Chapter Thirty: Assaulting the Police

This provoked him instantly. After his previous attempt at mediation failed and he was retorted by Huo Yan, the man no longer cared to trade verbal barbs.

"Where do you think you’re going? You packed this whole suitcase in such a short time? Did you plan on running away all along?!" He pointed at his wife, eyes bulging, looking as if he wanted to tear her apart.

The woman, having finished packing, seemed to have reached a breaking point. She took a deep breath, pulled her suitcase and child to her side, but still instinctively leaned closer to Ning Shuyi.

"Yes! I’ve wanted to leave for a long time! If I had a place to go back to, if the child wasn't so young, I would have left years ago!"

The woman’s tears fell, and even her eye, which was swollen shut, continued to weep. "Every time I couldn't take it anymore, I’d pack my bags, thinking that one day I’d be able to take the child and leave you, never to return. That’s the only thing that kept me going! Otherwise, I couldn't have lasted a single day in this house!"

Her reaction infuriated the man completely. A surge of rage overwhelmed his rationality, and he used all his strength to break free from Huo Yan’s grip.

However, Huo Yan’s strength was not something this drunken abuser could match. The man tried to push him away several times to no avail. Consumed by fury and unable to stop his wife and child from leaving, he watched helplessly as they moved toward the door under Ning Shuyi’s escort.

Enraged, the abuser lost his mind and redirected his twisted anger toward Huo Yan, swinging his fist at Huo Yan’s face.

Ning Shuyi saw the man’s move but didn't react much. Based on her understanding of Huo Yan during their time working together, dodging a punch of that speed would be effortless for him.

Yet, what happened next left her stunned at the doorway.

Huo Yan did not dodge. Instead, he let the abuser’s fist land squarely on his face. Because of the impact, his grip loosened, and the abuser managed to break free.

The man, in the heat of his rage, felt emboldened by the successful strike. With his head clouded by drink and lingering fury, he lost all sense of reason. He rushed to the side table, grabbed a fruit knife, and pointed it at the woman and child, who were frozen in terror at the door. "Don't you dare push your luck! Get back here right now, or we’ll see what happens!"

Huo Yan had taken a solid hit; the abuser’s strength was not insignificant, and his cheek was already red and swollen. Yet, as he stood once again between the man and his victims, a glint of excitement and absolute confidence flickered in his eyes.

"Drop the knife!" he commanded in a low voice.

"Drop it, my foot! Get out of my way!" the man roared, brandishing the knife with an unstoppable fervor. "This is our family business; no outsider has any right to interfere! If anyone dares to tear my family apart today, I’ll show them what I’m made of! Just you wait!"

"Second warning: drop your weapon!" Huo Yan said.

"I won't! Keep warning me! Even if you give me eight warnings, I will never let this woman take my child out of this house!" The man ignored him entirely, still trying to rush forward to drag them back.

The mother and child were terrified. The boy cried out for his mother, and she quickly pulled him into her arms.

Ning Shuyi sensed something was off, but she had no time to ponder. She hurriedly pushed the pair out the door and turned back, intending to close the security gate to buy them time to get downstairs. Although her tactical training was passable, it wasn't stellar; with Huo Yan there, the two of them were more than enough to handle one abuser. Still, the child was young and the woman was already injured; she couldn't let them suffer any further trauma.

Just as she turned to close the door, the sound of the fruit knife hitting the floor echoed through the room, followed by a howl of pain.

Ning Shuyi paused and looked inside. In the brief moment she had turned to close the door, the situation had completely shifted. The man who had been brandishing the knife was now pinned to the floor by Huo Yan, who had twisted his arms behind his back. The knife had been kicked far into a corner.

Huo Yan looked up, saw Ning Shuyi watching, and said, "Call the police station and have them come take this man away."

Ning Shuyi blinked, her gaze shifting from his swollen cheek to the knife in the corner. She seemed to grasp the situation, quickly pulled out her phone, and contacted the duty officer at the local station to request their presence.

The officers arrived quickly, shocked by the scene: the exhausted, weeping child, the woman with an eye swollen like a bruised peach, the knife in the corner, and the swollen face of their colleague from the municipal bureau.

"Not only domestic violence, but assaulting an officer?!" The lead officer, a man in his fifties, frowned deeply after hearing Ning Shuyi’s account. "He’s got some nerve! Don't worry, we’ll handle this properly. We won't let such a morally bankrupt person act so arrogantly! He thinks he’s untouchable, does he?"

"I’ll leave it to you and your colleagues to process him," Ning Shuyi said with a grateful nod, pointing to the mother and child. "This lady’s eye injury is quite serious, and she has other wounds. We’ll take her for an examination first and get them settled. We’ll be in touch."

"No problem!" The senior officer nodded, then turned to Huo Yan and patted his upper arm. "Young man, you’re in good shape, but you need more practice! How could you let him land a punch on your face? When I was your age, my reflexes were sharp—a drunk like that wouldn't have been able to lay a finger on me."

Huo Yan nodded solemnly. "I will learn from you, sir!"