The police took the driver and Li Tiande away.
Lu Congzhi and Wen Rui accompanied them to the station to give detailed statements. The test results for the two bottles of water had come back, and sure enough, both contained a sedative.
The threshold for opening a criminal investigation had been met.
Concerned for his younger sister’s safety, Li Tiande readily told them everything.
That afternoon, the police intercepted more than sixty people attempting to leave the country illegally at the clandestine dock in Zini Town. The head of the smuggling ring, however, had already sensed danger and escaped by boat with a huge amount of cash. He had also taken with him the evidence that the director had hired someone to commit murder.
Night had fallen, but Lu Congzhi was still waiting at the police station. When he saw the operation team’s captain stride hurriedly through the doorway, he sprang to his feet and stared at him anxiously.
The captain shook his head in shame. “I’m sorry. We didn’t find Tang Hu at the dock. We got there too late. The smuggler had escaped, and all the computers had been smashed. Their hard drives were formatted and thrown into the sea. We hired divers to retrieve them and sent them to the technical division, but they say there’s no saving them.”
Lu Congzhi refused to give up. “Let me see them. I can repair them. That’s my specialty.”
Wen Rui immediately added, “I’m fairly good with technology too.”
The captain had little choice but to take them to the technical division. Faced with computers reduced to piles of broken components, Lu Congzhi rummaged through the wreckage while Wen Rui tried fitting pieces together. Neither could do anything with them.
After working for most of the day, they had found nothing. Tang Hu’s whereabouts remained unknown. As for the director’s crimes, they had Li Tiande’s testimony but no substantive evidence, not enough to meet the requirements for an arrest. Many welfare institutions had taken part in the charitable overseas-adoption program, making the matter far-reaching and requiring extreme caution.
The captain urged them, “Go home and wait for news. We’ll pursue this case to the very end. We’ll call as soon as there’s any progress.”
Lu Congzhi sat there in a daze. Wen Rui stood behind him with both hands resting on his shoulders.
Lu Congzhi was incapable of thinking. Wen Rui would have to do the thinking for him.
Wen Rui promptly asked, “We’d like to take Tang Hu’s photograph back with us. Would it be all right if you kept a photocopy?”
The captain nodded. “Of course. I’ll fetch the photograph.”
Wen Rui gently pulled Lu Congzhi to his feet. “We’ll come with you. Once we have the photograph, we’ll leave. Thank you for everything today.”
The captain quickly waved away his thanks. “We’re the ones who should be thanking you. Without the crucial leads you provided, we wouldn’t have cracked this case open.”
They crossed the corridor on their way to the captain’s office and came face-to-face with a group of handcuffed migrants.
Lu Congzhi glanced at them without thinking, then suddenly froze. Two of the women looked familiar, as though he’d seen them somewhere before. He stopped and stared fixedly at them.
The two women noticed his gaze and looked over. To his surprise, they called out, “Brother Lu Congzhi!”
Lu Congzhi hurried over. “You’re…?”
He had been reborn, and his store of memories was enormous. Over the passage of years, many faces from his past had grown indistinct.
The two young women had clear eyes and the innocent, easily manipulated look of fools. Both pointed to themselves, and one said, “Brother Lu, it’s me, Ou Xiaohong!”
“And I’m Ou Xiaolan!”
“We just turned eighteen this year, so we left the welfare institute. You haven’t come back in years, Brother Lu. Have you forgotten us? You used to help us with our homework when we were little!”
“Brother Lu, are you a policeman? Can you get us out of here?”
“We only wanted to work in America, earn dollars, and build a house when we came back. We weren’t trying to betray our country. We heard you could make millions of dollars in three months just washing dishes over there!”
Now Lu Congzhi finally remembered them. Those two little girls who had once made him so furious that he’d fainted had grown this big! One plus two equaled eight, and eight plus eight equaled nine. Wonderful, wonderful. They had grown up without getting any less stupid!
Two girls had only just left the welfare institute when a smuggler tricked them aboard a boat. Was that really a coincidence?
Lu Congzhi didn’t believe the world contained that many coincidences. He immediately turned to the captain.
The captain leaned toward his ear. “Every girl in that group is young and pretty. The smuggler lured them here by promising jobs abroad and free passage, and they believed him. They were involved in an illegal-border-crossing case, but it’s their first offense and the circumstances are relatively minor. They won’t go to prison. Pay their fines and you can take them away.”
Lu Congzhi thanked him repeatedly, then turned to the two girls and instructed them, “Whatever the police officers ask, answer them. Don’t you dare lie. Understood?”
“We know, we know! Brother Lu, you have to save us!” The girls went off with tears filling their eyes.
After more than an hour of questioning, the police had thoroughly emptied the two girls’ heads of everything they knew. According to their account, they had met a handsome young man shortly after leaving the institute.
The young man had supposedly returned from America. His name was Peter, he dressed fashionably, his hair was bright gold, and every few words he’d toss out a “good, good” or “yes, yes.” He took them racing around on an electric scooter, treated them to spicy malatang, and told them they could earn millions of dollars a month in America.
After working for just three years, they could come home, build an eighteen-story building, and spend their days happily collecting rent. They had actually believed something so absurd. The handsome young man then brought them to the dock. They had no idea what his Chinese name was or where he had gone.
Behind the one-way mirror, where he was listening in, Lu Congzhi was so furious his liver hurt.
“These two idiots believe anything anyone tells them! That blond creep had singled them out long ago. This was targeted abduction, like taking orders and slaughtering on demand!”
A glint passed through the captain’s eyes. He considered the words and said, “Taking orders and slaughtering on demand? Are you suggesting the director sold their information to the smuggling ring and they were specifically selected as victims?”
Lu Congzhi shot back, “What explanation makes more sense than that? When orphans like us disappear, no one reports us missing or investigates. Aren’t we the perfect merchandise? The director sells our information, the smugglers sell our bodies, and then gangs in America sell our organs and blood. It’s a complete supply chain.”
The captain knew far more about such matters than Lu Congzhi did, and his expression gradually grew grave.
Lu Congzhi continued, “The director took office ten years ago. I suggest you investigate what happened to every child who left Sunshine Welfare Institute during those ten years and see how many vanished. If people have disappeared every year, the director could be involved in something extremely serious.”
The captain’s heart began to pound. He had a premonition that this could become the biggest case of the year 2000.
Wen Rui had been standing silently nearby. Now he spoke. “Li Tiande said the director brought a number of welfare institutions together under a charitable program. Those institutions may also have sold her the children’s personal information. The number of missing orphans across the country could be unimaginable. The provincial police should lead this investigation and establish a special task force immediately.”
The captain had some inkling of Wen Rui’s identity. He hurried toward the door. “I’ll ask the bureau chief for instructions.”
Watching him leave, Lu Congzhi bowed deeply. “Please do everything you can.”
The captain looked back, his expression solemn. “We will do everything in our power to solve this case!”
When the bureau chief learned how serious the case was, he immediately called the provincial authorities. They treated it with the utmost importance, ordered a thorough investigation that very night, and dispatched criminal-investigation experts to southern Fujian.
The case had come to an end, yet in another sense it had only just begun. More dangerous struggles lay ahead.
Where was Tang Hu? Was he still alive?
Standing in the parking lot, Lu Congzhi looked up at the boundless stars and felt as though the vastness of the universe had swallowed all his hope.
Wen Rui had paid the fines and now approached from behind with the two sniffling girls in tow.
“Let’s go back and rest. There is strength in numbers. Once the special task force is set up, we should hear something soon.” His voice was gentle and reassuring.
Lu Congzhi turned to look at him without speaking. A sheen of tears slowly gathered in his dark eyes. Normally, competence and sharpness were written across his face, and he seemed perpetually poised to strike, like a fighter.
It was the first time Wen Rui had seen him so vulnerable and helpless.
His heart gave a painful twinge. Without thinking, Wen Rui stepped forward, took Lu Congzhi by the nape, and pressed his head against his own shoulder.
“I promise we’ll find Tang Hu. When we get back, I’ll ask my older brother for help. If that doesn’t work, I’ll ask my grandfather. I’ll use every resource and connection I have to help you find him.”
Lu Congzhi’s vulnerability lasted only a moment. After living through two lifetimes, he possessed an extraordinarily strong core.
He asked curiously, “Why don’t you ask your father?”
Wen Rui answered without the slightest pretense. “Because my father and I aren’t close.”
Lu Congzhi looked surprised for an instant, then laughed. “President Wen, you really will tell me anything.”
“Why wouldn’t I tell you?” Wen Rui asked with complete seriousness.
Lu Congzhi parted his lips, but his throat tightened and no words came. He was too moved to speak. In that instant, he recovered his calm completely. Wen Rui was like an ocean, endlessly capable of embracing and bearing things. Even if Lu Congzhi fell from ten thousand meters in the sky, Wen Rui could catch him safely.
Beside Wen Rui, he felt relaxed and safe.
He said lightly, “We’ve had a long day. Come on, let’s go back to the hotel.” Then he beckoned to the two girls. “Xiaohong, Xiaolan, you’re coming with me.”
Ou Xiaohong and Ou Xiaolan were beautiful twins, each standing a full 178 centimeters tall, with the proportions of natural-born models. The other young women the police had brought back were equally striking. They had been carefully selected as merchandise, so naturally they needed to be attractive.
But once these lovely girls went abroad, they would soon become tools for gangs to make money. The stories recorded in those secret files were so horrific that no one would believe them.
Remembering what he’d seen and heard in his previous life, Lu Congzhi felt another surge of turmoil. When Ou Xiaohong and Ou Xiaolan came over, he raised a hand and rapped each of them sharply on the head.
“Three million American dollars in a month? In your dreams!”
Ou Xiaohong protested, “It’s true! That nice young man said if I worked at a restaurant for three months, I’d earn enough to take it over and become the owner!”
Lu Congzhi posed a soul-searching question. “And then the original owner works for you for three months and earns enough to buy it back? You’ll just keep buying and selling the same restaurant until your children and grandchildren are doing it too, generation after generation?”
Ou Xiaohong: …
Ou Xiaolan refused to back down. “If he buys it back, I’ll work for him for another three months and buy it back again! There are two of us. We can buy it back faster than he can!”
Lu Congzhi: …
Lu Congzhi seized Wen Rui’s arm and gasped, “Do you have an oxygen mask? Give me one! I think I’m dying a little!”
Wen Rui gently covered Lu Congzhi’s nose and mouth with his palm. Lu Congzhi grabbed the back of his hand, took several exaggerated breaths, rolled his eyes, and leaned backward as though all the strength had drained out of him.
Wen Rui took the opportunity to slip an arm around his supple waist. A brief flicker of amusement passed through his eyes.
It took Lu Congzhi quite a while to recover. Then he roared at the sisters, “Go out right now and buy me a feather duster! Damn it, I’m going to beat the shit out of your brains today!”