Chapter 55: The Golden Beckoning Ca (2/2)

I activated my Cave Vision, which shocked Zhang Liuer into a daze. I stared into his eyes, “I will ask you again, is there anything in this house that you want to take?”

I decided to use the Cave Vision to see if Zhang Liuer was lying, because I knew that he was as timid as a mouse. I noticed that his eyes darted around nervously.

“Please don’t kill me, mister!” he pleaded. “Please, I told you the truth!”

“Why would you think that I want to kill you?” I asked, slightly amused.

“Because your eyes are as terrifying as that cat’s…”

My ears pricked up immediately at the mention of a cat. I grabbed his shoulder and asked, “What cat are you talking about?”

It might be that I was so excited that I inadvertently hurt Zhang Liuer. He shrank away and shivered and replied, “Mister, please! Can you turn your eyes back to normal?”

I turned off my Cave Vision and told him to explain it clearly.

Zhang Liuer said that he was in a pinch at the time—stealing the odd pots and pans wouldn’t do any longer. So, he decided that it was time to rob a whole house.

After looking around for some time, his eyes were set on the house where the murders occurred. The reason being that the couple were not at home during the day, so there was only the old lady to deal with. The old lady was suffering from a disease that made her legs and eyes very weak, which was perfect for Zhang Liuer.

He then decided to sneak in to see if there was anything in that home worth stealing, choosing a time when only the old lady was at home. He went around the house and found a cat figurine in the store room on the first floor. The figurine seemed to be gold-plated. It showed fine workmanship, and its two eyes seemed to be made of precious gems—in short, it seemed to cost a lot of money!

Zhang Liuer was about to lift the cat figurine up and take it away, when something out of the ordinary happened—the cat’s eyes suddenly moved!

Zhang Liuer was so startled he knocked something over. The old lady yelled out in shock, so he rushed out of the house in panic without taking anything.

He came back to observe the house for a while. He found that the old lady would go to the neighbors to play mahjong every other day, which meant that the house would be completely empty, so he could easily go in and take as many things as he could.

Before he could do that, the murders occurred. All three of the family members died. The house was sealed off by the police, so he had to give up the whole idea.

He happened to pass by the house today, and saw that the door was open, so he decided to quickly come in and take a look just in case he got lucky and found something to steal.

After Zhang Liuer finished speaking, I thought about it for a while. I didn’t see any cat figurines in the house. Could it be that someone took it away?

Huang Xiaotao asked me, “What should we do with this bastard?”

“I assigned some police officers to ask around about cats in this neighborhood, so some of them should be nearby,” I said. “Just hand this guy over to one of them and take him back to the police station to take his statements.”

“Hey, mister!” said Zhang Liuer. “But I told you everything that I know! Why do I still need to go to the police station? I see you’re all very busy with this case, I really don’t want to bother you. Just let me go, okay?”

“It’s fine,” I told him. “Handing you over to the police will not take up our precious time.”

Zhang Liuer frowned, “But I didn’t take anything!”

“Shut up!” snapped Huang Xiaotao. “You didn’t take anything here yet, but you’ve stolen many things from this neighborhood in the past! You should count yourself lucky if all we wanted you to do was take your statements!”

Just then, we saw a policeman passing by. We handed Zhang Liuer over to him and told him to take him to a nearby police station, and then we returned to the murder scene.

Luo Weiwei had just returned with a bag of flour in her hand.

“Where have you been?” she asked.

“We went out and caught a thief,” I replied.

“Caught a thief?” sneered Luo Weiwei. “Sounds like you’ve got a lot of free time on your hands. Here you go! Here’s the flour you asked for!”

I thanked her and took the flour from her hand, went into the storeroom on the first floor and searched every inch of it. There was no cat figurine like the one mentioned by Zhang Liuer at all. I then opened the flour and sprinkled a thin layer around the windows, the window sills, and the door.

“Hey, you’re doing the same thing you did during the case of the pianist ghost some time ago,” Huang Xiaotao noticed. “Do you think this house is haunted?”