In this counselling room, Teacher Cherry was feeling more convinced with each passing minute from the moment she summoned him here for interrogation even though he has been maintaining an icy cold calm demeanour since he entered.
"Okay, now," Teacher Cherry stood up from her seat and begin to pace around the room, more accurately around the table where he was seated. "Danson Tang Yu Zhe, right? Can you tell me where were you between roughly 10 to 11:30 yesterday's morning?"
He pursued in keeping his cool even when answering, "I was first having my Biology class, then, went on to my Mathematics class..."
"Really?" Teacher Cherry was trying every way to catch his hesitance, but there was not shown a single trace of it. "Who is Yang Zhen Lan, in relation to you?"
"We're good friends, if you can believe that," he said a-matter-of-factly.
"Good friends..." Miss Cherry considered. "In a way that if you request for help from him, he will agree no matter what?"
He smirked, "Principal Cherry, 'good friends' can have lots of meaning, and be equally subjected to variety of situations and conditions."
She was pretty much dissatisfied with such response, not giving her a chance to make him sound wavered. She cleared her throat, "I did check that you had no other Science class yesterday, particularly lab sessions, so would you bring what you usually need for them under any circumstances?"
This instant, he let out a brief laugh, "Principal Cherry, if you had already known about the classes I had yesterday, why did you have to ask me about my Biology and Maths classes again in the first place? You are already very much knowledgeable about them. And no, I don't always bring my dissecting set, lab coat or suit or whatever..."
Miss Cherry abruptly stopped and stood back at her seat before him, "Then...!" A loud knock on the door disrupted her focus. She was forced to discontinue, "Come in!"
The door opened and in came Miss Yeh. Miss Cherry was indeed surprised and also quite displeased to see her.
She straightforwardly requested, "Miss Cherry, I'm afraid that I need Danson Tang to come with me to my class right this second."
Miss Cherry went over to her, "Miss Yeh, I do need to have a talk with your student at the same time, would you mind giving me a chance?"
She shook her head mercilessly, "Miss Cherry, we are about to have a mock quiz session and as you know, Danson Tang is an extremely valuable student to us, his scores have been entered into the national level board. He will be representing the school for the next day's state-wide Mathematics competition. If he fails, will you be responsible for that, please delay your interrogation to a later time. As for now, he needs to go..."
After thinking about what was said, Miss Cherry breathed hard and decided to release him.
Over at the clubroom, the gang of four were waiting impatiently for Miss Cherry to finish her task. 007 remained seated in front of the computer.
187 came forward to see what was he messing with and sighed, "Still waiting for clues and this screenshot? It's been quite a while already since you got that 'code of conduct' thingie..."
747 chipped in, "Come on, 007, give yourself a short break to unwind first. Like that time when I got the screenshot, running out of free hints for game 2, I simply can't solve the puzzle."
007 added, "I get a sense that they represents Roman numerals, and if it doesn't mean a strange four, then it's a combination of one and three..."
"Huh?" 747 was still blank and then merely turned to Tian Mo Xing, who was still indulged in that 2005 yearbook. "Hey, Tian Mo Xing, you're also studying about it?"
She looked up and nodded, "So what has Danson Tang Yu Zhe to do with Yuan Lan Ying?"
007 offered, "I have checked the data of all other students in that same year and each one of them was still available, only Yuan Lan Ying's was nowhere to be found. There must be something that happened which forced Yuan Lan Ying to leave this school, causing her to be left out completely. And probably has to do with our side having compassion on her or whosoever. The other day, we watched the show dealing with the theme of 'giving and then taking back', could be connected with offering Yuan Lan Ying a place in this school but in the end, refusing her as well."
"Oh," Tian Mo Xing and the rest tried their best to digest the details. Then, 187 quickly interrupted the process, "Wait a sec, what show did you guys watch?"
007 was about to explain but Teacher Cherry came storming into the room, appearing terribly frustrated, "I just hate it! We need to figure out his loopholes as soon as we can!"
They all were a little taken aback. "Teacher Cherry, how was it?" Tian Mo Xing was the first to ask.
Teacher Cherry sat down and kept going through the two pages in her hands, "There must be something behind this..."
187 shrugged, "Apparently, it was not successful."
They all gathered around her to help out. 007 took Danson's sheet and noticed more closely the shade of the ink colour used. Tian Mo Xing turned to him, "Here 007, my magnifying glass is handy again!"
He gladly accepted it and checked, "These tiny spots over at the edges could signify that this sheet was previously photocopied from a carbon copy."
Teacher Cherry snapped her fingers, "Right, attendance records usually come with a carbon copy!"
007 went on, "I'd also say that the original was not photocopied once but twice, considering its appearance."
"Oh ya," Teacher Cherry understood.
007 held up Yang Zhen Lan's copy too, "The names printed show some discrepancies in the appearances of the ink used. Probably for the second copy, white-out was used to erase Yang Zhen Lan's name and have Danson Tang's printed over it."
"Huh? But I don't get why the trouble of making things so complicated having to use the carbon copy," 747 doubted.
Teacher Cherry sighed, "Could be just so that Miss Yeh won't find her original copy missing and not being able to suspect."
"Then, Danson Tang should be the one!" Tian Mo Xing exclaimed.
"Okay now, this student is not easy to deal with," Miss Cherry revealed. "Is there any other way to discover more evidence about him?"
They all set to get their mind thinking. After some moments, 007 turned to 747, "I think we should go to the store you last told me. The person you heard conversing over the phone has a high probability to be Danson Tang."
"Ahh!" Tian Mo Xing cried all of a sudden.
'What's wrong?" everyone asked.
"I only remember now that I have a late assignment to submit," she said embarrassingly. "But it's okay, just tell me the location and I will be joining you all later."
"Okay, we'll set off then, will be waiting for you," 007 assured her.
"Alright, I still have time and since solving the case is more important," Miss Cherry agreed.
"But wait," Tian Mo Xing uttered again.
"What's the matter again, Tian Mo Xing?" 747 asked.
She clarified, "I thought I saw something sticking out from here a while ago. Teacher Cherry was stepping on it then." She stooped down by the table and started to look about under it.
007 did the same and soon, managed to finger out a sheet of paper, "Is it this one?"
She looked to make sure and then eagerly nodded, "Yes."
"What kind of thing is that?" Miss Cherry also came forward.
"Page 10 of 10," Tian Mo Xing read and then went over the title.
"Staff Employment Report!!" Teacher Cherry almost could not believe it.
"Miss Cherry, isn't this really important?!" Tian Mo Xing realised and handed it over to her.
Teacher Cherry grabbed hold of it, "How did this end up here?...Ah yes, I remember once we were having discussion and 187 said that I had printed something from the office using this room's computer. Oh goodness!!"
"Then, how come there's only the last page, what about the rest?" Tian Mo Xing carried on to search around.
"That's right, where are the others?" Miss Cherry followed suit and so did the rest. After a while, they still did not manage to find.
"I think let's plan this way," Miss Cherry decided. "It's gonna take time and I will continue to look for them. 007, 187 and 747, you guys will go to store instead."
Everyone complied with the suggestion and the three of them headed out.
At the convenience store, they tried their best to find out more clues and just as what 747 has told, there was indeed no surveillance camera installed any where.
007 walked down a particular aisle and noticed that the place did sell some old stock of video tapes. And blank ones as well. Picking out one of them, he was by now more certain of where that guy has gotten the PAL tape.
He thought he would go to the cashier and seek out more information when out of the blue, another person did so before he got the chance.
"Finally, the dry cleaner returns to us. Just in time when he need this for tomorrow's class," 007 saw a man passing a bag of something to the lady cashier. Pretending to walk closer, he did manage to catch a slight glimpse of what was inside and then, after noticing that the two were casting doubtful glances at him, he went away.
It struck 007 that 747 and 187 were nowhere to be seen. Reaching the doorway, he saw 187 turning to a corner. He hurried to catch up with him.
187 was talking to someone over the phone, as made out by 007. He wondered if he should interrupt but he could already hear what 187 was saying.
"Yes, that Doraemon gift hamper is especially for you. Okay, hope you like it," he concluded after not long. 007 was about to call out to him when he turned another corner again.
187 then spoke into his headset that he has something to attend to and needed to leave first, not knowing that 007 was actually not far behind him. 187 quicken his footsteps away from the vicinity of the store.
007 wanted to catch up with him and tried informing 747 through his headset.
"Hey, 007!" 747 called without warning from behind.
007 sighed, "Where were you?"
He only smiled sheepishly, "I, of course, have gone to the washroom, trying to check things out, but seemingly, achieve nothing...Where's that 187 going to in such a hurry?" He too noticed now.
"Doraemon gift hamper, could it be stage II in between I and II that I have missed out?" 007 uttered thoughtfully.
"What did you say?" 747 was blank.
007 was somehow being distracted by a cab pulling into the curb not far from the pavement. Something caught his attention sharply and he subsequently recalled the license plate number. He then told 747 to go after 187 instead, which 747 reluctantly agreed with his limited explanation.
007 was sure that this cab had fetched Yuan Lan Ying and the technician to the suspected Mastermind Computer Centre the other night. He was about to approach the driver when the latter, being still inside the car, took out his cellphone.
"Hello, I would like to report a lost belonging I found while driving some customers to a store two nights ago," 007 managed to catch his sentence within earshot.
After listening further, 007 was even more certain that what the driver has was Yuan Lan Ying's stuff. He then went over and feigned that he knew her and promised that he would return the thing to her right away. The driver simply gave the belonging to him with a word of thanks.
Studying what he has gotten as a result, 007 found it ironic to know that it was actually 187's pocket address book.
