Chapter 55: Roman Holiday (Conclusion)

“...From the moment he stepped into the school, everything was under our control. Look, isn't he walking exceptionally slowly? Because this man has a naturally cautious, overly prudent personality. I bet you he might even be wearing a mask.”

The young man and the young woman stood thus at the window in the middle of the corridor. The night seemed to dull their senses; the two of them acted completely oblivious to the man's arrival, merely whispering to each other under their breaths, as if they were trysting in some deserted spot at night and murmuring sweet nothings.

“Then why isn't he hurrying over?” Gu Qiumian asked in a low voice.

“He's afraid we'll call the police. Ideally, he hopes we'd still be watching a movie, and he would suddenly slip in through the back door of the classroom and make his move. As long as he can secure control over just one person first, the rest becomes easy to handle.”

“And what about now?”

“Now the first variable has arrived. He found out we aren't in the classroom, so he's hesitating.”

“He wouldn't just turn around and run away, would he? Wouldn't that ruin everything?”

To this question, Zhang Shutong merely answered in a soft tone:

“A gambler who has already stepped up to the gaming table has no reason to walk away halfway through.”

It was almost time.

When he had just left the classroom, he didn't close the door, and *Roman Holiday* was still playing. He didn't know which scene it had reached, but the classroom of Class 1, Grade 4 was located right next to the stairwell. In the corner of his eye, the faint light spilling from the doorway of the classroom just barely outlined the silhouette of a man.

Actually, the opponent had two choices right now: either charge straight up or continue observing. Though whichever choice the opponent made didn't make much difference to Zhang Shutong, he figured that since the Young Miss had specifically requested a happier version, he shouldn't scare her too much.

Thus, precisely at that moment, the young man turned around, the beam of his flashlight illuminating the man's face, causing the man to instinctively halt in his tracks.

Following that, the young man shouted demandingly: “Who is it?”

The young woman also chimed in with lingering fear, muttering, “Who on earth would come around this late at night? Is it a teacher...?”

The two of them pressed close together, mustering their courage as they walked a few steps toward the stairwell, until—

“He really is wearing a mask...” Gu Qiumian lowered her voice.

“Didn't I tell you? I can guess his every next move.”

So the youth and the maiden froze in place, repeatedly calling out, yet the man gave no reply, merely narrowing his eyes in the glare of the light, his brows tightly knitted.

“Why isn't he saying anything?” Gu Qiumian's voice was masked beneath the dialogue of the movie.

“He's afraid of leaving behind evidence,” Zhang Shutong remarked offhandedly. “And didn't it happen just as I said? He's starting to hesitate because he's lost absolute certainty. Even for a gambler, going all-in is a process—let alone a desperate criminal.”

“Then what do we do?”

“Let's add some chips to his pile.”

Naturally, this pair of youths weren't fools; after freezing for just a moment, the boy blurted out, You're that arsonist, aren't you? He immediately urged the girl to hurry and call the police.

Yet the girl exclaimed anxiously:

“My phone is out of battery too! Have you forgotten I was playing games all day long?”

The two exchanged a glance, then turned and ran.

“That excuse of yours is terrible,” Zhang Shutong reminded her in a whisper.

“It really is dead.”

“Can Talking Tom drain a battery that fast?”

“I forgot to exit the game and locked the screen directly...”

“Idiot.”

“You're the idiot!” Gu Qiumian glared at him. “What's next?”

“The more you say, the more mistakes you make. That's about enough; just maintaining a delicate misunderstanding is fine. It's enough to make him chase blindly. You know how fishing works, right?”

Zhang Shutong had just been fishing today and was very eager to share his insights:

“Sometimes, a cunning old fish won't rush to bite when it sees the bait in the water. You give the rod a gentle twitch, and only then will they take the hook.”

As they spoke, the youth and maiden had already run to the very end of the corridor. There was another stairwell behind them leading to the school rooftop. The man seemed to know this, and he pressed on, stepping closer and steadily accelerating his pace.

“He's hooked now?”

“Mhm, hooked. And he's quite familiar with the school layout too; he knows the rooftop door is locked, so he wants to break our psychological defenses little by little and corner us into a dead end.”

“Then what do we do?” The Young Miss was in a good mood and asked a rather silly question, seemingly intending to let him show off a bit.

“We'll do as I said before. It's not like you don't know.” Yet Zhang Shutong knew Gu Qiumian was harboring some mischievous intent.

His eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness, allowing him to read the girl's lip movements:

“Did you forget what you promised me just now? Be. Hu. Morous!”

Zhang Shutong bit down on the soft flesh inside his cheek. This was already the third time today; if he bit down again, he suspected he'd get a mouth ulcer. In truth, given his temperament, he was purely a man of action, but who told him to be humorous today?

Therefore, he deliberately raised his voice and explained:

“Don't forget I have a trump card.”

“What trump card?” Both of them turned back simultaneously, and surprisingly, it was the man who asked the question.

This was the first time the opponent had spoken. His voice sounded without any distinct, memorable features, and as he uttered those words, the man had already stopped moving.

Zhang Shutong and Gu Qiumian had already climbed the stairs, and the man was closely following right below them.

“Of course, the rooftop key. You didn't think this place was actually locked, did you?”

Zhang Shutong tilted his head and asked with a peculiar expression.

In theory, the rooftop door was locked, but back in the second year of middle school, a custodian had been careless and forgotten to pull out the key. He had been bold back then and directly went and made a duplicate, gaining a secret little hideout ever since.

He hadn't expected this little hideout to remain hidden for so many years. Like Batman's Batcave or Iron Man's destroyed home, it was finally coming in handy.

This was why Zhang Shutong had chosen the school as their final destination.

While speaking, he grabbed Gu Qiumian's hand and sprinted onto the rooftop. Reacting instantly, the man bolted upward, but Zhang Shutong used that window of time to lock the door from the inside. The two of them stepped back, immediately hearing the dull thud of the opponent's body slamming heavily against the door.

“How thrilling.”

Finally safe, they no longer needed to suppress their voices. The girl let out a long breath, the night wind messing up her hair as she finally noticed her heart pounding wildly.

Relishing the lingering excitement, she said:

*“Do you think this guy must be feeling utterly depressed? He was about to catch us, only to be separated by a door again?”*

Although they were safe, the night wind on the rooftop was bitterly cold. It was a place that was always freezing in winter and scorching in summer.

The youth nodded:

“Let's just stay here for a while. He'll probably leave soon.”

“What if he doesn't leave?”

“Then we just call the police and wait it out. I don't believe he'd dare keep watch at the school indefinitely.” Saying this, the youth took out his phone, pressed the power button a few times, and a moment later awkwardly said, “Oh no, I just remembered my phone is dead... Well, I guess we just have to tough it out.”

The previously safe situation grew tense once more. The man seemed to have overheard their conversation, and instead of leaving, he pressed forward with even greater force.

That door was merely made of plywood; it was fine for keeping mischievous students out, but against an adult man throwing his entire body weight into it, it couldn't hold out for long.

The youth and maiden clearly realized this problem. After a brief silence, Gu Qiumian asked:

“What if he manages to break the door down later?”

As if her words carried some mystical decree, with a sharp *rip*, a crack instantly split across the door panel.

Zhang Shutong whispered:

“Just as I said before, he won't give up easily. I just wonder how long the door can hold...”

He truly had the mouth of a crow. No sooner had his voice fallen than the door panel succumbed to the pressure and finally burst open with a loud bang.

“Where else do you two think you can run?” The man panted heavily, finally sneering as the words squeezed through his teeth.

On the rooftop, within their field of vision, only the two youths stood exposed.

“What do we do? What do we do?”

They retreated step by step, Gu Qiumian frantically shooting sidelong glances at Zhang Shutong.

Zhang Shutong knew why she was anxious—

Putting on a brave face, he suppressed his expressionless nature and played along with her to the very end:

“Don't be afraid. Who says I don't still have a trump card?”

The girl burst into a fit of laughter, while the youth shouted toward the side:

“If you don't come out now, someone's actually going to die!”

Under the man's dumbfounded gaze, from behind the small utility room of the stairwell, four figures suddenly materialized on the previously empty rooftop.

Zhang Shutong played all four cards in one breath:

They consisted of one adult and three students.

They were none other than Zhang Shutong's homeroom teacher and his core group of best friends.

Heaven knew how long they had been lying in ambush here, each rolling up their sleeves in eager anticipation.

They were never afraid of being outnumbered; in an instant, the tables were turned.

“You almost suffocated me, Shutong! Why'd you only call out just now?” This was Du Kang.

“Why were you two acting like total idiots just a second ago?” This was Ruoping.

“A man's gotta have a trump card. Handsome!” This was Qingyi, who flashed a thumbs-up as he spoke.

Zhang Shutong returned the thumbs-up and told Gu Qiumian, Did you hear that, you fool?

“You are so bad...” Gu Qiumian laughed until her body shook.

Zhang Shutong reminded her that it wasn't time to lower their guard yet:

“Look, isn't this guy acting exactly like I predicted? He's starting to hesitate again. If we reacted quickly right now, taking a hostage would still be feasible.”

Zhang Shutong pointed toward Ruoping's position:

“Ruoping is closest to him. If he lunged forward, he could probably catch us off guard—though the probability of him actually taking action is close to zero.”

“Why?”

“After all, he hasn't shown his face from start to finish. Why wouldn't he run? What's the point of fighting to the death? It's not like he can take you hostage. Besides, this guy's personality dictates that while he loves lurking in the shadows, to put it nicely, he bides his time; to put it harshly, he hesitates and overthinks. Like I said, I've guessed everything he's thinking. If you don't believe me, watch—"

True to form, the man instinctively touched the mask on his face, looked around vigilantly, and began retreating step by step.

“If he runs away, won't all our previous efforts go to waste?” Gu Qiumian made for a qualified straight-man partner, bouncing around like a little fan girl: “Oh, hurry up and think of something! Do you still have a trump card?”

Zhang Shutong sighed helplessly:

“Can't you let me have my cool moment at the very end?”

“Play your cards!”

Zhang Shutong truly regretted making that promise to her.

Gu Qiumian beamed like a blooming flower while Zhang Shutong rolled his eyes, turning to tell the man, Please hold your step, esteemed murderer.

Honestly, he felt that playing cards was truly much harder than catching a murderer.

Yet who told him to casually declare earlier that pig liver or duck liver didn't matter, that the murderer didn't matter, and whether the opponent was smart didn't matter either—since he had already guessed their every move down to a T anyway? What mattered? Half a volume of *Roman Holiday* told him it was about keeping the princess happy.

Amidst the opponent's halted footsteps, he muttered:

“Pardon me, but why do my trump cards never seem to run out... Du Kang, haul his son up here.”

“You got it!”

The youth dragged yet another dark shadow out from behind the stairwell.

Zhang Shutong very considerately flashed a beam of light to help father and son recognize each other.

“Why are you here? Didn't you say you were going out to eat with your teacher?” The man finally panicked.

“Dad, they've known all along. This was all an act put on for us...”

“How did they find you?!” The man roared in disbelief, then instinctively looked toward Zhang Shutong.

Yet at this moment, the punchline he had waited so long to deliver could finally be put to use.

For some reason, however, it suddenly tasted completely devoid of flavor.

Zhang Shutong shrugged, looking thoroughly unenthusiastic:

“If you want to blame someone, blame Oreo. Who told me to have such a bond with it?”

...

Time turned back a few hours to the afternoon.

“How come Old Song still hasn't come back after going to buy water?” Du Kang shook his head left and right.

“Did you tell your family you were going out to eat tonight?” Qingyi asked abruptly.

“It's fine, my dad knows I'm not coming back.”

“I need to give my family a heads-up.”

“What do you mean?”

“It means my phone is out of battery too.” Qingyi innocently shook his own phone and asked, “Can I borrow yours to make a call?”

Yet instead of asking Du Kang, he directed the question to the boy standing nearby, who had just emerged from the restroom.

“I... you... you can borrow your friend's...” the boy stammered, instinctively shielding the location of his phone.

“Just as Shutong predicted, it really is you,” Qingyi exhaled. “Du Kang, go.”

...

“Damn it, I knew you were shady normally, but I never expected you to harbor such a huge plot. You've got some serious nerve!”

Du Kang spat out a mouthful of saliva. The boy had just taken a punch from him and was rolling on the ground, unable to speak.

Only then did a shocked Du Kang turn to ask his best friend what on earth was going on.

“He's the one who wrote the name on the partition and instigated Li Peng to make a move.”

Saying this, Qingyi dialed a callback: “Hello, Teacher? You can come back now. We've caught the culprit.”

“Wait, buddy, what's going on here?”

“Don't rush, I'll explain it to you piece by piece, starting with this person right here.”

A relaxed smile finally surfaced on Qingyi's face:

“Do you remember what I emphasized earlier? The matter regarding Li Peng's mother was a time bomb planted in advance, and the best place to plant that bomb was right here at the school.

“So he slipped a note to Li Peng, inciting him to act. Makes sense now, right?”

Yet Du Kang immediately shook his head:

“No, no, no. As I recall, the castle incident was something the three of us uncovered together. What does it have to do with him? That doesn't count as a time bomb—how was this bomb supposed to detonate without us?”

Qingyi said:

“That's yet another miscalculation made by this father and son. Li Peng was dragged out by Shutong, but haven't you noticed? It actually didn't matter who dragged him out.

“Since he was the one pulling the strings behind this incident, in a sense, he was the only one who knew beforehand who smashed the castle. Even without us, he would have actively exposed it. This guy's modus operandi is identical to his father's: he loves lurking in the shadows, dumping the messy aftermath onto others while keeping his own hands clean.

“Therefore, not only did he have to write his name on the partition, but to thoroughly wash himself of any suspicion, he proactively brought the matter up to Gu Qiumian. Remember when Shutong went to find him? His reaction was completely abnormal. He stubbornly refused to say anything.”

“That was intentional too?” Du Kang's jaw dropped.

Qingyi nodded:

“That's right. It was meant to cement his persona as a secret admirer. Since he had a secret crush, it would make no sense for him to retaliate against Gu Qiumian; since he offered a warning in advance, it would make no sense for him to be the mastermind orchestrating Li Peng. But think about it the other way around: he washed his suspicion far too clean. When countless coincidences pile up, they become an inevitability.”

At this point, Qingyi lowered his head:

“In reality, you never had a crush on her at all, did you? Your whole family detests Gu Qiumian so much. Growing up in that kind of environment all your life, where would genuine affection come from? Whether it was being desk mates, offering warm pleasantries, or anything else, it was all merely a means to understand Gu Qiumian right here at 'school.'”

“Am I right?”

Qingyi nudged the boy lying on the ground with his foot, spitting out three names with utter disgust:

“Zhou Ziheng.”

...

“So you, Shutong, and Old Song had already plotted this out beforehand? And only the two of us were kept in the dark?”

The young maiden's eyes widened in utter speechlessness.

She had just returned with the homeroom teacher. A short while ago, her heart had been fluttering with anxiety, yet before long, as soon as Song Nanshan and the others moved away from the three boys' line of sight, he had abruptly stopped. This looked nothing like someone going to buy water.

The man had turned around, bent over with his hands braced on his knees, and offered her a bitter smile:

“Ruoping, I've worried you, but the teacher had no choice in this matter...”

She was just about to ask what on earth was going on when she saw Old Song receive a phone call. She didn't know what the caller said, but he immediately nodded with a darkened expression and waved his hand grandly:

“Let's go back and talk!”

Then he broke into a run, hurrying back.

And then Ruoping witnessed one of the three boys—who had been chatting and laughing just moments earlier, looking for all the world like a close band of gossiping comrades—suddenly taken down.

Old Song went straight over to speak with Qingyi, leaving her no choice but to ask Du Kang. But Du Kang himself was rather muddled, rambling for ages before finally managing to explain what had happened.

Turns out, only the two of them had been kept in the dark.

At this moment, Qingyi finally had a free moment:

“Yeah, Old Song is an outside reinforcement invited by Shutong. Otherwise, why would he suddenly call the three of us and deliberately leave Shutong and the other two out?”

“Then why didn't you tell me?” Ruoping lunged forward, ready to twist his ear.

“Don't, don't, don't! I was afraid the two of you would blow your cover and spill the beans. Besides, didn't Shutong ask you? He wanted to know if you preferred hearing the answer in advance or waiting for a surprise.”

“Well, that sure was a surprise!” Ruoping gnashed her teeth in anger. “I even almost suspected Old Song of being up to something shady! No wonder you acted like a total dummy the entire afternoon!”

Qingyi spread his hands:

“Nothing could be done. I didn't mean to scare you on purpose, but think about it: at a weekend hour like this, if we wanted to bring Zhou Ziheng out without arousing suspicion, the only one who could summon students with justified cause was him—who else but Old Song, the homeroom teacher? It's not like the few of us could just waltz over and fetch Zhou Ziheng ourselves, right?”

“So everything Old Song said earlier about fishing, dead batteries, and watching a movie—was all made up? He said it deliberately for Zhou Ziheng to hear so he could report back to his dad?”

“More or less,” Qingyi nodded. “Though the movie part wasn't fake; that was Shutong's own suggestion. He said we should set the trap for the murderer on the school rooftop later since he happened to have the key, and the space up there is wide open. Just in case the murderer got driven into a corner, there'd be no possibility of accidental injury—though that probability was slim, you all know Shutong's style. Better safe than sorry.”

Ruoping was convinced, though she remained rather reluctant on the surface:

“So does this count as a complete success?”

“Pretty much. His dad has already taken the bait, look.” Qingyi shook Zhou Ziheng's phone, showing Ruoping the chat history between father and son. “Though it's not set in stone yet, we're indeed only one tiny step away from victory.”

“Now we can finally lay out the whole case clearly. Not only have you guys been bursting to talk, but honestly, so have I.”

Qingyi said excitedly:

“Let me count how many events have happened so far—oh, there are actually five or six of them: the names in the restroom stalls, the castle retaliation incident, Li Peng getting called to the teacher's office, the arson case, plus today's all-day operation involving maids, fishing, and moving desks... Well, let's leave those aside for a moment and start from the beginning.

“The most crucial point among them—namely the matter of Li Peng's mother—I won't repeat. Anyway, it's the critical connecting joint between both ends.

“Everything leading up to that event constitutes the preparations the son made within the school.

“Everything following that event constitutes the father's retaliatory actions outside the school. See? Doesn't it become crystal clear all at once?

“The first suspicious point in all of this is why Zhou Ziheng went through with it. After all, he washed himself completely clean from the very beginning, acting as a 'secret admirer' and playing the 'good guy.' No one would ever suspect him of being the mastermind.

“Thus, when you try to deduce Zhou Ziheng's motive, you inevitably hit a roadblock: if he wanted to retaliate against Gu Qiumian at school, why not just go ahead and do it? Why go through such an elaborate detour? That was right where Shutong got stuck at the time.

“But what if you don't treat the castle incident as an isolated event? Connect it with all the subsequent occurrences, and you'll realize he never cared about petty antics like tearing up scarves or toppling toy blocks. Everything he did was purely to carve out an escape route for his father.”

“You mean...?” Ruoping understood, a sudden chill washing over her.

“Exactly.”

Qingyi nodded with equal solemnity:

“Just as Shutong said, the so-called murderer wasn't just one person. It was a joint conspiracy between the two of them. From beginning to end, this case was a meticulously planned sequence of actions spanning from inside the school to the outside, ultimately revolving around retaliating against the Gu family.”

At this point, Qingyi smiled again:

“Yet what good is meticulous planning when it still got smashed to pieces by us? Especially Shutong—look at him, doesn't he seem like someone sent down by the heavens specifically to thwart this father-son duo?

“In the beginning, Zhou Ziheng wanted to be Gu Qiumian's desk mate, but Shutong snatched the spot; later, to clear his own name, he wanted to proactively expose Li Peng, but Shutong dragged him out in advance; and then his father instigated those five men to burn down Gu Qiumian's villa, only for Shutong to hand them over to the authorities. And now, he wanted to report back to his dad, yet he still got outwitted by Shutong.

“So, wouldn't you say he plays the role of the guardian knight to absolute perfection?”

“I'm truly convinced. If it were me, I probably wouldn't even have been able to find Li Peng,” Du Kang lamented. “Then that leaves the final question—"

He asked with lingering puzzlement:

“How on earth did Shutong manage to suspect Zhou Ziheng in the first place?”

“That?” Qingyi smiled mysteriously. “In a sense, it really was a coincidence. Like I said earlier, Shutong bumped into a monumental secret right inside the bubble tea shop.”

“Stop keeping us in suspense!” Du Kang and Ruoping spoke in unison.

“It's very simple. When he was buying bubble tea, they happened to run out of crushed Oreos, so the proprietress asked her son to bring some out from the back. That was when Shutong figured everything out.”

“He saw Zhou Ziheng right then?”

“To be precise, no.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well...” Qingyi rubbed his chin in thought. “To put it in his own words, he felt he might just have a deep bond with Oreos.”

“No, what does this have to do with Oreos?!”

...

“What does this have to do with Oreos?!”

Atop the rooftop, the man cried out in utter bewilderment. The person who had seemed to hold absolute mastery over everything just moments before was now teetering on the edge of a breakdown.

His son was right in the opponents' hands, spilling every single detail of their plot. Continuing to fight a cornered battle was entirely meaningless. With a hollow look, he leaned his back against the wall of the stairwell and slowly slid down to the floor.

The rooftop concrete was naturally bone-chillingly cold, mirroring the complete freezing of his heart.

“Actually, it has nothing to do with Oreos,” Zhang Shutong glanced sideways at the man, whose reaction matched his prediction with pinpoint accuracy. “Though *Oqiaos* wouldn't have been out of the question either. Back then, I didn't even clearly see his face. Didn't your shop have a utility room with a cloth curtain hanging over it? When he handed me the Oreo package, only his hand reached out—he didn't even expose his body.”

“Then why...?”

“However—”

Their homeroom teacher had once said that if the word “however” popped up in the middle of a sentence, it meant everything said prior could be treated as utter nonsense.

Zhang Shutong had always remembered that vulgar piece of wisdom quite deeply, and hearing him drag out his tone in a lingering drawl, Old Song couldn't help but chuckle.

This was perhaps a tacit understanding exclusive to master and disciple. Just as when he returned from the bubble tea shop and laid out the situation clearly to Old Song—at which point the man hadn't even eaten yet, having just emerged from the police station—he didn't ask questions, simply grabbed his car keys without a second thought to fetch Du Kang, choosing to place absolute trust in his deduction.

Now that the dust had settled and Old Song and the others had already called the police in advance, Zhang Shutong didn't rush to deal with the man.

Instead, out of habit, he took out his phone to check the time, only to find that the little device had already reached the very end of its lifespan. It certainly had worked hard today.

When the battery was at thirty-five percent, he officially proposed today's operation to his best friends;

At thirty-four percent, Du Kang was already pedaling his bike toward Gu Qiumian's family villa;

At thirty percent, he had rushed to the commercial street;

As it dipped below thirty, with Ruoping's assistance, he pinpointed that bubble tea shop;

After that, the exact remaining percentage wasn't meticulously calculated.

It was roughly around twenty-something when Qingyi informed him that the culprit had been identified;

Just below twenty, in order to completely shake off the man, he went to his “base” for some fishing;

In the teens, he called Old Song, and entering single digits, he received the news that Zhou Ziheng had taken the bait;

And when the battery hit one percent—the big fish was officially hooked.

The man who had orchestrated everything from behind the scenes possessed a conceited personality, always assuming that without a phone, he would become like fish on a cutting board, isolated and driven into a desperate corner.

Yet what Zhang Shutong hadn't told the opponent was that if it was merely to deal with him, he hadn't needed to turn his phone on at all.

Thus, Zhang Shutong turned his gaze toward the boy lying on the ground. It was night, so naturally, the other's features were obscured in the dark.

He remembered the first time he saw him was on seat-swapping day. Through a twist of fate, the boy ended up sitting next to Gu Qiumian. Song Nanshan arranged the seating by academic rank, and the students filed into the classroom one by one.

His initial impression of the boy back then was as follows:

“A somewhat dark-skinned boy who, for some reason, froze for a second when he saw me.”

That initial impression had been far too faint, leading him to quickly forget the boy's name the very next day.

Of course, there was also the fact that the castle incident was an anomaly that hadn't occurred in the original timeline—a deviation brought about by his own regression—

Many plans thought to be foolproof often perish against a tiny flaw. The task entrusted to him by the Young Miss had been completed; at this moment, he finally no longer needed to play cards, but could instead unveil the final riddle:

“You want to know how I guessed all of this just from him handing me an Oreo? It's actually very simple.”

Amidst the incredulous stares of this father-son pair, Zhang Shutong spoke in a calm tone:

“Who told your son to be blessed with such dark skin?”

*“—I could recognize him just by looking at his hand.”*

A total of 14,000 words! Monthly votes requested!