Luo Wenzhou was just as surprised as the hoodlums by Fei Du descending from the heavens, but the situation was desperate, and Captain Luo wasted no time; he promptly came to a decision, first shoving Wu Xuechun into the car, then jumping into the passenger's seat himself. He hadn't sat down properly yet when the car's open windows automatically rolled shut, and it started forward with a howl.
Luo Wenzhou was nearly forced backwards against the back of the seat. "Why do I get the sense your mood isn't very stable… Hey!"
Though Fei Du hadn't turned to look at him, the smell of blood didn't rely on a person's line of sight; it kept floating over in a steady stream.
The little sports car's acceleration was already dizzying, and next to him was a moving bag of blood to pile dizziness on top of dizziness. With the two combined, President Fei's brilliant moment went by, and, not at all brilliantly, he was heading right for an electricity pole.
The pitch of Luo Wenzhou's voice altered, and the veins stood out on the corners of Fei Du's forehead. In this extreme crisis, he carefully turned the steering wheel and drove clear.
Having survived disaster, the electricity pole unfortunately had yet to relax when it witnessed the car roll up and then down—President Fei had accidentally driven up onto the curb.
Luo Wenzhou buckled his seatbelt as quickly as possible, feeling that he'd just come out of the dragon's pool and ended up in the tiger's den—having avoided dying at the evildoer's blades, he was going to die at the hands of this suicidal driver.
"You're driving like a maniac!" Luo Wenzhou hollered at him.
Fei Du didn't even dare to breathe too deeply. As soon as he did, he would smell it. "Who told you to sit in the front! I'm about to throw up!"
Luo Wenzhou: "…"
Being nauseated when faced with a handsome and elegant young man? What was the matter with him?
Cold sweat was pouring off of Fei Du. Soon he simply wouldn't be able to see the road clearly. At last he couldn't maintain his airy demeanor any longer and was forced by Luo Wenzhou into letting out a curse: "Blood makes me sick, cover the fuck up!"
Luo Wenzhou froze—he'd always thought Fei Du's "blood makes me sick" was a joke, because he clearly remembered that he hadn't had that problem when he was little.
Just then, Wu Xuechun helpfully passed forward a jacket Fei Du had thrown into the backseat. Luo Wenzhou shook it out and covered himself with it. "Tsk, and I get carsick. What… Shit, are those people crazy?"
Luo Wenzhou had meant to ask him, "What are you doing here?" But when he glanced at the rearview mirror, he found that the motorcycles were actually chasing them!
Though it wasn't broad daylight now, they were still on a road in a lawful society. This was getting brazen.
Captain Huang and the others hadn't expected that a whole crowd of people wouldn't be able to stop one Luo Wenzhou in their own lair, but once you've shot your arrow, there's no getting it back. With things as they now stood, they could only carry on, whatever the consequences, frenzied to the end.
Most likely it really does only take three steps for a common person who thinks of himself as "ordinary" to go from "wisely coming to terms with reality" to "desperate criminal."
According to reason, a first-class sports car shouldn't have been surrounded and intercepted by a crew of motorcycles, but the actual road conditions always played a part. Especially in the cramped West Flower Market District, where the conditions were complicated and the roads long and full of obstacles. There were places where a rocket couldn't outrun the "Especially for picking up my grandson" mobility scooter.
Fei Du wasn't familiar with this place to start with, he hadn't had time to turn on the GPS, and it was dark; he could only rely on feeling—and there was a source of pollution next to him, making him feel he was barely functioning.
This path really was beset by perils on all sides.
Fei Du's hands and feet were cold, and even his heart rate was becoming irregular; his stomach was about to revolt, contents ready to come surging up. His hands grasping the steering wheel were white. Clenching his teeth, he said, "Tell me you didn't come alone."
Maybe because of blood loss or something, Luo Wenzhou really was a little car sick by now. So as not to upset the unsteadily performing driver, he said without any hesitation, "I didn't come alone, I have backup… Will we need to reimburse you for car repairs?"
As he spoke, Wu Xuechun shrieked. A motorcycle had quickly driven up. The rider slammed an iron chain against the window of Fei Du's car.
The window narrowly hung on without breaking, but it developed a spiderweb of cracks on the spot.
Luo Wenzhou was provoked by this sight. "This stupid car of yours is flashy but useless. If you have the money, why not get a bulletproof one?"
Fei Du gave the rearview mirror a sideways glance and turned the steering wheel, very skillfully pressing the chain-wielding rider to the side of the road. The motorcyclist didn't react fast enough, and his front wheel twisted on the curb. He made a few desperate struggles to preserve his equilibrium, but in the end still went flying along with his bike.
Holding his nose, Fei Du then said, "I'm not the President of the Republic. What bullets am I worried about?"
Of the two of them, one must have been a crow spirit. As soon as Fei Du said these words, a crack came from the car's rear window. The hair on Luo Wenzhou's neck stood up. He was the first to react. "The bastards are shooting! Young lady, get down!"
Wu Xuechun didn't need to be told again; she covered her head and curled up. At the same time, another motorcycle came up alongside them and the rider raised a hand, showing the dark and empty muzzle of a gun. Regardless of the facts, he opened fire.
Luckily there aren't so many decathlon-running bad guys in this world. This person's marksmanship looked like he was just fooling around, basically shooting blind—though if you shoot enough, there'll always be a lucky shot or two. A bullet broke through the passenger's side window. Luo Wenzhou quickly turned and blocked Fei Du while forcing himself down. The bullet brushed his shoulder and hit the windshield.
This frightening instant made almost no impression on Fei Du's thoughts or feelings. His brain, dimmed by the smell of blood, really was about to shut down. He had no time to think, and no time to feel. Amidst infinite perils, he freed one hand; able to stand it no longer, he picked up the car's air freshener and without looking sprayed it right into Luo Wenzhou's face.
Incurring an unwarranted blast of fragrance, Luo Wenzhou was simply ready to kneel in respect for the utterly fearless President Fei's spirit.
Fei Du spotted a little street with no one in it and stepped on the gas. Spinning the steering wheel as far right as it would go, he executed a turn, not giving the gun-toting motorcyclist any room to follow.
Then, having completed his turn, he immediately stepped on the brakes—at the end of the little street, like a stake-out, three or four motorcycles were waiting for him.
The sound of thunder came from behind. They were being attacked from the front and the rear, trapped in the little street.
Fei Du swept his gaze in a circle expressionlessly. His face was so cold it was a little frightening. He took hold of the gear shift behind the steering wheel, the engine giving out a brutal roar. The car seemed to be an enraged beast, covered in wounds and entrenching itself, preparing to launch a fatal attack at any time.
Fei Du quietly said, "If I run them over one by one, would that count as excessive force in self-defense?"
The noise of the vehicle was too loud. Luo Wenzhou could only see his bloodless lips moving; he didn't hear a single word clearly. But he inexplicably understood Fei Du's expression, and his heart skipped heavily. He instinctively grabbed Fei Du's hand holding the gear shift.
The hand was very cool, hard, full of cold intensity, like some dull metal.
Just then, police sirens sounded for the second time. Red and blue flashing lights lit up a large portion of the horizon.
His backup had finally arrived.
Using all his effort, Luo Wenzhou managed to unclench Fei Du's hand from the gear shift. The sound of the engine slowly calmed. Inside the badly damaged car, everything was silent for a while.
The reinforcements were extremely reliable. They had the scene under control as soon as they arrived, quickly snatching up the Biking Party and its implements, and an ambulance very considerately came after them.
Lang Qiao was the first to run over. She leaned on the car door. Breathlessly, she said, "Chief, are you guys all right? I was so scared!"
Luo Wenzhou laughed at her and hadn't had time to speak when Fei Du staggered out of the car, walked to the side of the road without saying a word, and threw up.
Luo Wenzhou was discussing follow-up arrangements with Lang Qiao when Director Lu, who had come over in person, stuffed him into the ambulance. He thought to himself that the old man was making a fuss over nothing; these little injuries didn't amount to anything. After he was forcibly escorted into the ambulance, he didn't ease up but kept issuing commands, holding the ambulance's door. "Chen Zhen may still be alive. I don't think they have any reason to kill him immediately. Go to the Great Fortune Building and give it a good search. Also, go to the sub-bureau at once to pick up Ma Xiaowei, we have to get him away before Wang Hongliang gets the news. Damn it, they may already have the news by now… All right, doctor, I'm coming, just let me finish…"
Comparatively speaking, his "fellow patient" was much better behaved—although not a hair on Fei Du's head had been hurt, when it was all over he threw up until he was half-dead, vomiting himself into collapsing of dehydration.
Tonight seemed to be a century long. For some people, each second felt like it was endlessly stretched out.
The Flower Market District Sub-Bureau was silent. Xiao Haiyang, who was on duty, clutched a cell phone in his hand. His partner had fallen dead asleep. Carefully avoiding being seen, Xiao Haiyang headed towards the place where Ma Xiaowei was locked up.
There was a text message on the phone: "We've been caught, notify Director Wang at once, get rid of Ma Xiaowei, ASAP!"
Ma Xiaowei was curled up and sleeping, having some unknown nightmare, twitching from time to time. His still childishly innocent face was so thin it had lost some of its original appearance and looked like a monkey's.
Xiao Haiyang ducked inside, cautiously turned his head to look back, then reached out to grab Ma Xiaowei's shoulder.
Shaken awake in the middle of the night, Ma Xiaowei was startled. He opened his mouth and was about to call out, but Xiao Haiyang covered his mouth with one hand. The boy's eyes opened wide in terror—
When Luo Wenzhou's many injuries had been seen to at the hospital, he felt himself to be in perfect health; he could have taken on another soccer team of delinquents. He then strolled over to see Fei Du and found him with an IV drip in his arm, leaning back with his eyes closed, looking on the verge of death, as if he'd been the one to get sliced up.
Luo Wenzhou went over and lightly kicked Fei Du's foot. "Other people get sick at blood, they just fall over. How come you get sick like a pregnant woman?"
Fei Du didn't open his eyes. He only groaned. "Stay away."
"I'm all cleaned up," said Luo Wenzhou, flagrantly sitting down next to him. "It wasn't easy getting you to sit down and eat, and now you've thrown it all up."
Expressionless, Fei Du said, "I don't think there was anything worth regretting."
Luo Wenzhou thought about the crappy dining hall at his place of employment and decided that this was reasonable. He then asked, "How did you find us?"
This time, Fei Du played dead, not answering.
Luo Wenzhou kicked him again. "You weren't following me the whole time? What were you doing following me?"
Fei Du's usual reaction to this sort of low-level prodding would be to coolly give him an expression that said, "There you go making trouble again, you stupid fucker," then glance away. But right now he really felt too bad. His stomach had turned over several times and hurt like it was being pulled out, the impossible-to-get-rid-of smell of blood still seemed to linger at the tip of his nose, opening his eyes was all it took to get dizzy, and next to him there was a "menopausal" asshole not giving him any peace. Simmering with rage, he let slip a snort.
"Then what did you go there for?" said Luo Wenzhou.
Leaning against the hospital's snow-white pillow, Fei Du frowned deeply and mobilized all the self-restraint he had ever possessed to force himself not to swear. "I went to see where He Zhongyi lived."
The place where He Zhongyi had lived really wasn't far from the street behind the Great Fortune Building, and the two roads in fact had some similarities. Luo Wenzhou waited a long time without hearing Fei Du's next words, looked at Fei Du, then suddenly saw the light. "And then you got lost, right?"
Hearing this, Fei Du said nothing, only turned his head away and pretended he'd only heard the wind by his ear.
Luo Wenzhou saw this hint of humiliated anger in wonder, feeling that Fei Du had revealed a trace of something of an ordinary mortal. The truth made him seem for the first time a little amiable.
Luo Wenzhou quickly dialed back his crassness. Taking advantage of this bit of warm and friendly "human energy", he followed up, "You went to see where He Zhongyi used to live because of that old auntie?"
Fei Du paused for a moment, then quietly said, "That place is run-down and out-of-the-way, the bad living mixed in with the good. There's a public toilet nearby, and when it's dark the whole street stinks. The surroundings are a lot worse than the other rentals in the area. Everyone who lives there is looking for somewhere cheap: the ones weighed down by having families to feed, the ones who have both aging parents and small children to take care of, the ones who have sick family members—they go out by themselves and bear hardships, saving money to give to their families. There are also some gamblers and drug addicts, so poor they rattle, who have no choice but to live there."
"He Zhongyi didn't use drugs, according to his friends, and he didn't gamble. He scrimped and saved." Luo Wenzhou rubbed his chin. "He kept daily accounts. His ledger was very detailed, and all the income had a minus sign in front of it…"
"He was saving money to settle his debt." Fei Du opened his eyes. "And the mysterious creditor may have told him, 'I'll give you the money, but you can't mention me to others.'"
Luo Wenzhou frowned. As they'd dredged up the circumstances of He Zhongyi's life, however he looked at it, he didn't think he could have any connection to the drug trafficking network. This matter had not only not come clear, it was growing increasingly convoluted.
He pinched the skin between his brows. "Forget it. We've caught the rats, anyway. When the time comes, we'll find out during questioning whether there was a connection."
Fei Du made a faint noise of agreement and closed his eyes again, not wanting to pay him any more attention.
The two of them sat together in silence for a moment. Then Luo Wenzhou suddenly rubbed his nose. Taking advantage of the "friendly atmosphere" of recently shared trials and tribulations, he opened his mouth and asked, "There's one thing I've never understood.—Back then, with your family's case, there was me, Tao Ran, the medical examiners, as well as the old medical examiners and old criminal policemen specially brought in to make sure our judgement wasn't mistaken… A whole crowd of people reached the same conclusion, so why am I the only one you've made life difficult for?"
Fei Du laughed mockingly.
"It's all right. Tell the truth." Feigning politeness, Luo Wenzhou added, "I won't be angry."
Fei Du heard this and spoke, indeed not being polite. He said, "Because that idiotic look of yours, like you think everyone else is blind and you have X-ray vision and can see through everything, is really annoying."
Luo Wenzhou: "…"
Having heard it, he really was pretty angry.
Just then, Luo Wenzhou's phone vibrated. He looked down, and his expression at once became very peculiar. The bit of anger he'd felt vanished without a trace.
He held back for a while, then weakly said, "So…you see…"
Fei Du looked at him in bewilderment.
"My colleague says that your car… It's very seriously damaged, and there may not be a way to repair it domestically."
"Oh?" said Fei Du. "What about it?"
Luo Wenzhou took a deep breath, threw caution and shame to the wind, then in one breath said, "They say the cost to repair it is really too high, about the same as buying a new one, several years of our reward fund won't cover it—would it be all right if we gave you a silk banner (32) instead?"
Fei Du: "…"
Luo Wenzhou regretted it as soon as he'd spoken. He really wanted to pick up the colleague who'd sent him the text message and shake the water out of his brain—who knew what organ he'd been using to think up such a lousy idea!
But Fei Du, after staring for a moment, suddenly laughed—and it wasn't at all fake, but true helpless laughter.
Luo Wenzhou felt awkward and didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
But before he could work through his "hundred feelings mixed together," his phone rang again; this time it was Lang Qiao.
Lang Qiao's voice was very solemn. "Captain Luo, we found Chen Zhen. He's dead."
Luo Wenzhou's relaxed expression sank, and he abruptly sat up straight. "What?"
"Also, before he was arrested, one of the suspects sent a text message to have them take care of Ma Xiaowei. Our people are hurrying over there, but I don't know whether they'll be in time."
In a few words, Lang Qiao had given him the two worst pieces of news. She'd just hung up when another call came through right after—it was Tao Ran, who'd taken the evening off for once.
Luo Wenzhou absently said, "Tao Ran, I have some things to take care of, can you wait a bit…"
"Captain Luo, that lawyer of Zhang Donglai's just contacted me," Tao Ran said quickly. "He says he found a suspicious necktie in Zhang Donglai's car."
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Author's Note:
(32) Traditionally given as awards for merit, look like this.