The girl saw us walking over and stood up, looking at us with hostile eyes.
She was neatly and cleanly dressed, not like a street urchin. She wore a pink dress, white stockings, children's shoes, and had her hair in pigtails.
I noticed her pupils gave off a bluish-white light, her irises were very black, distinctly black and white like nothing human!
We stared at each other silently, frozen for about five or six seconds, before Huang Xiaotao went up and asked, "Little girl, why are you here alone..."
Before she could finish speaking, the girl turned and ran. LaoYao and I exchanged glances and hurried after her.
The alley was very dark, and the stone slabs laid on the ground were old and broken, full of bumps and holes. But I had the "Eyes of the Deep Cavern", so I had no trouble seeing in the dark.
Huang Xiaotao didn't have my super night vision. She tripped on a jutting stone slab with a shriek, and looked like she was about to fall.
I quickly turned back to catch her. With her momentum from running, plus her full weight, she fell towards me, nearly knocking me down. I braced myself with one hand, barely maintaining my balance, but my hands ended up in an awkward spot, on her fourth rib - her chest!
Huang Xiaotao recoiled like a frightened bird, quickly pushing me away. My first reaction was to apologize, but before I could get the "I'm sorry" out, I got slapped in the face. But the slap seemed very light, just barely touching my cheek, leaving me confused if she was angry or what.
"Where are you putting your hands, you scoundrel!" Huang Xiaotao yelled.
"Hey, it wasn't on purpose, and I was apologizing!" I said.
Huang Xiaotao glared at me. Now wasn't the time to quibble over this. Chasing that suspicious girl was more urgent. I was about to go, but Huang Xiaotao stamped her foot and shouted, "Hey, you're just going to leave me!"
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"I can't see, hold my hand!" she said.
Then she held out a hand. I hesitated for a moment, then took her soft, slippery hand and continued running.
My little heart couldn't help jumping again.
From behind, Huang Xiaotao grumbled, "Your EQ is truly beyond saving!"
"What did I do wrong?" I asked with a wry smile.
"No wonder you can't find a girlfriend, serves you right to be single forever!" Huang Xiaotao pouted.
"As if you have a boyfriend..." I retorted.
Then I got kicked in the butt. Huang Xiaotao kicked me from behind while I pulled her along. You can imagine what kind of move that was - only a trained person could complete such a high-difficulty maneuver.
After running for a while, I saw the blurry figure of the girl up ahead. Hearing the footsteps, Huang Xiaotao shouted, "Stop right there!"
The girl looked back, opened her mouth and let out a threatening roar. Her manner, her actions were just like...a cat!
She suddenly pounced at me, claws outstretched. I had to let go of Huang Xiaotao's hand to fend off the "claws". The girl's nails were sharp, scratching several bloody lines into the back of my hand. I was completely overwhelmed by her crazed attack.
Just then, Huang Xiaotao pulled out her gun, pointing it at the girl, "Stop, or I'll shoot!"
The girl froze for a second, then her eyes rolled back and she collapsed to the ground. As she fell, I seemed to see a wisp of black shadow leap from her onto the courtyard wall. But the shadow was blurred - even my "Eyes of the Deep Cavern" could barely make it out.
"Why's it so quiet, did she run away?" Huang Xiaotao asked.
"She fainted." I said.
"What was that all about? Scared unconscious?" Huang Xiaotao didn't really understand.
I went over and lifted the girl's eyelids. Her pupils were no longer starkly black and white like before. Then I noticed she wore a school badge on her chest. This girl looked about 12 or 13 years old. I guessed, "Could she be the victim's daughter?"
"Who cares if she is or not, we can't just leave her here. Carry her away!" Huang Xiaotao said.
"Me carry her?" I pointed at myself.
Huang Xiaotao laughed in exasperation. "Are you a guy or not?"
My meaning was, in this pitch-black alley, she still had to hold my hand to walk. It was too much trouble to explain, so I just had to swallow my grievances.
I suddenly remembered something. I took out a small packet of cornstarch from my pocket and blew it where the girl had been standing. Footprints appeared in the cornstarch - left behind by the girl. Then I blew some on the wall. Clear cat paw prints emerged on the wall.
Huang Xiaotao couldn't see in the dark. She asked what I was doing. I told her about the discovery.
"What, more cat prints?" Huang Xiaotao gasped.
"Yes, the same as in the house." I answered.
Huang Xiaotao bit her finger. "I'm starting to feel this case wasn't done by a person!"
"No, I'm certain there's a perpetrator!"
I picked the girl up. A 12-year-old loli wasn't too heavy. Huang Xiaotao held my shirt behind me as we left the alley. Back at the crime scene, I told her to call Wang Yuanchao down. There was nothing left to investigate here - let's go back to the station.
After a while, Huang Xiaotao came down with Wang Yuanchao and brought the two lab mice too. She smiled, "These little guys are impressive to have survived your investigations twice. Let's find a place to set them free later."
"Lab mice like these don't have survival skills. Setting them free is akin to killing them. Why don't you take them home to raise?" I said.
"Okay, I'm a mouse too after all." Huang Xiaotao nodded.
"So you're three years older than me!" I exclaimed in surprise.
Huang Xiaotao glared at me. "No manners at all, don't randomly guess a girl's age."
I counted on my fingers in confusion. "I'm a tiger, you're a mouse, isn't it obvious? Or are you 15 years older than me?"
"Looking to die!" She threateningly shook her pink fist.
We got in the car and put the girl in the backseat. On the road, Huang Xiaotao asked me, "Song Yang, what did you say was the reason the victim's family went crazy?"
"Probably interference from some kind of magnetic field. The three of them heard a strange sound at the same time, which shouldn't have been a real sound, but a magnetic field directly acting on their bodies! It's like how cell phones get interfered with when placed near an open microwave." I patiently explained.
"Can magnetic fields make people go crazy?" Huang Xiaotao didn't really believe it.
"They can. The human body has many tiny magnetic fields. Being close to a powerful magnetic field can lead to hormonal imbalances and emotional instability, infinitely amplifying negative emotions. Have you heard of biomagnetic tides? When the moon is fullest, the moon's gravity affects the Earth's magnetic field. Suicides during this time are three times higher than usual." I said.
Huang Xiaotao said, "No wonder foreigners believe werewolves transform under the full moon. Looks like there's some scientific basis for these beliefs, not totally superstition."
I murmured, "I'm just guessing based on my own knowledge, but this whole case could also be explained by another reason..."
"What?"
"Evil spirits!" I calmly uttered those four words.
Huang Xiaotao gasped, "Evil spirits?"
My knowledge of evil spirits was limited, so I gave LaoYao a call. As soon as he picked up, his sly voice floated through, "Little Song Song, it's been so long since you contacted me, have you missed me?"
I immediately felt goosebumps. "LaoYao, can you do me a favor?"
"Tell me!" LaoYao immediately answered.
I asked him to check out paranormal forums for me, look for folktales related to cats, see if there were any stories about cat demons harming people, and pick out some credible ones to email me tomorrow.
A schemer like LaoYao wouldn't help for free. He immediately started negotiating terms. "What's in it for me?"
"Same as usual, 1,000 yuan payment." I replied.
"Humph, no way. I heard that last time Dali tagged along with you but didn't help at all, yet he split 9,000 yuan. I worked so hard but only get 1,000 yuan? That's too unfair. I see you love Dali more than you love me!" LaoYao's charming voice almost made me spit blood onto the windshield.
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
he colors of other people’s emotions. Light red meant anxiety. Gray meant exhaustion. Orange meant excitement. Yellow... meant repression. At the same time, he could gain unlimited control over one of those colors. Pale cyan: relaxation. Using this ability, he started offering “two-yuan hugs,” spending an afternoon exchanging emotional-color experiences with others. Then came his final female customer of the day— a girl whose emotional color was pure black... —— A week later, Xu Chuan had become skilled at using pale cyan—Relaxation—treating it like a bottle of menthol balm whenever he needed it. That was when he discovered he had unlocked another unlimited emotional color: Purple, the color of fear. So these emotional colors refresh every week? Fine, I take it back—I’ll never call you useless again... —— Much later, after Xu Chuan had accumulated countless emotional abilities, one night, he suddenly found himself inside someone else’s dream. There, he could use the emotional colors he possessed to paint. And in her dream, he painted her a shower of pink shooting stars, spreading across the depths of the night sky...
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
ap a wealthy young lady? Or else I'll be eliminated by the system? Ye Feng, who awakened the Kidnapper System, originally wanted to live a peaceful life but never imagined he would become a kidnapper of young women. However, after some time, he discovered that all the girls the system ordered him to kidnap were far from ordinary. "Big brother Ye Feng~ You've kidnapped my heart, and now you're not allowed to leave me ever again~" "Ye Feng~ You kidnapped me back then, now it's my turn to capture you♡" "Little Feng, you're mine! You can only be mine!" "Ye Feng, none of them deserve you. Only I love you the most♡" ... This is madness, they've all gone mad! Wait, what? Why are all the girls I kidnapped yanderes?!
