The black Buick really had been positioned in the camera's blindspot; if it had gone forward a little, the camera would in fact have caught the front license plate. Lu Guosheng had evidently noticed this and immediately notified his accomplice to back up before the car could show itself, shielding the front plate. This would have been a very timely action—if there hadn't been a convex reflector at the corner.
Convex reflectors were ordinarily placed at intersections and comparatively complicated turnings to give drivers a view of cars and pedestrians turning from other directions.
The convex reflector at the corner mainly faced the intersection; in other words, the camera was aimed at a large portion of the back of its "head"; both were facing the same direction. Reasonably speaking, the camera wouldn't have caught what was reflected in the mirror, so Lu Guosheng had overlooked it.
Unfortunately, while he'd taken a thousand precautions, one had slipped through. An open window was reflecting half of the convex reflector; furthermore, the Lungyun Center's installations were all luxurious. Its surveillance system used the most expensive high-definition cameras.
When they'd enlarged that section, they could vaguely distinguish the last three digits of the license plate number.
Xiao Haiyang pushed at his glasses, wanting nothing better than to dive into the screen. "3…3, 6… I can't see what's in front of it, maybe it's 3, or maybe 8. Wait, I'll carefully analyze the recording again."
"Don't worry. A trace is enough." Luo Wenzhou fixed his gaze on Lu Guosheng in the screenshot, then stood up, picked up his phone, and dialed a number.
"Hello, Lao Qiu. Yeah, it's me, I have a favor to ask… A little while ago some bastard scraped my significant other's car and wasn't caught at the time… Oh, no injuries, the car was empty at the time, otherwise wouldn't we have known who it was? It's actually not a big deal, the important thing is that the car's paint is pretty expensive, it's half a year of our wages to get it repainted… Yes, fine, please look into it for me. Don't tell anyone else, I'd rather this little private business not get out, after all it violates discipline… A black Buick, looks pretty well-maintained, around noon on November sixth, in Beiyuan—near Beiyuan's Longyun Center. A security camera nearby caught a flash of the end of its license plate number, 336. I have a feeling it's likely to be a local car… All right, thank you, sorry, you're really helping me out, I'll bring you some packs of good cigarettes in a bit."
He put down the phone and saw Xiao Haiyang staring at him, his glasses having slipped down again.
"What are you looking at?" Luo Wenzhou pushed at his head. "Is it heroic to fool around on your own trying to do everything instead of asking someone? Our country is the most richly endowed with population. Don't be so confident, idiot.—When it gets light, Tao Ran and Xiao Haiyang, go to the City Bureau and do what you need to. Wait to hear from me. I'm going to the main traffic police team. Fei Du, you wait for word from me, too, don't do anything rash… Enough, stop wiping, you're going to wear a hole in the lens."
"I'm thinking about something," Fei Du suddenly said in a low voice. "Lu Guosheng has been running away all these years. There isn't much information about him, and no one did a psychological profile of him back then. So we've been acting on preconceptions, thinking he's a cruel, ruthless, extremely audacious person."
"Yes, what else would he be?" Tao Ran said.
"Fourteen years ago, Lu Guosheng revealed himself once in the police force's line of sight—though it later came to nothing. This time, however, after killing Feng Bin, he even more carelessly let Xia Xiaonan go, and dared to openly appear in a public venue." Fei Du put his spotless glasses back onto his nose. "Comprehensively, this person gives me the feeling of being careless, arrogant, and disdainful. It's likely he has dissociative and manic episodes. While his IQ isn't low, when he commits crimes, there's an element of venting. He's unruly, very unsettled. Simply speaking, he's somewhat crazy. I've always thought he's remained at liberty so long because someone's been protecting him—Lu Guosheng shouldn't be like this. He shouldn't be this cautious, nor have such a strong sense of measures to counteract police surveillance."
Beiyuan's Longyun Center was Wei Zhanhong's territory, but Wei Zhanhong truly may not have known at first what his darling son was up to. However bad Wei Senior was, he was still bad in a sensible way. His goals were clear, and he knew how to avoid risks. His methods were rather concealed. Taking out a hit on a classmate for the sake of a school "power struggle"…really was too puerile, too inconsiderate of the consequences. An adult wouldn't have made such a ridiculous blunder. Wei Wenchuan had simply landed his father in a hole with this.
Lu Guosheng must have clearly understood this, so he evidently hadn't treated the Longyun Center as his own territory. He'd taken precautions against everyone, including his idiotic youthful employer.
But the contradiction was, since he'd been this uneasy, why had he personally shown his face on November sixth?
Whether he'd wanted to look at the assassination target or the employer, there really was no need for Lu Guosheng to personally show himself—couldn't he have made Wei Wenchuan give him a recording, even the surveillance footage from the restaurant's private room?
"What do you mean?" Xiao Haiyang asked quickly. "Are you saying that may not be Lu Guosheng? No, not only is his body language exactly the same as in the video from the Drum Tower, you could also see his uneven eyes when he looked up at the camera. Such unusual eyes would be hard to mistake."
"No…I mean, I made something of an error earlier. He may not have gone to look at Feng Bin that day. Who else was in that private room? I need a list of names." Fei Du paused. "Especially the girls."
"Why the girls?"
Fei Du slowly looked up. "I want to know whether he didn't kill Xia Xiaonan because of transference."
"Tao Ran can think of a roundabout way to get it when he goes back to the City Bureau," Luo Wenzhou said quickly. "Though right now the most important business is to find where Lu Guosheng is hiding. As long as we catch him, we can observe him or interrogate him however we want.—This is all coming together after a long delay. We have to strike fast. Everyone listen up. First, be quick. Second, maintain secrecy. Third, look after yourselves. Fourth, be careful of your communications devices. If you can't be certain you aren't being overheard, take care when you speak.—Comrade Xiao Haiyang, please control your magic 'machine gun mouth' a little. Don't just spit things out."
Xiao Haiyang didn't realize that he was making fun of him for rambling. Hearing this, he calmly explained himself. "Captain Luo, while I only scraped by in my physical stamina test, I'm not a mental deficient."
Luo Wenzhou exhaled weakly and waved a hand. "Yeah, I'm the mental deficient. Come on!"
However large a room was, four grown men milling around in it together would make it seem crowded. But they scattered in the blink of an eye, and the room instantly became peaceful.
From the moment he'd opened his eyes in the morning, Fei Du had been tense. They'd been busy ever since. It wasn't yet light. The room was a mess. Last night's hotpot hadn't been scrubbed yet, only put to soak in the sink along with a stack of plates and bowls. Fei Du opened a window to air out the room. He wanted to clean up a little, but he didn't know where to start. He had to play his stock trick, calling someone to come over.
At this critical juncture, he really couldn't call an outsider. Fei Du had to call his own person.
This was a kindly-faced old lady surnamed Sang. Her miserable life experiences didn't show on her features. Her hometown was D City. Her husband had died young, and she'd worked hard to raise her son, had seen him grow up, get married, and have a child. There was a next generation. She'd just happily moved into a new home and was planning to enjoy old age and play with her grandchild.
But the blessings of ordinary people are frail. She happened to live in the estate belonging to Wei Zhanhong's unfortunate competitor. When the attack took place, Old Lady Sang was walking around outside pushing the baby's stroller. Her grandson, less than a year old, had been lifted by the killer and fatally thrown to the ground. Her daughter-in-law had had no one to blame and could only vent her grievance on the old lady. Her grievance had led her to get a divorce. The old lady's son couldn't stand the shock. He'd gone driving drunk and hit a roadside railing, dying as well. The price of the new home that had represented happiness had been nearly halved, but there were no discounts on home loans. The whole weight of the enormous loan had fallen on the white-haired, unsupported old lady. The bank had been afraid she would die halfway through repaying and had requested to shorten the repayment period.
Fei Du said, "Matters aren't pressing here. It just needs a bit of cleaning. If you have anything else to do, do it first and tell me when you're through. Take a taxi over when you're ready, I'll cover your travel expenses. There's no need to crowd onto public transportation."
"You rarely have any use for me, President Fei," a woman's warm voice said over the phone. Then Old Lady Sang stammered a bit and said, "This morning, Weiwei had something for you, and it passed through my hands… I know I shouldn't say much and ask you, but… Could I ask, are we going to catch the bad guys soon?"
Fei Du faced the open window, looking towards the distant horizon. Clear air was coming in from outside, pouring into his lungs.
"Yes," Fei Du said gently. "We may be very close this time."
Old Lady Sang was suddenly choked with emotion. "Fine… Fine, fine, if you need me to do anything, President Fei, have someone send word to me. You don't need to come yourself. It'll keep you from being implicated. I… As old as I am, I'm not afraid of anything, I'd be all right strapping on a bomb and going to die along with them…"
"That won't happen." Fei Du lowered his eyes. "We haven't reached that step."
We may…never reach that step now.
Just then, the front door suddenly opened. Luo Wenzhou had remembered something and returned, wrapped in cold. Without saying a word, he charged into the kitchen and locked the liquor cabinet—a person keeping a cat had to make sure to put leftovers in the fridge, and a person keeping President Fei had to make sure to lock the liquor cabinet at the proper moment.
Fei Du: "…"
Not bad at all.
Luo Wenzhou put away his keys, looked at Fei Du, then suddenly, not making a sound, went over and hugged him, fiercely pressing him into his arms. Smelling his own body wash on Fei Du, a piece of his heart finally came crashing back down into his chest, and he sighed heavily in relief.
Fei Du stared blankly, hesitated a moment, then slowly raised his arms and put them on his back. "I…"
Luo Wenzhou raised a hand, interrupting him. "You're my person. If you so much as gasp for breath, you'll hear about it from me. Bear that in mind."
Fei Du: "…"
Luo Wenzhou looked at him deeply, then once again ran out like the wind.
An hour later, another round of contests of strength began at the City Bureau. The parents and lawyers of the students involved all talked over each other, presenting the facts and reasoning things out, calling the police force's evidence-gathering methods into question, wanting nothing better than to turn the word "slander" into a nail and throw it into their faces, all but putting up a banner at the City Bureau's gates reading "Abuse of Public Authority, A Singular Injustice Throughout the Ages."
One of the students' parents had managed to indirectly acquire Director Lu's phone number through some connections and had called to complain at once.
Of course Director Lu couldn't be working overtime at the City Bureau over the weekend. He was annoyed beyond his endurance and had to call Luo Wenzhou.
Luo Wenzhou got out his phone, took a look, then turned off the ringtone and vibration, ignoring the incoming call from his superior.
"Though the car you described is a common model, adding in the location, the last digits of the license plate number, and requirements like being a local car and well-maintained, there's only one car that matches all of it." Lao Qiu of the main traffic police team hadn't noticed Luo Wenzhou's movements and showed him a screenshot from footage shot by the surveillance network. "Have a look, is it this one?"
Luo Wenzhou came close and had a look. In the passenger's seat, he dimly saw a man wearing a hat with the brim pulled low and a face mask, entirely protected. He gave an involuntarily shudder on the spot. "Yeah, where did it go afterwards?"
Lao Qiu opened a map and drew a circle at a certain point. "Around this district."
"It wouldn't be here." Fei Du, arriving at the indicated location, issued his conclusion without even getting out of the car, only sticking his head out and taking a look.
It was already nearly noon. Luo Wenzhou had picked Fei Du up, and they'd gone together to the address Lao Qiu had found for him.
It was almost a landmark building. Its exterior was a very peculiar geometric figure; photographed from above, it looked like a honeycomb. Therefore, it was called the Beehive.
The Beehive advertised "high-end consumption." It contained all kinds of entertainment facilities and luxury goods shops, as well as a large-scale food hall. Behind it was a golf course with a high fence protecting it. A flag with a golf ball drawn on it fluttered in the wind.
"Too showy." Fei Du shook his head. "High-end consumption locations have all been severely investigated these last few years. The whole industry has withered up a great deal. Keeping wanted criminals in as vulnerable a place as this would really be asking for it."
"Hiding in plain sight, perhaps?" Luo Wenzhou rolled down the window, signaling for him to look at the golf course gates, where a crowd of black Buicks was parked. "The golf course provides pick-up and drop-off service. The cars they use are exactly the same as the one that picked up Lu Guosheng."
As he spoke, he got out a small telescope and opened up the screenshot Lao Qiu had given him.
"The one with the license plate Yan X53336 must be here." Luo Wenzhou passed the telescope to Fei Du. "The one in the eastern corner—think of a way to get in touch with the drivers who provide the pick-up and drop-off service."
Before Fei Du could answer, Luo Wenzhou's phone rang again.
"Tao Ran." Luo Wenzhou took a look, then shut off the screen, not picking up.
"Why aren't you picking up?" Fei Du said.
"Lao Lu is making him call me," Luo Wenzhou said. "I told him to wait to hear from me, so Tao Ran won't just call me for no reason. I have a dozen missed calls from Lao Lu. I figure that he couldn't get me, so he went to find Tao Ran."
Fei Du was silent for a moment. "You suspect Director Lu?"
Luo Wenzhou paused. He didn't answer directly. "Director Lu has been working longer than you've been alive. He and my shifu were friends who went through life and death together. He carries countless scars. I don't know how many prisoners serving out life sentences or waiting for execution dream of killing him. When I'd just come to the City Bureau, I personally took part in an arrest—a recently released robber had gone to his house in the middle of the night for revenge, though luckily there was an informer who gave a warning about it ahead of time…
"Speaking of informers." Luo Wenzhou smiled wryly. "Of the informers we have on hand, a minority have special reasons, while a majority are doing it for the payments. People who get into this profession because of special reasons and special emotions often don't last long, while the ones who do it for money can do it for a comparatively long time. There are gambling addicts among them, alcoholics, drug takers, and those shouldering high-interest loans. They're all pitiful people. But sometimes you still have to take precautions against them.—When Gu Zhao fell at The Louvre, I suspect it was likely at the hands of his own informers… Money's a vulgar thing, but it gets in at every opportunity, wrecking your faith in others until there's hardly anything left."
Fei Du made no comment, and in five minutes made him feel the power of capital.
The Beehive's golf course suddenly received a pick-up request. Apparently it was a parvenu from out of town showing off his wealth by inviting some guests. The customer's requests were rude and unreasonable. He insisted on booking a driver to come pick the guests up right away. Having hit upon some divinity, the parvenu had actually borrowed a Beehive Platinum Card.
A super-VIP customer couldn't be offended. The whole fleet of black sedans at the golf course's gates was compelled to set out in full force.
Luo Wenzhou: "…"
"Come on, let's eat first." Fei Du stepped on the gas pedal, driving in the direction of the Beehive's entertainment center, showing a faint smile. "All this time, and I haven't asked you out for a good meal yet."