Miss Forensics – Chapter 11
by Little PandaPart One
Students
“But I’m interested in you, Captain Song. Wherever you go, I go~”
“I thought you weren’t interested in solving cases?” Song Yuhang turned her head to fasten her seatbelt as Lin Yan opened the car door and climbed in.
Her eyes were beautiful, and when her lips curved into a smile, her arched eyebrows lent her a touch of cynical playfulness.
“But I’m interested in you, Captain Song. Wherever you go, I go~”
Song Yuhang shifted into gear and set off, clearly not taking the playful remark to heart. “Oh, I thought Forensic Examiner Lin was only interested in money and women.”
Lin Yan shook her head. Despite her wealthy background, she occasionally exuded the rakish air of a street-smart rogue.
“Not at all, not at all. I simply appreciate all things beautiful.”
Before they’d driven far, they hit the morning rush hour traffic at an intersection. Lin Yan rested her head on her hand, counting the traffic lights, and said without thinking, “Take a left onto Changcheng Road. There’s an alleyway that leads straight to Jiangcheng No. 1 High School.”
Song Yuhang glanced at her, her expression unreadable. “That road was closed off during the street renovations last year.”
“Oh, really?” She shifted her posture to get more comfortable, slightly closing her eyes to rest.
Because of that, she missed the sharp, fleeting glint in Song Yuhang’s eyes.
Morning self-study had just ended, and the campus was brimming with life. It was the height of summer. Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the camphor trees, casting dappled shadows. Boys and girls in blue-and-white school uniforms walked shoulder to shoulder, stood in the corridors memorizing vocabulary, or ran past them in playful, laughing groups of twos and threes.
“Hey, what are we having for lunch? A Yunnan rice noodle place just opened near the school gate. Want to check it out?”
“Yeah, yeah! I want the savory-spicy one!”
“Come on, we just finished breakfast and you’re already obsessing over lunch.”
“Oh, pleaseโisn’t that just like a certain someone who starts wishing for school to end the second the first bell rings?”
“How dare you! Get back here!”
“Hahahahaha!”
A cool breeze swept past her, and someone bumped her shoulder. In her daze, she seemed to hear a voice whisper “Lin Yan” in her ear.
She whipped around, expecting to see the person she’d yearned for day and night, but instead she saw Song Yuhang standing at the end of the corridor. Wearing a simple white shirt with the sleeves rolled up slightly to reveal pale wrists, paired with crisp black trousers, she stood bathed in the sunlight, her features sharply defined.
“Over here.”
That softly affectionate call of “Lin Yan” had indeed been nothing more than a trick of her distracted mind.
Lin Yan pulled herself together and followed.
“Hello, police.” Song Yuhang showed her badge. “We’d like to ask a few questions about what kind of person Ding Xue was.”
They were received by the director of the senior year grade, a balding, middle-aged man. At the mention of her name, he let out a long sigh and gestured for them to sit on the sofa.
“She was a very good person. Though young, she was already one of the core teachers here at Jiangcheng No. 1 High School. If this hadn’t happened, in another year or two, she undoubtedly would’ve become the head of the teaching group. She had an incredibly bright future.”
“What was her personality usually like? Did she have any conflicts with students, parents, or colleagues?”
“Conflicts?” He froze for a moment, then gave a bitter smile. “Well, if you’re talking about conflicts, what teacher doesn’t have some friction with students or parents? Most of it is just frustration over students not living up to their potential1 or differing educational philosophies. All of that is understandable. But if someone killed her over something like that, it would be far tooโฆ”
Lin Yan let out a cold, mocking chuckle. “I’ve seen someone get hacked over a single yuan in the middle of the streetโmore than a dozen slashes, every single one of them hitting a vital organ. It took me half a day just to sew the corpse back together.”
“Iโฆ”
The grade director choked on his words, caught in a classic case of a scholar trying to reason with a soldier2.
Song Yuhang ignored her completely and pressed on. “On the night of the incidentโwhich was Friday night, around eight or nine o’clockโthe victim’s husband stated that she received a phone call from the school. He said she was told several students were in a fight and that she needed to go handle it. Is that correct?”
The elderly grade director put on his reading glasses and scrolled through his phone before holding it out to them. “It’s correct, it’s correct. I was the one who made the call.”
Song Yuhang jotted down the call time in her notepad: 9:10 PM, lasting about thirty seconds.
“Could you tell us what happened that night in detail?”
“Of course, of course.” The man took a sip of tea and slowly began to recall.
“You’re lying! Stop talking nonsense! Teacher Ding isn’t like that!” A frail boy wearing a dirty school uniform had screamed, his fists clenched, as he scrambled off the ground and threw a punch at one of his tormentors.
Because his opponents had the advantage of numbers, his sneak attack was quickly shut down. He was shoved back to the ground, where the crowd began kicking and beating him.
The boy shielded his head with his hands, gritting his teeth without making a sound until a sharp voice rang out from the end of the corridor.
“What do you think you’re doing?! Stop it this instant!”
The crowd burst into jeering laughter and scattered like startled birds. Ding Xue ran over and helped the boy up from the floor.
“Are you alright? Did they beat you again? Didn’t we just call your parents in last time? I’m going to findโ”
“Teacher Ding,” the boy cut her off. His eyes looked dark in the night, shimmering with unshed tears. He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and forced a smile.
“It’s fine. I’m sorry to make you come out so late.”
“It’s no trouble. You’re my student, and as your homeroom teacher, it’s my duty to protect you.” She pulled a packet of tissues from her pocket, handed them to him, and reached out to help him stand.
The boy stiffened slightly, politely avoiding her touch. He took the tissue himself and clutched it, remaining silent as if lost in thought.
“What’s wrong, Xiao Zhou?”
As if coming to a sudden decision, he looked up. “You’ve been incredibly good to me over these past three years. If it weren’t for you, I might not have even been able to stay in school. I’d probably be working some dead-end job by now. You said we were friends. If we’re friends, can you tell meโฆ are youโ”
Before he could finish, footsteps echoed from behind them. The grade director and the vice principal appeared together in the corridor.
“Teacher Ding, is everything alright?”
Ding Xue turned around and pulled the boy up from the ground. “It’s fine. Those kids were fighting again. We’ll definitely have to call their parents in tomorrow for a serious talk.”
Seeing that they had company, the boy fell silent.
“Thank you, Teacher. I’llโฆ I’ll head back to the dorms to rest now.”
“Alright. I’ll walk you back,” Ding Xue offered, noticing that he was still limping slightly.
“Teacher Ding, what happened to you?” the vice principal asked, noticing her pale complexion, the light sweat on her forehead, and her damp collar. “If you’re not feeling well, we can arrange some time off for you.”
Though the offer was made out of genuine professional concern, for some reason, Ding Xue’s gaze flickered with unease.
“It’s nothing. It was raining a little on my way over. Even though I brought an umbrella, I still got a bit wet.”
She clutched a folding umbrella in her hand, coughing a few times into her palm as she finished speaking. She truly did look as though she had caught a cold.
The grade director pulled himself out of his memories and placed his teacup back on the table. “That was the last time I saw her.”
“Iโ”
“Iโ”
They spoke in unison. Lin Yan paused for a moment. “You go first.”
Song Yuhang picked up. “Can we meet that boy?”
“Oh, yes, of course. No problem. Let me make a call.” He seemed taken aback for a second before standing up and walking over to the window to make the call.
When he hung up and walked back over, his brow was slightly furrowed. “The substitute teacher said he didn’t come to school today. He took a leave of absence.”
Song Yuhang immediately requested his home address. While the grade director went to look through the student registry, Lin Yan stepped outside to catch some fresh air.
Back when she was in school, she’d wanted to smoke but couldn’t; now, she had no such reservations. She pulled a cigarette from her pack, popped it between her lips, and lit it with a sharp click of her lighter.
Passing students stared in her direction. Lin Yan even blew a lazy smoke ring, raising an eyebrow and tossing them a playful wink.
A particularly bold student sauntered over, reeking of tobacco as he spoke. “Jiejie3, give me a drag too.”
She cast a sidelong glance at him. He had a slicked-back look, wore a flashy gold chain around his neck, and kept his school uniform completely unzipped. He had “delinquent” written all over him.
Most importantly, that chain was solid gold.
Lin Yan’s lips curved slightly. She took the cigarette from her mouth and offered it to him. The boy, quick on the uptake, caught it between his lips.
“Interesting. Which class are you in, didi4?”
It was a premium cigarette, lingering with the faint scent of a woman’s lips. The boy took two deep drags. “Senior Class 16. Hey, jiejie, how about we trade contact info?”
She glanced at the soft nametag on his uniform, her face lighting up with a gossipy expression. “Class 16, huh? I heard the female teacher who died recently wasโฆ”
At the mention of this, the boy paused with the cigarette between his fingers before taking a heavy drag. “She was our homeroom teacher.”
“Such a pity. I saw in the newspapers that she was an outstanding educator,” Lin Yan chimed in naturally, clicking her tongue.
To her surprise, the boy let out a dismissive snort. “Pity? What’s there to pity? Wasn’t she justโ”
He stopped abruptly, realizing he had said too much. His eyes narrowed in suspicion as he sized her up from head to toe.
“Wait a second. The school is under closed management during class hours. Who are you, anyway? How’d you get in?”
The kid was surprisingly sharp. Lin Yan offered him a dazzling smile and batted her eyelashes, though inwardly she was cursing up a storm.
Suddenly, the boy slapped his thigh. “Oh, I get it! You’re a reporter! A ton of people have been coming to interview staff lately.”
“Coughโฆ” Lin Yan nearly choked on her own saliva. “Right, right, exactly. I’m a reporter.”
She nodded like a chicken pecking for grain. “So, do you know any inside gossip about your teacher? Like, who she usually hung out with, which colleagues she had beef with, any students she was particularly close to or clashed with, or maybe her marriageโฆ you can tell me anything.”
Before her lie could last even a minute, the class bell rang. The boy took a few quick drags to finish the cigarette, stubbed it out against the corridor railing, and turned to sprint toward his classroom. As he ran, he looked back to blow her a kiss.
“Thanks for the smoke, gorgeous jiejie! See ya!”
“Heyโwait!” Lin Yan stamped her foot. Fuck, that bell couldn’t have rung at a worse time.
Before she could even finish her sentence, the boy nearly collided with someone at the classroom door. Scrambling to steady himself, he bowed quickly. “Hello, Teacher Li.”
Lin Yan looked over. The woman addressed as “Teacher Li” wore a black blazer and matching skirt, with a pair of rimless glasses perched on her noseโthe very picture of a stereotypical schoolteacher from a television drama.
Song Yuhang pushed open the office door and stepped out. “Let’s go, Star Reporter Lin.”
“โฆ”
Behind her back, Lin Yan quietly flipped her the middle finger.
The author has something to say:
A scene between our leads tomorrow!
Thanks for reading.
Thanks to the sweet angels who voted for me or gave me nutrient solution!
Footnotes
- Literally 'hating iron for not turning into steel' (hรจn tiฤ bรน chรฉnษก ษกฤnษก). A common idiom expressing frustration with someone who fails to meet expectations or improve despite rigorous guidance.
- Based on the common saying 'a scholar meeting a soldierโhaving reason but unable to explain it' (xiรนcai yรนshร nษก bฤซnษก, yวu lว shuล bu qฤซnษก), referring to a situation where a refined, logical person is utterly unable to communicate with someone unreasonable or aggressive.
- A polite or flirtatious address in Mandarin for a slightly older woman, literally meaning 'older sister' (jiฤjie).
- A colloquial address in Mandarin for a younger male, literally meaning 'younger brother' (dรฌdi).
them bantering LMFAO
Their interactions are gold๐
Their interactions are gold😂