The instant the gunshot rang out,
Fang Shuwen's spine snapped into motion, and his Snake Form Talent activated.
His body twisted at an almost impossible angle.
The bullet grazed his ribs, and his skin burned.
Li Tong's smile hadn't even faded.
At that moment,
Fang Shuwen's fist was already there.
A simple straight punch, pure and forceful, gathering all the strength of Bright Force into a single blow.
It burst from his waist and traveled the straightest line. In the blink of an eye, it slammed into Li Tong's chest.
"Crack!"
The sound of breaking ribs rang out in a cascade. Li Tong's back struck the wall, shattering the blue bricks, and his whole body sank into it.
He looked down at his collapsed chest, then at Fang Shuwen, as dark-red froth poured from his mouth.
"Impossible!"
"How... how could you possibly dodge that?!"
Before the words had even left his mouth,
the light vanished from Li Tong's eyes. His head lolled to one side, and he fell.
"Phew. Idiot. You really thought I wasn't on my guard?"
Fang Shuwen pulled back his fist, bent down, picked up the pistol from the ground, and tucked it into his waistband.
Then he searched Li Tong from head to toe, turning up more than a dozen silver dollars and a short blade.
He did the same with the other two bodies. By the time he finished, he had collected sixty silver dollars and three short blades.
Fang Shuwen glanced at Cuicui, who was sprawled on the ground, and left her alone.
The woman had brought this on herself. Letting her keep her life was already more mercy than she deserved.
After all,
though she hadn't known what was going on, she had lured him out and become an accomplice.
Fang Shuwen dragged the three bodies onto a handcart and pushed it to the Clear Water River under cover of night.
He disposed of the bodies and made sure he'd left no trace before leaving.
Fang Shuwen didn't return to the Zhao Estate. Instead, he turned toward the western part of town.
Li Tong had just said he was rich. Might as well go take a look.
A quarter of an hour later,
Fang Shuwen arrived at a low, detached house by the river.
With a slight burst of strength, he vaulted over the gray wall and landed in the courtyard.
The house was small, and its furnishings were sparse.
He searched every nook and cranny, finally finding an iron box beneath the ashes in the stove.
He pried open the lock. Silver dollars filled the box, gleaming brightly.
He counted them: exactly five hundred.
"I didn't expect that kid to have so much money."
Fang Shuwen's lips curled slightly. He stuffed all the silver dollars into his cloth schoolbag, then climbed back over the wall and left.
He wound through several alleys, making sure the coast was clear before returning to the Zhao Estate through the back gate.
The light was already out in Old Fang's room, and even snores rose from within.
Fang Shuwen didn't disturb him. He tiptoed into the inner room, shoved the silver dollars under the bed, and lay down.
The night passed without incident.
The next three days went by uneventfully.
He went to school during the day, practiced martial arts in the afternoon, and reviewed his lessons at night.
Cuicui took two days off. Mother Wang said she'd caught a chill, so she stayed home instead of going to school.
Fang Shuwen didn't see Cuicui again until the third day back at school.
She looked as if she'd lost a great deal of weight.
Her face was haggard, and she seemed deeply shaken.
She kept sneaking wary glances at Fang Shuwen.
Fang Shuwen pretended not to notice.
Before long, it was Friday.
The afternoon bell rang, and the students streamed out of the school gates like birds released from a cage.
With his schoolbag on his back, Fang Shuwen walked down East Street toward the Zhao Estate.
"Extra! Extra!"
At a street corner, a newsboy in a gray cotton jacket waved his newspaper and shouted.
"A serial killer has appeared in Xikou County Town! Three murders in the western part of town, with the victims' bodies left in a horrific state! The Public Security Bureau is offering a bounty of one hundred silver dollars for the capture of the killer!"
"Have you heard? The dead men were Red Wolf Gang enforcers. I bet it wasn't any serial killer—it was a case of gangsters killing each other..."
"I heard one of them had his chest smashed in, and his body was just dumped in the river. The water's not clean anymore."
Fang Shuwen slowed to a stop, his ears pricking up.
A smashed-in chest, dumped in the river?
Could they have found the bodies of Li Tong and the others?
As he wondered, Fang Shuwen flagged down a newsboy and bought a newspaper.
His eyes immediately fell on the front-page headline.
Through a blurry photograph, he recognized the three bodies at once. They were Li Tong and the others.
Their chests were caved in, their deaths gruesome.
His expression unchanged, he folded the newspaper, dropped it into a roadside trash can, and continued on his way.
The Great Flame New Kingdom had been founded barely a decade ago, and the land was far from peaceful.
Warlords carved up the country, and foreign concessions sprang up everywhere.
Rebellions flared, while demons and ghosts wreaked havoc across the land.
The Public Security Bureau barely had enough officers to handle the cases in plain sight. They had no time to dig into the deaths of a few gangsters.
Besides,
Li Tong and the others had been involved in human trafficking. They deserved to die.
Those old hands at the Public Security Bureau would take one look at the scene and probably assume it was gangsters killing each other. If they found nothing, they'd shelve the case, and in a year or two it would become another cold case.
Fang Shuwen knew the routine inside and out.
He wasn't worried about being exposed.
He walked at an unhurried pace, turned into an alley, and disappeared into the dusk.
Meanwhile,
at the Folklore and Antiquities Investigation Division in the Xikou County government building,
"Chief, we found Wang Jiu's body. Someone smashed in his chest, and he's been dead for five days!" Officer Liang reported.
Lin Xiu sat behind his desk with a newspaper in his hands, his gaze fixed on the several blurry photos on the front page.
His fingers tapped lightly on the desk in an unhurried rhythm, like some kind of silent countdown.
"His chest was smashed in?"
Lin Xiu's voice was quiet, but Officer Liang's back tensed slightly.
"Yes. Wang Jiu's chest had caved in, and nearly all his ribs were broken. The coroner's preliminary finding is that a martial artist with Bright Force or higher struck him in the chest with a powerful blow."
Officer Liang paused, then added, "He died that very night. Wang Jiu had been following Fang Shuwen that evening."
The office fell silent for a moment.
Lin Xiu spread out the newspaper and examined the two photographs several times.
He'd personally taken a copy of the photo of Wang Jiu's body. The wound in his chest was clearly visible.
The three bodies in the newspaper were blurry,
but the location of the cave-in and the pattern of the broken bones were almost identical.
"Four bodies, all killed the same way. What a coincidence."
Lin Xiu murmured, set down the newspaper, removed his glasses, and wiped the lenses with a cloth.
"Chief, do you mean... the same person killed them?" Officer Liang lowered his voice even further.
Lin Xiu didn't answer directly. He put his glasses back on and tapped the photos of the three bodies in the newspaper.
"Wang Jiu was a Bright Force martial artist. Whoever killed him with one punch was at least at the mid-stage of Bright Force. Of the three men with Li Tong, the bald man and the bearded man were tough fighters who'd achieved Three-Sound Bone Crack. For one person to kill all of them at once—that takes considerable skill."
He paused, his gaze deepening.
"Look into Li Tong's connections. Find out where he came from, who he had a grudge against, and what he's been up to lately. Leave no stone unturned."
"Maybe we'll find the killer that way!"