37 Murderer's Child

 

“Motherfucker, this has to be Ol’ Six’s doing,” Qian San pulled on the little hair he had left and said harshly, “He must have absconded with the stuff we looted from the tomb. We should hurry back, we might still be able to catch this traitor.” Qian San jumped up and made to move but Qian Er held his younger brother back. He smoothed his hair which was not more than his brother’s. “I don’t think this is that simple. The stuff has been sitting at our base for quite some time already. Why did Ol’ Six pick today of all days to make his move? What is so special about today compared to others?” 

I naturally got the hidden meaning in Qian Er’s words, he was throwing suspicion onto us. Due to Qian Er’s speech, Wei Er and his group turned to stare at me and Guan Zhenglin. At that moment, Qian Er added, “But to be fair, Miss Zhao also just approached us yesterday.” Zhao Mingkun glanced at Qian Er and then replied casually, “If there’s any problem, we can discuss it back at the base.” 

“What about Little Three’s body?” Big Egg who had been silent suddenly piped up… Everyone turned to Wei Er who was the leader of the group. He had to make the decision. Wei Er looked at me and then at Zhao Mingkun. Looks like Qian Er’s words had achieved their intended effect. Whether Wei Er trusted me or not in the past, the seed of suspicion had been planted now. “Qian Er, what do you think?” Wei Er didn’t quite know what to do either. Qian Er took stock of the chaos surrounding the coffin and said, “First, we need to secure Little Three’s body before the police arrive. At this place, Minghun is a small thing but murder is a whole different story. If the cops are called in, we’ll never see Little Three’s body again.” 

“Then what should we do now?” Big Egg glanced at the scene nervously. “How are we going to get the body back?” Qian Er smiled. “By pretending to be the police.”

…

20 minutes later. 

“We’ve received a report about a commotion at this place. What’s happening?” Qian Er announced to the confused crowd. In their confusion, the crowd did not even question Qian Er’s words. The groom’s mother said, “We have no idea. My son is supposed to be inside this coffin but he is instead replaced by this man. We don’t even know who he is.”

“Okay!” Qian Er said, “Get the body, we’ll return to the station and investigate this further.” Then his group moved to get the coffin.

“Erm, but this…” Someone moved to stop them. 

“Do you plan to assault the police?” Zhao Mingkun flashed her gun. No one dared move then. Qian San was watching me and Guan Zhenglin closely so we couldn’t do anything either. Suddenly, there was a draft that took out all the candles inside the tent. With the pale moonlight, one could only see several metres before them. Beyond that, things were just silhouettes. The crowd started to scream out of panic. A floaty voice came out from inside the tent, I recognized it immediately. The bride was singing this ditty when she was in the palanquin. To everyone’s consternation, the song had returned. Had the dead bride decided to sing again?

“It’s that song, it’s that song.” Someone among the crowd shouted, “She’s back, she’s back!” 

“Run! Run! Chu Mei is back, Chu Mei is back!” Another one shouted. The villagers rushed towards the mountain road like a bunch of headless chickens, they appeared to be incredibly fearful of this Chu Mei. 

“Get moving!” Qian Er ordered. Taking advantage of the chaos, the grave robbers grabbed the coffin and ran. Half an hour later, we finally arrived at the yard. Wei Er locked the door shut and once he did, he turned back to order. “Confiscate all of their phones!” Without any hesitation, I handed over my phone. I patted Guan Zhenglin on her shoulder to signal her to do the same. Now was not the time to get into arguments with these grave robbers. Furthermore, Gu Chen was not here, we wouldn’t be able to win them in a fight. Seeing how cooperative I was, Wei Er nodded with satisfaction. He added, “Little Brother Wu, I hope you can understand why we need to do this. Qian Er was not wrong. Ol’ Six has been with us for over a decade already and the stuff has been sitting here for quite some time. So before we get to the bottom of the truth, I ask for your cooperation.” 

I nodded and smiled. “Naturally, but I really have just arrived at this place today.” Wei Er patted my shoulder and said nothing else. 

“Miss Zhao.” Wei Er walked towards Zhao Mingkun and extended his hand. Zhao Mingkun smiled brightly, her dimples making her look cute and harmless. Zhao Mingkun placed her pistol in Wei Er’s palm but before Wei Er could close his hand around it, Zhao Mingkun lifted her knee and aimed it right at Wei Er’s stomach. Wei Er doubled over and fell to the ground. No one expected the resistance from Zhao Mingkun. Big Egg was the first to recover from the shock. As Wei Er collapsed, Big Egg trundled over. Big Egg was as large and as round as his name suggested. He shook the ground like a human tank as he moved towards Zhao Mingkun. However, Zhao Mingkun’s reflexes were much better than Big Egg. She leaped and landed a roundhouse kick on Big Egg’s head, sending him rolling to the ground. That was not the end of Zhao Mingkun’s offense. With another leap forward, she disarmed Qian San by stepping on his neck. Qian Er thought to attack the woman from her back with his fist but before he could get any closer, Zhao Mingkun’s gun was already pointing at his forehead. 

The series of actions might sound complicated in words but it was actually done within seconds. When I snapped out of it, there were 2 men groaning on the ground and the remaining 2 being detained by Zhao Mingkun. Zhao Mingkun used her free hand to swipe away her sweat. She chuckled lightly, “You dare to suspect me? The payment that I’m providing is worth so much more than the things inside that tomb. Brain is a very useful thing, I hope each of you will learn to use it. If this is the working of Little Brother Wu or myself, we would have escaped during the chaos up on the mountain. Little Brother, come and help me take away their weapons.” Zhao Mingkun curled her finger at me. 

I nodded and pulled out their daggers. At the same time, I took back Guan Zhenglin’s and my phone. I noticed the 4 of the daggers were of the same making and style. I was internally impressed, Zhao Mingkun was as impressive as Captain Zhao made her out to be. Moments ago, we were the hostage but now the situation turned instantly. I took back what I said earlier, Zhao Mingkun could easily take down the 5 of us. 

Zhao Mingkun straddled the coffin and put away her gun. Then she began, “I hope you people understand that it would cost me nothing to kill all of you so don’t make me do that. Little Brother, come over with the daggers. Check and see if the wound on his neck matches the dagger or not.”

I nudged close to the coffin and inspected the dead body inside. The victim was indeed Little Three. By then, his body was already soaked in his own blood. I could see no visible wound on his body other than the gash around his neck. So the slice to the throat should be the fatal blow. Using the light that filtered out from the windows, I looked closer at the wound. With comparison, I noticed quite easily that the wound was deep and long, clearly it was not done by this short dagger. Zhao Mingkun accepted the dagger I handed to her and asked, “Do all six of you have the same dagger?”

Wei Er stood up from the ground and uttered resentfully, “Yes, we do.” 

Zhao Mingkun nodded and pulled out a pair of gloves from her pocket. Then she started to examine Little Three’s body. Zhao Mingkun used her fingers to touch the wound around the throat and then patted down the man’s body. “The dagger is not responsible for the wound that killed Little Three, if I have to guess, the weapon should be something more akin to a kitchen knife.” Zhao Mingkun observed, “But the dagger on Little Three is missing, I believe the killer might have taken it.”

Then Zhao Mingkun looked under the coffin lid. I followed suit and saw the nail scratch marks under the lid. We could easily imagine this: The killer sliced Little Three’s throat and then pushed him into the coffin. While Little Three was dazed, the killer nailed the coffin lid back on. Due to the broken windpipe, Little Three couldn’t make any sound. However, his survival instinct compelled him to scratch at the coffin lid to try to move it open. Little Three died in fear and desperation. 

I was getting more impressed by Zhao Mingkun. She managed to escape from Captain Zhao multiple times, she was a master with both guns and fists. She also knew a bit or two about crime scene investigation as well. It was a waste that she didn’t become a police officer but a criminal. Zhang Mingkun turned her head over and saw me staring at her. So she smiled sweetly at me. “What’s up? Are you falling for me?”

I responded, “Based on how Big Sister Queen is acting, you look more like a cop than an actual cop.” 

Hearing that, Zhao Mingkun guffawed. “I have to be honest, that career choice has indeed crossed my mind. Unfortunately, I was born an orphan and both of my parents were criminals. There are too many things in the way for me to become a police officer. But I later found out, killing and saving lives are not that different after all.”

My heart skipped a beat. I was not expecting Zhao Mingkun to have the same background as I did. I couldn’t stop the emotions welling up within me. My father was a criminal and my mother was missing. Even if I could somehow turn official, would that stop the criticism coming from both inside and outside the force. Looking into Zhao Mingkun’s eyes, I appeared to see the same helplessness inside there, the loneliness in the soul. 

We tried our best to be ourselves but living in this world, we couldn’t stop the others from labelling us. 

“You are the child of a murderer.” That was the thing I heard the most in my childhood. That was why I had no friends. Zhao Mingkun and myself were more similar than I anticipated.