Once I got into the car, Yuanchao leaped and kicked two guys into a nearby pigpen with both of his feet. Those men flew backwards like a sandbag, stunning the people who were charging towards Yuanchao. They stopped and hesitated to approach Yuanchao, but the man from before shouted, “Get him! He’s alone and there are many of us! Don’t be scared!”

The crowd was emboldened by this, and they yelled and rushed towards Yuanchao with renewed courage. Still, they were mowed down like bowling pins. One man tried to attack Yuanchao from behind with a sickle, so I shouted, “Watch out, behind you!”

Yuanchao leaned back, narrowly dodging the sickle, then he grabbed the man by the waist and flung him forward, knocking three or four people to the ground along with him.

At that moment, another man attacked from the side, hitting Yuanchao with a wooden staff squarely on the head. The staff snapped, but Yuanchao didn’t even flinch. The attack only managed to awaken the beast within Yuanchao. He roared like a lion and grabbed the man’s head and knocked it on the car. That man blacked out and collapsed immediately.

I got very worried when I saw blood dripping down Yuanchao’s forehead. I hastily called Xiaotao. When she heard that we were in danger, she assured me she would come with reinforcements within half an hour.

Then I heard a loud crash. A man had broken the car window and reached his hands inside to grab me. Yuanchao rushed over and knocked the man out with a punch. Another man kicked him on the waist, and Yuanchao almost lost his balance for a second, but he quickly turned around and knocked the man to the ground.

Yuanchao could take any of these guys one on one just fine, but it was a different matter when they all surrounded him and attacked at the same time. I felt I must do something to help them. I opened one car door, then with all the might that I could muster, I kicked it open, and it hit one of those guys and he collapsed to the ground. This gave Yuanchao a chance to grab two other men and bump their heads together.

He then came over, closed the door, and instructed, “Don’t get involved! Just protect yourself!”

He then went back and fought the other guys. It felt embarrassing having to rely on him alone to protect my life, especially when he was already injured. Still, Yuanchao managed to knock down all those people. I could see that he used the fighting technique of the Armed Police. By then, all the men moaned and groaned in pain on the ground, completely incapacitated.

Yuanchao himself was injured too. His body was covered in dirt and grime, and blood dripped down from his forehead to the bridge of his nose.

There was still one man standing, though. It was the guy from before. He shouted, “Fuck you! I’m going to kill you!”

He was wielding a hatchet. He ran towards Yuanchao, but Yuanchao dodged sideways just in time. The man continued to swing the hatchet wildly at Yuanchao, but his uncontrolled rage was to his own detriment. Yuanchao seized an opening and kicked the man’s belly with his knee. The man screamed and the hatchet in his hand fell to the ground. Yuanchao had knocked the wind out of him.

“You people killed my brother!” the man still yelled as he writhed on the ground. “I’m going to kill you! I’m going to kill you!”

Yuanchao spit out the blood in his mouth and replied, “You can tell us more at the station!”

The man screamed in fury and grabbed his knife again, but Yuanchao kicked his hand and the knife flew out again. The man knelt on the ground and began to cry.

I got out of the car and was about to check Yuanchao’s injuries. To my surprise, he simply lit up a cigarette and assured me, “It’s nothing. Just some scratches.”

We then waited for a while until Xiaotao and the others arrived. They were met with a spectacular scene. Yuanchao and I were standing in the middle of almost a dozen men lying on the ground. Bingxin gasped and ran straight towards me, asking, “Are you okay, Song Yang-gege?”

“I’m okay,” I replied. “You should check Uncle Wang. You did bring the first aid kit, didn’t you?”

Bingxin noticed the blood on Yuanchao’s forehead and cried, “Oh, Uncle Wang! Come with me now! I’ll take care of that right away!”

“What happened?” asked Xiaotao. Director Feng and the other officers were with her too.

I explained it to her briefly. To be fair, I had no idea why these people attacked us either. I noticed Director Feng’s suspicious expressions, as if he was hiding something from us. I asked him, “Why didn’t you tell us it was a serial murder case?”

“I… I…” he stuttered. “It’s a bit complicated…”

“Complicated?” spat Xiaotao. “Are you covering for the real killer here? Did your son do it?”

Director Feng turned pale and waved his hands frantically in denial, “No! Absolutely not! It’s nothing like that at all! I would never cover for the murderer! If I did that, I would’ve resigned!”

He looked furtively left and right then clammed up again. Xiaotao and I pulled him aside to a place where nobody else could hear us and asked him to explain himself.

He told us that they knew from the start that the murders involved a serial killer. The first murder occurred in March two years ago. The victim was a supermarket cashier, a young and beautiful woman. When she was found, her face was disfigured and she was wearing a red dress. They conducted an investigation but found that she had made no enemies at all.

Soon afterwards, two similar cases occurred two months and four months after that. It was immediately obvious to everyone that they were perpetrated by the same killer—a serial killer. So, they reported it to the Metropolitan Branch, who sent two experts to help them solve the case. They finally pinned down a prime suspect, named Wu Mou, who lived in the same village that we were in now. Wu Mou had a history of molesting women and stealing women’s underwear. He had been in contact with the two victims, so the experts believed that he must’ve been the killer. At that time, concrete evidence against him was found, and he was arrested.

Last January, Wu Mou was executed for the murders. But to everyone’s horror, shortly after his death, a similar murder occurred again!

This terrified Director Feng. They had unjustly executed the wrong guy! He knew that all the officers involved would be punished if it was ever found out! Still, he reported it to the Metropolitan Branch anyway. Surprisingly, the Metropolitan Branch regarded the new case to be a copycat murder, and had nothing to do with the cases from before.

That being said, both Director Feng and Officer Chen knew that this wasn’t true, because there were many details about the recent murder that the public could not have known. Still, there was nothing they could do—they could only plead the Metropolitan Branch to help them with the recent cases. As long as the real killer of the recent murders was found, everything would turn out fine.

“What kind of concrete evidence did you find?” I asked. “Had the victims been sexually assaulted? Did Wu Mou have any alibis?”

“The third victim was raped by Wu Mou on the night of the incident,” he replied. “He confessed to it himself. We also found the underwear of the second and third victims in his house. Wouldn’t you say that they were concrete evidence against the suspect yourself, Detective Song?”

“Not exactly,” I shook my head. “They only proved that he was the rapist, not the killer.”

“Who are the experts sent from the city?” asked Xiaotao.

“An Officer Zhang and a coroner named Dr. Qin,” Director Feng replied. “Dr. Qin had years of experience in the field, so Officer Zhang basically listened to everything he said. The investigation was mainly conducted by Dr. Qin.”

Xiaotao and I exchanged looks. We never expected Dr. Qin to be so shady! He’d committed such a terrible error, and he managed to keep it under wraps for so long!