When they arrived at the hospital that afternoon, Miss Cherry was extremely delighted to see them bringing along her laptop for her.
"Thank you...thank you! I've been absolutely bored to death!" she exclaimed.
They were at least quite glad that Miss Cherry was as resilient as ever. 747 added, "Teacher, it's fortunate that you told me about that weird excuse I should give to that bothersome Miss Yeh...Otherwise, I couldn't have gotten this key." He held up for everyone to see.
"So it's still with her, what else can we deduce about this??" 187 asked in wonder.
007 went closer, "It smells strongly of red wine..."
"Really??" Teacher Cherry shifted her attention from starting up the computer to the key in 747's hand too. However, with only inches away from it, the scent already made her feel like throwing up and she began coughing uncontrollably.
"Miss Cherry, are you okay?" Tian Mo Xing quickly went to pour a cup of water for her. In her haste, she carelessly spilled the boiling hot water and got scalded, "Ahhh..."
007 hurried over to her side, "You're hurt?" He grabbed some paper towel to help cool her now reddening palm, "No,...it's better to get some toothpaste...That will help heal..."
"Huh? 007...," Tian Mo Xing called out but he had already ran for the bathroom. The others, including Miss Cherry who has now quieten down with the cough subsided, only stared on with interest with their eyes glued on them both.
Inside the bathroom, 007 managed to find a tube of toothpaste. Then, a split second of the sight of Tian Mo Xing's wet sleeve in his mind from moments ago seemed to strike a significant recall. Weeks ago, he also dirtied his own blazer's sleeve with stains of nail varnish while doing a photocopy of Tian Mo Xing's EQ test sheet. Now, he figured out what was behind the trouble with the magazine she borrowed.
"Here, Miss Cherry, have some water," Tian Mo Xing offered. 007 then came out of the bathroom with the toothpaste in hand.
"I'll apply it on for you??" 007 volunteered upon reaching her side.
She turned to him a little uneasily, trying to avoid the others' gazes, "Err...it's okay, I'll do it myself." She stepped aside to another corner.
187 waved infront of 747, who had been looking on awkwardly, "So easily distracted..."
747 was then alerted back to his concentration on the matter at hand and cleared his throat, "Hey 007, did you bring Yuan Lan Ying's CD??"
007 took it from his bag and passed onto Miss Cherry.
She placed it into the drive while everyone waited.
"Oh...a diagram!" Miss Cherry declared upon seeing a pop-up window.
"It's like an inverted triangle with bold circular points on all its three corners," Tian Mo Xing described.
"Then, there're two arrows pointing towards the last lower point," 747 continued.
"Something appearing again," 187 added. "The two topmost points are now numbered '1' and '2'."
007 looked closer, "The upper circular points now changed to two symbols of human figures."
"Hmmm, must be representing two targets!" Teacher Cherry made out.
"And there seems to be a link shared between the two, possibly a relationship with a third person," 007 told. "Miss Cherry, I get this sense too while I was going through those text messages. It could be a family connection."
Teacher Cherry gave some thought and said, "That day in the kindergarten, I was pressured to tell all out about how my father treated both mum and I in the past - all about his mistakes and ignorances...Ah! I remember there was a loud 'click' sound nearing towards the time when Tian Mo Xing came to my rescue!"
007 could now piece together, "I discovered a hidden cassette player and most likely, whatever you have spoken were already set up to be recorded."
"Then, someone must be yearning to know more about what dad did," Tian Mo Xing uttered their mind. Everyone now got a better idea.
"Hey, this...Hangman??" Teacher Cherry was puzzled by what just appeared onscreen.
"007, just like what we did last time..." Tian Mo Xing remembered.
"9 blanks," he figured. The number of letters itself did remind of something. After entering randomly two vowels, his thoughts and memory went fast back to the time when they were with the wine-testing team. Each contaminated bottle has a single-letter code attached and coincidentally, there were also altogether nine of them.
007 did a quick mental shuffling of the set of individual codes to create a meaningful word. In the end, he keyed in and successfully got it right, "BLAMELESS..."
