Chapter 337: Who Gave You the Courage

“Pervert? Hahahaha…”

Yu Anan burst into laughter, her voice shrill and arrogant.

Suppressing the urge to act, Xiao Yu coldly watched the woman laughing in front of him. “Laugh while you still can.”

“Hmph!” Yu An’an quickly stifled her laughter. “And what can you do to me now?”

Xiao Yu frowned.

What was she relying on? A single bullet would end her life. Did she truly believe that a knife could threaten the police?

Why was she still acting so confident?

Something felt off. Xiao Yu’s gaze swept across the room. Then his eyes locked onto something beneath the wooden bed.

The bed was peculiar, supported by four legs and a flimsy wooden board that could barely hold a person’s weight. Underneath it, Xiao Yu spotted a loaded crossbow, its bolt aimed directly at the bed.

More precisely, given the crossbow’s penetrating power it aimed at Feng Xiuyun, who lay on top of it.

And that wasn’t all.

The trigger was rigged with a mechanism—an iron weight suspended above it, held in place by a thin fishing line.

The other end of the line was at Yu Anan’s feet.

If Yu Anan were to die or move her foot, the fishing line would loosen, the iron weight would drop, and the trigger would fire.

Xiao Yu narrowed his eyes and gestured to Guo Qiang and the others behind him.

They silently lowered their guns.

“Clever, aren’t you?” Yu Anan smirked, seemingly impressed.

Xiao Yu thought of a saying: A man can marry at twenty-two. But he can enlist in the army at eighteen.

What did that imply?

One: killing is easier than being a husband. 

Two: Dealing with women is harder than going to war.

Three: Women are scarier than enemies.

Before, Xiao Yu had dismissed this as just a joke. But now? Looking at Yu An’an, e wasn’t so sure anymore.

She was twenty-seven. Five years ago, at just twenty-two, she had begun her crimes.

Three victims.

Two had been raped, tortured, and left permanently disabled. The third had been reduced to a vegetative state.

And that wasn’t all.

Through crime scene footage, it was evident that three years ago, Yu Anan had brutally murdered Li Shuangcheng. Her methods were clean and precise. Dismembering the body, and crushing the bones, even seasoned killers and butchers wouldn’t have executed it so flawlessly.

But she had.

For a woman like this, ordinary men couldn’t even compare.

Even Xiao Yu had nearly been fooled by her façade.

No—he couldn’t blame her. He could only blame himself for trusting the wrong person.

“Why aren’t you talking? Don’t you dare?” Yu Anan sneered.

“What’s there to say?” Xiao Yu remained calm, his mind racing as he calculated how to save Feng Xiuyun. “Is there any point in talking to a deranged psychopath?”

“You think I won’t kill her?”

Yu Anan’s eyes glinted with malice as she pressed the knife a fraction deeper against Feng Xiuyun’s throat.

“Oh, you will.” Xiao Yu met her gaze unflinchingly. “That’s why I find this strange. You didn’t need to go this far.”

“Because…” A sickly flush crept across Yu Anan’s face, as if she were intoxicated. Her eyes glowed with twisted excitement, and she licked her lips. “She wore red shoes.”

‘So it’s about the red shoes.’

Xiao Yu frowned.

No, many women wore red shoes. There had to be something more.

His gaze shifted to Feng Xiuyun’s legs, her long legs.

Narrowing his eyes, he turned to Yu Anan’s legs.

The shape was similar. Both were straight. But Feng Xiuyun’s legs were even more beautiful.

Xiao Yu’s mind rapidly sifted through information about the three victims from five years ago.

All of them had been between 165 and 170 centimeters tall. And as everyone knows, taller people have longer legs.

Long legs.

Red shoes.

Straight legs.

Xiao Yu coldly eyed Yu Anan. “Jealousy? You’re jealous of others’ long legs, jealous of how straight they are, jealous that they look better in red shoes than you do?”

‘That’s your reason for murder?’

Some criminals have bizarre motives.

It was similar to a case Xiao Yu had solved in a past life.

A man who loved long legs—not women, just their legs—killed his victims, sawed off their thighs, and kept them as trophies. Everyone has their own psychological quirks, buried deep inside. Desires that remain unseen by others. Some hide them well. Others let them fester until they become something monstrous.

And so a psychopath is born.

“You…”

Yu Anan’s expression twisted in shock as she stared at Xiao Yu in disbelief.

“Don’t be surprised. I’m a psychologist.” Xiao Yu’s voice turned cold. “So, Li Shuangcheng was your accomplice, wasn’t he? You used him to harm those three victims. But he got the last one wrong. It was supposed to be Feng Xiuyun, but he took her sister instead. A useless accomplice is just dead weight. And you couldn’t let Feng Xiuyun die, because she was yours.

“That’s why you had access to Li Shuangcheng’s house. You had the key. When you found out he had taken Feng Xiuyun, you couldn’t hold back. You killed him on the spot, didn’t you?

“That video wasn’t meant for Feng Xiuyun. It was meant for the police. You wanted them to believe that the perpetrator of those three crimes had been eliminated. Li Shuangcheng was your scapegoat.

“And from the very beginning, your real target was always Feng Xiuyun. You hadn’t expected her to go to prison. So you orchestrated a way to get her out. No, to be precise, you manipulated events so that she walked out of prison herself.

“Your ultimate goal was to torment her. To destroy the woman you envied.” Xiao Yu scoffed, shaking his head. “Jealousy makes people unrecognizable. It drives psychopaths to the brink. If you didn’t get to personally break her, you wouldn’t be able to eat or sleep, would you?”

“SHUT UP!”

Yu An’an shrieked, her face contorting into a monstrous snarl, eyes brimming with madness and cruelty. 

“You know all this, but what can you do?! You can’t stop me! You wouldn’t dare—”

Her words cut off.

She only blinked for an instant.

And in that instant—

Xiao Yu, who had been standing two meters away, was suddenly right in front of her. Not only did he grab her wrist, but he also stepped on her foot.

“You’re no match for me in combat, in strategy, or in intelligence.”

Xiao Yu looked into her stunned eyes, then applied pressure.

Yu Anan’s wrists snapped with a sickening crack.

Her feet shattered beneath his weight.

“You ask if I dare to touch you? If I dare to kill you?”

Watching her scream in agony, Xiao Yu remained expressionless.

“Who gave you the courage?”