station, saw their boss signal them over. They exchanged a few looks—and instantly panicked inside.
No way. They’d just finished resolving the suicide attempt, and now there was a new case?
Is this school’s feng shui cursed or what? How can so much happen at once?
The school leaders’ barely-released breath caught in their throats again. They watched, bewildered, as a group of police headed toward the small hill behind the school, not knowing what they were going to do.
But when everyone reached the spot, under a tree on that little hill, they saw a skeleton.
A headless skeleton.
