Chapter 149: Xiaotao’s Birthday (1/2)

After Qu Tingting’s case was resolved, Bingxin would often send me text messages telling me that her dad forced her to go home every day after class and it made her feel like she was under house arrest. They quarreled a lot since Bingxin secretly joined the investigation without her dad’s permission. I could understand Sun Tiger’s feelings though. He’d been a police officer for decades and had been through countless life-threatening situations on duty. It was unsurprising that he would be seriously concerned about Bingxin’s safety and thus banned her from getting involved in a case investigation.

Dali kept looking at me with a strange expression on his face these few days. It really annoyed me and I didn’t know what was wrong with him this time.

“Hey, dude!” he said to me one day. “Tell me your secrets!”

“What the hell are you talking about now?”

“Come on,” he continued. “You don’t usually even talk to girls. How did you get so popular with the ladies all of a sudden? Did your ancestors leave you some secret techniques to seduce women or something?”

“Fuck off!” I cursed at him.

“I can guess what you’re thinking all day,” he continued to blabber. “Who should I choose? On one hand, I’ve got a sexy as hell police officer; on the other hand, there’s this cute girl that I’ve known ever since she was a little girl! What a dilemma!”

“I don’t have any seduction techniques,” I told him. “But I do have a technique to determine the time of death by the decomposition stage of the corpse. Care to learn?”

Dali squeaked and ran back into his bed.

The dilemma that Dali imagined was ridiculous of course. I had always regarded Bingxin as my sister and that was it. But with Xiaotao, we’d been through so many life-threatening situations together. She had a special place in my heart that no one could ever replace.

Time crept up on us and before we knew it, it was already November. The days got colder and the students began to wear thicker clothes. It would be Xiaotao’s birthday soon. On that day, I remembered that she once mentioned about wanting a red rose, so I went to a florist with a plan to buy one for her. The florist told me that red roses were only given to people who were officially in a romantic relationship, and that it would be a better idea in my case to get pink roses instead.

Thus, I bought a small bouquet of pink roses and texted Xiaotao to ask her if she was free tonight.

“Why?” she immediately responded. “Are you planning a surprise for me? Come over to my place! Let’s have a small birthday party tonight!”

That night I stood in front of Xiaotao’s door with a racing heart, waiting for her to answer the door. Holding a bouquet of roses along the way there was particularly embarrassing. About a minute after pressing the doorbell, Xiaotao opened the door. She was wearing casual clothes. When she saw the bouquet in my hand, she gasped with excitement and smiled brightly.

“You’ve changed so much since I first met you, Song Yang!” she remarked. “Come in! The food is ready!”

“It smells delicious!” I exclaimed.

The dining table was full of tasty-looking food in paper boxes. It was obvious at first glance that they were takeaways. That was only expected of course. Xiaotao was way too busy at work to cook herself.

She didn’t have to work overtime tonight, though. I noticed that she had a bottle of French red wine on the table and had lit a few scented candles that were placed all over the living room. Xiaotao looked especially beautiful under the dim candlelight. I could barely take my eyes off her.

“Happy birthday, Xiaotao!”

“Thank god, I’ve survived another year!”

“You shouldn’t say such ominous things on your birthday!”

We drank to her health. Then Xiaotao had a cheeky look on her face and I knew she was on to something.

“Hey, I’m the birthday girl today, so you should do whatever I ask you to!”

“What do you want me to do?”

She leaned over and murmured, “Sing the birthday song for me!”

I scratched my head nervously and replied, “What? You want me to sing?”

“Yeah!” she responded. “I’ve never heard you sing before!”

It was her birthday so I had no choice but to comply. I sang, or rather croaked, the birthday song as she clapped along and laughed. I was immensely relieved when it was finally over.

“Well done!” cried Xiaotao. “I recorded it all! It’s going to be my new ringtone from now on!”

“No, please!” I begged. “How will I face anyone ever again if you do that?”

“I’m only teasing you,” she sniggered. “Come on, let’s drink!”

We were just about to clink our glasses together when her phone rang. She frowned and answered it immediately.

“A new case?” I asked once she’d hung up.

“Uh huh,” she sighed. “Looks like I can’t enjoy this meal with you tonight. Can you stay here and wait for me? We can still watch a movie together when I come back.”

“Why don’t you bring me with you?” I suggested. “Perhaps I can be of some help to the case.”

“But it’s not a homicide,” she said. “Two gangs were in a fight and a dozen people were hurt. We were called to deal with the aftermath.”