The halal restaurant Xiong Wanyi mentioned was located on the outskirts of the capital—a rather remote place. As it happened, it was originally discovered when Ximen Lian's car broke down near the area. Before the wolf plague incident earlier this year, I'd followed them here once. The restaurant's halal cuisine was impressively authentic, though unfortunately their signature roast lamb oven had broken down at the time, so we never got to taste their famed whole roast lamb.
Right as the workday was ending, Gao Liang stepped into Sun Fatty's deputy director's office and the two of them shut the door for a private chat. I figured tonight's dinner plan was about to fall through. But surprisingly, less than twenty minutes later, Sun Fatty came out of the office looking all smiles. Ximen Lian and Xiong Wanyi were already waiting downstairs. I couldn't exactly ask what Gao Liang wanted, but judging by Sun Fatty's cheerful expression, it didn't seem like anything serious.
The five of us squeezed into a single car. It was nearly 7:30 PM by the time we arrived at the halal restaurant on the outskirts. Thankfully, as soon as we'd left the city, Ximen Lian had called ahead and asked the restaurant to fire up the oven. By the time we got there, the roast lamb was just coming out—oil still sizzling on the crispy skin.
Sun Fatty beamed at the glistening roast lamb like a sunflower in bloom. Without any pretense, he reached out, tore off a hunk of meat, and stuffed it in his mouth. Chewing happily, he said, "You guys really went all out! Alright, next time it's on me—I'll treat for the next one!"
Everyone chuckled at the sight of him and didn't bother to argue. We each found our seats as more dishes began to arrive, and soon enough, the table was alive with the clinking of glasses and the shuffle of chopsticks.
Everyone present could hold their liquor. Before all the food had even made it to the table, the two bottles of Wuliangye that Ximen had brought were already empty. The alcohol hadn't even begun to hit properly, but the restaurant didn't sell liquor. Luckily, Lord Ximen had come prepared—he returned to the car and fetched two more bottles. From there, we drank straight through to past 10 PM, and finally started to feel the buzz.
Old Mo, whose heart condition made drinking a bad idea, was the first to switch from liquor to tea. After sipping a few mouthfuls, he glanced at Sun Fatty—still locked in a messy battle with a plate of braised lamb face—and for some reason, he suddenly turned to me and poured me a cup of tea as well. "Lazi," he said, "I heard you and Deputy Director Sun joined the Bureau at the same time. I even heard Director Gao personally handpicked you two. What's the story? How did it come to that—him getting involved directly?"
I lit a cigarette, took a drag, and said, "Don't even bring it up. Just fate, I guess…" But of course, once you say "don't bring it up," you usually go ahead and tell the story anyway. So I gave them a rough version of how Sun Fatty and I first met, during the Dead Man's Pool incident in Yunnan. I'd just gotten to the part right before we encountered Wu Ren Di when Sun Fatty suddenly shot me a look. I caught his hint and skipped over Wu Ren Di's part, glossing over the rest of the Dead Man's Pool affair.
Luckily, aside from Sun Fatty, no one else caught the inconsistency. After I finished, Old Mo nodded and said, "Lazi, sounds about right. Most of us are in the same boat. Me, Old Xiong, and Lord Ximen all got into the Bureau because of something like that. I'm not sure how the Division Chiefs got in, but I'd say a good 90% of the field investigators came in after going through some kind of… incident."
This was news to me. I poured Old Mo a cup of tea, took one myself, and said, "I always thought everyone but Dasheng and I were hand-picked elites Director Gao and the Chiefs had scouted from somewhere. Turns out we're not so different after all."
Xiong Wanyi was clearly tipsy by now. Eyes red from the alcohol, he stared at Sun Fatty and slurred, "Not so different? Speak for yourself! Some of us scraped and clawed for decades and barely made it to Division Chief. Then someone shows up, does six months, and boom—Deputy Director."
Ximen Lian and Old Mo immediately frowned and grabbed Xiong's cup, replacing it with tea. "Old Xiong, you're spouting nonsense again. No more for you—you can't handle it."
Compared to Xiong, Ximen Lian could really hold his drink. A bit embarrassed, he turned to Sun Fatty and said, "Dasheng, we won't call you 'Deputy Director' outside the Bureau. And don't mind Old Xiong—he's not a bad guy. Just a terrible drunk. Starts talking nonsense the second he has a few, and forgets everything the moment he sobers up."
Ximen Lian tried to smooth things over for Xiong Wanyi. But sure enough, the guy really was drunk—he widened his eyes and shouted at Lord Ximen, "Who're you calling drunk? You're drunk! Your whole family's drunk!"
Ximen didn't bother arguing with a drunkard. He turned back to Sun Fatty and said, "See? Didn't I tell you? He'll forget all about this once he sobers up."
Xiong Wanyi, eyes bloodshot, looked like he still wanted to keep bickering. Ximen cut him off: "Old Xiong, if you're not drunk, then tell us how you got into the Bureau. If you can't say it, then you're drunk!"
Xiong tilted his head and thought hard for a long moment but couldn't utter a single word. I looked at him and said to Ximen, "He's that far gone? You really think he can remember something from years ago?"
Ximen replied, "No worries—Old Xiong's not like your average drunk. He gets this weird amnesia—can't remember anything recent, but ask him about stuff from ten or twenty years ago? Crystal clear."
Sure enough, just as Ximen finished speaking, we heard Xiong Wanyi muttering, "That year… I was a cop…"
Turns out Ximen wasn't wrong. Even as drunk as he was, Xiong Wanyi remembered his early days at the Bureau with startling clarity.
Xiong Wanyi was from the northeast. A few years back, he graduated from the police academy and was assigned to a local substation. There, he became a bottom-rung patrol officer—so low-ranking he didn't even qualify for a service pistol.
Back then, fresh-faced and eager, Xiong dreamed every night of cracking some sensational case. He'd prepared himself, too—his bookshelf was filled with the complete works of Sherlock Holmes and the detective novels of Agatha Christie. For a time, his catchphrase was, "Behind layers of fog, there is only one truth…"
But as always, the gap between dreams and reality was like a chasm. After nearly a year on the job, the only cases he encountered were petty disputes and neighborhood squabbles. The "biggest" incident he handled was when Wang Mazi from Building Six got drunk and threw a fit in front of his door because his wife wouldn't let him in. It took a few officers and a stern word or two before she finally opened the door and let him crawl back inside.
Just as Xiong Wanyi was growing frustrated at having no place to put his "expertise" to use, something odd happened. A strange tenant moved into a dilapidated old house in his jurisdiction.
Initially, the matter had nothing to do with Xiong, but then a few elderly ladies from the neighborhood came to the station. They reported that ever since this mysterious man moved in, people had been coming and going from the house at strange hours. The visitors were mostly young—men and women in their twenties or thirties—and always came alone. Never in groups.
Xiong knew the house they meant. It was a crumbling Japanese-style building within his patrol sector. It was a relic from the Japanese occupation during WWII. Though half a century had passed, it had somehow survived countless rounds of urban renewal. While the outside looked dilapidated, its structural frame remained solid.
Knowing someone had moved in, Xiong took an interest. A few days later, using the excuse of a household registration check, he visited the house. The tenant was a man in his thirties named Hua Zishen. Xiong checked his ID—everything seemed normal. When asked about all the visitors, Hua explained that he was a regional manager for a company, and sometimes colleagues came over to hang out. On the surface, that made sense—even Xiong couldn't find fault with the explanation.
But even though the conversation didn't yield anything suspicious, the moment Xiong stepped into that house, he felt an eerie chill. It was like something invisible was gripping his throat—he could barely breathe. He'd planned to ask more questions, but that suffocating presence drove him to cut things short and leave in a hurry. Strangely enough, the moment he stepped outside the house, the oppressive sensation vanished completely.
From that day on, Xiong started watching the house more closely. On and off duty, he'd swing by as often as possible. After a while, he began to notice patterns that matched the neighborhood complaints.
Just as before, strange visitors would arrive—usually women, rarely men—and always alone. None of them ever knocked. Instead, they would pull out their own keys and let themselves in, as if it were their home. Even weirder, they never arrived while Hua Zishen was home. It was only after these visitors left, sneaking away like shadows, that Hua would reappear from who-knows-where.
Was this really just casual "networking"? Please—anyone would be suspicious. Xiong figured he was on the trail of a major case—maybe a drug lab or a brothel hidden in plain sight. He could already picture himself being transferred to the criminal investigation unit once he cracked it.
After nearly half a month of surveillance, Xiong felt it was time to gather hard evidence. But he didn't go in alone—he roped in an older colleague, one who carried a sidearm. That poor guy had been a cop for nearly twenty years and somehow got talked into this by a rookie fresh out of the academy.
The two of them prepped thoroughly and staked out the house from the woods of a nearby park. Around 5 PM, just as the sun was starting to dip, they saw Hua Zishen rush out of the house with a bag in hand, quickly disappearing into the flow of commuters.
From prior observation, Xiong knew that once Hua left, the "visitors" wouldn't show up for at least an hour. So they jumped the fence into the yard. The older officer used lock-picking tools to quietly open the door.
The moment they stepped inside, that same suffocating feeling returned—Xiong could barely breathe. But strangely, the older cop didn't seem affected at all.
Gritting his teeth, Xiong followed him as they began searching the house room by room. First the living room—nothing. Then they moved on.
Xiong was assigned to the master bedroom. At first, it seemed just as ordinary as the other rooms. But then he opened the main wardrobe—and collapsed to the floor, trembling violently.
In that wardrobe hung over a dozen pale human skins.
Not corpses—skins. Entire flayed human hides, intact except for a long, six-inch slit at the nape of the neck, where the flesh and blood must have been removed. Sweat poured off Xiong's body, soaking his clothes within moments. He couldn't even breathe, much less scream.
Then, his radio crackled: "Xiong Wanyi! Come—come see this!"
The old cop's voice had jumped an octave. He repeated the call three or four times before Xiong snapped out of his daze and staggered toward the other room.
The senior officer stood at the doorway, his face ghostly pale, legs trembling. One hand gripped the doorframe, the other reached for a cigarette—but he remembered this was still technically a crime scene and tucked the pack away.
"Well, you got your wish," the man muttered in a hollow voice. "This one's a big one. I've been on the force for twenty years. I've never seen anything like this…"
The more the old cop said, the more uneasy Xiong felt. "Seventh Brother," he said cautiously, "don't scare me like that. What is it? What did you find?"
The man they called Seventh Brother stepped aside, no longer willing to look inside. He simply gestured toward the room and said, "See for yourself."