Haven't you heard of The Pink Panther?

Jiang Yi Nan's POV

"Do not tell him anything." I said.

"What do you mean?" She said.

"Listen to me, you can tell him about yesterday but don't tell him about the house. Let's first find some evidence, and then you can tell him. And don't tell him about yesterday's hacking event also."

"But why I cannot tell him?"

"Because I don't trust him."

"Does that mean you trust me?" She looked towards me with hopeful eyes. Honestly I couldn't look at her and moved my head. "No I'm stuck with you."

"Oh okay." She said disappointedly. She then talked Zhang Yue and briefly explained him the Jiang Yi Nan's POV

"Do not tell him anything." I said.

"What do you mean?" She said.

"Listen to me, you can tell him about yesterday but don't tell him about the house. Let's first find some evidence, and then you can tell him. And don't tell him about yesterday's hacking event also."

"But why I cannot tell him?"

"Because I don't trust him."

situation. After she was finished, we went back home. As soon as we reached home, she asked, "Now will you tell me what the plan is?"

"How about we freshen up first?" I said.

After some time we came near the dining hall and she motioned me to continue.

"So I thought of a proper plan. We will start near 8 pm or something. First of all I'll cut off the power supply. But remember we only have 5 minutes. Within these five minutes, we have to cross the fence, and then go behind the bushes also. Their -"

"Wait why only 5 mins? Listen I'm not at all an athletic person. It will take me at least 15 minutes to climb the fence. Then 15 minutes to go down the fence. And we have to run towards the bushes also. Nope we aren't doing that. Give me some more time. 5 minutes is very -"

"Will you let me finish? Is it your part time job to cut in between other's sentences? I am-"

"You did that too." She said pouting.

"Are you serious right now? The reason I said we only have 5 minutes, is because they are professional hackers. This is a high profile area. We must not be the first person to hack and enter. So, they must be skilled in this work too. That's why we should take less than 5 minutes to reach a safe place. Understood?"

"Yeah!"

"Nextly we will go through the bushes to reach the house, and then enter through the back door. After that we'll improvise. Is the plan clear to you?"

"Is improvise your favorite word? You make everything sound so secretive."

"It's not like that. Sometimes things don't go as we plan, so it's better to improvise than have a stiff plan. Anyways, we have seven hours to pass. If you want we can watch TV or any movies."

"Can I have my phone?"

"You can but use it in front of me."

AFTER FEW HOURS

We both got dressed in black clothes and went to Sapphire Black Dragon Street, Lane R.

"Listen carefully, after 2-3 minutes I'll switch off the power. We have to quietly cross the fence and reach the other side then behind the bush. You'll go first and I'll follow you. Remember after the power is back on, we have to be discreet and quietly reach the house. And most importantly, do not say anything."

After few minutes the power went out. I signaled her to climb the fence. She tried to climb but failed miserably.

"I cannot!" She said loudly.

"Hey ssh! I'll carry you, okay?" I said.

Why can't I just leave her alone? Why should I carry her? Ugh. I sat on the floor for her to get on my back.

"You are so heavy. Ouch my back!"

"Hey I'm not. Actually I think it's you who is weak. Normally, it's so easy for the hero to give a piggy back ride to the heroine."

"Listen Miss I am the hero but you aren't the heroine."

"If you're the hero, then sorry I don't want to be your heroine." She said.

"You can lie -"

"Hurry up we only have 3 mins left."

I tried to cross the fence quickly to reach the other side. Before we reached the 3rd house, the lights were back on. We quickly reached House no 54. But to my surprise the back door was closed. Ugh why didn't I think of this possibility? Thankfully there were no cameras near the back door.

"What should we do now? It's locked." I said.

"I know how to open it."

"Wow you know how to pick locks. That's so cool! Go ahead then." I moved away from the door to give her the space. She took out a pin and folded it into a key shape. But it didn't work.

"I've seen in all the dramas. It always works. They just bend a pin, and insert it and that's it, the door opens. Why isn't it working now?"

"You should watch less dramas. It will really be better for both you as well as the society."

"You're mean." She said.

"And you're stupid."

"You're -"

"Listen we have less time. Quickly think of a plan." I looked around to find a pebble.

"Okay listen I'll break the window with this pebble. It may be possible that an alarm gets triggered. If this happens we'll rush to House No 57. It's back door is open, so we can stay there for a while." I said. And hit the window. The glass broke but to my surprise no alarm rang. I put the drone inside but there wasn't a single camera. Honestly I didn't know if this was good or bad.

"The house is safe we can go inside."

"Hey the hole is too small. I can't fit in there."

"Who told you to go through the hole? Open the window and jump inside."

"Oh yeah true." She said. We both went inside.

"It's so dark in here, let me switch on the lights."

"No don't even try. The guards might get alerted. Use your flashlight."

"Oh yeah you are right." She said loudly.

"Why are you screaming? Say softly. We can't make too much noise."

She then whispered something.

"You can say a bit loudly. No need to whisper. Speak in a normal tone. Okay?" I said. She nodded again. Damn does her head not hurt or something like that? Suddenly she started singing a tune.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I'm singing The Pink Panther's theme song."

"The what theme song?"

"The Pink Panther. Haven't you heard of The Pink Panther? It is a TV series in which there's a pink panther. Whenever he does something secretive, this tune plays. Right now we are doing detective work, so that's why I started singing."

"Why do I even bother with you?" I said shaking my head. We checked almost the whole place, but couldn't find anything out of ordinary.

"Don't tell me this is also going to be a waste. Ugh." I said.

"Honestly by the looks of it, this will be a waste too. Why is he playing -" She was saying when I saw something odd.

"Look there's something weird with the TV."

"What looks weird? It looks pretty normal to me."

"No, normally if a flashlight is shone over a TV screen, light refracts and a rainbow pattern is seen. But here nothing like that could be seen. It's not even reflecting light here, which means this, is just an opaque surface. Thus, it's not a TV screen. Let's look behind this, maybe we can find something." I said and then we removed the fake TV, to find a big hole in the wall. That hole had a briefcase. Inside the briefcase, many photos and documents were present.

"Yi Nan look here's your brother's photo with a red mark. Even your photo has a red mark. Does that mean you were also a target? Even my photo along with contact details is present here. There are 4 more photos with their contact details. I guess they also received the email. Damn this man really went all out. He has planned so much."

Honestly I didn't know how to react to this. If I was also a target, does this mean he still wants to kill me? What enmity does this person have from us that he planned so much? As I was rummaging through the photos, I found a folded letter. The letter contained different symbols and words were in a jumbled manner.

'.--. .- … … .-- --- .-. -.. / .. … / … --- -. --.

OS OWYR KSAJ WAVRKG YWIOFU GIG LVR DCPGLWBT GT LVR ZCGKD. A SA HFRZLM KIEK GBR GT LVRS OWYR UCZK. LVRE OWYR TS SFEKKHRJ SBQ OS OCA'Z WJRT TS S KIFVWOG. LVVY OOL OS UOA YSG LSA EWYRICA VCYRSFF WOFODM SBQ DWIK S DIKAJWBAK SBQ TSNALWSAD DWSK IZA IZA.'

"What does this even mean?"

"This is morse code."

"How do you even know this?"

"Because I've always wanted to be a crime reporter, so I learnt morse code." She said.

"So what does this mean? Actually you know what let's take this and get out of here. We'll look for the rest at home." I said. We both retraced our path and went back home. Upon reaching home, I opened the briefcase again for her to see.

"This stands for PASSWORD IS SONG."

"Password is song? What password? As far as I remember there wasn't any safe or anything like that. Let's check the written part, and then maybe we can understand better."

"I think it's in jumbled form." She said.

"No it's not. I understand what the password stands for. This is Substitution Cipher. In this coding language, a password is set, and according to that the letters are substituted. I know how to decode it, give me some time."

"Here's the decoded version. 'WE WILL SEND EMAILS GIVING OUT THE LOCATION OF THE HOTEL. I AM PRETTY SURE ONE OF THEM WILL COME. THEY WILL BE ARRESTED AND WE WON'T EVEN BE A SUSPECT. THIS WAY WE CAN GET TEN MILLION DOLLARS EASILY AND LIVE A LUXURIOUS AND BEAUTIFUL LIFE QIN QIN.'"

"Who's Qin Qin?" She asked.

Password is Song and the letter is to Qin Qin. Could it be Song Qin? No that's impossible. Why would she even kill my brother? They loved each other and were happy together.

"Yi Nan, if you and your brother died, who will get the inheritance money?"

"My sister-in-law." I said.

"How much is the inheritance money?"

"Ten million dollars." I said.

"Password is song and the letter is to Qin. It's your sister-in-law. Oh my god that's insane. I can't even believe it. But anyways, I am out of this mess. Let's show this to the police and let them do the rest of the work."

"No." I said.

"No? What do you mean by no?"

"I'm saying, we won't go to the police."

"What?" She said surprised.