Xiaotao asked Shopkeeper Tang for the abattoir’s contact information. I suspected that there wouldn’t be much to follow up on there since it would be impossible to supply human meat at such an industrial scale every day unless we were talking about an operation that rivaled the Nazi concentration camps.

“Is the meat delivered by the same person every time?” I asked.

As I expected, Shopkeeper Tang nodded immediately and answered, “Yes!”

“Do you know his name and where he lives?”

“I don’t know where he lives,” Shopkeeper Tang admitted. “But I know his name is Ma Jinhuo. He is dark-skinned and very thin. He’s a man of few words and he doesn’t seem very friendly at all. But he’s the one who’s been delivering the meat for the past six months.”

The name struck me as strange. I borrowed Xiaotao’s notebook and told him to write the characters of the name down. The ‘Jin’ in the name meant gold, while the ‘Huo’ meant fire.

Xiaotao took a look at the name and remarked, “What’s strange about this name?”

“People are traditionally named to complement the elements that they lack according to numerology,” I explained. “The average person usually only lacks one of the five elements, but this man seemed to lack two. Hence the name.”

“He lacks one more thing,” Xiaotao added. “Morality!”

“He doesn’t just lack morality if he’s killing people and turning their flesh into minced meat,” I sneered. “He lacks basic humanity!”

Shopkeeper Tang didn’t have the address and contact information of Ma Jinhuo. All he knew was that the man would deliver the meat to him every three days. He came here this morning, so he would be coming again in three days.

Once the police officers collected enough samples, both Xiaotao and I felt that there was no need to bring Shopkeeper Tang back to the station to record his statements. Xiaotao asked me what we should do next.

“This man named Ma Jinhuo is suspicious,” I replied. “That gives us three possible investigation lines: first, we could go to the abattoir and get more information about this person, but my hunch is that we won’t achieve much this way. Second, we could investigate missing person cases from the last three months in Nanjiang City. Third, and this one is the most time-consuming and requires the most manpower, we could comb through this whole city to find if there are any discarded human bones or body parts.”

Xiaotao folded her arms and stared at me with a curious smile on her face. I asked her what was wrong.

“I was just wondering if the person I spent time with this morning and the person I see in front of me right now are really one and the same.”

“It’s possibly what they call split personality,” I smiled shyly.

“Really?” Xiaotao was shocked. “Do you have a split personality?”

“I was just joking,” I replied. “In fact, everyone acts differently when they are in different roles, so their personalities might seem to differ in different circumstances. But the pathological split personality behavior as described by psychiatrists is totally different. That is when the personalities of a person is completely separate from each other, often times each personality isn’t even aware of the other’s existence…”

Xiaotao smiled and said, “You really do know everything, don’t you? You look really cool when you explain things like that!”

When I mentioned the words ‘split personality,’ I noticed that there was a minute sign of nervousness in Shopkeeper Tang’s facial expression, but I didn’t think much of it at the time, believing that it was insignificant. Little did I know that this oversight of mine almost cost me Xiaotao.

“Oh, by the way,” I added, “I think Shopkeeper Tang should be allowed to operate his business normally today.”

Xiaotao’s eyes widened. “What?! You want him to continue selling the human meat buns?”

“No, of course not,” I replied. “But he can start selling ordinary buns with pork meat instead. I don’t want to alarm the criminals who might be lurking in the dark, observing what is going on here. Do you think we’d be able to lure them into our trap if they notice the shop is closed and cordoned off with police tape?”

“You’re right!” Xiaotao snapped her fingers. “We’ll fine him for bad hygiene as a cover-up. I’ll get the ticket from the food inspection department.”

Shopkeeper Tang heard this and exclaimed, “No, please, I’ve always used fresh and clean ingredients and never added any preservatives in my buns! You can’t punish me for that!”

“It’s good enough that we’re allowing you to operate your business normally!” snapped Xiaotao. “But don’t worry, the ticket would just be for show. You don’t need to pay any fines and your business license won’t be revoked.”

Shopkeeper Tang was relieved to hear that, and he finally relented.

Xiaotao ordered the officers to return to the police station, where they would have a meeting for the case and formally start the investigation. Just then, Dali finally arrived soaking in sweat.

“Here you go, dude!” he said, handing me a bag. “Goddammit, it was a pain in the ass getting on the bus during peak hours when people are going home from work! You have no idea how tightly packed the bus was!”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I didn’t need the stuff he brought after all, so I just thanked him.

Xiaotao glanced at Dali and said, “You’re just in time! Let’s go to the police station now. We’re going to have a meeting.”

“Meeting?” Wang Dali looked around at the bun shop. “What kind of case is it?”

“You’ll know when you get there.”

We went to the police station by Xiaotao’s car. I noticed that Xiaotao didn’t have to ask Captain Lin to transfer some of the staff to this case and set up a task force. Perhaps she now had the authority to do those things herself now that her rank was Supervisor.

At that point, there was nothing much to discuss about the case. Mainly all the facts collected were briefly summarized and the officers were assigned to their specific tasks. We utilized a carpet-bomb type of strategy for this case, where a large number of officers were assigned to search an area all around the city, and everyone would gather their findings in the next forty-eight hours. She also stressed the importance of being as covert as possible in order to avoid alarming the criminals and giving away what the police had found out.

Then, Xiaotao clapped her hands and coolly proclaimed, “Dismissed!” And all the officers each went about their respective tasks.

She then came to us and said, “You can go back to your dorm and stand by for now, Song Yang. I’ll inform you when we find a body.”

“Let me know when the DNA test results are ready,” I reminded her.

“Roger!” she replied.

“Xiaotao-jiejie looks so cool and commanding while ordering everyone around!” praised Dali.

“It probably comes with being a police officer for many years,” I commented.

Seeing that Xiaotao was in a good mood, Dali got cheeky and asked, “Would you treat us to dinner tonight? I braved through the peak-hour crowd to get here and I’m so hungry now!”

Xiaotao’s face turned sickly at the mention of food.

“Not tonight, I’m afraid,” she muttered. “I lost all my appetite because of this case. I’ll probably won’t touch any food until tomorrow. But if you guys are hungry, you can grab something to eat downstairs. I’ll pay for it.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” I quickly refused. “We’ll be going back to our dorm straight away.”

Dali didn’t know that I had spent the whole day alone with Xiaotao, and I was not ready to tell him yet. I felt that my relationship with Xiaotao was still in its early stage, and I didn’t want to jinx it by telling anyone.

Once we returned to our dorm, I asked my classmates for the lecture notes of the classes that I skipped today and then read some books. Then I received a WeChat message from Xiaotao that said, “The DNA test results are out. It is indeed human tissue.”

“Roger,” I replied simply.

I wanted to say something else, but just couldn’t think of the right words. Should I ask her if she had fun today? I typed it out, but after some consideration, I deleted it as I thought it wouldn’t be appropriate considering what happened. I then typed out a message telling her to get some rest and sleep early tonight since she’s been so busy lately, but deleted it again.

Just as I was still in a dilemma thinking about what to say, Xiaotao sent me another message.

“Wanna come over to my house tonight?”

I was flabbergasted. It felt as if I was struck by lightning!

Before I could react, I received yet another message.

“Don’t misunderstand. It’s just that I was hungry. I cooked a big pot of fresh dumplings, but I can’t finish them all. So, I thought you might be able to help me not waste the food.”

“Didn’t you say you had no appetite?” I replied. “Why did you cook a pot of dumplings all of a sudden? Don’t you think that the dumplings are a lot like steamed buns?”

She replied with a laughing emoji.

“Buns and dumplings aren’t the same thing, idiot! You’d better come soon. There won’t be any taxis later in the night.”

“But Dali is still in the room...”

She shot back with a quick reply, “Is Dali your wife?”

My face reddened. I was ashamed at how pathetic I was. Xiaotao wasn’t even in the room, yet here I was blushing on my own.

“Are you coming or not?” she asked impatiently. “If you’re not coming then I’ll feed the dumplings to the dogs downstairs! You’ve got three seconds to answer. Three…”

“Two…”

“One!”

I gritted my teeth and replied with two words: “Coming now!”