The Blade of Silence (Fang Mu Eastern Crimes Series Book 3)

by Mi Lei

  Somehow the weapon slid from the dead man's impossible grip and into his hand.

  Fang Mu acted without thinking. He spun around and fired two shots in the direction of the flashlights. It stopped the bullets coming at him, at least for a moment. He used those seconds of respite to renew his efforts with the body. But barely had he begun to pull when new shots rang out, seeming to fall even more rapidly than before. Fang Mu pushed the little girl's head down and then ducked himself. A split-second later, he felt a bullet impact inches above his head.

  Fang Mu finally realized that he had to abandon the body if he did not want to sacrifice both himself and the little girl for a corpse. He looked up at Ding Shucheng's broken face one last time. The flames had already begun to lick and dance around his shirt.

  Forgive me, Elder Brother.

  Fang Mu gnashed his teeth and leapt to his feet, firing two more shots. He grabbed the girl, crouched as low as his legs would allow, and ran. He had barely taken a dozen steps before the bullets began to chase them. Looking down at the pistol, Fang Mu realized that he only had one bullet left. He would have to make it count.

  The rain of bullets suddenly eased, but only because their attackers were moving in to surround them. Maybe they knew that he was out of ammunition.

  Fang Mu pulled the little girl close and whispered, "When I shoot, you run for it, as fast as you can. Run to where they have the lights on. And no matter what happens, don't stop. Do you understand?"

  The girl didn't nod, but she at least didn't shake her head, either. All she did was stare blankly at him.

  Fang Mu had no time to explain it again. Instead, he patted her on the head, hoping to both calm and encourage her. He inhaled sharply, ready to stand and fire his last bullet. But before he could move, the shrill wail of a police siren changed everything.

  It was a harsh, monotonous scream, but in that moment, it was the most beautiful and invigorating music imaginable. The cavalry had arrived!

  The men behind the flashlights froze at the sound of the siren. They quickly began scattering in all directions. Fang Mu seized the moment. He took the girl by the hand and ran toward the siren. As he ran, he fired his final shot as a warning to his unseen enemies. With every step, he expected his brothers to come rushing toward him, but the road remained empty. The siren sounded so close. Why weren't they coming?

  A few more strides and Fang Mu's question was answered.

  It was his own jeep. The police light was flashing on its roof and its siren was wailing, but the vehicle was empty.

  No one had come for them.

  Fang Mu slowed his pace to carefully scan the streets, houses, and alleys. They were alone. He opened the car's door and let the girl get in. As she climbed into the seat, he continued to monitor their surroundings. That was when he saw the broken rope, attached to the back of his jeep. Baffled, he picked it up from the ground. For a second he stood there, rope in hand. He took out his cell phone. It had a signal. He knelt and punched in '1'. His finger was about to hit it again when he abruptly stopped. For a few seconds he crouched on the street, paralyzed by indecision. Finally, he closed the phone.

  He could not call the police. He could not return for Ding Shucheng's body. In fact, he could not even tell anyone what had happened here.

  There was someone, someones to be precise, who had found him this night. Some of them had wanted to burn him alive and another had used the jeep to bust open the window and turned on the siren to scare off the attackers.

  He couldn't have imagined that this tangled, confusing web of a case could get any more complicated, but clearly it had.

  Those problems were for later.

  He got into the driver's seat and started the engine. He was about to step on the accelerator when he saw the flames of the inferno leap upward, high into the sky. Looking at the raging fire from a few blocks away, he could have sworn that he saw Ding Shucheng's body, claimed by the blaze.

  It felt like a dagger to the heart. Biting down hard on his lip, he focused his heart and mind forward. Then he sped off, disappearing into the dark of the night.

  CHAPTER

  13

  Two Guns

  A morning meeting at the Bureau.

  A scowl on his brow, the commissioner let his gaze wander from one rattled attendee to the next. He was not happy, not happy at all. Nothing in the Xing Zhisen case was going according to plan, and they had barely had a plan to begin with. On top of it all, he had been forced to deal with Zheng Lin's bungled attempt at forging evidence. The Provincial Department had already started their inquiry into the matter, but he had managed to stave them off by claiming that it was "The crude work of individual officers who had been unaware of the legal consequences". With the three officers involved suspended, the issue of the forged video tape had, if only for the moment, been put on hold.

  The case, however, hadn't budged an inch. Without solid evidence to corroborate Xing Zhisen's claims, they would have to hand the case to the Procuratorate for prosecution. If they held on to the investigation any longer, the entire Municipal Bureau would soon be accused of covering up a murder.

  He was slowly cracking under the weight of his clashing loyalties and duties. It made the usually so sedate Commissioner of the Changhong City Bureau irritable and distracted.

  A member of the investigation team had started to stammer his report a few moments ago, only to be ungraciously cut off by a wave of the commissioner's hand. An awkward silence followed. The attendees cast furtive glances at each others' blank faces, but no one dared speak. It felt as if the room itself was holding its breath.

  It took a while before it dawned on the commissioner just how inappropriately he had acted. In an effort to mend his mistake, he forced a smile. "All of you are working incredibly hard and you are doing a brilliant job. I could not have asked for a better team." He paused, then quietly added, "Humans can but try, heaven holds our fate."

  Before the commissioner adjourned the meeting, a secretary sitting next to him whispered something into his ear. The commissioner nodded and then addressed the room again, "We will be assigned the new Type 92 pistols this afternoon. Everyone in the Bureau should go give them a try."

  The news caused an immediate stir and a murmur passed up and down the meeting room. The commissioner was just getting up to leave when he noticed something that some of the chairs in the room were empty. Frowning, he asked the secretary, "Is anyone missing?"

  Bian Ping quickly answered for the secretary. "Fang Mu didn't come; he asked for leave this morning."

  "Who authorized his leave?" The commissioner finally had found his reason to explode. "Tell him that I want him back here! What in the world could be more important than this case?"

  Fang Mu was sitting on a plastic bench, in a corridor of the pediatrics wing. As he waited, he quickly flipped through the day's paper. He almost missed the article for which he was looking. The Fire at the Baixin Bath Palace headline seemed to be worth no more than a hundred characters or so. Fang Mu carefully read every word of it, but he could find no mention of an unidentified body. He had expected little else. With all that had happened, he was well-aware of just how powerful his enemies really were. He closed the paper and forced his thoughts to not linger. He didn't even want to imagine what might have happened to Ding Shucheng's body.

  He heard a sudden flurry of footsteps approaching from the other end of the corridor. Looking up, he saw Yang Min emerge from in between a crowd of anxious parents and ill children. She was nearly running.

  Fang Mu jumped to his feet, anxious to hear the news, but Yang Min pushed him back down onto the bench.

  "Who is that girl?" she demanded sternly. "Where did you take her from?"

  "What's the matter?" he asked, eyes narrowing. "What did the examination show?"

  "Severe malnutrition, extensive soft tissue damage. But that's not the worst of it." She showed him a bundle of pages. "Look for yourself!"

  As soon as Fang Mu lay eyes on the re
port, his entire face contorted, seeming to recoil from the ugliness of the words. He had to stop himself from crushing the paper in his hands.

  "An old tear to the hymen, an acute pelvic infection, infected genitalia." Yang Min paused, but the outrage didn't leave her face. "What happened to the girl?" Her eyes blazied as she shouted. "She's no older than fourteen!"

  "Don't ask," Fang Mu almost whispered, "and don't let anyone else know."

  Her chest heaved violently as tears began to well up in her eyes. Fang Mu knew that she was thinking of Xing Na.

  "Don't we have to tell the police?" Her words were barely audible.

  "No." He shook his head. "Help me get the right medicine for the girl."

  She nodded. "The physical injuries are one thing, but this child has almost certainly suffered a severe psychological trauma as well."

  "I know." He sighed. "Thank you, Elder Sister."

  Yang Min dried her eyes and then walked in the direction of the pharmacy. She stopped after a few steps. Turning, she said, "Fang Mu?"

  He raised his head to see new tears streaming down her face.

  "No matter who did this to her..." There was a hard edge to her voice. With a tone soaked in misery and hurt, she finished, each word punctuated with empathy, "Do not let him get away!"

  Noon had come and gone before Fang Mu returned to the Bureau. Bian Ping was about to impatiently ask him where the hell he had been, but the moment he saw Fang Mu, his annoyance instantly dissipated.

  "Did you...get in a fight?" Bian Ping asked, letting his eyes wander over the countless scratches, bruises, and signs of tears that covered Fang Mu's face. Then he noticed the patches of burned skin and the shock came through in his query. "What happened to you?"

  "Nothing, nothing." Fang Mu had no desire to explain. Without another word, he walked toward the commissioner's office.

  The commissioner's rage had long ago burned itself out, and after a few quick questions, he let Fang Mu off the hook. As soon as he was dismissed, Fang Mu hurried down to the archives.

  He was after the missing persons reports.

  The girl had still not spoken a single word and all she seemed to care about was food. For the most part, she appeared to be trapped in a stupor and oblivious to the world around her, but the moment Fang Mu had made her something to eat, she had been roused, almost as if a spell had been lifted. As she shoveled the food into her mouth, life returned to her eyes.

  It didn't last. Once the food was gone, she had climbed back into bed and fallen into a deep slumber. Not only did she not talk to Fang Mu, she never even looked him in the eye. As things stood, he had no idea who she was or from where she came. His only hope was the register of missing persons.

  Fang Mu worked his way through three months of missing person reports from the entire province, but he found no one matching the girl's description.

  Was it because she had no living relatives? Or was her family, for some reason, not aware that she was missing?

  Deeply troubled, Fang Mu finally left the archives. He had barely made it out the door before he bumped into Xiao Wang. Just like Bian Ping before, the young officer seemed to almost jump in shock the moment he saw Fang Mu's battered face.

  "Brother, what happened to you?" he asked, eyes wide in disbelief. "You look like you've been in a war."

  Fang Mu smiled, but didn't reply.

  Once again, he felt a deep sense of gratitude that Xiao Wang knew when not to ask questions.

  What Xiao Wang did instead was put his arm around Fang Mu's shoulder. "Let's go to the armory." He was brimming with enthusiasm. "The Municipal Bureau has been issued Type 92 pistols—92s!"

  When they arrived at the armory, a good dozen of their fellow officers had already gathered. Some were obviously excited to get a feel for their new guns; others seemed more skeptical. A few weighed their old Type 54 in one hand and the new Type 92 in the other.

  It was well-known that the man in charge of the armory, Old Qin, was a bit of what some called a gun nut and he was right in his element. Standing in front of the crowd, he explained the performance parameters of the new gun in exacting detail. The technical assistant that the Provincial Department had sent found himself completely superfluous. He had taken a sideline seat, idly sipping tea and smoking a cigarette.

  "...There's five-point-ninety-eight inches between the front and rear sight," Old Qin told them expertly. "The muzzle velocity is one-thousand-one-hundred-fifty feet per second. It has a magazine capacity of fifteen rounds..."

  Xiao Wang squeezed through the ranks, eager to take a gun from the table. Old Qin, however, stopped him. Smiling warmly, he playfully scolded. "I know you're eager, boy, but you ain't taking one of my babies. Wait for your Bureau's turn. Now scoot!"

  With a defiant grin, Xiao Wang continued to slowly reach forward. As his hand closed around one of the pistols, he said, "Please do continue; I just want to take a quick look, just a..."

  Fang Mu smiled and turned to one of less enthusiastic officers. "How does it feel?"

  "It's all right," the officer replied, showing him both pistols. "The Type 92 seems all right, but the old 54 just feels like it handles more smoothly. Maybe that's just force of habit, though."

  "Oh, I get that," Fang Mu said as he took out his Type 54. Its well-worn grip slipped snuggly into his hand. "Nothing is more reliable than an old tool."

  "Now that I don't get." Xiao Wang opined, happily holding one of the new guns in his hand. "The 92 is a good weapon. Its design and tech are up to modern standards." He looked down the gun's sight and squeezed the trigger. He greeted the sharp, metallic sound of the dry-firing hammer with a satisfied smack of his lips. "These tools will make all the difference in combat."

  The sentiment was immediately echoed by a chorus of their fellow officers. Fang Mu however, could only smile and shake his head. "What makes a difference in combat is people—not the weapons they wield."

  "But if the tool is flawed, it will limit even the best marksman," Xiao Wang immediately countered.

  "In the end, a weapon rests in someone's hands." Fang Mu raised his voice ever so slightly. "And how well it performs is decided by the person pulling the trigger."

  "Oh, come on." Xiao Wang curled his lips. "Take two shooters of equal ability and give each a different weapon; you'll see a difference, trust me."

  "Not necessarily," Fang Mu stated flatly.

  "You don't believe me?" Xiao Wang's eyes flashed in challenge. "You want us to give it a try?"

  Fang Mu gave him a half-hearted smile and was about to decline when he heard the other officers take up a chant.

  "Shoot off... Shoot off…"

  "Well, experience is the only real judge of truth ..." one pointed out as someone more impatient was already demanding bullets from Old Qin.

  A few minutes later, Fang Mu and Xiao Wang found themselves bustled off to the underground gun range by a rambunctious procession of officers.

  Standing at the range, Fang Mu looked down at the Type 54 pistol in front of him. A full magazine lay by its side. There was no way out of this now.

  "You really want to do this?" he asked in a final, rather desperate bid.

  "What, are you scared?" Xiao Wang snapped a magazine into his Type 92. He pulled back the slide, released and let it snap back into place with a loud click.

  That finally got Fang Mu's competitive juices flowing.

  Moments later, they were standing down range, firing at their targets in turn.

  First shot: Fang Mu 9 points, Xiao Wang 9 points.

  Second shot: Fang Mu 10 points, Xiao Wang 9 points.

  Third shot: Fang Mu 9 points, Xiao Wang 10 points.

  Fourth shot: Fang Mu 10 points, Xiao Wang 8 points.

  And so it continued.

  Eight bullets later, Fang Mu led by two points. His pistol was empty. He was ready to set the gun down, but before he could, a well-meaning officer passed him another magazine. To his right, Xiao Wang showed no signs of stopping. With seven bull
ets still left in his Type 92, he again pulled the trigger. Another good hit. Fang Mu shrugged and took the magazine. He had just pulled the release when he heard cries of alarm and alarm erupted all around him. Fang Mu's head snapped up—and he was staring right at Xiao Wang's Type 92, the barrel pointed straight at his head.

  Old Qin was first to react. Grim faced, he made a move for Xiao Wang's weapon. "What are you doing, boy? Never point a gun at someone when you're at the range. Don't you know your basics?"

  Xiao Wang blocked Old Qin with his left arm, but his eyes remained fixed on Fang Mu's face.

  Several seconds passed. "You're out of bullets. I, on the other hand..." Xiao Wang finally said, stressing every word. "Is that difference enough for you?"

  The range had fallen deathly quiet. No one moved or even seemed to breathe.

  After what seemed like forever, a senior police officer broke the silence. "Xiao Wang has a point; that really does make a difference." He seemed to be talking to no one in particular, but many joined in, voicing their agreement.

  Xiao Wang slowly lowered the weapon. Suddenly, he smiled. "The old will always make way for the new. It's just the way of the world." With that, he raised his hands in mock surrender. "Hey, I was just messing with you."

  Shooting him one last look, Fang Mu put his gun down and walked away from the gun range.

  Night fell. On his drive home, Fang Mu kept his eyes on the rearview mirror, checking over and over to make sure he was not being followed. When he was absolutely certain, he pulled up to an apartment complex. He entered through the south gate and wound his way past the houses, only to leave it again through the west gate. It was another two blocks before he finally arrived at a small, old-fashioned residence. He carefully checked the area before retrieving a key from his pocket and unlocking the door.