Chapter 63: Honing In On the Murderer (1/2)
After a while, Huang Xiaotao knocked on the door. I opened it and saw her already dressed and ready to go. Without thinking, I asked, “That was quick! Didn’t you say that girls need at least half an hour to get ready?”
“You idiot! I didn’t want to keep you waiting so I got up early,” said Huang Xiaotao.
“Oh, okay. I’ll be ready in five minutes!”
I hurriedly put on my clothes, then swiped the room key card and came out with Dali.
“Xiaotao-jiejie!” cried Dali. “You look so beautiful today!”
“I’m beautiful every day,” retorted Huang Xiaotao sarcastically. “Is your cold better now?”
“Of course!” answered Dali enthusiastically. “My body is as tough as iron! A little cold can’t do anything to me!”
Huang Xiaotao went over to Wang Yuanchao’s room and knocked on his door. He opened it seconds later, wearing a sleeveless shirt that exposed his bulging muscles. Dark chest hair showed through the neckline of his shirt. He had a gun on his waist, and as he leaned on the door frame with one hand, his other hand was holding a flat silver alcohol flask. He also had a cigarette in his mouth. That rough, unshaven, and muscular look, paired with the grave expression on his face made him look like one of the special agents you’d often see in movies.
“It’s this early in the morning and you’re already smoking and drinking?” quipped Huang Xiaotao. “No wonder your wife left you!”
Wang Yuanchao let out a sigh of indifference, took a sip of alcohol, and closed the door. After five minutes, he reappeared, dressed and ready to go.
“After spending two days with him,” said Dali, “I think Old Wang is a really cool guy.”
“A really cool guy that can’t be counted on, that is,” countered Huang Xiaotao. “Once you hear his history in the love department, you’ll change your view on him pretty quickly.”
“What about a guy like me, Xiaotao-jiejie?” Dali asked. “Do you think I can be counted on?”
Huang Xiaotao gave him a look.
“A useless pig like you is even worse!”
Dali was deflated by Huang Xiaotao comment, but he kept on asking, “What do you think of Song Yang, then? Is he the type of guy you can count on?”
Huang Xiaotao glanced at me. I blushed, then she replied coldly, “I don't know!”
After the four of us left the hotel, I told them the information that Lao Yao found.
“So they were killed by a curse?” asked Dali. “How do you solve a case like that?”
“The problem isn’t how to solve the case,” mumbled Huang Xiaotao. “It’s how to convict the culprit.”
She was right. There was no law against cursing people. Otherwise, the prisons would be overfilled with people who shouted expletives on the street every day.
“But this curse has been confirmed to exist,” I said. “We must not let more people fall victim to this curse. I think I can ask the Director-General for a special exception.”
Huang Xiaotao nodded. “That’s true, but we saw it work with our own eyes, so we know that the curse is real. I can imagine the other police officers, especially the high-ranking ones, shaking their heads in disbelief at this explanation.”
I told her that it wouldn’t really matter, because the way this curse worked could be simply summarized and proven. Firstly, the culprit would place the cat figurine inside the victim’s house. Secondly, the curse would work at a certain time. Finally, once the murders occurred, the culprit would then sneak into the victim’s house to take the figurine away and hide the truth.
Although it was a curse, it was not as all-powerful as everyone imagined, and it couldn’t kill as arbitrarily as people might fear. This curse had fixed scope and principle within which it would work. This meant that there were still clues to discover that would eventually lead to the real culprit who put the curse there.
Also, I had no intention of revealing the information about the curse to the rest of the task force in order to prevent what Huang Xiaotao feared would happen.
We came to the conference room on the second floor of the police station. The breakfast that Huang Xiaotao ordered had already been delivered, and everyone was eating breakfast around the table. I noticed that Officer Liao was also there. When we walked in, everyone stopped eating and all the voices died down, but I waved my hand and said, “It’s fine, we can talk while we eat.”
Firstly, we summarized our progress so far. Two police officers who went to the hospital last night said that the girl was emotionally stable. She called her aunt early today and went back with her.
Then someone found some business dealings with the deceased. The information gathered was quite unorganized, but I was sure that there probably weren’t much here worth following.
Bai Yidao discovered some clues about Yu Jun. He was a product manager of a company. The company mainly received contracts for the production of some imported electronic products, which would then be exported and sold around the world, and it was considerably successful.