Xiaotao questioned Baldy about the death of his boss, but he kept insisting, “Leave this alone, Officer Huang! We’ll handle it ourselves!”
“Handle it yourself?” Xiaotao frowned. “Attacking the Blood Wolf gang with knives—is that how you’ll handle it yourselves? You’ll hack a dozen people and our job is to clean up after you—is that what you’re telling me? Tell me the truth now!”
But no matter how Xiaotao asked and threatened him, Baldy just wouldn’t reveal anything.
“I can’t tell you, Officer Huang,” he cried. “You know that I’d be chopped into pieces if I do!”
“You’re not from the Black Panthers gang, so why don’t you tell me?” Xiaotao asked Trenchy.
“I would’ve told you a long time ago if I knew,” replied Trenchy with an oleaginous smile. “They’re covering it up with an impermeable fog of secrets, so there was no way that we could figure anything out at all. The only thing I heard is that their boss died really horribly.”
“What are you talking about, motherfucker? I’ll punch you till all your teeth come out!” Baldy glared at Trenchy and tried to go over and punch him, but he was stopped by the officers.
I gave Xiaotao a signal and she came over to me, taking Baldy with her.
“Is your boss’s death related to a woman?” I asked Baldy.
He was staggered. Judging from this expression, I knew my guess was right. “Who are you?” he asked me.
“This is the special consultant who’s been working with the police,” Xiaotao told him. “There has been no case that he couldn’t solve. If you tell him how your boss died, he’ll definitely be able to find the culprit!”
Once Baldy heard of my position within the police organization, his tone became much more polite. He even pulled out a cigarette and offered to light it for me.
I told him I didn’t smoke, and asked him a few questions. Where did his boss die? When did he die? Where was the dead body kept now?
Baldy kept shaking his head and would only say, “I don’t know.”
“Us in the underworld, we have a code that we live by,” he added. “We never reveal a single word of the gang’s secrets, otherwise we’d die an ugly death. I’ve been with the boss since I was sixteen years old, and I want his death avenged more than anyone else! You can go and ask around. If you can really solve his death, then I’ll follow you for the rest of my life!”
“How am I going to ask around if you don’t tell me anything?”
“Stop asking me,” Baldy replied. “I really don’t know!”
“Okay, take these bastards back to the station and throw them in the cells,” Xiaotao ordered the officers. Then she asked me, “How did you know that the death of their boss was related to a woman?”
“It’s just a guess,” I replied. “It’s usually like that for people in the underworld anyway.”
“You’re becoming more and more like Detective Conan now, aren’t you?” she joked. “You bump into murder cases anywhere you go!”
“I’m not as lucky as he is!” I laughed. “Would you still invite someone like that to your place?”
Xiaotao slapped her forehead and exclaimed, “Ah, I completely forgot about our candlelight dinner! Come on, forget about the case for now, let’s go back and finish our dinner!”
“Yes, ma’am!”
We went back to her house for dinner, then watched another horror movie together. The movie was called Ju-On: The Grudge, and it scared Xiaotao very much. I was so tired and because I never usually drink alcohol, the two glasses of red wine that I had earlier made me very dizzy. I fell asleep before the ghost even appeared.
I woke up early the next morning. While I was still groggy from sleep, I realized that I was lying on the sofa with a blanket covering my body.
I heard a clinking noise coming from the kitchen. Xiaotao came out holding two cups of hot milk. She was wearing a loose T-shirt, her breasts tented up the shirt, and her two slender legs were exposed. She was wearing a pair of bear slippers, and her freshly-washed hair was wrapped in a dry towel. She placed the cups on the coffee table and asked, “You’re up? Let’s go to the station after breakfast.”
“How did I end up spending the night here?” I asked. “Did I do anything bad last night?”
“What could you do that would be considered bad between the two of us?” she teased with a sweet smile on her face.
My face reddened, then Xiaotao added, “You were drunk and fell asleep on the sofa last night. That’s it, you didn’t do anything. I couldn’t carry you, so I had to let you spend the night here.”
I was embarrassed. I had only drunk alcohol twice in my life—once when I graduated high school and once last night.
Xiaotao made some toast and we had that for breakfast. While I was eating, I asked her about the boss of the Black Panthers gang.
“To the police, he was a member of a criminal triad,” Xiaotao explained. “But to the public, he’s just a wealthy businessman named Cao Da. His businesses include bars and pubs, catering, real estate, and private loans. Naturally, the operations of the businesses aren’t fully legal, and the police have been monitoring the gang heavily. As long as they don’t break the law, they’re generally left alone though.”
“So he’s one of the wealthy merchants in Nanjiang City like your father then?”
“How did you know about my dad?”
“During the Li Wenjia case, remember? I snooped around and found a rich businessman named Huang Tianhao who looked just like your father whom I saw that day.”
When the subject turned to her father, Xiaotao lowered her head and slowly stirred the oatmeal in her bowl with a spoon. She fell silent for a while and looked unhappy.
“Since that case, my relationship with him has gotten more and more distant. He opposes my decision to be a police officer even more now, and he’s planning to introduce a businessman to me as a potential husband. I hate all these greedy businessmen! You must help me if he tries to set me up with that guy, Song Yang!”
“Sure, you can count on me!”
Xiaotao reached out and held my hand from across the dining table and thanked me. My cheeks were flustered for a good few minutes after that.
After breakfast, we both headed towards the police station. When we arrived, Xiaotao was handed the information they found on Cao Da’s death. It seemed that no funeral was ever held for him and the circumstances of his death were surrounded in a thick fog of secrecy. Because of his death, the gang was now without any leadership and chaos had descended on them. There were reports of a tacit agreement among them that promised whoever was able to find Cao Da’s murderer would become the next leader of the Black Panthers gang.
However, these gangsters knew nothing about solving a murder case. They had their minds set on the Blood Wolf gang from the get-go, and that triggered Baldy to lead his men to attack Trenchy’s men in the first place.
These bits of intelligence were all acquired from outsiders because the Black Panthers gang members were notoriously secretive and wouldn’t leak a single piece of information at all.
“Nanjiang City will bathe in blood if this case isn’t solved,” remarked Xiaotao. “Song Yang, this might not be a bizarre case like what you’re used to, but for law and order and the stability of Nanjiang City, I hope you can help us!”
“I’ll help solve the case, of course,” I replied. “But at the moment we know nothing about the case. We don’t even know where the body is!”
“Yeah,” Xiaotao sighed. “None of these bastards would leak anything… We’ve pretty much reached a dead end.”
“Is there any police informant in the gang?” I asked.
“I have no connections with any informants. This isn’t my expertise, I’m afraid. I’ll talk to Wang Yuanchao later and see if he’s got any ideas.”
Unfortunately, someone from the People’s Armed Police came to find Wang Yuanchao and invited him back temporarily to help with the training of the freshman group because none of the instructors could get them under control.
“Wait!” I suddenly thought of someone. “There’s no need to call for Uncle Wang’s help! I know a guy who can help us!”