I was still racking my brain about how to deal with Lao Yao this time, when Huang Xiaotao suddenly snatched the phone away from me.

“This is Song Yang’s partner, Officer Huang Xiaotao,” she spoke to the phone. “This is Lao Yao, correct? If you’re willing to help us with this case, all the bonus I get in my pocket will be yours.”

Lao Yao was overjoyed, “Officer Huang, how generous of you! Yes, I’ll get to work straight away!”

Then Huang Xiaotao hung up the phone and tossed it into my arms. I was shocked by her offer, “Do you think that was a good idea? All Lao Yao has to do is check for some information online for a bit—is that really worth giving him all your bonus?”

Huang Xiaotao winked and said, “You misheard me. I said I would give him all the bonus I get in my pocket. However much the higher-ups decide to give me in the bonus is up to them, but how much I get into my pocket is entirely up to me. Perhaps I might even decide not to take a dime at all! I’ve been a police officer for quite a while now. Do you think I wouldn’t know how to handle people like that?”

I had to give it to her—that was pretty clever.

“Judging by the tone of his voice, was that the gay guy you mentioned a while ago?” Huang Xiaotao inquired.

“He never explicitly admits it, but we all think he is,” I replied.

“Do you like men too?” Huang Xiaotao asked.

“What led you to that kind of misunderstanding?!”

“Oh, okay. Then I’m relieved.”

Relieved? I wondered. Why should she be relieved? What exactly is she talking about?

After returning to the police station, I told her, “It’s pretty late now, Officer Liao has probably gone back home. There seems to be a hospital nearby, so we should just send the little girl there for now.”

“Roger!”

Huang Xiaotao started the car and drove to the hospital. Then Wang Yuanchao took the little girl in his arms and carried her in.

The doctor gave her a checkup and found that there was nothing wrong with the little girl except shock and slight malnutrition. The doctor asked which of us was her guardian. Huang Xiaotao showed him her police badge, then the doctor stopped asking more questions and just gave the girl a nutrient injection, put her on a glucose drip, and had her rest on a hospital bed.

Wang Yuanchao went out to smoke. I sat down next to Huang Xiaotao on a hospital bench, but as soon as my butt touched the seat, she scooted over to move away from me.

“Are you mad at me?”

“No,” she answered tersely while looking up at the ceiling.

I guessed it must have something to do with me accidentally grabbing her chest in the alley earlier, but I was afraid I’d wind her up again if I mentioned it now. I thought long and hard of how to make it up to her.

“How about I take you out for a meal when we go back to Nanjiang?” I suggested. “I know a good pizza place.”

“No, thank you!” Huang Xiaotao replied coldly.

Suddenly, we heard a cry coming from the ward, so we rushed in and saw that the little girl had woken up and was crying and calling for her mommy and daddy. Huang Xiaotao reached up and tried to caress her head, but the little girl curled up into a ball. Her body trembled slightly; tears were still gushing out of her round eyes and there were beads of tears hanging on to her long eyelashes. She looked just like a frightened fawn.

“Don't be afraid, we’re the police...” Huang Xiaotao comforted her.

When the little girl heard the word ‘police’, she immediately burst into tears and demanded, “Officer, did something bad happen to my mommy and daddy?”

Huang Xiaotao nodded, and the little girl hugged her pillow and wept bitterly.

Huang Xiaotao let her cry her heart out without interrupting. After a while, the girl finally calmed down. Then, Huang Xiaotao gently asked her some simple questions. It turned out that this little girl was the daughter of the victims, named Huang Yuanyuan. She called home two days ago but no one picked up the phone. She then called her relatives to ask them if anything had happened. They hemmed and hawed no matter how much she demanded to know, so she immediately guessed that something very bad must’ve happened at home.

She decided to sneak out of school in the middle of the night to come back home and find out what was going on. The school she was sent to was quite a distance from Wuqu City, so she had to take a long ride before reaching her home. When she got home, she found that the house was dark and sealed off by the police tape. She also heard some rustling noise from upstairs, and she immediately thought that there were some ‘bad guys’ doing bad things in her house.

Huang Xiaotao and I exchanged glances. What the little girl heard was probably us in the middle of the Murder Reenactment. But neither of us interrupted her to correct her misunderstanding, of course.

The little girl then hesitated for a while at the door, when suddenly, she saw a black cat gingerly stepping on the roof of the neighbor’s house, leapt onto the balcony, and broke into her house through a broken window on the second floor. Before breaking in, it turned its head and looked straight into her eyes with a pair of malicious eyes. She instantly realized that there was something strange about this black cat!

After a while, the black cat ran out of the main door and jumped onto her. Her memory faded after that, and the next thing she knew, she found herself lying in the hospital bed.

“A black cat?” I mumbled. It must’ve broken into the house to interfere with the Murder Reenactment we were doing. Perhaps it might’ve been the reason why we lost control of our emotions in the first place.

Either that, or maybe it was simply attracted by the mice near the window.

“How did Daddy, Mommy, and Granny die, officer?” the little girl asked. “Please don’t lie to me.”

“They…” Huang Xiaotao hesitated and turned to me with pleading eyes.

“It was gas poisoning,” I lied. “The cooking hob wasn’t shut off properly when they were all eating in the dining room. They died together, but they didn’t suffer at all.”

“Then can I please see them?” the little girl implored.

I shook my head and said, “I’m really sorry. The coroner had to dissect them for the autopsy. You’ll just be sadder if you see them like that.”

The little girl buried her face in the pillow and continued to cry. Anyone would find it harrowing to deal with a tragedy like this, let alone a little girl like her. Huang Xiaotao was about to ask her more questions, but I shook my head and signaled her to wait for later, so we left the room.

“I didn’t know that you could be kind and gentle too,” Huang Xiaotao noted as she glanced at me.

“There was no way we could keep her family’s deaths a secret from her,” I said, “so the best I could do was to tell a white lie so she didn’t have to suffer too much.”

“Should we guard her for the night?” asked Huang Xiaotao. “There’s no way I can do much for the investigation tomorrow if we do, though.”

“I’ll ask two police officers to come over and take turns to guard her,” I offered. “We’ll find a way to contact her relatives tomorrow.”

I then typed a message in the task force WeChat group about the important task of guarding the girl tonight. I mentioned that anyone who volunteered to come would be paid a bonus tomorrow.

Huang Xiaotao watched me type the message over my shoulder. She frowned and commented, “Do you have the money to pay them the bonus, you idiot? You love acting like a big boss, don’t you?”

“But didn’t you say that we must reward people for the extra work that they do?”

“Rewards come in different forms, not just money,” said Huang Xiaotao. She then grabbed my phone, deleted my sentence and typed, “anyone who volunteers to come can get a day off tomorrow.”

After the message was sent, several police officers immediately offered to come. Huang Xiaotao returned the phone to me and proudly proclaimed, “Watch and learn, kiddo!”

While we waited, I used the phone to look up for the contact details of the girl’s school. I then called the school and informed them that the girl was now safe with the police.

After about half an hour, two police officers arrived. I spelled it out carefully to them that if the little girl asked them about her family’s death, they should tell her that her parents and grandmother died of gas poisoning, lest my white lie would all be in vain. Huang Xiaotao then instructed them to keep the medical bills and the receipts for transportation and food expenses. She would take them to Officer Liao and they would get reimbursed later.