Chapter 14
“LET’S WORK A LITTLE HARDER TODAY, comrades. I’ve already reimbursed you all for late-night snacks and paid for the girls’ face masks. If you’ve got a wife and kids, I’ll write you an apology letter later. We’re pulling an all-nighter tonight. Even if we’re forced to dig up the entire Su apartment, we need to get to the bottom of this. I want to find that Qu Tong girl no matter what, dead or alive.” When Luo Wenzhou finished speaking into the walkie-talkie, he turned to Fei Du, who was looking at him with interest. “You might actually be cursed, young man. This sure was a happy birthday for you. Well, I can’t drive you back. Would you rather I call you a taxi or drop you off at a hotel somewhere along the way?”
Fei Du didn’t answer. Instead, he asked randomly, “What do you guys eat at night when you do overtime?”
“Usually a gutter-oil deluxe meal.” Luo Wenzhou’s expression was a little bitter. “Occasionally, thanks to certain picky people, we eat something a little more high-end, like McDonald’s—if we just got paid.”
Fei Du’s silence spoke volumes.
Luo Wenzhou drove toward the municipal bureau. “If my team was as hard to accommodate as you,” he said grumpily, “I wouldn’t be able to expense all their spending. At any rate, there’s a hotel up ahead—and it charges half my monthly pay for a single night. Should I drop you off?”
“No. The scent in their lobby is way too overpowering, and their bathrooms don’t have bathtubs,” Fei Du drawled to the poor government worker who ate fried chicken when hungry and drank gutter oil when thirsty. Ignoring the loathing his wealth had incited in Luo Wenzhou, he directed, “Keep driving. There’s a six-star place by your office, and their service is good enough. I’ll get out at the bureau and walk over.”
Luo Wenzhou tried, but eventually, he couldn’t hold it in. “Fei-zong, all you do is have fun and fuck around. You never do actual work. Does your family have enough money to squander it like this for the rest of your life? What’ll you do after you waste the family fortune? You won’t have a pot to piss in. You’re not getting any younger, you know. After today—uh, yesterday—you’re even old enough to go to a civil affairs bureau and register for marriage. Can you please have a little more direction in your life?!”
Fei Du rested his uninjured elbow on the car door. He didn’t say anything, only smiled, chin in hand. Luo Wenzhou didn’t know what was so funny. Fei Du worried him. If it weren’t for the fact that the younger man was injured, Luo Wenzhou would’ve kicked him out of the car.
“You sure you don’t need my help anymore?” Fei Du asked after a while.
“Are you an employee? Do you get paid?” As he scolded Fei Du, Luo Wenzhou turned onto a side road, heading for Fei Du’s chosen hotel. “It’s none of your business.”
“I heard that the little girl identified the so-called ‘accomplice’ you guys are arresting. And you have no other proof, right?”
“The investigation process is top secret,” Luo Wenzhou said expressionlessly.
Fei Du dismissed that. “Oh, right. And because this ‘accomplice’ has a slight connection to the serial kidnapping case twenty years ago, he comes off as suspicious to you guys—which means you have no proof. That little girl isn’t even thirteen yet. She looks very smart, but she doesn’t seem all that mentally stable. How convincing will her testimony be? The man you’re after has an alibi the police can corroborate. What if he refuses to admit to the crime?”
Luo Wenzhou ground his teeth.
“And that little girl,” Fei Du continued, spreading his hands. “You won’t get anything out of her. You guys aren’t allowed to force anything out of a kid. Are the police planning to get a juvenile criminal psychologist here overnight?”
Everything Fei Du said was true, which was exactly what was causing Luo Wenzhou such a headache. They lacked concrete supporting evidence to justify everything that happened that night. If they hadn’t managed to save Chenchen, Luo Wenzhou would have had a lot to answer for the next day solely because he’d neglected proper procedure.
The car arrived at the hotel, where the chilly air conditioning flowed toward them, carrying a cool, calm scent. It was very relaxing. Despite the early hour, a bellboy approached them to welcome the guests enthusiastically.
Having delivered his commentary on the police force’s rescue mission, Fei Du got out of the car, but he suddenly remembered something and turned around. He knocked on Luo Wenzhou’s window, then opened the driver’s side door. “I forgot my phone. Could you please pass it to me?”
Luo Wenzhou made a noise of acquiescence and picked up the phone from the passenger seat. He was just about to hand it over when Fei Du reached into the car, apparently unable to wait any longer.
Fei Du’s shirt hung loosely off him, a little disheveled by the crash. From Luo Wenzhou’s angle, he could see down the low-hanging collar. Although Fei Du’s chest was on the thin side, the well-defined collarbones above it suggested that he had power hidden within. He hadn’t gone for cologne today, but the man’s decadent flesh had probably been drenched in so many famous perfumes from all over the world that it gave him his own scent. A subtle, indistinct male fragrance seemed to emanate from his collar, so vague that it vanished without a trace before you could get a good whiff.
As Fei Du reached into the vehicle, he seemed ready to press his arm against Luo Wenzhou, yet he retreated after the merest touch; as he took his phone, his finger brushed Luo Wenzhou’s hand, seemingly by accident.
Luo Wenzhou stilled. When a man like him—young, virile, without a fixed partner for the moment, interested in men, and incredibly stressed from work—was caught off guard by such deliberate temptation, the effects were as bad as if you’d showed a Michelin-starred restaurant’s late-night Weibo post to someone on day three of a fast.
“I should still be here in the morning. If you need anything, you can come find me.” Fei Du straightened up and stuck the damn phone in his pocket. “I could talk to that girl for you. I’m not an expert on troubled youths, but I do have ample experience as a troubled youth myself.”
Luo Wenzhou waved a tired hand at him. “Please leave.”
When Fei Du was finally gone, Luo Wenzhou parked on the roadside. He’d smoked two cigarettes before he recovered from his half-hard state.
Anytime he thought about Fei Du, he couldn’t help sighing at the changes in their relationship. Most people could rely on blind dates and matchmaking to address personal needs, busy hours of work or study notwithstanding. Things were much less convenient for minority orientations like Luo Wenzhou’s.
As a fresh graduate, “Young Master Luo” had had his years of fun, just like Fei Du. Later, he’d realized that—while sleeping around was easy—finding someone who actually suited him was a challenge. The “fun” lifestyle really only had four stages: infatuation, acclimatization, boredom, and disgust. On top of that, Luo Wenzhou’s career had put more and more pressure on him, distracting him from his love life. Thus, he’d gradually settled into “golden years” of living just to work and pet his cat.
But being mentally old and physically young set his emotional and physiological desires at odds. If this continues, Luo Wenzhou thought wildly, God knows when I’ll start getting hard at the sight of Luo Yiguo’s fluffy tail.
He stomped the pedal irascibly. With a roar, the car sped back to the brightly lit municipal bureau.
✦ ✦ ✦
“SERGEANT LUO, Xu Wenchao has been detained. He’s in the interrogation room. Su Luozhan’s in a different room with Xiao-Lang watching over her. Are you planning…”
Before the officer finished speaking, Luo Wenzhou’s hurried footsteps came to a sudden stop. A hunched man stood in the hallway. “Guo-shu?”
Guo Heng put out his cigarette and stood up slowly, doing his best to straighten his back…without much success.
Luo Wenzhou began, “Why are you—”
“Since you came to find me this afternoon, are you reopening the case?” Guo Heng stared at him, his eyes burning. “You are, right? My daughter… We’ve never found her, after all these years. But I heard that you guys found one of the girls you were looking for, and that she’s still alive. Is it true? Are you trying to capture the suspect now? Is there hope that we might find out the truth about Feifei’s kidnapping? Did Wu Guangchuan have accomplices?”
The flame that Yang-lao mentioned seemed to reignite in the old man’s murky eyes; it was difficult to meet his gaze. Confronted so suddenly, Luo Wenzhou didn’t know what to say—a vague answer was the best he could do. “Rest assured that we’ll do our best.”
Then he beat a hasty retreat. Even when he was a good distance away, he still felt Guo Heng’s fiery gaze burning holes in his back.