Crimson Instinct

*Bai Li*

I sensed the anxiety in Xin Lei's voice. I said, "We don't have the time to fix that. We have to rely on papers or notes or scribblings to tell us which case he was working on recently. This blind man cannot be of much help in looking for it, so you have to search thoroughly without leaving anything. Talk to me through everything."

I rubbed Cocoa's head and said, "Go."

Xin Lei messaged, "Got it."

I sensed Cocoa and Xin Lei looking through the room with the sound of rustling and shuffling of papers.

Meanwhile, I walked around, feeling the walls and objects and mapped the office room in my head.

"This case is dated three years back, and this one is five, …and this one is eight months."

"Look for a more recent one, about a month should be enough."

"Arf!" Cocoa barked.

He nudged my leg, guiding me towards the corner. I stopped as he stopped. I heard Xin Lei's footsteps behind me.

I heard the robotic voice. "This is the trash can, and Cocoa has toppled it."

"There must be something in it."

"Arf!"

Xin Lei said, "Wait, Cocoa is pointing at something."

I heard her shuffling the papers and then the sound of her typing.

"I found it. This is a button, perhaps broken from Dad's shirt. Doesn't it seem..."

Strange. And in a case, when something seems or sounds strange, there is always a hint hidden in it. One understands a lot of things when you serve fourteen years in the army.

I said, "If it's accidentally broken, then people keep it to sew it back, or if it's broken during a fight, then it should be lying on the floor. Nobody will bother to throw it in the trash can. Search the trash."

I heard her. "I thought so too. Dad knew I would come looking for clues."

Her father amused me just like her brother.

"Right. Xin Nianzu understood that those people ransacking his office wouldn't pay attention to the trash. Because it's precisely trash, so he threw something in here and his button to point at it. Your brother and father are really interesting."

"I know." I could picture the pride and the smile on her face even if the voice was robotic.

I wondered what Xin Lei looked like.

After a minute of searching, there was silence and then the voice saying, "This is it! It's a small note. The date is April 25, almost three weeks back and two names. Fu Ting, arrested for kidnapping his eight-year-old daughter, Fu Meili."

"I have heard about it before in a coffee shop. I-" But then I stopped.

"Grrrr…" Cocoa let out a quiet growl.

I heard a creak on the floor. It was faint.

"We have company."

Then I heard a click.

"Cocoa, hide."

I sensed him immediately jump into hiding.

"So, there you are." I heard a man say. Xin Lei stood at my side. I felt it.

Then I heard another voice. "So, you are the man who beat up Chang and his weaklings."

It wasn't a pleasant voice to hear, which kind of ruined my mood.

I said, "Pretty much."

"But we aren't that easy to deal with." I heard the one who stood on my left side.

"Which means that it may be a tad difficult for a normal guy but definitely not impossible for me."

I heard the man on the right taking a sharp breath, which told me that I successfully provoked him, which also said to me that he was impulsive and impulsive goons were easy to deal with because they were dumb.

"How is your buddy, by the way? I hope he is not too scared." I incited further.

"He was a loser." The right-hand man said, apparently trying to prove that they are not.

"You are going to be the same in a few seconds time unless, of course, you take the smart decision to back off. Nobody gets hurt."

With their voices, I figured that the lefty was probably twenty degrees off to my left, and the righty was close to thirty. I know what I had to do.

Beat them up before they take out their guns.

The lefty said, "Quite confident-"

But I didn't let him complete it.

"Cocoa." And with that said, I abruptly took a big step towards the lefty and punched my fist straight at his jaw. That must have broken a few teeth in his lower jaw.

It was an element of surprise. He was supposed to think that we were still talking while I already delivered my hit. I heard Cocoa pounce on the righty as he painfully groaned.

"Ahhhh!! Get him off me!" Cocoa must be biting him off to death.

The lefty tumbled as I heard him trip, but then I felt a gust of wind. It was a punch back at my face. I grabbed his hand, pulled him forward and downwards, and with my right elbow crushed his neck, severing the spinal cord connection.

Then it was silence.

I heard a mechanical voice. "They are dead, right?"

"At least mine is definitely dead."

She said, "The other one is dead too. Cocoa was clawing out his throat."

"Good job, Cocoa."

"Arf!"

I bent down and ruffled his neck.

"I thought I could help, but you two didn't give me a chance. I know Karate a little."

"A little?"

"...I was never interested in fighting or defense lessons…"

I could feel her embarrassment and chuckled.

Then I covered my hands with my handkerchief, felt the pockets of the lefty and found his wallet and gun. I took the gun for myself and grabbed the money bills.

Guns were always useful, and so was money.

"Search the righty's wallet too. Take the cash and his gun too. Remember, no fingerprints."

"We are stealing?"

I said, "How else are we going to get the money for food, clothes and hotel rooms? Spoils of war. We don't exactly have the time to do a part-time job and also solve the case, Xin Lei. Not like this is some honest money either."

"What about the police?"

"Do you think the police have the time to serve justice for some pathetic goons who are running some shady and illegal business? They might even award us for lessening their job."

"You are really positive, aren't you?"

"Life is too short to be negative."

---

Somewhere in Langfang outside Beijing city, a cleaner was cleaning an alley.

"It smells so shit! Is there a dead mouse somewhere?"

He lifted a big garbage bag, and a hand came out.

"Ah!!! A dead body!!!"