Gou Yitian stepped through the shattered doorway, then froze as it hit him that he'd been way too showy, too eager, practically sticking his neck out. He scurried back a step and lifted his phone to light the way. "Brother Da Ri, watch your step. The ground's sticky here." His voice carried a shaky note he couldn't hide.
Brother Da Ri nodded slowly in the gloom. Maybe he was just overthinking, nerves wound too tight. Still, better safe than sorry. He slipped a compact pistol from inside his jacket, the cool metal steadying his breathing.
Then, with a sick twist of déjà vu, the same scene unfolded again.
"Brother Da Bi, where are you? Show yourself!"
"Dammit, what's all this wet stuff? Someone use a proper flashlight."
The men at the front had barely crossed the threshold, their boots squelching, when three giant weighted nets slammed down from above with heavy whoomphs. Half the rest, packed close behind, yelped as steel rings shot up from the floor, snapping shut around their ankles with sharp clacks. At the same instant, from the darkness to either side, Jing An, Jing Shu, and the automated repeating crossbows from the Cube Space went biu biu, bolts whipping through the air with soft, deadly whispers. The men, tangled and unprepared, burst into screams and curses that overlapped in raw panic.
Eight were caught directly under the nets and pinned. The seven at the door were locked in place by the steel rings. Compared to the last, larger wave, this was nothing. They were off guard, bunched together, and there were fewer of them.
"You bastard Da Bi, did you sell us out? Where's that woman? Did they buy you off with supplies?" Gou Yitian roared, his voice cracking with rage.
"Da Bi, let's talk this out! If you want the big brother's chair, I'll give it to you, just get us out of these traps first!" Brother Da Ri shouted as he tried to yank his foot free while aiming blindly into the dark.
In the dim glow of fallen phones, the survivors could only make out vague silhouettes of the men ahead who'd been turned into pincushions, their bodies feathered with bolts and lying motionless. Those trapped at the door felt something warm and sticky spreading under their hands. "Blood. The floor's covered in blood." The whisper shivered through the air like a curse.
In the deeper darkness beyond the phone lights, Jing Shu's enhanced vision caught the pistol in Brother Da Ri's hand as he raised it. Her eyes glittered, cold and sharp.
She sliced through the rope holding Brother Da Bi to the chicken coop post and gave him a hard kick toward the light. "Your job's done. You can go."
Jing An, hidden deeper in the shadows, hissed, "We can't let him go. He's one of them." Jing Shu pressed a finger to her lips. "Shh. Watch."
Brother Da Bi stumbled into the faint cone of phone light, pale and shaking. A twisted smile tugged at his mouth as something inside him snapped. "Dead. All dead. Every last one of them."
"What happened? Explain yourself!" Brother Da Ri demanded, his gun wavering between Brother Da Bi and the dark.
"They were all slaughtered. They're demons here. Too terrifying. That woman made me lure you here. Blame her, not me." Brother Da Bi's eyes were wide, his breath shallow.
He shuffled faster, voice cracking. "I'm going home. I'm done. Let him build his social order or whatever he wants. I'm out."
He skirted wide around the shackled men, then bolted for the darkness beyond the villa's wall.
He ran.
Bang.
One clean gunshot cracked through the night. Brother Da Ri had turned and, steady as a sniper, shot Brother Da Bi in the back of the head. Brother Da Bi's body locked mid stride, then pitched forward into the gravel, unmoving.
"So you really just did as you were told and dragged us into this?" Brother Da Ri spat. Then more bangs exploded beside him, deafening and bright. A white hot stab tore through his abdomen, then another hit his chest. He grunted as the force spun him and dropped him flat. His pistol clattered away across the tiles.
Jing Shu burst from the shadows, rolled low through the patch of light, and snatched the fallen gun in one smooth sweep. Straightening, she finally came into clear view for the first time, the woman Gou Yitian had ranted about. Her face was calm, her clothes dark and spattered, her eyes cold and calculating.
"Perfect. One more gun for the collection." She checked the weapon, then holstered it beside her own. A few stubborn survivors were fumbling with their phones, whispering frantically for help. Jing Shu didn't bother talking. She moved among them like a silent reaper and snapped their necks cleanly, one after another, each crack sharp and final.
Flat on his back, bleeding into the gravel, Brother Da Ri watched through blurry vision as Jing Shu dragged bodies from inside the villa and tossed them onto the growing pile. Only then did he understand why Brother Da Bi had called her a demon. She'd wiped out two waves of armed men with nothing but simple traps and raw brutality?
Pinned under one of the nets, Gou Yitian shook his head wildly. "Impossible. This is impossible. Dammit all." He knew he was finished. When she'd gone to his apartment earlier, she'd actually been merciful. This, this was her real face.
"Help! Someone, help!" he screamed, voice breaking.
Jing Shu approached him with a stack of paper she'd soaked in water. She zip tied his flailing hands, then waved the dripping sheets. "Do you know what this is?"
He shook his head, terrified.
"Ever heard of the Paper Mask?" Jing Shu's eyes hardened. This was the man whose petty spite had dragged dozens of robbers to their doorstep. If she'd killed him cleanly in his apartment, none of this would've happened. Wang Xuemei wouldn't have suffered. The regret sat cold in her chest.
Gou Yitian shook his head again, silently begging.
"You soak sheets or cloth and layer them over someone's nose and mouth. Each layer makes it harder to breathe. They say it's far more terrifying than snapping a neck. I'd planned to send you off quietly tonight anyway. Now works just as well."
Gou Yitian broke entirely, sobbing in pure, helpless terror.
A short distance away, Brother Da Ri swallowed with difficulty, pain wracking his body. His stomach was burning, his right lung filling with blood. He could barely breathe. "Just… make it quick." He closed his eyes, resigned. If he could choose, he'd take the broken neck. Too bad he wasn't getting that luxury.
Sirens suddenly wailed in the distance, growing louder. In minutes, three or four black patrol cars rolled up to the villa gate, lights flashing. More than thirty armed police poured out, forming tight lines with weapons raised.
Jing Shu quietly slipped both pistols into her Cube Space, then walked forward calmly as Minister Niu Mou hurried over, his face tight with worry.
Su Lanzhi emerged from inside, pale but composed.
"Director Su, Jing Shu, is your family safe? As soon as I got the call and connected the dots, I came right away. I hope I'm not too late. What are the casualties?" Minister Niu Mou asked, scanning the carnage.
"It's alright. We… we survived," Su Lanzhi said, shaking his hand.
Minister Niu Mou had prepared himself for disaster. He'd heard that dozens of knife wielding robbers from the growing Bi Ri gang had surrounded this villa. He'd expected to collect bodies. He'd even swallowed his pride and begged a friend in the armed police to send support.
He hadn't expected… this. "Hm?" He looked around more carefully. "It looks like… Jing Shu controlled the scene? That seems… wrong. And whose corpses are these?"
The armed police swept their lights over the pile of bodies and the two remaining survivors, Gou Yitian and Brother Da Ri.
Gou Yitian let out a hysterical sob of relief. "Help. I'm finally saved. Thank heaven. This woman's a demon. She killed dozens. She was going to kill me with wet paper. Arrest her. She's the murderer!"
"What's going on?" a sharp eyed officer beside Minister Niu Mou asked. "Weren't we coming to rescue a besieged family? Where are the victims? And where are the knife wielding robbers?"
"Allow me to introduce Major Yang Yang of the Armed Police Special Detachment," Minister Niu Mou said. "We wouldn't have been able to bring this many people without him."
Facing Major Yang Yang's steady gaze, the family hesitated, then looked at Jing Shu. She cleared her throat lightly and pointed at the pile. "These are the knife wielding robbers. That one under the net is Gou Yitian, the man who led the Bi Ri gang to try and take over our community. And this," she nudged Brother Da Ri, "is Brother Da Ri, one of their leaders."
"Bi Ri, is it?" Major Yang Yang's eyes brightened. "He's still alive?"
"Yes. Barely."
"Then we'll take this one." He signaled for medics, who loaded Brother Da Ri onto a stretcher. Major Yang Yang leaned close to him and murmured, "You know about that person, right? The one pulling strings behind the scenes."
"Who?" Brother Da Ri gritted his teeth. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Whether you know or not, listen closely." Major Yang Yang's voice dropped to a cold, almost conversational tone. "Cattle can be injected with dozens of jin of water to bloat them for market weight, and they do not die. If a person is injected with just 3 jin (roughly 1.5 kilograms) of water into the muscle, the pain makes them wish for death. If it is dozens of jin, say about 20 to 40 jin (10 to 20 kilograms) forced into the stomach… well, you can imagine the agony before the rupture." He paused, letting the image sink in. "So think carefully about what you know, and who you might want to tell it to, before you lose the chance to talk at all."