Lin Fan knitted his brows when he heard this, "Bullied her? What do you mean by that?"
The woman revealed a bitter smile, "What else could I mean by that, it's exactly what it means."
She stood up and went over to one of the drawers on the side which she opened to take out a photo album that she placed on the table. She opened it up to a certain page and revealed a class picture.
After showing this picture, she pointed at several people in the photo and said, "Those are all the people that you mentioned before, they were all a part of our group back in high school."
Then she pointed at a beautiful looking girl in the picture and said, "And that is me." After that, she pointed at a normal looking girl in glasses and said, "And that is Ouyang Yan."
Lin Fan looked at this picture in surprise before looking back at the woman.
Not to be disrespectful to the woman, but he found this very hard to believe since they were both completely different from how they looked back in high school.
This woman had been drop dead gorgeous back in high school, but now she looked like any ordinary auntie. As for Ouyang Yan, she looked like the girl that everyone ignored in high school, but now…
Lin Fan really couldn't process how big of a difference this was.
The woman saw the look on Lin Fan's face and she couldn't help revealing another bitter smile as she said, "You wouldn't believe it if you didn't see it, right?"
Lin Fan realized his mistake and quickly waved his hands as he said, "No, no, I didn't mean that, I just…"
The woman waved her hand as she said, "Forget about it, it's something of the past. Do you want to hear the story? It's related to this case anyway."
Lin Fan hesitated a bit before giving a nod.
Then the woman began telling her story.
This was a very tragic story in its own right since it was hard to tell who was right or wrong in this case.
Back in high school, this woman whose name was Mu Tian Tian had been the school flower and the other girls were her followers. Ouyang Yan was someone who looked up to her and would always follow her around, but all Mu Tian Tian and her group did was bully her.
They would do all kinds of things to her, making them buy them things, physically abusing her, and even almost forcing her into selling her body, but they stopped that because they felt that it was crossing the line. In those days, Mu Tian Tian had completely let her beauty go to her head and she had become arrogant.
It was too bad that those days didn't last.
If you filled a balloon enough, it would one day pop and that was the case of Ouyang Yan.
They had bullied Ouyang Yan to the point where she had tried to kill herself. Of course, she had failed in the end, but this was just the turning point.
Back then, the news had been slow, so there was a local newspaper that had done a report on this and brought this to the attention of many people. With that increased attention, there were more and more other newspapers that came to report on this and this case became more and more widespread.
It reached a point where the school had no choice but to address this and they expelled Mu Tian Tian and her group of friends.
But it didn't end there since with public outrage pushing them, the cops had to arrest Mu Tian Tian and her friends to put them on trial for second degree murder for pushing Ouyang Yan to committing suicide.
They were naturally found guilty since there was overwhelming evidence and since they only came from middle class families, there was no way for them to buy their way out with fancy lawyers.
Of course, since they were minors, they were sent to juvie in the end and they spent most of their teens there.
When they came out, it didn't get much better for them.
Some of them had family to return to and some of their families had completely abandoned them, leaving them to fend for themselves.
But even if they wanted to fend for themselves, there was such a large blemish on their record that they couldn't wipe it clean at all. No matter where they went, the fact that they had been thrown in juvie before was something that haunted them.
Whether they tried to better themselves with education or with employment, they weren't able to find a path for themselves. After all, no one wanted to associate themselves with someone with a record.
So they were pushed into taking the lowest paying jobs and they were pushed into other people who were like them, leading them to meet their husbands. Their husbands were all abusive men who had vices that eventually led all of them into heavy debt before either leaving them with their children or still staying with them, forcing them to repay this debt.
It was at this lowest point in their lives that Ouyang Yan had reappeared again.
When she appeared, she had a completely different look and personality compared to before.
At first, they were cautious over why Ouyang Yan had approached them, but after she sincerely apologized to them and wanted to start over again, they let down their guard. After all, after living such a hard life, it really gave them time to reflect on what they did.
Just like how they had pushed Ouyang Yan to the brink, society had now done the same to them, so they could understand what they had done to her and it made them feel terrible that she was the one who had apologized first.
So they did their best trying to make it up to her, but it was too bad that it was all a trick.
Ouyang Yan brought them all to her office and said that her financial aid company would help them with their financial problems.
When they asked her why, she said that it was the least she could do for her friends, but too bad all of it had been a lie.
They signed the contract that she used for all suckers and their original debt had now doubled or even tripled after being charged all that interest.
Mu Tian Tian said with a sigh, "It was our own fault before and we've tried to make up for it, but that's not how life goes sometimes."
Then she turned to Lin Fan and said, "I'm not asking for much, all I want is to be able to give a good upbringing to my kids so they don't make the same mistakes as me." After saying this, she bowed her head and said, "Please help us if you can."
Lin Fan didn't know what to say in response to this, this was much heavier than anything he had had to deal with before.
Before, it was simply girls who were after his life or him getting caught in a plot, but this kind of story really made it hard for him…
Still, this was a quest that he had already accepted, so whether it was for his own life or to help them, he still had to finish it.
So with a deep breath, Lin Fan said, "We'll try our best, but we still need some information from you first."
Mu Tian Tian looked up after this and asked, "What kind of information do you need?"
Lin Fan tapped the table out of habit before asking, "Is there any other information you can give me about Ouyang Yan? Like for example, has she ever said anything different to you before?"
Mu Tian Tian thought about it, but she couldn't really think of anything as she said, "I really can't think of anything since we weren't really close with her. She immediately tricked us and then never talked to us after that."
Then after a pause, she said, "Well, other than to threaten us from time to time about not paying off our debt."
Lin Fan heard this and immediately asked, "Threaten you? What did she threaten you with?"
Mu Tian Tian gave a sigh before walking over to take out another item out of the cupboard on the side, but this time it was much smaller compared to before. When she put it down on the table, Lin Fan saw that it was a business card.
Looking at the words on it, it seemed to be advertising some kind of club.
Lin Fan pointed at it and asked, "This is?"
Mu Tian Tian gave another sigh before saying, "She said that if we couldn't pay off our debts, she would bring us to this club and make us pay them off another way. I'm sure you can imagine what she means by that…"
Lin Fan looked carefully at this card before immediately taking out the case file. After flipping through it, he found that there wasn't anything on this club in there at all.
That meant it was a new clue!
It seemed like the system really did have some meaning in showing Ouyang Yan's high school to him. But if that was the case, what did the special information for Liu Yue mean?
Still, Lin Fan didn't have time to think about it now.
After thanking Mu Tian Tian, he immediately left the apartment to pursue this new clue.
But instead of promising that he would help her like he would have done before, he only said that he would do his best this time.