“It’s good to know that I have a place in your heart.”

I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard that familiar voice again. I stared incredulously down at Xiaotao. She slowly got up to her feet and dusted off her clothes. It turned out that she was only pretending to be dead. If she hadn’t done so, the ladies would’ve never stopped trying to kill her. The blood that flowed out of her mouth also turned out to just be from her bruised lips.

“Did I scare you?” she asked, chuckling.

“Damn right you did!” I answered, wiping away my hot tears.

Xiaotao felt the scratches on her face and frowned.

“Do you think they’re gonna leave permanent scars?” she asked.

“I’m sure they won’t,” I replied. “They’re only scratches, after all.”

“Ugh, this is so annoying! I look ridiculous!”

She stomped her feet in anger. I couldn’t believe that she was more concerned about her face than her own life.

“Is this the time to worry about that?” I asked her. “Even if there are scars on your face, you’d still look beautiful anyway.”

Xiaotao blushed and smiled. She was about to say something, but she stopped herself short.

We both understood that we were still in danger. We shouldn’t stay here for too long. Who knew what more Professor Li had in store for us? We had to leave quickly. Someone might come after us with a gun or a knife next, and it would be difficult to pretend to be dead then.

That thought gave me an idea. I told Xiaotao the next time we’re faced with one of Professor Li’s ‘zombies,’ I’d pretend to kill her before any of them could get to her. She nodded and replied, “That’s a good idea, but please be gentle with me when the time comes!”

The first thing we needed to do was to get to the car. Fortunately, it was late at night so we met no obstacles on the way to the parking lot. Once we got inside the car, Xiaotao dialed a number on her phone, but no one answered. She frowned and sighed heavily.

“Wang Yuanchao still hasn’t answered my calls…”

She then called the other police officers to take care of the hypnotized people who broke into her house. Just as she hung up the phone, we noticed someone in the Volkswagen Beetle next to us rolling down the window. It was Professor Li.

“You are bold, Li Wenjia!” said Xiaotao. “Just you wait. I’ll throw you into prison one day!”

Professor Li smirked and casually put on lipstick as she replied, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Officer Huang. I’m just a law-abiding citizen passing by.”

“Stop lying, you bitch!” cursed Xiaotao. “Where is Wang Yuanchao?”

Professor Li started her car and asked, “Do you know how Officer Huang’s friend died?”

She then drove the car away.

Xiaotao was about to chase after her, but I quickly stopped her.

“Wait! There is a double meaning to what she just said. Do you remember what happened in Infernal Affairs? A bomb was placed in Officer Huang’s car, and it accidentally killed his friend! I think she might’ve placed a bomb in your car too!”

Xiaotao hesitated for a moment, but she turned the key in the ignition anyway.

“Wait!” I shouted just before the car started.

“Li Wenjia wouldn’t use this method to kill me,” Xiaotao stated. “It isn’t like her. I think she was just trying to scare us so we wouldn’t leave this place. But just to be safe, you should get out of the car now. In case I really do get killed, you know who did it. Find Sun Tiger and he’ll arrest her straight away.”

“Am I a coward in your eyes?” I asked. “I’m staying here with you. If you die, then I’ll die too.”

Xiaotao sighed.

“What a romantic way to die!”

She turned the key. I closed my eyes, preparing for the worst. Nothing happened. All I heard was the gentle whirr of the car engine starting.

As soon as she was sure that we were safe, Xiaotao stepped on the accelerator and sped out of the parking lot. But before we left the apartment complex, I saw a group of people standing by the gate.

“Get down!” I warned Xiaotao. “Don’t let them see your face!”

Xiaotao quickly ducked down and I took over the steering wheel. Slowly, we managed to escape without those people noticing Xiaotao.

Once we got to the road, we saw the Beetle parked next to a truck. Professor Li was talking to the truck driver. I noticed that the driver’s eyes were vacant as if he’d been cast by a spell.

“Watch her carefully!” I cried.

Professor Li was holding up the hair that covered her right eye with one hand. This proved that the prosthetic eye really was the key to her method of hypnosis.

Professor Li then noticed us. She looked straight at us and smiled, then drove away. Xiaotao was about to chase after her, but the truck’s glaring headlights blinded us. The truck’s engine roared menacingly like a bull, and sure enough, it was charging towards us!

Xiaotao’s face turned pale. She turned the steering wheel one-eighty degrees and stepped on the accelerator.

The truck trailed us closely behind. Its nose was almost touching the bumper of Xiaotao’s car, but we managed to stay out of its grasp. The truck hit several cars that were parked by the road while it was chasing after us, causing a considerable amount of damage. Nevertheless, the truck was relentless in pursuing us. It was exactly like a scene in a thriller movie.

Xiaotao glanced at the GPS navigator and remarked, “There’s a main road ahead. If we continue on, many innocent lives might get killed!”

“What should we do now?” I asked.

“I’ve got no choice,” said Xiaotao, gritting her teeth. “I have to kill the truck driver!”

“No!” I cried, sweating anxiously. “You’ll go to prison if you do that!”

By then, we were only a minute away from the main road. There was no time to hesitate. Xiaotao asked me to drive and she swiftly moved into the passenger seat. Our bodies brushed against each other as we switched places, but I was in no mood to feel excited about it.

Xiaotao stood up and her upper body was outside of the car window. She fired a few shots. I saw the truck tumble over in the rear mirror. It slid on the road for a while, and sparks formed due to the friction between the truck and the road. It also made a loud screeching noise. Then the truck came to a halt and all was quiet.

I parked the car by the road and asked Xiaotao, “Is he dead?”

“No,” she answered. “I hesitated when I fired the shot and just aimed for the tire.”

I sighed in relief. We both got out of the car and checked the crash site. The driver was still in the driver’s seat, but he’d lost consciousness. Blood flowed down his head. Xiaotao called an ambulance and the police station. They would be dealing with the truck driver from now on.

Professor Li had used this truck driver to slow us down. Her apartment had been surrounded by the police, so it was unlikely that she would go back there. We’d truly lost her now.

Xiaotao was lost in thoughts for a few minutes, then she suddenly cried, “Shit! She’s going after Officer Ma!”

“Who?” I asked in confusion.

“Officer Ma was my senior officer,” she replied. “He’s now retired, but he was the leader of the task force that handled the Li Wenhai case. If she went after me so aggressively just for being in the task force that captured Li Wenhai, imagine what she’d do to Officer Ma!”

Xiaotao rushed towards Officer Ma’s house. On the way, I contemplated about what was going on with Professor Li’s eyes. Could something like a hypnotizing eye really exist? Even after seeing it with my own eyes, I still couldn’t accept it as the truth. It just made no sense to me.

I decided to give Lao Yao a call. I braced myself when he answered it, thinking that I’d definitely get yelled at for calling at this ungodly hour. To my surprise, I was greeted with a voice that was full of concern.

“Where are you now, Little Song?” he asked me. “I heard you were arrested for murder. Is it true?”

“I’m fine,” I laughed. “I wouldn’t be able to call you on my own phone if I wasn’t. By the way, could you look something up for me? It’s about an eye.”

“An eye?”

I roughly explained the whole situation to him, then promised to pay him two thousand yuan later.

“Don’t be silly, Little Song,” he replied. “I joined the police as a consultant too, remember? You don’t need to pay me anymore. Although I won’t mind if you treat me to a meal later.”

“Okay,” I said. “Thanks a lot!”

After hanging up the phone, I asked Xiaotao, “Do you want to notify Sun Tiger about this?”

“But Li Wenjia is no ordinary criminal,” she answered with furrowed brows. “The more people we send out to deal with her, the bigger her ‘zombie army’ will be! We shouldn’t give her more opportunities to hypnotize police officers!”

“But Sun Tiger will be furious if he finds out that you didn’t inform him of such a big case,” I argued.

“Fine,” Xiaotao relented. “You call him then!”

I dialed his number. As expected, he exploded when he learned of the situation that we were in.

“Why was I not informed of such a big case?” he thundered. “Does that Xiaotao kid still think of me as her superior officer? Where is she? Let me talk to her!”

I told him that Xiaotao wasn’t here with me right now. Sun Tiger calmed down a bit and sighed.

“I can’t believe how bold criminals are getting nowadays! They even dared to try to kill a police officer! Do you have any ideas at the moment, kiddo?”

“I think you should send more officers to work on this case, Uncle Sun,” I answered. “The focus right now should be on capturing Li Wenjia.”

Xiaotao shook her head frantically, but I pretended not to see it.

“There is one important precaution, though,” I added. “All officers must operate in groups of at least two people. No one should under any circumstances approach her alone. Otherwise, we’d only be providing Li Wenjia another soldier in her army!”

Throughout all these confrontations with Li Wenjia, I’d worked out the rule for her hypnosis. She had to be alone with the victim in order to successfully hypnotize them. When she tried to hypnotize me earlier, the process was interrupted when a group of students walked by. If she was able to hypnotize someone merely with a glance, she would’ve done so to Xiaotao when she talked to her earlier in the parking lot. Hence, I could confidently make a conclusion that her special hypnosis was only effective when she was alone with someone.

I also figured out that her original plan must’ve been to frame me for murder and get me arrested in order to isolate Xiaotao from me, forcing her to act alone. That way she would be more vulnerable to her hypnosis. When that plan failed, she changed her schemes into using Shiwen and Dali to assassinate Xiaotao instead. I realized that she must’ve prepared several backup plans just to make sure that Xiaotao would be killed. I just couldn’t imagine what kind of ‘surprise’ she had in store for us next.

I explained all that to Sun Tiger. He was silent for a few seconds after listening to me.

“But we must have evidence before we can arrest someone,” he finally said. “Have you found anything that could incriminate Li Wenjia?”

That was the question I dreaded the most.

“She has been very thorough and meticulous…” I muttered. “I’m afraid I haven’t found anything so far…”

Sun Tiger sighed.

“That’s not good,” he said. “Even if her family has been committing crimes for eighteen generations in a row, even if the word ‘criminal’ was imprinted on her forehead, the police still can’t just arrest her without any evidence. If we capture anyone we think is the bad guy, then what different are we from mobsters?”

“But Director Sun!” Xiaotao interjected. “This is a special case! If we don’t capture Li Wenjia now, more people will die!”

“Huang Xiaotao!” yelled Sun Tiger. “I thought you weren’t there with Song Yang! Kiddo, let me talk to her now!”

I handed the phone to Xiaotao. She held the phone between her ear and her shoulder. They spoke for a few minutes before she hung up.

“Sun Tiger ordered me to return to the station now,” she sighed.

“Why?” I asked. The deflated tone in her voice was not lost on me.

“Because I’m Li Wenjia’s main target,” she explained. “Therefore, I must be temporarily detained at the station for my own safety.”

Sun Tiger and Xiaotao had always been close to each other. Sun Tiger was more than a superior officer to Xiaotao. He was her mentor. I knew that Sun Tiger had to make that decision because he had no other choice. It was the only way to ensure that nothing bad would happen to Xiaotao.