This is machine translated and all copyrights belong to the author. Please note that the translator might take creative liberties for better readability. Thank you for reading.
“Yu’er, it’s C, right?” Dou Bao whispered to Yu Zui, who didn’t react at first, but then heard the front row discussing the answer.
“No, it’s not,” Yu Zui shook his head.
“Stop pretending, as if you know. Who is the real culprit then?” Dou Bao mocked.
“I’m not talking about the answer,” Yu Zui smiled and whispered in his ear, “I mean, at least it’s someone sent by the organization. If someone with your intelligence can guess it, isn’t that a bit too low-level?”
After being mocked, Dou Bao got angry. He glared with his predominantly white eyes, fiercely pointing at Yu Zui and cursing, “Scumbag!”
“Trash,” Yu Zui laughed and returned the friendly insult.
While the two were chatting, Xu Pingqiu had already noticed the eleven or twelve students who had stood up. He encouraged them with a smile, “It’s commendable to have courage. You can all answer my question at the same time. My question is—”
He deliberately left them hanging, and just when everyone thought the answer was about to be revealed, Xu Pingqiu shifted the topic with a teasing smile, “What were the specific conditions I mentioned just now? You have three seconds to answer.”
The boys who stood up hesitated, their eyes bulging, and jaws dropping. They swallowed their words, unable to answer. The students who hadn’t stood up started chuckling.
It was a guess about the culprit; who would count the number of conditions mentioned? It was obviously a trap.
As laughter broke out, a male student blurted out, “Five.”
“Are you sure? Why not six?” Xu Pingqiu teased with a smile. The handsome student became uncertain, scratching his cheek and thinking hard. But the scene was chaotic, and he couldn’t keep up with his thoughts. Before he could speak again, Xu Pingqiu waved his hand, “Too slow, I revoke your right to answer. Please sit down.”
The students who had tried to stand out sat down, embarrassed, as the laughter among the classmates grew louder. A simple question, no one expected it to be a trap that caught so many, but the atmosphere became more harmonious. The old detective with a cunning glint in his eyes seemed more likable than the stern instructors.
Dou Bao, sitting in the back row, was the most surprised. He stared at Yu Zui strangely, realizing that Yu Zui’s trickery had indeed worked this time. However, disliking Yu Zui’s smugness, he decided to ignore him and turned away.
Xu Pingqiu on the podium maintained his smiling demeanor without moving. But the students below were abuzz. Some laughed at those who had made a fool of themselves, some discussed the actual answer to the conditions mentioned earlier, and others whispered among themselves, not about the conditions of the case, but about the conditions for solving housing and residency issues after selection.
The pretty girl in the third row looked disapprovingly at the male student next to her who had embarrassed himself, and mockingly scolded, “Jie Bing, you’re so dumb.”
“It’s not that I’m too dumb, it’s just that this old cop is too cunning. Even you wouldn’t have been able to answer,” the male student retorted, realizing he had been careless.
“How could I not answer, six,” the girl counted and finally clarified the number.
“Lulu, you can’t just play the wise man after the event like that,” Jie Bing said with a smile, looking even more handsome as he grinned.
The teachers standing in front of the classroom also smiled. They were happy to see these naive rookies face some setbacks. The so-called quality issues of the present generation, they believed, stemmed from overly comfortable living conditions, and what was lacking was this sense of frustration. The only unexpected reaction was from the instructor of the department; he seemed a bit flustered that none of the students could answer the question and uneasily looked back at Principal Wang and Director Jiang. Director Jiang, as if understanding his thoughts, whispered, “It’s not your fault. Chief Xu was capable of catching psychopathic killers in his time; it’s hard for ordinary people to keep up with his thinking.”
The teachers and Chief Shi standing nearby laughed as well. It was hard to determine whether their comments were praise or criticism.
During the pause, Xu Pingqiu noticed the mischievous smile on the face of a young man in the back row. His expression seemed out of place with the lively atmosphere in the classroom, as if he had no intention of joining in. Putting aside other matters, after having trapped more than a dozen students with his question, Xu Pingqiu sensed that the atmosphere was right and clapped his hands for silence, then said, “Let’s give everyone another chance. Regarding the question I just asked, who wants to try answering it now?”
As they looked at each other, three more stood up. Guessing the true culprit wasn’t difficult, and many had already figured out the correct answer. Even with more tricky questions, some had already counted the specific conditions given. With just a few conditions, could there really be any more difficult questions derived from them?
After a brief pause, three more stood up. The handsome male student next to the beautiful female student, not willing to be outdone after his earlier frustration, also stood up again.
“Good, courage is still commendable… Oh, a female hero has stood up. How about we give ladies the first chance to answer this question?” Xu Pingqiu noticed the girl, smiled, and said. It was only upon standing up that he realized how tall the girl was, definitely not the worrying type, and feared that in a few years, she might become a national distraction. As he said this, the girls below raised their fists to cheer her on, quietly shouting, “Xiao An, go for it…”
She had a good base of support among the crowd. It seemed this girl was the center of attention, and there was a full sense of pride on her face as she stood up.
“Your surname is An… so you must be An Jialu,” Xu Pingqiu suddenly asked.
“Do you know me, Chief Xu?” the girl asked, blinking her beautiful eyes, somewhat surprised and a bit excited.
“I don’t know you, I’ve seen the list of names for this session, and you’re the only one with the surname An,” Xu Pingqiu replied with a smile, causing laughter among the audience. Beauties usually have a bit of pride, but Xu Pingqiu’s remark seemed to have struck a nerve, making An Jialu a bit displeased. She responded somewhat defiantly, “Chief Xu, you should ask the question now. Are you going to ask who the real culprit is? Or who is telling the truth? It’s not going to be about the conditions again, is it?”
The trickiness of the answer lay in the fact that in ABCD, the one telling the truth and the real culprit were not the same person. An Jialu had already sorted out the logic.
“You are very confident. I hope you are just as confident in your answer. My question is…” Xu Pingqiu paused for effect, the smile accompanying his question, “Considering those who were stumped by this question, including those just now and at present, if you also can’t answer, including you, how many would that be in total?”
An Jialu’s eyes widened, and the answer she had prepared was swallowed back, almost choking her.
It was too twisted, a classic case of missing the obvious. An Jialu had been thinking about the answer, but never expected another trap question, leaving her dumbfounded.
With a snort, someone burst into laughter, and An Jialu uncertainly thought about the number of people who had stood up before and those standing now. This hesitation only increased the laughter.
How many had stood up before? The whole classroom seemed involved, was it 12 or 13? No one was sure anymore, leaving An Jialu blushing with embarrassment.
“Three seconds, if anyone knows, speak up,” Xu Pingqiu pointed at the few boys standing up. It was a tricky question, who would dare guess rashly? After a pause, Xu Pingqiu disappointingly waved his hand, “Please sit down, your right to answer has been revoked.”
The disgruntled group sat down, and An Jialu was visibly upset, her chest heaving with anger. Those who hadn’t dared to try their luck were now chuckling even louder. Just then, the boy next to An Jialu, not willing to accept this, stood up abruptly, startling Xu Pingqiu, and said indignantly, “Chief Xu, I think you are deliberately making things difficult.”
The room went silent all of a sudden. This handsome guy, Jie Bing, one of An Jialu’s suitors, was quite close to her. Standing up for An Jialu in this situation, one had to admire his courage.
“Oh, is that so?” Xu Pingqiu laughed, unconcerned, “Then, my question, do you find it very difficult?”
“No, it’s not that the question is difficult, it’s that… it’s deliberately misleading. Who reasons like that?” Jie Bing said, still unconvinced.
“My first sentence was: ‘Please pay attention to the conditions.’ The first requirement of a detective is to be meticulous. You focused on one target and overlooked simple elements; that’s what’s called a blind spot in thinking. Falling into the same pit a second time is a result of cognitive inertia. If you can’t overcome these blind spots and inertia, you will face many detours in your future work,” Xu Pingqiu explained. However, this didn’t seem to convince the dissatisfied boy, who continued, “Do you like reading Conan and Sherlock Holmes?”
“Hmm?” The boy suddenly looked up, puzzled. With that expression, Xu Pingqiu had probably guessed right.
“The answer to my previous question wasn’t difficult either. If we assume D is telling the truth, then the other three conditions can stand simultaneously, and C can be identified as the culprit. However, my test wasn’t about these, but about your attention and observation skills. You can complain that I steered you off course, but you can’t say the question was too difficult, right?” Xu Pingqiu revealed with a smile, causing embarrassment among the students. Seeing that Jie Bing still looked unconvinced, he continued, “Student Jie Bing, let’s continue with the previous question. How about I play Sherlock Holmes and deduce something about you?”
Jie Bing’s face showed a hint of disbelief, slightly stunned, unsure whether this old cop was bluffing or really skilled. He stiffened as Xu Pingqiu, as if speaking to no one in particular, began to speak:
“… Your personal habits are good, you like cleanliness; one or both of your parents are civil servants, probably at least at the section-chief level; your family is well-off, with an annual income of at least three hundred thousand, maybe even more; you don’t have habits like smoking or drinking; your interactions with classmates are not very harmonious, which can be interpreted as being lofty and isolated; you have a strong artistic sense, and I think you have a special interest in painting and appreciation… Don’t worry, I haven’t seen your personal file, only the list. Is my guess far off?”
Xu Pingqiu said with a smile, spouting several judgments like rapid-fire, which stunned everyone in the room. They whispered among themselves, seemingly agreeing that his guesses were mostly accurate. Jie Bing’s handsome face turned somewhat awkward as if he felt exposed. Hesitating, Xu Pingqiu then added something even more bold, “And if I add one more thing, I can tell from the details that you are pursuing a girl, and haven’t succeeded yet, right?”
The entire class burst into laughter, and An Jialu’s face also showed embarrassment. She covered her forehead with her hand, shyly giggling. Even the instructor was surprised, as Xu Pingqiu’s guess was almost spot-on, almost as much as he knew as their class teacher…
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This is machine translated and all copyrights belong to the author. Please note that the translator might take creative liberties for better readability. Thank you for reading.