Courtyard House: First, kill the hypocrites, leave none alive.

The wind in the desolate graveyard carried a smell of earth and a faint stench of decay.

Chen Feng sat helplessly on a half-collapsed grave mound, panting heavily. He had searched everywhere—from east to west, from the densest area of ​​graves to the overgrown clearing at the edge. He had dug up several relatively new graves and pried open two thin-skinned coffins—both containing unclaimed remains, without Xiao Yu.

It was already pitch black, and the moon hung on the bare treetops, its pale light casting an eerie glow over the entire cemetery. In the distance, the barking of wild dogs echoed, mournful and chilling.

"It's better that she's not here," Chen Feng muttered to himself, his voice hoarse. "Xiaoyu is timid, afraid of the dark, afraid of ghosts. She would be scared here."

He stood up and brushed the dirt off his clothes. The wound on his right shoulder started to hurt again; he had probably reopened the stitches when he was searching too hard. But he couldn't worry about that now; he had to get out of there quickly. It wasn't safe here—not only because it was a cemetery, but also because it was outside the city; police patrols were infrequent, but not nonexistent.

Chen Feng slung the tattered cloth bag containing the flashlight and food over his shoulder and walked back the way he had come. The dirt road was full of potholes, and on both sides were clumps of waist-high weeds that rustled in the night wind, as if something was moving through them.

He suddenly stopped when he reached the edge of the road.

There were lights in the distance—not the focused beam of a flashlight, but the dim, flickering light of a kerosene lamp. More than one, three, maybe four, were moving this way.

Chen Feng's heart tightened, and he immediately slipped behind a tall grave mound, held his breath, and peered out through the gaps in the mound.

The lights were getting closer, and footsteps and hushed voices could be heard.

"Damn it, this place is really creepy," a rough male voice complained. "What are we looking for in this grotto in the middle of the night?"

"Enough nonsense," another voice rang out—Chen Feng's pupils contracted; it was the scarred man. "That old bastard Yi Zhonghai paid a deposit of three hundred yuan before he died, insisting on seeing him alive or dead. Now that he's dead, the money's still with us, and we need to get this done."

"But will that kid Chen Feng come here?" the third person asked.

"Not necessarily," said the scarred man, "but his sister might be here. Old Sun said he let her go by the moat, and south is the exit from the city, and this cemetery is a necessary route. A little girl with nowhere to go, she might be hiding here."

Chen Feng's heart clenched. These beasts were still after Xiao Yu.

"Brother, if we find that girl, are we really going to use her as bait?" the fourth person asked, his voice younger.

"Nonsense," the scarred man sneered, "Chen Feng is searching the world for his sister. As long as the word gets out that his sister is in our hands, he'll definitely come. Then..."

Chen Feng didn't hear the rest of what they said, but the meaning was clear enough. These people wanted to lure him out with Xiaoyu, then kill him, or capture him to claim the reward—the police reward had now increased to five hundred yuan.

Five hundred yuan is enough for these people to live a carefree life for a while.

Chen Feng's hand reached for his waist. The Type 54 pistol was cold and hard, the magazine full, eight bullets. He had checked it before coming out today; the gun was in excellent condition.

The light grew closer, and figures became visible. There were four men; the leader was a scarred man carrying a kerosene lamp. The other three were also armed—two with guns, and one with an iron bar. They walked slowly, using their sticks to push aside the weeds, as if searching for something.

Chen Feng estimated the distance. Thirty meters, twenty-five meters, twenty meters...

The moonlight was bright enough to see everyone's faces clearly. The scarred man's scar, running from his brow bone to his chin, looked particularly menacing in the moonlight. The other three also had fierce expressions and were clearly not to be trifled with.

Fifteen meters.

Chen Feng took a deep breath to calm himself down. The injury to his right shoulder would affect his shooting accuracy, so he had to use his left hand. Fortunately, the Type 54 pistol had a lot of recoil, but at this close range, it should be fine.

ten meters.

The scarred man suddenly stopped and raised his kerosene lamp, shining it towards the grave where Chen Feng was hiding: "There seems to be some movement over there."

Chen Feng steeled his heart, knowing he couldn't wait any longer.

He leaped out from behind the grave, gripped the gun with both hands, aimed, and pulled the trigger.

boom!

The first shot struck the scarred man in the chest. He screamed, the kerosene lamp flew from his hand, crashed to the ground, and went out. He staggered back two steps, looking down at the rapidly spreading bloodstain on his chest, an expression of disbelief on his face.

"Chen—" He had barely uttered a word when Chen Feng's second shot arrived.

boom!

The bullet struck him in the face, and the scarred man fell backward, lifeless.

The whole process took less than three seconds. The other three then reacted and looked in Chen Feng's direction in horror.

"It's Chen Feng!" shouted the man with the iron bar. "Kill him!"

The three men rushed over with their weapons, but it was too late.

Chen Feng remained expressionless and continued firing. Bang! Bang! Bang! Three shots, each aimed at the chest. The man with the iron bar fell first, followed by the one on the left with the gun, and finally the one on the right.

Four men, five shots, and they all fell.

But Chen Feng remained vigilant. He gripped his gun and approached step by step. In the moonlight, four men lay on the ground, blood gushing from their wounds and seeping into the soil. The scarred man's face was mangled beyond recognition. The other three also lay with their eyes open, their deaths filled with unsettling grief.

Chen Feng walked over to each person, squatted down to check their pulse—no pulse. But he still raised his gun and fired another shot into each of their heads.

boom!boom!boom!boom!

The four gunshots pierced the silent night sky, startling several crows in the distant trees, which then fluttered away.

Once he was sure everyone was dead, Chen Feng began to loot. He pulled a wallet from the scarred man, which contained thirty-two yuan and some food coupons. The other three had a total of over forty yuan, plus some loose coins.

The weapons were also taken—two guns and an iron rod. Chen Feng tucked the guns behind his waist, but the iron rod was too conspicuous, so he threw it into the deep ditch next to him.

Then he began to deal with the bodies. Dragging four bodies by himself was difficult, especially since he had an injury on his right shoulder. But he gritted his teeth and dragged them one by one deeper into the mass grave.

The scarred man was the heaviest, and Chen Feng was already drenched in sweat halfway through, his right shoulder aching as if it were about to split open. He stopped to catch his breath and continued dragging. Finally, he threw all four corpses into a tomb that had long been looted—the tomb was very deep, and inside there was nothing but broken bones and tattered coffin lids.

Chen Feng then moved several large stones to weigh it down, and covered it with some weeds and branches. After doing all this, he was exhausted and leaned against a tombstone, panting heavily.

The moon rose higher, and the moonlight grew brighter. Chen Feng looked at the covered tomb, his heart unmoved.

These people deserve to die. They deserve to die for trying to threaten him with Xiaoyu.

After resting for about five minutes, Chen Feng stood up and began cleaning up the scene. The bloodstains were difficult to remove, but he kicked some dirt over them and then pulled up some grass and scattered it on top. He also picked up the fragments of the kerosene lamp and threw them into the ditch.

After doing all this, he checked everything to make sure no obvious traces were left before slinging the bag over his shoulder and quickly leaving.

The road back to the city was even more difficult than the way there. The wound on his right shoulder had completely reopened, and blood soaked through the gauze, making it sticky. Every step he took pulled at the wound, and the pain made his vision blur.

But he couldn't stop. The gunshots must have alerted the people nearby, and the police would be here soon. He had to get back to the villa before dawn.

Chen Feng deliberately chose to take small paths, avoiding main roads and villages. Under the moonlight, his shadow stretched long, appearing and disappearing among the weeds.

After walking for about an hour, they arrived at an abandoned factory area in the west of the city, deserted at night. Chen Feng breathed a sigh of relief, slowed his pace, and headed towards the small villa.

He walked very carefully, constantly watching his surroundings. Fortunately, the streets were deserted late at night, with only the occasional meow of a stray cat.

Around 3 a.m., Chen Feng finally returned to the small villa.

He went around to the backyard and climbed in through a broken window—the latch on that window had long been broken, and it was an entrance he had deliberately left. Once inside, he carefully checked to make sure no one had been there before going down to the basement.

The kerosene lamp was lit, its dim light illuminating the small space.

Chen Feng took off his shirt to examine the wound on his right shoulder. The gauze was completely soaked in blood and stuck to the wound. He gritted his teeth and peeled the gauze off bit by bit. The wound had indeed reopened, the skin and flesh turned inside out, revealing the dark red muscle underneath.

He took out medicine and clean gauze from the cloth bag and began to treat the wound. The pain from the alcohol cleaning made him tremble all over, but he didn't utter a sound, only beads of sweat dripping from his forehead.

After cleaning, he sprinkled Yunnan Baiyao on the wound and poured in some penicillin powder—this medicine was very precious, but he knew that wound infection could be fatal, so he couldn't skimp on it.

After bandaging his wounds, he was so exhausted he was almost collapsing. Leaning back in his chair, he took out the money he had taken from the scarred man and counted it—a total of seventy-four dollars and eighty cents, plus some food coupons.

Not much, but enough for a while.

Chen Feng put the money away and then took out the two portraits of Xiaoyu from his pocket. The drawings were rough, but you could make out the general outline. He looked at the portraits, his eyes softening.

"Xiaoyu, where are you?" he whispered.

He was actually relieved that he didn't find her at the mass grave today. That place was too terrifying. If Xiaoyu was really hiding there, how did she survive the past two months?

But if she's not there, where could she be?

There was no hiding place by the moat, in the shantytowns, in the orphanages, or in the mass graves. Beijing is so big, where could a little girl possibly hide?

Chen Feng remembered what Old Sun had said—Xiao Yu went south, heading out of the city.

Did they really leave the city? Go to the countryside? Or somewhere even further away?

If that's the case, then it will be even more difficult for him to find it. How many villages and towns are there around Beijing? How can he search alone?

But no matter how difficult it is, we have to find her. Xiaoyu is his only family in this world.

Chen Feng put away the portrait and lay down on the worn-out sofa. He needed to rest and recover his strength. His right shoulder injury needed to be healed properly for a few days; otherwise, he might not be so lucky next time he encountered danger.

I closed my eyes, and the scenes from tonight replayed in my mind—the scarred man's shocked face when he was shot, the way the other three rushed over, the splatter of blood when they finished him off…

Seventeen lives lost.

No, including the four tonight, that makes twenty-one.

Twenty-one people died at his hands.

Chen Feng suddenly remembered what his mother had said when she taught him to read when he was a child: "Xiao Feng, be kind, be tolerant, and don't hold grudges."

He asked, "What if someone bullies us?"

His mother stroked his head: "We need to be reasonable. Violence won't solve anything; it will only deepen the hatred."

He now understands that some people will resort to violence when you try to reason with them, and then they will try to reason with you when you try to use violence against them!

From the moment Qin Huairu falsely accused him of being a hooligan, from the moment Jia Dongxu set fire to his parents' house and killed them, to the moment Yi Zhonghai organized the entire hospital to give false testimony, he had already embarked on a path of no return.

Either kill them all, or be killed by them.

There is no third way.

Chen Feng turned over, pressing on his wound and gasping in pain. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to fall asleep.

I have things to do tomorrow. I need to gather information, see if the gunshots tonight alerted the police, and check what's going on at the courtyard house.

Also, we need to continue looking for Xiaoyu.

at all costs.

---

The next morning, at the Public Security Bureau.

Officer Zhang stared at the report on the table, his brows furrowed so deeply they could trap a fly.

"In the mass grave, four bodies were found, each with a gunshot wound to the head, and all their belongings had been stolen," he read from the report. "The time of death was probably between 11 p.m. last night and 1 a.m. There were signs of a struggle at the scene, but they weren't very obvious. Nearby villagers heard the gunshots but were too afraid to come out and investigate until dawn when they reported it to the police."

The office was filled with smoke, and several heavy smokers were smoking.

"Is it Chen Feng again?" a young police officer asked.

"It's highly likely," said Officer Zhang. "His methods were clean and efficient, every shot was fatal, and he looted the scene and cleaned up the crime afterwards—consistent with his previous modus operandi."

"But this time there are four of them, and they all look like gangsters," the old policeman said. "Could Chen Feng take down four of them by himself?"

"Don't forget, he had a gun," Officer Zhang said. "And it was a sneak attack. Based on the evidence at the scene, he probably hid first and then opened fire when the four men got close. The first shot killed the leader, and the remaining three, in their panic, couldn't mount an effective resistance and were killed one by one."

Silence fell over the office. Everyone imagined the scene—late at night, in a mass grave, one man facing four desperate criminals, calmly firing and wiping them all out.

This level of mental fortitude and marksmanship is beyond the level of an ordinary fugitive.

"Have you found out the identities of those four people?" Officer Zhang asked.

"We've got it all figured out," a policeman said, flipping through the files. "The ringleader is called Wang Scarface, real name Wang Dali, thirty-eight years old, with a criminal record—robbery, fighting, assault, he was just released last year. The other three also have criminal records, they usually hang around the north of the city, taking on shady jobs."

"Illegal work?" Officer Zhang shrewdly grasped the key phrase. "What illegal work?"

"It's like... helping people solve their problems," the police officer said in a low voice. "We've investigated, and Wang Scarface recently got a big job—someone offered him a 300 yuan deposit to find a guy named Chen Feng, either alive or dead."

Officer Zhang suddenly stood up: "Who hired them?"

Yi Zhonghai.

Everyone in the office was stunned.

"Isn't Yi Zhonghai dead?" the young policeman asked.

"He's dead, but the deposit has already been paid," the police said. "The kind of person Wang Scarface is, once he takes the money, he has to do the job, regardless of whether the employer is dead or not. And... we suspect that he wanted to use Chen Feng's sister as bait to complete the employer's request."

Officer Zhang slammed his fist on the table: "These beasts!"

He paced back and forth a few times, then suddenly stopped: "So last night, Wang Scarface and his men went to the mass grave to look for Chen Xiaoyu?"

"Very likely," the old policeman said. "We interrogated one of Wang Scarface's men—that kid didn't go last night and escaped. He said Wang Scarface got information that Chen Xiaoyu might be hiding in the mass grave, so he led his men to look for her. Once they found her, they used her as bait to lure Chen Feng out."

"Then Chen Feng wiped them all out," Zhang Gong'an sneered, "saving us a lot of trouble."

But he couldn't laugh. Chen Feng had killed four more people, his methods growing increasingly ruthless and his audacity ever-growing. This time it was in a mass grave outside the city; what about next time? Would it be in the bustling city center?

Moreover, Chen Xiaoyu might actually still be alive. Someone like Wang Scarface, with his excellent network of information, must have some basis for his search of the mass graves.

"Send more manpower and continue searching for Chen Xiaoyu," Zhang Gong'an ordered, "but keep a low profile and don't make a big fuss. Chen Feng is also looking for her. If we find her first, we can use her as bait to lure Chen Feng out."

"What if Chen Feng is found first?" the young police officer asked.

Officer Zhang fell silent. What would happen if Chen Feng found his sister first?

He might take his sister and run away, disappearing into the vast sea of ​​people. Or he might continue his revenge, killing all his enemies, and then die with his sister.

Neither of these outcomes is a good one.

"So we must find it first," said Zhang, "at all costs."

---

When Chen Feng woke up in the basement of the small villa, it was already afternoon.

He slept for a full twelve hours without waking up once. It was the deepest sleep he had had in two months, perhaps because he was too tired, or perhaps because he had killed Wang Scarface and his gang, eliminating a potential threat.

He felt much better after waking up. The injury to his right shoulder still hurt, but not as badly. His fever had subsided, and he was in much better spirits.

He ate something—two cold steamed buns, some pickled vegetables, and some cold water. Then he began to inspect the weapons.

He disassembled the Type 54 pistol and carefully wiped every part clean. There was some carbon buildup in the barrel, which he cleaned with a cleaning rod. There were three bullets left in the magazine, plus the newly purchased ones, for a total of over forty rounds. That was enough. He also had two other pistols and six magazines.

He also sharpened the dagger, its blade gleaming coldly in the kerosene lamplight.

After finishing these tasks, Chen Feng sat down and began to think about his next step.

Wang Scarface is dead, but Yi Zhonghai may have hired more than just this batch of assassins. There are also those courtyard residents who pooled their money to hire hitmen; they may hire more people.

We need to hurry.

But before that, he had to continue searching for Xiaoyu. Since he hadn't found her at the mass grave last night, he had to expand the search area. He needed to search the south, east, and north of the city.

Chen Feng took out paper and pen and began drawing a map. He had lived in Beijing for twenty-two years and knew the city very well. He marked all the places Xiaoyu might go—parks, train stations, docks, orphanages, shantytowns, abandoned factories…

Then he began to make a plan. Starting today, he would go out to search every night and rest during the day. He would search one area each day, conducting a thorough search.

It might take a month, or even longer. But he's patient.

As long as Xiaoyu is alive, he must find her.

After finishing the map, Chen Feng lay back on the sofa and closed his eyes to rest. He needed his energy to go out that night.

The basement was quiet, with only the sound of his even breathing.

Outside, the sun was setting, and the sky was a blood red.

A new night is about to begin.

What Chen Feng didn't know was that during the twelve hours he was asleep, the police had laid a trap, just waiting for him to show his face.

The cat-and-mouse game has reached its most dangerous moment.

His only weakness—the little girl with a mole on her neck and wearing a red string necklace—remains missing to this day.

When will this bloody revenge end?

Nobody knows.