Netherworld Investigator

As I sat on the sofa and waited for Xiaotao, my heart was in turmoil. It was so nerve-racking for me that I even contemplated bolting out the door. But another voice in my head jeered at how pathetic I was.

Those few minutes felt like years. Finally, Xiaotao came out of the bedroom with her hands behind her back.

"Guess what I’m holding in my hands?" she asked playfully. "I’ll give you some clues—it’s made of plastic, and there’s a hole in it too."

I almost choked, but quickly realized that it must be another trap.

"Is it a DVD?" I guessed.

"Aww, that’s no fun! You got it right on the first try!" Xiaotao complained. She held up a DVD which was still in its case. I noticed that the cover was of the classic horror film The Ring.

"What did you want me to guess?" I teased her.

"What else could you guess?" she countered after some hesitation. It was her turn to blush. "I just wanted to test your IQ, that’s all..."

"I thought I was the one whose face gets red all the time!" I teased her again, not wasting a rare chance to poke fun at her.

"How dare you! I’m the only one allowed to tease you like that! You can’t do it to me!" She hit my head with the corner of the DVD case, and I almost cried of the sharp pain.

"I’m sorry! I’m sorry!" I begged for her mercy.

"Hmph!" Xiaotao stopped hitting me and rested her hands on her waist.

"You’ve never seen this old movie before?" I asked while massaging my head.

"No..." answered Xiaotao as she turned over the DVD cover. "I’ve heard many people say that this movie is really scary, so I never dared to watch it alone. Now that you’re here, I can finally watch it! Oh, right, have you seen it before?"

I shook my head.

"Great! Then let’s watch it together!"

After that, Xiaotao inserted the disc into the DVD player. In truth, I’d seen the movie when I was in junior high school, but I didn’t want to ruin her mood by admitting that.

The DVD began to play. In order to create an atmosphere suitable for the movie, Xiaotao turned off the lights and pulled down the curtains. She sat down next to me on the sofa, pulled up her legs, and wrapped her arms around them. With her slender legs exposed and her scent filling my nose, I could barely keep my eyes on the TV screen.

When the ghost first appeared, Xiaotao jumped in fright and I saw her shoulders shake. She even started to bite her nails. She reached out her hand and clutched my wrist.

"You’re a police officer and you’re scared of this?" I asked.

"Aren’t you scared at all?" she asked.

"Well, yeah, but not as much as you are," I laughed.

"I heard from a friend that they couldn’t sleep alone after watching this movie."

"And yet you still want to watch it?"

"Shut up!"

She then leaned her whole body onto my arm. Her cool and smooth skin felt like soft jade. For a moment, I felt the urge to wrap my arm around her shoulders to calm her down, but didn’t have the boldness and courage to do so.

Rather than scary, I thought a much better word to describe this movie was tense. From beginning to end, there was this feeling of suspense that was almost suffocating. At every moment when the actors in the movie turned their heads to look behind

I had to hand it to the Japanese, though. They really knew how to make horror films terrifying.

As we were reaching the middle of the movie, Xiaotao got more and more scared and screamed in fright every few minutes. Her grip on my arm tightened, and it was getting quite painful for me. I’d always seen her as the bold and fearless police officer, so it never occurred to me that there were things that could scare Xiaotao too.

I took the remote control and turned down the volume. Usually it was the sound effects employed in the horror movies that made them so scary. Once the volume was lower, I noticed that Xiaotao calmed down a lot. In fact, it seemed that she was completely silent now. That change in reaction was way too drastic—was she just faking her fear earlier?

I turned to look at her and saw that she had actually fallen asleep. Her head was resting on my shoulder and she was already snoring lightly.

I reached out my hand and brushed her hair out of her face. She looked lovely when she was asleep, just like a sleeping kitten. I could’ve focused on the slightly more exposed cleavage down her dress, but I was honestly much more entranced by her stunning face.

Was I drunk with love? Had I lost my mind? Perhaps.

The fragrance of Xiaotao’s body continued to lure me in. I couldn’t help but inch my face closer and closer to her. Meanwhile, a voice in my head warned me, Stop it, Song Yang! Don’t do anything disrespectful!

But then there was another voice that argued, Are you a man? What are you waiting for? Don’t waste the perfect opportunity!

This fierce internal struggle went on for a long while, but in the end, reason triumphed and I decided to remain honorable.

Still, I couldn’t stay in this position the entire night. I carefully freed my body from Xiaotao and stood up, moving as languidly as a sloth to avoid waking her up. As her head lost the support from my arm and was about to fall, I caught it with the palm of my hand. My other hand slid under the back of her knees and I lifted her up and carried her back to her room the way princesses were carried in fairytales.

Although I wasn’t much of a strong man physically, I wasn’t so weak that I couldn’t lift a woman who was barely a hundred pounds like Xiaotao. As I carried her to the bed, her hair brushed against the skin on my arm. It felt ticklish.

I put Xiaotao on her bed and was about to leave. But Xiaotao suddenly hooked her arm around my neck. I was stunned. Did I wake her up?

Then she mumbled, "Don’t let the bastard get away!"

I sighed in relief. Xiaotao looked so cute even when she was talking in her sleep.

I lowered my head slowly and pulled it away from her arm while holding her elbows with both of my hands to prevent them from falling down and hitting her chest. It was a difficult maneuver, but with patience and care, I was finally able to separate myself from her without waking her up.

I couldn’t bear to leave her lying on the bed like that, so I put the blanket over her.

I then went back to the living room. I didn’t continue to watch the movie, of course. I just turned off the TV and lay down on the sofa. Before falling asleep, I kept playing the scene that just happened over and over again in my head, and I smiled like a fool alone in the darkness.

I’d had a long day, so it didn’t take me long to fall asleep at all. Then suddenly I was awakened by the sound of the phone ringing. I heard Xiaotao muffled voice in the room saying, "They’ve found a body? Alright, I’ll be there soon."

Then she rushed out and shouted, "Song Yang! Wake up!"

"I’m up," I replied.

"Get up and get dressed," she ordered. "We’re going to the police station soon. They’ve found a body."

"Roger!"

At about four o’clock in the morning, I was all dressed and ready to go. Soon, Xiaotao came out of her room with her gun on her waist and ready to go too. She pulled down a coat from her coat rack and smoothed her fingers through her hair. And just like that, she transformed from the cute girl that she was earlier into a cool and efficient policewoman.

"Did you sleep well last night?" she asked me.

"I was woken up at four in the morning—how well do you think I slept?" I answered sarcastically.

"Well, that’s the life of a police officer," she remarked. "By the way, if you’re hungry, there’s some bread in the fridge."

"No, I’m good."

I took my bag and went downstairs with Xiaotao. We went to the police station together, but neither of us said a word in the car along the way.

When we were a few blocks away from the police station, I told her, "Stop. I’ll walk from here."

"What’s the matter?"

"It’s very early in the morning," I explained. "If your colleagues see us coming together in your car, they’ll probably start some rumors..."

Xiaotao smiled. "I didn’t know you could be this considerate."

She then pulled over to the side of the road. When I was about to get out of the car, she suddenly asked, "By the way, how did I end up sleeping in my bed?"

"H-Huh?" I responded in panic.

"You didn’t carry me there, did you?"

"Y-Yeah... I did..." I admitted.

"And you pulled the blanket on me too?"

"Uh-huh." I would’ve buried my head underground if I could at that point.

Then Xiaotao suddenly reached out her hand and gently patted my chin and exclaimed, "How sweet of you!"