Chapter 27: The Fog Breaks

Li Zhuiyuan hung up the phone and asked the shopkeeper, “How much?”

The shopkeeper swallowed hard. He still thought the kid was just fooling around, but to be safe, he hit the speaker button and redialed.

As the call went through, the brief dialing tone made the shopkeeper’s brow twitch. When the line connected, the voice on the other end said:

“Hello, this is Tongzhou Public Security Bureau…”

“Snap!”

The shopkeeper immediately hung up. He stared at Li Zhuiyuan in disbelief, shocked the boy had actually called the police.

“You little brat, what the hell are you doing?!”

Panicked, the shopkeeper bolted from behind the counter and ran next door—probably to warn someone. The last thing he wanted was to be caught red-handed when the police showed up.

Li Zhuiyuan glanced at the phone. He’d thought the shopkeeper redialed just to tell the cops, “Sorry, just a kid playing around, please ignore.”

But once the shopkeeper realized the number really went to the police, he’d freaked out and hung up without a second thought.

Even so, Li Zhuiyuan placed the phone money on the counter and took two candies from the jar as change.

Back then, candies often had a sugary coating beneath the wrapper, which you could just suck on. But Li Zhuiyuan preferred to pick the coating off first.

By the time he’d peeled the candies clean and had been sucking on them for a while, the shopkeeper still hadn’t come out of the video parlor.

Li Zhuiyuan knew then—something had gone wrong in there.

He sighed quietly and decided to walk further away.

Once the traffic cleared, he crossed the road. But even across the street felt too close, so he kept walking west for quite a bit before stopping in front of a bicycle repair shop.

From there, he had a clear line of sight across the street to the video parlor. It also meant he’d see the police coming before they got there.

He didn’t have to wait long. A police motorcycle pulled up, followed by a patrol car.

The two vehicles stopped in front of the video parlor. Six uniformed officers got out—four went through the front, and two circled around back.

The sight of police vehicles drew attention. Locals out for a night stroll and nearby shop owners came over to gawk.

Li Zhuiyuan stayed put, quietly waiting.

Less than two minutes later, one officer ran out of the video parlor, visibly shaken.

Li Zhuiyuan’s heart sank. Did something happen to even the police?

But then the officer grabbed the radio from the patrol car and began speaking into it, and another officer exited the video parlor behind him…

That’s when Li Zhuiyuan knew—the miasma was broken.

In The Right Way to Subdue Evil, there was an entire volume dedicated to “miasma”—a special kind of environment that forms when a Dead Sinker lingers in one place.

That volume described many ways to investigate, analyze, and break such formations.

But clearly, Wei Zhengdao’s era had no telephones. And certainly no people’s police.

Soon, more backup arrived in waves. One plainclothes officer, with a chin full of stubble, scanned the scene sharply after getting out of the car.

It felt wrong to describe a police officer this way, but to Li Zhuiyuan, the man’s eyes were hawk-like—too piercing.

Even more surprising, the officer didn’t head for the video parlor but instead pushed through the crowd, as if coming toward Li Zhuiyuan.

But someone shouted behind him, and he had to turn back.

Then, one by one, people started being escorted out of the video parlor.

They looked limp, like they could twist an ankle at any moment, yet their faces were flushed and their heads wobbled uncontrollably.

The stubbly officer stepped forward and grabbed one person’s arm, pressing upward on the forearm—an old massage technique.

He did the same to a second and third person, each time flicking the arm away after.

“Captain Tan, what’s going on?” someone asked.

Tan Yunlong shook his head. “Doesn’t look like drugs.”

His words stunned the surrounding officers.

Honestly, it was supposed to be a routine raid for indecent content. But the officers on scene had been so alarmed, they’d made an immediate report.

The whole station was buzzing.

No one had expected to stumble upon a full-blown drug den in a rural township.

Tan Yunlong knew what his colleagues were thinking, but all he could say was, “That’s just my opinion. Take them to the station and have the township clinic send medical staff.”

“Yes, Captain Tan.”

Truthfully, Tan Yunlong wasn’t sure either. These people acted way too much like they were high.

Soon, everyone from the video parlor was outside.

Li Zhuiyuan spotted Lei’er and Pan’er among them. Neither seemed the least bit afraid of the police—they just kept chatting and slapping high fives.

The two women working part-time at the parlor were the same—flirting and laughing with the officers.

Even a blind man could tell something was off.

And yet, the figure looming behind one of the women—Brother Bao—was missing.

Where he’d gone, Li Zhuiyuan didn’t know. And couldn’t find out.

One by one, they were loaded into police cars. The video parlor and the adjoining shop were sealed off.

The tipoff had come from the shop’s phone—that much was easy to trace. But the shopkeeper himself was now the rowdiest of the bunch. Once in the car, he plastered his face to the window, making goofy faces nonstop.

Maybe he was just riding the high of being the last one brought in.

Li Zhuiyuan scanned the area. He was confused—why hadn’t Brother Runsheng come back yet?

Just then, he spotted a yellow-pedicab parked nearby watching the commotion. He walked over, got in, and gave the driver the township clinic’s address, asking for the fare.

When the driver quoted a price, Li Zhuiyuan suddenly realized he’d been speaking Mandarin ever since the phone call—and hadn’t switched back to dialect. So he asked again in Nantong dialect.

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