Bad Kids

Answer 1

"Bad Kids" was a book by Zijin Chen. It was the second book in his "socialistic" mystery trilogy ("Crime Without Evidence,""Bad Kids,""The Night Is Hard to See"). It was created in 2013 and published by Hunan Literature and Art Press. In 2020, it was adapted into the mystery drama "Hidden Corner" produced by iQiyi.

The novel told the story of Zhu Chaoyang, Ding Hao, and Pu Pu, three children who accidentally photographed the substitute teacher Zhang Dongsheng's criminal behavior while playing in the scenic area. Then they were involved in a series of events. In the book, Zhu Chaoyang had an outstanding IQ, but he was not popular in school. His family environment was complicated, his parents divorced, his father cared little about him after he remarried, and he was also ostracized by his half-sister. This series of encounters magnified the evil thoughts in his heart. He first pushed Zhu Jingjing to her death, then planned to kill his father and stepmother. Finally, he used a diary to clear his suspicion and push the blame to Pupu, Ding Hao, and Zhang Dongsheng. In the book, Pu Pu and Ding Hao also had their own dark backgrounds. Pu Pu was cold, unsociable, scheming, and vicious, and many bad things were planned by her. Ding Hao was impulsive, did things without thinking, had a big mouth, and was addicted to games.

Compared to the adapted TV series, the original plot was darker and surreal. For example, in the plot of Zhu Jingjing's death, in the TV series, Pu Pu tricked her to the fifth floor, and she ran to the balcony and accidentally stepped on the air and fell to her death. In the original work, Zhu Chaoyang was pushed to the window to scare her after Zhu Jingjing scolded him for being an illegitimate child. After Zhu Jingjing threatened to tell her parents, Zhu Chaoyang pushed her to death. In the original novel, Yan Liang was Xu Jing's uncle. After becoming a police officer, he taught at Zhejiang University. He was Zhang Dongsheng's teacher and the first person to solve the murder case. However, the TV series erased this character setting and replaced the name "Yan Liang" with "Ding Hao". It also added the character, Old Chen, who did not exist originally. In the original novel, the reason why Pupu and Ding Hao escaped was because they were molested by the new director of the orphanage, not because of Pupu's younger brother in the TV series. In the original novel, Pupu's younger brother had already died, and Pupu still stubbornly believed that his father had been wrongly accused by the police as a murderer. The ending of the novel was written in an open-ended style. It ended with Yan Liang's hesitation. There was a high chance that Yan Liang did not expose Zhu Chaoyang.

Watching "Wild Child" wasn't enough. Everyone, please click to read the novel!