by Zhou HaoHui
Somewhat annoyed at the man’s acute hearing, Han studied the bodyguard closely. He had no objections to sending the man to the restaurant in Deng’s stead, aware that Hua’s employer was the key to unlocking the entire case. No matter what kinds of challenges might come up on the edges of this operation, he needed to protect Deng. His future depended on it.
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER
Pei squirmed against the police SUV’s leather seat. Mu was sitting next to him, her eyes fixed on the storefronts flitting past the window outside. At the rear of the vehicle sat Deng Hua’s head bodyguard, his features fixed in an inscrutable expression.
Needless to say, it was not an enjoyable ride.
When the police vehicle pulled up to the Jade Garden, its passengers saw that the local police had already secured the area surrounding the building. Because of the bomb threat, they had cordoned off a 100-meter radius around the restaurant. However, they could not stop all the curious onlookers from gathering behind the barrier, and the officers’ repeated warnings had not persuaded most to leave. Reporters were also flooding into the area, each of them hurrying to claim a prime spot.
As the three of them exited the vehicle, a middle-aged police officer approached. He introduced himself as Sergeant Chen, the officer in charge of the scene.
“I’m ready to go inside the restaurant,” Pei said grimly.
Sergeant Chen shook his head. “Not so fast. The suspect has demanded that Ms. Mu go inside first. Then Brother Hua and then Pei.”
One of the local officers handed Mu a bulletproof vest. She slipped into the heavy piece of gear as if it were made of cardboard. The vest rose and fell with each breath she took. Her breathing was speeding up, Pei noticed.
“You don’t have to do this, Mu,” he told her.
“Yes, I do. And besides, it’s not me that I’m worried about. Out of the three of us, you’re in the most danger. You’re the last one he wants to see.”
Pei had nothing to say in reply, and Mu walked toward the restaurant. She reached the door and entered the dining area alone.
The disfigured man had not moved at all from his position at the table in the corner. For the police waiting outside, it was a blind spot. The only way to keep an eye on him was to enter.
Guo cowered at the man’s side, shivering like a falling leaf. She looked up with weak hope when she heard Mu enter.
Raising his hand, the man called Mu over. “Hello, Mu!” He was calm, even a little friendly.
Mu approached the two individuals and sat across from them. “Huang, what are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m out of options,” he said, squinting at Mu. “You’re the only one who can help me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve already been found out. My life is in danger,” he rasped. “I’m up against a powerful foe here. Too powerful for me to stand a chance against in an honest fight. The only way for me to stay alive is to hole up here and attract everyone’s attention any way I can.”
Mu could hardly believe it. Even if what he said was true, couldn’t he have chosen a less drastic method? “We can’t let you harm innocent people.” She pointed to Guo Meiran. “Let her go before it’s too late. I’m sure you can hear all those officers outside—do you honestly think they won’t be able to protect you?”
At Mu’s words, Guo turned her head toward Huang. “Please…,” she shuddered.
He shattered the trembling woman’s hope with a firm shake of his head. “No.” Turning to Mu, he said, “Besides you, there’s no one I trust.”
Mu wasn’t sure if she should consider his trust an honor or a disgrace. After some thought, she said, “If that’s true, you can let her go. Take me as your hostage. I’ll stay here with you.”
“That won’t work. There are still important things that I need you to take care of. You need to find out as much as you can about the person pulling the strings here, and you need to do it as soon as possible. If you succeed, it may help me break free of the danger I’m facing. I’ve already told you that the 3/16 narcotics bust is the key.”
“I’ve stayed true to my word—I haven’t told anyone else about you. You’re getting too anxious. I’ve already found a few leads; just give me some more time.”
“No, I can’t give you any more time. Although…” His voice was a hair louder than a whisper. “I can give you a final clue.”
Mu perked up. “What kind of clue?”
He looked over at Guo. “Reach into my pocket and take out what you find.” Her right hand shaking in fear, the hostage obediently reached into the man’s coat. After fumbling inside, she extracted a sealed envelope and an opaque plastic bag that had been wrapped up tight and sealed with thick tape. “Hand the bag to the officer,” he said, and she gave the package to Mu.
Mu felt something slim and rectangular inside the bag. Just as she was about to rip the tape off and open it, he stopped her.
“No,” he said sharply. “You can only open the package after you leave, when you’re alone. It’s vital that no one else see what’s inside.”
What kind of secret could he possibly be hiding? “Does that mean that I should leave now?”
“Yes. Tell Deng’s man to come in next.” He focused his sight deeply on Mu. “Remember, how this game finally ends is up to you.”
At the sight of that face staring at her, Mu repressed a shiver. She shook off her unease and left, just as he bid her to. She had a new lead, and the first thing she needed to do was to find out what was actually going on.
When Sergeant Chen saw that Mu had exited the restaurant, he rushed over.
“What happened in there? Does he have any new demands?” Chen asked.
“He wouldn’t let the hostage go. He wants to see Brother Hua.”
Mu took off the vest and hurried away from the crowd. She searched for an isolated area, but police officers and reporters had flooded the entire perimeter. She sprinted down the road and flagged a taxi, finally securing her escape from the horde of reporters behind her.
Hua watched Mu depart the scene, his eyes as sharp and focused as a sniper’s.
“What the hell was that about?” Sergeant Chen asked, hiding his humiliation beneath a look of confusion.
Pei couldn’t hide his puzzlement either. “I have no idea.”
Hua donned a bulletproof vest, just as the psychologist had done, and prepared himself.
A minute later, he was sitting down at the corner table across from Huang and Guo. “Mr. Deng won’t be coming to see you. Therefore, I’ve come as his proxy.” Hua’s speech was level and self-assured, despite the bomb mere feet in front of him.
“I never expected him to come. We’re talking about a man who is worth more than his weight in gold, after all.” A crafty gleam flashed in his eyes. “The fact that you came here personally, Brother Hua, is flattering enough.”
“You know who I am?” Hua said, stone-faced.
“You were born Rao Donghua. Your parents died when you were very young, and you moved into an orphanage at the age of five. Mayor Deng took you in and paid for your education. He also paid for your training in close-quarters combat, driving, and firearms, to mention just a few fields. After all, as his bodyguard, you need to be as sharp as our best-trained police. Your gratitude for the man is so profound that you would follow him through hell if he asked.”
“Well, now,” Hua said with a chuckle, “I never imagined that anyone would take interest in a life as miserable as mine. One correction, though. I’m sharper than any cop.”
Huang let out a sigh. “If you look at it a certain way, you and Deng aren’t so different.”
Hua had no desire to mince words. “Who are you?”
“I’m someone who knows things.” Huang drew his lips back, and a touch of smugness crept into his voice. “Like all the secrets surrounding a c
ertain narcotics seizure eighteen years ago.”
“That’s it?” Hua sneered. “That’s ancient history. Deng’s one of the most powerful men in the entire province. I don’t care about these so-called secrets of yours. You’re nothing but a cripple. A weakling.”
“There’s no denying the influence Deng holds. Next to you, I’m merely a speck of dust,” Huang said. Brother Hua merely shrugged. “But there’s something he’s asked you to find. Something you just haven’t been able to track down. Isn’t there?”
Hua’s eyes twitched, and his pupils dilated.
It was hard to tell through all the horrific scars, but Huang was smiling. “Yes. What about the tape? You know the one I mean. Wouldn’t you say that tape holds a certain influence of its own? Such as the power to strike fear in the hearts of certain well-connected people…”
“Speak.”
“I have a copy of the tape.”
“In other words, you’re throwing your own wretched life away.” Hua’s words were more frigid than an arctic winter.
Huang did not so much as flinch. Laughter hissed from inside his damaged chest. “I’ve been a cripple for quite a long time. Death would have been a much kinder fate than what I’ve been through these last eighteen years. The only reason I keep clinging to this miserable life is so that I can see the day when everyone knows the truth behind the famous 3/16 drug bust. I had all but lost hope, until recently. See, I’ve found someone I can trust. She’s capable and determined, and she has the guts necessary to uncover the secrets that have stayed hidden all these years. I trust her. Even if I die, she’ll be able to make this dream of mine a reality.”
“Did you give it to her?” Hua shot him a stern look He thought back to Mu’s encounter just moments earlier—and remembered the plastic bag that she carried out from the restaurant.
Huang snickered, but did not speak. Sometimes silence says more than words, he thought.
Hua jumped up from his chair. Glaring at the man, he said in a voice drained of all warmth, “You aren’t just signing your own death warrant. You’re signing hers, too.”
Without another word, the bodyguard stormed outside, and dashed through the police barrier without so much as acknowledging Chen’s questions. The sergeant watched helplessly as Hua ignored him. For the second time that day, he burned with humiliation.
As Hua emerged from the perimeter around the Jade Garden, several black-uniformed men broke away from the crowd. They converged upon his position in seconds. Hua addressed two particularly menacing-looking bodyguards. He pointed toward the intersection where Mu had last been seen. The two bodyguards nodded, and they disappeared into one of the three black Mercedes-Benzes parked alongside the road. The car sped off with a screech of rubber. Moments later, Hua and the rest of the bodyguards got inside the remaining two vehicles.
* * *
Pei drew a sharp breath as he watched the luxury cars pull away. His turn to face the man had finally come. He declined the vest the officers offered him. There was no need for him to bother taking any excessive precautions. Even if he did, how much protection could a mere vest offer from a bomb in his face?
He walked alone into the empty restaurant.
Pei approached the far corner, and his gaze settled on the man’s tattered features. He searched his memory in an attempt to match the face to images from his past. Yet it proved impossible. The explosion had completely disfigured him, transforming a dashingly handsome young man into a bizarre gargoyle.
If not for the secret hidden within the discrepancy between the police files and his own memory, Pei never would have realized this man’s true identity.
He reflected on the chain of logic that had led him to this unavoidable conclusion.
Despite the skepticism Mu had shown toward his theory about the two minutes missing from the eighteen-year-old police report, Pei was more convinced than ever that the error was concealing something much larger. It was the same hunch that had led him to hope that Meng had not perished in the explosion, but the dental cast at the evidence center had shattered it.
Pei was unable to stop thinking about the paradox. He had locked himself inside his room for hours last night, but no matter how he analyzed this contradiction, he had still been unable to unravel it. With no solution in sight, he began to suspect his own sense of time. He wondered whether the discrepancy even existed at all. These doubts had plagued him until this morning, when his interview with Deng had given him sudden clarity.
All those years ago, according to the clock in his room, he had lost Meng’s signal on the walkie-talkie at precisely 4:15 p.m. But the police report stated the explosion was at 4:13.
There was one simple possibility that explained everything.
Someone had adjusted his clock.
Whoever manipulated his clock would have been certain their actions would remain undiscovered—he or she would have anticipated that the police would seal off Pei’s room for investigation once they discovered Meng’s note to him, and the death notice for Yuan. Likewise, this individual would have also expected Pei, as a person involved in the case, to be taken to police headquarters for a long period of questioning. With no one to wind the clock in his absence, the timepiece would already have stopped by the time Pei returned to his room, thus covering up the secret.
More questions immediately arose.
Why would someone make his clock run fast?
Who had the opportunity to do it?
The more Pei pondered, the harder it was for him to ignore the one name that kept rushing to the forefront of his thoughts.
Yuan Zhibang.
As his roommate, Yuan would have had multiple opportunities to adjust the clock. He would have been aware of Pei’s fixation with precise timekeeping as well. Only he and Pei knew how exact the clock’s time was—and that even an adjustment of several minutes would throw off Pei’s sense of time.
But what could Yuan have hoped to achieve with this deception?
Pei reimagined the eighteenth of April in light of his new theory. He came to two conclusions: first, that Yuan most likely survived the explosion; and second, that the abrupt end of the transmission from Meng had been staged. According to his final conversation with Meng, Yuan had been about a meter away from her with a bomb strapped to his body. If that had been true, neither of them could have possibly survived an explosion.
It followed that there had in fact been two explosions. One had been real; the other faked. The staged explosion would have occurred when Pei lost the signal. It led him to mistakenly assume that both Yuan and Meng had died. But Yuan actually did still have a two-minute window in which he could subdue Meng and escape before the actual explosion.
Pei concluded that this was the reason Yuan must have adjusted the clock—to cover up the staged explosion, and give himself time to escape.
Yet the very existence of a time discrepancy brought new questions. Yuan must have been trying to eliminate doubt about the time, but how did he fail to execute his scheme properly?
The moment the staged explosion ended Pei’s conversation with Meng, the hands on his clock indicated the time was 4:15. Yuan would have wanted Pei to believe that was when the explosion occurred. But the explosion happened at 4:13.
No one knew Yuan better than Pei, and no one was more aware of how meticulous a thinker and planner Yuan had been. If he had intended to detonate the bomb, then there was no way that its earlier detonation could have resulted from an oversight in planning.
Something had gone wrong inside the warehouse. Something that Yuan had been unable to prevent. Whatever it was, it had caused the real bomb to detonate early. Yuan, who Pei could only assume intended to emerge unscathed from the ashes of his own staged death, had been unable to escape in time. Instead he had emerged burned beyond recognition.
Pei walked through the evacuated restaurant, and stare
d at the changed creature sitting in the corner. Step by step, he drew closer to the man who had once been his closest friend. Two decades earlier, their relationship had been one of mutual respect and admiration. But in spite of their friendship, this man had plotted to murder the woman Pei had loved.
As he sat down, Pei kept his eyes fixed on the man’s scarred features, as though he were attempting to pierce that ugly visage and see through to the answers to the questions in his own heart. Yet he saw nothing. The man’s bloodshot eyes locked with his. Harsh features remained static, as though they consisted only of a layer of dead and hardened skin.
A long time passed before the man across from Pei finally spoke.
“Do you hate me, Pei?”
It was a question that Pei was not even sure how to answer. Yes, he had once hated the killer behind the explosion. He had hated him from the depths of his soul. But now that he knew the truth, “hate” was far too simple a word to describe what he felt.
Pei’s mind was still reeling. He had no idea how to handle the emotions rushing through him—how was he supposed to reconcile four years of brotherhood with eighteen years of pain? After all this contemplation, only one word reached his lips.
“Zhibang…”
“You know me better than anyone else in the world, Pei. You should know that I’m not the monster you’ve been imagining.”
“Not a monster?” Pei gritted his teeth. “Only a monster could do the things you’ve done.”
Huang—Yuan—shook his head as though in disapproval of this accusation. “You’ve been a cop for eighteen years. The number of criminals you’ve put behind bars is higher than I can count. I’m sure by now you’ve realized that many criminals aren’t actually bad people at all. They break the law simply because they don’t see a better choice.”
“But you chose her,” Pei said, his voice trembling. “Why?”
“I needed a witness to prove that I was dead. That was the only way I could go through with my plan. Once I’d seen just how well-connected my foes were, and how weak I was in comparison, I made up my mind to carry on this fight to the bitter end. I realized that there was nothing left for me to remain attached to. Not even my own life. I know how much Meng meant to you, but once I took a step back and reexamined everything from a more objective point of view, I saw things differently.”
