Watching Xia Yu sitting on the bench with an unlit cigarette in her mouth, Pei Yan plopped down beside her, pulled out a lighter, and lit her cigarette, asking softly, "What's going on?"
Xia Yu took a drag on her cigarette, exhaled a long plume of smoke, and after a while, began explaining the events of the day.
From her words, Pei Yan and the others learned the whole story. As it turns out, there have been a series of vicious murders in the center and surrounding counties of a city in the Northwest Region of the country, causing local panic and growing discontent toward the police's incompetence, with various negative public opinions rampant.
