“Chinese medicine doctor?” I paused for a moment, then burst into laughter. “Looks like he totally fell for my lies about corpse poisoning!”

Xiaotao sighed. “But we still can’t do anything about it. Not unless he gets so scared that he turns himself in.”

“Wait!” I cried. An idea just popped up in my mind. “Xiaotao, you just made an excellent point! Since we can’t do anything to him right now, we’ll make him incriminate himself?”

“How?” asked Xiaotao excitedly. I could tell from her eyes that she hadn’t given up on the case.

“By sending a visitor from beyond the grave to him!”

I wrote down a list of items for Wang Yuanchao to prepare. I then called Lao Yao.

“Little Song!” he cried when he picked up the phone. “I was just about to call you myself! I’ve given it some thoughts, and I decided to take up Miss Huang’s offer to join you guys!”

Great! Now I don’t have to pay him out of my own pocket every time I need his help.

“That’s good to hear,” I told him, “but you can’t just join the task force without proving yourself. You’ll have to pass a test.”

“Should I hack the server of the Japanese Embassy and replace their flag with the Chinese flag?” he asked.

“No, there’s no need for that. I’ll give you the details later. Take your equipment with you and we’ll meet at this place.”

I covered the phone speaker and asked Xiaotao if I could invite Lao Yao to her house. She nodded and said, “Now that we can’t go back to the police station, my house will act as the makeshift headquarters!”

I told Lao Yao the address of Xiaotao’s apartment and urged him to hurry there.

While Wang Yuanchao went out to buy the items that I needed, Xiaotao and I went ahead to her apartment. We watched TV for a while, then Lao Yao arrived with a huge luggage in tow.

“Are you planning to live here?” Xiaotao asked.

“These are my equipment!”

He then proceeded to set up his equipment in the living room. Once he was all settled in, I gave him an address and told him to hack into their internal network.

Lao Yao stayed silent and didn’t move. “What are you waiting for? Start working!” I urged.

“Haha, you’re cute, Little Song!” he scoffed. “The physical address is of no use to me! What I need is the IP address!”

I froze for a moment. How would I know what the IP address of Zou Wei’s company was?

“Never mind,” said Lao Yao. “I’ll just access their system through the company’s official website.”

He then went on to work, and after a few taps on the keyboard, a list of data flashed on the software interface.

“Okay,” Lao Yao continued. “I’m using data overflow to paralyze the company website’s firewall. Now the internal network’s security is wide open. What do you want me to do? Hack into their system? Get access to their surveillance camera? Just say the word.”

“Yes, get access to their surveillance cameras!” I ordered.

After another few taps on the keyboard, scenes of Zou Wei’s company appeared on the screen.

“Wow, I thought this kind of hacking only existed in movies!” cried Xiaotao excitedly.

“I’m only getting started!” boasted Lao Yao. I interrupted him before he could go on blabbering, and took out a photo of Ma Xiaoli in the car that I printed before and briefly summarized the case to him. I let him do whatever he pleased, as long as he could scare Zou Wei shitless before the day turned dark.

Lao Yao rubbed his hands together and began to work his magic. On the screen, I saw Zou Wei using the computer in his office, then suddenly he fell to the floor on his butt. His face turned deathly pale. I turned my gaze to the computer screen in front of him and saw Ma Xiaoli’s bloody face!

Then the printer next to him automatically started to work, and it spit out an A4 paper with the words ‘The debt of life can only be paid with life.’

Zou Wei screamed and grabbed the intercom phone. Lao Yao grabbed a microphone and handed it to Xiaotao.

“Miss Huang, it’s your time to shine!” he said.

“But my voice sounds nothing like his wife!” Xiaotao argued.

“Let me deal with that,” replied Lao Yao. He then opened up an audio software.

Xiaotao took the microphone and murmured, “I’m back, darling. Did you miss me?”

I saw Zou Wei hurling the phone across the room and hysterically crawled under the table. Lao Yao and I howled with laughter.

Xiaotao continued to play the role of Ma Xiaoli wonderfully.

“Darling, come with me! Come to the other side with me!”

Zou Wei fled the office in a hurry, and then went to the water dispenser to take a bit of water and sipped it. Lao Yao muttered, “Now let’s have some fun!”

Smoke came out of the water dispenser suddenly. Zou Wei was paralyzed on the spot for a few seconds. Then he fell to the ground screaming.

Xiaotao smiled and asked, “How did you do that?”

“It involves the knowledge in circuitry and electronics. You won’t get it even if I explain it to you,” said Lao Yao proudly. It was evident that he was satisfied with what he’d done to Zou Wei.

“I think you’ve scared him enough, Lao Yao,” I told him. Now ask him to come to the company alone tonight.”

Lao Yao thought about it for a while and got an idea. Now that Zou Wei was paralyzed with fear, he asked the receptionist at the front desk to fetch a piece of paper to Zou Wei. On the paper, these words were written in blood-red ink: “Come to the office tonight alone. Otherwise you’ll pay with your life!”

I had to praise Lao Yao’s ingenuity. It wasn’t a bad decision to let him join our team after all.

“What plans do we have for Zou Wei tonight?” asked Xiaotao.

“You’ll be Ma Xiaoli again!” I replied.

“Huh?” Xiaotao frowned. “We can change my voice, but how am I going to convince Zou Wei that I’m his dead wife? I look nothing like her! It’s too late now to order a realistic human mask online too.”

“You forgot that I know how to concoct hallucinatory drugs,” I countered.

That night, Xiaotao, Wang Yuanchao and I went to Zou Wei’s company. Wang Yuanchao easily knocked down the door. I thought about what a fearsome criminal gang we would’ve made. But that was just as it should be, for how could the police ever hope to crack down on crime if we were not as smart and cunning as the criminals?

Once we were inside, I gave Xiaotao and Wang Yuanchao the Mind Clearing Pill, then sprayed the hallucinatory drug that I’d prepared onto the wall. Xiaotao found a room to change into a more ghostly outfit, while Wang Yuanchao and I set up a projector outside. Once Xiaotao came out, both Wang Yuanchao and I were stunned by the transformation. Before her death, Ma Xiaoli was fond of dressing up. So, Xiaotao wore a sexy green dress that exposed her cleavage and her long legs. She wore her hair in a pigtail and had a pink bow on her head. In just a few minutes, Xiaotao transformed from a tough-looking police officer to a cute and sexy girl.

“What are you gawking at?” Xiaotao japed with a laugh. “How do I look?”

“You should make your face whiter, darken your eyes, and make your lips redder,” I suggested.

“But that would make me look like a ghost!”

“Isn’t that exactly the point?” I laughed.

“Right. Give me a few more minutes.”

She then disappeared to the room again.

Once everything was ready, we hid in a corner and waited for Zou Wei to arrive. We turned on our walkie-talkie that connected us to Lao Yao, who was in front of a computer in Xiaotao’s house. The entire company’s surveillance network had been hacked, so Lao Yao could give us accurate and timely warning of what was happening in the surrounding area.

Just as I was appreciating the view of Xiaotao’s cleavage and legs, Lao Yao’s voice interrupted my reverie.

“Your ass looks fine, Song Yang!” he teased.

I changed my position immediately. Xiaotao overheard this and laughed. “Just as you’re gawking at someone, someone else is gawking at you.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” I argued, “I wasn’t looking at you at all!”

“Miss Huang,” Lao Yao’s voice interrupted again, “not only can I confirm that Song Yang was staring at you, but he also reached a hand deep into his pants.”

“Bastard!” I spat. “I did no such thing!”

“Get ready everyone,” said Lao Yao, his voice suddenly turned serious. “The target has appeared. There are two people approaching.”

What? I wondered. Two people?