Chapter 80: Discovery

“Does that cat you call Meimei usually sleep or wander around in different screening rooms too?” Ning Shuyi confirmed with them.

Both cleaners nodded in agreement.

“Meimei likes to find empty screening rooms to sleep in. Sometimes when she’s not hungry and wants to rest, she’ll disappear for a while—you just can’t find her anywhere. But she’s never caused any trouble! And even though she was a stray before, she’s very cautious. Ever since the cinema took her in, if anyone other than our staff tries to feed her, she won’t eat a thing! Besides, after the police came that day and finished the investigation, we were all too scared to go back into that room. No one would have dared to feed her! It’s just that the more we think about it, the less sense it makes, and the more frightened we feel.”

Ning Shuyi felt her heart racing as she listened, unable to control its quickened beat. She had to take two deep breaths to calm herself before asking the two cleaners, “So after you found Meimei dead, how did you handle it?”

“We just locked up that screening room. No one’s dared to go in for days. But now, since nothing’s happened after all this time, our manager can’t stand it anymore. He wants to put the room back into use—otherwise it’s just sitting there, losing him money,” one of the cleaners replied.

Ning Shuyi waved her hand dismissively, “I’m not talking about the screening room. I mean the cat—what did you do with her?”

“Oh, you mean Meimei!” The cleaner suddenly understood. “We were scared, but we also felt sorry for her. She was a stray and only had a good life here for just over a year, then died so suddenly! So we found a box, put her inside, and took her to a park about a fifteen-minute walk from here. We dug a hole there and buried her.”

Ning Shuyi quickly asked for the approximate location in the park. The cleaner, though a bit puzzled by how seriously the police treated a dead cat, did her best to recall and even called the colleague who’d helped bury the cat, giving Ning Shuyi the most accurate location possible.

Ning Shuyi thanked the two cleaners and asked them to inform their manager not to reopen the screening room for now. She said if there were any questions, they could contact her directly.

Hearing that the police didn’t support reopening the eerie screening room, the two cleaners were visibly relieved and happily agreed.

After leaving the restroom, Ning Shuyi pulled Huo Yan along, hurrying toward the nearby park the cleaners had mentioned, recounting everything she’d just learned as they walked.

At the park, they first confirmed the approximate spot, then went to the park office to explain the situation and borrow shovels and other tools.

Though the park staff were baffled as to why the police would go to such lengths for a dead cat, they allowed the digging on the condition that everything be restored to its original state afterward.

Huo Yan readily agreed to the condition, grabbing a shovel. When Ning Shuyi wanted to take one too, he stopped her. “I can handle this. There’s no need for you to help.”

Ning Shuyi didn’t argue. Together, they went to the wooded area the cleaners had described and began searching for the buried cat.

Although the cleaners had given as precise a description as possible, most of the trees in the grove looked alike, so “precise” was a relative term.

Fortunately, Huo Yan, despite his decisive manner, was not impatient but rather very methodical—likely a trait from his days as a sniper, where impatience could doom a mission.

He worked off Ning Shuyi’s directions, digging here and there in the most likely spots. After five or six attempts, he finally made a discovery: a thick, sturdy, rectangular cardboard box buried beside a tree.

Ning Shuyi carefully opened it, and, as they suspected, found the body of the cat.

Luckily, due to the lingering early spring chill, the ground hadn’t warmed up, making the digging a bit tough for Huo Yan and meaning the cleaners hadn’t buried the cat very deeply. There hadn’t been much rain lately either, so the cat’s body had been shallowly interred and, aided by the low underground temperature, was well preserved.

Thanks to the high-quality, clean, and dry box the cleaners had chosen, the cat was kept “intact,” much to Ning Shuyi’s relief.

Huo Yan quickly filled in all the pits he’d dug, smoothing the surface so skillfully that not even the curious park supervisor, who came over to check, could find any fault. He even asked with great interest how Huo Yan managed it.

Naturally, Huo Yan didn’t waste time answering. After returning the tools, the two of them drove the cat’s body back to the station.

The cat’s corpse, just as the cleaners had described, was twisted in an agonized posture, as if it had died from poisoning.

Once back at the station, Ning Shuyi and Huo Yan went straight to Dr. Zhang, the forensic examiner, handing over the cat’s body and explaining all they had learned at the cinema.

“I think there may be a connection,” Ning Shuyi said. “Barely an hour after we finished processing Wang Yuluo’s death scene, this cat died in the screening room in the same contorted manner. Maybe whatever poisoned Wang Yuluo was still lingering in that screening room, and when the cat went in—whether it ate or touched something—it died as well.”

“That’s a reasonable suspicion,” Dr. Zhang nodded.

At that moment, Huo Yan, who’d been carefully removing the cat’s body from the box, suddenly gestured for their attention. “I’ve found something.”

Ning Shuyi stepped over, puzzled, and saw Huo Yan gently lifting one of the cat’s paws, exposing the space between the toes.

There, caught between the cat’s claws, was what appeared to be a bug—long dead.

The insect was quite large, with its tail and tiny legs still protruding from between the cat’s toes.

A private cinema in a shopping mall shouldn’t have all sorts of insects, especially at this time of year—even in the park, there were barely any bugs, let alone in a mall.

Dr. Zhang immediately fetched his tools and carefully extracted the dead insect from the cat’s paw.

The sight of the bug left everyone in the room momentarily stunned.