"Teacher, let me explain, I was delayed at the police box, that's why I'm late, I actually left really early!"
"What did you go to the police box for?"
"It was like this, this morning I saw someone changing ten-yen coins at the convenience store with... and we thought he might be a burglar, so I notified the patrol officer to be on the lookout," Kiyomi Liuli pleaded, clinging to the tightly shut school gate, "I was doing a good deed, I didn't mean to be late, please let me in, teacher!"
The dark, sturdy phys-ed teacher who also oversaw discipline stroked his chin stubble pensively, "Although I didn't quite understand, I've been teaching for seven years and I catch latecomers every day. But I've never encountered excuses as refreshing and refined as yours."
Then he sighed, "These freshmen are getting tougher to deal with every year, the school should really give me a raise."
Unable to enter the school gates, Kiyomi Liuli gripped the iron bars tightly, nearly bursting into tears like a political prisoner wrongfully detained for thirty years, crying out loudly, "It's true, teacher, I didn't make up an excuse!"
"So, was the thief caught?"
"Ah, that... I was in a rush to get back to class, I don't know if they caught him..."
"Then how can you prove you're not lying to the teacher? I don't want to hear the freshmen say tomorrow that I'm an easy fool to deceive."
Kiyomi Liuli hastily said, "You can call the Tamamachi Police Box to check, I spoke with a familiar patrol officer named Asai!"
"Hold on," the phys-ed teacher went to the guardroom to make a call, and after a while he came out and said, "Asai-san isn't there, the folks at the police box said she's gone out."
"That's because she went to catch the thief after hearing what I said!"
"But now she can't testify for you, do you have any other witness?"
Kiyomi Liuli hurriedly said, "Yes, Nanahara from Class 1-A can vouch for me; he was the one who deduced that that person could be a thief!"
"Wait here." The phys-ed teacher went to make another phone call, this time it took a bit longer, probably because he had to pass the message through the staff room. When he returned, his face was less easy, "Class 1-A's Nanahara says he knows nothing about deduction."
Kiyomi Liuli was stunned, then angrily said, "He's lying, it was his deduction!"
"Deduction isn't anything to be ashamed of, why would he lie? Besides, he can only confirm that you went as far as the station, he can't vouch for what you did after that."
"That damn bastard, how dare he deny it!" Kiyomi Liuli was livid, yelling loudly, "It's too much, it was him who told me to go!"
"Dare to curse in front of a teacher?" The phys-ed teacher finally opened the gate to let her in, swinging a baseball bat, "Go run ten laps around the field!"
Kiyomi Liuli felt she was even more wronged than Kuihime (similar to China's Dou E), convinced she would turn into a vengeful spirit right there from frustration, pleading super-sorrowfully, "Teacher, please believe me, I really did go to do a good deed, you can't punish me!"
This isn't like in the novels at all. In the novels, whatever the detective says, others believe; teachers are very supportive. Why am I being treated like this?
This is so unreasonable!
Waving the baseball bat, the phys-ed teacher herded her toward the field while sighing, "The teachers would also like to believe you kids, but you've been coming up with all sorts of fantastic excuses every day, making fools of us, so now I don't believe anyone who's late!
Plus, discipline is discipline, school rules are school rules. If you can't find a witness, the teacher still has to treat you equally, latecomers must run laps!"
Five minutes later, on the empty field, Kiyomi Liuli, holding her backpack aloft, her face the picture of misery, began to jog in circles—the others who were late weren't as outrageous as her and had finished their laps half an hour earlier to return to class, so it was a public punishment just for her.
It was truly a public execution, with the break going on, quite a few people were leaning out of the windows of the teaching building chatting and looking over at the field.
She didn't dare turn her head, afraid that everyone was pointing and whispering about her—this was only the second day of school, and she was already such a spectacle, definitely damaging her reputation.
Only when she reached the curve of the track did she finally muster the courage to sneak a peek at the teaching building and indeed, she saw many looking in her direction, including Nanahara Takeshi.
Even from a distance, it was hard to make out the expression clearly, but Kiyomi Liuli could swear to heaven, Nanahara Takeshi was definitely laughing heartily, definitely relishing her embarrassment.
He really was a jerk—in the past, she had even wanted to befriend him, even considered making him vice-president of a committee. She must have been crazy!
......
Four kilometers over ten laps—Kiyomi Liuli, burdened by her backpack, couldn't run fast, and it took her more than half an hour to finish. Even in the chill of spring, she ended up with a head dripping in sweat.
By that time, the second period was more than halfway over. She was too embarrassed to return directly to class, so she ran to the restroom to wipe off the sweat, washed her face, and sulked on the toilet until the bell rang for the break. Only then did she sneak back to the E class classroom, avoiding everyone's gaze, and settled into her seat like an ostrich burying its head in the sand.
"Liuli, what happened to you? Why are you so late?" whispered Sawada Yuko, the plump girl who had helped her with the recruitment event the day before. "Did you stay up all night reading novels like in middle school and dozed off on the train, missing your stop?"
"No, I went to bed early last night, just after eight, and got up especially early today. I was sabotaged!" Kiyomi Liuli, upon seeing her best friend arriving to comfort her, felt her anger at Nanahara Takeshi flare up again. If only she had a manure fork at hand, she'd be storming into class A right now to skewer that jerk Nanahara Takeshi to death.
Sawada Yuko and Kiyomi Liuli had been in the same class since elementary and middle school and were truly close friends, so Yuko, always loyal, immediately rolled up her sleeves, flexed her arm to show her muscle, and said with righteous indignation, "Who dares to mess with you? Messing with you is messing with me. I'll go with Yutaro after school and beat him to a pulp for you!"
"It's the same kid who ruined my recruitment event yesterday, but you two don't need to bother. If he has even a bit of sense, being as thin as a rod, I bet he can't even fight a dog. I can flatten him myself!" Kiyomi Liuli spoke the harsh words while biting on her little white teeth, but then she deflated, "But I can't do it, he knows my mom. If he goes and tattles to her, I'm done for."
"Oh, it's him? He knows Auntie Koko? Then forget it; let's spare him a dog's death." Sawada Yuko had really just wanted to show her support. After all, it wasn't like when they were in elementary school and nobody took a fight seriously.
Now, a fight could have serious consequences, especially for someone like Yuko, a special recruit for a sports school. It could be labeled as school bullying, and that could cost her the chance to compete in the regional tournaments, not to mention the IH competition.
Kiyomi Liuli didn't want to talk about Nanahara Takeshi any further. Ever since their first encounter yesterday, she felt like she was always on the losing side, so she changed the subject, "Do you have time this afternoon? Can you give me a hand again?"
"You still want to organize that murder event?"
"Yesterday's didn't go well; we won't invite that guy today, so there shouldn't be any issues."
Sawada Yuko scratched her chubby face, hesitant, "I'm afraid that won't work today. Last night, a senior spoke to Yutaro and told us to go meet the Judo Club after school. Yutaro has already agreed, and it wouldn't be good to bail on them."
"It won't work?" Kiyomi Liuli was a bit disappointed. Alone, she couldn't manage to lock seven or eight people in a room, and she needed someone to play the corpse and shills. Without Yuko and Yutaro, the childhood sweethearts, the event wouldn't come together.
"If you ask me, Liuli, why don't you just forget about starting that Murder Research Society and join us in the Judo Club? You're not lacking in talent, and with half a year of practice, I guarantee you could be a first-team regular. We might even go to the IH competition together and have fun in Tokyo."
Kiyomi Liuli shook her head, "No thanks, I don't like Judo. You go to Tokyo with Yutaro!"
"All right then." Originally, Kiyomi Liuli had joined the Judo Club just to keep her company, with no great interest of her own. She found it too boring by the second year of middle school and stopped attending practice. Yuko had tried to persuade her more than once, and not being able to convince her this time either, she didn't feel disappointed. Instead, she straightforwardly said, "Then let's wait for tomorrow… well, tomorrow is Saturday, a day off. So, let's say next week. Yutaro and I will help you catch people next week."
Kiyomi Liuli sulked, "That's all that I can hope for now."
......
The break passed quickly, and the next class was Mathematics. Kiyomi Liuli took out her textbook but only listened for a while to something about set union and system of inequalities before she felt confused, like she was hearing some unintelligible scripture, and soon her mind began to wander—she wondered if that guy was really a thief and whether the police could catch him if he was.
The kid did have some talent, deducing a thief from a mere triviality.
As she let her mind drift, she glanced to make sure the teacher wasn't paying attention, then pulled out a brand-new, luxurious, hardcover notebook from her backpack — a gift from her father for advancing to high school. Chewing on her pen for a moment, she then began writing furiously.
Miss Liuli Morse, the famous detective, was a master of deductive reasoning, with incredibly sharp observation skills, boasting a harmony of beauty and intellect, truly a super-sleuthing genius, a rarity not just in a century, but in a millennium, no, in ten thousand years. And with such extraordinary talent, she had opened a small detective agency in Tokyo, taking cases only for fun.
One day, under the earnest pleading of a certain company director, she took on a disappearance case. After circling the scene just twice, she cracked the "Flowerpot Corpse Case" with some trivial knowledge about plant pots, eliciting an involuntary admiration from her lazy, dumb as a dog, vile-tempered but greed-as-life assistant, Nanahara Watson: Truly, there is no match and no equal for Miss Liuli Morse, the world's number one Kuihime detective, her deductive abilities are unparalleled!
The world's number one Kuihime detective, Miss Liuli Morse, didn't take such praise to heart. On the way back to the Kiyomi Detective Agency, she stopped at a convenience store to quench her thirst with a drink when she noticed a man trying to exchange a large number of ten-yen coins...
The man was a burglar, and Miss Liuli Morse, with just a glance, deduced the truth from this seemingly insignificant detail.
Why, you ask?
The lazy, dumb as a dog, vile-tempered but greed-as-life assistant, Nanahara Watson, asked blankly, utterly unable to keep up with the world's number one Kuihime detective, Miss Liuli Morse.
...
Kiyomi Liuli wrote with inspired penmanship, growing happier as she wrote. Her pretty, almond-shaped eyes narrowed into slits, and her mood was exceedingly uplifted.
The jerk, you wouldn't testify for me and got me punished, I'll write you to death!