Days in Hong Kong variety shows

On February 16, 2026, the second page of the Binjiang Daily published a news report:

A traffic accident occurred yesterday evening around 19 PM in the Old Town Street of our city. A small truck overturned while passing through the street. Besides the unconscious truck driver and scattered Nuo opera masks, there was a large amount of blood at the scene, but no other injured persons were found. Police have dispatched a large number of officers to search the surrounding area...

June 18, 1983, 9:6 AM, a secluded coastline in Sai Kung, Hong Kong Island!

The sea breeze pushes two or three feet high waves onto the mudflats, gently erasing the messy footprints that stretch from the shoreline to the rocky area.

On the beach, a tin-roofed house stood amidst a sparse casuarina grove. More than ten uniformed police officers in green uniforms were scattered around the tin-roofed house.

Inside the tin shack, Sai Kung Police Sergeant Ho Ting-pong (from "The Righteous and the Unyielding") is carefully examining a male corpse whose hands, feet, and body are tightly bound to an iron chair!

The corpse had its eyes wide open in anger, with a thick hemp rope tightly around its neck, and its expression was slightly ferocious.

Two small wires extended from the radio on the nearby table, whose cover had been removed. One stripped copper wire end was pressed against the corpse's obese abdomen and tightly bound by a thin rope. The other wire extended into the zipper of the corpse's trousers. The internal condition could not be seen clearly, only that the crotch area was a shade darker than the rest of the trousers!

After circling the corpse twice, He Dingbang turned to look at Li Xiangren (from "Righteousness Over the Clouds"), who was standing at the doorway, covering his mouth and nose but still unable to suppress the dry heaving sounds coming from deep in his throat. He slowly said, "If you can't stand it, run away and throw up somewhere else. No one will laugh at you for your first time at a crime scene."

"I've received professional training, it's just that the room smells a bit too strong!" Xiangren said in a muffled voice, still covering his mouth and nose.

"He was strangled to death, and his sphincter muscles went out of control after he died, so it's normal for him to have a bit of an odor." He Dingbang glanced at the deceased's crotch.

A series of footsteps approached, and the two turned to look at the door. A military uniform, accompanied by several plainclothes officers with identification badges hanging around their necks, was already approaching the door!

"Inspector Ho, Inspector Lee, this is Inspector Miao from the headquarters!" The officer in uniform introduced the leader of the plainclothes officers to the two men.

"Miao Zhishun, the head of the East Kowloon Major Crimes Unit, is the regional head of this case. Could you please describe the situation at the scene?" The tall Miao Zhishun (known for "Mongkok Nights" and "Gun King") first glanced at Li Xiangren by the door, then looked at He Dingbang, who was about the same height as him!

He Dingbang and Li Xiangren exchanged a glance and slowly said, "As you can see, the victim was just bound with a rope, but there were no visible injuries on his body. The preliminary suspicion is that he was strangled."

Miao Zhishun had already stepped into the tin shed, and quietly paced around the corpse. He glanced at the two thin wires connecting the radio and the corpse, and then leaned close to the deceased's head to examine it carefully!

He Dingbang watched quietly from the side as this renowned detective from the headquarters was put to the test!

"The cause of death can only be determined after the forensic report is completed, but the deceased must have been subjected to severe torture before his death." Miao Zhishun hesitated slightly in the first half of his statement, but his tone became extremely certain in the second half!

He Dingbang tilted his head to look at Miao Zhishun, wanting to hear his analysis!

"Sir, how did you figure that out?" asked the youngest-looking officer among Miao Zhishun's men, who still looked quite youthful.

"The murderer was very meticulous. The rope around the victim's neck was a last resort. And these two electrical wires are evidence that the murderer tortured the victim, and also one of the reasons I suspect the cause of death," Miao Zhishun said, pointing to the two electrical wires connected to the victim's body.

As Cao Tai strolled through the streets of Saigon, he couldn't help but sneeze, muttering to himself, "Which bastard was talking about me behind my back?"

"Look here, although the rope covers most of it, if you look closely, there are still some signs of burning on the skin around the edges." He pointed again to the copper wire end that was tightly bound to the deceased's abdomen.

He Dingbang took a closer look and indeed found that the skin around the exposed copper wire, which was less than a millimeter long, showed signs of burning black, and the hemp rope also showed slight burn marks where the copper wire came into contact with the rope!

"The other copper wire should have been in contact with the victim's penis. The marks on his groin were not from incontinence or urination, but from continuous ejaculation caused by constant electrical stimulation."

He Dingbang looked up, awkwardly wanting to scratch his face! He glanced resentfully at Miao Zhishun, who was still talking animatedly. When he had just gotten close to observe, his face was only 20 centimeters away from the deceased's crotch!

"Judging by the extent of the seepage, the deceased probably even sprayed out semen, right? Officer Ho, did you smell something just now?" The young officer who spoke first unwittingly added insult to injury!

"Ben!" Brandon (Xu Yongji, Cold War), the deputy leader of Miao Zhishun's team and police sergeant, gave young police officer Ben a warning look!

"The murderer used a radio to create a makeshift electrocution device," Miao Zhishun paused briefly, noticing the eager looks in their eyes, before continuing his detailed explanation: "A radio controls volume by turning a knob. The principle is that the knob controls the amount of current flowing through the speaker. The murderer used two wires connected to the radio speaker to electrocute the prisoner, subjecting him to prolonged interrogation. This is a skill typically possessed by special agents and spies." (Author's invention; please do not attempt to replicate it.)

"Couldn't it have been done by an ordinary person who knows about electrocution? We all heard you talk about it just now, and we should all be able to try it ourselves if we figured it out! Why would you associate it with a secret agent?" Li Xiangren finally found a chance to interject and asked!

The others also gave questioning looks at the opportune moment!

"Good! That's a good question." This year's officers are incredibly inquisitive. "Normally, you could probably build this device on your own by following what I just described, but electrocution is actually a very sophisticated form of torture. When a current of 1 milliampere passes through, the human body will become excited, erect, and ejaculate; when the current reaches 5 milliamperes, the human body will experience pain; when the current reaches 10 milliamperes, the human body will be paralyzed, unable to control its limbs, and will also experience incontinence... If the current is too high, the victim could suffer cardiac arrest, respiratory failure, and even death at any time."

"Upon careful observation of the traces, the deceased was likely subjected to prolonged electric torture while conscious. Without sophisticated instruments, the perpetrator could precisely control the current intensity simply by observing the victim's facial expressions and reactions. This suggests the killer was highly trained! It requires keen observation skills to judge the degree of pain based on the victim's reaction to electric stimulation. Moreover, since different people have different tolerance levels, the current adjustment during the torture process must be changed constantly. Otherwise, it would be impossible to know when the victim will go into shock and lose consciousness."

"For ordinary people like us to figure this out on our own, when to ask questions, and when to intensify our efforts to break down the willpower of the person being tortured, even geniuses need to practice ten or eight times. As for mediocre people, they might not even be able to learn it even if you teach them step by step."

"This Hong Kong-made semiconductor radio, even at maximum volume, draws less than 1 amp. A few hundred milliamps of current cannot quickly electrocute a person. So the killer tightened the rope around the victim's neck at the end, actually to ensure the victim wasn't electrocuted but strangled." Looking at the scene again, shards of broken bottles were scattered everywhere, several leftover lunchboxes lay haphazardly on the simple wooden table, all the drawers of the wooden table where the radio had been were open, and a snake was coiled against the wall, its head crushed, leaving a small patch of oxidized, blackened blood!

Miao Zhishun concluded, "Let's leave the detailed evidence collection here to the forensic department colleagues. Let's go take a look at the other two crime scenes! More than a dozen people died and seven or eight of our colleagues were injured. This is a really big case, and it's going to be troublesome."

After saying that, he turned around and walked out of the tin shack!