In all my years in the police force, I had never seen anything messier than this. From the minute Wang Jianguo yelled for help at the top of his lungs, none of the police officers on the ground cared about waiting for orders and just ran after the kidnapper immediately. Inspector Ji picked up the walkie talkie and was about to yell at them to stop when I pulled him back.

He was surprised at first, but he soon realized what I was doing. He blurted out, “That’s right. If we catch him, we’ll raise the alarm. If we don’t catch him, we might never get another chance. Neither is ideal, but now that the police officers have gone ahead without waiting for orders, it’s not our responsibility anymore.”

While that was true, he really didn’t have to spell it out like that. I coughed a few times and tried to make it sound better, “It’s not that we’re afraid of taking on any responsibility. We’re the commanders for this operation, but we can’t see the situation as well as the police officers on the ground. The situation can suddenly change for the worse at any time, so it’s also natural for the police officers to move on their own without waiting for orders.”

Inspector Ji nodded in agreement. “Yu, what should we do now?”

I said, “The whole situation is already a mess, and as their superiors, I think it’s only right of us to lead them, don’t you think?”

Both of us quickly ran downstairs.

I was afraid that the police might decide to shoot in order to save Wang Jianguo. But if the kidnapper died, then the hostage was likely to die too. So I told Inspector Ji to run to the front quickly and keep the situation under control.

Once Inspector Ji got the order, he put his long legs to good use and started running at top speed. He had only made it about ten steps forward when we heard the loud bang of a gunshot. The crisp sound echoed down the entire street, causing everyone to fall silent instantly. Every police officer looked like someone had pressed the pause button on their bodies and they stood where they were in shock.

Inspector Ji snapped out of it first and yelled angrily, “Who fired that shot?!”

All the heroism that the police officers had earlier when they charged onto the streets had dissipated and none of them said anything. I asked worriedly, “Is the kidnapper dead?”

Inspector Ji replied, “I don’t think so.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “As long as the kidnapper’s not dead, we’ve got a chance!” But just as I said that, I heard Inspector Ji exclaim, “The kidnapper’s not dead, but I think Wang Jianguo is!”

My brain almost exploded. What on earth?! The bullet hit the poor guy paying the ransom instead of the kidnapper?! I ran to the front as quickly as I could to see that Wang Jianguo was lying on the ground.

Inspector Ji knew the gravity of the situation, so he consoled me while consoling himself, “He’s lying on the ground and not moving, but maybe he’s not dead yet!”

Injuring the innocent was the biggest taboo in the police force. I was probably going to get fired at this rate. Frustration and anger grew in my heart as I roared at all the police officers, “Why are all of you just standing there? Hurry up and arrest the kidnapper!”

The police officers snapped out of their shock and immediately hoped to use their actions to make up for their lack of response earlier as they surrounded the kidnapper.

At that exact moment, the large body of the kidnapper started swaying left and right, then fell with a loud thump onto the ground, causing a cloud of dust to rise from the street.

The police officers got a shock. They moved backwards immediately and waited vigilantly, in case something untoward happened. But the kidnapper didn’t get up even after some time had passed. A sharp-eyed officer suddenly called out, “Look! Blood is pooling beneath his body!”

Everyone took a closer look and saw that a pool of blood was indeed forming at the bottom. The kidnapper had been shot in the front and he was already dead, but because his plump and short body had a low center of gravity, his body stayed upright for some time. But now, the body couldn’t take the weight anymore and fell to the ground, causing blood to spill all over the street.

The police were really shocked. Did someone have the incredible skill of killing two men with one bullet?

Inspector Ji wanted to be sure, so he went over to check if the kidnapper was still breathing. After he confirmed that the kidnapper was dead, he went to check Wang Jianguo’s breathing and exclaimed with joy, “Mr. Wang is still alive!”

The police were even more flabbergasted.

Inspector Ji said, “His breathing is steady, so his life is not in any danger!”

The police didn’t know what to say at all. Killing two men with one bullet was an incredible feat, but killing one while injuring the other was an even more incredible feat. It was as if the King of Shooting was among them! The police officers started murmuring among themselves, wondering which one of their colleagues could possibly be secretly at that sort of level.

I walked over to check Wang Jianguo’s body but couldn’t find any bullet wound at all.

Inspector Ji asked, “There are no bullet wounds on Mr. Wang? Then why did he fall to the ground?”

I pondered the possibilities, then said calmly, “I think he was too shocked and fainted.”

The police officers were surprised at first, but then again, if Wang Jianguo had been shot, he ought to have fallen backwards from the impact of the bullet. But since Wang Jianguo had fallen face first and didn’t have any bullet wounds on his body, he had most likely just fainted in fright.

The even more incredible thing was that not a single police officer admitted to shooting the kidnapper dead. But that wasn’t an issue. The guns and bullets issued to every officer was recorded in our database, so we just needed to check who was missing a bullet.

Inspector Ji and I set an example and checked each other’s guns, then started checking all the officers’ guns one by one.

At the end of the whole exercise, we seemed even further from the truth now. Every single officer’s gun was still filled with the maximum number of bullets it could hold, which meant that it was true that none of them had fired that shot!

If nobody had fired that shot, then where did that bullet come from? Inspector Ji had a puzzled expression on his face and I was at a loss for words as well.

One of the officers had seen Batman too many times and suggested, “Could there be some superhero out there secretly helping the police to fight crime?”

Inspector Ji couldn’t think of a better explanation and was about to just conclude the case by saying it was the will of the heavens to strike an evil man dead when a thought hit me. “I know! The one who fired that shot was one of the kidnapper’s accomplices!”

Inspector Ji was even more confused. “An accomplice? Why would he fire at one of his own?”

“To silence him!”

Inspector Ji felt that this was plausible. “But if the accomplice wanted to silence the people involved, why didn’t he kill Wang Jianguo as well?”

“If he kills Wang Jianguo, who is going to pay the ransom?”

“You mean…the kidnapper is going to extort the family for money again and the hostage isn’t going to get killed?”

I nodded. My expression was grim as I looked into the distance and didn’t say any more.