By the time Daning had arrived, I had already placed the rectangular desk perpendicular to the window.

I climbed onto the desk and stood up straight. Daning asked what I was trying to do.

I asked him if he wanted to be able to actually kill someone without being punished for it.

He was stunned for a moment before replying, “We’re not playing some game, you know? How can one murder without being punished for it?”

I laughed. “It’s possible.”

He stared at me for a while, then asked what I meant by that.

I quietly answered, “If you kill yourself, then you won’t be punished for it.”

He burst out laughing. “Of course! You can’t be punished if you’ve killed yourself.”

I continued, “But I have a way to punish someone else for it!”

“Someone else? Who?”

“Mr. Chen!”

“Mr. Chen? Can’t you just tell me what you’ve been planning? Stop going round in circles!”

I took a deep breath and slowly explained my plan to him. “If I jump down from here, everybody will know that I committed suicide. But if you help me to move this desk I’m standing on back to that pile over there where it came from, then my suicide will turn into a homicide.”

Unlike me, Daning had not worked out how to jump down from this building, so he didn’t understand what I was talking about. “I don’t understand. Why would your suicide turn into a homicide just by moving the desk back where it came from?”

I didn’t explain myself and just jumped off the desk before saying to him, “You can climb up and look out of the window. You’d get it.”

Daning climbed up the desk like I told him to. Once he looked out and saw the platform on the second story, he realized what I was talking about.

“So, you’re thinking of making your suicide attempt look like you were pushed by someone else. But how are you going to frame Mr. Chen for it?”

I fished out a button from my pocket and said, “As long as I clench this button in my hand tightly after I make the jump, I’m sure the police will suspect Mr. Chen.”

Daning immediately recognized that button. That button was the same one on one of Mr. Chen’s formal jackets. But he still turned it over and over in his hand to look at it carefully.

I said, “A long time ago, I secretly snipped this button off from Mr. Chen’s jacket when nobody was looking. I’ve even kept the broken thread from the button properly just so that I could use it someday!”

Daning gasped after hearing what I said. “Looks like you’ve been preparing for this for a long time. But it’s too bad, Mr. Chen rarely wears that suit.”

I said, “You’re right, Mr. Chen rarely wears this particular suit. But if you’ve ever been to his office, you’ll find many photos of himself with his ex-students on graduation day displayed on his desk.”

Daning said, “Yeah, he does have many of such photos on his desk. But so what?”

I laughed and went on, “If you look carefully at the photos, you will find that he’s wearing that exact same suit in all the photos taken at the last four graduation ceremonies!”

Daning was suddenly enlightened. “Are you saying that you’re going to execute this plan on graduation day?”

I smiled and nodded.

But Daning was still worried. “But what if Mr. Chen doesn’t wear that suit on that day? Then all your plans would go down the drain.”

I said with a smile, “That’s not going to be a problem. Think about it. If Mr. Chen has been wearing the same suit for four years in a row and doesn’t wear it this year, but a button from that jacket is found in the hand of a student who has fallen to his death at the same time, wouldn’t that make him look even more suspicious?”

Daning immediately started clapping and complimenting me on my genius.

I instructed him, “You must make sure you keep this matter a secret! If anybody hears about it, all our efforts will go to waste!”

Daning patted his chest and said, “Of course I’ll keep this a secret. Besides, I’m going to have a good chat with Mr. Chen!”

“What are you going to talk to him about?” I asked as I immediately became wary.

Daning sighed. “I’m hoping that he can let me take the exam again. The journey up to this point has already been very tough, so it’ll be such a let-down if I can’t graduate just because I was caught cheating in one exam! Knowing Mr. Chen, I didn’t think there was any point in trying to convince him into letting me off. But after you’ve told me your plans, I think I’m confident of persuading him!”

After he said that, Daning hopped off the desk and turned to leave hurriedly without even glancing at me.

He’s running off to negotiate with Mr. Chen, I thought. But isn’t that equivalent to selling me out?