Xiaotao told us to get in the car and as soon as our backs touched the seats, a loud boom sounded in the distance. Xiaotao drove on without turning back. I radioed an officer to ask what had happened, to which he reported, "The suspect threw a bomb at us but there are no casualties."

"Alright, be careful then!" I cautioned.

We sped towards the location where the hostages were held; two hostages were hidden at two different locations, dividing several police cars into two directions at the junction. Xiaotao, Dali and I headed to an old rented house in an urban village within the city. At the scene, I grabbed the wire from my pocket and got to work unlocking the door. A loud wail came from within the house, "Don't come in! Don't come in!"

Xiaotao’s gaze flicked up to meet mine, fearing that the push of the door would trigger some sort of mechanism. "We’re the police, here to save you!" I shouted through the door.

The man in the house asked, "Really? Hurry up, save me! I can't hold on any longer!"

Only after hearing his reply did I open the door. The police filed in, guns in hand. It was a bare house with no furniture and the windows had been nailed with wooden boards. When we arrived at one of the rooms, a strong light blinded my eyes which took a long time to get used to.

The ground was covered with light bulbs, spanning the entire floor of the room. A skinny boy wearing only a pair of underpants lay on top of the light bulbs, his body slick and glossy.

A quick sniff told me that it was gasoline. As it turned out, Storm Punisher drenched the victim’s body with highly flammable unleaded petrol. If even one light bulb was broken, the heat from the filament would immediately ignite a fire and submerge his body in flames.

When the boy saw us break into the room, he burst into tears. "Help me! I can't hold on any longer!"

"That bastard lied to us!” Xiaotao cursed through gnashed teeth. “He clearly said he would release the hostages yet he did this!"

"Let’s save him first. Get someone to turn off the switch," I sighed.

As soon as one of the officers set off, a thought suddenly crossed my mind, prompting me to dash into the living room. The officer had just moved a stool under the junction box and stepped on it to flip the switch. "Don't touch anything!” I immediately stopped him. “Let me have a look!"

I climbed the stool and peered into the junction box. At first glance, everything seemed normal, but I soon noticed a red light flashing in one corner. Although I wasn’t sure what it was, I didn’t cross out the possibility of a bomb!

Without a doubt, I knew that Storm Punisher would never let us off so easily. "Don't touch the switch yet. Look for a foam extinguisher now!"

The words had just left my lips when heart-rending screams split the quiet house, mingled with the smell of burning flesh. Dali ran out in a fluster, shouting, "Dude, save him!"

I hurried back into the room and was greeted by the burning body of the victim who rolled and writhed over the light bulbs. No time to think, I removed my clothes and charged into the bright mass of flames, my feet crushing the light bulbs on the floor and issuing crisp crunches along the way.

But dousing the fire with my clothes didn’t work as the gasoline burned hard like an undying flame. The boy hugged my leg in his struggle, setting my pants ablaze. Watching in disorientated horror, Xiaotao suddenly pulled out her gun, wanting to end his pain but I yelled, "No!"

Fortunately, the officers rushed in with a fire extinguisher, aiming the nozzle at the victim until his entire body was enveloped in white foam and the fire was extinguished.

Now wrapped in a layer of glistening foam, the motionless boy who lay on the ground appeared smaller than before, as if a layer of his flesh had been melted away. I placed my hand under his nose and shallow, intermittent breaths caressed my fingers. He was still alive! I gently picked him up while Xiaotao called for an ambulance.

In truth, our presence was an indirect cause of this. The victim had only managed to maintain a balance on the light bulbs due to his intense desire to survive but when he learned that the police had come to rescue him, his tense mind and body reflexively relaxed and finally broke a light bulb.

When I carried him outside, several policemen had already taken off their clothes and spread them on the ground for the victim. Deep burns covered his entire body, not leaving a single piece of skin intact. his whole body was completely burnt. Severe burns like this would cause an infection that could trigger sepsis, eventually killing the victim. All we could do now was to try to keep him conscious by talking to him.

Xiaotao left the room to pick up a call, but when she came back, her eyes were darkly ferocious, indicative of her current emotions. "The other hostage didn’t make it!” she said.

A while later, the ambulance arrived to take the victim to the hospital, leaving the rest of us in depressing silence.

Xiaotao assigned a few officers here to wait for the bomb squad to arrive, while the others were to return to the station first. There were several police cars parked outside the public security bureau and a group of policemen waiting for us. As soon as we got off the car, they surrounded us, faces wrought with guilt.

"It was our own dereliction of duty!" they shouted.

"Where’s the body?" asked Xiaotao.

Upon entering the morgue, I gasped at the sight of the body.

It wasn’t a corpse at all that awaited us, but a medieval instrument of torture, the Iron Maiden that was fashioned in the appearance of the Virgin Mary. The interior of this metal coffin was filled with many spikes that would penetrate the flesh when a person was encased inside it.

The Iron Maiden on the slab was dripping with blood. It turned out that when the officers found the victim, she was already trapped in this torture device with countless stab wounds on her body, causing excessive blood loss and eventually death.

When the officers tried to open it, the victim suddenly screamed as if some mechanism had been triggered. Soon after, even her voice died off and they were left with silence. In an unexpected turn of events, the spikes inside this special Iron Maiden were designed to avoid any major organs. If it remained unopened, the victim would slowly bleed to death, but once opened, another set of spikes would be triggered and instantly pierce the victim’s key organs.

Since the victim’s entire body was impaled with countless spikes, they decided to transport the entire torture instrument to the morgue.

The officers’ explanation was followed by tearful apologies but Xiaotao seemed unfazed by that. Her hands clenched into tight fists, she trembled as she shouted, "Why didn't you use your brains?! What’s the point of apologizing to me?! You should apologize to the families of the victims instead!"

"There’s no point losing your temper now,” I consoled. “This is another one of the murderer's tricks. You can’t blame this on them!"

The body couldn't be examined so we had to wait until tomorrow when the mechanical experts took apart the torture instrument.

Although it was already four in the morning, we were brimming with nervous energy, the sleepiness having been replaced by the anxiety of waiting for Wang Yuanchao and the others to return. At dawn, they drove back and escorted a group of handcuffed men.

I was ecstatic at the thought that we finally arrested the murderers, but closer inspection revealed that both our suspects weren’t among the group.

Wang Yuanchao explained that when they managed to catch up with the suspect, he saw Pork Rong enter a black car. The police cars pursued at full speed but were thwarted when the suspect’s car suddenly entered the woods and out came more than a dozen cars with identical license plates, blindsiding them all.

An impatient Wang Yuanchao had maneuvered his vehicle into one of the cars, successfully stopping it, only to find a gangster sitting in the driver’s seat. It was a similar situation with the rest of the cars.

Afterwards, these gangsters confessed that they had been paid by someone and knew nothing.

"Did any of them slip through?" I asked.

"We missed four other cars,” nodded Wang Yuanchao. “The suspects might be in any one of them!"

"I highly doubt that,” I sighed. “He most likely abandoned his car in the woods. The cars you chased were all dupes."

Storm Punisher’s plan was so meticulous he was on another level entirely.

What’s worse was Song Xingchen had appeared out of nowhere during the chase and interrupted them. While he had helped capture a few of these gangsters, he also injured a few officers!

Because Song Xingchen didn’t bother identifying himself, he was regarded as a suspect. Of course, this guy wasted no time in retaliating against three or four officers. I knew that Wang Yuanchao wasn’t one to pass the buck and from his words, so it was clear the remaining cars wouldn’t have gotten away if it weren’t for Song Xingchen’s “assistance.”

I couldn’t help the frustration that welled up from within. How could I have been so silly! This guy was obviously a lone ranger who didn’t have any sense of team spirit. I shouldn’t have sent him!

"Are they badly hurt?" I asked.

Wang Yuanchao shook his head. "Not really. His techniques are quite clever, leaving them with dislocated joints which I easily fixed."

Thank God! Otherwise, I would’ve been too ashamed to face these officers. My first thought was that Song Xingchen’s skills and agility would make a great addition to Wang Yuanchao’s brute force and tenacity, but what a big mistake that was! Together, they were more like positive and negative charges that offset each other.