Silent Reading by Priest - Book 1

Chapter 19: Julien XVII

After hearing these astonishing words, the circle of clear-headed people all looked at Captain Huang, eyes wide and mouths hanging open.

Captain Huang paid no attention to any of them, irritably pacing a few circles around the room with his head down.

Just then, someone quietly said, "But he's from the City Bureau..."

These people had neglected their duties, bent the law for their private ends, harbored criminals, and collected illicit money from all of this. Of course their hands weren't clean. But taking money and keeping your mouth shut was one thing; killing someone with your own hands was another. The people in this room for the most part hadn't been mixed up in any concrete affairs; they'd only had to turn a blind eye, sit and wait for their hush money to come in. Meanwhile they still went to work, still collected their wages. At most they received some gray income, occasionally went out to some "recreational" social engagements. None of them thought of themselves as utterly evil.-Moreover, having been deeply influenced by Wang Hongliang's worldview, they unanimously believed that while the deaths of a few prostitutes and delinquents didn't amount to anything, raising their hand against a member of their own profession? Now that was going too far.

When the eyes sitting under someone's forehead are looking directly ahead or looking up, they often think that what they see are humans.

Looking down, however, they often think that what they see are animals, beasts of burden.-Those without power or influence, drifting in the current of events and struggling for survival, the old, the weak, the sick, the crippled, for the most part belong to this category.

Looking at animals, a human thinks they also know what it is to be comfortable and well-fed, what it is to be warm or cold, but no more than that. So it's all the same if they die. After all, the idiom only says that "human life is beyond value"; other lives don't hinder the affairs of heaven.

The death of a Chen Zhen was an accident, a mistake-but the death of a Luo Wenzhou, now that was a major event.-Everyone more or less had something of this mentality; only Captain Huang with his bear's heart and leopard's guts was unexpectedly distinguished.

"Captain Huang, that won't do, that really won't do." Another person opened his mouth. "If you ask me, all right, what's-his-name's dead, we'll take care of the body. If Luo Wenzhou can't find a trace of him dead or alive, what's he going to do?"

"What's he going to do? He knows the brat disappeared here." Captain Huang's teeth were tightly clenched, his words squeezed out from the crack between them. "Today he'll go home empty-handed, but what about tomorrow? What about the day after that? Are you planning on doing nothing but squatting here waiting for him twenty-four hours a day, idiot? Can you guarantee that everyone here will keep their mouths shut tight? Business is business. Now there's been a death, never mind him, if we tell Director Wang what happened today, even he may not be willing to protect you!"

The person spoke falteringly: "They're...our own people..."

"Our own fucking people are exactly what I'm worried about! On the night of the twentieth, why did a dead man inexplicably turn up in 'that place?' You were all there, did any of you see? Even if it was just some asshole killing someone and dumping the body, what kind of coincidence made him throw the body there? It's like...it's like 'marking' us out on purpose!" Captain Huang gave a shudder at his own words and exerted himself to swallow a mouthful of saliva. "And that brat just now, popping up out of nowhere asking about 'that place,' which one of you's going to tell me how he knew about it? If it hadn't been caught on the security cameras, if I hadn't just been there, tomorrow you'd probably have been wearing those handcuffs in your pockets! How does a kid who drives a black cab get in touch with the captain of the City Bureau's Criminal Investigation Team, huh? Do you know? No, you don't. You all fucking understand shit!"