Chapter 152: The Dark Police Station

To be sure, the massive brute was not a car; he was flesh and blood. The teaching building was still the teaching building, but the brute had already smashed into the wall. Because his head made contact first, it shattered instantly like a watermelon, leaving it impossible to tell what was what. Even his neck had been reduced to a pulp; only from the shoulders down remained intact.

Ultimately, Liu Yunfei still frightened them. The gentle junior female students stood in an instant of utter silence; no one screamed. It was all too sudden, and everyone instinctively covered their wide-open mouths with their hands. The only sound that broke the stillness was Zhang Juan’s lingering, whimpering cry. Obviously, the abrupt hush left Zhang Juan somewhat bewildered. She stopped crying and looked through tear-filled eyes, only to see the headless corpse still standing there, blood still gushing in spurts from where his neck used to be. "Ah—!"

Zhang Juan's piercing scream immediately became contagious. Female screams echoed everywhere across the teaching building, as if the entire school had just encountered a ghost. Those with weak stomachs immediately leaned out of the windows to vomit. Outside the old teaching building's windows, it looked as though dozens of fountains had suddenly been installed, and afterward, someone even uploaded such photos to the internet to apply for a Guinness World Record. Even the bravest of the male students could not help but instinctively turn their faces away, feeling their hearts pounding furiously in their chests.

At that moment, only one person continued to watch the corpse with intense focus. It wasn't that he felt no fear or disgust; the crucial point was that he was searching for something. He had clearly seen the brute draw a knife and stab it into Liu Yunfei's belly, but the strange thing was that Liu Yunfei was unharmed, and even stranger still, the knife had vanished.

"Classmates!" Liu Yunfei shouted, successfully drawing back his original audience. Everyone leaned back toward the windows, forcing their concentration onto Liu Yunfei so they wouldn't have to look at the corpse that was still standing there.

"You all saw very clearly today. If this goes to court later, you must stand as witnesses for your brother here." Liu Yunfei now had experience; with so many people witnessing today's event and having the evidence, things would be much easier to handle. It was obvious that the punks had started the fight, and crashing into the wall was something the brute had done to himself.

Upstairs, the students immediately responded in unison: "Okay!" "I recorded it on my cell phone!" "We support you!"

Having received their promises, Liu Yunfei no longer worried. He pulled out his phone and dialed the emergency number. Just then, he noticed a few of the punks trying to take advantage of the chaos to escape. "All of you, stand the fuck still, Zhang Hai!"

Zhang Hai and his gang were first shaken by the murderous intent in Liu Yunfei's eyes, and then terrified by the gruesome scene before them. After all, they were just petty thugs; when had they ever witnessed such a spectacle? Hearing Liu Yunfei's stern command, they dared not move any further and obediently waited for the public security officers to arrive.

This Huangjiang Experimental Middle School was located right in the city center and fell under the jurisdiction of the Central Road Police Station. Upon receiving the report, the emergency dispatch immediately notified them to deploy. When Station Chief Wu Dayou heard that a homicide had occurred, a wave of displeasure washed over him. Damn it, losing this month's bonus was a minor issue, but the title of the police station—having gone three years without a single violent crime—was about to be lost.

Once the police arrived at the scene, despite the heart-pounding brutality of the scene, they immediately went to work. Some took photographs, some called the forensic pathologists, others summoned the funeral home, while the rest busied themselves with questioning witnesses and making arrests.

Liu Yunfei patted the putting-on-airs principal on the shoulder, helped him tidy up the long strands of hair that were wrapped around his bald crown, and smiled. "Xiaowei, Hideyoshi, let's go."

Station Chief Wu Dayou had originally made up his mind to thoroughly discipline the murderer the moment he arrived, but never expected the person brought out to be none other than Huangjiang's notorious celebrity. He had no choice but to offer a polite greeting and arrange for the officers to take his statement.

A few moments later, as the petty thugs walked in and caught sight of Wu Dayou, they immediately cried out, "Station Chief Wu, the one who died is Wu Lei!"

Wu Dayou felt a sudden, sharp pang in his chest, as if a basin of ice water had been dumped over him. Although Wu Lei was merely his elder sister's son, because he and his wife had never been blessed with children, they had treated this nephew as their own. Even though he knew Wu Lei ran around getting into fights, causing trouble, and hanging out with bad crowds, he still doused him with indulgence. As long as it was within his jurisdiction, he would exhaust every effort to help him out.

Even on a previous occasion when someone reported Wu Lei for rape, Wu Dayou had personally stepped in, bringing along a sum of money to appease the victim's parents while alternating threats and coaxing to make the girl Wu Lei's girlfriend. A phrase he frequently had on his lips was, "What's wrong with kids playing around a bit?" It was precisely because of this underlying connection that Zhang Hai and the other thugs acted with absolute impunity; the punk earlier had merely been whispering this reminder to Zhang Hai.

It didn't matter whom you killed, but killing my nephew was crossing the line. Wu Dayou immediately ordered that the suspects be fitted with both handcuffs and leg shackles, and locked in the detention room for interrogation.

"This is Liu Yunfei," the junior officer reminded him cautiously.

"He's a murderer! I don't give a damn if he's Liu Yun or a fucking deity—we must enforce the law impartially!" Wu Dayou roared at the junior officer.

Clueless as to why the station chief was throwing such an inexplicable fit, the junior officer walked into the conference room with a sour expression toward Liu Yunfei. "Put handcuffs and leg shackles on them, take them up to the fifth-floor detention room, and interrogate them there."

Every officer at the Central Road Police Station knew very well: apart from the station chief, who was the most terrifying person here? It certainly wasn't the deputy station chief. Wu Dayou had served as the station chief here for twenty years; which of the newly appointed deputy chiefs hadn't been run in circles by him?

The most terrifying things of all were those trusted henchmen of Station Chief Wu locked away in the detention room. They were a pack of veteran corrupt cops capable of drinking, whoring, and gambling without restraint. That detention room was Wu's own invention—its sole purpose was to extract confessions by any means necessary. Once inside, whatever methods were deployed, you had little choice but to write a statement conforming to their demands. Otherwise, what awaited you was endless torture, until you were eventually thrown off the building, leaving them to claim you committed suicide out of guilt.

Naturally, Liu Yunfei knew nothing of their fearsome reputation; he assumed this place was just like the Food Street precinct. That was until he was locked inside an iron door, cuffed to an iron chair, sitting opposite two officers—neckties pulled askew and caps cocked sideways—separated only by iron bars.

Their slovenly, hooligan-like demeanor was enough to disgust even Liu Yunfei, prompting him to remark, "Take a look at yourselves. Do you have any resemblance to police officers? Right now, you look just like the Kuomintang's black-hearted hounds."

"Oh ho! You're actually lecturing us, you motherfucker? Let me tell you, I sincerely wish I were a black-hearted hound—free meals and free whores."

Liu Yunfei was stunned. How could two precincts in the exact same city be so starkly different, one like heaven and the other like hell? They spoke with such blatant impunity, completely unafraid of being reported by a suspect. Pulling his police credentials from his pocket, he replied, "These are my credentials. Please show some respect in front of a superior."

"A superior? Whose superior are you, fucker? Don't think we don't recognize you. So you're a celebrity? So you're a police inspector? Even if you were the Jade Emperor himself, the only thing we recognize here is the law!" said the other, sharp-faced, narrow-eyed officer who had remained silent until now, maintaining a rigid expression.

Liu Yunfei couldn't help but feel that the phrase should have been "The only thing we recognize is money!" to truly match his appearance. However, since they insisted on doing things by the book, he had little choice. Liu Yunfei conceded and began recounting the sequence of events in meticulous detail according to their demands.

Those two Kuomintang-style cops might not have looked like decent men on the surface, but they were clearly seasoned veterans of the underworld; their questioning was exceptionally thorough, particularly concerning the crucial details. Once the deposition was finished, one of the officers grabbed the transcript, thrust his hand through the bars, and shoved it toward Liu Yunfei's face. "Sign it."

Liu Yunfei grabbed the black ballpoint pen dangling from a corner by its tether, gave a bitter laugh, and said, "Big brother, your hand is blocking seven or eight parts of the transcript. How am I supposed to read it?"

"Read what? It's all recorded precisely according to your own account. Just sign your name; these aren't meant for suspects to read."

Had he not frequented police stations before, he might genuinely have been hoodwinked by them. Liu Yunfei had already given statements before, and even a glance at the Food Street precinct showed that such records were a vital piece of evidence presented in court. How could anyone sign without even reading it?

Stretching out his hand, he snatched the transcript folder over. Upon a single glance, he was utterly shocked: what kind of fucking statement was this? It was the exact opposite of everything he had said! Ripping the document to shreds in a few swift motions, he hurled the pieces back through the iron bars directly into the cop's face. "Who the hell was that dead man? How much money did they pay you?"

"We don't know who you're talking about. You're going to sign this statement today, whether you want to or not. I've got two copies made, Leader Liu, so let's make this painless."

Liu Yunfei chuckled. What a joke—how could anyone interrogate a suspect like this? If he hadn't killed a man today, he never would have known that such a police station and such law enforcement officers genuinely existed. He countered, "How could I possibly sign something that so thoroughly reverses black and white? Go ahead and pull out whatever tricks you have left."

Grinning hideously, the two officers leaned against the iron bars. "Everyone here's a cop; who doesn't know how this works? If you won't sign, you're going to suffer."

"Oh? Don't you know I'm the martial arts instructor for the Huangjiang Police Training Academy?"

"Ha-ha!" Both officers burst into laughter. "You brat, you're still too green. I'm practically begging you to hit me twice; the moment you do, even if I put a bullet in your head right here, no one will come looking for accountability. By then, I'll be the one decorated for merit, and you'll be the one who tried to escape. Weigh the odds yourself."

Liu Yunfei couldn't help but nod. Ah, truly vicious. Who knows how many people had been unjustly framed and persecuted here, leaving this world without even a shred of a good reputation, their truths completely buried forever?

Seeing Liu Yunfei nod in silence, the two officers naturally assumed he had come to his senses. One of them turned to fetch a fresh statement and handed it over. To their utter astonishment, the moment Liu Yunfei took it, he ripped off the first few pages, folded them up, and shoved them straight into his pocket.

"What the hell are you doing?" The two cops had never encountered anyone like this before.

"What am I doing? Preserving evidence of your crimes."

The two officers exchanged bewildered glances, then stared back at Liu Yunfei. "Are you out of your fucking mind? Do you really think you're walking out of here today?"

Without a word, Liu Yunfei suddenly gave a violent jerk with his hands. The handcuffs securing him to the iron chair deformed and instantly snapped. He rose to his feet, stepped up close to the bars, and fixed his gaze on the two dumbfounded cops, a murderous gleam flashing once more in his eyes.

Terrified out of their wits, the two officers wondered when they had ever encountered a suspect so terrifying that he could snap chains of that thickness with a single pull. Driven by pure instinct, they stepped back a couple of paces and drew their service weapons. "Don't move, or I'll open fire!"