Netherworld Investigator

When the girl saw us coming, she stood up and gave us a hostile look. Her clothes were neat and tidy, unlike street children. She was wearing a pink dress, white stockings, a pretty pair of shoes, and her hair was tied in a ponytail.

I noticed that her eyes glowed with a white and green light while her pupils were dark and unlike the shape of normal human eyes at all!

The two of us silently studied each other for about five or six seconds. Huang Xiaotao went forward and asked, “Hello, darling, why are you out here all alone?”

As soon as she spoke, the girl turned and ran. Huang Xiaotao and I exchanged glances and quickly chased the girl.

The alley was very dark, and the cobblestone slabs on the ground had been in disrepair for a long time, so there were holes everywhere. But with my Cave Vision, I could avoid all of them and effortlessly move in the dark.

Huang Xiaotao couldn’t, however. She stumbled upon a protruding cobblestone, screamed, and lost her balance.

I quickly turned around to grab her before she fell to the ground, but because of her inertia and the whole weight of her body rushing towards me, she almost fell on top of me. I grabbed her instinctively to regain my balance, and we managed to stay on our feet, but I suddenly realized that my hands were clutching her very soft… breasts!

Huang Xiaotao shrieked like a frightened bird and quickly pushed me away. My first reaction was to apologize. However, before I could utter the words ‘I’m sorry,’ she slapped me. Although I did wonder why the slap didn’t hurt at all. It was as if she barely touched my cheeks. I was confused. Was I slapped because she was angry or what?

“Watch where you put your hands, you idiot!” snapped Huang Xiaotao.

“I didn’t mean it! Besides, I was just about to apologize!”

Huang Xiaotao gave me a look. My mind went back to chasing the suspicious little girl, who must’ve gone pretty far, so I turned around and began to run after the girl. Yet as I left, Huang Xiaotao yelled, “Hey, don’t leave me here!”

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I can’t see. You’ll have to lead me.” She then reached out with her hand. I hesitated for a while, but then took her hand and we continued to run.

Huang Xiaotao’s hand felt really soft and smooth. My little heart kept thumping in my chest the whole time we ran.

“You’re such a useless guy! Incurably useless!” Huang Xiaotao cursed at me as we ran hand in hand.

“What did I do now?” I asked.

“No wonder you couldn’t find a girlfriend! You’re destined to be forever single!”

“As if you had a boyfriend yourself…” I teased.

Huang Xiaotao kicked my butt. She did so while we were still running and holding hands. I thought about how agile and difficult move this was. This wasn’t a simple move that anyone could do!

After running for a while, I saw the figure of the little girl in the dark. Huang Xiaotao heard the footsteps and shouted, “Stop right there!”

The girl turned back and opened her mouth to make a sound. The sound that came out was… a meow!

The girl suddenly rushed towards me. I had to let go of Huang Xiaotao’s hand to protect myself from the girl’s “claws.” Her nails were very sharp. The moment she scratched the back of my hand, it left a bloody wound. She was also very quick and agile so I couldn’t block her attacks at all.

Huang Xiaotao pointed her gun at the girl and shouted, “Stop, or I’ll shoot!”

The girl froze. Then I saw a shadow pass over her eyes, and the girl fell to the ground. As her body fell, I saw a black shadow jumping out of her body and onto a wall, but the shadow was so swift and faint that I couldn’t follow it even with my Cave Vision.

“Why isn’t she running or moving anymore?” asked Huang Xiaotao.

“She fainted,” I replied.

“What happened? Was she frightened?” asked Huang Xiaotao again, completely perplexed by what had just happened.

I pushed the girl’s eyelids up to check her pupils and found that her eyes were completely like a normal human being’s. Then I noticed that she had a school badge on her chest. The girl was about twelve or thirteen years old. 

“Could she be the daughter of that family?” I conjectured.

“Whoever she is, we can’t just leave her here. You’ll have to carry her back.”

“Should I carry her?” I asked, pointing at myself.

“Yes, of course! You’re the man here, aren’t you?”

What I meant was that the alley was very dark so if I carried the girl, I wouldn’t be able to hold her hand. But I couldn’t be bothered to explain it to her, so I kept quiet.

I suddenly remembered one thing. I took a small bag of fine flour from my pocket and blew it in the place where the girl had just stood. Some footprints appeared on the flour, which was left by the girl. Then I blew it to the wall again, and a line of cat paw prints appeared on the wall.

Huang Xiaotao couldn’t see in the dark, so she asked me what the hell was I still doing there. I told her about this discovery.

“What? More cat paw prints?”

“Yes, exactly the same as those found in the house,” I replied.

“I’m starting to think that the murderer doesn’t really exist in this case…”

“No, I believe that there is a murderer!” I insisted.

I carried the girl on my back. The 12-year-old girl was not heavy at all, so I could walk back to the house without any difficulties. Meanwhile, Huang Xiaotao held onto my shirt and followed behind me as we left the alley. 

When we reached the house of the murder scene, I told Huang Xiaotao to go get Wang Yuanchao. There was nothing left to investigate here, so I decided we should head back to the police station.

Huang Xiaotao went into the house, then after a while, she came back out with Wang Yuanchao who was carrying the two white mice. Huang Xiaotao smiled and said, “These little guys escaped your attempts at their lives twice! That’s not shabby at all. You should find a please to release them to the wild…”

“These mice don’t have the ability to survive in the wild,” I said. “Releasing them would be just as bad as killing them outright. You can bring them back to raise them as pets if you like.”

“That’s a good idea,” nodded Huang Xiaotao. “And I was born in the year of the rat—what a coincidence!”

“So you’re three years older than me!” I exclaimed.

Huang Xiaotao gave me a look. “Don’t you understand any social etiquette at all? It’s rude to guess a girl’s age!”

“But I was born in the year of the tiger, and you’re born in the year of the rat. It’s obvious that you’re three years older than me! Or are you fifteen years older than me?”

“You idiot!” She threatened to punch me.

We got in the car and put the girl in the back seat. On the way, Huang Xiaotao asked me, “Song Yang, what were you going to say about the reason why the family went crazy?”

“It’s probably due to some kind of magnetic field interference,” I explained. “When the three of them heard the strange sound at the same time, it probably wasn’t a sound at all, but a magnetic field that directly acts on the human body, just like when you put a mobile phone near a microwave oven.”

“Can the magnetic field make people go crazy?” Huang Xiaotao asked incredulously.

“Yes,” I answered. “There are many small magnetic fields inside the human body. Once you approach a powerful magnetic field, you can cause endocrine disorders, and your emotions can go out of control. The negative emotions in your heart will be infinitely magnified. Have you heard of biological tides? Whenever the moon is the most round, the moon’s gravity will affect the earth’s magnetic field, and it’s been reported that the number of animals that commit suicide during this time is three times higher the usual.”

“Then it’s no wonder that people in the West believe that werewolves will change their forms when they see the full moon,” said Huang Xiaotao. “It seems that there is some kind of scientific basis to this legend, after all.”

“I’m only making conjectures based on what I know, though,” I said. “In truth, this case can be explained by another hypothesis…”

“What hypothesis is that?”

“Spirits!”

“Spirits?”

I had limited knowledge of spirits, so I had to find someone who could help me learn more—Lao Yao.

I gave him a call, and the moment it was picked up, I was greeted by that flirty voice of his that sent chills down my spine.

“Little Song!” he drawled. “Why haven’t you called me for so long? Didn’t you miss me?”

I shivered in my seat.

“Lao Yao, can you do me a favor?”

“Sure! What is it?” he asked.

I told him to go to the various spiritual forums to check out the folklore related to cats, and see if there were any cat-related spirits, and email me all the reliable information that he could find tomorrow.

But I should’ve known that the greedy bastard wouldn’t help me for free. He immediately asked, “Okay, but what’s in it for me?”

“As usual. A thousand yuan,” I replied.

“Oh, that won’t work,” he said. “I heard that you gave Dali who accompanied you for a while and didn’t even help you much nine thousand yuan. But I, who had been so helpful to you, merely got a thousand yuan. That’s really unfair, Little Song! You love Dali more than you love me!”

Listening to Lao Yao creeped me out so much that I almost coughed up blood right onto the windshield!

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