Destroying Both Body and Soul

“How do we play?” Kid asked, once he had steadied himself.

“It’s simple.” Wen Yiqian began walking slowly toward him.

Kid’s heart lurched. He took a step back without thinking.

“Don’t worry. I just want to close the distance a little.” Wen Yiqian’s lips curved. “Otherwise the game puts you at a disadvantage.”

True to his word, he stopped when roughly four meters separated them.

That was right at the edge of Kid’s personal warning line. Kid let out a quiet breath.

“Then let’s begin.” Wen Yiqian reached behind his back and produced a black handgun.

Li Weiguo had handed it to him on the way over, for use only if a direct confrontation became unavoidable.

Wen Yiqian held it up and gave it a small shake. None of the people passing by reacted. With so many children carrying toy guns around the park, no one was going to look twice.

He kept his eyes on Kid. “Guess how many bullets are in the magazine.”

“If I guess correctly, I win?”

“Correct.”

Kid’s eyes sharpened with something close to hunger. He edged forward, trying to make out the model through the eyeholes of the mascot costume. His eyesight wasn’t ideal at the best of times, and the limited field of view made it worse.

He couldn’t afford to be wrong. Losing this game meant dying.

He stepped closer still. Two meters now. An uneasy feeling moved through him, but he pushed it aside. The gun in Wen Yiqian’s hand had his complete attention.

The answer came together quickly: a police-issue Type 64 pistol. Magazine capacity, seven rounds.

Though a capacity of seven didn’t mean seven were currently loaded.

“You gave me five minutes to think earlier, so I’ll give you…” Wen Yiqian smiled. “Five seconds.”

“Five.”

“Four.”

Kid hadn’t had time to prepare. The countdown was already moving, and the pressure of it crashed over him. Before he had thought it through properly, he was already shouting.

“Seven. Seven bullets.”

Wen Yiqian neither confirmed nor denied it. He raised his right hand slowly and pointed the gun at the sky.

At the threshold of life and death, Kid’s mind accelerated.

He saw it immediately.

There were seven bullets in the magazine. But what if one was fired now?

Exactly like Kid’s own game, where all six wires had been irrelevant from the start.

Who won and who lost had always been entirely at the creator’s discretion.

And now it was the same. This was Wen Yiqian’s game. He had decided how many bullets were loaded, and whatever Kid guessed, the outcome would be whatever Wen Yiqian had already decided it would be.

A suffocating pressure closed in on Kid from all sides.

Wen Yiqian had just seen through this exact trick without a moment’s hesitation.

And now Kid had walked straight into it himself, only realizing the truth at this final moment.

A deep, hollow sense of defeat settled over him.

He had lost. Completely. And somewhere beneath the fear, he could even acknowledge it.

But the moment he had been bracing for: the shot fired into the air, the signal that the game was over, didn’t come.

After raising the gun toward the sky, Wen Yiqian slowly brought his arm back down.

The muzzle came to rest pointing directly at Kid, who was now barely an arm’s length away.

“Why are you so stupid?” Wen Yiqian tilted his head slightly, his expression somewhere between genuine puzzlement and mild contempt.

Kid’s legs gave out. He went down onto the ground.

Only then did Wen Yiqian step forward and pull the hood off.

Underneath was a boy who looked no older than thirteen or fourteen. The costume had been stifling, and his hair was soaked through with sweat, pressed flat against his scalp.

Combined with the sheer terror written across his face, it was nearly impossible to connect him with the person who had sent an explosive device to a police station that same morning.

He looked less like a criminal mastermind and more like a frightened child who had wandered somewhere he shouldn’t have.

“Even uglier than I pictured.” Wen Yiqian leaned in slightly and pressed the barrel of the gun lightly against the boy’s forehead.

For a moment, the boy just stared at him. Then he burst into loud, heaving sobs.

…

The boy’s name was Liao Tong. He was fifteen years old, the son of Ditan City’s wealthiest family, and had been called a prodigy since he could walk.

Genius and madness, as it turns out, are separated by very little.

Wen Yiqian found he had no particular interest in bored, thrill-seeking genius children of privilege. What occupied his thoughts considerably more was the fact that he hadn’t eaten since morning.

He was kept at the station until evening, working through the explanations one by one.

Having had only one meal all day, he was hungry enough to feel his stomach had folded in on itself. Li Weiguo, to his credit, retained enough conscience to order takeout.

By the time the interrogation of Liao Tong wrapped up, Li Weiguo came out to find Wen Yiqian eating with the single-minded intensity of someone who had been starved for a week, cheeks stuffed, entirely absorbed in the task.

He genuinely could not reconcile this person with the one who had dismantled the entire situation at the amusement park on his own.

Especially after hearing the full account from Liao Tong himself. Li Weiguo felt a retroactive chill move through him.

To guarantee his escape after the game, this unhinged child had planted a total of ten explosive devices across Ditan City.

If Wen Yiqian hadn’t cornered him on the spot and talked him down, the aftermath would have been catastrophic.

“All sorted?” Wen Yiqian looked up when Li Weiguo appeared, speaking through a mouthful of food, the words coming out somewhat muffled.

“Thanks to you.” Li Weiguo nodded. A rare smile had found its way onto his face.

Liao Tong had been so thoroughly shaken by his encounter with Wen Yiqian that the interrogation had gone without any friction at all.

A case that should have been a months-long headache had resolved itself in an afternoon. Even Li Weiguo felt slightly unreal about it.

“Don’t mention it.” Wen Yiqian scooped up another mouthful of rice. “What’s happening with An Zhi?”

“Suspended pending investigation.” Li Weiguo’s expression tightened slightly.

Wen Yiqian let that sit and didn’t push it. After a moment he asked, “Our agreement still stands?”

“Of course.”

“About the rear-end collision…” Wen Yiqian set down his chopsticks and wiped his mouth carefully, his tone turning tentative. “It was my fault to begin with. Having you cover a hundred thousand yuan feels like too much. But I genuinely don’t have the money right now.”

He paused. “What if we call it a loan? I’ll pay you back when I can. Gradually.”

Li Weiguo looked at him for a moment, then shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Is being a police captain really that profitable?” Wen Yiqian stared at him. “That’s a hundred thousand yuan.”

(End of Chapter)