Chapter 115

The dining table was rattled by having Luo Wenzhou descend upon it out of nowhere; the tall, slender wine bottle suffered an unexpected calamity. It shook a couple of times, then fell and violently shattered to pieces.

The thickly sweet-smelling alcohol dispatched its scent in full force, filling the whole dining room with it. The lust-addled people had to temporarily resume their intellects and clean up the mess on the floor.

"Where are your shoes?" Luo Wenzhou asked at first. Then he remembered—Fei Du's slippers seemed to have fallen off when he'd dragged him back to the living room from the entrance hall. He felt rather embarrassed, gave a dry cough, and waved a hand. As he cleaned up the pieces of broken glass, he grumbled, "You're not wearing shoes, stay back… And you won't say anything clearly, you just start nibbling. You won't make anything official, you're just taking advantage of me. You hoodlum."

Fei Du retreated into a corner, his gaze sweeping over Luo Wenzhou's back, pulled taught because he was bent over. He crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm not a hoodlum, I'm a sadist's son. Later, if the disease takes me, I may not let you talk to other people, not let you be alone with your friends, put tracking and listening devices on your phone and your car. If that doesn't do, I may even lock you in the basement and not let other people see you, wishing I could eat you up. Are you scared?"

Luo Wenzhou gathered the broken glass into a bag, then wrapped it with tape, making it into a soft and harmless ball. Hearing these brave and proud words, he gave a carefree laugh. "Who, you? Stop showing off—get me a rag."

Fei Du gazed fixedly at him for a moment, went around the pool of red wine, and picked up a floor-wiping rag. He felt that his chest, which he'd just personally gouged out, was uncommonly empty, as if an enormous stone had cracked open with a bang, and countless secret, repressed, twisted thoughts, like little worms living hidden under the stone, had all fled in an uproar, their darkness revealed in the light.

Fei Du passed the rag to Luo Wenzhou but didn't let go when he reached out to take it.

Luo Wenzhou looked up at him and saw the lamplight refracted in Fei Du's glasslike eyes. There seemed to be a faint human warmth floating there.

Then Fei Du, tugging on a rag made out of old long underwear, at last nodded and acknowledged, "Yes, I care for you."

The flashy mountain bike blown sky-high, the old game machine that had accompanied him as he'd grown up, the drawer that had once hidden a little cat, the skewers with too much chili on them, the flowers left in the cemetery once a year, the countless mutually ridiculing quarrels… Today it seemed that all those past events were strung together on a golden thread, showing a faint outline in the thick black mist of his memories, lighting his past and future.

Luo Wenzhou felt that he seemed to have been waiting all his life to hear these words. The corners of his mouth pursed slightly in an almost smile. Then, without making a sound, he suddenly pulled away the rag, tossed it on the ground, dipped his hands in the wash basin, and, without even drying them off, put his arms around Fei Du's waist and dragged him off.

Not wearing shoes was fine; it spared kicking them off again.

As for the dining room floor covered in wine… At any rate, the glass had been cleaned up. There was no need to worry Luo Yiguo would step on any. The rest would probably be fine.

Luo Yiguo was occupied with a myriad of state affairs each day. Each night it got up three or four times to patrol its territory and have a midnight snack; its itinerary was very busy. After today's first short sleep was over, Master Cat leapt out of the second bedroom and saw that the master bedroom's door was half-open, and a light was on inside.

Its pricked up ears moved slightly, and it trotted over, intending to go over and investigate what was happening in its territory, but midway it was attracted by the peculiar smell in the dining room. Luo Yiguo circled cautiously around the red liquid on the floor, sniffing. It was unable to resist licking its sticky paws. Ordinary cats and dogs have a keen sense of smell and dislike tobacco and alcohol, but Comrade Luo Yiguo was innately different; it was a drunkard among cats. After one lick, it discovered that the taste suited its liking, so it put its head down to experience it.

Suddenly, it heard someone give a brief, insistent "Ah!" Master Cat only then remembered its mission and raised its neck with difficulty. It was just about to follow the sound, not expecting that as soon as it raised its leg, its steps would turn. It wavered left and tottered right for a few steps, bumped its head into the side of the couch, and lay down on its stomach, not moving.

Christmas Eve came once a year. Like an old candle-wick, it didn't last long enough.

The water vapor on the window quietly solidified, turning into snow-white rime.

Some fragment of a soul was haunting Fei Du's subconscious, reality blending with illusion. It woke him in the midst of the dimness of sleep. His consciousness startled, rising and falling, then settled back into position. But when he opened his eyes he found that the bedside light was still on—Luo Wenzhou was beside him, watching him.

Seeing that Fei Du wasn't sleeping soundly, Luo Wenzhou at last reluctantly turned off the weak light and gently kissed the top of his head. "Sleep. I'm going back to work overtime tomorrow. You rest. There's no need to get up as early as me."

"You say that as if you can get up early," Fei Du thought, but before he could express this taunt, the returning drowsiness had warmly enfolded him.

He seemed to hear distant piano music. There seemed to be a slightly thin woman with her back to him, sitting next to a bright window, sunlight falling on her as if it wanted to melt her silhouette. She was carelessly pressing on the piano's keys, somewhat rustily playing a tune.

The next day, the great Captain Luo didn't fall short of expectations. Extreme joy turned to sorrow: he once again got up late—because the alarm on his phone had been turned off, and the human one had been up to his tricks and hadn't woken him.

Fei Du had already moved the hungover Luo Yiguo into its cat bed, taken some wet wipes and cleaned up the wine-stained floor and cat's paws, and gotten neatly dressed. As he scrolled through the news on his phone, he repeated back last night's words in great "astonishment": "Didn't I tell you to rest and not get up as early as me? I couldn't bear to wake you."

Luo Wenzhou, toothbrush in his mouth, stuck up his middle finger at him.

Fei Du cheerfully watched how the shameless braggart took getting hit in the face with his own words, then ungrudgingly drove him to work.

"Oh, right." Luo Wenzhou, sitting in the passenger's seat, swallowed down his last bite of egg roll and got out a napkin to wipe his hands. "I just remembered. When the last Picture Album Project was set up, it was thirteen years ago, the year after Gu Zhao's death. Could the Picture Album Project have something to do with him?"

"If Xiao Haiyang told the truth, if Gu Zhao really did get in trouble investigating Lu Guosheng, then it's very likely," Fei Du said. "'Lu Guosheng isn't the only one there.' It looks to me that it's likely he had found Lu Guosheng's tracks, and he'd discovered other wanted criminals where he was hidden. That Louvre was likely one of their hideouts."

"Wow." Luo Wenzhou paused. After a good while, he said, "There's one thing I'm wondering about."

"Yes?"

"Ordinarily, outside of very special circumstances, when we go to investigate and collect evidence, we bring at least one colleague along. Tracking down an escaped criminal's whereabouts doesn't relate to internal personnel, and it doesn't concern matters of security. There's nothing that can't be openly investigated. If Gu Zhao was framed, then why would he be framed all on his own?"

Had he not told anyone before going to The Louvre?

Or had he in fact notified a certain person, and that person had sold him out?

Cloudiness flashed over Luo Wenzhou's brow. Then he changed the subject, saying, "I haven't asked yet, how did you corner Xiao Haiyang yesterday?"

"I didn't corner him. There's a keychain hanging on his waist; he sounds different from other people when he walks. I was about to leave when I heard him coming. When your short meeting started, I saw Xiao Haiyang come in shaking water droplets off his hands. It had been less than ten minutes. He wouldn't have a problem with frequent urination at such a young age, would he? There was no one there, I thought something was off, so I hid where the cleaning supplies are kept."

"Where the cleaning supplies are kept?" Luo Wenzhou stared—no wonder Xiao Haiyang had been clueless. "Then how did you know his phone's passcode?"

"I guessed. Once someone borrowed his work computer, and that was the password he gave them," Fei Du said absently. "Xiao Haiyang has a strong sense of purpose, and he's obsessed. That kind of person will normally use some number with a special meaning for his password, and it's usually the same for everything.—For someone like Tao Ran, it would be fairly simple. I guess his password would be a combination of a birthday, a name, a phone number, something like that. Xiao Qiao has a very strong work-life balance, so her work password and private password would definitely be different. I figure her office computer account's password is the office's room number or her badge number, or a combination of the two."

Luo Wenzhou curiously asked, "Then what do you guess my salary card's PIN is… What are you laughing at?"

Fei Du looked at him. "Why would I want to guess the PIN to a bookmark?"

Luo Wenzhou: "…"

He oddly felt that he'd woken up and found his treatment reverted to "the days before the liberation"! The scoundrel who'd constantly mocked him, calling him "elderly," "better off selling youtiao," and "old uncle" had been out of sight for a long time, and now he'd silently struck again!

As expected, all those honeyed words and considerate behavior had only been put on to coax him, all out of covetousness for his body!

The streets were filled with the atmosphere of the approaching new year. Merchants vied with each other to launch sales promotions; poinsettias and banners reading "Happy New Year" filled the cheerful city center. In the shops, the happy sounds of "Jingle Bells" and "Happy New Year" mixed together, making no distinction between one's own things and another's, rising and falling as if in a round. The thin layer of ice on the roads had already been shoveled away by the early-rising sanitation workers. It was a very light and breezy drive—even though working overtime on Saturday was a bitter anguish.

Both the content of the overtime, and the overtime itself.

Luo Wenzhou bickered with Fei Du the whole way. His smile hadn't cooled yet when he saw a middle-aged husband and wife at the office door. Judging from their faces and outfits, they weren't at all well-off. The woman's face was freckled, and her voice was sharp. The guy was a little fat, with somewhat slouched shoulders and a gloomy expression. There was a dull gray briefcase tucked under his arm.

"No, our child already said, none of it happened. The kids in that class don't understand anything, they're just spreading falsehoods and making up rumors, making so much noise that the school can't handle it. There's nothing wrong with our child, she's never told any lies." The woman was speaking very rapidly, constantly making gestures of refusal with her sharp hands. "Comrade Police Officer, don't believe everything you hear and casually call people in for questioning. It'll make a bad impression for us at work. If you didn't know better, you'd think we'd done something wrong!"

Tao Ran hastily followed-up, "Could you have the child come herself and talk a little…"

"It's not enough to come to a public security bureau once? We have to come twice?" The woman's voice suddenly grew louder, echoing in the corridor. "She's a fifteen-year-old girl, not a pickpocket or a robber. She's still sick with fear. If something happens to her, will the government compensate us? What is all this! Where's your superior?"

Tao Ran opened his mouth, feeling that he couldn't very well say what came next. Lang Qiao understood and hastily came up to take over. "Dajie, don't you think you ought to take her to the hospital for an examination…"

"What examination? Why should she be examined?" Her words seemed to infuriate the woman. She put her hands on her waist and stretched out her neck, seeming ready to grow a hard beak and peck a hole in Lang Qiao's skull. "What do you mean? You're a young lady yourself, how can you make such an unfounded attack? But of course it won't be you taking the heat if this gets out…"

The gloomy-faced man tugged at her. "She said it didn't happen, so it didn't happen. Don't waste time talking to them. We're busy. Let's go."

As they spoke, the middle-aged husband and wife were already sweeping out like the wind.

Tao Ran rubbed his face, walked over and helplessly spread his hands at Luo Wenzhou. "Did you see that? That's how it is. Aside from the insignificant bystanders, the others have either sent lawyers to come haggle with you, or they're behaving like that."

"Those wouldn't be the bullying ringleader Liang Youjing's parents. That didn't look like a school trustee. Is it someone else in their gang?"

Tao Ran sighed. "Those were Wang Xiao's parents."

Luo Wenzhou was somewhat taken aback. Then he frowned—why were the victim's parents more anxious to plead innocence than the rapists'?

"We called Wang Xiao. The girl won't show her face, and the parents deny she was interfered with at school. They came over first thing in the morning to kick up a fuss. Lao Luo, if it's true, it'll be hard to prove."

If Yufen Middle School had insisted on maintaining that all was well, they could have said that this was all a small dispute among students. If it hadn't been for Xia Xiaonan telling them about Wang Xiao being dragged into the boys' dormitory, the City Bureau's intervention would have been comparatively powerless—no one had been badly injured, and even if they had been, it was too late to appraise the condition of the injuries now.

Insults to people's character were hard to prove. Even if there was hard evidence, you still couldn't do anything to a crowd of half-grown children. At most there would be a critical education, and then the students would be sent back where they came from. Perhaps those involved had experienced persecution and fear as though living in a world without justice; but seen with a lawyer's staff gauge, it was only a casually-mentioned "little matter."

In the group sexual assault matter, the perpetrators had all determined to keep their mouths shut under their lawyers' advice, while the victim's lips were sealed; she was determined not to admit what she had suffered.

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