The Knowledge Eater

Every time I end someone’s life, I inherit every piece of knowledge stored in their brain.

On the eve of the SATs, I disposed of my best friend.

Because her grades had always been perfect.

After the exams were over, I replaced her.

And successfully got admitted to a top-tier Ivy League university.

1

I possess a superpower unknown to anyone else.

That is, whenever I terminate a person’s life, I absorb everything they know.

The first time I realized I possessed this ability was during the summer break when I was ten years old.

My mother was too busy with work to care for me, so she sent me to stay with my grandma in her rural farmhouse upstate.

To be honest, the thing I hated most as a child was being sent to Grandma’s.

The countryside was poor and run-down, with absolutely nothing fun to do.

Moreover, every night just past eight o’clock, Grandma would prepare for bed.

Because of this, Grandma and I often got into explosive arguments.

Several times, her wrinkled old face would turn a bruised purple from anger, making her look like she was about to faint.

My mother always lectured me, telling me not to upset Grandma.

Because Grandma had a bad heart.

She always carried a small bottle of pills for emergencies.

Naturally, I knew this.

So later, on a very ordinary evening.

When an argument broke out between us again.

Filled with malice, I viciously screamed at her:

“You old witch, why don’t you just drop dead!”

Hearing this, Grandma’s eyes widened in shock, staring at me as if she had encountered a monster.

“You… you…”

She was shaking all over from my words, stammering for a long time without forming a complete sentence.

Then, I saw her eyes bulge, her body arch in pain as she clutched her heart with a withered right hand, and collapsed onto the floor.

“Pills… my pills…”

Grandma struggled to lift her hand toward her pocket.

I moved first, snatching the small bottle from her pocket.

Clutching the medicine, I quickly backed away several steps, looking at Grandma on the floor with an expressionless face.

To this day, I remember the look on her face.

Her lips turned purple as she looked up.

In those deep-set sockets, there was first a trace of surprise.

A few seconds later, that surprise turned into a mix of disbelief and terror.

It was as if she realized what I intended to do.

The instinct to survive drove her to try and crawl up.

But the more she struggled, the heavier her breathing became.

After a period that seemed incredibly long to me, Grandma’s movements suddenly froze.

She lay on the floor, one arm stretched straight toward me.

Like a frozen ice sculpture.

Her body gradually grew cold, motionless.

The dim room returned to a dead silence.

I moved my stiff legs, walked to the landline, and dialed 911.

In the interval waiting for the ambulance.

I walked to a cabinet filled with various medicine bottles.

I opened my cold, sweaty palm.

I placed the small bottle in my hand onto the cabinet.

Then, I swung my arm violently.

Those bottles crashed and rolled onto the floor.

When the piercing sirens sounded from outside.

I slumped to the ground.

Pretending to be panicked and overwhelmed, I opened my throat and began to wail.

2

The paramedics confirmed Grandma’s death on the scene.

When my mom rushed to the hospital, she kept comforting me as I wept bitterly.

She didn’t blame me for failing to find the emergency medicine on the cabinet in time when Grandma fell ill.

Everyone thought this was just a tragic accident.

I noticed things starting to get weird after Grandma’s funeral ended.

I suddenly discovered I had mastered skills I had never touched before.

Like cooking, sewing clothes, and even some knowledge about how to farm.

But I didn’t have any corresponding memories of learning them.

It was as if the knowledge had appeared in my brain out of thin air.

It wasn’t until one day later, when I tasted the shredded potatoes I stir-fried myself.

They tasted exactly the same as the ones Grandma used to make.

That was when I suddenly understood.

The extra knowledge in my brain came from my grandma.

It was in that moment.

An incredibly crazy, indescribable hypothesis floated to the surface.

For a long time.

I buried this hypothesis deep in my heart.

I never told anyone.

However, this hypothesis was like a seed.

Quietly, it broke through the soil and sprouted.

In middle school, my grades were terrible.

It was a struggle to even get into an average high school.

Coincidentally, at that time, a girl in my class who excelled in her studies lived in the same neighborhood as me.

We often rode our bikes to and from school together.

Honestly, I envied her.

With her grades, getting into the key high school in our city would be a breeze.

One day before the high school entrance exams, during a break, I sneaked into the bike shed and, as if possessed, damaged her brakes.

It’s hard to describe exactly why I did it.

I didn’t feel like I truly wanted to end her life.

I just wanted to use this opportunity.

To verify the guess that had lingered in my heart for so long.

On the way home, I don’t know if my luck was too good or hers was too bad.

As we passed an intersection, we happened to encounter a large truck running a red light.

She couldn’t brake and was hit directly in front of me, dying on the spot.

The truck driver had been driving while fatigued.

He hadn’t slept for nearly two days when the accident happened.

In short, it was a complete tragedy.

It had nothing to do with me.

Later, I sat in the exam hall.

Questions that used to look like hieroglyphics suddenly became incredibly simple overnight.

When the results came out.

I ranked tenth in the entire grade and successfully got into the key high school I had been dreaming of.

Everyone thought I had performed extraordinarily well and envied my luck.

I just smiled and never refuted them.

They were right.

I was indeed lucky.

3

Half a month before the SATs, most of the class was studying with all their might.

I was the only one who was different.

Every day I sat in class, eyes staring at the textbook, but the question occupying my brain was how to eliminate Chloe without leaving a trace.

In the eyes of others, I was Chloe’s best friend.

For three years of high school, we were inseparable on campus, even going to the bathroom together.

Chloe had excellent grades, a sweet face, and a cheerful personality.

She was the typical “model student” in the eyes of teachers and parents.

I, on the other hand, had average grades, average looks, and a somewhat introverted personality.

In short, Chloe and I were two completely different types of people.

The reason Chloe chose to be friends with me was precisely because I was too “ordinary.”

It was my “ordinariness” that highlighted her “excellence.”

I knew long ago that Chloe often badmouthed me behind my back.

She said I wasn’t very bright and looked clumsy.

That I always smelled of weird medicine.

If she didn’t pity me, she would have cut ties with me long ago.

Chloe was right; my family was quite pitiful.

My dad died when I was very young.

All these years, my mom raised me single-handedly through hardships.

This eventually led to her working herself into sickness, relying on long-term medication to regulate her body.

But none of this mattered.

I didn’t care at all about Chloe’s opinion of me.

After all, I didn’t genuinely want to be friends with her either.

I first noticed Chloe.

During the placement exams when we first entered high school.

She ranked first in the grade.

From that moment on.

I silently added her to my candidate list.

Of course, I also worried that Chloe’s grades might drop over the next three years.

Although my candidate list was updated every semester.

Swapping targets midway would still be troublesome.

Fortunately, Chloe’s grades remained consistent.

Right up until the last mock exam before the SATs, she never fell out of the top five.

And she didn’t plan on taking the early acceptance route.

It could be said that for me, Chloe was the perfect candidate.

Whether I could go from a community college prospect to an Ivy League student.

Depended entirely on her.

4

It wasn’t that I hadn’t tried to study seriously.

But getting excellent grades is really hard.

Even relying on the foundation laid by that middle school classmate, I only barely held on for half a semester.

Starting from the second semester of freshman year, my grades plummeted.

Maybe some people just aren’t cut out for studying.

Anyway, I felt I wasn’t material for academics.

It was simpler to think about how to remove someone else.

I used my spare time over three years of high school to binge-watch various mystery and detective shows.

I also watched quite a few documentaries on homicide cases.

I discovered that modern police detection methods are too advanced.

Not only are they rigorous in their thinking, but they also possess high-tech tools.

It makes it almost impossible for criminals to hide.

I conceived several plans to eliminate Chloe in my mind.

But none felt ideal; there were too many loopholes.

Once the police determined it was a homicide, they would latch on like bulldogs and investigate endlessly.

So I had to make Chloe’s death look like an accident.

Just like the previous two times.

After much hard thinking, I sketched out a rough plan.

Although Chloe looked like a good student on the surface, she would do some rebellious things to seek thrills.

Like dating a delinquent boy off-campus or sneaking cigarettes in the bathroom.

So I decided to use this to lead Chloe down a dead end herself.

Two days before leaving school, I kept dropping hints to Chloe, suggesting we should indulge ourselves one last time before leaving.

I deliberately asked her if she dared to sneak up to the roof of the academic building to drink during evening study hall.

At first, Chloe hesitated, asking how we would get alcohol into the school.

I said, don’t be silly, just ask a day student friend to bring it in.

Chloe went silent.

I didn’t continue to persuade her, just dropped a sentence:

“If you don’t dare, forget it. I’ll go by myself later. I don’t want to leave any regrets in my high school life.”

“Who says I don’t dare? I was just thinking about what kind of alcohol to buy.”

Sure enough, Chloe took the bait.

I continued to lay the trap: “Then should we just buy a few cans of beer?”

Chloe glanced at me with disdain and said proudly:

“That’s boring. I’ll ask my friend to bring a few bottles of whiskey for you to try.”

I suppressed the urge to laugh out loud, pretending to be very envious, constantly praising her for being awesome.

On the evening before leaving school, Chloe actually brought two bottles of whiskey.

But when we were preparing to go up to the roof, I deliberately grabbed Chloe at the stairwell and said weakly:

“Chloe, maybe we should forget it. What if the dean catches us?”

“It’s this late in the game, what are you afraid of? Even if we get caught, it’s fine, at most a scolding. We’re about to take the SATs; they have to consider our mood.”

Chloe forcefully grabbed my wrist.

“Hurry up, follow me!”

I offered symbolic resistance twice, glancing at the security camera at the stairwell entrance as we went up.

The door to the roof was only wrapped with an iron chain, not actually locked.

I specifically followed behind Chloe, waiting for her to remove the chain and throw it aside before I followed her onto the roof.

The cool early summer evening breeze felt particularly comfortable.

Chloe seemed to be in a good mood, unusually excited.

She urged me to pour out the snacks we bought from the school store, while she impatiently pulled the corks and poured the dark brown liquid into two disposable paper cups.

“Cheers!”

Chloe shouted, ignoring me, and downed the alcohol in her cup on her own.

At first, judging by her expression, the taste of the alcohol was probably not very good.

I was thinking, what if she didn’t want to drink anymore?

Fortunately, things went smoother than I anticipated.

5

That night, Chloe rambled on to me about a lot of things.

She said her parents had lost feelings for each other long ago, yet still pretended to be loving in front of her, which made her sick.

She said she had a brother ten years younger than her who was the apple of the family’s eye, and no one cared about her.

She said she finally survived these three years of high school and was about to be liberated.

She said after the exams, she wanted to go on a graduation trip to the South and asked if I could go with her.

Chloe’s cheeks were flushed, her eyes glazed over as she held my hand and apologized.

She said she shouldn’t have badmouthed me behind my back.

Slurring her words, she said I was her best friend.

My heart remained unmoved; I just felt she must have drunk too much.

In fact, Chloe really had drunk too much.

Her steps were staggering, her whole body falling uncontrollably.

I supported her to stand in front of the half-height railing to catch the wind.

When the rusted railing gave way, Chloe lost her balance.

In her panic, she reached out to me.

And I just gave a gentle push.

Chloe’s figure disappeared from the edge of the roof.

A dull thud of a heavy object hitting the ground sounded.

After a brief silence, a commotion arose downstairs.

I poured a large mouthful of alcohol into myself.

Then I closed my eyes and collapsed in front of the roof railing, half my body exposed to the outside.

When the sound of chaotic footsteps reached my ears.

I forced my eyes open, and the pale face of the grade dean appeared before me, looking like he’d seen a ghost.

When Chloe’s parents arrived at the school, I knelt before them, weeping and saying it was all my fault, that I had caused Chloe’s death.

I shouldn’t have agreed to go drinking on the roof with Chloe.

If I had stopped her then, none of this would have happened.

Chloe’s mother tried to rush at me like a madwoman, screaming for me to give her daughter back.

The police on the scene held her firmly, signaling her to calm down first.

The police retrieved the surveillance footage from the stairwell.

The footage showed Chloe forcibly dragging me to the roof.

The day student who brought the alcohol for Chloe stated that Chloe had actively asked him for help.

The broken railing on the roof showed no signs of being tampered with by anyone.

There were no signs of a struggle on Chloe’s body.

It could be said that the main reason for this tragedy was Chloe violating school rules and running to the roof to drink unauthorized.

The secondary reason was the roof railing being in disrepair and the school’s improper management.

Faced with clear investigation results, Chloe’s parents didn’t come to trouble me again.

I heard that to manage the fallout, the school paid a large sum of money to Chloe’s parents.

After the exams, I went back to school to get my diploma, and immediately left all the class group chats.

I remembered Chloe saying on the roof that day that she wanted to go on a graduation trip after the exams.

Unfortunately, I didn’t know which city she wanted to visit.

I’ll just have to wait until I get into university and slowly help her fulfill this wish.

I hope she can rest in peace and not blame me.

Of course, if she can’t rest in peace, there’s nothing I can do.

Up to her.

The night I checked my scores was probably the most nervous day of my life.

When the webpage finally refreshed, looking at my score, I couldn’t help but weep with joy.

You know, witnessing your best friend fall to her death carries a lot of psychological pressure.

However, for some reason, when my mom found out about my SAT scores, she didn’t seem that happy.

She even advised me not to apply to schools that were too good; an average one would do.

I told her I wanted to apply to a Medical University and become a doctor.

Unexpectedly, my mom became extremely agitated.

She explicitly told me that she absolutely would not allow me to apply for a medical major.

When my mom said this, her expression was terrifyingly serious, even startling me.

“Daughter, Mom doesn’t mean anything else, it’s just that being a doctor is too tiring, Mom doesn’t want to see you work so hard.”

My mom’s expression relaxed, and she gently stroked my hair and said:

“Be good, listen to Mom, choose another major.”

At that time, my mom’s health was already very poor, looking very weak, no matter how much medicine she took, it was useless.

I didn’t want to upset my mom, so I had to choose Finance.

I heard this major makes it easier to earn money after graduation.