Choden deflects Kinley's questions by telling fantastical parables: a nun who doesn't stop meditating when stones are thrown at her; an abbess who protects her nuns from an invasion by transforming them into pigs; an abbess who continued meditating after her death and transformed into a rainbow.
Kinley's chief accuses the officer of developing romantic feelings for her, and instructs him to stop investigating.
He discovers that the missing abbess' nunnery is sitting on a valuable mineral deposit, and questions Norbu, the geologist who made the discovery, but he has a rock-solid alibi.
He finally makes the connection when he hears a doctor with the same cell ringtone that was heard at the crime scene.
[5] James Marsh of the South China Morning Post described Honeygiver as "one of the most original crime thrillers in recent memory".
[6] Critic Prathap Nair described the movie as "a genre-bending work, blending elements of neo-noir with Bhutanese mysticism.