Feigning a morose expression, I spoke somberly to the young man, “You’re a student of law in university?” He nodded quietly.

“You are one of the many who claims to be immensely learned in law yet you perverted the laws of our country! Lawyers these days travel to the West to study law and return only to wave the word of law like pitchforks in the faces of those they find offending! We are a government of men, not law! Western traditions have always been portrayed in a more realistic basis, while our Chinese traditions are more romantic! You favor Western traditions over our Chinese traditions, do you mean to demean our 2000-year old institutions of law? Take this case as an example: your uncle was part of an evil cult. He had lured us into a trap and had us three drugged before he tried to burn us to death! But we escaped, yet your uncle, leading a mob of almost twenty armed henchmen chased after us, surrounded us and tried to butcher us! But now, look! After losing his life in his attempt to murder us, you, his family, intend to avenge him and force an inquiry to charge us for excessive self-defense! Where lies your sense of justice! This evil cult has been responsible for the kidnapping of children! Fear abounds the entire city because of their devilry, yet, here you are, clamoring about ‘upholding the pride of law scholars’! So the good citizens of China are all in thrall to the ‘pride of law scholars’ now, eh? What happened to upholding justice and order? What you are doing is trying to defend the rights of villains and evil men!”

“According to law today, the crime of kidnapping children is punishable by death!” Zheng Shuang added. “That lies the very crux of the conundrum,” I said to him, “The punishment of severe cases is death. But it is the ‘severity’ of the cases that is still arguable. You might just escape with a slap on the wrist, or you might be sentenced to death! Perpetrators with money would be able to escape their deserved punishments by using more money to hire more lawyers to help them circumvent the law!”

“But to haphazardly sentence everyone to death might also have adverse effects,” Zheng Shuang debated, “The criminals might behave more extremely and drastically, knowing that only death awaits them!” “This way of thinking will only make everything worst,” I countered, “Does the law defend the rights of the greater majority or does the law defend only the interests of certain individuals? We are in the 20th century; times are different now. So should the manner of punishments to adhere to the class of society today. A man who is able to make his own living would never think of committing criminal acts. Only those whose livelihood is at constant risk would dare gamble their own freedom and life to commit such monstrosity to abduct children and part them from their parents. Never mind those of the evil cult who have more insidious designs on these innocent children; most kidnappers of children only seek to sell them for money. They would have wanted to lead such a risky undertaking if only they were able to earn money safely and lawfully elsewhere. The spirit of capital punishment is to discourage crime rather than to enact retribution. Try conducting a study on those kidnappers who are now in police custody, ask them if they would dare commit the same crimes again if they would be shot once arrested. What you and many so-called students of the law are doing now, is to protect the rights of certain individuals, which, in this case, are the perpetrators, when you should have been upholding the interest of the public and help maintain law and order! By following Western cultures of light sentencing, you only encourage more crime!”

Zheng Shuang rummaged his pocket for a cigarette and offered one to me as well before I went on, “The laws of the land have been written in favor of criminals. It has always been a tilted balance from the very beginning. Say you’ve been abducted and sent to work in a foreign country as a slave. But due to torture and mistreatment, you died, far away from home and alone. But will the law sentence the criminal to the very same hardships you’d gone through? Never. Scholars and academics of laws will have a whole load of sophistry to wend their way about this, but to me, there is but one reason!” “And what is that?” Zheng Shuang asked. “Money,” I replied. “The victims are those who had suffered losses and harm, those whose interests had been infringed by the criminals. Victims and those who have been wronged would never expect to pay when Truth and Justice belonged to them. But lawbreakers are a wholly different lot; they would rather pay more money if it is only buy a lighter sentence or even utter freedom! For this very reason, lawyers have always flocked around lawbreakers and criminals!” Zheng Shuang laughed loudly and replied, “But I do not sway to the side of criminals and perpetrators!” “You are part of enforcement of the law,” I said to him, smiling, “You are not the judge who wields the mallet and declares the final sentence to a criminal! But look at what we have today, old people walking on the road fell down, yet no one dares to go help them; and we have the magistrates of Nanjing to thank for that!”

I steered my gaze into the second Wang brother and his son. “Go back to where you come from!” I said to them, “Let it be known that I hold the lives of your family in my very hand. But if future investigations reveal that you have been part of the innocent children’s abduction, I will be there to make sure you will be rightly tried. Not in the courtrooms of us mortals, but in the halls of the Underworld!” Lin Feng and Yuan Chongxi had been quiet beside me; the latter opened his mouth to speak, “And I will make sure that each and every one of your household will not be spared! No laws of Man will be able to defend you against our hand!” Yuan Chongxi delivered his threat with an undercurrent of sibilant, menacing evil so intimidating that Zheng Shuang’s ex-classmate could not resist shuddering!

Being more patient and humble with age, the second Wang brother nodded respectfully. “Well…” He tried to speak to me again, “Actually, when my younger brother came out from prison, he had little friends. But a cellmate from prison came looking from him one day. Since then, he started to behave differently. He became more demanding and intense that he even pressed for me to give him the farm that my old man had left me. I wonder if this information might be useful to you, since I know little about investigations.” “We’ll have a look into it. Tell your family: be righteous and kind people and we would leave you alone. Antagonize us again, and I’ll assure you that the price would be one that you’ll regret!” Mumbling their thanks and appreciation, the father and son took their leave. I took the hand of Zheng Shuang’s ex-schoolmate before he left. “I’m sorry for the insolence that you have to endure in our first meeting. Please bear in mind that we bear you no ill will! How about dinner together tonight?” “It’s fine. I understand,” he replied, “In fact, I should be the one to invite you for dinner. But I’ll not disturb you tonight. I’ll find some other day; I’ll come with Zheng Shuang with me again!” We saw them out the door. Before leaving, Zheng Shuang slipped me a message: he would look into the names of the cellmates of Wang Laosan during his sentence. He would inform us if anything arose. With that, he too left as well.

We watched as our guests left. As soon as they went off, we broke into a burst of euphonious laughter! The Sisters were indeed the greatest pranksters!

As the Mid-Autumn Festival loomed just a few days ahead, Lin Feng requested a leave of absence. He wished to return home to visit his grandfather who was close to 90. Yet despite his ripe age, the old man was still full of vim and verve. His birthday was just a few days after the Festival, and Lin Feng wished to accompany him.

Since entering university, Lin Feng had never once visited the market at his hometown. Being the largest bazaar in the east side of the capital, this was a place where anything, almost literally, could be found here. Reminiscing himself weaving through the crowds here as a child, Lin Feng wished for a short trip down memory lane. He stopped his car just outside and saw a stall peddling old books. He went to the store, hoping to find any books about wushu that might interest him. As he pored through the titles of the book, the pungent scent of cosmetic products wafted through the air around him and he felt a person nestling close to him. A pickpocket! This was a common tactic used by thieves trying to liberate wallets and valuable items from any unwary visitors to crowded areas, as he full well knew. But the thief could have picked a better target than Lin Feng! He waited until a hand was close to grasping on his wallet and he held the person’s wrist in a vice-like grip! He yanked the hand, only to realize that the thief was a woman barely thirty of age. Lin Feng noticed the prominent freckles that blemished her otherwise fair features and discovered that the woman held a knife in another hand! Realizing that she had been caught, the woman, in a fit of panic, tried desperately to stab at him! But before Lin Feng could do anything, a hand appeared out of nowhere and seized the woman’s wrist!

Two people emerged from her back. One of them was the one who had seized her wrist, while another was holding a leather suitcase. The female thief peered at her intruders and her face immediately turned pale!

The woman was formerly an accomplice with the two people. They were swindlers that cheated people out of their money. But the female thief had given her accomplices the slip during their last job and had run off with the bounty alone! Just when she thought she was safe and was trying to steal Lin Feng’s wallet, her leader had not only found her; he had also recovered the money she stole from him! The leather suitcase carried by the person behind her was the case that held the money she pilfered from her confederates! The thief immediately turned meek and silent like a cornered mouse, seeing that she and her bounty were recovered by her leader in one fell swoop. The person shoved her aside and said to Lin Feng, “You would have been dead if not for my intervention. How would you thank me?” But without waiting for Lin Feng’s reply, he went on, “Ah, yes. The usual compensation for car accidents these days is about five hundred thousand yuan. This also means that one’s life is about that same figure. How about you pay me five hundred thousand as a token of appreciation of me saving your life?” Lin Feng shot him a glare. “Since when did I need you saving me? I was waiting for her to strike to disable her! This would have been a pretense for me to threaten and blackmail her for trying to kill me! Hmph! Now you’ve ruined everything! I would have enjoyed her carnal wares before selling her off as a slave! What a coincidence that I too, intended to sell her off at the same figure! Not only you had cost me five hundred thousand, what balls you have that you even dare to demand another five hundred thousand from me!?”

The person peered and found an empty space not far from them. He moved towards the space and said, “So you want to fight?” Unafraid of the challenge, Lin Feng walked to the empty ground quietly without saying anything! Just then, the big, lumbering cook of a roadside hawker stall just behind where Lin Feng was standing came out with a large meat cleaver in his hand! Surprised by the cook’s sudden appearance, the man hastily fished out his phone and called for help. But the cook came out, only to move towards a wooden cart just beside Lin Feng to get something! The man immediately realized that he had mistaken the cook for Lin Feng’s ally. “My blasted foolishness,” he cursed himself. But the help he called for came almost instantly: another man who also carried a leather suitcase. Nevertheless, emboldened by the superiority in number, the man shouted to Lin Feng, “We have three men here! No, wait! We have another woman too! That’s four of us altogether! Heh heh heh!”