Winter's Return Chapter 26: Come Solve the Case

The dismissal bell rang, and Zhang Shutong stretched along with everyone else before walking out of the office.

An entire afternoon had passed just like that.

Teacher Song didn't continue his furious tirade. He temporarily wanted to contain the incident's impact within the class, but that was practically impossible.

Although he repeatedly emphasized not to spread it around and to be considerate of Gu Qiumian's feelings, quite a few people had witnessed it, and soon other classes knew about it too.

Miss Gu's fa was still quite high. Together with Lu Qinglian, they were the two most watched girls in the entire grade—or rather, the entire school. For a ti, various embellished versions flew everywhere.

During breaks, he could even see Gu Qiumian's little secretary bringing a few people to find her. Zhang Shutong found it strange that they only just found out. Hadn't they talked about it during lunch?

Teacher Song's investigation continued. He asked Zhang Shutong for the photos and began searching for people based on the handwriting. But as a horoom teacher who taught English, he wasn't that sensitive to Chinese characters, so he called over the Chinese literature teacher. After looking at it, that teacher also said there was no way—

Whether it was the "go die" on the A4 paper or the na on the bathroom stall partition, there were too few characters. Plus, the habits of writing with a marker versus a ballpoint pen were different, so judging from regular howork wasn't very accurate.

He also asked who was seen absent during the extended break, even conducting one-on-one interviews.

Because of this, both he and Qingyi were called to the office to... help out.

Teacher Song quite trusted their brains. Perhaps he knew Qingyi was a mystery fanatic, or perhaps last night's details had reached his ears, making him think he had a "junior detective team" at his side, so he had them sit in and observe.

Though in the end, there was still no harvest.

Throughout the afternoon, Zhang Shutong just moved a chair to sit by the wall, his mind contemplating another question—

Why smash Gu Qiumian's castle blocks instead of sothing else?

If it really was a so-called "death threat," why not write a letter in a more direct way and curse her out properly?

If it was just revenge and venting, why not go straight to her desk and wreak havoc?

For instance, completely tear up her backpack and books—wouldn't the damage be much stronger than smashing a pile of blocks?

Or was that person not from this class at all, not knowing where Gu Qiumian sat?

But if that were the case, how would they have targeted her blocks?

And finally, there was what Qingyi said: if it was revenge, why write the na on the partition? Were they afraid no one would discover it?

Many questions seed to contradict each other.

And then there was the most crucial one—

Even if they confird the "suspect," without eyewitnesses or surveillance, how could they make the other party confess?

Fortunately, Zhang Shutong hadn't sat there all afternoon for nothing. He had pretty much figured out answers to many of those questions.

Now he was just missing the last piece that hadn't quite clicked, and verifying his theory would have to wait until tomorrow—and that was assuming things went smoothly.

Speaking of which, there was another difficult problem:

Even if he solved the block incident, that didn't an he could solve the murder case. There was also the matter of the comrcial street demolition he'd heard about at the restaurant—how should he investigate that? And who was the figure appearing in the Forbidden Zone?

With a try-it-and-see attitude, at noon after coming down from the rooftop, he'd gotten the phone number for "Hotown Lake Fish Restaurant" and called the proprietress. The reason he hadn't asked at the ti was because Gu Qiumian's table hadn't finished eating yet.

Unfortunately, she recognized his voice.

So he didn't ask about the demolition, only saying his family wanted to take over a shop and could Auntie help him ask around—hoping to develop so leads from that.

But she kept her mouth very tight. Perhaps because Gu Qiumian had just treated him to a al at noon, the proprietress probably considered them to be on the sa side and was afraid he was a spy.

Accept a favor, reap the consequence—it was nothing more than that.

In any case, of the three leads he had on hand, each seed related, but it was very difficult to rge them together.

Naturally, he couldn't go play with his gang after school.

He had two things to do:

The first was to fill his stomach along the way.

The second was to make another trip to the Forbidden Zone.

The place Zhang Shutong went to eat was a small stall selling stead buns at the school gate.

The buns were special—the filling was made from pork fatback marinated in sugar, crispy fried pork cracklings, and salted duck egg yolk.

Zhang Shutong had never liked eating this stuff, but he didn't care what he ate. He'd just learned his lesson from last night about needing to replenish calories.

The snow had mostly lted, and dirty snow piles were heaped beside the roadside trees. White steam rose from the stear baskets set up on the small pushcart, and a plump woman was busily working.

Zhang Shutong stopped his bike and was just about to call out when he ran into soone unexpected.

Gu Qiumian was also waiting by the small stall.

She still wore that signature red scarf, her small face buried in the scarf, both hands tucked into her coat pockets, silent.

Zhang Shutong looked twice and noticed that black Audi wasn't around.

Co to think of it, he hadn't spoken with Gu Qiumian all afternoon. Teacher Song had originally wanted to call her to the office to observe as well, but the girl hadn't gone, using the sa excuse as before—her mood was already bad, so why make herself more miserable?

So it was hard to judge her mood—

If you said it was good, her face had been ice-cold all day. Only in the morning had she seed bright, but unfortunately, that brightness lasted less than a morning reading session before he provoked her, and then her blocks were smashed, so her mood was predictable.

If you said it wasn't good, she still had ti to bring a group of people to a restaurant at noon, and now she was in the mood to buy street food.

Perhaps the buns were just very delicious—soup dumplings, six to a stear, sweet and salty.

And unlike shrimp cakes and sandwich cakes, which were common local snacks, only this one stall on the entire island sold these, and the owner was also from out of town.

No matter how delicious others thought they were, Zhang Shutong always held a different opinion:

He'd always thought this kind of filling was weird. It should be either salty or sweet—why did it have to be both sweet and salty?

Just like he could accept both sweet tofu pudding and salty tofu pudding, but what the hell was sweet-and-salty tofu pudding?

If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he would have thought this kind of bun was a made-up dark cuisine, but in fact, it really existed, and it was right before his eyes:

At this mont, the woman was wrapping buns. Beside her hand was a large basin full of filling—sweet fatty at and salty egg yolk stirred together, golden yellow interspersed with crystalline chunks of at, all wrapped together in the dough wrapper.

They should have been so contradictory.

Zhang Shutong looked on with difficulty, but Gu Qiumian watched very seriously. Even when he approached, she didn't notice. Rembering that soone had said at noon that she liked sweet and sour pork, in Zhang Shutong's view, that was also a contradictory dish.

Perhaps it had sothing to do with Gu Qiumian herself being a contradictory girl—

Her brightness, her coldness, her nonchalance—if you hadn't seen it with your own eyes, no one would have thought they could be rged in one person.

That's why Zhang Shutong said he didn't understand her.

But whether he understood or not didn't prevent him from going over to greet her. Hearing his voice, Gu Qiumian glanced at him and nodded as a response.

So aloof.

"Thanks for noon. I'll bring you the money tomorrow."

"No need," Gu Qiumian stared at the oil pot, saying expressionlessly, "You helped first. I don't like owing people favors."

When she was expressionless, she was quite different from Lu Qinglian. Lu Qinglian truly had no emotional fluctuation, while Gu Qiumian was clearly putting on a cold face.

Was this tsundere?

She'd asked him a question when going downstairs, and he'd thought there'd be no follow-up, yet she'd been rembering it all along.

Zhang Shutong changed the subject:

"Did you tell your dad about that thing?"

"No, he's on a business trip." Gu Qiumian's tone beca even more indifferent.

But Zhang Shutong could tell it wasn't directed at him. It seed... the relationship between this father and daughter wasn't as good as one might imagine.

But the key point was:

"So it's just you these past few days?"

He was startled.

"And the housekeeper."

Zhang Shutong instinctively wanted to ask about her mother, but so guesses suddenly arose in his mind, so he only said:

"Then be extra careful lately."

"That person wouldn't dare do anything." Gu Qiumian said word by word, "Besides, like I said, it's just a toy."

"So you're not angry?"

At this mont, the buns ca out of the stear, handed to her in a plastic bag. Gu Qiumian had a unique way of eating—she didn't use her hands to hold the bun, but pulled the plastic bag's ears apart to both sides, squeezing the bun to her mouth.

She took a bite but got burned, so she cupped it in her hands and blew on it a few tis before carefully tearing off a strand with her teeth.

"Of course I'm angry." The bun seed really hot. She inhaled while chewing, unable to maintain even the coldness in her voice. "But didn't they search all afternoon without finding anyone?"

"Maybe by tomorrow..."

"Since they can't find them," she didn't know if she hadn't heard or deliberately ignored Zhang Shutong's words. Swallowing her food, her voice cald down as she said matter-of-factly, "then it's better not to think about it. That way I can be happier."

The girl said this without any appearance of happiness.

It reminded Zhang Shutong of when he'd run into her on the way to school—her father had told her to be happy. Only now did he feel there was deep aning in those words. Other people's parents mostly said things like study hard, listen well, don't cause trouble—who tells people to be happy?

So they should discuss sothing lighter, like life and death, rather than how she was feeling.

"Why haven't you gone back yet?"

This was what concerned him most. Gu Qiumian was always picked up and dropped off by car, so she should be safe on the way to and from school. Why was she alone here today?

"A bit hungry." She didn't even look up.

But this also showed she wasn't truly "aloof." Based on Zhang Shutong's own experience, soone with a cold personality might say in this situation that they were buying sothing, waiting for soone, or even "what business is it of yours"—but they wouldn't explain their state.

This was more like deliberately shortening what she'd normally say.

Looked like her mood really wasn't good.

But Zhang Shutong had no solution. Miss Gu had countless capable people around her, and they'd spent an entire lunch period unable to make her laugh—she still had this ice-cold appearance. What virtue or ability did he, Zhang Shutong, have?

He could only nod and echo:

"Yeah, being able to eat is a good thing."

Who knew Gu Qiumian's movents would pause, stopping her bun-eating motion.

The girl looked at him for the first ti.

With a eye roll.

"How is it that you only say nonsense..." she muttered. "Did you run over here specifically to aggravate people?"

"I ant, you guys just finished a big al at noon and you're hungry again now, doesn't that show..."

"I barely ate a few bites," Gu Qiumian frowned unhappily. "But what about you, why aren't you stuck together with those friends of yours?"

"Sothing urgent ca up."

"What urgent thing?"

"Secret."

"Tch."

At this mont, Zhang Shutong's buns were ready too. This kind of snack was always grab-and-eat—as long as you didn't take it to go, the boss would take another from the stear each ti you finished one, until you settled the bill.

With Gu Qiumian's example before him, Zhang Shutong wasn't in a hurry to eat. He just held it by his mouth, slling the fragrance of the risen dough.

He glanced sideways at Gu Qiumian. Like him, she also held the bun in front of her face, staring at either the bun or the road ahead, but that didn't stop her mouth from constantly moving.

"I thought you were in a terrible mood today."

"It is terrible."

"Didn't you just say you didn't care?"

"That depends on the degree. Even if it's sothing unimportant, it's still your thing. Who wouldn't care if their things got destroyed?"

"Why do you think that person targeted your blocks?"

"Probably thought I treasured them. I specifically brought them and put them in the bookcase," Gu Qiumian said indifferently. "Actually, they should have done sothing else."

"Watch out." Zhang Shutong reminded her.

While talking, Gu Qiumian hadn't been paying attention, and the bun was getting closer and closer to that scarf.

Only then did she snap back to attention, tucking the scarf inward before pursing her lips:

"Anyway, the incident itself makes care very much, but those blocks—I don't care about them. Is that clear now?"

"So you're in an interdiate state between bad mood and not bad mood?"

Zhang Shutong felt that won were truly mysterious creatures.

"No."

"Then what is it?"

"Very bad."

Zhang Shutong said, at a loss for words:

"But you're still eating buns."

"Can't I eat if I'm hungry?"

"What about going to the restaurant at noon?"

"Eating is eating wherever you go."

"I think I understand now." Zhang Shutong could only nod.

So she still didn't really care after all.

"You don't understand at all." But Gu Qiumian said dissatisfied: "You're just curious why I didn't cry or lose my temper, aren't you?"

"Uh..."

Looked like she really had hit the mark.

Zhang Shutong really couldn't figure this out. How else could he say he'd never been able to see through her? She was indifferent to things she didn't care about? She'd only treat things she cared about seriously?

He felt he was getting close to the correct answer, but this wasn't solving a math problem—it wasn't just missing one calculation step.

Gu Qiumian didn't have any follow-up either. She seed unwilling to explain so much, or perhaps felt that explaining would only make others gloat.

She really was a clever girl. He simply shut his mouth. By this ti, the buns had mostly cooled. Winter wind was very cold—even the hottest things would have their temperature stolen away in a few dozen seconds.

The first bun in Gu Qiumian's hand would soon be gone.

Actually, as long as she wasn't putting on that stern face, her voice was always soft. The sounds she made eating the bun were the sa. Listening to her, Zhang Shutong felt a bit hungry too.

He silently took a bite of the bun, breaking through the soft outer skin to reveal the filling inside. The fatty at was sweet and glutinous, the egg yolk savory and fragrant, the pork cracklings crispy... it was enticing, no doubt, but it still looked contradictory no matter how you looked at it. This also wasn't solving a math problem—those who loved it loved it extrely, those who hated it hated it extrely. But Zhang Shutong belonged to neither camp. He just felt nothing about it. Then he suddenly heard soone say by his ear:

"Because, otherwise I'd be defeated."

Gu Qiumian quietly spoke the answer.

Zhang Shutong was startled. He turned his head. The corners of the girl's lips still held the grease of food, appearing even more vividly red. The way she ate wasn't much different from how she drank yogurt at noon. Although at noon there'd been a group of people around her, now there was only her alone.

Or rather, it should be the other way around—when she was alone, it wasn't much different from when she was surrounded by a group of people in the center.

Not long ago, he'd encountered another girl eating alone. She sat at the edge of the rooftop, eating cold rice and wilted pickled vegetables, but didn't say whether she liked it or not—she was just used to it.

But what would that be when placed on Gu Qiumian?

She stood on the red brick-paved road surface. At her feet were gray-black snow piles, above her head the withered branches of roadside trees. Her face erged from that red scarf, calm but never showing weakness.

So she didn't not care—rather, her mood had been bad all along. But even when it was very bad, she wouldn't care what was written on that A4 paper, wouldn't walk over to that castle of blocks to see how her princess was doing, wouldn't be unable to eat alone, wouldn't have red-rimd eyes and wouldn't lose her temper.

Instead, she'd still bring a group of people to a restaurant, return to sit in the classroom all afternoon under various gazes, and even now bite into a half-salty, half-sweet bun. She never said whether she was used to it or not, but would say without ever showing weakness—

Because, otherwise I'd be defeated.

Zhang Shutong even forgot to chew. His taste buds told him that contradictory flavor had achieved an amazing balance at this mont.

...

From start to finish, Gu Qiumian ate just one bun before leaving.

Or rather, the person she was waiting for had finally arrived.

Zhang Shutong watched her walk across the street and pull open the door of a red car.

Zhang Shutong was silent for a long ti, watching until the girl got in the car and drove away.

...

December 6th, 2012, Thursday evening, 6:23 PM. Four days until the murder.

Zhang Shutong arrived at the waters known as the "Forbidden Zone."

He found a hidden spot to sit down, staring at the gloomy water surface, staying until 8 PM at night.

Again, he ca up empty-handed.

...

On the way back, he made another trip to the comrcial street.

A few scattered shops glowed with warm yellow light.

He found a hat and clothing shop.

...

He arrived ho at 9 PM.

The house was empty, sa as always.

The TV was playing Conan. He watched for a while and discovered it was no help with the real-life case.

He needed to change targets.

The figure in the "Forbidden Zone" wasn't necessarily the murderer.

...

Before sleeping, he would repeatedly lie in bed thinking of one sentence:

"Because, otherwise I'd be defeated."

...

The burdens people faced in life varied from person to person.

But undeniably:

He had once been a person who was defeated.

...

December 7th, 2012, Friday.

The weather was nice today.

The campus was peaceful.

Three days until the murder.

...

Ten AM sharp, the class dismissal bell rang on ti.

The extended break activity was doing broadcast calisthenics.

Exercise that would make you sweat slightly in cold weather.

Zhang Shutong stood up with the crowd, the last one to walk out of the classroom, lining up to go downstairs.

...

A little bit of white still remained on the playground.

Sunlight shone on the accumulated snow, reflecting silver light.

The broadcast played what might or might not be the Colorful Sunshine music:

"The ninth set of broadcast calisthenics now begins—"

10:10 AM.

"March in place—"

The black mass of people stepped uniformly.

"Chest expansion exercise, ready, begin—"

Zhang Shutong very antisocially stretched, ignoring the astonished gazes around him as he passed through the formation.

The only troubleso part was that this damned exercise made people extend their elbows, so he got hit several tis.

...

The male student in the fifth row from the back in the middle was called Du Kang.

The male student at the edge of the seventh row from the back was Qingyi.

Zhang Shutong patted both their shoulders.

The music suddenly beca passionate.

"One-two-three-four, five-six-seven-eight—"

Speaking inevitably required raising your voice a bit:

"Co with ."

"What's up?"

"Leg kick exercise, ready, begin—"

Zhang Shutong first glanced at the figure ahead in the formation. Gu Qiumian was also doing the exercises, quite properly. The pendant on her hair bounced along accordingly.

That silver pendant seed like it would never fall to the ground.

So Zhang Shutong decided to be Miss Gu's lackey for once.

10:12 AM.

He glanced at his screen and put his phone back in his pocket:

"Follow back to catch the culprit who smashed the castle. The timing is just right."