Old Zhang pulled the taser out of his bag and showed it to us. We were surprised by how cleanly it was cut in half—even the battery was cut clean through! Even lasers wouldn’t have the ability to do this. This proved how extraordinarily skillful the swordsman was.

A thought suddenly came to me—could it be that this mysterious swordsman was the same person who helped me last time with Cao Mou?

Old Zhang then showed us the button that was cut off his shirt and exclaimed, “This button was made of copper, but look at how cleanly it was cut in half! Thank heavens that man didn’t try to cut my throat, or else my head would’ve rolled off my neck while I was still standing!”

“I think he was sending a message here,” I stated. “Which would’ve been easier—cutting a tiny button in half, or slitting your throat and killing you in one move? This could be a silent threat.”

“That’s bold!” Xiaotao slammed the table. “Threatening the police! We must catch this man!”

Old Zhang seemed shaken by my deductions. I asked him, “Did you notice anything missing at the scene?”

He shook his head and replied, “I checked the place after the man was gone. Every valuable item in the house was untouched.”

I wondered if the man was looking for something else when Dali interjected, “Do you think that man is somehow related to this case?”

“Probably,” I nodded. “By the way, Old Zhang, what is the missing woman’s name?”

“Xu Xiaohui,” replied Old Zhang.

Xiaotao asked him if he still remembered what the man looked like. He answered that if he could see the man again, he might be able to recognize him. Xiaotao asked an officer to take him to the sketch artist. Once he was gone, we turned our attention to the taser again. We studied it closely and couldn’t stop marvelling at how skillfully it was cut in half.

I didn’t tell Xiaotao what happened that morning with the cut ear, because I had a hunch that the man who sliced this taser had something to do with me. He showed mercy to the underlings, and later to Old Zhang. I believed that he was not a bad person.

“Huang-jie!” shouted Xiaozhou from outside the room. “You should come and see this! I think you know this person!”

We went to the sketch artist. At first glance, everyone could tell exactly who it was from the face sketch.

“That’s Zhang Yixing!” exclaimed Dali. “So he’s a badass warrior both on and off screen!”

“I’m pretty sure the man looked like this…” stated Old Zhang.

Although the swordsman looked somewhat like Zhang Yixing, I was very skeptical that he was indeed the actor. It was more likely that Old Zhang didn’t quite remember what the swordsman looked like and just gave the sketch artist a vague description based on a familiar face.

This matter was then put on hold for the time being. Xiaotao still had other cases to deal with and saw no point in spending time and energy on hunting down this lone ranger who might not turn out to have any connection to the missing woman after all.

At that point, we all assumed that there was nothing extraordinary in the disappearance of Xu Xiaohui. Unbeknownst to us, it would turn out to be one of the most baffling cases that I had ever worked on.

Early morning a few days later, a sharp scream broke through the tranquility of the Ronghua Meat Factory in Nanjiang City. Xiaotao rushed there immediately after receiving the report. Dali and I went with her too.

As soon as we entered the meat factory’s courtyard, the heavy stench of blood and internal organs filled our nostrils. We were greeted by a butcher about forty years old wearing a leather apron. He informed us that he was the one who lodged the report. He introduced himself as Old Li. The incident happened at around five in the morning, and it was so horrifying that one of his co-workers was literally scared out of his wits.

When I asked him to specify what happened, he gulped and answered, “There was a pig that… talked!”

It turned out that he worked the night shift last night, and they received a truck full of live pigs at around four in the morning. Once they’d unloaded the truck, they took the pigs to the slaughterhouse to clean them and slaughter them. In some abattoirs, the pigs would be slaughtered via electric shock. But here, they were killed by hand with a knife. The butcher would pierce through the pig’s neck with a long knife. The pig would then struggle for a few minutes as it bled, but it would then be sent to the main workshop for processing.

The main workshop housed the assembly line. The processing of the pigs almost didn’t even require the workers to touch the pigs at all. Old Li and his colleague, Xiaosheng, were stationed there, and they were responsible for hanging the pigs on the hooks. Xiaosheng was in his early twenties, and he did not have much experience in the business. That was why Old Li was there as a mentor.

As usual, they made a cut at the joint of the pigs’ hind leg and hung the pigs upside down on the hooks. However, when Xiaosheng was working on one of the pigs, he noticed that it looked different from the other pigs. He asked Old Li if this pig was sick or deformed, to which Old Li replied that all the pigs had had their blood and urine tested before they were delivered, and none of them should have any diseases. Old Li surmised that the pig probably had an injury prior to being sent there.

And so, they continued working, but when Xiaosheng hung the aforementioned pig, it suddenly opened its eyes. Xiaosheng was startled. Old Li quickly assured him that this was normal, and that sometimes some pigs remained alive at this point. But then Xiaosheng argued that the pig seemed to be crying!

Old Li looked at the pig and saw that tears were streaming down the pig’s eyes. Pigs had tear glands like human beings, but they never expressed sadness or any other emotions through their tears at all. This pig, however, not only seemed to cry, but it was even moving its mouth and made strange noises. At the same time, its forelimbs were moving as if it was trying to write something.

At that moment, the assembly line started, and the pig desperately struggled and twisted its body, letting out a low, weird scream. Then Xiaosheng suddenly yelled, “Stop! Stop! The pig is talking! And it said that it’s a person!”

The assembly line was fully automatic. Before anyone could do anything, the pig was plunged into the hair removal machine which contained boiling water. After that, the pig’s body was scrubbed with metal wires, and when it reemerged, it was quickly sawed in half. When Xiaosheng saw its internal organs, he collapsed to the ground and screamed his lungs out.

Old Li pulled the switch and turned the assembly line off. This was something they would never do unless there was a real emergency.

He then examined the internal organs and noticed that they were a little different.

“I-It was a person!” Xiaosheng slurred between sobs. “We just killed a person! We’re murderers!”

We were all shocked by Old Li’s story. Dali’s jaw dropped and it hung open for a long time. Through our silence, we heard a wild cackle coming from inside the workshop.

“We’re murderers!” the voice said. “We’re murderers! We killed a human being!”

“That’s Xiaosheng,” Old Li said gloomily.

“Are you sure that pig was a human being?” I asked him.

Old Li thought for a while and replied, “I’ve been slaughtering pigs for more than twenty years. That… thing looked nothing like a pig.”

“I want to see the body,” I told him. “Take us there.”

When we passed through the slaughterhouse, we saw a few dead pigs in a pig pen. Blood pooled on the floor and solidified into a thick congealed layer. The stench of blood was even heavier here than in most murder scenes. Indeed, the people who worked here would have to be psychologically strong.

“What tools do you use to slaughter the pigs?” I asked.

Old Li picked up a long metal spear that was wrapped in a cotton cloth from the wall and explained, “We use this to pierce through the pigs’ necks. That usually kills them instantly.”

“Was the butcher who slaughtered the pigs last night experienced?”

Old Li nodded. “He’s an old colleague of mine. He’s never failed to kill the pigs.”