Chapter 173: Sophistry

Releasing the young officer's hands from the gun, I stumbled backward, watching the blood spread across Zimao's chest.

"Gao Jian..." Zimao struggled a few steps forward before his legs gave out, his knees smashing heavily against the ground.

Blood poured from his mouth. I couldn't make out what he was saying; I only saw the bloody froth clinging to his lips and the veins bulging across his face, making him look like a wild beast driven into a corner.

"Thud!"

Zimao collapsed face-first. It was a long time before the security guards and local police dared to approach.

"Is he dead?"

"Who did this?"

"Looks like it was that guy."

The crowd, Huang Lan and Ye Bing included, gathered around the scene. The police stepped in to maintain order. I stayed put, squatting obediently beside a police cruiser as my mind raced to figure out how to handle the inevitable interrogation.

Wang Erjun, Lu Tianxiao, and Zimao—three dead, and I was the sole eyewitness. Taking into account the traces left at the scene, the methods of murder, and the potential motives, I needed to weave a perfectly logical narrative in a very short amount of time.

About twenty minutes later, two more groups of officers arrived. The first was the Municipal Sub-bureau Criminal Investigation Department led by Wu Meng, and the second was a team of forensic examiners and crime scene investigators.

The homicides had occurred in the Jiang Family Villa Area, with over five people injured. The fallout was going to be severe.

The wounded were rushed to the hospital for treatment, while the rest of us involved were loaded into police cars to assist with the investigation.

Inside the cruiser, the young officer sat directly across from me. His hands were still trembling—likely the aftershock of shooting someone for the very first time.

"Calm down, man. You're a cop," I said. I tried to light a cigarette, but Wu Meng, sitting beside me, stopped me.

The young officer pressed a shaking hand to his forehead. Only then did I notice how pale he was, his face drenched in sweat.

"Are you a veteran?" he finally managed to ask after a long silence.

"No."

"Then how did you know to shoot? Under those circumstances, you only had a fraction of a second to react."

"None of that matters. What matters is that I saved you. If I hadn't spun around, grabbed your hand, aimed, and fired, that lunatic would have gutted you." My voice echoed clearly inside the cruiser. Hearing this, most of them fell into silence.

"Gao Jian, why were you at the Jiang Family Villa Area? Why was that madman chasing you relentlessly? And what does any of this have to do with the deaths of Wang Erjun and Lu Tianxiao?" Wu Meng was full of doubts. To a seasoned detective like him, this murder case had too many details worth scrutinizing. After a long silence, he decided to question me, the eyewitness, directly.

I shook my head, well aware that speaking too much would only lead to mistakes. "If you want the truth," I said, "then find three people for me."

"Which three?"

"Tie Ningxiang, Huang Boyuan, and his daughter, Huang Lan."

...

Back at the station, I was highly uncooperative with the police interrogations. There was nothing Wu Meng could do. It wasn't until eleven o'clock that night, when all three people I requested had arrived, that I finally began recounting an entirely fabricated sequence of events.

Inside the interrogation room, I sat in a cold iron chair. Four people stood across the table from me.

Huang Boyuan, Huang Lan, Tie Ningxiang, and Wu Meng.

"Everyone is here. Can you talk now?" Looking exasperated, Wu Meng switched on a voice recorder and gestured to the room's high-definition security camera.

I lit a cigarette, my gaze sweeping across the group before settling on Huang Boyuan.

"You all know that to make a living, I usually take on private commissions. This whole thing starts with Director Huang of Ganding Pharmaceutical." I kept the exact details of the commission to myself, revealing only my accidental discovery of the Two-Faced Buddha during the investigation.

The Two-Faced Buddha was no stranger to Tie Ningxiang. Traces of that bizarre Buddha head had been scattered throughout the Anxin Hotel case.

"Through Director Huang's commission, I came into contact with the Two-Faced Buddha. As my investigation deepened, I realized this highly organized crime syndicate has a strict division of labor. Every single member is ruthless, willing to do whatever it takes to achieve their goals."

"The fugitive Lu Xing is a member of the Two-Faced Buddha organization, and tonight's lunatic was likely one as well. If you search his body, you should find a Buddha Head Pendant. It's the symbol of their organization."

When I said this, Wu Meng waved toward the door. A moment later, a staff member brought over an examination report.

"That's right. We did find a Buddha Head Pendant on him." Wu Meng gestured for me to continue.

"The Two-Faced Buddha has been looking for something—something in Director Huang's possession. They even wrote him a threatening letter to get it."

I looked at Huang Boyuan. He nodded and said in a deep voice, "That's right. I've kept the letter. If you need it, it can be used as evidence."

"In the threatening letter, the Two-Faced Buddha threatened to kill Director Huang's relatives to force him to hand the item over. Connecting this to Lu Xing's cruel behavior, I felt they would likely make good on their word, so I've been secretly keeping an eye on Director Huang's family."

"Director Huang has two daughters. His second daughter is at Jingying Sanatorium. Surrounded by layers of protection, she should be safe, so I focused all my attention on Huang Lan."

"Hold on a second." Wu Meng tapped his pen tip. "The ones murdered tonight were Wang Erjun and his mistress, Lu Tianxiao. Why do you keep steering this toward the Huang family? Furthermore, that lunatic seemed to know you. According to the guests at the scene, the person he wanted to kill most was you."

"Is that so?" My tone was steady, betraying no emotion. "There's a misunderstanding here."

I pulled out my phone and, in front of all four of them, played a video. It was footage of Wang Erjun and Lu Tianxiao having sex.

"Speak! What's your name?"

"I'm Lu Tianxiao."

"That's not your name anymore. You're Huang Lan!"

"Brother Jun, you're hurting me."

"Tell me! What's your name?!"

"Huang... Huang Lan."

"Louder! Speak, what's your name?"

"I'm Huang Lan, I am Huang Lan!"

The graphic footage, coupled with the high-pitched, excited cries of the man and woman, made everyone in the room rather uncomfortable.

"Why are you showing us this?" It was Huang Lan who spoke, her tone as cold as winter ice.

"I didn't mean anything by it. I just wanted you to see your business partner clearly, to see the filthy heart hiding beneath that human skin." I smiled faintly and pocketed my phone. "Huang Lan just returned from abroad. Not many people know this, and even fewer have actually seen her. It's highly likely this lunatic got the wrong person and killed Lu Tianxiao under the assumption that she was Huang Lan. As for Wang Erjun, it was probably just to silence a witness."

"That's a bit of a stretch. Even if what you say is true, it still doesn't explain why that lunatic became solely fixated on hunting you down afterward." Wu Meng was constantly searching for loopholes in my words.

"In this city, I'm the one who understands the Two-Faced Buddha the most. He probably wanted to kill me simply because I know too much."

A knock came from the door. Zhao Bin brought two reports into the room. "Neither of them pulled through. These are the autopsy reports."

Wu Meng flipped through a few pages before passing them to Tie Ningxiang. "The female victim died from a penetrating stab wound. The male victim's cause of death is undetermined."

Learning that neither of them had survived, my last shred of worry vanished into thin air.

"Gao Jian, what time did you enter the villa area?"

"Around nine fifteen."

"Why do you have this video?"

"I was loitering around the perimeter of the villa area at first, but I noticed Wang Erjun leaving in a hurry right after his meeting with Huang Lan. It looked highly unusual, so I followed him. As for why I recorded such a video—can we just call it a personal hobby?"

"How did that lunatic get into Wang Erjun's house? Can you recall the exact details of the murder?" Wu Meng set down his pen, looking at my completely calm and emotionless face.

"The woman put up a fight before she died. She clawed the lunatic's face. You can extract the flesh from under her fingernails and compare it with the wounds on his face; they should be a perfect match. As for Wang Erjun's death, I have no idea. But think back to Lu Xing's methods. Think back to the bizarre things you experienced when the heavy fog sealed the mountain. I believe the Two-Faced Buddha is the only one in all of Jiangcheng capable of orchestrating such a bizarre death." I hadn't lied about the woman's death; Lu Tianxiao really had been killed by Zimao. I was simply pinning Wang Erjun's death on the Two-Faced Buddha as well. Half true and half false. Besides, dead men tell no tales, so no one could refute my story.