LUO WENZHOU REACHED the youth center only after Tao Ran and the others had left for White Peach Alley. Seeing his car with its familiar license plate, Lang Qiao rushed over to him. “Boss!”
“What’s happening? Where’s Tao Ran?” asked Luo Wenzhou. He turned to wave at someone in the car, telling them, “Wait in there.”
The passenger ignored him and got out. He had one arm in a sling. Lang Qiao paused, surprised. “Oh…Fei-zong…? Why are you all armored up?”
“Yeah… Please forgive this lowly general’s inability to greet you with the proper formalities,”8 Fei Du said, glancing up at the buildings near the youth center. “I got into a minor accident. Any news on Chenchen?”
Before Lang Qiao could respond, a police car with its sirens on came to a stop at the youth center’s entrance. Tao Ran and a few other officers got out, their expressions grave.
Tao Ran shook his head at Luo Wenzhou’s questioning gaze. “Chenchen’s phone was stolen by a repeat offender who’d just been released from jail. He said that a girl was tying her shoelaces on the side of the road, and she’d set her phone down on a flower bed’s stone border. After tying her shoes, she just left, forgetting her phone there—so he just ‘picked it up.’”
“Where? When?”
“Probably near the youth center.” Tao Ran raked a hand through his hair, his brow deeply furrowed. “We found seven or eight phones on him that he planned to sell. They’d all been stolen today. He couldn’t even remember exactly when he stole hers.”
“Ge, why are you so panicked?” Fei Du asked from the side. “What is it?”
“I asked Chang Ning. She said that Chenchen was wearing a floral dress today.” Tao Ran’s expression was ugly, his voice low, fast, and worried. “If she really was… The culprit’s kidnapped two kids in five days. That’s way too frequent. And it means that Qu Tong is for sure already… Chenchen was kidnapped after 5:00 p.m., and at this point, it’s been over seven hours. So it’s possible that she’s also…”
Fei Du patted his arm. “Calm down.”
“What do I have to panic about? I’m not her father.” Tao Ran laughed bitterly. “I haven’t told her family about these suspicions yet—I’m too afraid to. But you said before that that suspicious person was an old man, right? Are you sure?”
“No. We were too far away,” replied Fei Du. “Chenchen is sharp. My warning at the time scared her, and I doubt she’d forget so quickly. Even with someone elderly, or someone she was familiar with, I believe she would’ve had her guard up. And if someone managed to trick her into going outside, she’d still have remembered to message her family.”
“Deputy Tao! We found the kid on the art room’s security footage!”
Tao Ran whipped around, but before he could go, Luo Wenzhou put a firm hand on his shoulder. “Leave it to me. You take charge of talking to the girl’s family. See whether the kid’s been acting weird recently, whether her parents have offended anyone, what their relationship with her is like. We can’t count out any possibilities.”
Beside them, Fei Du was leaning against something. “Do you need my help?”
“In what capacity?” Luo Wenzhou asked him.
“As a member of the victim’s friends and family,” Fei Du replied shamelessly.
Luo Wenzhou gave him a gentle warning poke but still didn’t tell him to go away.
The footage from the art classroom was very clear. Starting at around 4:30 p.m., a steady stream of parents arrived to pick up the other children until only Chenchen was left. She flipped through an art book the teacher had left behind, occasionally looking out the window. Over the course of ten minutes, she spent more time staring out the window than not.
“What’s she looking at?” Luo Wenzhou asked, confused.
“Mirror,” replied Lang Qiao.
Luo Wenzhou looked baffled.
“She’s using the windowpane as a mirror,” Lang Qiao elaborated. “If she was just looking out the window, she’d only have needed to turn her head. She wouldn’t have had to turn and lean in with her entire body. And she’s twirling her hair with her pen. It’s a girl thing—huh?”
Chenchen suddenly sat up so straight that her body left her chair slightly, then smiled, packed up her things, and ran off. The time showing in the corner of the screen was 4:40 p.m.
Luo Wenzhou immediately looked up at the art classroom’s location: Its windows faced the sports field outside. They quickly pulled up the footage from the building closest to the field, then watched Chenchen dart out of a building toward a group of kids on the field. The camera was at a distance, so it only captured her hanging out with the kids there for a short while. After that, Chenchen headed toward a blind spot with a few of the girls, leaving the frame of the camera. Considering the youth center’s layout, the girls had probably gone toward a row of red buildings near the northwestern corner.
“What’s going on?” Luo Wenzhou asked, his brow furrowed. “Didn’t the admin say there were no blind spots?”
“Those red buildings are public washrooms, so there are no cameras.”
“Why didn’t he say anything?! Quick—confirm those kids’ identities and call them all. And someone get me the map.”
There was a little park at the northwestern corner of the youth center, but maintenance there was very lax. Locals had trampled the grass along the park’s outer edge, their footprints all mixed up with dog droppings. Nobody ever went deeper into the park, so the vegetation grew enthusiastically, and the insects were nearly as loud as bomber planes.
The police dogs quickly got into place there, barking, as flashlights shone through the trees.