Inspector Ji pried the blinds open and looked out onto the street. He was looking down at exactly where the kidnappers had agreed to conduct the next transaction.

My informant had switched trades from being a pickpocket to being a kidnapper without telling me, got silenced by one of his accomplices, while I as the operations chief both failed to prevent this from happening and also allowed the killer to escape completely unnoticed. We didn’t know the gender, the features, the height or the age of the killer. Nothing.

And because of these factors, the commissioner flew into a rage. He gave instructions for me to be punished after this case, then demoted me to become the assistant chief instead. Thanks to my misfortune, Inspector Ji got promoted to become the operations chief. It was a happy thing for him, but he was afraid that he might end up just like me if he still couldn’t crack this case. So, he tugged at me and asked, “Yu, do you have a foolproof plan this time?”

I said, “If you don’t want raise the alarm, then we’ve got to focus on letting the kidnapper escape.”

He was confused. “But if he escapes, how are we going to crack the case?”

I said, “There’s a limit to how closely we can surround the kidnapper. We might as well place a GPS tracker inside the bag of ransom money.”

Inspector Ji immediately clapped his hands and complimented my plan.

I added, “But you must make sure that this GPS tracker is very well hidden. If the kidnapper has the slightest suspicion that he’s being tracked, you know what will happen.”

Inspector Ji quickly nodded vigorously.

I went on, “This is a very serious matter and I’m not sure if someone else would do a good job, so I’ll take charge of installing that tracker.”

Inspector Ji beamed from ear to ear when he heard that I was going to install the tracker personally and sent out instructions according to my plan.

Right now, we could see through the gap in the blinds that the kidnapper had already handed the hostage over and was carrying the bag of ransom money with the tracker installed, prepared to make his getaway.

Inspector Ji hid in the shadows and was rather surprised that this exchange went so smoothly. He waited until Wang Jianguo and his son were safely in the care of the police before giving the order to nab the kidnapper.

“Now!” Inspector Ji gave the command through the walkie talkie. The police officers were fully armed and waiting for the green light, so once they heard the command, they dashed out from their hiding place.

All of a sudden, dozens of officers rushed onto the street from all directions, encircling the kidnapper quickly.

Inspector Ji saw that the officer had safely surrounded the kidnapper and slowly pulled up the blinds, then shouted to the kidnapper like that ancient battle in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms where Cao Meng shouted from the top of the hill to get Zhao Zilong to surrender, “You have been surrounded! Surrender now!”

Normally when the police said this, the criminal would either put up a fight or raise his hands in surrender. But this kidnapper was a really weird one – he was clearly in trouble but he didn’t seem the least panicky. Instead, he started to undo his jacket.

Inspector Ji was getting confused, but the wheels in my brain moved quickly and I suddenly remembered something else. “Order the snipers to shoot him!”

After the kidnapper got shot the last time, I remembered to arrange for two snipers to be on standby.

“What did you say?” As Inspector Ji tried his best to understand what on earth was happening downstairs, the kidnapper had removed his jacket and revealed that weapon tied around himself!

Inspector Ji had watched the movie, Dong Cunrui, as well, so he recognized those explosives immediately. The shape of the bag alone was enough for him to be certain that those were explosives, but there was also an inscription on the bag in black sharpie: These are explosives!

The kidnapper was really immersing himself in this character. He tightened the bag around his chest as if he were Zhao Zilong carrying his commander-in-chief’s son to safety and shouted at the police officers around him, “I’ll see who dares to block my way now!”

The police officers immediately retreated when they saw the explosives, while I got very anxious and kept hurrying Inspector Ji to order the snipers to shoot. But just then, Inspector Ji suddenly said, “No! We can’t shoot!”

I stared at him. “Why not?”

Inspector Ji had seen too many movies about kidnapping cases and began to draw links to them. He pointed a shaky finger at the kidnapper and said, “Look! There are two wires taped to the kidnapper’s fingers! Those wires are probably detecting his pulse!”

I used the binoculars to take a closer look and saw that Inspector Ji was right.

He went on, “If the snipers shoot the kidnapper dead and the two wires are unable to sense any pulse rate, the bomb will go off immediately!” He spoke into the walkie talkie again to command all the officers not to shoot.

The kidnapper became even more complacent when he saw that the police really didn’t dare to move any closer to himself. He tilted his head upwards and laughed maniacally. “If you don’t want to die, move aside!!”

Actually, all the officers had been stealthily trying to increase the distance between themselves and the kidnapper. But once the kidnapper challenged them, the officers felt embarrassed to look like they were scared of him, so they stopped moving away and stood where they were despite their fears.

Inspector Ji took note of his officers’ reactions and was afraid that one of them might snap and shoot the kidnapper in a frenzy, so he gave the order, “Let the kidnapper go. There’s a GPS tracker in the money bag so he can’t get away.”

What an unlucky man Inspector Ji was. The moment he finished giving those instructions, a loud boom could be heard from downstairs. A sudden increase in the air pressure made the windows rattle violently.

Inspector Ji and I went, “Crap!” at the same time as we looked out of the window. The kidnapper was blown to bits and the leather bag containing the cash was in pieces, while the cash itself had gone up in smoke. Thankfully, the police hadn’t gotten too close to the kidnapper once he revealed that he had explosives on his body, so the kidnapper was blasted to smithereens even before he could finish yelling ‘move aside’ to the officers, while the officers were completely unhurt.

Inspector Ji lost his temper and yelled angrily into the walkie talkie, “Who fired that shot?!”

All the officers were too frightened to say anything.

Inspector Ji got even angrier now. “You mean someone else has silenced this kidnapper again?”

The officers quickly tried to explain, “But we didn’t hear any gunshots.”

“That’s really strange. Why did the bomb on the kidnapper go off then?”

He couldn’t figure it out, so he asked me what I thought.

I couldn’t be sure either, so I made a guess, “Making a bomb is a fairly complicated process and even professionals can’t be 100% sure of making one failsafe. Furthermore, given these kidnappers’ background, they probably have no expertise in such things.”

“So, you’re saying that the kidnapper accidentally set the bomb off himself?”

I nodded and said very quietly, “Or you can count it as a suicide out of guilt. That would the best explanation for you, for me and for the commissioner.”

Inspector Ji insisted, “I’m sure that was no suicide!”

I said, “Whether it was a mistake on the kidnapper’s part or it was a suicide, the result is the same. The kidnapper’s dead, the hostage is safe and we can close the case.”

Inspector Ji remained silent.

I went on, “The bomb went off by accident, resulting in the death of the kidnapper. This wasn’t something that anybody could prevent, so you don’t have to blame yourself for it.”

“I’m not blaming myself for what happened!”

“Oh?” I glanced up at him. “What do you mean?”

“You think the case is solved, don’t you?”

“You mean it’s not?”

“Of course not. There’s one more kidnapper we haven’t caught!”

I got a shock and asked, “How do you know that?”

He glanced at me, then glanced out of the window as he emphasized every word he said, “Based on my instinct!”

When he said these words, he looked so serious, he almost looked like the embodiment of justice!