Chapter 46

"Impossible, impossible!"

It was after midnight. The Children's Palace's administrator had evidently been yanked out of dreams. His drowsy eyes were swollen up to his brow ridge, his shirt-buttons were unmatched, and he was shuffling along in a pair of slippers. "How many children pass through here all day? We have the strictest security, even parents have to sign in when they come in. We have 360 degree security camera coverage, no blindspots. You're saying human traffickers are involved? Is that a joke? I guarantee it with my own head, it's absolutely impossible! Unless the child picked up and left on her own, then even if aliens have invaded the earth, they still couldn't get into our school!"

"Deputy Tao, we just used the tracking software on Zhang Yuchen's cell phone to remotely turn on the device, and we've already located its approximate position. It's near White Peach Lane!"

"White Peach Lane." Tao Ran stared. "Why would it be White Peach Lane?"

White Peach Lane was approximately three stops away from the Children's Palace. It was a well-known small commodities distribution center in the city. Quite a few online stores did business there, often working through the night. There were clothes wholesalers, those who sold small trinkets by the kilogram, wholesalers of large and small packages scattered all around. The street was full of pickpockets and swindlers. It was bustling and disordered.

For a child sneaking away to have fun, White Peach Lane was too disordered, and there was really nothing fun there; for a child-abducting pervert, White Peach Lane was too full of people and eyes, the risk too high.

Tao Ran pinched the bridge of his nose. "Slow down, let me think…"

Before he'd finished, Chenchen's mother had pushed aside two criminal policemen and run over. "Officer Tao, I was listening, have they located Chenchen's phone? Where is she?"

Lang Qiao, just arrived after racing through the night, quickly came over to block and quietly soothe her.

"I clearly said to her, I told her every day to be careful when she goes out, not to go along with strangers, not to go to unfamiliar places, to get word to an adult if anything goes wrong. I said it so much I thought I was being annoying myself. If my mouth were made of iron I'd have worn a layer off…"

Chang Ning wiped away tears with one hand and held her with the other. "Aunt, don't be like that."

Seeing Chang Ning wiping away tears, Tao Ran's mild fretfulness rose sharply. "Xiao Qiao'er, you stay here to go through the security camera footage. You guys come with me to White Peach Lane."

The police car set out through the night like a shooting star, its four wheels almost leaving the ground. In five or six minutes they'd covered the three stops worth of distance. The season was about to change, and the first collections of autumn clothes would soon be hitting the shelves; White Peach Lane was so crowded it was about to turn into "White Fur Lane," the throngs of merchants creating a local heat island in the city with their breath.

Going back and forth among this crowd, within three minutes a person's forehead would be covered in sweat.

Tao Ran looked around blankly and asked the technician, "Can you narrow the range a little?"

"It's just approaching the west end of White Peach Lane," came the technician's voice over Tao Ran's earbud. "They haven't noticed that the phone is on yet. Deputy Tao, you have to hurry."

Tao Ran gave his subordinates a look, and they immediately split up in a well-coordinated fashion, approaching the west side of White Peach Lane from different directions. Tao Ran ran over, gaze sweeping over every person who went past him. Garbage trucks, carts, human-sized bags… No place that could conceal a person was overlooked, they were all searched one by one. Although no one had sounded a police siren, the quick search still instantly raised a nervous atmosphere on White Peach Lane.

Suddenly, the technician's alert came over Tao Ran's earbud: "Deputy Tao, they've noticed something, the phone's been turned off!"

Tao Ran's strained gaze subconsciously swept his surroundings and happened to fall beside a garbage can. A small, skinny man inadvertently looked up. Their gazes met. The man paused for a second, then got a clear look at Tao Ran's uniform. He threw down the thing in his hand, took to his heels, and ran.

What he'd thrown down had been a white cell phone, the back of it stuck full of stickers.

Tao Ran's pupils contracted. "Stop!"

Up ahead a wholesaler was just pushing a cart past. The man familiarly stepped up on the side of the cart like a monkey; accompanied by the surprised cry of the woman pushing the cart, the clothes on the cart came falling down like a landslide. A motorcyclist moving with difficulty alongside immediately braked to avoid the stuff that had fallen under his wheels, then let out a torrent of abuse.

In the chaos, the man had already put a foot up on the guard rail around the road. He went over in a flash and was about to dart across the street when a tall and sturdy policeman leapt out from a nearby small street and grabbed the back of his collar as if lifting a chick. With a twist of his arm, he had the man pressed down to the ground. Tao Ran turned back and picked up the white cell phone. He turned it back on. The background was Chenchen's cat-faced selfie.

He let out a long breath and went over to the man, who was already under control. "Where is she?"

The man's nose had been injured when he went down. He raised his head, his face brightly colored. He looked at Tao Ran with an entreating expression and said on a sobbing note, "I-I-I-I was wrong, Mr. Government Man, I'll mend my ways this time, I won't do it again… Ow… Hss… Gently, please…"

Tao Ran grabbed him by the collar. "Where's the girl?"

"Huh?"

At this time, Luo Wenzhou had already driven to the gates of the Children's Palace.

Seeing the familiar license plate, Lang Qiao bounded over. "Boss!"

"What's happening, where's Tao Ran?" Saying so, Luo Wenzhou looked back and waved towards the car's interior. "Sit in the car for now."

The person in the car wasn't having this. He got out, hoisting his arm.

Lang Qiao stared in spite of herself. "Wow, President Fei, what…what's with the armor?"

"A little accident." Fei Du looked at the buildings around the Children's Palace. "Is there news?"

Before Lang Qiao could answer, a police car braked noisily at the Children's Palace's gates. Tao Ran and a few criminal policemen got out, their faces grim.

Seeing Luo Wenzhou throw him a questioning look, Tao Ran shook his head. "Chenchen's phone was stolen. An old fox, a habitual offender. He's just been released from detention. He says there was a girl tying her shoes by the road. She put her phone down on a street planter next to her. When her shoes were tied, she left and forgot the phone there. So he only 'picked it up.'"

"Which street? When did he take it?" said Luo Wenzhou.

"It must be right around the Children's Palace…" Tao Ran raked a hand through his hair, his forehead tightly furrowed. "We found seven or eight phones ready to be resold on that joker, all today's accomplishments. He's not sure of the concrete times and locations himself."

"Ge," Fei Du asked beside him, "what are you panicking about? What's wrong?"

"I asked Chang Ning. Chenchen was wearing a floral-patterned dress today." Tao Ran's face looked awful, and his voice was quick and anxious. "If it really is… If the killer's kidnapped two children within five days, the frequency is too high. It shows that there's a hundred percent chance Qu Tong is… Chenchen was kidnapped around five, and now it's already been over seven hours, she may very well also…"

"Hush." Fei Du patted him on the arm. "Settle down a little."

"What do I have to settle down about?" Tao Ran laughed bitterly. "I'm not the child's parent.—I haven't dared to tell Chenchen's family my guesses yet… You said that the suspicious individual last time was an old man, right? Are you sure?"

"I'm not sure. I was too far away," said Fei Du. "Chenchen is a sensitive girl. When I warned her to be careful last time, I scared her. She wouldn't have forgotten so soon. I believe she wouldn't let down her guard, even around old people and acquaintances. Even if someone had tricked her into leaving, she wouldn't have forgotten to send word to her family."

"Deputy Tao, we've found the child on the drawing classroom's security camera!"

Tao Ran swiftly turned around and was about to go; Luo Wenzhou put a hand on his shoulder. "Leave it to me. You take responsibility for talking to the little girl's parents. See if there's been anything unusual about the child lately, whether the parents have offended anyone, how their family relationships stand—we can't overlook any possibilities."

Fei Du leaned to one side. "Do you need my help?"

Luo Wenzhou hesitated. "In what capacity?"

Fei Du very shamelessly answered, "Friends and family."

Luo Wenzhou help up a finger and pointed at him with a trace of warning, but in the end he didn't tell him to go cool his heels.

The drawing classroom's security camera was very clear. Around four-thirty, the other children were successively picked up by their parents, and Chenchen sat in the classroom alone, indifferently flipping through an album the teacher had left. From time to time she looked out the window; in ten minutes, she spent over five of them looking seriously towards the window.

Uncertainly, Luo Wenzhou said, "What's she looking at?"

"A mirror," said Lang Qiao.

Luo Wenzhou looked bewildered.

"Little girls use glass windowpanes as mirrors, you know. You can look at the scenery just by turning your head, no need to turn your whole body or come closer. She's also using her pen to twist the ends of her hair," Lang Qiao said. "All girls understand this… Huh?"

While she was speaking, she saw Chenchen suddenly sit up straight, slightly leaving her chair. Then she smiled, stood up, and quickly packed up her things and ran off—the timestamp in the corner of the recording was around 4:40.

Luo Wenzhou immediately looked up to check the drawing classroom's position; the window was right across from the playground.

The security camera on the building closest to the playground was quickly searched. You could see Chenchen running quickly out of the classroom building towards a group of children gathered on the playground. The camera was a little distant; it only caught her lingering briefly among the crowd of children. Then she walked towards a camera blindspot with some other girls, quickly leaving the frame.

Judging from the scene, they were heading towards a row of red buildings at the Children's Palace's northwest corner.

"What's this?" Luo Wenzhou asked, frowning. "Didn't the administrator say there were no blindspots?"

"The row of buildings in the northwest corner are public toilets. There aren't any cameras installed."

"Why the fuck didn't you say so earlier! Determine the identities of those children on the tape, question them immediately.—Bring the map."

The Children's Palace's northwest corner adjoined a little park, very sloppily managed. The outer lawn had been crushed all out of sorts by residents taking walks, the footprints and dog shit evident. No one went to the depths of the park, however; the vegetation was overgrown, and the mosquitoes were like bombers. The police dogs were swiftly in position, flashlight beams and barks rising and falling.

Fei Du listened in as Tao Ran spoke with Chenchen's father.

"I came around 5:05, I'd arranged it with her… First I called her from the door. When I heard her phone was off, I thought it had run out of battery and signed in with the caretaker and went in to look for her—but she wasn't in the classroom. I didn't think she could have gone missing. It was a Children's Palace, no different from a school. I thought she'd gone to the bathroom or to play somewhere… I was pretty angry, too. I waited in their drawing classroom for a while. When the security guards started to inspecting the doors and windows and turning off the lights, I started to panic a little and went to ask around and have a female teacher check for her in the restrooms…"

Chenchen's mom tugged on his shoulder, her face covered in tears. "Is she that kind of child? Running off without a word when she clearly knew a grown-up was waiting for her… Well? What kind of a dad are you? Anything goes wrong, and you want to blame my daughter right away. If anything at all happens to the child, I…"

Chenchen's dad was reeling from her pulling. He shut his mouth tightly and didn't make a sound. Tao Ran and Chang Ning, one to the left and one to the right, quickly separated the two of them.

Fei Du suddenly said, "I heard that child tracking systems on phones can be used to turn the device on remotely. The officers must have located Chenchen's phone like that earlier. Why didn't you think of turning her phone on then?"

"I thought of it." Chenchen's dad looked on the point of collapse; he resisted desperately, forcing down his shuddering breaths. "But there was something wrong with the software. It kept telling me that the remote function link had failed… I'm not used to using that thing…"

"We've found Chenchen's phone," said Tao Ran. "The battery is at least half full. It must have already been stolen by the pickpocket the first time you called. Could the child have discovered the phone was missing and gone to look for it?"

"The risk of stealing a phone in a Children's Palace is too high." Fei Du shook his head. "The likelihood isn't great. She must have left by herself for some reason. It was half an hour and more from the time class ended to the time you'd arranged to pick her up. She may have gone to buy snacks in the shops around here, or to play with her classmates… It's all possible, but ordinarily she would stay within a kilometer radius. That way, she could come back to the door of the children's palace as soon as she got your call.—Have you taught her what to do when she has something stolen outside?"

"Yes." Chang Ning looked at Tao Ran and quietly said, "I was just joking with her a few days ago, saying that from now on if anything happened she could go to Tao Ran-gege. She knows how to phone the police, and if that won't work, she knows to go back to school and find a security guard…"

Tao Ran patted the back of her hand and gave her a consoling look. He quietly said, "The Children's Palace is surrounded by crowded neighborhoods. It was the peak evening rush hour, it would have been fairly safe. Except for the depths of the little park at the northwest corner…"

"No, she wouldn't." As if seeking comfort, Chang Ning grabbed him by the wrist. "Chenchen is very timid. She doesn't dare to go to sleep alone after she's watched a thriller. She wouldn't have gone on her own where there weren't any people!"

Fei Du suddenly said, "What if it wasn't on her own, but with her classmates?"

All of them stared at him.

Fei Du walked up in front of Chenchen's father. "Around what time was it the first time you tried to remotely turn on her phone?"

"Six…after six," said Chenchen's dad. "Her teacher reminded me about it."

Fei Du said, "How did you operate it? Could you demonstrate it for me?"

"Boss, that teacher over there just contacted the children on the security camera footage for us!" Lang Qiao pushed aside a cluster of branches blocking her eyes and quickly went over to Luo Wenzhou. "They went to the restrooms to change their clothes, then went to the little park together to take photographs."

"Take photographs?"

"A student in the photography class had homework to hand in and arranged for some girls to model for her. Some children brought clothes especially to put on for the photographs. They did that for a while. When they finished with the photographs, Zhang Yuchen had to go back to the Children's Palace. They parted at the gates of the park, and no one knows where Zhang Yuchen went after that."

Luo Wenzhou took a deep breath—this was bad.

If Chenchen had discovered her phone was gone after parting from her friends, the child's first thought would have been of the place where they'd taken their photographs. She would have returned to the deserted depths of the little park—but the little park wasn't the street; it was hard to follow what had happened afterwards.

"Boss, what do we do?" said Lang Qiao.

Luo Wenzhou muttered to himself for a moment, then fished out his phone and called the person responsible for keeping an eye on Xu Wenchao.

"Report on Xu Wenchao's movements today."

"Xu Wenchao let Deputy Tao copy his vehicle location record. He only left the bureau at 5:45. He drove twenty-some minutes to a fast food restaurant, got takeaway, and went home. He hasn't moved since."

Luo Wenzhou quietly asked, "Are you sure he's been home the whole time?"

"I'm sure. He hasn't drawn the curtains. He's been sitting in his study and hasn't left our sight.—What's wrong, boss?"

"Boss, either we suspect the wrong person," said Lang Qiao, "or this case is unrelated to Qu Tong's disappearance.—What the hell, are there really this many perverts in the world?"

Before Luo Wenzhou had spoken, his phone rang; the caller ID said "Feishir (14)."

"What is it?"

On the other end, Mr. "Feishir" calmly said, "The pilferer didn't steal the phone directly from Chenchen; there's a point to his sophistry. The girl who put the phone down really did 'forget' it."

Luo Wenzhou quickly followed up, "How do you know?"

"Around six, Mr. Zhang tried to use the remote function the child's phone on, but the remote link failed. I think there was no problem with the way he operated it. Under the circumstances, either one of them didn't have a signal, or the battery had been removed from the child's phone." Fei Du paused briefly. "There was no need for the pilferer to remove the battery and put it back in, and he wouldn't know what software was on the phone. I can only think of one possibility—while Chenchen was changing her clothes or posing, one of the children in that group hid her phone. When Chenchen noticed, the child suggested she go back to the little park to look for it, and volunteered to go with her."

She would naturally have trusted her own friend, and also told that person that her phone had a remote system.

"You're saying that a child—likely another girl—planned this thing." Luo Wenzhou sucked in a breath. "She not only kidnapped her friend, she also deliberately tossed the phone to mislead the police? That's too…"

Fei Du gave a light, unreadable laugh.

Luo Wenzhou immediately remembered that teenager back then with his dark, ice-cold gaze and bit back the rest of his words.

"Why are you thinking along those lines?"

"Because I warned her to be careful of grown-ups—familiar ones, strange ones, men and women, even old people," said Fei Du. "The only thing I didn't tell her was to be careful of children like her."

Why couldn't it be a child?

Little girls just over ten were like flower buds, beautiful and delicate, ignorant and fragile; the whole world saw them as potential victims, as if they were lacking in wit and intelligence, and however much you protected them it wouldn't be enough. How could anyone suspect them of committing a crime?

Luo Wenzhou hung up the phone with Fei Du and turned to Lang Qiao. "When the Children's Palace teacher made those phone calls just now, was there a call where a parent didn't pick up at first?"

Even when arresting a knife-wielding murderer bare-handed, Lang Qiao didn't look so horrified. "I think…I think there was one…"

-----------------------

Author's Note:

(14) 费事儿 - means 'troublesome' or 'time-consuming' and uses the same character as Fei Du's surname.

<quillbot-extension-portal></quillbot-extension-portal>