Chapter 147 — The Long-Awaited...

Liu Minggui was no fool. After weighing the pros and cons, he decisively concluded that confessing was the wiser course: "I'll talk, I'll talk—don't throw me in, I'll tell you everything."

"Hmph. Talk." Yang Ce gave a cold snort. He had not expected Liu Minggui to be such a coward. He had been planning to use acupressure to make him talk, but the fellow had caved at the mere threat.

"Someone hired me to do it," Liu Minggui said slowly. "Yesterday a friend of mine came to see me. Said he had a big job and asked if I was in. I'm just a gambler with no steady income. The moment I heard 'big job' I perked right up, so I asked him what it was and how much it paid.

My friend said if it went off smoothly I could make ten million. I thought, now that's more like it—ten million! Even if it meant killing somebody, that would be plenty to skip town with. So I agreed on the spot without a second thought.

Once I said yes, my friend took me to meet a 'boss.' There was one other man who came along with me—the one who died today, Hiraya Masao.

The boss promised me ten million and Hiraya Masao fifty million. But what Hiraya had to pay was far worse than what I did. He had to give up his life. All I had to do was give you a shove."

"You're saying the boss paid Hiraya Masao to die?" Yang Puqi was stunned. He had never imagined it would turn out like this—that Hiraya Masao and Liu Minggui were in it together, both taking orders from some 'boss.' Still, there was something wrong with this Hiraya fellow, going to his death for fifty million. Puzzled, he asked, "What good is fifty million to a dead man?"

"He had a terminal illness. Even if he didn't die today, he wouldn't have lasted more than a few months. Fifty million left to his family would be a windfall, wouldn't it?" Liu Minggui explained. "Some kind of cancer, I think."

Yang Yu nodded. So that was it—no wonder the man would die for fifty million. He simply didn't have long to live. "Go on."

"Yes." Liu Minggui nodded hastily and continued. "Originally, the boss's target was you. He had Hiraya Masao step on your foot to start a quarrel with you, and then I was to shove you from behind, sending you sprawling onto Hiraya Masao. That way the blame would fall on you."

"How did Hiraya Masao die?" Yang Ce cut in.

"Hiraya Masao died on his own. He killed himself." Liu Minggui's words shocked everyone.

"What?" Yang Ce exclaimed. So that was how it was. Yang Puqi had never been able to figure out where that knife had come from—now he understood. The knife had been Hiraya Masao's own, and the man had used it on himself. With that, all the earlier questions dissolved.

"But for some reason, Hiraya Masao mistook someone for you and got into a fight with that Zhang Bin. I couldn't see clearly from behind. The boss had only told me to shove whoever got into a conflict with Hiraya Masao, so I shoved Zhang Bin, and the result was—" Liu Minggui said, looking rather glum.

"But even if you'd managed to frame me successfully, you should know a case like that would be full of loose ends. I might be held for a while, but sooner or later the police would sort it out," Yang Ce said, somewhat baffled.

"That I don't know. But from what the boss let slip, it sounded like he wanted to set up a serial murder case. After you were taken to the station, I was to play a similar role again, and then get you to kill a police officer. The specifics I don't know—the boss didn't say. Since the first link in the chain failed, the rest was pointless anyway," Liu Minggui explained.

Yang Ce nodded with a dawning understanding. True enough—one case might have its loose ends, but if two, three, murder cases kept piling up around him one after another, no loose ends could explain that away. When the time came, he might well find himself truly dragged under.

"Who is your boss?" This was the crucial question, the one Yang Ce cared about most.

"I don't know. I only met him yesterday," Liu Minggui said with a pained expression.

"Really?" Yang Puqi glared and seized Liu Minggui by the collar.

"It's the truth! Would I dare lie to you? I've already told you one thing, so telling you two costs me nothing—why would I hold anything back?" Liu Minggui said, trembling.

To be continued.

858. Surrender

858 Surrender. Yang Ce stared into Liu Minggui's eyes. Frightened as he was, Liu Minggui could still meet his gaze, and there was no falseness or deceit in his look. Yang Ce nodded slowly. It seemed Liu Minggui had not lied to him—the fellow truly did not know the boss's identity. Then again, that was only natural. If Yang Ce had been the one running this scheme, he might well have been even more careful than the boss. But in that instant, Yang Shuo realized that all his earlier assumptions had been wrong. It had never been about targeting Zhang Bin. At bottom, this whole business had been aimed at him; it was only that the man carrying it out had mistaken his target, and everything had gone awry.

"Did you get a look at what your boss looks like?" Yang Ce asked with a sigh. Pointless as the question likely was, he asked it anyway.

"No. The boss had makeup on, and wore a pair of large sunglasses. I couldn't make out his face at all," Liu Minggui said cautiously.

"You'll have no problem repeating everything you just told me to the police, will you?" Yang Ce released Liu Minggui's collar and said slowly, "Of course, don't go pinning your hopes on luck. It was no accident that I caught you. If I can catch you once, I can catch you twice, or three times."

At Yang Ce's words, Liu Minggui could not help but shiver all over. He had never even entertained the thought of running, and he had already guessed that Yang Ce would certainly take him to the police station. Still, that one sentence from Yang Cenbin gave him a terrible fright. Before, Liu Minggui had had no time to wonder how Yang Ce had found him, but now that he had the leisure to think it over, he could not help but feel afraid.

He had driven the boat this far, and Yang Ce had still managed to catch up from behind. One could just imagine how much influence Yang Ce wielded in Macau, and how many eyes and ears he commanded. It was no wonder Liu Minggui thought this way, for it would never have occurred to him that Yang Mo possessed an extraordinary ability. He simply assumed that Yang Juehuan had so many informants under him that finding him had been easy.

Had he known Yang Ce possessed such a power, he would have been even more afraid to step out of line—but Yang Ce would never speak of such things to a nobody like him.

"I won't. Rest assured. I didn't kill anyone, so I won't be sentenced too harshly when I go back. If I went against you now, wouldn't that be plain suicide?" Liu Minggui shook his head. "I'm not stupid."

"Let's hope you're not." Yang Ce glanced at Liu Minggui, then casually tapped him twice on the legs. "But I still don't feel easy about it, so forgive me—you'll be crippled for a while."

Crippled? What did that mean? Liu Minggui was baffled, but in the very next instant he understood why Yang Ce had said it, because he suddenly discovered that his legs would not move. They were numb, as though all feeling had left them—he could not even stand up.

Liu Minggui was terrified out of his wits. Two seemingly offhand taps from Yang Ce, and the man had ruined his legs. He would spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. At the thought, Liu Minggui nearly burst into tears. "Brother—Brother Yang—I was wrong! I've done everything you said and I'm going back to the station with you obediently, so why did you have to ruin my legs?"

"Cut the whining. If you behave, I'll undo it in a moment. Otherwise, you can spend the rest of your life unable to look after yourself." Yang Ce shot him a sidelong glare and said coldly, then put the key in the ignition and started the motorboat.