t
“No,” I shook my head. “I just want to confirm something.”
I then went to the second floor again and sprinkled some flour in every corner. After I finished, I went back to the first floor and asked Luo Weiwei to lock the door and prepare to leave.
“Where are we going next?” asked Huang Xiaotao.
“The police officers won’t be done yet,” I said. “I’m getting hungry now. Let’s eat! Didn’t you say you were going to treat us to the best roast duck?”
Luo Weiwei looked excited. It seemed that she was one of those ‘foodies’ who lived for food.
“I know the way to the most famous roasted duck restaurant here, I’ll take you there!” she suggested. “You probably never tried their signature dish, it’s amazing, you’ll love it…”
“You’re not coming with us,” I interrupted her. “I need you to go back to the police station to do some tests for me. Check the nasal residue of the victims, as well as the stomach contents and see if there are any stimulant-like compounds.”
Luo Weiwei was visibly deflated.
“But didn’t you say that I’m not allowed to do an autopsy on the dead bodies?” she asked.
“It’s fine, go ahead,” I waved my hand at her. “I’ve nothing else to do to the dead bodies.”
“Okay, understood,” answered Luo Weiwei.
After Luo Weiwei left, Huang Xiaotao laughed and said, “Song Yang! How could you treat precious little miss Luo like that?”
“She lost the bet, so she got what’s coming for her,” I replied coolly.
“You don’t look like the kind of man who is nice to everyone. But that’s fine! I like that! Hahaha!” laughed Huang Xiaotao while patting my back.
Her praise made me blush, so I quickly changed the subject.
“I don’t think the test would find anything substantial to the case,” I said. “But we still have to go through the process just in case.”
“Is it going to turn out just like the previous case then?” Huang Xiaotao asked.
“No, we’re still making progress now. It might be slow, but we’ll just have to wait and see.” I replied.
The three of us then went to the fancy restaurant that was famous for its roasted duck. The meal was really expensive—the total bill amounted to about six or seven hundred yuan, which was an extortionate price in my view, but Huang Xiaotao parted with the money as if it meant nothing to her.
“You usually spend a lot of money, and your car is better than your captain’s. Is your police salary enough for all that?” I asked.
Huang Xiaotao poured out a glass of cola and casually answered, “Nah, my salary is just my pocket money.”
“Your family must be very rich!”
“That’s a secret for now,” she said, winking her eyes. “But rest assured, I’m not using stolen money or anything shady like that.”
We had a good meal, and after I finished eating, I ordered something to bring back to Dali. He must be feeling lonely at the hotel.
In the afternoon, we returned to the police station. The police officers who went out to investigate came back one after another. I told them to go to the conference room on the second floor. Bai Yidao also arrived. He regarded us with glaring eyes. It seemed that the bastard still wouldn’t relent to Wang Yuanchao!
I told them to summarize their findings. Most of the police did not find anything. Several police officers took pictures of the paw prints of some cats they found. We compared them to the paw prints found on the victims, but they were obviously not a match.
In fact, after listening to what Zhang Liuer had to say, I suspected if the cat was a real physical being at all.
“What are the results of the tests?” I asked the forensics team.
“Only a few tests have been performed,” one of them replied.
He explained to me that there were more than one hundred kinds of stimulant drugs. They had to compare them one by one. Currently, only drugs such as amphetamine, cathinone, diethyltryptamine and amphetamine had been tested. They all came out negative. The rest of the tests would take about three to four days to complete.
I nodded and assigned the next tasks to them.
At present, there were a few things to do. First was to sort out the information in the mobile phone of the deceased; second, the deceased was a businessman, so we had to check if he had any suspicious business connections; third was to investigate the empty house opposite the murder scene and check if it had been rented out recently; and fourth was to find the daughter of the deceased, because I had something to ask her.
When I mentioned this, a policeman raised his hand and asked, “Consultant Song, the relatives of the deceased have concealed this matter from the daughter so far. The little girl is only 12 years old this year and she is studying in another city. Wouldn’t it be a bad idea to reveal her family’s fate like this?”
I sighed.
“But she’ll find out sooner or later,” I said. “Or is she going to be kept from the truth for the rest of her life?”
“But we can just interview the relatives if you want to investigate their family,” argued the policeman.
I asked him, “How many uncles do you have?”
The policeman was confused, but answered, “Four.”
“Then let me ask you: when is your fourth uncle’s birthday?”
He couldn’t answer me.
“Sometimes our relatives know even less about us than our friends,” I explained. “The ones who know the most about a person are always the immediate family members. And that’s why I must talk to the girl!”
After assigning the tasks, I told them to disperse. We would meet again and summarize the information tomorrow morning.
Everyone soon left the room, and eventually there were only two other people left apart from us—Luo Weiwei and Bai Yidao.
Bai Yidao stretched out his hands and asked me, “What about us, Great Detective Song? What should we do?”
I took out a piece of paper on which I drew something during lunch. There were three drawings on the paper. I threw it to him and said, “Go find a carpenter to help me create these three masks, and there’s a list of medicinal herbs on the other side of the paper. Grab those for me.”
Bai Yidao stood up, “You’re using me to run errands?”
“What else can you do besides run errands? I just learned about your background...”
“What does my father have anything to do with this?” asked Bai Yidao.
I was amused by his question. The bastard seemed to think that everyone cared about his father.
“I was talking about your accomplishments in all the three years that you’ve been in the police force,” I clarified. “You were involved in the investigation of a couple dozen cases, but you only managed to solve two. One of those was theft, the other was murder, but the suspect turned himself in, so I can’t really give you credit for that.”
I knew that someone like Bai Yidao who entered the police force by virtue of connections wouldn’t have much to show in terms of accomplishments, so I decided to poke at his sore spot!
“You…” Bai Yidao glared at me while pointing at my face.
“Help me get those things ready, and send them here tonight,” I said. “If you can’t obey the orders, then get out of the task force!”
“Fine! I don’t want to stay anyway!” He stood up and was about to leave, but Luo Weiwei stopped him.
“Think about it properly,” I reminded him. “This case is under special attention. All of the high-ranking officers are following our progress closely. I should tell you that my success rate of solving cases ever since becoming a consultant is 100%. This is a rare opportunity for you to show your capabilities. Do you really want to just walk away?”
After a while, Bai Yidao swallowed his pride and took the piece of paper. He glared at me and left the room.
Luo Weiwei turned out to be more mature and professional than her boyfriend. When Bai Yidao was gone, she asked me, “Do I still need to be your driver this afternoon?”
“No,” I waved my hand. “You’re the coroner after all, so I need you to do something more technical.”
Luo Weiwei was very happy to hear that.
“Tell me what I need to do!” she said excitedly.
“Go get me two mice,” I said.
“Wha… What?” I saw Luo Weiwei’s cheek twitch. “Hey, at least respect my position as the coroner!”
“Okay,” I replied. “Then I need you to perform full autopsies on the three dead bodies. Assess the degree of mechanical damage, see if there are any complications of the injury and if there are any hidden lesions. Do a brain, bone marrow, joint examination, then check the spines. Check for any abnormalities in the gray matter and white matter. Also, I need a sample of the main organs, a separate sample of serum and platelets, and a 5,000-word autopsy report submitted by tomorrow.”
Luo Weiwei’s jaw was still dropped after I finished talking. She probably didn’t expect me to know much about human anatomy and medicine. After a long pause, she mumbled, “How... how old do you want the mice to be?”
“Two or three months old will do,” I replied.
After Luo Weiwei left, Huang Xiaotao finally couldn’t help herself. She laughed her heart out while holding her belly and occasionally slamming the table.
“Song Yang, that was awesome!” she cried. “Did you see that look on her face? She looked like an idiot! Oh my god! My stomach hurts from laughing so much!”