Liu Yinyan died just like that. He flopped on the chair. Blood flowed and they dripped down the stairs to the first floor. The dripping sound reminded me of a grandfather clock. No one spoke. The gunshot appeared to echo in the garage. It caused my head to buzz, everything was blank.
“Motherfuckers, what have you done?!” Gu Chen’s voice broke the silence, “Wu Meng are you okay?” From his vantage point, Gu Chen couldn’t see the events on the second floor. He only heard the shot, he had no idea who was shot. Hearing Gu Chen, I snapped back to reality. “I’m fine!” Then I glared at Wu Zui. “What the motherfucking thing have you done?”
Wu Zui scratched his head as if confused. “What have I done? Didn’t you hear anything earlier? He said he was willing to pay penance for his sin 35 years ago. A tooth for a tooth, a life for a life, don’t tell me you don’t understand that? And honestly, you should be thanking me. I’ve helped you deliver justice. What is it that they say… Justice has long arms?”
I shouted, “You motherfucker, who asked you to do this for us! You’re a cold-hearted murderer and like you say justice will always be served! Just you wait, I will personally capture and kill you. For Liu Yinyan and for that woman who died a year and a half ago!”
Wu Zui steepled his hands and wiggled his fingers. “Wonderful, I’ll be waiting for you because you won’t have that chance today.” Wu Zui suddenly turned around and kicked at Liu Fei’er. “Here’s a little parting present.” The railing on the 2nd floor was already very old and many places were fragile and cracked. Liu Fei’er slammed into the railing and broke a few of the banisters. Her whole person and chair were only supported by a single pole. She teetered dangerously. I immediately lunged towards her to grab at the leg of the chair. But the pole still snapped and Liu Fei’er careened downwards with the chair. The second floor was around 5 metres off the ground. Liu Fei’er was still tied to the chair. If she fell, she’d die. I jumped forward to grab at the rope that tied around Liu Fei’er with one hand while the other grabbed the other standing pole. However, I wouldn’t be able to support this for long. Liu Fei’er weighed at least 50 kg and I was only holding her with one hand. If I let go of the hand that held the pole, we’d both fall down.
Wu Zui laughed as he adjusted his mask. “Wu Meng, we’ll soon meet again. Adieu.”
Scar face looked at me and tossed me back my gun, “Don’t carry a pistol if it’s empty, what’s the point?”
The gun dropped beside me and I could reach it easily. Then the kidnappers slowly moved towards one of the rooms. I could feel the muscle in my right arm tightening, and then the pain came. At that moment, I had many choices. One of them was to let go and pick up this gun which had 1 shot. At this distance, I had confidence I could shoot through the masked man’s head. But if I did that, Liu Fei’er would die and after the mask man died, Gu Chen and I would die too. The other choice was to kick the gun down to Gu Chen. Had him use the gun to break the banister holding him and then rush up to save us. My upper body was already leaning out from the second floor so I could see Gu Chen from where I was.
The kidnappers disappeared into the room. Without much thought, I used my leg to kick the pistol down and it landed not far from Gu Chen’s feet. I shouted. “Quick, I can’t hold on much longer!”
Gu Chen used his foot to edge the pistol towards him. Then he closed his feet around the pistol. Then like an acrobat, he used his core muscle to lift his legs up the ground, performing literally a handstand. When his legs were almost vertical to his body, he let go of the pressure at his feet and the pistol fell and slipped into his open palm.
Then I heard a gunshot. With a leap, Gu Chen rushed up the stairs. By then I couldn’t feel my arms anymore, they didn’t belong to me. My hands started to shake, Liu Fei’er could fall at any moment. Liu Fei’er looked at me with fear. She didn’t even dare to breathe, lest any motion would make me lose my grasp on her. However, I was already at my limit. Holding something at her weight with just one hand was not something I had trained to do. I felt a weakening in my hands and then the fingers let go. Thankfully, right at that moment, another hand reached out. With a grunt, Gu Chen lifted Liu Fei’er up to safety.
“After they entered that room, I didn’t hear them anymore!” I couldn’t move my right arm so I pointed with my left. Something special must be inside that room. There should be a path that led outside but how did they expect to evade the police and special agents. Gu Chen rushed to the door and kicked it down. He looked in. As I removed the rope around Liu Fei’er, I asked, “What’s in there?”
Gu Chen shouted back, “There’s an iron pole that leads underground. I believe they’ve dug an escape tunnel earlier. I’ll go down to chase after them, get reinforcements for me!”
“You don’t have a gun, be careful!” I warned.
“Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.” Then Gu Chen slipped down from my view. I helped Liu Fei’er up and we stumbled outside the garage. The north side of the factory was a mountain range. If they decided to run towards the mountain, it would be impossible to find them. We might seal up every road, but we couldn’t seal up underground tunnels that we didn’t even know existed until this moment. These kidnappers had thought of everything.
“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” I shouted as I opened the iron gate. When they saw it was me, everyone sighed in relief.
“Where’s Gu Chen?” Captain Zhao asked, “And Liu Yinyan? We heard gunshots but we didn’t dare to rush into action. There are no windows on the second floor of the garage, so we couldn’t tell what happened.”
I explained quickly, “The kidnappers dug a tunnel under the garage, Gu Chen is chasing after them. Liu Yinyan is dead. Call an ambulance for Liu Fei’er. Set up the blockage on the northern side, from the layout of the factory, that’s the most likely direction they’ve headed.”
“Move! Move!” Captain Zhao ordered into his walkie-talkie, “Everyone, move to the north and set up roadblocks. They might split up into smaller groups. Here are their characteristics. A male between 20 to 25 with a black mask; a young man around 17, with a cap and carrying a backpack; a man with a knife scar on his face; an old man in black shirt; a man in bright western suit; two women with mixed heritage. Get moving!” Then Captain Zhao turned around, “Mary, accompany Liu Fei’er to the hospital and contact her family. Guan Zhenglin, bring a team to investigate Liu Yinyan’s body. Xiao Liu, bring a team into the tunnel to support Gu Chen.”
“Understood.”
“Come, get in the car.” Captain Zhao told me. Once we hopped in, the car moved north. Seeing how constantly I rubbed my right arm, Captain Zhao asked, “What’s wrong, did you injure your right arm?”
“It should be nothing serious. It’ll be fine.” I asked. “Why didn't the team send in any reinforcement earlier?”
Captain Zhao answered. “Not long after you entered, all the cameras were shut down. Since we couldn’t tell the situation inside, we didn’t dare to barge in. There are no windows on the 2nd floor so the special agents couldn’t look into the garage either, all we could do was to wait for your news. We heard 3 gunshots. Even if we charged in, it wouldn’t have helped the situation.” Captain Zhao was thinking from the big picture. If the shots were fired at us, it was already too late; if they were not fired at us, then there was no reason for them to charge in.
“The masked man fired 2 shots and Gu Chen 1.” I explained, “The first was a warning shot, the second killed Liu Yinyan and the third shot Gu Chen fired to free himself from the bindings.”
Captain Zhao took a deep breath. “It’s great that you and Gu Chen are fine. I’ll talk to the superior about Liu Yinyan but I’m afraid the few of you might be transferred out of Dong Xing City. Liu Yinyan was a very powerful person, someone would have to take the fall for his death.” I nodded. To be honest, I didn’t care because solving cases was the same everywhere. But I didn’t know how Gu Chen, Guan Zhenglin and Xiao Liu would feel. After all, at Dong Xing City, they would have greater chances and thus an easier time at promotions. “By the way.” I added, “The masked man told me his name was Wu Zui and he said he was the killer for Case 7.25 that happened one and a year ago!”
“What?” Captain Zhao was shocked. “Are you sure?”
I nodded. “He admitted it to me himself. He was behind everything, the poor woman and that mysterious note.”
“Does that mean Zhao Mingkun is really unrelated to the case?” Captain Zhao scratched his head. “But only she would know about the content on the note. Could there be a relationship between these two?”
Suddenly, Captain Zhao and I lurched forward. The driver stepped on the emergency brake.
“What the hell?” Captain Zhao cursed angrily.
“Sorry, but look!” The driver pointed out the windshield. All the vehicles had stopped before us. Every driver got down from their cars. Even the pedestrians wandered onto the motorway. Our vehicle was stuck and so was the police cavalcade behind us.
“Fuck!” Seeing this, Captain Zhao punched at the back of the chair. “We’ll get down and search for them on foot!”
These kidnappers were too cunning.
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