The Mysterious Case of the Young Detective

  "Is this what you're looking for, Mr. Culprit? No, I should be calling you Dilo instead." Zheng Hanfei slowly walked up to Dilo's face and said with a confident expression.

  "How did you know it was me?" Di Luo stared at Zheng Hanfei with a somewhat unpleasant expression. He hadn't expected that Zheng Hanfei would have anticipated his arrival.

  "Of course..." Before he could finish his sentence, Zheng Hanfei's brain transmitted another wave of pain, causing him to feel slightly dizzy.

  At this moment, Di Luo found an opportunity to escape and took advantage of it by pushing Zheng Hanfei away, quickly running towards the main entrance of the venue.

  Damn it! At this critical moment, must it be like this? Seeing Di Luo's fleeing figure vaguely, Zheng Hanfei muttered a sentence, his eyes glanced at the black hat in the pocket of his clothes, and slowly stretched out his hand...

  Just as Dilo was about to approach the entrance of the venue, a black shadow suddenly rushed towards his thigh. With a loud crash, Dilo flew out instantly, accompanied by his miserable cry.

  "You're still as impulsive as ever." Ouyang Xiu put away the wooden stick, looked at Di Luo who was crawling on the ground, and sighed, "You may be clever and have a high IQ, but you're too impatient, often not using your brain to think things through. Have you forgotten how I taught you?"

  "Sorry, Ouyang Xiu..." Di Luo covered his thigh and said with a grimace, "I forgot."

  "Don't worry!" Ouyang Xi'an comforted, "I have my own measure, I won't break any bones, at most it will just hurt for a while."

  "Sorry... Ou Yang Xiu, I have to do this!" Suddenly, Di Luo stood up, his right hand somehow holding a steel spear that transformed into a black shadow, striking towards Ou Yang Xiu's left shoulder.

  Bang! Bang! At this moment, two dark shadows suddenly attacked, flying over from both sides of Ouyang Xiuxiu's hair, hitting Di Luo's right hand and right shoulder respectively. Instantly, blood splattered everywhere, and Di Luo let out a pig-like scream, rolling around on the ground in agony.

  Ouyang Xi's eyes narrowed slightly, and he saw two palm-sized pieces of glass debris stuck in Di Luo's right hand and right shoulder. The transparent surface emitted a sharp light, making him tremble slightly. He thought to himself that if those two pieces of glass hadn't hit Di Luo, his head might have been seriously injured by now.

  Who threw it over? With a question, Ouyang Xiuzi turned back, suddenly, a chill rushed towards him, he saw a pair of extremely deep, emotionless eyes like black pearls staring at him, the pressure of his gaze seemed to suffocate him.

  "Are you... Zheng Hanfei?" Ouyang Xiu looked at the young man in front of him with incredulity, his two eyebrows, as black as ink paintings, seemed to be hiding a sharp edge, and an aura that didn't match his eyes was about to burst out. His slightly handsome face emitted a cold air, and the black duck tongue cap, paired with jet-black short hair and a black suit, made people feel like he was born in darkness, and sunlight wouldn't be suitable for his growth.

  "Ah, what? Don't recognize me?" Zheng Hanfei said calmly, his hands constantly playing with a piece of glass shard. What was astonishing was that the glass shard, emitting sharp light, kept darting back and forth in his hands without causing any injury to his relatively fair hands.

  "You're not him!" Ouyang Xiuzi stared at Zheng Hanfei's cold face and said, "He wasn't as cold-blooded as you are!"

  "Cut!" Zheng Hanfei snorted disdainfully, turned his head to look towards a certain part of the venue, and shouted: "Are you coming out or not? If you don't come out soon, your younger brother might bleed to death."

  "You dare to move him, I'll fight you to the death!" A slightly angry voice echoed throughout the venue, and Katie's figure slowly appeared in the two men's line of sight, but their eyes didn't show any fluctuation, as if they had known she was in the venue all along.

  "Sister?" Dilo saw this astonishing scene, instantly forgot the pain, and asked incredulously, "How did you end up here? Weren't they supposed to be enough with just me coming? Even if we were discovered, as long as I took responsibility it would have been fine!"

  "Shut up!" Katie shouted, "We should have thought of it earlier that they wouldn't give up so easily, otherwise no one would have found out. By the way, Zheng Hanfei, how did you solve the mystery of the disappearing gemstone?"

  "It's a shadow!" Zheng Hanfei threw away the glass shards and said calmly, "Old Lady Yuan Cui once said that under the lamp light, the gemstone appears somewhat illusory and mysterious. I also saw that the frame's shadow seemed to be missing a part, in a semicircular shape. So I thought that maybe the gemstone wasn't there at that time, but was replaced with something else, like a 3D projector."

  Here is the translation:

  "Speaking of which, Zheng Hanfeng shook the miniature 3D projector in his hand. "In that case, it can explain why those miniature spotlights went bad. The image projected by the 3D projector will become blurry if exposed to strong light, and this trick will be quickly discovered. This is also the reason you wanted to cover it up yourself, afraid that Uncle Sterling would find out."

  "What you said is right, I admit my guilt." Katie took a deep breath, "Please don't go on, hurry up and bandage Dilo's wound."

  "How can that be?" Zheng Hanfei said, "Uncovering the truth is a detective's fate! Besides, I have a measure of control when I strike, it's just a minor bleeding, not affecting the arteries and veins, a simple bandage will do."

  "Ah..." Katie and Dilo let out a sigh of relief at the same time, while Ouyang Xiu also found some things from the meeting room that could be used as bandages to treat Dilo's injuries.

  "Continue," Zheng Hanfei went on, "If this reasoning is accurate, then it can be confirmed that the time when the gemstone disappeared was before you covered it up. After Uncle Sterling entered the venue with the gemstone, during this period, only two people came into contact with the gemstone: Dilo and Uncle Sterling. Thinking about the time they held the gemstone, I inferred that the probability of Dilo committing the crime is very high. Moreover, I've heard that Dilo has learned magic, so it can be basically confirmed that he made the gemstone disappear."

  "Basically correct." Katie sighed, she really underestimated Zheng Hanfei, originally she only thought that she couldn't escape Ou Yangxiu's eyes, but didn't expect that she also couldn't escape Zheng Hanfei's eyes.

  "Was it your intention to create that unexpected commotion at the meeting just to prove to everyone that the gemstone was still present?"

  "Yes."

  "You have indeed blinded the eyes of some people, including mine and Ouyang Xi's, but you haven't blinded others', such as Granny Yu Cui."

  "Haven't you ever doubted what she said?"

  "No, she's a world-class gemstone appraiser, I believe her eyes are fine."

  "So that's it, I was wondering why this name sounded so familiar, it turns out it was her." Katie said with a self-mocking smile.

  "I'm really quite stupid, I didn't even think that the thief was two people. If it wasn't for this trick, I would have thought that the spirit in Acheron was just one person."

  "So you're saying that my trick once deceived you?"

  "Are you saying that the bulletproof glass was shattered?" Zheng Hanfei sneered, "I've seen through it long ago. Bulletproof glass is made with PVB film, which becomes brittle at low temperatures. And on the broken glass, I found some water stains, so I understood that someone had put ice on the bulletproof glass to lower its temperature."

  "I asked the staff who handled those magic tools, and some of them saw water stains on the red cloth. The thickness of that red cloth was very thick, not for a long time, the water stain couldn't float on the red cloth to let the staff see it, so I knew Dilo couldn't put ice cubes. So, the person who put the ice cube could only be you when re-covering the red cloth."

  "As for where the ice comes from, it's simple. All the drinks in the dining area have ice cubes in them, and you've also been offstage to the dining area before, so getting ice is easy for you. You can put the ice in a bag that has been chilled beforehand, which will slow down the melting of the ice, so you can put it on after your performance, right?"

  "I really have a new opinion of you." Kitty applauded, "I apologize for what I said before, you are indeed a great detective."

  "The title of great detective means nothing to me," said Zheng Hanfei. "I'm just enjoying the fun of reasoning, which is also my only pleasure. Well, are you two going to surrender or should I send you to the police station?"

  "What are you talking about!" Hearing Zheng Hanfei say that, Ouyang Xiu jumped up in a hurry and shouted loudly, "Didn't you promise me not to send them to the police station? They didn't commit a crime on purpose."

  "I didn't say that." Zheng Hanfei gave Ouyang Xiu a cold glance, "A crime is a crime, there's no excuse!"

  "This was their treasure all along!" Ouyang Xiū continued, "It's just a farce, only meant to teach Sterling a lesson, they didn't mean anything else."

  "That won't work!" Zheng Hanfei shook his head, "He just tried to hurt you, if I hadn't stopped him, you would have been injured already."

  "I believe he wouldn't hurt me even if he wanted to." Ouyang Xiuzi glanced at Di Luo, "I trust him."

  "Thank... you..." Di Luo looked at Ouyang Xiu with grateful eyes, then lowered his head and sobbed: "I'm sorry..."

  "These trivial matters can be discussed when we get back." Ouyang Xiuzi picked up the wooden stick with a flourish, pointing at Zheng Hanfei with an air of drawing his sword, "Do you still want to arrest them? I dare say that as long as I'm here, I won't let you succeed."