Chapter 4
“I SAW THE NEWS TOO! Heard it was really close to our place. Is that true?”
“Yeah! It happened right across Nanping Boulevard, just a little way out. I go that way sometimes when I’m heading back to my parents’ place and don’t want to cross the bridge. I always thought it was a dodgy area, but who knew—ah!”
The two young office workers were gossiping so enthusiastically in the kitchen that they initially didn’t notice that someone behind them was listening to a livestream. One of them was so startled that her hands flinched, and she almost poured a whole cup of hot water onto the floor as if it were an offering.
“Careful.” Fei Du reached out to steady the base of her cup, then took it from her grasp and set it to one side. “Don’t pour such hot water. Girls’ hands are so delicate. What if you scalded yourself?”
Fei Du rarely spoke loudly to anyone, and the things he said were quite normal. Yet when words left his mouth, they instantly warped, acquiring a subtly intimate undertone. That often led others to misread him as interested in them. Fortunately, Fei Du usually left immediately after he spoke, which gave those illusions a chance to fall apart.
“Fei-zong, you scared me!” Although the girls had initially started in alarm, they quickly relaxed upon seeing that it was him. “Fei-zong” was a chairman in name, but compared to his father—the authoritative erstwhile Director Fei—second-generation heir Fei Du was simply a likable mascot. Though he was well-known as an idle, rich playboy, he played around very scrupulously; he never brought his hedonistic private life to the office with him. The veneer of steadiness he adopted at work was enough for him to steer clear of any trouble.
In the eyes of ordinary staff, young Fei-zong seemed to exercise his powers in the company rarely, and seldom appeared to carry out any duties either. He did occasionally tease the girls at work, but he kept it to what was appropriate; he was fiercely against “dipping his pen in the company ink,” so he never crossed the line. He was also emotionally intelligent and good-natured, so nobody was afraid of him.
Fei Du wiped up the spilled water with a paper towel, then returned the cup to its owner. “What news were you two discussing just now?” he asked offhandedly.
“That robbery and murder case in the West Side yesterday. They haven’t caught the culprit yet, apparently. Maybe we should send a mass HR email to remind everyone to be cautious when they’re arriving at and leaving work.”
“Good idea,” Fei Du agreed solemnly. “Or we could give everyone time off until the perpetrator’s caught. Work isn’t nearly as important as your safety, after all.”
The girls knew he was just talking nonsense, but they were still so charmed by his words that they practically skipped back to their duties. Fifteen minutes later, Fei Du strolled into his own office. Sure enough, he’d received a company-wide email from Human Resources.
To the thin layer of coffee in his cup, he added half a cup of hazelnut chocolate syrup, drowning every molecule of caffeine in sugar. He stirred the syrup in and, in the absence of anything else to do, clicked on the video attached to the email.
“A horrible crime took place last night behind these residential blocks on the West Side of Huashi. As of now, the police have yet to make any official statement on the offense. Sources familiar with the case say that the victim, Mr. He, lived in shared accommodations near the scene of the crime…”
The video was from an online news publisher called Sensation. After another two minutes of disingenuously grave narration, there came a sudden commotion from somewhere out of frame. Smelling blood in the water, the shaky camera hastily focused on a nearby food stall.
The first thing the camera settled on was a middle-aged woman in an apron, probably the stall owner. She was scowling and jostling a young man. “You little brat!” she exclaimed. “Can’t you do math? Or do you just not have a conscience? That greedy over a few bucks… What’ll you do with that money, huh? Buy your mother’s coffin?”
Some older folks with plenty of free time on their hands were eating wontons at the illegal stall. They had rather sharp tongues, and not even their continual eating and drinking could disrupt their loud observations. Now they faced the camera to issue their dutiful commentary.
“The boy was buying shaobing. She asked him to put the money in the basket and then count out his own change. It’s an honor system, see? Guess what?! He gave her ten yuan, then took fifteen from the change basket. I saw it. Eating five yuan’s worth and taking five yuan’s worth, what a deal—he’ll be a millionaire soon enough!”
“He needs a beating, if you ask me. They say sticky-fingered youngsters grow up into drug dealers and murderers, you know. The police in our area…? I hate to say it, but after sunset, everyone’s scared to even walk around outside. I think it’s all the fault of guys like that boy—riffraff who come here from out of town.”
“We’ve complained so many times, but nobody ever does anything about it. And now someone’s dead! What did I tell you?”
Once the elderly think tank got going, they were quick and highly effective at exacerbating disagreements. Hearing the running commentary behind her, the stall owner felt that she had the moral high ground. The flames of her rage shot seven feet high, past her head, as she lashed out at the boy physically too. The thieving teen covered his head with both hands and silently curled into a ball, shielding himself. His exposed neck and ears, however, were so red that they looked like they could start bleeding at any moment.
A few less bloodthirsty bystanders couldn’t stand this sight for long. They came forward to separate the violent stall owner and the kid, but found themselves quickly sucked into a brawl instead. In the blink of an eye, the conflict escalated into an altercation between West Side locals and tenants from out of town. It was impossible to tell who was in the right, and the scene quickly descended into chaos. The camera was jostled three or four separate times.
Fei Du finished stirring his coffee. This sort of trivial small-neighborhood squabble bored him; it didn’t seem worth watching at all. He decided to close the clip.
Suddenly, someone in the video shouted, “The cops are here!”
But this was an internal disagreement among civilians, so the police couldn’t just throw themselves into the fray. After a short scuffle, a few uniformed officers began squeezing through the crowd, trying to break the tightly packed group apart. To their surprise, they were quickly overwhelmed by the sea of people. One officer even had his glasses smacked off his face.
Among the unfortunate peacekeepers, Fei Du caught sight of a familiar figure. His hand paused over the exit button.