Tao Ran went out and saw Fei Du, hands stuck in his pockets, waiting for him at the door.
The "woodpeckers" making an uproar at the gates had yet to disperse. With the City Bureau having just been forced to release a very suspicious-looking rich kid, even Fei Du could see the pressure hanging in the air over the Criminal Investigation Team, so he had made his preparations to wait until the day wore out. He hadn't expected Tao Ran to be in such a hurry to get off work. He paused slightly; Tao Ran spoke first: "Fei Du, come over here. I have something to say to you."
Fei Du blinked, then looked at the woman curled up on the chairs. "What about her?"
Hearing this, Tao Ran was at some difficulty.
"It's fine," said Luo Wenzhou, coming out and leaning against the door. "When she wakes up, I'll ask her what she wants. There's a guesthouse by the gates where our people stay when they're traveling for business. It's safe and cheap. If she's willing, I'll have them get her a room over there. If she still isn't willing, I'll have the officer on duty make up a simple bed for her."
Hesitantly, Tao Ran said, "Isn't that against regulations?"
"A word from me will take care of it." Luo Wenzhou waved a hand. "Hurry up and go. No one frets as much as you do."
Hearing this, Fei Du asked in surprise, "What, Tao Ran, do you have something to do tonight?"
Tao Ran didn't answer. He only said, "Come here."
Luo Wenzhou watched Tao Ran pull Fei Du aside; because they'd just gone a round, he had for the moment forgotten the game machine and its associated tender feelings.
He swept a critical gaze over Fei Du's back, feeling that every stitch of him expressed the word "flirtation"; put him in a spy drama, and you wouldn't need any makeup to turn him into the classic image of a traitor to the nation.
But however flirtatious he was, what was the use? He'd be jilted just the same.
Luo Wenzhou suddenly felt an odd twinge of schadenfreude towards his fellow sufferer; in high spirits, he hung back by the office door unwilling to leave, wishing his neck could grow long enough to observe the process of a second generation patriarch meeting with a rebuff up close.
Luo Wenzhou had known Tao Ran for many years. They had been through everything: searched for missing children together, fought diabolical evildoers together, won honor and written self-reflections together. Their relationship ran deep.
Though Tao Ran was poor and wretched, he was a nice person, nice in a quiet and obliging way. As time went on, this would almost unavoidably bring about a few inordinate ambitions in a "gender: male, interest: male" individual. But on the subject of sexual orientation, Tao Ran walked an entirely separate road from Luo Wenzhou; he was straight enough to hold up the sky. Insisting would have been cruel, so Luo Wenzhou had quickly put on the brakes, only sometimes putting in a few words brushing up against the bounds of propriety from force of habit.
Tao Ran's reaction had always been neither ashamed nor angry nor over the line; he was entirely magnanimous. And there were some beautiful thoughts whose beauty could only ferment if kept hidden away; once exposed to the clear light of day, it was very easy for them to be sterilized by the ultraviolet rays.
And now, with Tao Ran clearly displaying that he was about to move on to another stage of life, Luo Wenzhou followed along readily, releasing these non-polluting worries, which under the ultraviolet rays had been almost entirely neutralized. Aside from a small handful of regretful dust, this didn't arouse any notable waves, but rather the relief of a problem coming to its natural resolution.
Although many articles have been written by the worldly, feelingly advising the people of the world that "you must not display to others that you are doing well, because others do not necessarily want to see you doing well," Luo Wenzhou felt that there were a few people he knew, concerning whose existence he felt that "seeing him doing well will make me happy"—even if a meteoric rise gradually took that person farther and farther away from him.
Though turning the subject back to Tao Ran, in the here and now, his only remaining option for a meteoric rise was buying a lottery ticket.
Fei Du had an unusual sensitivity. Often he could tell from a single look more or less what another was going to say. This time, when Tao Ran pulled him aside, he seemed to have some premonition; he stood up straight, turned down his drifting peach blossom gaze, and actually seemed something like a decent person.
Tao Ran considered, not knowing where to begin—he had to start at the top.
He drew a line in the air with one hand and said to Fei Du, "The first time I saw you, you were only this tall, hugging your backpack, curled up in my car. When I called your dad's number for the third time and got a busy signal again, you looked up at me…and I thought then, I have to look after this child."
Fei Du's eyelashes flickered lightly as he looked at Tao Ran.
His appearance today was far removed from that pitiful child hugging his backpack, curled up in a car; Tao Ran gave a dry cough. "And in the blink of an eye you've grown so big."
While he was somewhat at a loss for how to go on, Fei Du suddenly spoke, calling him "ge" as he hadn't in a long time.
Tao Ran froze, then heard Fei Du say, "I've troubled you too much, haven't I?"
Tao Ran hadn't expected him to be "sensible" to this extent, perceptive almost to the point of precognition. For a moment he stared, rather tongue-tied.
But Fei Du smiled suddenly, considered his wording, then very considerately said, "These last few days, I've been thinking: in a year or two you may get married, and when you have a wife and kids, I won't be able to pester you for no good reason all the time.—My psychiatrist says, friends setting up households or moving away, the people close to you gradually getting older, people parting never to meet again, all these things aren't mishaps, but part of the natural order, like clouds and clear skies, rain and snow, objective and eternal. There's no hidden meaning in them, and excessively wallowing over them is like excessively lamenting the passing of the seasons; there's no sense in it. The world is changing, people are changing, and you yourself are changing, too. Refusing alterations and separations is illogical—and what's more, I've already said that I'm not looking for any result from pursuing you. No matter what, you'll always be my ge."
With every word he'd meant to say snatched away from him, down to the last punctuation mark, Tao Ran really had nothing to add. He could only dryly say, "…You're seeing a psychiatrist?"
Fei Du raised his eyebrows. "Going once a week to see a psychiatrist is a fad for us 'bourgeoisie,' like the masses sampling bottled water from the year '82, right?"
Tao Ran was like the employees at Fei Du's company—he knew perfectly well that he was talking nonsense, but he couldn't help being talked into serenity.
"Is there suddenly someone you like, or are you going for a blind date?" asked Fei Du.
"A blind date."
The corners of Fei Du's mouth twitched, as if he had just barely kept the assessment "how very earthy" from slipping out. Then he sighed. "All right, then. How are you getting there? You're not walking, not dressed like that? Do you need to borrow my car?"
Tao Ran the Mortgage Slave, attacked twice within ten minutes, didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "That's enough of you two. You arranged your lines ahead of time, didn't you?"
At these words, Fei Du subconsciously looked up, just in time to meet Luo Wenzhou's gaze. Finally, both of their expressions became impossible to describe, and simultaneously each of them redirected his line of sight.
When Tao Ran had gone, Fei Du didn't leave after him. He waited until he had seen Luo Wenzhou call over the civil policeman on duty and make appropriate arrangements concerning Mother He. Only then did he gently put his business card into her hand and turn to leave.
Luo Wenzhou didn't know what was wrong with him—perhaps he thought that when Fei Du turned around, he seemed to have a desolate look; or perhaps, having entered the alliance of the jilted together, an emotional link had arisen between him and this silk-clothed demon, smuggling in some sympathy. At any rate, he impulsively opened his mouth to stop Fei Du. "Hey. I guess you're eating alone tonight?"
Fei Du took a deep breath and turned around. The nearly "free from human desires and passions" appearance he had shown as he walked away was at once overwhelmed by his lively poisoned tongue: "For once in a hundred years, I'm living like you elderly empty nesters."
Faced with this display, Luo Wenzhou's hand started to itch; he would have loved to go back five seconds and slap himself—teach you to run your mouth.
But with matters as they stood, trying to back away would have been petty; so Luo Wenzhou, expressionless, said, "You placated the victim's relation today, kept her from talking a lot of nonsense to the media. That was a help to us. On behalf of the Criminal Investigation Team, I can get you something to eat here if you'll stay."
Fei Du's steps paused. He looked a little surprised.
In fact, Luo Wenzhou was only being polite. He hadn't actually expected that President Fei would really condescend to stay…just as Fei Du hadn't expected that when Luo Wenzhou had said "get you something to eat here," he'd meant it literally—the location was the City Bureau's dining hall.
Silent for once, Fei Du stood at the dining hall's doors, smelling the maze of scents, looking at the colorfully painted ceiling, then at the glittering floor tiles; his gaze briefly surveyed the red, yellow and blue plastic chairs, and finally fell on the decorative painting on the wall.
Quoth the painting: "The food infinitely nourishing, the mince infinitely fine."
Fei Du was shaken by this boast, feeling that the City Bureau's dining hall's shamelessness was of a kind with Luo Wenzhou's.
When Luo Wenzhou didn't want to cook, he would grab something from the dining hall to take home, so now he went very familiarly towards the windows and out of politeness said to Fei Du, "Do you have any dietary restrictions?"
Fei Du, wholly impolitely, answered, "I do.—I don't eat raw scallions or cooked garlic; I don't eat ginger, raw or cooked. I don't eat sour things or spicy things. I don't eat animal fat. I don't eat the stalks of plants. I don't eat eggplants or tomatoes with their skins on. I don't eat animals from the knee down or the neck up, and I don't eat organ meat."
Luo Wenzhou: "…"
Fei Du met his gaze coolly and unflinchingly, considered carefully, then added, "I also don't eat cooked egg yolks or brined tofu—oh, I can make do with the gypsum kind."
Luo Wenzhou had never before seen a primate who was even harder to satisfy than Luo Yiguo. He felt that it took all of his assembled forces to hold back the sentence, "Then you can get the hell out and eat shit."
Drawing an overdraft on the rest of his life's supply of patience, Captain Luo ordered some dishes from the stir-fry counter, explaining to the cook that this and that wasn't wanted. Then he went to deliver feed to the pestilential "Fei Yiguo."
The outcome was that Fei Du picked through all the things laid out on the table and finally picked up a brown sugar-filled sweet bun, then nibbled at the candied apples.
The corner of Luo Wenzhou's eye twitched. "You didn't say you don't eat seafood."
"I do eat it," Fei Du answered without glancing up. "I just don't want to peel it."
Luo Wenzhou took a deep breath, once again feeling a deep sense of recognition towards Tao Ran's saintly nature—he had resisted throttling this bit of goods for seven years.
Luo Wenzhou rapped on the table. "Did you mean what you said to Tao Ran?"
Fei Du didn't answer. He gave him a half-mocking look, seeming to have just heard something stupid.
"What's with the attitude? I only asked you to stay to eat because I felt sorry for you for getting jilted." Luo Wenzhou got out a pair of single-use gloves and, pretending he was feeding a cat, shelled a plate full of braised jumbo shrimp. "Why did you stay?"
The tips of Fei Du's chopsticks paused, and he grabbed a shrimp. As a form of equal exchange, his next sentence wasn't an attack. "No reason.—Have you released Zhang Donglai as a lure because you suspect the murderer is close to him and is attentively following the police's movements?"
"Do you have an opposing view?"
"My line of thinking is about the same," said Fei Du. "In fact, if you'd gone from the victim himself in the first place, it shouldn't have been hard to find this person. He's probably known the victim for a long time. He may have changed his name, but in this society where everyone has an identity card, it's impossible to change your name without leaving a trace. It's all right as long as no one suspects and goes looking, but once your system goes to investigate, he'll very soon be revealed. Therefore, he'll be desperately trying to turn your attention away."
"You think the victim knew the murderer before coming to Yan City," said Luo Wenzhou, "not that he was secretly doing business that couldn't stand the light of day for someone."
"The money to pay for his mom's medical treatment," said Fei Du, "that 100,000 yuan, was sent back when he'd been in Yan City less than a month. If I wanted to commit some crime, I wouldn't let someone I didn't know the first thing about into my circle. A criminal gang making that much money would certainly have higher requirements than the ones for testing into your bureau."
Luo Wenzhou chose to overlook his last sentence. "And if he had a mysterious hometown acquaintance who introduced him to a criminal gang? The person who made the introduction and the murderer may not be the same person."
"His mom said that He Zhongyi—that's his name, right? He Zhongyi only knew one person here, named 'Zhao Yulong,' who found him his job. He didn't mention anyone else to her. If he'd met someone from his hometown who he knew all about, he would have mentioned it to his family."
"Even if they were committing crimes together?"
"Especially if they were committing crimes together," said Fei Du. "He'd know it wasn't safe, so he would subconsciously seek out a sense of safety, tell his family, 'I'm with so-and-so.' It's a form of over-compensation to comfort yourself.—Why are you so sure there has to be this hypothetical 'gang' involved?"
Luo Wenzhou's chopsticks stopped. He stared at the edge of his bowl, deliberating for a moment. "I can't tell you in too much detail.—Because on the night he was murdered, the victim's phone received a mysterious text message whose meaning was unclear. Because he was likely murdered in the East Palace Gate District, but his body was moved to the West Flower Market District, half an hour's drive away. And because we just happened to receive an informer's report concerning the West Flower Market District."
Fei Du frowned, at last revealing a trace of surprise.
Just then, Luo Wenzhou's phone suddenly rang. The call came from a number that wasn't in his contacts.
Luo Wenzhou picked it up. "Hello?"
On the other end there were faint noises, followed by heavy breathing.
"Who is this?" said Luo Wenzhou.
Just as he had decided it was a prank call and was about to hang up, an urgent cry came over the phone: "Help me! Help…"
The call dropped.