"I told you she did it."
"I really don't know what she wants. She must be crazy. We've rehearsed for such a long time, will it all be ruined by her?"
"Headmaster, she must give us an explanation!"
"Be quiet!" the headmaster shouted loudly. Is what I said useless now?
"It wasn't me." Ming Shu threw up her hands. "Believe it or not."
"There's no enmity between you and Mengmeng. She must have been framed by someone," Ye Miaomiao said, after Ming Shu's words. "Headmaster, we must find out the truth and prove that Mengmeng is innocent. Mengmeng isn't such a bored person."
The headmaster looked at Ming Shu, who tilted her head and bit into her lollipop, a slight smile on her innocent face. She could smile even now. Was she crazy or merely calm?
"Headmaster." Ming Shu stopped biting the lollipop, her clear voice ringing through the whole room. "Do you smell blood in the room?"
"Blood?" The headmaster sniffed the air unconsciously. But there was only the pungent smell of oil paint.
"Lu Meng, don't change the topic." One student pointed at Ming Shu. "It must be you who ruined our costumes. Now you're trying to scare us to distract us. This is the school's auditorium. Where would any blood come from?"
"Yeah!"
"Headmaster, don't listen to her."
Ming Shu smiled and said to the headmaster leisurely, "Headmaster, I suggest you call the police now. No matter whether I did it or whether there is blood, we'll know the truth once the police are here."
Ming Shu glanced at Jin Yuqi in particular. From Jin Yuqi's appearance and behavior, maybe she also didn't know the truth and was even confused about why there were so much paint.
The headmaster deliberated for a while and asked Ming Shu, "Lu Meng, the room reeks of oil paint. How can you smell blood?"
The smell of oil paint was so overpowering that they couldn't smell anything else at all. Why could she, a simple girl, distinguish the smell of blood?
"I say there is, so there must be." Ming Shu kept smiling, confident.
"…" Did the straight-A student's behavior differ from normal people's? Thinking that she was the straight-A student who never lied, the headmaster finally decided to ask the teacher beside him to call the police.
Jin Yuqi became worried when she heard the headmaster decided to call the police. She had thought that this matter would be solved easily, not expecting that the teacher would call the police.
There was so much oil paint and…
Jin Yuqi gripped the fabric of her clothes and tried to calm down. But she was still worried and couldn't be as calm as the others.
Soon the police arrived. Some of the policemen had seen Ming Shu at the police station yesterday. They furrowed their eyebrows when they saw her, indicating their confusion at seeing this troublemaker again.
The policeman asked for information from the headmaster first. The headmaster also felt it was strange that there was so much oil paint here, so he told the policeman that Ming Shu had caught the smell of blood.
The policeman asked them to go outside to wait, then told his colleagues to search the room.
The students stood in groups of two or three and discussed, waiting outside and craning to see inside but unable to discern anything.
"Why haven't they come out in so long?"
"Is it true there's blood?"
"The oil paint really is strange. Other than on our costumes, there's a lot spilled on the floor. It's weird."
Ming Shu and Ye Miaomiao stood next to the headmaster who was in the middle of the crowd. After all, she was suspected of pouring the oil paint, she had to stand in the middle.
The headmaster stared into the room, furrowing his eyebrows. As the headmaster, he hoped that nothing had happened that might impact the school's prestige.
The policeman left the room, his serious expression revealing that something bad had really happened. Soon another group of policemen came here. The police cordoned off the area and no one was allowed to leave.
Didn't that mean something bad really happened?
The policeman called away the headmaster first. Soon the headmaster came back and called for Ming Shu with an unhappy, serious expression.
The atmosphere became depressed suddenly, everyone feeling upset. Except for Ming Shu, the students were questioned separately.
"Lu Meng, you were the first to claim the room smelled of blood?" the policeman asked, holding a pen and notepad. "The smell of oil paint was overpowering, how did you detect any smell of blood?"
Ming Shu leaned against the wall, her attitude improper. "I guessed it."
The policeman frowned. "Lu Meng, please answer my question honestly."
"Lu Meng, answer honestly." The headmaster reproached Ming Shu with a serious stare. That she could smile at this time…. Did she really comprehend the seriousness of the matter?
Ming Shu took out two pieces of chocolate and answered while opening them. "I found that there was blood on the floor when I came into the room. The policeman clearly knows the color of oil paint won't change, but the color of blood will. And… I can smell blood."
The policeman nodded. Yes, the color of blood would change, which was different from oil paint. They also found some blood that wasn't covered by the paint.
But…
"Smell?" The room was full of the stench of oil paint, and they still couldn't smell the blood although they had visited many crime scene. Could the girl as well?
Ming Shu ate the chocolate and smiled. "It's inherent."
Some people did have a strange talent and could smell blood easily. Or maybe she was sensitive to the smell of blood. But she was still suspect.
The policeman looked Ming Shu up and down. She had remained calm the entire time since she was called here. Maybe she wasn't calm, but comfortable.
If there was a person like her at a crime scene, there were two explanations for their behavior. First, they really had nothing to do with the crime, so they would be at ease. Second, they were the murderer, pretending to be calm to mislead the investigators.
The policeman coughed and said, "There really is a lot of blood mixed in with oil paint at the crime scene. And you were the first one to discover it. So we need your cooperation."
Ming Shu agreed with a smile. "Okay."
...
A lot of blood, which was later proven to be human blood after a test, was found at the crime scene, catching the police's attention.
Now that all the costumes had been ruined, the Cultural Festival couldn't be held as planned. The headmaster asked teachers to tell students that the Cultural Festival was being postponed and students were to have classes as usual.
And all the students at the crime scene needed to be questioned by the police…
The police's questions were things like "When did you come here?", "Who discovered this first?", "Why did you argue?", "Did you find anyone strange?" and so on…
No secret could be kept forever. Although the headmaster asked them to keep it quiet, the news that a lot of blood was found in the auditorium still spread, leading to heated discussion among students. The school suffered immense pressure and demanded that the police uncover the truth as soon as possible to assuage the students' uneasiness.
Except for the blood, the police didn't find any other clues. It appeared that someone deliberately poured blood there and then covered it with oil paint.