Chapter 28: Capture and Return

That furious shout was full of authority; Mo Fei, who had just lowered his hands, not only raised them again but even higher than before.

“Officer, I’m a law-abiding citizen!” Mo Fei immediately declared his identity. “I’m one of you!”

The officers following Li Cangyu up the stairs did not hesitate—one stepped forward, swiftly cuffed Mo Fei’s hands behind his back with practiced ease.

Had Mo Fei not surrendered so quickly, they wouldn’t have minded pinning him to the ground to cuff him.

Once the suspect was restrained, Li Cangyu finally moved forward to check on the victim.

One look at the victim’s face made Li Cangyu’s mind short-circuit for a moment.

The middle-aged man lying on the ground seemed to be the very suspect they’d planned to apprehend during the briefing.

Why was he lying there?

For the first time in his life, Mo Fei experienced the “rose gold bracelets” treatment. Even with his mind overloaded like a pig’s, he still wanted to pull out his phone for a selfie.

But the moment he moved, the officers beside him reacted as if facing a major threat, hands already on their holsters.

Seeing this, Mo Fei could only immediately spread his hands to show he had no other intentions.

Li Cangyu had finished inspecting the ax-wielder by now.

The man had been stabbed, was down, but still alive.

He couldn’t quite grasp how things had developed to this point. Holstering his weapon, he turned to Mo Fei. “Did you do this?”

“I can explain,” Mo Fei answered, trying his best to look sincere.

“Save it for later. You’ll have plenty of time to explain.” Li Cangyu called out, “Stretcher and medical team! Leave a squad to wrap things up!”

There were too many people in the crew to haul all of them back at once.

However, the ax-wielding man and Mo Fei were certainly treated as VIPs—first-class seats, complete with two burly guards.

Director Wang almost choked when he saw Mo Fei being taken away.

He was supposed to shoot scenes with Mo Fei and Wu Miao today! Now one was gone—what was there left to shoot? Might as well shoot a ghost!

He wished they’d just take him away too!

What a stroke of bad luck, truly cursed.

Wang could only blame himself for impulsively giving Mo Fei extra scenes without noticing anything amiss yesterday.

See what’s come of that?

Now, sitting in the police car between two burly officers, Mo Fei’s mind was out of control. Two idioms came to mind—“caught between a rock and a hard place,” and “making a hard thing harder.”

Damn these stray thoughts, damn this wicked sense of humor.

Mo Fei couldn’t help but curve his lips in a smile.

Li Cangyu sat in the passenger seat, watching him the whole time.

That smile didn’t escape his notice.

A suspect in black, handcuffed in a police car, surrounded by officers, lowering his head to reveal a strange smile.

Li Cangyu was instantly on alert. “What are you smiling at?”

He hadn’t expected his private amusement to be noticed. Embarrassed, Mo Fei replied, “It’s nothing.”

“Nothing?” Li Cangyu didn’t believe him, sneering, “You can still smile in this situation? You really have nerves of steel.”

Mo Fei twisted his rusty brain, then accepted the compliment graciously: “Thank you. Sister Lu always says an actor must stay calm under pressure.”

Li Cangyu had seen all kinds of criminals in his career, but never one in China who acted so brazenly even after getting in the car.

If he wasn’t a genuine lunatic, he was mentally ill.

For now, Li Cangyu was inclined to believe this was a psychopath hiding in the film crew—a serial killer.

In any case, Mo Fei had hurt someone; he’d have to spend some time in the confession chair before anything else.

Back in the city, the police cars split into two groups.

One, led by Officer Tang, escorted the ax-wielder to the hospital for emergency treatment. The other, led by Li Cangyu, took Mo Fei in for questioning.

He’d always come to the station as a witness before, but now, suddenly a suspect, Mo Fei was a little unaccustomed.

Once seated in the confession chair, with the lights glaring and officers in position, Mo Fei—now experienced—answered every question Li Cangyu asked with total sincerity. He’d have confessed the color of his underwear if they’d wanted to know.

In fact, from the traces at the shooting site and the crew’s statements, Li Cangyu could tell Mo Fei wasn’t lying.

He really had gone upstairs to check the situation, only to be attacked by the hidden ax-man and injure him in self-defense.

But what was most troubling was how coincidental everything was.

Everything was just too coincidental.

The film crew that discovered the severed limb was this crew. The only survivor rescued was found by this crew. And now, the culprit was also found by this crew.

Moreover, the person who saved the survivor and subdued the criminal was the same man.

What were the odds?

Li Cangyu didn’t know if such coincidences truly existed, but as a police officer, his duty was to question every coincidence and investigate thoroughly.

On the surface, it seemed that Mo Fei had stumbled upon the ax-man’s hideout while filming. The ax-man tried to silence him, and Mo Fei fought back in self-defense.

But Li Cangyu felt there was more to this than met the eye.

The occasional murderous aura from Mo Fei, that bizarre smile in the car, his frequent trips to the station...

Li Cangyu’s instincts told him this man was far from simple.

Meanwhile, upon hearing the news from Director Wang, Lu Chunqiu nearly lost her breath.

Was this a joke? She’d just praised him yesterday and now something like this happened?

And it was a life-or-death matter!

Lu Chunqiu wanted to claim she didn’t know Mo Fei, but she was the only one who could bail him out, and with the contract signed, pretending otherwise was impossible.

If she’d known, why had she let herself be swayed by Mo Fei’s looks and signed him? Wouldn’t it have been better to stick with a few unremarkable actors and an out-of-luck magician, scraping by?

Why did she have to chase a foolish dream of becoming a star agent?

In the end, desire truly is the devil.

After a long pep talk to steel herself, Lu Chunqiu finally went to the police station to handle the paperwork.

There was no other way. Mo Fei was an orphan; if she hadn’t caught a glimpse of him on the street and signed him, he’d probably be a live-in son-in-law, happily living off his wife by now.

She’d had to rescue his virtue from the clutches of rich ladies more than once.

If he hadn’t suddenly become so detached from the world, as if about to join a monastery—losing all worldly desire, and looking so gloomy that the rich ladies lost interest—they’d never have found the time to shoot.

In short, Lu Chunqiu was the only one who could help Mo Fei now.

All the evidence pointed to legitimate self-defense, so the police had no grounds to detain him. As soon as Lu Chunqiu signed the papers, he was released on bail, but he still had to be available for further questioning.

Sitting in the car, Lu Chunqiu took several deep breaths, reminding herself that Mo Fei was still young and simple, probably scared out of his wits in the station. She mustn’t frighten him further.

“You’d better have a damn good explanation for how you managed to act your way into a police station,” she gritted out through clenched teeth. “Are you playing games with me?”

Still in his costume, Mo Fei looked utterly innocent. “I was a good Samaritan acting in self-defense, really.”