Chapter 120: Chapter 120
Home was empty as Linlin’s parents were on another cruise and the staff always kept out of the way until dinner, knowing Linlin liked her space. Linlin pulled out her laptop and set it on the coffee table of the lounge before settling down with TangShi to start viewing the files. Dumping some warm mugs of cocoa and a platter of cookies to somehow soften this task into something bearable.
“I’ll copy it into editor and can clip away anything worthless and only keep what shows us what happened. So we have pretty easy access at a glance.” Linlin was being methodical and meticulous in collecting the evidence as she still hoped TangShi would take it to the police and not let this creep get away with it. She had photocopied all documents too and created an easy to send file should they want it on top of the physical stuff.
“Okay. Move over.” TangShi slid in beside her on the floor in front of the couch and waited for Linlin to put the key fob in. Uptight, wringing her hands and focusing on breathing in and out slowly as her nerves built to epic levels.
“This is you guys arriving here.” Linlin pointed out their group from the main door, shuffling in and looking merry about being there. There was a collection of files from different cameras they looked at one at a time, that had them being shown to the upper floor private dining, fast forwarding with purpose all the unnecessary footage. It meant clicking in and out of several to see their progress and nothing footage they could discard right away.
“I remember everything up until we ate dessert. You can skip all of until then. That’s the last moment I have a memory of.” She nudged Linlin who was squinting at the dining hall footage. It seemed that room had one camera that overlooked the whole room, but it wasn’t of the best quality in low lighting. It did cover the dinner table at a distance though and showed how they were all seated and how Rong made a point of following her. It picked up the group of them but when they moved to the couches for drinks, although you could only see some of it. TangShi sat down on one edge and nothing of Rong who was cut off at the arm. It was a bad angle out of shot and Linlin sucked in air though her teeth in frustration and started again.
“The angle shows nothing of that side of the room. Although it’s pretty obvious you wanted space and he kept invading it.” Linlin frowned in irritation and scrolled forward a little. Becoming impatient and antsy and feeling like this was mounting to something momentous with the amount of building pressure in the air between them.
“Wait.” TangShi clasped her hand over Linlin’s hand on the mouse and pointed at the screen “We changed cups. Are those Saki glasses? I remember something….. Saki… I don’t know. It rings a bell somehow.”
“Let me try another file. Each one is a different camera.” Linlin located one that had an ID number similar to the dining hall and thankfully was one pointing from right above the mini bar of the same room. She clicked play and forwarded to the same time stamp as the other recording where they had moved to the couches and were sat with Saki cups.
“Rewind it a little. To me getting the cup.” TangShi was uneasy about the Saki cups for some reason and a strange clawing at the back of her head kept bringing her back to them. A gut sensation that it was important and something in her subconscious was screaming at her.
Linlin backed up catching the moment Rong Cai got up and went to the bar, unaware there was a camera over his head and pointing at an angle towards the sunken couches which caught his full front and what his hands were doing. It was in shadow, but they made out him setting up the cups and stopping to pull something small from his inside pocket and tapping it into the far-left cup. It was a few seconds of precise and swift motions, no hesitation, and bold as hell, without even glancing back to see if they caught it. Something tiny like a little vial, or a dropper, and all it took was a moment in time to completely ruin TangShi’s life.
He then proceeded to pour the alcohol into all of them, doing that one first and swirling the cup before he put them on a tray. He kept that one cup until last and carried it in his hand instead. They watched in silent disbelief as he slid the tray on the table and that one cup in front of TangShi brazenly with a smile on his face they could even see form this angle that screamed of smug accomplishment. He hovered over her, egging her on to drink before sitting down beside her and forcefully lifting her elbow so the cup was drained into her mouth.
“Son of a…” Linlin’s temper riled, and she watched in fury at what the evil bastard did to her best friend. “If that’s when he did it, then maybe fifteen minutes before it really kicked and affected you. He’s a complete scumbag, Tang. He didn’t even hesitate or take a moment to doubt what he was doing.” She hit the triple speed on her screen to fast forward what they were watching and returned it to normal when TangShi got out of her seat on the couch. Sensing TangShi beside her squirming around and staying quiet as this sunk in.
“He was all over you like a letch, and you can see how uncomfortable you are sitting there. Not exactly painting the flirting image of you being into him. Lying prick.” Linlin clenched her fist as the camera angle showed TangShi leaving with Rong Cai before she headed to go find the corridor file to see what happened next. Losing them once they left the room. TangShi couldn’t stand it anymore. Her anxiety building to the point she felt like she may scream or faint and she was having trouble breathing as her lungs closed up on her.
“I don’t want to see it… not right now. I can’t.” TangShi lost her courage, her nerves kicking in and nausea consuming her at seeing for herself that the tests results were not a lie. That Rong Cai really did something to her with intent. Somehow in the back of her mind she had held a glimmer of hope that it wasn’t him, that it was maybe another student as a prank and somehow this was part of a misunderstanding, or a mistake meant for someone else. She had prayed it wasn’t how it seemed so it would be less devastating. She had so badly wanted to see something innocent that had taken a bad turn and not this…this cruel and horrible reality.
“I need the bathroom.” TangShi got up, leaving Linlin to watch the footage herself, her eyes misting over and her stomach churning as she hightailed it into the toilet and barely made it before she threw up. Retching her guts out and emptying her stomach as tears poured down her face. Her cool and aloof numbness deteriorating, and she crumbled into a small ball on the floor hugging her knees to her chest and burying her face as she sobbed. She fell apart and everything she had bene holding in since she saw that report all came tumbling out in a watery and painful mess.
She was drugged and god knows what, and it made her feel violated and broken. Despairing over memories she didn’t have yet feeling dirty and ruined as though she did. How that man could have done such a thing. How any human could do something so sordid and awful to another person and she was caught in devastation that it had been done to her. A cloying gripping pit of despair in her belly that she had been raped and she couldn’t mentally accept it.