After some thought, Zheng Tan still made his way toward the warehouse.
Wei Leng watched the Black Cat run towards the warehouse, collected his thoughts, and prepared to deal with the few people behind the wall first. With the cat heading there, his senior brother should take notice.
Zheng Tan looked at the exhaust fan outlet that wasn't blocked by wire netting. It was somewhat high, and he couldn't jump up in one go. So, he climbed a bit by using some scrap wooden boards propped against the wall, then jumped to the ventilator, and peered inside through the gaps between the fan blades... Besides some discarded items, there was nothing.
The room with the exhaust fan wasn't large. After entering, Zheng Tan took a look around. The door had long been obstructed by some scrap wooden boards and several large boxes of fallen bottles. Otherwise, someone would definitely have come in to take these bottles out to sell. He didn't see any insects or the like, perhaps because of some kind of aromatic medicinal adjuncts scattered around.
Although the door was blocked, there was a hole in the wall next to it, probably drilled for installing electrical equipment in the past. It wasn't big, but Zheng Tan tried and found it a bit difficult to squeeze through. However, after some wriggling, he managed to force his way through.
Cats are known for their amazing flexibility, achieving the effects of yoga without any training, albeit covered in wall dust.
After leaving the small room, Zheng Tan shook off the dust from his coat and looked around. This was the proper storage area of the warehouse. Now that the factory had moved, there were no goods, just abandoned clutter, the lighting was dim, and several rotten thick beams lay haphazardly all over the place, making it look quite messy. These beams didn't belong to the warehouse but seemed to have been dragged over from the collapsed small storage rooms around.
His vision obstructed by the discarded clutter and his sense of smell disrupted by the pungent medicinal adjuncts, Zheng Tan had to rely on his hearing to find people.
Following the direction the sounds came from, Zheng Tan weaved his way through the gaps in the clutter. If it were a human, it wouldn't be so easy, but Zheng Tan was fully utilizing his slender form to move quicker.
The warehouse was quite spacious, and it took Zheng Tan a while to near the source of the sounds.
An open space had been cleared here, with three people lying on the ground, while Wei Leng's "Tofu" elder brother was busy tying up the hands and feet of the three on the ground with hemp rope found nearby. The mouths of the three were stuffed with some packaging bags, rendering them unable to cry out, only able to make muffled sounds.
"Tofu" elder brother wasn't in his police uniform today, probably for easier movement.
Standing beside "Tofu" elder brother was a woman who seemed quite demure, wearing a pair of red plastic glasses and a fitted jacket that accentuated her figure. If Wei Leng suspected this woman, Zheng Tan found it hard to connect her with the killer responsible for several lives, as she looked like an ordinary college student.
However, one shouldn't judge by appearances alone, just like the two thieves caught earlier, a meek look doesn't guarantee innocence.
Zheng Tan didn't immediately reveal himself but hid behind an old wooden board, watching the situation over there, particularly focusing on that woman. "Tofu" elder brother was clearly wary of the girl and did not turn his back on her.
Zheng Tan saw "Tofu" elder brother, having tied up the three on the ground, took out his mobile phone.
"No signal?"
"Tofu" elder brother frowned, looked around, walked around with the phone, but still no signal. He decided to go outside to make a call. After taking a few steps, he turned back and said to the girl who was still standing there, "Follow me."
The girl didn't utter a sound but obediently followed, keeping a distance of one to two meters from "Tofu" elder brother, which some psychologists consider to be a safe distance between people.
"Walnut" Master wasn't the only one on guard against her; she was also on guard against "Walnut" Master.
Zheng Tan stealthily followed, weaving through the discarded objects, needing to remain both silent and keep pace, stopping and starting. Each time he paused, he planned his next move and took the brief opportunity to survey the surroundings, so he moved swiftly after each stop.
It was like when pet owners tease their cats: one moment the cat is standing seven or eight meters away, and the next, you find it has silently moved to just five or six meters away.
Zheng Tan had no idea that his motions now resembled those of a sheriff on the prowl, silently following, waiting for the right moment.
As they approached the door where there were fewer discarded items—likely because the three people who first came in had already cleared a path— "Walnut" Master didn't need to exert much force. He only occasionally lifted obstacles that lay across the path, using these moments to check on the girl behind him.
Right as "Walnut" Master lifted a wooden plank that blocked the way and stepped forward, Zheng Tan saw the girl, who looked like an ordinary college student, pull out a tube-like object from her sleeve and aim it at "Walnut" Master up ahead.
Zheng Tan's instincts told him the object was dangerous.
This was the moment!
Zheng Tan, who was keeping a close watch on the girl, suddenly sprang forward with a push of his legs.
The girl, ready to strike with the syringe and her eyes glinting coldly, hidden somewhat by her glasses, thought she was about to succeed when suddenly she felt a heavy blow to her chest. She lost her balance and fell sideways, while the syringe in her hand was knocked off course.
Before she could react, "Walnut" Master, who had been walking ahead, took action. He twisted her arm and pressed her against a thick wooden beam, making a loud thump. Due to the force of being pushed against the beam, her glasses fell off.
After the successful strike, Zheng Tan perched on a nearby wooden board, flexing his palm, and couldn't help thinking that her chest didn't feel very large to the touch—disappointing.
"Walnut" Master flipped his hand and produced a length of hemp rope. He had found several extra ropes earlier and kept them just in case, never expecting to use one so soon.
"I've been on guard against you all this time, and now you're finally showing your killing move," said "Walnut" Master. He glanced at the needle that missed its mark and stuck in the discarded wooden plank nearby, and then at the micro-syringe that had fallen to the ground. The plunger's core was modified, and the front of the syringe was different from regular ones. The instantaneous high pressure created when the core is pushed would shoot out the needle, containing, presumably, a fast-acting anesthetic or something similar.
"Eh, it's all sorted already?" Wei Leng, who had just climbed in through the window, said.
Zheng Tan followed the voice and looked over. Behind Wei Leng was a large window, but he remembered it had been tightly shut before, maybe even locked, and it was about five meters above the ground. How did Wei Leng manage to get in so quietly?
"Walnut" Master wasn't too surprised by Wei Leng's entry. "It's a good thing this Black Cat helped me just now; otherwise, I might have been hit by that needle. I didn't expect her to have such a tactic."
Wei Leng, looking at the woman who still maintained a calm demeanor after being subdued, said, "That's why I told you this woman was trouble, but you wouldn't believe she was the culprit. Run a DNA test, and it will definitely match with the criminal DNA we found before."
"But shouldn't it be a man? Is she a trans person? That wouldn't be right; I've checked her information."
"It's her; she just has a special physique. If you want to know more specifics, you might want to ask those geneticists or genetic scientists."
With Wei Leng around, Zheng Tan didn't bother doing anything extra. He slipped through gaps in the discarded items and used the accumulated debris to jump up to the window Wei Leng had climbed in through, peering out. There was a disused telephone pole across from the window, but nothing else that could be used to leverage a climb.
Zheng Tan didn't think he could make it out like Wei Leng, using a distant telephone pole to help his climb, so he went back the way he had come, exiting through the ventilation fan opening they had entered from.
Outside, four people were tied up, all unconscious—a masterpiece by Wei Leng.
Zheng Tan looked around, used a tree to climb into a five-story building. The first two floors appeared to be former office spaces, with not much discarded material or trash, and some incomplete record charts still on the walls. The top three floors were dormitories, and on the windowsills were makeshift planters made from beverage bottles, holding a few deceased cacti in dry soil.
Zheng Tan didn't spend much time looking at those, and instead went straight to the roof of the small building.
From there, he could see most of the factory, as well as two other factory areas nearby. One of them, like this one, had been vacated a while ago, still and full of discarded items, whereas the other was busier.
Two minutes after Zheng Tan came out, Wei Leng and his senior brother opened the warehouse doors and brought out the people inside. When they lined up the three groups of people, one group was the original drug traffickers from the abandoned warehouse, another was the woman, and the last was the group Wei Leng had dealt with, who were prepared to rob the others.
"I heard that years ago the International Olympic Committee used to check the chromosomes of all female athletes competing, claiming that athletes with Y chromosomes tended to have an advantage over typical female athletes in competition. This criminal is probably one of those cases. Senior brother, you're really lucky to encounter such a rare occurrence while on a case."
Sitting nearby and guarding the criminals, the two brothers smoked and chatted. They had already called for backup, and it wouldn't be long before someone came to take over, so all they needed to do was wait.
Hearing Wei Leng's teasing, He Tao smiled wryly and shook his head, "Damn it! By the way, why did you bring that cat with you?"
"Master says cats bring good luck. When you're hesitant or don't know where to start, bringing a cat can have unexpected effects. So I brought it along," responded Wei Leng.
He Tao pursed his lips, still unconvinced by his master's words, but indeed it was the cat that had helped them this time.
"I owe that cat a favor. Damn, it's not easy to accept!"
"No worries, it's not the first time you've owed a cat. You know how to repay your debt."
"Shit!"
After a moment of silence, He Tao asked again, "Didn't you say last week that you had a job in mind? Where do you plan to go? What job?"
"Security guard."
"I… cough cough… cough cough cough!" He Tao choked on his smoke in surprise, almost coughing up his lungs.
"You're not going to the police or a company but to do security work? Have you got cat shit in your brain?!" He Tao almost shouted after he recovered.
"This is a decision I've made after careful consideration."
"Did you smash your head on tofu before 'carefully considering'?!"
"I was clear-headed, and besides, I have already discussed it with Master."
"… What did Master say?"
"Master said 'Oh,' but after that, I heard the sound of a table being chopped on the other end of the phone."
"Did the old man chop tables with his bare hands again?"
The key word was "again."
"By the sound of it, he'll definitely need a new one. That's the seventh one this year, and he still isn't happy with a stronger, alloy table."
"Of course, he isn't. When he gets angry, he likes to chop tables for fun."
"It's better to let out the steam than to keep it bottled up. Anyway, Ermao has prepared a whole warehouse of wooden tables for him. That should last him a few years."
"Speaking of Ermao, have you heard anything from him?" asked He Tao.
"No."
While the brothers chatted on one side, Zheng Tan observed the situation at the carbonated drink factory next door. The factory had only recently started moving, and now a line of big trucks was continuously leaving the premises, loaded with goods.
Zheng Tan's attention was captured by a truck being loaded. The workers were hoisting crates of soda in glass bottles onto the truck. As they were moving them, a few police cars drove by. One of the workers glanced at the police cars, speculated on the reason for their visit with someone, and didn't notice a round bottle cap roll underfoot. His foot twisted, and the crate of soda slipped from his grasp.
The impact from the dropped crate of soda was extraordinary.
Zheng Tan watched as a loud "bang" sounded, and glass shards flew everywhere, cutting through the nearest worker's clothes, leaving cuts on the wrists and face exposed outside the uniform.
The injured worker was taken inside to treat his wounds, and Zheng Tan then refocused his attention on this side of the factory. The police had arrived and were talking with Wei Leng and his senior brother; Wei Leng looked like he wouldn't be leaving any time soon.
Yawning and stretching, Zheng Tan decided to take a quick nap.