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Kamiyama High’s culture festival has begun, and the long-stressed students cheerfully enjoyed the festival. For obvious reason, they would be more cheerful if there was no midterm exam right before it.

After resting for half a month, Kana returned to school right on time for exam. Other student’s silently wished her good luck, although she didn’t need it; when the exam result was publicized, Kana’s score surpassed everyone else’s, putting her in the first place yet again. She would not be unseated this time.

Any educator who have teach for a few decades are guaranteed to have seen one or two of such students. You never see them put effort in their studies, and they actually really don’t put as much effort in studying as normal students, and yet they always surpass others by miles. According to Kana’s experience, these people are most likely reincarnators.

“I’m still not a Classic Literature club’s member, why am I helping you guys selling the anthology?” Kana complained, hiding behind Eru’s back, away from the group of people.

Eru pointed at the stack of books that was as tall as a person, smiling, “It’s your own undoing. Surely you will take responsibility?”

Kana had ordered 2,000 copies of the anthology. Although a small portion of it was damaged in the rain, around 1,900 were undamaged, and the total number of students in Kamiyama high was only around 900, even if you combine all students from every grade.

Because the clubroom was located in a desolated area, it was unfit to be a stand location, so they had submitted an application to set up a stand to the student council. The student council, likely spooked by the amount of books planned to be sold, gave them a special permission to set up their stand at the school’s front yard.

Kana pointed at the two male students standing there, “There are still Fukube-san and Oribou-san.”

Houtarou’s expression stiffened upon hearing that.

“Oribou¹? He, hahaha…,” Fukube Satoshi was the first to laughed. Maaya Aya stared blankly at first, but soon after, spewing her drink.

Kirisaki was the only one drawing a blank, “Why are you guys laughing?”

Kana teased very mockingly, “Anyone who isn’t proficient in modern Japanese wouldn’t understand such a high IQ joke.”

“You wanna fight?” Kirisaki waving her fists menacingly.

Kirisaki’s score was really not ideal. She probably was at the bottom ten in class B. Although her spoken language skill was decent, her written language skill was the inverse. The lacking of this skill seriously sabotaged the score of her every other subjects.

“Sis,” Eru pouted, scolding her seriously, “that was not just not funny, but outright rude!”

“I’m sorry, miss Eru,” Kana immediately acknowledge her mistake. She had learned that this is the best way to avoid a very lengthy ethics lecture from her.

“Sis, I’m not the one who you should apologize to.”

“I’m sorry, Oreki-san.”

“What about me, what about me?” Kirisaki pointed at herself, leaping to her.

“I’m not the one who caused you to fail your exam. Neither your insufficient IQ, or your insufficient effort is my fault. Why should I apologize?” Kana curled up her lip, “That aside, you aren’t a member of the club either, right? Why are you here then?”

Kirisaki turned around and hugged Eru’s arm, “I’m here to help Slipped Egg-Eater!² Why do you care?”

Inside “Hyouka”, a portion of a novel called “The Da Vinci Code” was published under the name of “Slipped Egg-Eater”. Eru “agreed” to be the “Slipped Egg-Eater”, who is also the writer of the due to be released, final volume of “Adventure Tiger”.

“I would like a copy, please,” a passersby ordered a copy, either because of the simple yet elegant cover, or the daunting number of displayed copies.

“It’s 200 yen. Thank you for your patronage,” Fukube immediately served him.

“Excuse me, do you guys know when the next anthology will be released?” a female student who bought the book earlier that afternoon came back and asked.

“We apologize, we still don’t have a plan for the next anthology at the moment,” Aya apologetically answered.

“Ah, I really want to read the next part of “The Da Vinci Code”…”

“We are really sorry.”

“It’s a really vibrant story. I also think that you should invite the writer to come.”

“We thank you for your support.”

Since day two, Aya have received such inquiry a lot of times. A lot of people laughed at the pen name “Slipped Egg-Eater”, thinking that it is a bad sense of humor, but they were also very interested in the next part of the novel.

Kana’s “The Da Vinci Code” follows a symbologist Langdon’s investigation into the cause of the death of the Louvre curator, which leads to discovering Saunière, a monk, copying the pose of Leonardo Da Vinci’s work, Vitruvian Man. The plot seemed to have been revealed a little, like a tip of an iceberg. However, everything is still covered in a dense fog. After being left in a cliffhanger by a suspense novel, it’s natural that the readers’ mind are also left in unbearable state.

The girl felt rejected and left. Aya sighed and smilingly said, “The Da Vinci Code is really well written. More than a dozen people have come and asked today.”

“You’re right. If she wasn’t confident with the quality of her product, Slipped Egg-Eater wouldn’t have printed 2,000 copies.” Oreki Houtarou offhandedly said.

“Eh?” Kirisaki pointed at Kana, “Wasn’t she the one who printed them?”

“Oh…” Oreki immediately realized his blunder, respond vaguely.

Eru’s eyes immediately sparkled, “Oreki-san, why do you say so? Who would have thought you think that the writer of The Da Vinci Code is actually sis?”

Eru didn’t mind if her cover was blown. She was willing stand in for her sister, but she also felt bad for taking sis’s credit.

“I’m really curious,” Eru approached up to a breath away.

Houtarou’s face gradually turned as red as tomato, lifted both of his hands, and slowly back off, explaining, “Err… I happened to hear Kana-san’s inference about Yamada-sensei to Kirisaki-san. It left deep impression on me, so that’s how I had guessed.”

Houtarou walked backwards until he stumped on a stool and plumped there. Eru kept walking to him, that his hands were just an inch away from her breasts. They didn’t touch them, but it was still enough to tick Kana off.

Kana suddenly hugged Eru’s waist from behind, embracing her sister, and then fiercely glanced at Houtarou, as if to assert her territory.

Fukube was very interested in this topic, he turned around and interrupted, “Suppose that Kana-san are good at reasoning, that still wouldn’t prove that she is the writer of The Da Vinci Code.”

“I also didn’t link these two events together, however after looking at the 2,000 copies, I can’t help but to consider this possibility,” Houtarou reasoned.

“Why?” Eru let Kana hug her anyway. Eru was a little taller than Kana, so Kana’s chin was resting on her shoulder.

“Same question,” Fukube inquired further, “2,000 copies are certainly a lot, but what does that have anything to do with the author’s identity?”

Houtarou felt it isn’t proper to expose his good friend’s lie, but Eru’s smile suggested that she really hoped to hear his answer. Kana was looking at Eru, sulking. The person in question didn’t seem to mind, so he continued with his explanation.

“The Da Vinci Code, although only released in a part for now, it made a lot of obscure references towards the arts, history, religion, and semiology. It suggest that the author has very broad and deep understanding on the subject, or that she had done a lot of research for it. This kind of author has ample confidence towards her own work, however Eru-san has been worried sick about the excessive amount of copies since yesterday, yet Kana-san seem not to worry at all.”

Houtarou stopped a moment, as if thinking of the best way to word it, and then continued, “I might believe it if you told me that Eru has wrote Adventure Tiger³, but The Da Vinci Code? I would doubt it, because the death scene of the curator of Louvre and Priory of Sion, grand master Jacques Saunière, is too gruesome. Eru-san is a tender person, and in contrast, Kana-san is… as you know.”

Violent. Everyone knows that’s the answer to the word he left out.

Kana subduing a student with an electric baton was an incident well-known by everyone. It was said that he was hit at that spot, and he was left in a very miserable state.

“You are intriguing,” Kana suddenly stared at him.

“Intriguing?” Oreki didn’t understand what Kana implied.

“I thought your motto is ‘Don’t do what you don’t have to do, it would be simpler not to do the impossible’?” Kana continued, “Why are you so invested in this unnecessary thing? Is finding the identity of The Da Vinci Code’s writer necessary?”

“Someone asked, so I explained a little…” Houtarou scratched his cheek, his eyes were as if he isn’t wholly here.
Kana immediately continued, “Not bad. Someone you care about want the answer, so you go seek the so-called answer.”

“Someone you care?” all three of them exclaimed.

Eru, Aya, and Kirisaki looked curiously. Maidens are really receptive against these kind of topic.

“Hey, that, that’s nonsense, I’m not…” he flusteredly answered. That’s very rare.

“I’m not talking nonsense. According to my observation, Houtarou-san spent a lot of time with this one person together alone. Not only he would smile while they were talking together during club activity, they would leave school together too. Houtarou-san, who believes in saving effort, spend little time associating with other students, however, by only looking at that person, his expression would brighten up, up to the point that they joined the same club, and would grant whatever request that person make…”

Kana listed her every observation, each point revealing his feelings one by one. His heartbeat beat faster and faster.

Mayaka and Satoshi looked at her excitingly in anticipation.

Kana immediately pointed at Oreki Houtarou, with powerful and resonating voice, “In conclusion, you are dating Fukube-san! Oreki Houtarou!⁴”

“Eeeeeeee!!!!!!” all four of them shouted.

1. TL note: It’s a pun. Oreki Houtarou, Hyouka’s MC name, is 折木 奉太郎. If one take the first character of his first name, and then combine it with the second character of his family name, then one would get 棒. Kana called him 折棒, which can be rewritten in Japanese as 折り棒, which read Oribou. 坊, which read as bou, means boy, sonny, and can also mean little. So, Kana might have called him “Little Ori”. ‘Might’ because it is just my plausible guess.
2. It is a pen name that presumably Kana had chosen. Even though I have been using Japanese names all this time, this is still a Chinese web novel. Chitanda’s surname in Japanese is 千反田, but that is not important. The pen name Kana picked is 吃蛋挞, written in pinyin, Chidanda. If you translate it, it becomes “eat and egg and then slipped”. Following my friend advice, I translated her name and put a footnote instead. She will be known as Slipped Egg-Eater.
   Proofreader: This is honestly a horrible author name. I had seen many quirky online author name, so it didn’t struck me as unbelievably odd, but this is an author name for a published book.
3. Richie: With the Yuri? Oh wait, the final volume hasn’t release yet.
4. Richie: Such a troll.

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