To find out what exactly happened yesterday afternoon between the four b*llies and Bianca M, the best approach would be to ask the people involved directly, or others who were present at the scene.
As for the people involved—the four b*llies—Everly suspected they wouldn’t tell the truth. After all, b*llying is nothing to be proud of if it gets exposed, let alone the possibility that their actions might be connected to Bianca’s death. Under such circumstances, they would be even less likely to talk to her.
She wondered whether she could get any useful information from mbers of the drama club.
Everly recalled that Doreen had a friend in the drama club, so she planned to ask that person about the situation.
However, it was already late, and it wouldn’t be appropriate to disturb soone so suddenly. Besides, after a long, busy day, Everly was feeling tired.
Pushing all distracting thoughts aside, she got up, turned off the lights, and went to sleep in her hotel.
The next morning, figuring the timing was about right, Everly called Doreen.
She intended to have Doreen recount what happened the previous afternoon once more. If possible, she also wanted Doreen to give her the contact information of that friend in the drama club so she could learn more from them directly.
However—
“No. What I know about yesterday afternoon is just sothing I casually heard from my friend—I’ve already told you everything. As for my friend, after the incident, Sara and the others gave everyone in the drama club hush money. Kevin’s father is a councilor, and no one wants to get into trouble, so there’s definitely no one who would dare tell you anything,” Doreen said in a lowered voice, refusing Everly’s request.
Although, after so persistent pleading, Doreen still gave Everly her friend’s contact information, it turned out to be useless.
Just as Doreen had said, no one was willing to risk offending a councilor by revealing anything to Everly. Especially since Everly’s identity was unclear and she was a complete stranger, Doreen’s friend was even more wary of her.
So, even though she now had a direction for her investigation, when Everly tried to push things forward, she ran into the sa problem as with the Bethany lead—she simply couldn’t obtain the information she needed.
So what exactly did Bianca and the group of four b*llies encounter after they left…?
Everly was resting her chin on her hand, deep in thought, when her phone suddenly began to buzz. Looking down, she saw it was a ssage from Misha.
Misha: “Everly, I found the person you were looking for! Here’s their contact info—rember to add him later.”
Misha: “He’s from the Mouster College news club. From what I’ve heard, their club has detailed information on the four deceased girls. The info you want about Bethany is included… I’ve already made a deal with him—if you pay him 300 dollars, he’ll secretly photograph all the compiled materials and send them to you. The condition is that you can’t make any of it public.”
Everly: “Thanks, Misha, this really helps a lot!”
Everly tapped on the contact Misha provided and added the news club mber.
After a conversation heavily tinged with money, Everly made a decisive move and transferred 300 dollars. The response from the other side was swift—shortly after confirming the paynt, he began sending over a large batch of photos.
The photos were clearly taken in secret. The lighting was a bit dim, and a few of them were slightly blurry.
As for the content, it was a collection of information gathered through the combined efforts of many mbers of the news club over this period—everything related to the four deceased girls.
Yes, just as Misha had previously guessed, the news club had already noticed a possible connection between the four deaths. They were actively collecting information, preparing to write a “big story” that would consolidate all the suspicious aspects of these cases.
Their investigation list included only the first four deceased girls—Bianca was not among them. This was understandable, since Bianca had only died the previous afternoon, and the police had yet to announce her cause of death. The news club still needed ti to decide whether to include Bianca in their planned “big story.”
But even just the information about the four girls was already more than useful enough.
Everly downloaded all the purchased photos, sorted them in order, and examined them one by one.
The news club had gathered a large amount of information about the victims—ssy, varied, and sotis even contradictory due to differing sources. Fortunately, since they intended to use these materials for an article, the mbers had already done so preliminary organization, and had filtered and evaluated certain conflicting details.
Everly first focused on the information she cared about most—everything related to Bethany.
Bethany first showed signs of sothing unusual on the morning of January 25. Her social dia account, which had previously only posted stylish outfit photos, suddenly began posting cryptic, aningless text updates for no apparent reason.
mbers of the school news club were always at the forefront of campus gossip, so it was impossible for them to miss this detail while investigating Bethany.
[…We discovered that starting from January 25, the content of Bethany’s posts suddenly beca rather strange. At first, we guessed that after successfully joining the sorority, she beca overconfident and stopped using luxury goods to present herself, revealing her true nature—but we quickly realized this was a huge misunderstanding.]
[Yes, that’s right—not just Bethany. Before the deaths of Cassandra, Mia, and Amy, the style of their posts also underwent drastic changes. Therefore, we suspect that they may have been infected by so kind of contagious disease that damages the brain’s nervous system. The supporting evidence is as follows…]
The person responsible for compiling the materials went on at length, listing four points of evidence on paper.
Everly read through them one by one and realized that the club mber had surprisingly sharp instincts. Even without access to the autopsy reports of the four victims, they had managed—through careful analysis of various details—to detect a possible connection between the four cases.
The person’s argunts were as follows:
1. Drastic personality changes.
All four victims showed a phase of “major personality change” before their deaths. This overlaps with the information Everly had already gathered, so there’s no need to elaborate further here.
2. Unusual odor.
Not just Bianca—people who were close to the four girls all reported that 1–2 days before their deaths, they had noticed a strange sll coming from them. (At this point, a news club mber had attached a note: “dical research shows that a sudden unusual body odor is often a sign of certain illnesses.”)
3. Marks on the back.
This piece of information was gathered by several female mbers of the news club, who spent days staking out the entrance of the public bathhouse. Even Everly hadn’t known about this.
The news club had previously interviewed and reported on Cassandra’s death in the bathhouse. In that case, one girl told a club mber that she had seen purplish-red blotches on Cassandra’s back.
Seemingly inspired by that remark, soone in the club suspected that the changes described in points 1 and 2 might be caused by so strange illness. So they sent several female mbers to investigate the physical condition of the other three deceased boarding students. Their main thod was simple and direct—waiting outside the public bathhouse the girls frequented, holding up photos, and asking each student going in to bathe.
Surprisingly, this crude approach actually worked. According to several students’ testimonies, Mia and Abby had both used the public bathhouse the day before their deaths—and both had similar purplish-red blotches on their backs, just like Cassandra.
Everly had seen the autopsy reports and roughly knew those blotches were postmortem lividity, but the news club mbers didn’t know that. As a result, the discovery of these marks unintentionally strengthened their “infectious disease causing death” hypothesis.
4. Interpersonal relationships.
The news club believed that the four girls had contracted so kind of infectious disease. And if it was contagious, there had to be a transmission chain. For this reason, the note’s author specifically organized the social connections of the five girls.
When she reached this fourth point, Everly instinctively straightened up.
This was the part she had found the most difficult during her own investigation.
Since she didn’t study at Mouster College, she wasn’t familiar with the gossip circulating among the students, nor did she know the complicated relationships and rivalries between the school’s prominent figures.
Under such circumstances, if she wanted to find out whether the four girls knew each other, she could only rely on their social dia follow lists, and at most ask Doreen. The clues she could obtain were ultimately quite limited.
Unlike Everly, however, the mbers of the Mouster College news club attended the sa school as the four girls and had access to a strong information network on campus. As a result, the information they gathered regarding interpersonal relationships was very comprehensive.
According to the news club’s findings, although Bethany and Cassandra were not in the sa major and didn’t have a particularly close relationship, they had both passed the initiation tests for the school’s sorority. They were among the few freshn of their year who qualified.
Therefore, in theory, the two knew each other. This could also be seen from the fact that Cassandra followed Bethany on social dia.
As for the third victim, Mia, her social circle did not overlap with the first two. However, the news club mbers were certain that the three girls had t before. This was because Mia had also received an invitation to join the sorority. Unlike the first two victims, however, she failed the initiation test and was eliminated before becoming an official mber.
> [At 8:00 PM on January 24, the sorority held its annual “Freshman Welco Night” at the student activity center. All freshn who had received an invitation were required to complete the sorority’s mysterious initiation test that evening. This was a necessary step to beco an official mber—only those who passed could remain until the end, step onto the stage of Welco Night, and be welcod by all mbers. Those who failed would be left with nothing but regret and tears…]
>
> [As soone who had received an invitation to join the sorority, Mia undoubtedly attended the Welco Night on January 24, just like Bethany and Cassandra. Perhaps this event was the opportunity for the “virus” to spread among the three of them…]
The compiler added this note after the supporting evidence.
Everly still didn’t agree with his infectious disease theory, but she had to admit that his ability to uncover connections in interpersonal relationships was impressive. Given the sa information, she wouldn’t have thought of this angle at all.
She pulled out her notebook and firmly wrote down the keyword: “sorority.”
A sorority is a type of won’s organization in Arican universities, roughly comparable to fraternities, which admit only male mbers. These groups typically recruit individuals who stand out in academics, social skills, appearance, or family background. After receiving an invitation, candidates often go through a lengthy evaluation period. Once that period ends, they must also complete a special initiation ritual before officially becoming mbers and being accepted by everyone.
So sororities treat the initiation as a formality, involving simple oath-taking ceremonies. Others, however, turn it into a kind of test in disguise—one that requires candidates to push themselves to the limit to complete.
Clearly, the sorority at Mouster College belonged to the latter type. For girls who aspired to join, passing the long evaluation period wasn’t enough—they had to complete the final “initiation test” to truly beco mbers.
As for what that test actually involved, the notes didn’t say. It seed the sorority had rules forbidding anyone from disclosing the details of the ritual.
Horror Movie Survival Rule #1: pay attention to hints.
After encountering so many such cases, Everly had already figured out a pattern. When it ca to long-established organizations like sororities, if they had traditions that were kept strictly secret, then nine tis out of ten, those traditions were bound to bring trouble.
So she decided that later, she would focus her investigation on this so-called “initiation ritual.”
As for now, the clues related to interpersonal relationships hadn’t yet fully connected, so she needed to keep reading.
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