Chen Dadong had been involved in criminal activity for many years. He was a very cautious man who worked carefully, making sure to avoid any risk and had never done anything that could be considered a major crime. Yet he had suddenly earned the huge label of being a bank robber now. That sounded crazy.

In fact, the more he thought about it, the more aggrieved he felt and he kept sighing at the stacks of bills on the table. Fatty Sun loved money but he cherished himself more than money. He knew the consequences of getting arrested as a bank robber were terrible and was afraid of being implicated, so he took this chance to attempt a plan and said, “Or…why don’t we send this money back to the police station? If you explain what really happened to the police, I think they’d be reasonable enough to accept your explanation.”

Chen Dadong thought about it for two seconds, then shook his head and rejected the idea. “That’s too naïve of you! They’ve got camera footage and I’ve got the money. Not only would they not believe me, but they’d detain me and force me to tell them where the actual robber is. The police are already convinced that I’m an accomplice of that bank robber.”

Fatty Sun realized that this plan could implicate himself as well. If the police refused to listen to Chen Dadong’s explanation and insisted on arresting him wrongfully, then he might become the next wrongful target and would be arrested for robbing a bank. Fatty Sun instantly broke into a cold sweat and criticized his own plan, “I was too naïve! You’re right, we can’t just turn ourselves in like that.” He tried to think of something else and a plan struck him. He said, “Or…why don’t we just make a run for it? It’s too obvious if we run together, so let’s run separate ways.”

Actually, Fatty Sun wanted to say that they could split the money and make their getaway separately. But his hint wasn’t obvious enough and both his voice and his actions sounded too rash, so Chen Dadong didn’t understand what he was driving at. Instead, Chen Dadong looked at him seriously and said, “That’s ridiculous! I’m now a wanted criminal and the entire police force is combing the city for me! If I appear on the streets now, that’s as good as turning myself in!”

Turning themselves in was a bad idea and so was running away. Fatty Sun was out of ideas. “What should we do then? We can’t possibly just sit around and wait to be arrested, right?” Chen Dadong kept quiet as he shut his eyes and pondered deeply about how he could get out of this seemingly hopeless situation.

But time wasn’t on his side. While Chen Dadong was still awaiting some form of enlightenment, the sound of hurried footsteps came from downstairs and they were clearly headed to his unit. Chen Dadong remained calm and focused all his energy on finding a way out of this situation, so he didn’t seem bothered by what was happening outside at all. On the contrary, Fatty Sun didn’t have the same sort of focus. He immediately squatted next to the window and peeked outside.

It would have been better if he hadn’t done that. He saw seven or eight police cars parked along the road while a few dozen fully armed SWAT team officers streamed into the block.

Fatty Sun gasped in horror and turned around to exclaim, “Brother Dong, bad news!”

Chen Dadong didn’t know how many police officers were headed their way, so as the leader of this small gang of misfits, he found it appropriate to chide his junior, “What are you panicking about? If you want to succeed in life, you must not be alarmed or become frantic in the face of danger. How can I allow you to follow me around if you can’t even control your emotions?”

“But…”

Chen Dadong raised his hand to cut Fatty Sun off. “No buts. Back in the day, Zhuge Liang played a zither calmly and made tens of thousands of troops retreat*. If a leader is able to remain calm even in such a situation, we’ll be able to get through every crisis!”

Immediately after he finished saying that, someone kicked the door open from outside with a loud bang. Several SWAT team officers with machine guns swarmed into the house.

Chen Dadong was stunned by this and was dismayed that unlike Zhuge Liang, he didn’t get a chance to put up an act before the police barged into his home. So, he had to do the next best thing by grabbing the fruit knife on the table. He didn’t dare to take a SWAT team officer hostage since they were armed, so he turned to rest the blade against Fatty Sun’s neck and effectively forced his subordinate to become a hostage so that he might get a chance to escape. Not many would have taken this little time to turn on a partner in crime like that.

The SWAT team officers immediately mistook Fatty Sun as an actual hostage and tried to aim their guns at Chen Dadong. Unfortunately, Fatty Sun’s face was too large and it was too hard to aim accurately at Chen Dadong, so none of them dared to open fire and waited for their leader to give instructions.

Inspector Ji, the detective in charge of this case, had arrived at this unit because he had received tipoffs from members of the public. He knew that the robbers had guns and were extremely aggressive, so he dared not enter the house first and got the SWAT team to barge in first. After that, the SWAT team informed him that the robber was armed with a knife and refused to surrender. Inspector Ji wasn’t just a cautious man who considered every possible scenario before acting – he was also someone who grew up watching martial arts TV dramas. After watching what the Little Li Flying Dagger* could do, he dared not underestimate a man with a knife. A while later, the SWAT team informed him that the robber was holding another man hostage, so they needed him to tell them what to do next.

He started to analyze this situation. Since the robber had a hostage, the robber wouldn’t be able to hurt him. Once he felt more assured, he put on a stern and righteous expression and marched into the house.

“There is hope for the wayward who learns to repent,” declared Inspector Ji as he quoted from Buddhist scriptures in hope of enlightening the man inside.

Chen Dadong felt aggrieved by this accusation and quickly defended himself, “I didn’t rob a bank! Please, let me explain!”

Inspector Ji tried to negotiate with him, “Let go of the hostage and we can talk!”

Chen Dadong wasn’t falling for this. “If I let go of my hostage, you’re definitely not going to listen to my explanation!”

Inspector Ji declared sincerely, “As the saying goes, the word of a gentleman is as good as his bond. Let go of the hostage and I’ll definitely listen to your explanation.”

Chen Dadong considered these words for a moment, then decided that he wasn’t going to cooperate. “Sir, it’s not that I don’t trust you. But this case is really much more complicated than it seems, so there are many misunderstandings and it’s really hard to tell which part is true and which part is false.”

Inspector Ji lost his temper when he saw how stubborn Chen Dadong was in refusing to let go of his hostage. Inspector Ji’s expression grew stern as he said, “The cameras have captured everything and the cash you took is here. What else is there for you to explain?”

Chen Dadong was afraid that if he explained too slowly, the police would try to rescue the hostage by force, so he tried to summarize everything, “I’m actually a thief who unfortunately stole the money that the robber took from the bank. That’s why all of you thought I’m an accomplice in the robbery.”

Inspector Ji scoffed. “You make it sound like you’re really not involved. Then how do you explain this hostage you have here?”

Chen Dadong immediately came clean, “Him? He’s with me! If you don’t believe me, you can come here and smell the alcohol on him. Which robber would share drinks with his hostage?”

Inspector Ji leaned in to try and smell them, but he couldn’t really tell if the smell was coming from the robber or the hostage. He had noticed two glasses on the table, but the robber might have used that to mislead him, so he didn’t want to jump to any conclusions.

Chen Dadong noticed that Inspector Ji hadn’t said anything, so he added, “Our little group actually has three members. The guy that the robber knocked down is also one of us. He was pretending to get knocked down in order to distract the driver and that’s how we managed to steal the bag of money from the robber. That’s all that happened.”

Inspector Ji was still doubtful. “In that case…”

Chen Dadong quickly tried to make all of this sound better. “We’re not robbers and we even used our intelligence and bravery to steal the money that the robber took from the bank, so that would help the bank to recover all the stolen cash!”

Inspector Ji was still hesitant. “In that case…”

Chen Dadong summed everything up, “Not only are we NOT guilty, but we’ve also even been of HELP.”

Inspector Ji said, “Everything you said makes sense, but that’s only what YOU say. If you really want to clear your name, you’ve got to tell us where the actual robber is right now.”

Chen Dadong replied, “That’s not difficult. My subordinate is being held hostage by the robber. Don’t the police have equipment that can trace a phone signal and track down a person’s phone? I just need to give him a call and you’d know where the robber is, right?”

Inspector Ji clapped and cheered. “What a great plan! What a great plan!” He turned to tell another police officer to get the GPS tracking equipment over, then said to Chen Dadong, “Why are you still holding onto that knife? Hurry up and make that call!”

Chen Dadong was surprised that the police inspector was taking up his suggestion so quickly. He blinked a few times, then asked suspiciously, “You really believe me?”

Inspector Ji nodded very earnestly. “From the first time I saw you, my instinct told me that even though you’ve been involved in criminal activity, you’ve got a conscience and you’d never commit a major crime like robbing a bank. Besides, your explanation does make sense, so I should give you a chance to clear your own name!”

Chen Dadong was so touched that he had found someone who understood his mentality. Tears weren’t rolling down his cheeks, but his voice did crack up. “Are you…are you just saying this to trick me into putting my weapon down?”

Inspector Ji was a little stunned, but he quickly sighed heavily. “A gentleman is honest and open, but a lowlife is nitpicky and suspicious. My heart is like the bright moon hanging in the sky, but unfortunately, the moonlight has fallen on a covered drain.” He shook his head, folded his hands behind him and turned to leave.

Chen Dadong knew that it would be impossible for him to clear his name if he let this man leave, so he quickly called after Inspector Ji, “Fine! I’ll take you as a gentleman and trust you this time!” Then he dropped the knife in his hand with a loud clang.

To his surprise, the moment Chen Dadong dropped his weapon, Inspector Ji yelled, “What are you waiting for? Get him!”

Chen Dadong turned as white as a sheet and realized he had been fooled. He bent down to pick up his weapon again but was pressed against the ground by several SWAT team officers before he could do that.

“You…you’re no gentleman!!” shouted Chen Dadong furiously.

“Nope! I’m a policeman!” replied Inspector Ji gleefully.

After Chen Dadong had been taken away, Inspector Ji was still feeling proud of himself and turned to ask the SWAT team, “What do you think makes me different from ordinary cops?”

The SWAT team knew he was getting ready to blow his own trumpet again, so they quickly buttered him up, “You’re an inspector, the rest of us are just police officers.”

“That’s just what you see on the outside. You’ve got to look past the surface and look deeper.”

The SWAT team didn’t know what answer he wanted and shook their heads. But he wasn’t bothered by their ignorance and decided to enlighten them himself, “The difference between myself and ordinary cops is that…I’m extraordinary!”

He glanced at the crowd around him, then continued with praising himself, “Most police officers don’t like to use their brains too much when it comes to cracking cases. When they see a robber holding someone else hostage, they would first try to talk the robber out of it, and if that failed, they would try to rescue the hostage by force. But not me. I am more concerned with being able to connect with the robber.”

Next, he applied his theories to the current case, “Let’s talk about this case here. In a desperate attempt to save himself, the robber not only took someone hostage, but he also spun a story to separate himself from the crimes. If I insisted on standing on the side of the police and argued with the robber about the right thing to do, it would endanger the hostage. So, I pretended to believe the robber, earned his trust, then proceeded with the arrest after he put his weapon down.”

The SWAT team immediately looked like they had been enlightened and thanked Inspector Ji for teaching them such a valuable lesson.

But one of them didn’t realize that he was supposed to react that way and asked, “But what if everything that the robber said earlier turns out to be true? Why don’t we use his phone to call that subordinate of his and check?”

Upon hearing these words of doubt, Inspector Ji’s expression fell and he was about to start reprimanding this officer when Chen Dadong’s phone suddenly started ringing. The SWAT team officers were stunned for two seconds before they passed the phone to Inspector Ji. The caller’s name was saved in the phone as Liu Ergou Haiyuan. Liu was probably his surname, Ergou was probably his nickname and Haiyuan was probably his actual first name.

Inspector Ji hesitated for a moment, then pressed the button to answer the call. A man’s angry voice was heard yelling into the phone, “You little bastard! Are you tired of living?! How dare you steal the money I robbed from the bank?! This Liu Haiyuan has admitted to everything! You’d better send the money over to me right now, or else I’m going to kill your entire family!”

TL notes:

*Little Li Flying Dagger: Based on a series written by Gu Long, where the weapon of choice for the main characters is the Little Li Flying Dagger, a knife that is flung very suddenly, quickly but extremely accurately.

*Zhuge Liang playing a zither: He’s basically describing a military strategy where the calmness/confidence of the attacked can trick your attacker into thinking that you’ve got a plan/trick/trap up your sleeve, or in this case, perfectly innocent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empty_Fort_Strategy#Zhuge_Liang