The Hidden Files

“Qin An, hold on tight, I’m going to speed up!”

Qin An sat on the back of the bike, watching Wang Luoran’s back. Her skirt fluttered in the wind, her slender neck straight and delicate. The road to school was a dark alley, with streetlights spaced far apart. A gust of wind swept the girl’s messy strands of hair against Qin An’s nose, soft and fragrant.

As the bike took a sharp turn, the jolt nearly threw Qin An off. He quickly grabbed her waist, finally catching his breath.

Wang Luoran’s slender waist was soft and supple. Qin An’s face happened to press against her back. Closing his eyes, he caught a faint scent of a young girl.

“Qin An, you’re holding too tight.” Wang Luoran’s face was bright red like she’d been injected with adrenaline, her voice trembling slightly.

“Sorry.” Qin An quickly let go, but another bump made him repeat the action, over and over again.

Soon they arrived at the gate of Hongxing Elementary School, but it was already locked.

“Don’t stop, keep riding along the wall.” Though the main gate was locked, the middle school students who had evening classes used the side entrance.

Qin An had planned to blend in, but from a distance he saw an old man in a red jacket chatting with the security guard in the booth by the side gate.

“What do we do? That old pervert is standing right at the door!” Wang Luoran also spotted Ren Yin; his flashy red clothes were way too conspicuous.

“It’s fine, we’ll climb over the wall.” Qin An remembered that next to the school’s Lei Feng statue, there was an iron railing with footholds, though the prickly bougainvillea was annoying.

“Whatever you do, don’t look up.”

“Got it.”

“Ah, it hurts.” Wang Luoran got pricked by a thorn and let out a scream. Worried, Qin An quickly looked up, and what entered his sight was a pair of Winnie the Pooh boxer briefs. Yes, the cutest boxer briefs!

Wang Luoran’s face flushed bright red. Covering her skirt, she asked, “You saw it, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t see anything like Winnie the Pooh at all.”

“Pervert.”

Qin An moved much more nimbly, more agile than a monkey. Wang Luoran still blushed as she asked, “Were you a thief before?”

“Maybe it’s similar in nature.”

“Just relax, don’t look around. Just look at my back.” Qin An tugged Wang Luoran’s small hand.

“I’m a bit scared.” Wang Luoran lowered her head, her little hand sweating nervously.

“There’s a security guard.” Though Wang Luoran wasn’t a model student, she’d never done anything like this. Her little heart kept pounding.

“Sigh.” Qin An let out a sigh and reached out to put an arm around Wang Luoran’s shoulders. Nervous, Wang Luoran hugged Qin An’s waist tightly, pressing her face against his not-so-strong chest, head down, only hearing her own heart thumping.

Seeing the two so intimate as they walked, the passing security guard sighed inwardly. These middle schoolers were so open these days, even coming to an elementary school for a stroll. Thinking about how he himself was still a single loser, he felt sorry for himself. But it wasn’t his business—he was just here for the paycheck. Reporting them would be too much trouble, and if they turned out to be rich kids with connections, he’d be the one screwed.

“Alright, he’s gone. If I’d known you were this cowardly, I wouldn’t have brought you.” Qin An patted Wang Luoran’s back.

The moonlight spilled like silver, making the cobblestone path even colder.

Qin An took Wang Luoran’s hand, and after playing a bit of cat and mouse with a few teachers on duty, they reached the administrative office building. Except for the teacher at the entrance, all the others had gone home. The Qin An Burglary Squad smoothly made it to the dean’s office on the sixth floor, the innermost room.

“What now? The door’s locked.” Wang Luoran twisted the handle.

“You’re leaving fingerprints that way.”

“I don’t get it, but you sound really professional, Qin An.”

“I’m a professional thief. No, a chivalrous thief.”

“Chivalrous thief Qin An, how do we deal with this lock?” Wang Luoran sighed. Were they supposed to pick it? Even if they didn’t alert the teacher on duty, it would be discovered tomorrow.

Qin An took out a simple lock-picking tool from his waist pouch—a phone IC card. The lock on the door wasn’t sophisticated, just the simplest type.

Click—a faint sound. Within three seconds, Qin An easily cracked it.

“Qin An, you’re amazing! You weren’t really doing this kind of thing before, were you?” Wang Luoran’s eyes were full of admiring stars.

“Maybe it’s from a past life, who knows.”

The silvery moonlight through the window lit up half the room, revealing its contents clearly.

Wang Luoran’s little face was full of excitement, her small fists clenched tight, her body breaking out in a hot sweat.

Qin An quickly found an old-fashioned DV in the third drawer, which contained the video of Wang Luoran hitting someone.

Qin An had planned to just remove the memory card, but seeing the DV and the bulky computer nearby gave him a bad feeling.

He then turned on the computer. It required a login password.

“That old pervert is definitely hiding something, setting a password.” Qin An felt confirmed in his guess.

Though Wang Luoran was a gaming expert, she didn’t know much about computers. Seeing a long string of green 0s and 1s on the screen, she found it unfathomable.

Qin An sat there, his keyboard clicks sounding like a beautiful waltz played on a piano. His focused profile made Wang Luoran somewhat mesmerized.

When Qin An hit the last Enter key, he finally entered the desktop. He went straight for the hidden folders. For someone who had already gained highest privileges, passwords were no issue.

Then Qin An understood why the old pervert had set a password. There were tons of porn images from Japan, Hong Kong, and foreign countries. Opening any folder revealed row after row of naked women; bikinis were the tamest.

“Disgusting! So gross! You can’t look at this!” Wang Luoran quickly covered Qin An’s eyes. “My mom said this stuff is dirty. If boys look at it, they’ll go bad.”

“Alright, I promise I won’t look. But I remember seeing someone’s…” Qin An’s mind flashed back to that moonlit night, that beautiful body and that little patch of black.

“Hey, no dirty thoughts! Or I’ll never talk to you again.” Wang Luoran blushed, acting coy. Qin An could even feel heat from her palms.

Qin An gently pried her hands away, then found another encrypted file hidden within an encrypted folder.

“Look here. Do you recognize any of the teachers? I can’t remember many of them.”

“Wow, isn’t that Teacher Pan, the music teacher? And this is the new art teacher who just came. Oh my god, and our current Chinese teacher, Lin Chunlan! Our homeroom teacher! How could they do such things? This is disgusting!” Wang Luoran exclaimed, never imagining that teachers who always preached morality could have such ugly sides.

“Maybe we shouldn’t blame the female teachers entirely. A few might have done it willingly, but I think most were forced by that old pervert Ren Yin. Just like Xia Yi, because of what happened to you.”

No one would want to do that kind of thing with that lecherous old man, except those who wanted to climb the social ladder. Though Ren Yin was neither a dragon nor a phoenix—barely a chicken head—still, some flocked to him.

“Then aren’t they too pitiful? Qin An, can you help them? Should we send these photos to the education bureau director?”

“That won’t work. If these things leak out, those female teachers will never be able to teach again. Worse, they might even commit suicide.”

“Ah! So serious? But we can’t just let that old pervert Ren Yin keep hurting people!” Wang Luoran clenched her fists tightly. She had never hated anyone this much, except for the father she had never met.

After a moment of thought, Qin An said, “Don’t worry. I won’t let him off easy.”

Qin An first copied all the photos to a memory card, then completely destroyed everything on the computer, making recovery impossible.

Footsteps echoed in the darkness.