Chapter 13: Clues

"Three Kings. Do you have any bombs? If not, I win. A three."

"Are you kidding me! Di Ye, you're too cunning, actually holding onto a small three until the end."

"This 'Fighting the Landlord' is interesting, more fun than 'Upgrade'. Let's go open a table too."

Di Ye sat before the large desk in Dorm 411, holding a 'Fighting the Landlord' tutorial class, spreading this new way to play that had just been invented in 1995.

By the time he finished teaching past 10:00 PM, a scruffy-looking guy pushed open the door, and seeing the room packed with people, he exclaimed dramatically and loudly: "Yo, yo, yo, why is it so lively? Which big star has come to our dorm to bring us warmth?"

"Di Ye is teaching us how to play cards."

"Damn! What's there to teach about playing cards."

Di Ye had just finished a round, stood up to give his seat to someone else, and stepped forward to greet him: "Peng Guangzhou, I've been waiting for you for a long time. Let's go out and talk."

Peng Guangzhou had just returned from the arcade and was feeling a bit lethargic, but upon hearing this, he gave a start and asked: "What do you want to talk about?"

Seeing him like this, Di Ye felt a stir in his heart and bluffed with ambiguous phrasing: "Let's talk about the good deed you did the night before last."

"I didn't do anything the night before last! This is Class 3's territory, you're from Class 1, don't go looking for trouble where there is none, otherwise you'll be the one to suffer the consequences."

This guy's fierce-on-the-outside, weak-on-the-inside posture was exactly the same as Shi Yucheng's. Di Ye couldn't help but want to laugh; he raised his thumb and gestured behind him, raising his volume: "How about I go proclaim the good deed you did the night before last to the students of Class 3? Let them judge and see who will be the one to suffer the consequences."

Peng Guangzhou's eyes darted around, and he was left speechless.

The gunpowder-filled conversation between the two made the whole dorm quiet down. Su Zhaonian took the opportunity to throw the lousy cards in his hand onto the table and chimed in: "We're all from the Computer Science Department, there's no distinction between Class 1 and Class 3. Peng Guangzhou, you deliberately bullied Di Ye the night before last and got him dead drunk, and you still dare to say you didn't do anything?"

Once everyone heard this was the reason, they burst into laughter. After all, drinking wasn't a big deal, so they stopped paying attention to the two of them; those playing cards continued to play, and those watching continued to watch.

Di Ye brought Peng Guangzhou out to the corridor, struck a pose from a kung fu movie, clenched his right fist, and slammed it into his left palm twice, continuing to bluff: "Do you want to get beaten up first and then talk, or are you going to speak up voluntarily now?"

Peng Guangzhou's mental fortitude was even worse than Shi Yucheng's, and he said with a mournful face: "It's true that I took your BB Pager, but Shi Yucheng already returned it to you yesterday, so why are you still coming to find me?"

Di Ye had originally intended to bluff about the milk being spiked, but since this guy claimed he had stolen the BB Pager, he couldn't help but be slightly stunned and asked: "When did you take it?"

"After I sent you to the rental room in the Tongzi Building, I saw you were sleeping very soundly, so I took the BB Pager when I left."

"Then how did it end up in Shi Yucheng's hands?"

"I took the BB Pager back to the dorm and Shi Yucheng saw it. He offered 100 yuan to buy it, saying he wanted to use the BB Pager to build a rapport with you."

Hearing this, Di Ye felt something was wrong, because the police had only found Di Ye's fingerprints on the BB Pager at the scene, no one else's. He recalled what Lin Jiayong had just confessed and asked: "Were you the last person to leave that room of mine?"

"No, you have a friend who lives on the first floor. When Lin Jiayong and I left, he was still in the room, using a 'quick-boil' heater to boil water for you."

Upon hearing this, Di Ye felt a chill shoot from his spine straight to his brain.

Feng Shijie had stolen his room key!

Because only in this way could one, after the incident, wipe all the fingerprints off the BB Pager, and then, while Di Ye was drunk and unconscious, re-apply his fingerprints and drop it at the scene as evidence.

Seeing Di Ye's rage erupt, Peng Guangzhou clenched his fists and hurriedly tried to distance himself: "I really only took your BB Pager, I didn't touch anything else. Lin Jiayong can testify for me. If you lost anything else, go find that person who lives on the first floor; it must have been him who took it."

Di Ye took a deep breath and continued to ask: "That night at the dinner, was it Shi Yucheng who gave you money to arrange it?"

Compared to stealing the BB Pager, getting someone drunk was a minor matter. Peng Guangzhou had nothing to hide and admitted: "He couldn't stand you, so he asked me to find a few classmates to get you drunk together and watch you make a fool of yourself."

"Since he wanted to watch me make a fool of myself, why didn't he attend the dinner himself?"

"He was originally going to go, but something came up at the last minute, so he didn't make it. He only came over after we had finished eating."

Di Ye recalled and found that Di Ye hadn't mentioned seeing Shi Yucheng, so he asked: "Why didn't I see him?"

"He was in the small supermarket next to the restaurant, buying a bottle of milk for each of us to sober up. You were at the public phone booth making a call at the time, and I was the one who delivered the milk, so you didn't see him."

"What kind of milk?"

"Just the glass-bottled milk produced locally in Yuncheng."

"I remember when you gave it to me, the cap was already open. Did you open it?"

"No, when Shi Yucheng bought them, he put a straw in every bottle."

Di Ye interrogated him repeatedly for a while, and seeing that Peng Guangzhou couldn't provide any other information, he reached out to straighten his crumpled collar and warned: "I'll go confront Shi Yucheng later. If I find out you lied, just wait to go to prison. That BB Pager is worth over 1,000 yuan, enough to sentence you for three to five years."

"I didn't lie, every word is true."

"Better not have!"

Di Ye let Peng Guangzhou go and returned to his own dorm. After pondering repeatedly for a moment, he decided to return to the Tongzi Building to live for a few days and continue to play along with Feng Shijie; after all, there was currently no substantive evidence to finish him off.

"Cai Wenhao should have reported to Feng Shijie about my going to the Foreign Languages Institute to verify things this afternoon. Let's see what he says tomorrow morning."

Just in case, before going to sleep, Di Ye placed a stool behind the door, and on the stool, he set a washbasin and a tin mug used for brushing teeth, so that if Feng Shijie opened the door and came in during the middle of the night, it would startle him awake.

However, nothing happened that night. Di Ye slept soundly until dawn. When it reached 7:30, Feng Shijie came to knock on the door very punctually, inviting him to go have breakfast together.

Feng Shijie not only had mental fortitude far exceeding Shi Yucheng and Peng Guangzhou, but his acting skills were also quite excellent. On the way to the canteen, he said with a sincere face: "Di Ye, I entrusted Teacher Cai to inquire about Student Xia's family situation yesterday; it was truly a last resort. I hope you can understand."

"Why does Teacher Feng say that?"

"I'm from Su Province and have always wanted to work in Jinling. I heard Student Xia's family background isn't simple, so I wanted to ask her to help pull some strings. But I've only just met Student Xia and we aren't very familiar, so I was afraid of causing resentment if I spoke up rashly. That's why I asked Teacher Cai to help inquire. I didn't expect it to cause such a big reaction from you."

"It was mainly the fake phone call on New Year's Eve that turned Xia Fangfei into a frightened bird. She's been suspicious these past few days; no matter who calls her, she thinks there's a problem. She insisted that I go find Teacher Cai to verify it. I was forced into a corner, so I had no choice but to go."

"Then how did you guess it was me?"

"I guessed blindly, because you know Xia Fangfei and you're also a counselor, so you just happened to have a connection with Teacher Cai."

"You Computer Science students really do have strong logical thinking skills."

Di Ye was also a guy with excellent acting skills and said in a sincere tone: "There were many suspects who impersonated me to make that phone call on New Year's Eve, but it definitely wasn't Teacher Feng. So when I went back and told Xia Fangfei, she felt very embarrassed and said that when she has time, she'll invite you to a meal to thank you for sending her back to the dorm on New Year's Eve."

"Haha, it was just a small favor, no need, no need."

"It's necessary. When the time comes, you can have a good chat with Xia Fangfei and see if you can find a suitable job in Jinling."

"Then I shall respectfully accept."

After finishing his acting duel with Feng Shijie, Di Ye rushed to the main teaching building without stopping. He found Shi Yucheng in the 'Computer Graphics' classroom and asked straight to the point: "Did you drug my milk that night?"

After Shi Yucheng bought the IBM internship spot, he had returned to his arrogant, universally despised posture. He admitted it without fear: "That's right."

"What kind of drug did you use? Triazolam or Ketamine?"

Shi Yucheng frowned, thinking he was making a mountain out of a molehill: "It was just ordinary sleeping pills. I only put in a tiny bit to let you sleep a little longer; you won't die."

Seeing that he had no reaction to the medical terms, Di Ye pressed further: "Did you buy the sleeping pills yourself, or did Feng Shijie give them to you?"

Shi Yucheng was slightly stunned and asked, "Who is Feng Shijie?"

Di Ye was also stunned, and just as he was about to doubt his own judgment, he heard Shi Yucheng say again, "Feng Shijie is that Teacher Feng who lives downstairs from you, right? That's right, he's the one who gave it to me."

Damn! This guy doesn't even know Feng Shijie's name...

At this time, there were only a few minutes left before class, and more and more students were in the classroom; several classmates were sitting around the two of them, making it inconvenient to chat, so Di Ye used his old trick, put his arm around Shi Yucheng's shoulder, dragged him out of the classroom, found a place with few people, and asked, "How do you know Feng Shijie?"

"Why should I tell you! Stop always getting handsy, I... with you..."

Di Ye slapped him on the back of the head and said sternly, "What Feng Shijie gave you wasn't a sleeping pill, it was drugs. Do you want to die? If you want to die, I'll send you to the Public Security Bureau right now."

Shi Yucheng was startled and hurriedly confessed like beans spilling from a bamboo tube, "On the morning of New Year's Day, I went to the house you rented to find you and buy an internship spot, but you weren't there. When I was leaving, I met that Feng Shijie downstairs. He said he could persuade you to transfer the internship spot through Xia Fangfei. I was momentarily blinded by greed, so I listened to his arrangements, got you drunk that night, and then impersonated you to call Xia Fangfei and ask her out."

"Are you a pig-brained idiot?"

Di Ye had already confirmed at this point that Shi Yucheng had been used, and he reprimanded, "Is asking a girl to a secluded small woods after lights out something a normal person would do?"

Shi Yucheng felt aggrieved, rubbed the back of his head, and said, "I didn't think too much before making the call, but on the way back to the dormitory after making it, I also felt something was wrong, so I went to the small woods to check, but then I heard him calling your name, so I ran away quickly."

Di Ye was stunned again upon hearing this and asked, "After you impersonated me to call Xia Fangfei, you didn't intend to go to the small woods?"

"Why would I go? Feng Shijie said he had a way to persuade Xia Fangfei and told me to wait for news the next day."

"I've discovered you're not just pig-brained, you are a pig!"