Chapter 8 (1/2)

Cover Up With Just a Hand

A police car approached just as Xia Lei walked out the doors of the hospital.

At the sight of the police, Xia Lei’s heart sank a little but he quickly pushed away his doubt. “Even if Li Qing-Hua wanted revenge, surely it wouldn’t be so quick? This should be a patrol car.”

The car zoomed over, barely missing Xia Lei, and stopped in front of the hospital doors.

“It wasn’t Li Qing-Hua after all,” thought Xia Lei. He walked to the road.

A that moment, the police car suddenly turned around, engine revving and a police officer poked his head out the window. “Stop!” he shouted.

Xia Lei stopped walking and his heart gave a quiet cry of despair.

“It’s him!” The police officer with his head out the window looked at the paper with a printed image in his hand and looked excited. “Xia Lei! He’s the one the Chief is after!”

Gravel crunched as the car stopped next to Xia Lei. The doors opened and four police officers alighted, immediately surrounding Xia Lei.

Xia Lei was calm and spoke coolly, “What is it?”

“Are you Xia Lei?” asked the officer in charge.

Xia Lei nodded. “I am. What business do you have with me?”

“Business?” The officer in charge flashed a warrant and smiled coldly. “Xia Lei, you are suspected for extortion. This is a warrant for your arrest. Come with us!”

“You’re mistaken! Who did I extort?” said Xia Lei.

The officer in charge slapped Xia Lei in the back of his head and spoke fiercely, “You know very well who you extorted! Pshaw, you have the balls to try and mess with our Chief. Wash your ass and wait to be sent to prison – you’ll have rough days ahead of you! Take him away!”

Xia Lei was mad and he scoffed, “Arrest me? Tell him this – You better not regret it!”

“This guy’s still talking back! Cuff him!” said the officer in charge.

A police officer did as he said and cuffed Xia Lei, then pushed him into the police car. Xia Lei did not resist and got in.

Half an hour later, Xia Lei was brought to the North Police Station and locked up in an interrogation room. His mobile phone, wallet and other possessions were confiscated.

A young police officer entered the room, slammed the notebook in his hand on the table, then sat opposite Xia Lei. “Own up. Save us the trouble.”

Xia Lei was not nervous at all. He spoke calmly, “Own up to what?”

“You know very well what you did! Own up to extorting money from our Chief!” The young police officer hit the table aggressively, “You’d better come clean!”

“Sure, I’ll own up,” said Xia Lei, “that today, I met Li Qing-Hua – Chief Li – at Ju Shan Garden Teahouse. He was with a woman, and he brought her to a hotel and got a room…”

“Nonsense!” The young police officer cut Xia Lei off. “Keep talking nonsense and I’ll start being nasty! Let me remind you that what you’re doing is framing someone and this is illegal. Do you want to add to your offence?”

Xia Lei shrugged. “Didn’t you want me to talk? What I said was the truth.”

The young police officer turned his head to look at the window, then pointed at the camera in the corner. He did not speak but his intent was clear – he was telling the people outside to switch the cameras off.

The indicator light of the camera went out.

This young police officer was obviously one of Li Qing-Hua’s men. Xia Lei looked at the nametag on his chest – Hu Bin.

Xia Lei then looked at a glass wall of the interrogation room. It was easy to tell that people from outside could see into the room but people in the room could not see outside. This was no obstacle to Xia Lei, however and when he used his ability, he saw Li Qing-Hua and Chen Chuan-Hu standing next to him.

Li Qing-Hua and Chen Chuan-Hu were talking in hushed tones. Chen Chuan-Hu kept nodding like an obedient servant. It was easy to see that Li Qing-Hua was telling Chen Chuan-Hu how to frame Xia Lei and Ma Xiao-An.

Xia Lei stopped using his X-ray vision and a trace of a smirk appeared around his lips.

He had intended to just let the matter rest but Li Qing-Hua was unexpectedly thirsty for revenge and sent his men to arrest him that same night. He quietly congratulated himself for uploading the video to his Baidu Cloud Drive in the hotel room. With that video in his hands he was calm and unafraid.

“I’ll let you be arrogant for a bit,” thought Xia Lei.

The police officer named Hu Bin spoke, “Let’s begin. Tell me, how much of the 50,000 you extorted did you receive?”

“Let me correct you on that. That was not extortion. It was medical fees, loss of income, nutrition fees, mental health and other expenses, all added up. I did not take a cent. My friend was beaten up by Chen Chuan-Hu. Shouldn’t Chen Chuan-Hu pay for it?” said Xia Lei.

“Medical fees?” Hu Bin scoffed. “Save that for the courts. If the judge believes you I’ll write my own name ‘Hu’ backwards. The situation we have now is that you extorted money from Chen Chuan-Hu. Ah, that’s right. Your eye’s fine but you used your eye as an excuse to cheat Chen Chuan-Hu out of 10,000. Do you confess?”

Xia Lei yawned. “I’m tired and sleepy. Write it however you want. You won’t believe what I say anyway. You’ll just follow what your Chief Li told you to do and write my statement yourself. So, why are we wasting our time on this?”

“Huh. You’re a cocky little bastard, aren’t ya? So you confess to extortion?”