Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"Si Si, be a good girl. Uncle Zhao is just playing a little game with us. Don't cry, you won't look pretty if you cry. Be good."

Luo Meilan's hands were tightly bound behind her, lingering fear still on her face, but her voice was soft and soothing as she tried to calm her daughter, who'd been startled awake.

The little girl, her mouth covered tight, looked fearfully at Uncle Zhao beside her. She felt Uncle Zhao was scary, his hands stank, but Mommy said to be good, so she had to listen.

"Xiao Zhao, I mean, Brother Zhao, Si Si won't cry anymore, so can you..." Luo Meilan looked at the big hand covering her daughter's mouth and nose, her voice shaking with nerves.

Zhao Zhi acted like he hadn't heard, just staring at the kid under his hand. Then he pulled out some tape and sealed the little girl's mouth. He didn't trust a kid to stay quiet—if she started crying again, that'd be trouble.

Seeing Zhao Zhi's actions, Luo Meilan let out a small sigh of relief. She could tell today's Zhao Zhi was very different from usual.

Zhao Zhi had always been quiet and boring before, seeming honest enough, but today he was like a volcano about to blow at any moment—no one knew what he might do.

If Zhao Zhi was just a burglar, based on how she'd known him before, Luo Meilan might not have been too terrified, but...

Luo Meilan looked at the dagger Zhao Zhi had set aside. When she'd been forced inside, she'd been too panicked to notice it. But now, seeing the brown stains on the blade, remembering the metallic, bloody smell she'd caught when first taken hostage, Luo Meilan couldn't help trembling. She could only hope that once Zhao Zhi got the money, he'd let her and her daughter go.

But he hadn't tried to hide who he was—would he really let them go after getting the money?

A horrible thought crossed Luo Meilan's mind, but she didn't dare think about it. She just answered Zhao Zhi's questions, telling him exactly where the money was in the house, hoping that cooperating would soften him up.

Zhao Zhi found Luo Meilan's jewelry box and grabbed the gold jewelry inside, shoving them into his pockets. This was hard currency—he could exchange it for local money once he got abroad.

Just as he was pocketing them, someone knocked on the door. The knocking was loud and insistent.

Zhao Zhi froze, snapping his head toward Luo Meilan. Luo Meilan was just as confused, frantically shaking her head under his suspicious gaze. She had no clue what was going on either.

"Is everyone in there dead? Crying and making a racket in the middle of the night—don't other people need to sleep..." A man's voice came through the door, cursing and grumbling.

When there was no response from inside, the knocking stopped. Zhao Zhi's furrowed brow had just relaxed for a few seconds when the knocking started again—but this time it sounded weird, not like a hand knocking, but like some kind of metal thing.

Zhao Zhi glanced at Luo Meilan, still bound, and quickly taped her mouth shut, then crept to the door and looked through the peephole.

Since the door across the hall was open, light from the living room spilled out. He saw a pale-faced young man banging on the door with a spatula, looking annoyed, still running his mouth.

Zhao Zhi's tense nerves relaxed a bit, his eyes flashing with annoyance. He couldn't let that guy keep banging—if he woke up the neighbors, things would get even more complicated.

You walk right into the tiger's den—no way out now.

Zhao Zhi's eyes turned cold. He didn't take the spatula in Shen Dongqing's hand seriously. In his view, the fact that Shen Dongqing switched from knocking with his hand to using a spatula proved how weak he was. What kind of threat could someone like that be?

Zhao Zhi opened the door, thinking about how to lure Shen Dongqing inside, but got a spatula to the face, leaving his head ringing.

Zhao Zhi instinctively swung his dagger to fight back, but reach matters—the spatula had way more range than the dagger. Shen Dongqing moved fast, bringing the spatula down hard. Zhao Zhi felt a sharp pain in his arm, his grip loosened, and the dagger clattered to the floor.

Shen Dongqing caught sight of the dagger out of the corner of his eye, kicked it into the living room, and kept moving.

...

After getting the report, the nearest patrol officer rushed over on his bike. But the address was a bit out of the way, and by the time the police got to the building, nearly six minutes had passed.

The arriving officer looked up at the building and saw the light still on in the reported apartment. His heart tightened—had the guy not left yet?

The two patrol officers climbed the stairs carefully, slowing down as they reached the fourth floor. They stopped at the stairwell landing and looked up.

What they saw caught them off guard. The door to the apartment where the armed robbery happened was wide open, light spilling out into the hallway. Listening closely, they could hear a kid's muffled sobbing.

The two exchanged a glance, climbed the last few steps, and looked inside. A person lay on the floor, hands and feet taped up, unconscious or worse—while the criminal was nowhere to be seen.

As they hesitated, a young man came out of the apartment, blood on his clothes and hands. The man glanced at the guy on the floor and walked toward the door. That was enough for the officers—they drew their guns and rushed in.

"Police! Don't move!"

...

After the misunderstanding was cleared up, the officers looked at Zhao Zhi on the ground and immediately called an ambulance. While waiting for the ambulance, more officers kept arriving.

When they learned Shen Dongqing had acted bravely to stop the crime, they first praised him, but then told him not to be so impulsive next time—better to wait for the police, or he might get himself killed instead of saving anyone.

Shen Dongqing knew how dangerous it had been. Honestly, if Zhao Zhi hadn't let his guard down, he couldn't have taken him down so easily.

Watching the officers start collecting evidence at the scene, Shen Dongqing couldn't help asking, "Should I get my hands tested for evidence too?"

With that, he spread his bloody hands. When the officer nodded, Shen Dongqing cooperated right away—photos, blood samples, fingerprints.

After the whole process, seeing how grossed out Shen Dongqing was by the blood on his hands, the officer said, "We're done with the evidence. You can go wash up now."

With permission, Shen Dongqing turned and headed to the bathroom to wash up. But while the blood on his hands was easy to wash off, the stains on his clothes from tying up Zhao Zhi were not.

He came back out and saw Luo Meilan holding her daughter in one arm and her phone in the other, looking anxious. Noticing Shen Dongqing's gaze, Luo Meilan forced a polite smile before turning back to her phone.

The wail of the ambulance siren cut through the quiet of the night.

Paramedics carried a stretcher upstairs, with doctors and nurses following. They first saw a room full of cops, then spotted the man on the floor. Their expressions changed immediately as they began emergency treatment.

"This is bad—he's too badly hurt. We need to get him to the hospital now, or he won't make it," the doctor said, telling the nurse to call ahead and get the hospital ready for emergency surgery.

"What kind of weapon did this?" the doctor couldn't help asking.

Shen Dongqing stood nearby, pointing at the spatula on the coffee table. "That one."

The doctor looked at the "weapon." The spatula still had blood on it, but it looked totally harmless—how could it have caused such severe injuries?

Wait—how did he know the spatula did it?

The doctor noticed the blood on Shen Dongqing's clothes, took a step back, and instinctively glanced at the officers nearby. Though the doctor said nothing, the officer beside him caught the look in his eyes. His mouth twitched a little as he explained, "The one on the ground is the armed robber who broke in. This guy here is a good Samaritan who stepped in."

A good Samaritan?!

The doctor looked at the robber's injuries and fell silent. He'd seen plenty of assault cases in the ER—people fighting with weapons rarely caused injuries this severe. This...

Meeting the doctor's look, Shen Dongqing felt helpless too. Honestly, he hadn't meant to hit that hard, but he'd just learned the skill and couldn't gauge his own strength.

And the principle of Unrestricted Combat Arts was to end it in one strike—no need for a second hit. How could they not be heavy?

"Officer, if this guy dies, am I responsible?" Watching the stretcher bearers carry the man out, with one officer following and the others still hanging around, Shen Dongqing walked up to one of them and asked quietly.

"You don't need to worry too much. This was an act of bravery—stopping a criminal in the act. You're not responsible at all." Meeting Shen Dongqing's slightly worried gaze, Xiao Ze explained.

Shen Dongqing breathed a sigh of relief, suddenly recalling the information in the Unrestricted Combat Arts skill. He now understood why learning this skill required studying criminal law first—if you hit too hard, without knowing the law, you might end up being the one committing a crime.

But that said, the combat effectiveness was genuinely impressive.

"Officer, my, my husband's phone has been unreachable. Can you help me find any leads on him? I, I'm worried something has happened to him." Luo Meilan came out of the house, her face as white as a sheet.

Aside from when the police first arrived and she came out to clarify things for Shen Dongqing, Luo Meilan had spent the rest of the time in the bedroom comforting her daughter and continuously calling her husband, trying to see if her fears were actually coming true.

But after dozens of calls, all she got was a message saying the phone was off. Luo Meilan felt like her worst fears were being confirmed.

"What's going on? Don't panic, take your time." Xiao Ze frowned slightly.

Luo Meilan stammered out her whole theory—today her husband had gone out, saying Zhao Zhi invited him for a late-night snack. But he hadn't returned by late night, and instead Zhao Zhi showed up with a bloodstained dagger. So what could have happened to her husband?

Xiao Ze hadn't expected Zhao Zhi to have committed another crime before the armed robbery. His face fell, and he immediately called the station to look into Zhao Zhi's past.

If the guy was just hurt, he might not have gotten help yet, and waiting could cost him his life. If Zhao Zhi had killed Luo Meilan's husband, they needed to find the crime scene fast to nail him for it.

After hanging up, Xiao Ze looked at Shen Dongqing and said, "You..."

"I know, you need me to give a statement at the station, right? Let's go now." Shen Dongqing caught on before Xiao Ze could even finish.

Seeing how smooth Shen Dongqing was with the routine, Xiao Ze narrowed his eyes, not sure what to make of him.