Cover Up With Just a Hand

A police car approached just as Xia Lei walked out the doors of the hospital.

At the sight of the police, Xia Lei’s heart sank a little but he quickly pushed away his doubt. “Even if Li Qing-Hua wanted revenge, surely it wouldn’t be so quick? This should be a patrol car.”

The car zoomed over, barely missing Xia Lei, and stopped in front of the hospital doors.

“It wasn’t Li Qing-Hua after all,” thought Xia Lei. He walked to the road.

A that moment, the police car suddenly turned around, engine revving and a police officer poked his head out the window. “Stop!” he shouted.

Xia Lei stopped walking and his heart gave a quiet cry of despair.

“It’s him!” The police officer with his head out the window looked at the paper with a printed image in his hand and looked excited. “Xia Lei! He’s the one the Chief is after!”

Gravel crunched as the car stopped next to Xia Lei. The doors opened and four police officers alighted, immediately surrounding Xia Lei.

Xia Lei was calm and spoke coolly, “What is it?”

“Are you Xia Lei?” asked the officer in charge.

Xia Lei nodded. “I am. What business do you have with me?”

“Business?” The officer in charge flashed a warrant and smiled coldly. “Xia Lei, you are suspected for extortion. This is a warrant for your arrest. Come with us!”

“You’re mistaken! Who did I extort?” said Xia Lei.

The officer in charge slapped Xia Lei in the back of his head and spoke fiercely, “You know very well who you extorted! Pshaw, you have the balls to try and mess with our Chief. Wash your ass and wait to be sent to prison - you’ll have rough days ahead of you! Take him away!”

Xia Lei was mad and he scoffed, “Arrest me? Tell him this - You better not regret it!”

“This guy’s still talking back! Cuff him!” said the officer in charge.

A police officer did as he said and cuffed Xia Lei, then pushed him into the police car. Xia Lei did not resist and got in.

Half an hour later, Xia Lei was brought to the North Police Station and locked up in an interrogation room. His mobile phone, wallet and other possessions were confiscated.

A young police officer entered the room, slammed the notebook in his hand on the table, then sat opposite Xia Lei. “Own up. Save us the trouble.”

Xia Lei was not nervous at all. He spoke calmly, “Own up to what?”

“You know very well what you did! Own up to extorting money from our Chief!” The young police officer hit the table aggressively, “You’d better come clean!”

“Sure, I’ll own up,” said Xia Lei, “that today, I met Li Qing-Hua - Chief Li - at Ju Shan Garden Teahouse. He was with a woman, and he brought her to a hotel and got a room…”

“Nonsense!” The young police officer cut Xia Lei off. “Keep talking nonsense and I’ll start being nasty! Let me remind you that what you’re doing is framing someone and this is illegal. Do you want to add to your offence?”

Xia Lei shrugged. “Didn’t you want me to talk? What I said was the truth.”

The young police officer turned his head to look at the window, then pointed at the camera in the corner. He did not speak but his intent was clear - he was telling the people outside to switch the cameras off.

The indicator light of the camera went out.

This young police officer was obviously one of Li Qing-Hua’s men. Xia Lei looked at the nametag on his chest - Hu Bin.

Xia Lei then looked at a glass wall of the interrogation room. It was easy to tell that people from outside could see into the room but people in the room could not see outside. This was no obstacle to Xia Lei, however and when he used his ability, he saw Li Qing-Hua and Chen Chuan-Hu standing next to him.

Li Qing-Hua and Chen Chuan-Hu were talking in hushed tones. Chen Chuan-Hu kept nodding like an obedient servant. It was easy to see that Li Qing-Hua was telling Chen Chuan-Hu how to frame Xia Lei and Ma Xiao-An.

Xia Lei stopped using his X-ray vision and a trace of a smirk appeared around his lips.

He had intended to just let the matter rest but Li Qing-Hua was unexpectedly thirsty for revenge and sent his men to arrest him that same night. He quietly congratulated himself for uploading the video to his Baidu Cloud Drive in the hotel room. With that video in his hands he was calm and unafraid.

“I’ll let you be arrogant for a bit,” thought Xia Lei.

The police officer named Hu Bin spoke, “Let’s begin. Tell me, how much of the 50,000 you extorted did you receive?”

“Let me correct you on that. That was not extortion. It was medical fees, loss of income, nutrition fees, mental health and other expenses, all added up. I did not take a cent. My friend was beaten up by Chen Chuan-Hu. Shouldn’t Chen Chuan-Hu pay for it?” said Xia Lei.

“Medical fees?” Hu Bin scoffed. “Save that for the courts. If the judge believes you I’ll write my own name ‘Hu’ backwards. The situation we have now is that you extorted money from Chen Chuan-Hu. Ah, that’s right. Your eye’s fine but you used your eye as an excuse to cheat Chen Chuan-Hu out of 10,000. Do you confess?”

Xia Lei yawned. “I’m tired and sleepy. Write it however you want. You won’t believe what I say anyway. You’ll just follow what your Chief Li told you to do and write my statement yourself. So, why are we wasting our time on this?”

“Huh. You’re a cocky little bastard, aren’t ya? So you confess to extortion?”

“Do you have proof?”

“You motherf-” Hu Bin got to his feet in anger, his hands ready to grab Xia Lei.

Xia Lei made no move to dodge. He had the video and was not afraid of Hu Bin.

Just then, Hu Bin’s police radio crackled and he lowered his hands. He lifted his radio, pressed the button and Li Qing-Hua’s voice came over the speaker, “Lock him up for a night. He’ll get his statement taken tomorrow. Even the Heavens won’t be able to save him now.”

“Yes, Chief Li, sir! I’ll bring this fella to the cells and lock him up.” Hu Bin’s words were dripping with flattery.

Xia Lei was brought to the cells and locked up.

There was a bed in the cell but no blanket and the ground and walls were dirty. The acrid smell of pee hung in the air, and the smell made Xia Lei wrinkle his brows.

Xia Lei could not sleep one wink in an environment like this. He first thought of how he was going to deal with Li Qing-Hua, then started to practice with his left eye’s ability. Practice makes perfect - this reasoning could also be used on his miraculous left eye.

The night of trial and error led Xia Lei to discover that his X-ray vision was not so simple after all.

He could exert some control and make his eye see things a distance away, just like he had in Macau, when he had spotted the sniper on the rooftop when Long Bing could not.

He could also control his vision and make it into a ‘microscope’ of sorts, enlarging things which normally could not be seen with the naked eye, like the dust particles floating in the air.

These discoveries kept him up and he practiced and practiced till he finally fell asleep, dizzy and exhausted.

Early the next day, Xia Lei had his first visitor - Jiang Ru-Yi.

Jiang Ru-Yi was in her summer uniform, which highlighted her curves beautifully. Her waist looked soft and slender, her bum plump and perky, and her breasts full. Her sexiness was as one could see and very nourishing for the eyes.

When Xia Lei first saw her, he almost used his ability to feast his eye on her charms, but he did not. He firmly clamped down his perverted desire. He had reaped some benefit from the practice he did last night and was better able to control his X-ray vision.

“You! What good can I say about you?” Jiang Ru-Yi spoke angrily as soon as she came, “I even asked you yesterday and you said you were asking on behalf of a friend so I told you where Chief Li was. I never expected you to extort money from Chief Li! I was so wrong about you!”

Xia Lei smiled bitterly, “Is this how you see me?”

“It’s not about how I see you, it’s about you doing illegal things.” Jiang Ru-Yi became angrier and angrier as she spoke. “Have you ever thought about what Xia Xue would do if you went to prison?”

“Of course I have, so I won’t do anything like that,” said Xia Lei, “Ru-Yi, let me ask you - Have you seen me do anything bad, from childhood to adulthood?”

Jiang Ru-Yi shook her head. Xia Lei was not such a person.

Xia Lei spoke again, “Now consider this - am I a stupid person?”

“What do you mean?” asked Jiang Ru-Yi.

“What I mean is, I’m not a bad person and I’m not stupid. Am I so stupid as to extort money from the Chief of Police? Hai-Zhu City has millions of wealthy folk. If I wanted to use this method to get money then why didn’t I choose to target those wealthy folk? Why choose to target someone like the Chief of Police?” said Xia Lei.

Jiang Ru-Yi was silent for a while before she spoke, “That’s what I can’t figure out, so I came to see you. Tell me, what is this really about? Tell me and I’ll definitely help you if you really didn’t do anything illegal.”

Xia Lei told her about him getting injured at the construction site and Ma Xiao-An getting beaten up by Chen Chuan-Hu, and finally told her about going to look for Li Qing-Hua and him compensating 50,000 in apology.

“Hold on…” Jiang Ru-Yi thought of something, “When you asked me for Chief Li’s contact details yesterday, you were actually going to reason things out with him, right?”

Xia Lei nodded.

“So you reasoned with him and he made Chen Chuan-Hu compensate your friend 50,000?”

Xia Lei nodded again.

“You didn’t threaten him?” Jiang Ru-Yi’s face was disbelieving.

“When I went to reason with him, he was with a woman and I coincidentally recorded them in the act,” said Xia Lei.

Jiang Ru-Yi facepalmed and the expression on her face was complicated.

“That woman seems to be the wife of one of your colleagues and she was requesting Li Qing-Hua for a change in her husband’s post or something.”

Jiang Ru-Yi face-palmed with both hands. She went up to the bars and gave Xia Lei a smile. “Do you still have the video? Can I have a look?”

“Lend me your phone. I’ll make a call before I tell you where you can watch the video,” said Xia Lei.

Jiang Ru-Yi looked around to make sure no one was coming before she slipped her mobile phone to Xia Lei. As she handed her phone to him, she asked, “Where is the video?”

“On my Baidu Cloud Drive. The login ID is my name spelt phonetically and the password is my birthday. The video is very important so don’t delete it.” Xia Lei spoke, then dialled a number.