Chapter 30: The Big Burly Officer (1/2)

A week after the resolution of the Cursed Piano case, Huang Xiaotao called me and said that she received formal acknowledgement of her contribution to the case, and a thick stack of bonus cash too!

In the report that Huang Xiaotao handed in, she made it a point to praise my autopsy methods and invaluable contributions to the resolution of the case. Thus, I received a bonus too. Since I wasn’t a police officer, she applied for a position called Special Consultant for me, which I must admit sounded very cool.

Soon afterwards, 18,000 yuan was transferred to my account. For a poor college student, that was no measly sum at all. I gave half of it to Dali, who received it reluctantly.

“Dude, this is way too much! It’s not like helped you much at all.”

“Think of it as an unexpected fortune. And as unexpected fortunes go, it’s better to share them than to keep it to myself. By the way, I need to give Lao Yao a thousand yuan too.”

“No, no, no,” said Dali. “Let me give him that out of my own share! Dude, you did most of the work. There’s no way I can live with myself getting more money than you! No, stop arguing, I insist! As a matter of fact, I’ll go get the money now.”

Since Dali wouldn’t relent, I had no choice but to agree to the arrangement. After a while, Dali came back and said, “Lao Yao called you a wicked man.”

“Why?” I asked. “Didn’t he want the money?”

“He said he’d been helping you since the beginning and that he should’ve gotten more than a thousand yuan.”

“That greedy bastard,” I sneered. “As if money is the main point of a criminal investigation…”

9,000 yuan wasn’t much at all, but it was enough for me to buy some materials and even to save some for when I needed more later.

I bought a pile of medicinal herbs, and borrowed a lab from a professor at the chemical engineering department to concoct some secret elixirs. When it all boiled down, I ended up earning almost nothing for solving this case. But then again, it didn’t matter to me, because all I really wanted was the chance to solve a case.

The fact that I could now use what I learned to clear the names for those unjustly accused just as my ancestor Song Ci did while also accumulating more experience and more knowledge was all I could ask for.

Two days later, I received a call from Huang Xiaotao in the middle of the night.

“Song Yang, can you come over now?” she asked. “We’re investigating an extraordinary case here, and we desperately need your help.”

“Right now?” I asked, surprised to hear the urgency. “But it’s already eleven, and there’d be no more buses outside the campus gate right now.”

“Don’t worry about that,” said Huang Xiaotao. “I can arrange for someone in my team to go pick you up immediately. Wait outside the campus gate half an hour from now.”

Before I could say anything, she hung up.

I splashed cold water onto my face to wake myself up and refresh my mind, then tried to wake Dali up. But the second I touched his blanket I sensed that something off — I pulled his blanket away and saw that the idiot wasn’t even in bed! He stuffed his pillows under his blanket to make it seem like he was sleeping there. I cursed Dali under my breath. I knew that he must be using the money he just got to sneak out and play League of Legends again.

I put on my clothes and packed everything that I felt I might need into my backpack, then walked out of the dorm.

When I reached outside the college main gate, I found the idiot in an internet caf that he often frequented. He was wearing headphones, chatting away with a girl without a care in the world. In front of him were empty paper plates with bamboo skewers on them and some more empty drink bottles.

I tapped his shoulder. He turned around and was shocked to see me.

“Dude!” he yelped. “What are you doing here? Oh, I bet you can’t go to sleep so you came here to surf the net, huh? Come on, there’s a free computer right here, I’ll teach you how to play Demacia Championship!”

“Forget your freaking game, dude!” I said. “There’s going to be a random dorm room search any minute now!”

“What?!” exclaimed Dali. “But it’s going to be midnight soon, are they crazy?”

“Why else would they call them random room searches, you idiot?” I argued. “Come on, hurry up! I heard that if they find out you’re not in your room they’ll never let you graduate!”

Dali dropped everything and ran out of the internet caf with me. On our way he kept mumbling to himself about the excuse we could use to explain our absence. When we reached the main gate of the college, I saw a black Mercedes parked there with a big burly man standing on the curb leaning on the car. He had a cigarette in his mouth, and it was flickering in the darkness.

This had to be the police officer that Huang Xiaotao sent to pick us up.

“Get in the car!” I said.

“What car?” Dali asked. “Aren’t we going back to the dorm?”

“No, I lied,” I said. “Huang Xiaotao just called and apparently there’s a new case. I knew that if I didn’t lie to you like that, there’s no way you’d come with me.”

“Shit, dude!” he exclaimed. “How could you betray your old friend like that? I didn’t even say goodbye to the girl just now! No way, I gotta explain it to her.” He then pulled out his cell phone and launched the QQ app.