Huang Xiaotao and I climbed out from under the couch. On the table lay a single pill—the same Bì Huì Pill from earlier. I pocketed it without a word.
Huang Xiaotao signaled with her fingers. We burst into the main room.
Kong Hui and the Faceless Slave had already cut open Wang Yuanchao's pants. They were tying a tourniquet above his thigh, preparing to saw off his lower leg.
Seeing us standing there, Kong Hui froze in shock. "How did you—"
The Faceless Slave lunged for a scalpel to finish Wang Yuanchao off, but Huang Xiaotao fired without hesitation—her bullet pierced his wrist. He howled in pain, dropping the blade.
"Fall back!" Kong Hui shouted.
He flung aside the bone saw and bolted for the exit, the Faceless Slave stumbling after him.
I rushed to Wang Yuanchao's side and forced the Bì Huì Pill into his mouth. Then Huang Xiaotao and I took off after the fleeing criminals.
They were already out of the complex, dashing down the street in panic. A deep rumble echoed in the distance. Through the darkness, we saw a string of approaching lights—it was a train. There was a railroad track just past the community.
The two made for the tracks, hoping to cross before the train passed.
Huang Xiaotao stopped, aimed at Kong Hui's retreating figure, and fired.
The bullet hit his leg. He stumbled, slowing down.
I accelerated and quickly closed the gap. He glanced back repeatedly, fear etched across his face. When I was just a step away, I lunged and tackled him to the ground.
Snarling, Kong Hui pulled a scalpel from his coat and growled, "You little punk! Do you have a death wish?"
He slashed at me, but we were too close. On instinct, I jammed my fingers into his leg wound. He screamed in agony, momentarily paralyzed by pain.
Seizing the chance, I grabbed a broken brick from the ground and brought it down hard on his head. One blow knocked him unconscious.
My heart thundered in my chest. That had been way too close.
Meanwhile, the Faceless Slave had reached the tracks. The train roared closer. Desperate to escape, he ran right onto the rails.
Suddenly, a gunshot rang out.
The man clutched his lower back, stumbled—then the speeding train struck him with a sickening crash, pulverizing him into a spray of flesh and blood.
Shocked, I spun around.
It wasn't Huang Xiaotao who'd fired. She was just as stunned as I was. Twenty meters behind us stood Wang Yuanchao, gun still smoking in his hand.
He had made the shot.
One shot. One kill. From over 100 meters away. Incredible.
After pulling the trigger, he calmly took a sip from his ever-present flask.
Huang Xiaotao and I returned to the unconscious Kong Hui. She slapped a pair of handcuffs on him. "I can't believe it," she muttered. "We actually cracked the case."
I turned to Wang Yuanchao. "How's your leg?"
The stab wound had bled heavily. Thanks to lingering anesthesia, he didn't feel the pain yet, but his pants were soaked red.
He shrugged. "Doesn't hurt."
Huang Xiaotao sucked in a sharp breath. "If you keep bleeding like that, you'll die! Sit down. Don't move—I'm calling 911."
The ambulance and backup arrived shortly after. Kong Hui was taken into custody. But Wang Dali was still missing.
Huang Xiaotao borrowed a police vehicle. We sped back to the university.
It was 1:00 a.m. when we stormed into the dorm. Our sudden entrance startled everyone awake.
The dorm leader blinked at me. "Song Yang? Where's Wang Dali?"
"He's missing," I said grimly. "Has he been acting strange lately?"
The leader scratched his head. "Oh, right! Yesterday, he said he got some prize notification. Wanted to withdraw money and treat us to dinner. But later he said it was fake."
"When was that?" I pressed.
"Last night. You were at the library."
There was only one ATM on campus. Huang Xiaotao and I raced over.
The ATM kiosk was fully enclosed in glass—not a place you could hide someone. But one machine had a sign taped to it: "Out of Service."
I banged on the casing. Huang Xiaotao pointed to the camera in the corner. "C'mon, there's no way someone could be hiding inside an ATM."
Then I noticed a manhole cover outside—it looked like it had been disturbed.
"Check that!" I shouted.
The cover was heavy and made of iron. It took both of us considerable effort to pry it open. I leaned down to look.
"Is someone down there?" Huang Xiaotao asked.
"I think so!"
I climbed down the ladder into the sewer. There, in the grimy water, sat Wang Dali—tied up, gagged, naked, and shivering. His clothes were gone, and rats scurried all around him. The poor guy started sobbing the moment he saw me.
After freeing him, he collapsed into my arms, crying uncontrollably. It took a while to calm him down.
He explained what happened: after receiving the "prize" notification, he went to check his bank balance. Someone had crept up behind him with a chloroform-soaked cloth. He woke up in the pitch-black sewer, soaked in foul water, rats crawling over him.
He'd nearly gone insane.
Too weak to climb, I carefully pushed him up through the manhole. When Huang Xiaotao saw him, she couldn't help but laugh.
"Xiao Tao-jie, have a heart! I almost died down there!" he whined.
I asked, "You okay? Want to see the campus doctor?"
He groaned. "Hungry…"
I clapped his shoulder. "Let's go get some food."
I gave him my coat and took him to a late-night barbecue stand just outside campus. He tore into the food like a starving animal.
Huang Xiaotao glanced at the time. "I need to head back to the station. You two get some rest."
Before she left, we both said at the same time, "Be careful on your way back!"
Then we burst into laughter.
Wang Dali looked confused. "What's going on? What the hell happened tonight?"
I smirked. "I'll explain later."
A few days later, Huang Xiaotao called me with a discovery.
They'd found a bank card at Kong Hui's residence. The balance was astronomical—enough to put most corrupt officials to shame.
"That's probably his payment from the organization," she said.
"Can you check the transaction history?" I asked.
"Of course."
"List every deposit date," I said. "I want to cross-reference them with major unsolved cases."
On the other end, she gasped. "Why didn't I think of that? Song Yang, you're a genius!"
It was a massive undertaking. It took several days to complete.
But the results were chilling.
Over the past decade, more than twenty major cases were linked to this organization. Every time, the person arrested wasn't the real killer, but a body double—surgically altered by Kong Hui to take the fall.
Where the real culprits went, no one knew.
This organization had hidden in plain sight, manipulating the justice system from the shadows. They were above the law.
Our only hope was to get Kong Hui to talk.
But I suspected he wasn't a core member. Just a disposable pawn.
His latest assignment had been to help someone vanish completely. He came up with the horrific idea of turning a human into a pig—both literally and legally. His victim: Xu Xiaohui, a woman he had once secretly loved… and hated.
He wanted revenge.
The next day, Huang Xiaotao summoned me.
"Kong Hui won't talk," she said.
We met in the interrogation room.
After days in detention, he looked haggard. Disheveled hair, swollen eyes. I asked him several questions—he answered all of them with an indifferent "I don't know." No signs of lying.
But something felt… off.
A terrible suspicion crept into my mind.
"Check his leg wound," I ordered.
The injury looked shallow—too clean. But I had jammed my finger into that wound during the fight. No way it should've healed like this.
Chills ran down my spine.
"Who are you?" I asked quietly.
He looked up with a vacant expression. "I'm Kong Hui."
"No. You're not. You're his double. When did the switch happen? Where is the real Kong Hui?!"
The man gave a slow, eerie smile.
"How would I know?" he said lazily. "I'm just a pawn…"