Director Xiao was utterly shocked.

Xiao Yuan-yin felt that Li Jie, the boss of Creative Ability, was... toxic.

How should he put it? At least, the long-standing scourge of the “old, middle-aged, and young will-o’-the-wisp bikers of Hexi Park Road” had finally been dealt with. The local people of Jianye were delighted. When the new businesses opened on the seventh and eighth days of the Lunar New Year, quite a few merchants from the Hexi district beat gongs and drums to present the Zanglong District Police Substation with banners of praise.

Crime’s nemesis!

That’s right, this is our Zanglong District Police Substation!

Guardian angels!

No more pretending. This is exactly what our Zanglong District Police Substation is like.

Warriors of justice!

Without a doubt, the Zanglong District Police Substation deserved every one of those accolades.

“Heh-heh~”

As Director Xiao’s secretary, assistant, and designated driver whenever they went out on assignments, Little Chen beamed at the plaques and banners. “Director, it’s not as if nothing good came of this. For all these years, nobody could do a thing about those people on Hexi Park Road. Now they’ve finally quieted down, and the streetlights and surveillance cameras can be installed again.”

“Guard against pride and impatience. Keep up the good work.”

Although Director Xiao maintained a perfectly calm expression, inwardly he was feeling rather pleased with himself.

To hell with “copycat crimes.” If no one had been caught, then there had been no such thing!

Compared with those “old, middle-aged, and young will-o’-the-wisp bikers” on Hexi Park Road, the fifty-one dead men at Qunying Bridge on Gongyuan Street were nothing.

To ordinary people, murder was terrifying. But for people in law enforcement, violent-crime cases were actually easier to solve. They involved fewer petty complications, and the trouble they caused was comparatively minor.

But what was the deal with the “old, middle-aged, and young will-o’-the-wisp bikers”?

They had formed a local “knights’ forum” and “knights’ chat group” in Jianye District. Every night, they would tear through the streets making a racket. The key was that their families had a little background. They might not have been able to cause trouble all the way up at the Jianye municipal government, but making life miserable for the Zanglong District government was well within their reach.

After all, in today’s society, who did the administration of “remote backwaters” depend on?

The local gentry, of course.

Clerks and hangers-on with family connections were everywhere. Whenever traffic police tried to stop them, it was merely a formality. The riders would receive word even faster than the municipal traffic police detachment.

This time, the problem had been solved once and for all. And, he had to admit, it felt wonderful.

More importantly, the locals of Jianye did not dare make a fuss. The more local someone was, the more clearly they understood that the fifty-one dead men at Qunying Bridge on Gongyuan Street had something to do with that so-called Black Cat Hero.

Sometimes, being well informed had its drawbacks. Knowing too much made it easy to frighten yourself.

Out-of-towners, meanwhile, were completely baffled. They could not see what any of it had to do with anything else.

Xiao Yuan-yin was certain that those self-important local gentry in the Hexi district were currently hoping the Zanglong District Police Substation would send a few officers to patrol the area.

Otherwise, how frightening would that be?

That Black Cat Hero was a ghost—appearing and vanishing without a trace.

The thought filled Director Xiao with a perverse sense of delight.

To keep his subordinates from noticing, Director Xiao cleared his throat and said to Little Chen, “Yuanxiu, draft a notice later thanking the public for their enthusiasm.”

“Yes, Director!”

Chen Yuanxiu immediately perked up. Drafting a notice meant having a hand in the affair, and he would get to keep working under Director Xiao. No wonder the municipal bureau and city government had always called Director Xiao a lucky star.

Once Chen Yuanxiu had left the office, Xiao Yuan-yin, feeling refreshed and invigorated, stood up and ran through a set of martial-arts moves.

“Fantastic!”

Then he sat down at his desk and began studying the series of copycat cases associated with the Black Cat Hero. He suspected that Li Jie, the boss of Creative Ability, must have some secret source of information or an intelligence network.

Comparing them with the two cases that had previously occurred in Luzhou, the first of Second Young Master Yang’s legs had not been connected to the Black Cat Hero, though the method had been remarkably similar. As for the second leg, the evidence was conclusive. The corridor surveillance footage showed everything with crystal clarity. It had been clean and efficient.

The instant Han Zitong was dragged into the intensive-care ward had struck Xiao Yuan-yin as utterly inconceivable.

He knew Han Zitong. As the security director of Kaihuang Group, it was difficult for anyone in their circle not to know him.

And precisely because he knew him, Xiao understood what Han Zitong was capable of. An ordinary person could never have subdued him in an instant. Yet the Luzhou police report described exactly that—a kill in a single second.

Han Zitong had left his post as a lieutenant-colonel instructor at the age of forty-two and immediately gone to work for Yang Renshou. He had stayed there for eight years. Now fifty, Han Zitong was still in the prime of his life. Even if his cardiovascular function had declined somewhat, his strength would not simply evaporate.

Yet the Black Cat Hero had taken him down in an instant.

After sitting at his desk for a long while, Xiao Yuan-yin called someone from the technical division over and asked about their previous efforts to track Li Jie’s online activities.

“Director, these are the materials we collected earlier.”

“Leave them here. I’ll take a look.”

“Yes, Director.”

The materials were exceptionally thorough. They included not only the complete record of Li Jie’s Weibo account, known as Backwaves, but also his fan groups.

One group in particular was called Ten Years to Polish a Crab. Most of its members had been loyal fans for ten years. Newcomers were occasionally admitted, but only after spending time in other groups first.

It would have been better if he had never looked.

The longer Director Xiao read, the closer he came to getting an erection.

Damn it. Every single day it was either sexy pictures or outrageously sexy pictures. Did these people have nothing better to do?

Apparently not. It was actually rather entertaining.

Twenty minutes later...

It took only one username, Pussy Bro, to bring Director Xiao from fully erect to completely limp.

He then opened his computer, searched for an electronic tombstone, and found the entry “Did Your Mother Force You to Sing?” in the Cyber Cemetery.

An hour later...

Director Xiao removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes, sitting there for a long time before he could calm himself.

The anthem of humanity is the anthem of courage!

To go on living, we must fight with everything we have!

The Cyber Cemetery contained no boundless grief. It held only the dead encouraging the living.

The more he read, the heavier the materials became. When he even discovered that Li Jie had an identity known as Uncle Li under which he sent people money to support their education, Director Xiao was completely stunned.

Xiao Yuan-yin remembered a phrase from his school days:

Now that is rock and roll.

Judging by Li Jie’s exceptionally unhinged mental state, both online and offline, who could have imagined that he possessed such a side?

After thinking it over, Director Xiao decided to meet Li Jie again and have a talk.

Before he could set out for Pingjiang, however, a call came from the Luzhou authorities. The caller was an old friend, Deputy Director Zhang Wenyuan, who also served at a district substation.

“Old Xiao, do me a favor and get that Li boss to stop using his supernatural powers.”

“What the hell are you talking about? The man is currently both a student and a tycoon with tens of millions in cash. He could support a single councilor and make you and me suffer for it. Are your superiors putting pressure on you?”

“No kidding. Why else would I be calling you?”

“Fine. I’m not promising anything, but I’m going to talk to him in a little while. If I can get him to stop taking swipes at you on Weibo every day for no reason, all the better.”

“That bastard is hounding us nonstop! The people managing the online account are nearly insane.”

“All right, all right. We’ll talk later. I’m not making any promises—I wanted to make that clear.”

“Fine, fine. Whether it works or not, I’ll owe you one.”

After ending the call with Zhang Wenyuan, Xiao Yuan-yin summoned Little Chen and headed straight for the Red Star Welfare Home in Pingjiang.

He had already spoken with the welfare home’s deputy director, Shu Xiuqin, on the way. Once they arrived in Pingjiang, they would buy some large snack gift boxes at the supermarket and donate two thousand yuan. That should suffice. Of course, bringing along a couple of bags of fruit was also necessary.

The fruit had to be sweet. Director Li did not eat it, but his little friends did.

Li Jie would not return to Jianye until the sixteenth day of the Lunar New Year. During this period, he spent his mornings playing with Ah Bao and setting off snap-poppers, and his afternoons taking the children from the welfare home out shopping.

The procession was enormous, and the commotion considerable.

As for the nights, the commotion was even greater. Since the first day of the Lunar New Year, he and Yao Yao had been working hard at making a baby every day.

Yao Yao was anxious, but Mama Niu was even more so. She desperately wanted a grandson...

End of Chapter