mesbooks Chapter 116 Don’t Frame Me
Chapter 116 Don’t Frame Me
At the moment, Ah Tian sat in his seat wiping away tears. Anyone who lost such a treasure would be sad.
It's truly shameful that such a place of learning could have been robbed. First, we need to find out how the theft occurred. From what everyone is saying, the window of the school wasn't closed tightly, and someone stole it from outside.
Someone had thought more thoroughly than Ran Mo. Ah Qian, his spit flying, said, "First, we need to distinguish whether it's a thief within the family or an outsider." He glanced around, then stopped at Le Li.
He asked loudly, "Le Li, you were the last one to leave after sweeping yesterday, right?"
Le Li sat in his seat with his head down and didn't say anything. When he heard A Qian's question, he looked at him and nodded slightly.
"That's easy. Since it's your turn to clean and lock the door, you should tell the truth. Did you take that flower home because it looked pretty? I can't believe you, such an insignificant person, could do such a thing!"
Everyone started talking about it. Le Li's face flushed red, and he stood up and shouted to A Qian, "Don't frame me!" Then he sat back down, crying silently.
Ah Qian was still shouting over there. Ran Mo looked at Le Li and couldn't help but feel pity.
Le Li's family is quite poor, and he has few brothers and sisters. He is shy by nature and doesn't interact much with his classmates, almost as bad as Ran Mo used to be.
Faced with this "theft case" in school, Ran Mo's thoughts returned to some of his past experiences.
Her mother had been very strict with her since she was young. She told her not to do bad things, including stealing and lying, no matter how poor or miserable the life was. She often used the saying "When you are young, you will steal needles, and when you grow up, you will steal gold" to educate her.
There is also a story about a child who has been stealing things since he was young, and his family doesn't care. Later, he became a big thief, and one day he was caught and beheaded.
Before his execution, he begged for one last sip of his mother's milk. While his mother was feeding him, he bit off her nipple to express his resentment, believing that she had not raised him to follow the right path. This story may sound rather gory, but it also serves as a warning.
Ranmo had always been a clean child, with no serious issues. But children's minds are immature, and sometimes they can be tempted by evil. A boy in his class brought home a beautiful pencil sharpener from out of town and showed it off to his classmates. Everyone was envious.
She had some kind of ulterior motive. While everyone else was home for lunch, she snuck back into the classroom and rummaged through his bag, but found nothing. He'd been leaving his pencil sharpener in his pencil case for the past few days. Could he have foreseen the future?
In hindsight, it was a blessing in disguise. If she had succeeded, or even been caught, she would have been infamous. She was a known good student. Even if she hadn't been caught, would this have made her a habit of stealing? Would she have become a thief in the future? The thought of it terrified her. She never dared to steal again.
Even a well-educated and well-behaved child like Ranmo occasionally makes mistakes, which shows the importance of strengthening moral education for students. We should also pay attention to the methods and approaches, not just generalizing, and certainly not making arbitrary suspicions or even false accusations based solely on identity or personality.
This brought back a more humiliating pain for Ran Mo.
She once worked in a company where, due to her personality, she had average relationships with her colleagues. One day, a manager's briefcase went missing from her desk. All her colleagues, like Sherlock Holmes, were trying to figure out how it happened.
Unexpectedly, they actually cast suspicious eyes on Ran Mo. When Ran Mo walked into the office in the morning, a few troublemakers looked at her with squinted eyes, as if trying to detect some embarrassment or trickery from her face.
Ran Mo was so angry she wanted to scold them. This also made her realize that in the small society of the workplace, if interpersonal relationships are alienated, trouble will come to you even if you don't cause it. This was probably an escalating tactic of isolating and excluding others.
Now, seeing Le Li being unjustly speculated by Aqian, Ran Mo was furious and stepped forward to stop Aqian, "Do you have any evidence to prove that someone else stole it? If not, you'd better shut up. No one thinks you're dumb."
Aqian and Ranmo have always been mortal enemies. If he had not experienced Ranmo's power before, the target of his slander today would probably be Ranmo.
Ah Qian said stubbornly, "This is just a reasonable guess. If you have the ability, you can find the thief."
Ran Mo retorted sharply, "Le Li had the key himself and was the last to leave. If he took the flower pot, wouldn't it be too obvious? Besides, there are cases of the thief crying thief in this world."
"You!" Ah Qian said with a red face, but he didn't know how to argue with Ran Mo.
Ran Mo ignored him and walked over to pat Le Li on the shoulder, telling him not to worry. He also asked about the situation when he locked the door and left yesterday, asking if he had noticed anything unusual.
Le Li thanked Ran Mo for helping to clarify the matter and told him that he had checked and locked all the doors and windows before leaving yesterday. However, he did not expect that someone would still open the window from the outside and steal the bonsai.
Ran Mo thought for a moment and asked, "Did you check every window and close them yourself?" The windows and latches in the school were made with great skill. If they were fastened from the inside, it would be difficult to open them from the outside unless the window was broken forcibly.
Upon hearing this, Le Li's face showed a trace of panic, and he did not answer Ran Mo's question for the time being. Seeing this, Ah Qian jumped out and shouted: "Haha, see, he has nothing to say, he must be hiding something."
Ran Mo glared at him and comforted Le Li to stop being nervous and think carefully. Le Li then slowly said:
"I checked all the windows that day. I closed the other windows myself, but this window was opened by someone. I clearly saw that it was closed, so I didn't pay any attention to it. I didn't expect that something bad would happen to it." He said with a look of regret on his face.
Ran Mo nodded. It seemed that there was something wrong with this window. She walked to the window and carefully checked the window lock.
It adopts a simple mortise and tenon structure, with a thin column inserted into a groove. It is buckled from the inside and cannot be opened from the outside. It is also difficult to pull open and it remains intact.
A small wooden knob protruded from the thin column, making it easy to pull it up and down. Next to the knob was the long gap between the window and the window frame. Ranmo looked at this layout, lost in thought.
At this moment, the teacher walked into the classroom, and the students rushed to report to him the theft of the bonsai.
The teacher was shocked and angry when he heard this. He asked some questions but still couldn't come up with a conclusion. He waved his hand and said:
"It's tragic that this happened in the school. Before the results are known, each student should contribute a penny and pool the money together to compensate A Tian first."
Everyone thought the teacher's approach was brilliant. But no one could argue. Fortunately, one cent per person wasn't much, so pooling the money to compensate A-Tian was reasonable.
In some of the civil compensation cases Ranmo had previously handled, the law provided for a system whereby those responsible must first pay compensation in order to better protect the interests of vulnerable victims. Therefore, the teacher's approach was also legally sound.
However, it is necessary to get to the bottom of this theft, not only to deal with the illegal behavior and appease the victim, but also to clear the name of the innocent person. Otherwise, if there are still negative comments spread in the future, it will be difficult to maintain a good reputation.