Chapter Text
“We have a case!” Jingyi shouted. He was running down the school hallway, shoes squeaking on the linoleum floor. He waved his memo pad overhead as soon as he had Sizhui’s attention. “Look! A case!”
“A case?!” Sizhui asked, frozen at his locker.
“A case!” Jingyi confirmed, still sprinting. “Hurry up! We’re going to the hideout. A case!” He started shouting at Zizhen further down the hallway. “Zizhen, a case! Where is Jin Ling?! We have a case!”
Somehow, in Jingyi’s flurry of activity, his elbow knocked Sizhui’s locker door closed. Sizhui panicked a little. He fumbled with his combination, switching out his books for his lunch box and clutching it to his chest as he ran after his friends down the hall.
“A case!” Jingyi shouted at Jin Ling when they finally ran into each other. He shoved his memo pad in Jin Ling’s face. “We have a case!”
Jin Ling froze in his tracks. “What?! Who would give you a case?!”
Jingyi was about to blab, but Zizhen darted forward to slap a hand over his mouth. “Stop! We have to be professional about this!” he said. “Don’t you know anything about client confidentiality?!”
Jingyi gasped. “You’re right. Okay, okay, I’ll tell you at the hideout. Come on.” He started pulling at Zizhen to follow, who in turn pulled at Jin Ling, who in turn rolled his eyes.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Jin Ling said, but he grabbed Sizhui by the elbow and pulled him along with the others regardless.
The junior quartet had been planning their detective agency for ages . Since the beginning of the school year, Jingyi and Zizhen had been pinning flyers up all over school. Jin Ling was much less enthusiastic, but he was by far the best artist of the group, so he was unwillingly roped in to drawing comics advertising their services. Sizhui was happy to be included, offering his neat handwriting to the poster design.
Every day at lunch, the boys went to their hideout: a small annex in the history department. Their prestigious private school had dozens of alcoves, and attics, and cubbyholes. This one Sizhui had found when helping his father copy textbook pages after school. The space was outfitted with a copier and printer for the staff but rarely used, and Lan Wangji had given his son permission to spend his lunch period amongst the textbooks and printer paper with his friends, provided they weren’t too noisy.
They had certainly made the small space their own, adding pillows to the gabled window seat and cushions on the floor. The dusty walnut bookshelves and exposed stone walls were by far superior to the noisy cafeteria. The boys took out their lunches while Jingyi prepared to debrief.
He dropped his notepad in the center of the floor and loosened his tie. “Okay,” Jingyi said. “The details.”
“Who is our client?” Zizhen asked.
“Yeah, who would be stupid enough to trust us with a mystery?” questioned Jin Ling, taking out his thermos.
“Mr. Mo!” Jingyi answered.
Sizhui’s eyebrows knit together. “Mr. Mo?” It seemed like their chemistry teacher was everywhere lately. Sizhui had recently been telling him about their detective agency while they both lingered in Lan Wangji’s classroom afterschool, distracting him from grading exams. He didn’t think Mr. Mo would actually have a reason to hire them.
“The mystery isn’t just another chem equation we have to solve, is it?” Jin Ling asked.
“No, it’s a real mystery!” Jingyi said. “Xuanwu the turtle is missing!”
Xuanwu was their class pet. Mr. Mo had a 67 gallon tank at the back of his classroom that housed the world’s meanest snapping turtle. But despite it’s bad temperament, Mo Xuanyu often brought the turtle out of its tank and let it wander about the classroom in the middle of his lessons. “It’s a good thing those ugly dress shoes are leather!” he would say whenever a student worried about the turtle biting their toes.
“It probably just wandered off,” Jin Ling said, slurping noodles from his thermos.
“Not possible,” Jingyi said. He took a bite of his sandwich and gestured to his notepad. “Mr. Mo says the door was closed for all of third period, but he noticed the turtle was missing just after he dismissed the class. The students left before he could stop them, but Xuanwu was gone.”
“So he was stolen?!” Zizhen asked.
“That’s up to us to figure out!” Jingyi said. “We have to make a plan! What do we do? Scour the school? Put out turtle traps? Is there such thing as turtle bait?”
Suddenly, all the boys turned to look at Sizhui.
Sizhui blinked. He neatly chewed his bite of salad and swallowed. When his mouth was empty, he asked, “Why are you looking at me?”
“You’re the brains of the group,” Zizhen said.
“Me?!”
“Yes, you,” Jingyi said. “Jin Ling is the enforcer, Zizhen is the smooth talker, I’m the boss, and you’re the planner!”
“Well, now, hold on-” Jin Ling started to argue, but Zizhen cut him off.
“You’re good at solving mysteries!” Zizhen told Sizhui. “And you’re good at thinking of next steps. Tell us what we should do!”
Sizhui set down his lunch and bit his bottom lip. He wasn’t sure what made Zizhen think he was any better at solving mysteries than the rest of his friends, but he could agree that he was the most methodical of the group. He considered. “... Well, I suppose… the first thing to do would be to ask for the third period class list… And then we can do some interviews to see if anyone witnessed anything.”
Jingyi clapped. “See?! This is why you’re the brains!”
“Okay,” Jin Ling agreed. “But you are certainly not the boss,” he told Jingyi.
“It was my idea!”
“Yeah, but you’re an idiot!”
“Just shut up and eat,” Jingyi retorted, hurrying to slurp down his noodles. “If we eat fast, there’s time to find Mr. Mo and see if he’ll give us the class list.”
The quartet finished their meals rather quickly. The science labs were on the opposite side of the school than the history department. Mo Xuanyu’s chemistry classroom had floor to ceiling cathedral windows and black granite lab tables where students sat together in pairs. He always had something burning, or percolating, or stirring behind his desk, and he often left his lab goggles on long after he finished an experiment.
When they found him in his laboratory, he was putting together a distillation setup with a suspiciously brown liquid on the warming element.
“What are you making this time?” Jin Ling asked as they came into the room. The class was empty. Mr. Mo was also on his lunch break.
“Hm? Oh! Jin Ling!” Mr. Mo said, smiling in the face of Jin Ling’s crossed arms and glowering expression. “Well, it used to be plastic gloves… but it’s going to be grape soda!”
Jin Ling made a face, but Jingyi stepped forward before he could say anything critical. “Mr. Mo!” he said. “We’re officially on the case. Sizhui was wondering if we could get the class list to start questioning people.”
Mr. Mo grinned proudly at Sizhui. “Very smart! A suspect list!”
“Yes!” Sizhui said. He was always very pleased when Mr. Mo praised him - in class or out of class. They really had been seeing a lot of each other lately.
“Hold on, let me find an attendance sheet,” their teacher said, opening one of his many overflowing desk drawers. Sheets of paper fell to the ground just upon sliding it open. His desk was cluttered with beakers and test tubes. The white board at the front of the classroom was full of half balanced equations, and the back of the room had chalkboards for his overflow notes. Every available surface had some kind of experiment running, but Mr. Mo seemed at home in the chaos, and he eventually found what he was looking for.
“Ha! I knew it was somewhere,” he said, handing the list to Jingyi when he reached for it.
“And you’re sure your angry turtle didn’t just wander off?” Jin Ling asked. “It probably just wanted to get away from you.”
“Xuanwu would never leave me!” Mr. Mo argued. “Not unless he was kidnapped! Turtle-napped!”
“Turtle-napped!” Zizhen gasped.
“Did you remember anyone acting suspiciously?” Sizhui asked.
Mr. Mo huffed. “My entire third period class is a group of miscreants,” he said. “Half of them break a piece of glassware any time we attempt a lab, and the other half end up with chemical burns. None of them do what I say!”
“That can’t possibly be true,” Jin Ling argued.
“But was anyone acting extremely suspicious?” Jingyi pressed.
Mr. Mo turned thoughtful. He tapped his chin, thinking back. “... There is a group of boys who sit in the back corner: Xue Yang, Xiao Xingchen, and Song Lan. Usually, they spend the whole period arguing, at least Xue Yang and Song Lan do, but today they were oddly quiet.”
The juniors exchanged knowing glances. The trio Mr. Mo had described were upperclassmen - Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan were on the student council and very well respected. However, Xue Yang was a delinquent who was often caught wandering out of class and into places he shouldn’t be by the hall monitors.
It was obvious who their prime suspect should be.
“Okay!” Jingyi said. “We’ll look into it!”
“Great! I can’t offer much as payment, but I can promise lots of grape soda when I’m done my experiment.”
The boys each made a different disgusted face.
“I have one more question,” Jin Ling said once he had recovered. The idea of drinking grape soda in general was disgusting to him let alone a soda made from plastic. “What do you want a snapping turtle for anyway? It should be a blessing that Xuanwu went missing! He’s mean.”
“He’s not mean, he’s- Well, maybe he’s a little mean,” Mr. Mo admitted. “But I love snapping turtles! I grew up in a house surrounded by lakes, and my brother and I used to go swimming, and catch fish, and feed the snapping turtles. They can really crunch through carrots! You know, a baby carrot requires about the same jaw strength to cut through as a human finger, so really we should have been more careful, but they are just so cute.”
“They are not cute, they want to eat you!” Jin Ling said.
“Yes, but they are so tiny! It’s so funny!”
“We’ll find your turtle, Mr. Mo,” Sizhui promised.
“Bring my baby back safe,” Mr. Mo said with a nod.
The boys poked their heads out from behind a shrub in the courtyard.
“There he is,” Jingyi said, watching Xue Yang enjoy the last few minutes of his lunch break. “He doesn’t look like someone who kidnapped a turtle this morning.”
“Turtle-napped,” Zizhen corrected.
“Do you think it’s in his pocket? His shirt is untucked… Maybe he’s hiding something,” Jingyi suggested. It was true that Xue Yang’s baggy uniform sweater and oxford could hide a small snapping turtle somewhere on his person, but it seemed unlikely.
“I don’t think Xuanwu would like that,” Sizhui said. “He’d probably get snappy, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, there’s no way he’d keep it on his person. He’d get bitten!” Jin Ling said.
“... I bet it’s in his bag,” Zizhen decided. Xue Yang had left his book bag on the lawn while he played soccer with some of the other senior boys in the grass. He seemed to be turning it into a full contact sport. Meanwhile, his book bag zipper was open, begging either a turtle to crawl out or a certain junior detective to search inside. “I’m going to go investigate.”
“You can’t do that!” Jin Ling argued, but Zizhen was already sneaking off.
“We have to save Xuanwu!” he whispered back. He crept over to the bag and started looking through the contents. Zizhen rifled through crumpled worksheets and old notebooks covered in stickers for Xue Yang’s favorite heavy metal bands.
“He’s going to get caught,” Jin Ling worried as Zizhen prodded through the senior’s things. “I can’t watch.”
“Xue Yang seems pretty distracted,” Jingyi offered.
“Hey!”
That was Xue Yang’s voice. He was decidedly not distracted.
“What are you doing in my bag, twerp?”
Zizhen immediately pulled his hands away. “Uh… Nothing?”
“Scram,” Xue Yang told him, ripping his bag away from Zizhen and zipping it closed. His Motörhead and Metallica keychains jingled as he threw the bag over his shoulder. “Touch my stuff again, and I’ll tie you up by your thumbs from the bell tower. You’ll be screaming for hours while they figure out how to get you down.”
“Y-yes, sir!” Zizhen squeaked, terrified.
The other juniors came to collect him and walked Zizhen back into the building just as the bell rang, indicating the end of lunch. “So no turtle?” Jingyi asked as they walked away.
“No turtle,” Zizhen answered.
After lunch came history class.
Thanks to careful work on behalf of Lan Jingyi and Ouyang Zizhen at the beginning of the year, the boys had managed to work out their schedule to have most of their classes together. There were a few wrenches in the plan - Jingyi and Sizhui both took classical instrument classes for their electives, while Jin Ling focused on painting and Zizhen took a poetry course - but for the most part, they had aligned their schedules well.
Sizhui had always liked history best, and not just because his father was the teacher. Sizhui had a very sharp memory, and he easily remembered names and dates. But more than that, he liked the flowing, story-like nature of the classes. He liked finding patterns of cause and effect. He liked learning about the past to help create a better future.
Plus, his father usually offered ample quiet reading time. Whenever they were given a chance to read, Sizhui felt like he could take a small break and rest in his own private thoughts. As eager as he was to solve the case, Sizhui thrived on structure, and it was nice to have a chance to quiet his brain.
“Read pages 210 to 215 of your textbook,” Lan Wangji said as the students settled in their seats. “We will discuss shortly.”
Sizhui pulled out his book and centered it neatly on his desk. He was on page 212 when the classroom door opened.
“What’s this, Lan Zhan?” Mo Xuanyu asked, arms crossed haughtily as he surveyed the classroom. “Did you forget to make a lesson plan?”
Lan Wangji blinked. “It is planned. We will have a socratic seminar based on our reading.”
“Boring ,” Mo Xuanyu said. “How am I supposed to annoy you if you’re busy teaching?”
“You are not supposed to annoy me. You are meant to use your planning period effectively.”
“Lan Zhan! So serious!”
“Leave.”
“Ugh!” Mo Xuanyu said. “Fine! But you’re meaner to me than my sister… She’s just like you when it comes to ‘being honorable’ and ‘doing your work’ and ‘acting responsibly.’” He said these things like they were disgusting to even repeat, not like the good judge of character they were meant to be.
“Your sister has sense,” Lan Wangji said pointedly. The ‘unlike you’ went unsaid but was well understood. Lan Wangji’s face was as stoic as ever, but if Sizhui looked closely, he was fairly certain he saw a quirk of amusement turning up his father’s lip.
“So you’d think,” Mo Xuanyu muttered grumpily. “Fine, fine, I’ll go… But don’t be too harsh on your students, Lan Zhan! They look bored to tears!”
Lan Wangji rose from his desk. Mo Xuanyu suddenly looked very eager as Lan Wangji crossed the room to where Mo Xuanyu was lingering just inside the door. However, his excited smile quickly turned to shock and indignation as Lan Wangji gently pushed him outside the door and closed it behind him. “Lan Zhan!”
“Return to your reading,” Lan Wangji told the class, who had been watching the conversation like a ping pong match. “No more distractions.”
Sizhui turned back to his textbook, but he couldn’t help catching his friends’ eyes as he did so. They all shared secret smiles.
Mr. Mo was definitely one of the most favored teachers in school. He was rather outgoing and excitable, especially compared to the more scholarly and serious professors that taught at the academy. Most of the students were used to strict tutors and a rigorous education, but Mr. Mo was fun.
And now, his fun interruptions and ramblings had been brought to the history classroom, not just chemistry.
After a few minutes of silent reading, Lan Wangji began their socratic seminar.
“Let us begin,” he said once all of the students had looked up from their notes. “Who can tell me the key factors that led up to the signing of the Treaty of Versailles?”
And so, class began. Lan Wangji was not one to lecture. He saved his voice, letting the students argue back and forth and contribute to the lesson while he acted as a moderator. The conversational nature of the class meant it passed by quickly, and soon, the boys were packing up their books to head to their next subject.
Jingyi pulled everyone together just outside the door to the classroom.
“We have ten minutes,” he said. “Each of us should take a name and see if we can find them before our next class. We have to find Xuanwu before the end of the day, or whoever kidnapped him will take him home, and we’ll never find him!”
“Okay, let’s start with our main suspects…” Jin Ling said, pulling out the class list. “Geez, I don’t know half of these names, how am I supposed to know all these seniors?” The quartet were all only freshmen.
“Oh! Chen Zhouxuan! I know her,” Zizhen said with starry eyes. “I’ll go find her.”
“I’ll take Song Lan,” Jin Ling decided.
“I’ll take Xiao Xingchen,” Jingyi said quickly, before Sizhui could get a word in edgewise. There was only one person left.
Sizhui paled. “... I guess I’ll take Xue Yang,” he said.
“We’ll meet in T-Minus 9 minutes,” Jingyi decided. “See you in French.”
The quartet went their separate ways, each solely focused on their mission.
“Are you sure you didn’t see anything?” Zizhen asked Chen Zhouxuan (although most of her classmates called her by her nickname, ‘A-Qing’). He’d been obsessed with her since starting school. She was just so pretty . She had little wispy hairs at her temples whenever she pulled her hair into a bun, and her eye lashes feathered against her cheek all too perfectly. Whenever she walked by, Zizhen was floored by her white shining smile and her pert, perfect nose.
She was decidedly less taken with him.
“... Are you serious?” she asked, and then waved a hand in front of her pale eyes. “I’m blind, remember?”
Zizhen floundered. Of course he knew, he just hadn’t realized how the phrasing sounded. “Or, I mean- Did you hear anything?”
“Hear what? It’s a stupid turtle! They don’t bark or pant like dogs.”
She was feisty, but Zizhen liked that. Still, he needed an answer from her. “I’m just trying to ask if you know something,” he plead, very much at her mercy. “Mr. Mo really misses Xuanwu, we have to get him home.”
A-Qing sighed and thought, tapping her chin. “Well, I guess… I don’t actually know anything, but I do know Xingchen loves that nasty thing,” she said. “He gives Xuanwu lettuce leaves from his lunch box. But I also know there’s no way someone as nice as Xingchen would steal from Mr. Mo. He’s a goody two-shoes. He doesn’t even cheat on our chem quizzes!”
“Right, right, right,” Zizhen said. “It’s so cool that you’re down with cheating, by the way.” He had no idea how to seem cool in front of her.
“Stop talking to me,” A-Qing said.
“Yep, sorry. Bye.” He scurried off to French class.
Jin Ling hurried to keep up with Song Lan in the hallway. “Hey. Hey! Would you slow down?! I’m talking to you!” he called, finally scurrying to a stop in front of the senior. “Listen! I’m trying to find Mr. Mo’s nasty turtle. Have you seen it?”
“... Who are you?” Song Lan asked.
“I’m-!” Jin Ling cut off and blushed, looking down at his feet. “I’m one of the Junior Detectives,” he admitted, embarrassed. They needed a better name. It made him sound like a knock-off Encyclopedia Brown.
“Ah. I’ve seen your flyers.”
“But have you seen Mr. Mo’s turtle?” Jin Ling asked, rallying.
“Not since third period,” Song Lan answered. Suddenly, he looked alarmed. “Why? Is it missing? Xingchen will be so disappointed…”
“Never mind,” Jin Ling said, frustrated. He would be having words with Jingyi once he made it to French class. They needed a cooler name.
“... Can I help you?” Xiao Xingchen asked when Lan Jingyi hovered by his locker for a worryingly long time. Jingyi waved a hand awkwardly.
“Um, hi! I’m Jingyi! A Junior Detective! Maybe you’ve heard of us?”
“I’m afraid I haven’t,” Xiao Xingchen said, looking genuinely apologetic. “Is there something you need?”
“Yes!” Jingyi said. “I’m looking for Xuanwu, Mr. Mo’s pet snapping turtle. He’s gone missing and we have a lead saying you might know about his whereabouts.”
“Xuanwu is missing?” Xingchen asked. “Oh no, that is terrible!”
“So you don’t know where he is?” Jingyi asked.
“No, but I hate to hear that he’s gone,” Xingchen said. “Xuanwu is a biter, of course, but it’s just in his nature! He is sweet beneath it all.”
That certainly wasn’t true. Xuanwu was notoriously mean, but Jingyi didn’t argue with him. “So you know nothing,” he checked again. “You’re not lying. You have no idea where he is.”
“I have no idea where he is!” Xingchen promised, seeming innocent enough. Jingyi sighed and let him go. Hopefully, the others were getting better leads.
“Um,” Sizhui tried, hoping to get Xue Yang’s attention.
“Nerd,” Xue Yang said, roughly untucking Sizhui’s sweater and roughing up his hair as he walked by.
Sizhui didn’t dare try to follow up.
The quartet met in French class.
Sizhui was rather shell-shocked. He was not used to being handled so roughly. His father had laid out his uniform neatly the night before, and now it was wrinkled from Xue Yang’s manhandling. Sizhui was very sensitive, so this was a travesty.
“You look just fine,” Jingyi said, reaching out to fix Sizhui’s hair into his perfect little bowl cut. His bangs had been ruffled.
“He was mean,” Sizhui said.
Their French teacher spoke from the front of the class, “C'est un exercice de conversation ! Si j'entends ta voix, elle devrait être en français!”
Most of the students at the Cloud Recesses Academy spoke English, Mandarin, and Cantonese fluently. There were harsh requirements placed on all students who enrolled. In fact, many grew up with private tutors who taught other languages as well, but they were required to have one language credit each year to graduate.
Jin Ling already spoke French, traveling quite often with his father and mother to Paris for shopping and dining. Meanwhile, Sizhui had been interested in the language, as his father often read him The Little Prince growing up and reviewed original French documents for his independent research studies. It had seemed like a natural fit. Zizhen had chosen it on the grounds that “French girls were effortless, chic, and gorgeous,” and Jingyi didn’t particularly have any preference, so he came along for the ride.
Sizhui shifted gears in response to their teacher’s chiding. “L’un des suspects a-t-il donné des indices?” he asked. His own interrogation had been inconclusive, but maybe the others had learned something.
“Song Lan ne sait rien. Il ne s'intéresse à Xuanwu que parce que Xiao Xingchen l'aime. C'est une perte de temps,” Jin Ling rattled off easily, far too fluent for their class level.
Zizhen looked pained. “Wait, slow down,” he said. “What is ‘une perte de temps’.”
“A waste of time,” Jingyi said.
“Hey!”
“No,” Sizhui interjected, seeing the offense on Zizhen’s face. “That’s what it means. ‘Une perte de temps’ is a ‘waste of time.’” He repeated the phrase in Zizhen’s first language, Mandarin, just in case he still didn’t understand.
“C'est impossible,” Zizhen complained when their teacher glared at them.
Jingyi, who was awfully slow when speaking, deigned to share, “Xiao Xingchen m'a également dit qu'il aimait la tortue.”
“Oh!” Zizhen said. “Uh… A-Qing… uh…” he floundered as he tried to figure out to add information in french. In the end, he lowered his voice and whispered, “A-Qing said he feeds it lettuce.”
Jin Ling looked thoughtful. “Alors Xiao Xingchen est le seul au monde à aimer cette stupide tortue, et soudain, elle disparaît ? Il est sans aucun doute le principal suspect.”
“... ‘Tortue’ is ‘turtle,’ right?” Zizhen asked, struggling to understand.
“Oui!” Sizhui assured him. “Parlons à nouveau avec Xiao Xingchen lors de la prochaine pause.”
“Oui,” Jin Ling agreed.
“Oui,” Jingyi echoed.
“...Oui,” Zizhen said, although it was hard to tell if he understood what was going on.
French class passed by in a blur. Their teacher ended their conversation practice soon enough and began explaining prenominal verbs. Jin Ling sat back and relaxed, while Sizhui pulled out his notebook and began taking dutiful notes. Class passed in a hurry, and soon, the boys were all getting up and out of their seats and headed to P.E.
“The seniors have P.E. before us, right?” Jingyi asked. “If we hurry, we’ll overlap.”
“Oh, that’s right! Quick!” Zizhen said.
They scurried through the halls and entered the locker room, only to be hit with a wall of steam from the showers. Jin Ling poked his head around the corner. “I just saw Xiao Xingchen at his locker,” he said. “He’s headed to the changing rooms…”
“Let’s check it out,” Jingyi said.
They crowded around the locker and were very pleased to find it unlocked. Most students weren’t too careful about their things, especially if they were only going a few feet away, and Xiao Xingchen’s lock hung open.
“Open it,” Jin Ling said.
“What? I got in trouble last time,” Zizhen said.
“You got in trouble with Xue Yang,” Jin Ling pointed out. “Xiao Xingchen won’t mind.”
“Then you do it!”
“I’ll do it,” Jingyi said when something scratched at the door on the opposite side. He removed the lock, opened the door, and there sat Xuanwu the snapping turtle, looking unharmed but very confused by his new surroundings.
“What the fuck,” Jin Ling said. “Did we just solve the case?”
“We solved the case!” Jingyi said excitedly, reaching to pick up the turtle and pulling his hands back when it snapped at him.
Xiao Xingchen, now freshly dressed after gym class, came back to find the four freshman crowded around his locker. When he realized Xuanwu had been discovered, he held his hands up. “I can explain,” he said immediately.
“Turtle-napper!” Jingyi accused.
“How could you rip Xuanwu from his home?!” Zizhen asked in dismay.
“I didn’t,” Xiao Xingchen promised.
Jin Ling scoffed. “Tell it to Headmaster Lan.” Their headmaster, Lan Qiren, was a very pedantic and uncompromising person. He expelled students for far less than stealing a class pet.
Xiao Xingchen’s eyebrows crinkled together. “I promise you,” he said. “I didn’t steal Xuanwu. I opened my gym locker before P.E., and he was here waiting for me. I was planning to return him after I got dressed. You beat me to it.”
“How would he end up in your locker if you didn’t take him?” Jin Ling asked, arms crossed.
“I’m not sure… It was locked before class. It would have to be someone who knows my combination.”
“Does anyone know your combination?” Sizhui asked.
“Only Song Lan.”
Jingyi and Jin Ling shared a look, seemingly ready to storm off and find Song Lan as soon as possible, but before they could, Xuanwu walked worryingly close to the edge of the locker. Fearful, Sizhui hurriedly reached out and caught him by the back of the shell so he couldn’t fall.
As he picked him up, the bottom of his shell was revealed.
There was a sticker attached to his tummy.
“Oh!” Sizhui said. “I think it’s a clue.”
“A secret symbol!” Zizhen said, ducking so he could see under Xuanwu’s shell more easily. The sticker looked a bit like a stylized ‘S’ shape with spikes coming off the top and bottom. “What could it mean?”
Jin Ling pushed Zizhen aside so he could see. “Oh, I know! It’s the Slipknot logo! My uncle listens to them.”
“That’s one of Xue Yang’s favorite bands,” Xiao Xingchen said. “But why would he try to make me look like a turtle thief?”
Xuanwu snapped at Sizhui, and he startled. “... Maybe we can figure that out after we get Xuanwu back home.”
The boys got permission from their gym teacher to quickly return Xuanwu to the chemistry department, even if it meant they missed their warm up for P.E.. Jingyi was practically skipping down the hallway, he was so excited to have solved the case, even if they’d yet to learn Xue Yang’s motives.
When they arrived at the chem lab, the door was closed.
Zizhen knocked. “Mr. Mo? We found Xuanwu!”
There was an odd delay, but suddenly, Mo Xuanyu was at the door, his hair somewhat tussled and his tie rather askew. Behind him, Lan Wangji was righting his collar. Still, Mr. Mo seemed delighted to see his turtle. “Oh, you found him!” he cooed, stealing him away from Sizhui. “Where have you been, silly, I’ve been missing you all day!”
“Dad!” Sizhui said, looking past Mr. Mo. “You’re here!”
“Mn,” Lan Wangji agreed. “Professor Mo mentioned you were searching for his turtle.”
“Professor,” Mo Xuanyu startled. “Please, Lan Zhan, I’m just a high school teacher.”
“You have a doctorate.”
Mr. Mo made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “That’s neither here nor there… Here, Xuanwu, let’s get you settled in your tank with a treat. How does a banana sound, hm? Do we like bananas? We love bananas!”
“We know Xue Yang took him,” Jingyi said, interrupting his cooing. “But we don’t know why… We thought we’d get him home first.”
“Do you have proof?” Mr. Mo asked.
“Duh,” Jin Ling said. “He’s got one of Xue Yang’s creepy death metal band stickers on his stomach. It’s obvious he stole Xuanwu - but he was trying to pin it all on Xiao Xingchen!”
“Oh,” Mr. Mo said, giving Xuanwu a third of a banana. He took a bite of the remaining fruit. “That’s strange… he seems to really like Xingchen… He’s always fighting for his attention.” He held the banana out to Lan Wangji. “Want a bite, Lan Zhan?”
Lan Wangji sighed, but he looked fond as he took Mo Xuanyu’s wrist and lowered his hand. “You are insufferable. I will see you this evening.”
“See you!” Mr. Mo said happily, waving as Lan Wangji left to go back to the history department. Students started filtering into the chemistry lab and Mr. Mo dusted off his hands. “Thank you for your help, boys. I’ll have Headmaster Lan call Xue Yang to the office later and see if we can’t get to the bottom of this… But I appreciate your help solving the case.”
“Thank you for being our first client!” Sizhui said.
“We did it!” Jingyi said proudly.
Zizhen, meanwhile, was eying Mo Xuanyu and Lan Wangji’s retreating back suspiciously.
Mr. Mo gave them each a very fond pat on the head and slipped them some of the Welch’s fruit snacks he kept in his desk.
As they walked back through the now empty school hallways to the gymnasium., Jin Ling and Jingyi bartered over fruit snack flavors and Sizhui happily ate his own.
Zizhen had other things on his mind.
“Didn’t you see that?” he asked.
“See what?” Jin Ling said, shoving Jingyi’s hand away as he tired to steal an orange-flavored gummy.
“Mr. Mo and Professor Lan!”
“What about them?” Jingyi asked, successfully getting a raspberry from Jin Ling’s pouch.
“They were kissing,” Zizhen said.
“What?!” Sizhui squeaked.
“Well, what else could they have been doing?!” Zizhen asked. “Mr. Mo had the door closed between classes, and when he opened it, he was disheveled and weird!”
“Mr. Mo is always disheveled and weird,” Jin Ling argued.
Jingyi didn’t seem convinced. “They were probably just reviewing report cards or something.”
“Mr. Mo tried to share his banana with him,” Zizhen pointed out. “Coworkers don’t do that! Friends don’t even do that! Sharing food is for people you love. It’s an indirect kiss!”
“It is not,” Sizhui said, very distressed by the turn this conversation had taken.
“Professor Lan said ‘see you this evening,’” came Zizhen’s final argument. “Because they have a date tonight! Sizhui, try to tell me your dad isn’t going out on a date.”
“... I know he and Mr. Mo have a dinner planned…”
“A date!” Zizhen insisted.
“Oh,” Jingyi said. “Yeah, that’s a date.”
“Ew, oh my god, it’s a date,” Jin Ling agreed.
“It’s a date?!” Sizhui asked, horrified.
“They’re definitely in love,” Zizhen said. “Judging by Professor Lan’s warm smile and his lack of any other romantic partners in the past, I give it three months until he proposes.”
Sizhui felt faint. “Three months?!”
“Wow, Sizhui! You’ll have a new mom!” Jingyi cheered.
Sizhui did not seem quite as eager. His face paled and he bit his bottom lip.
Lan Jingyi seemed to see his hesitation and immediately backtracked. “Or- okay. You know what? Let’s not speculate,” he said. “We can always ask next period… We have to see Mr. Mo for chemistry next anyway.”
On the overhead speaker, Xue Yang was called to the headmaster’s office.
“We can also see if Xue Yang confesses,” Jin Ling said, interested in seeing the case come to a close. They may have found the turtle, but they still didn’t know why he’d been stolen in the first place.
The boys’ final period was chemistry. By 8th period, the laboratory had seen a lot of damage, and usually had a faint smokey haze or strange chemical smell after dozens of experiments took place over the course of the day.
Zizhen could hardly sit in his seat, he was so desperate to ask Mr. Mo about his love life. He’d been talking about it all through P.E., much to Sizhui’s horror.
As soon as class began, Zizhen stuck his hand up.
“Don’t be weird,” Jin Ling hissed, kicking the leg of Zizhen’s chair. “Ask about it after class.”
Zizhen lowered his hand, but not before Mr. Mo saw him. “Ouyang Zizhen,” he called. “Did you have a question?”
“Uh… not about chemistry,” Zizhen answered. He paused. “Or actually… it’s a little about chemistry.”
“Stop!” Sizhui said, dismayed.
Mr. Mo looked unphased. “Well, would you like to ask it?”
Zizhen looked very tempted to do just that, but when Jin Ling and Jingyi kicked his chair, he crossed his arms. “... I’ll wait until after class,” he decided.
“Okay!” Mr. Mo clapped his hands together. “Well, with that strange interruption out of the way, let’s begin today’s lesson. As you know, we’ve been studying practical applications of organic chemistry, so today, we will be studying fertilizer! I suppose you could say, when it comes to making progress in fertilizer formulation, there’s been real growth in the field. Ha. Get it?”
No one laughed, but Sizhui offered Mr. Mo a pity-smile.
“Ugh, you kids don’t know humor. You only laugh when I set things on fire,” he complained. “But regardless, fertilizer is an important part of every day life! Why, when I was growing up in rural Nebraska, I was surrounded by corn fields! We used the stuff all the time.”
Zizhen raised his hand.
“Is it a chemistry question?” Mr. Mo asked.
Zizhen ignored him. “I thought you said you grew up surrounded by lakes.”
Mr. Mo looked stricken.
“Oh yeah,” Jingyi said. “Isn’t that why you like snapping turtles so much?”
“There could be lakes in rural Nebraska,” Mr. Mo said, oddly thrown off his game. There certainly could be lakes in rural Nebraska, but the way he posited the idea was suspicious. “But- I- No, I grew up as an only child, surrounded by corn fields.”
“What?” Jin Ling asked. “But you said you used to go swimming with your brother.”
“And you told my da- I mean, you told Professor Lan how he’s just like your sister in history class today,” Sizhui said. Things really were confusing if even Sizhui was questioning their teacher.
“I would never say that,” Mr. Mo said.
“You said all of it,” Zizhen argued.
“You must be mistaking me for someone else.”
“It was only a few hours ago!”
“Let’s move on,” Mr. Mo said, shutting down the conversation. He turned to the white board and started drawing out the equation for the Haber Process, explaining the production of ammonia by combining nitrogen and hydrogen to make NH3.
Sizhui hurriedly whipped out his notebook, but he was the only one out of his friend group taking notes.
Forget the turtle.
Forget Mr. Mo’s love life.
There was a new mystery at foot.