My name is Lisa, a detective who was reborn with the memory of the crime files from his previous life. When I drew the fray marks on the second button of Alastor's shirt when he committed the crime for the third time in court, the applause from the auditorium almost broke the roof. The serial killer who put the whole city into panic was finally found out by my reasoning. On the day he was imprisoned, the mayor personally put on the golden police badge for me - but who would have thought that the real trial would not be on earth at all.
"The defendant Lisa, at 14:32 on June 17, 1919, carried out a malicious robbery next to the ice cream truck in the third block." The angel floating in the clouds unrolled the parchment, and the sound was like a scratching gramophone. "The victim Emily White, now 7 years old. Due to post-traumatic stress disorder caused by this incident, she was still unable to eat frozen desserts independently until she was 32 years old. She must be accompanied by her husband every time she buys ice cream."
I stared at my hands that suddenly became transparent, and the police badges scattered from my fingers into starlight: "Wait! I gave her $100! That strawberry sundae is worth five dollars at most!"
"But you took away her right to believe that good things will not be snatched away suddenly." The angel's quill made a scratching sound on the file, "According to Article 178 of the Celestial Code, the quantitative standard for emotional harm is——"
When the feeling of weightlessness hit me, the last thing I saw was the photo of Emily as an adult in the file: a thirty-year-old woman hiding behind her husband, pointing tremblingly at the ice cream counter, while the clerk behind the counter was holding a cone with a confused face.
The smell of sulfur made me cough violently. When I opened my eyes, I found myself lying on the sticky asphalt ground. The neon sign in the distance flashed the four crooked characters "Hell Clinic", and a line of small characters was added with spray paint next to it: "Devils also need psychological counseling." What's even worse is that my newly purchased silk suit is turning into dark red scales, and tiny bone spurs are growing uncontrollably on my fingertips.
"Hey, isn't this the famous Detective Lisa?"
The familiar sound of banter made me turn around sharply. A man wearing a burgundy striped suit was leaning against a street lamp, the cigar held in the corner of his mouth was burning with a faint blue flame, and the looming antlers above his head swayed gently with his laughter. He was turning an old-fashioned microphone in his hand, and there were a few strands of black hair wrapped around the metal grille - Alastor's iconic souvenirs from the crime.
"Broadcast demon?" I subconsciously touched my waist, where the handcuffs should have been, but now I only felt a ball of slippery tentacles, "How could you—"
"The prison riots in 1920," he suddenly came closer, radio ripples dancing in his scarlet pupils, "your testimony made me stay on the electric chair for seven more minutes. But don't worry, now I am a gold medal DJ here, and the listening rate of "Crime Scene Reenactment" at midnight every day is firmly in the top three." He suddenly covered his mouth in an exaggerated manner, "Oh, by the way, I heard that a little detective went to hell for grabbing ice cream? This is really the most wonderful black humor of the year."
I was so angry that the tip of my tail was twitching - the tail that had grown out of nowhere was slapping the ground uncontrollably, splashing up a string of sparks. There was a loud sound of broken glass in the distance, and several demons with bat wings roared past carrying speakers. What was playing was the opening of Alastor's program: "Welcome to "Midnight Murder", let us relive those heartbreaking moments together~"
"I want to complain!" I grabbed a beer bottle on the roadside and threw it at him, but the bottle strangely turned into a bunch of balloons before hitting his chest. "This is not fair at all! Emily later married a pastry chef! Her husband makes ice cream for her every day!"
Alastor's laughter was like the noise of an old radio: "My dear, the law of hell has never been 'consequentialism'. Just like I killed those people to collect their laughter, and you took away the ice cream for the flash of inspiration when solving the case -" He suddenly put the microphone to my mouth, "Tell me, when you took a bite of that strawberry sundae, did you feel that your thoughts suddenly became clear?"
Memories came flooding back: melted strawberry jam dripping onto the case file, outlining the contours of where Alastor's body was hidden. At that time, I was so excited about this discovery that I almost jumped up and even gave the ice cream truck owner a high-five.
"Now do you understand why we are a perfect match?" He suddenly put his arm around my shoulders, and a sizzling sound of electricity came from the microphone, "Come with me, and I will show you your 'masterpiece'."
Through the popcorn-scented mist, we stood in front of a floating mirror of water. In the mirror, seven-year-old Emily is folding 100-dollar bills into paper airplanes, giggling and throwing them into the sky; while thirty-year-old Emily is stuffing the ice cream handed by her husband into the blender, muttering to herself: "This way it won't be taken away..."
"Emotional trauma is like ice cream," Alastor's voice suddenly became deeper. "Once it melts, you can never put it back together." He suddenly snapped his fingers, and the water mirror turned into a TV screen, which was playing "Hell News": "The famous detective Lisa fell into hell today, and her former residence has been converted into the 'Ice Cream Victims Memorial Hall'..."
I looked at my increasingly sharp claws, and suddenly remembered the crooked handwriting on Emily's paper airplane: "When I grow up, I will drive an ice cream truck and give every child a double-ball cone." Now, I can probably poke through three cones with my claws.
"Let's go, detective." Alastor suddenly made an invitation gesture towards the inn door, and light jazz music came from the microphone, "Since you are in hell, why not listen to my exclusive interview? It's called "From Detective to Devil: The Ice Cream Ball that Changed Destiny" - guaranteed to increase your guilt index by three percentage points."
Suddenly there was a screeching sound of brakes in the distance, and an ice cream truck crashed into a lamppost. The melted cones flowed down the car window and formed a small river on the ground. The clerk in a demon uniform picked up the deformed sign with a sad face, and the smiling face on the sign was facing me, revealing two rows of sharp teeth.
I took a deep breath and let my tail wrap around the microphone Alastor handed me. At least in hell, no one will judge you for grabbing the ice cream - they'll just laugh at you for not doing it gracefully.
"The interview is okay," I tugged on the collar of my shirt, which was turning into a peak collar. The scales glowed with a metallic luster under the light, "but the title must be changed."
Alastor raised his eyebrows.
"It's called "When the Detective Meets the Devil: On the Dialectical Relationship between Judicial Justice and Ice Cream Ethics." I bared my fangs at the microphone, "By the way, can you also put a microphone on my tentacle? This will look more professional."
The laughter of the radio devil shook the night sky, and I knew that there was another legend on Hell's new program list.
Intention: I want to eat it next time