Chapter 6: Provocation
When the police showed up, the crowd around them immediately focused on the scene, whispering among themselves about whether Yang Chen was in for trouble.
"Mm... yes, it's me." Yang Chen looked up in confusion, not understanding why the police were looking for him. Could it be that the authorities back home had found him?
No, if that were the case, they would have sent in a classified special forces unit and launched a night raid. It made no sense for it to be just three ordinary cops.
The officer flashed his credentials and said with a faint, icy air, "I’m Feng Biao, captain of the West District Police Station. Someone has reported that you’re suspected of brawling and homicide. You’re coming back to the station with us right now to assist in the investigation!"
So that was it... Yang Chen suddenly understood. It looked like Chen Feng, the guy he had beaten off earlier, had cooked up some dirty scheme. The underworld had actually gone so far as to use the police to do its dirty work!
Old Li nearby panicked and hurried forward to explain. "Officer, you’ve got the wrong man! It was Chen Feng and a few thugs who came around shaking people down for protection money. Yang Chen was only acting in self-defense just now!"
"Hmph, whether we’ve got the wrong man or not, we’ll investigate that ourselves! I only saw the son of Boss Chen getting beaten until he was coughing up blood. I didn’t see this guy suffer any real injury at all!" After saying that, Feng Biao ignored Old Li and waved for the two officers to move in and cuff Yang Chen.
Yang Chen didn’t resist. After the handcuffs were on, he only let out a soft sigh and said to Old Li, "Don’t worry. I haven’t done anything to feel guilty about, so it’s fine. Help me keep an eye on my lamb skewer stall. If it gets late and I haven’t come back, push it home for me."
"Cut the nonsense. Move!" Feng Biao barked.
Old Li wanted to say more, but he also knew there was nothing he could do. All he could do was watch helplessly as Yang Chen was taken away by the police and put into the car.
After Feng Biao and the others left with Yang Chen, the nearby citizens and street vendors finally started cursing out loud, talking about how the police and the gang boss were "in cahoots" and how "the officials and the criminals were all the same." But of course, none of them dared say any of that in front of the police.
******
Yang Chen was taken all the way to the police station and immediately dragged into the interrogation room.
Inside the severely solemn room, Yang Chen looked around with some curiosity. To be honest, he had been to police stations plenty of times before, but this was the first time he had entered one as a suspect.
After Feng Biao called in two burly officers, he sneered a few times. "You look awfully relaxed, still got time to look around this room. Come back later and let’s see whether you’ll still be in the mood." With that, he slammed the iron door shut and walked out.
Yang Chen didn’t take it seriously. He sat down calmly and looked at the two officers across from him. They were staring at him like predators eyeing prey.
One of them, a bearded cop, began the questioning. "Name?"
"Yang Chen."
"Sex."
"Male..." Yang Chen answered cooperatively, smiling.
"Age?"
"Twenty-four."
"Place of origin?"
"Zhonghai."
...
After a long string of simple and irritating questions, Yang Chen still answered with complete composure, unhurried and calm. Even when the questions were stupid, he answered them with a cheerful smile. Instead, the two police officers started to get irritated.
After all, Feng Biao had ordered them to find a reason to rough Yang Chen up. But now Yang Chen was being so cooperative that he practically looked like a model suspect. How were they supposed to find a pretext to give him a hard time?
Finally, the other officer, dark-skinned, came up with an idea and asked, "Today you beat up six young men at the vegetable market. Is that true?"
"What happened wasn’t that I beat them up. They tried to extort protection money from me. They were the ones who threatened me first, so I had the right to defend myself," Yang Chen replied.
"Whether they extorted protection money from you, I don’t know. But you made the first move, didn’t you?" the bearded cop asked with a feral grin.
"Yes..." Yang Chen nodded truthfully. "But I don’t think the fault lies with me. At worst, I can take them to court."
"Take them to court... A guy selling lamb skewers..." the dark-skinned cop muttered in disdain. He pulled out a document and pointed at the signature line. "Write your name here to show that you’re admitting guilt, and that you’ll compensate the victims as required."
Yang Chen glanced at it and saw that it was already a prepared confession. The combined list of charges was enough to put him behind bars for half his life!
Yang Chen’s expression turned playful, and he sneered. "Officer, I don’t think this thing is legal, is it... I haven’t even said anything, and now suddenly all these charges are on me."
The dark-skinned cop slammed the table. "Are you questioning us now? Are you saying we framed you!? Do you know where you are right now!?"
"I’m just telling the truth." Yang Chen understood clearly that these two were dead set on making trouble for him. Unconsciously, a trace of icy sharpness seeped into his eyes.
The two officers naturally knew Yang Chen wouldn’t sign the document. Anyone who could read would never willingly sentence himself to years in prison for no reason. There was only one reason for using this document: to provoke Yang Chen!
Clearly, they had succeeded.
"Kid, if you refuse to cooperate with our investigation, do you know what the consequences are!?" The bearded cop stood up and slowly walked behind Yang Chen, cracking his knuckles with popping sounds.
Yang Chen glanced at the surveillance camera in the room. He figured the footage would only show him talking back to the police. What happened next, nobody outside would know. And even if they did, who would easily spread what happened inside a police station?
It seemed the world over, there were police officers of this sort everywhere...
"I don’t know what consequences I’ll have, but the two of you will definitely end up with consequences you never imagined..." Yang Chen said casually as he turned his head and flashed a grin at the bearded cop.
"You’re looking for death!"
Seeing that Yang Chen had finally said something insulting to a police officer, the bearded cop suddenly reached out to grab Yang Chen by the collar, while his other hand clenched into a fist, ready to smash down!
But in that instant, the bearded man’s hand grasped nothing. Yang Chen had somehow already risen from the chair, and with a reverse motion, seized the bearded cop by the collar instead!
"You were planning to do this, weren’t you..." Yang Chen said with a wicked smile, then drove an uppercut into the bearded cop’s belly!
The bearded cop’s whole body seized up in convulsions, and he curled up on the floor, twitching violently!
The dark-skinned cop leapt up in fury. "You dare assault a police officer!" he shouted, not caring about anything else as he yanked a Type 54 pistol from his waistband and aimed it at Yang Chen!
But Yang Chen didn’t give the black hole of a muzzle even the slightest attention. With a lightning-fast step, he instantly moved behind the dark-skinned cop. With a light tap of his finger on the cop’s arm, that arm jolted as if it had been electrocuted, and the Type 54 pistol immediately dropped to the floor!
Before the dark-skinned cop could even react, he felt a numbness spread through the back of his neck. Then his entire body went limp and he passed out...
Yang Chen picked up the illegal document from the table and said with a strange smile, "Looks like this kind of trick is something you’re used to using. I wonder what it would look like if this got out."