Chapter 51 - Humbert Humbert Eighteen

It only took Fei Du one glance to realize that the assistant was biting her tongue on
something. He added, considerately:" You can put any file that needs my signature on
my desk. If there are urgent ones, I will go back to the office this evening to sign
them."

"There are a couple emails from your partnering companies. You might want to reply
to them yourself." the assistant quickly added, "What's a good time to pick you up
this evening?"

"No time is good for 'picking up'." Fei Du had already opened the car door. Hearing
her question, he smiled, "I will just grab a cab afterwards. Wouldn't want to spoil your
evening -- what if you missed a date with your boyfriend and not like me anymore?"

The assistant replied generously: "Don't mention that boyfriend of mine. He's got
neither the money nor the look. I don't even know why we are still together...One
word from you and I'll dump him at once."

"Honey, have some mercy for the men under your feet. Besides, you look so lovely
today. How could I keep you to myself and the computer? That would be a heinous
crime." Fei Du already got off the car. He turned back, bent down, and added, one
hand on the door, "This car can be a little tricky to drive sometimes. Drive safely, and
text me when you arrive."

Following his words, the assistant unconsciously peeked at the rearview mirror to
check on her makeup. Noticing that the lip color came off a little bit, she quickly took
out a lipstick to fix it. Then, her eyes landed on the leaving man's back.

From the back, Fei Du looked quite graceful and carefree. His plaster wrapped broken
arm hung in front of his chest, but from behind it looked like he was just holding a
glass of champagne. As if here for a dinner banquet, he waltzed into the Bureau.

The assistant's surname was Miao. Unlike ordinary secretaries for the daily chores,
Miao actually graduated from a top tier university and had a very impressive resume.
But because of some history with a petty colleague, for a long time her career
suffered. It was Fei Du who discovered her and promoted her into his inner circle.
Mr. Fei Jr. was known for his impeccable manner around the ladies. He was so
popular and at ease with just about any female that it earned him the reputation of
"the friend of women". Despite his seemingly friendliness with everyone however,
only a handful of those that were truly close to him knew his whereabouts.

When it came to running his business empire, Fei Du had always been quite humble
and conservative. He very rarely questioned the decisions of his managerial team
because he knew very well to 'leave things to the professionals'. Perhaps the
affluence since childhood had fostered a certain sense of care-free generosity in him:
his relationship with the minor parties on the board could only be described as
harmonic, because he rarely fret about small conflicts of interest. Collaborators or
competitors, his easygoingness made them happy. In a word, assistant Miao would
describe him as a very 'low-maintenance' successor... if she hadn't witnessed how he
seized control of the corporation back in the days.

However, assistant Miao never fully understood why he did what he did back then. To
her, this 'Fei Jr." wasn't the ambitious type A leader who wished to expand his
business worldwide or anything. On the contrary, he seemed quite happy with what
he had.

The iron-fist ruling at the beginning of his reign seemed almost like a show, aimed to
announce his succession and warn those who didn't take him seriously. As soon as he
figured out the ins and outs of the corporation, he never set foot on the details again.
Especially in the past couple of months, he became less and less present in the
business operation. More times than not, he was hard to find.

It sounded like a typical rich young boy who lacked endurance and hasn't figured out
what he really wanted.

However, assistant Miao couldn't help but feel that there was more to Fei Du than
meets the eye. Somehow, he just didn't seem like the labile and frivolous type.
Baffled, she stared at her Boss as he disappeared into the unusually crowded front
yard of the Bureau, before finally driving away, laden with worries.
The Yan-cheng Bureau of Public Safety was indeed much more crowded than usual.
The front street was packed with parked cars, legal or otherwise. A junior parking
enforcement officer held a stack of tickets but was very confused about what's going
on with the sudden traffic, and wasn't sure whether he should issue any ticket or not.

A couple officers were dispatched to the front gate to take care of the visitor
registration. The amount of visitors they got that day almost towered that of a local
police station.

Pushed in by a current of people, Fei Du entered the front gate without being
stopped.

He realized that the visitors were from a wide variety of age groups and social
classes, but all were somber.

Some carried pictures with them. Others looked like couples --- they seemed to be
more dependent on each other than the regular couples however, leaning on each
other as if it was too hard to walk this life alone, or even to keep standing.

Once in a while, a loud sobbing would break the silence and everyone's tired and
battered face would startle. However, other than Fei Du - the curious outsider - none
of the others cared to look for the origin of the sobbing, as if they knew it all too well.

Fei Du frowned. He could feel something was different tonight.

He had been to the Bureau for so many times that he easily made his way into the
main building. Just as he was debating whether to call someone, he ran into Luo
Wenzhou in front of the corner restroom.

A lack of sleep made Luo Wenzhou's double eyelids fold even deeper. A whole night of
smoking made him stink of cigarettes. He had just gone to splash some cold water on
his face. Water dripped down from his neck and soaked the front of his T-shirt,
withholding nothing behind. Tracelessly, Fei Du's eyes patrolled from Luo's chest to
his waist line. If his eyes were a camera he must have snapped a dozen close-up
shots already.

When he finally finished, Fei Du pushed up his sun-glasses and started with the least
personal opening line: "So, you dug out some related cases?"

Surprise, surprise: Mr. Fei demonstrating his uber sensitivity in criminality. Luo
Wenzhou didn't bother to act surprised any more, only nodded exhaustedly.
"Wow." Fei Du held his hands on his back, and glanced at the crowd through the
hallway window, "Usually it's the parents who come to these occasions. Judging from
their age range...how many years did you guys dig back?"

"Twenty-two." Luo Wenzhou answered. Realizing that his voice was very hoarse, he
coughed hard to clear his throat, "The Lian Huashan - Guo Fei Case happened twenty
years ago, but there had been similar cases two years before that. And they never
stopped after Wu Guangchuan's death."

Fei Du handed him some mint.

"We could roughly conclude that it was a criminal group." Luo Wenzhou sighed, "Each
year there were missing children's cases that ended up cold. Most of these kids were
never found again. All we could do was to collect their DNA sample and wait for
someone to report suspicious begging child, or hope for breakthroughs in some
human trafficking cases. Usually, with the cold cases, one or two local officers would
follow up, but when reported to the Bureau they'd only be numbers on paper. As long
as the numbers don't look outlandish, no one would pay special attention to them."

"But the Lian Huashan case was different. It was very high profile, and some senior
officers involved were still serving at the Bureau not long ago. It'd only take one
person like your Shifu -- who couldn't let go of the case -- to notice the problem.
Unless...unless all of the cases following Wu Guangchuan's death had one important
piece missing." how quickly Fei Du caught up with and deduced from the information
was frightening, "It was the 'torturing the parents' part, right?"

Luo Wenzhou said nothing, only chewed the mint into pieces.
"Suppose there is this group who uses innocent little girls as the bait to abduct other
girls. I don't think they would want to attract attention." Fei Du said, "Calling the
victim's parents just to torture them seems too...'personal'. It's not consistent with
the goal of the 'group'. What the 'group' wanted were teenage girls, but what the
caller wanted was to make the parents suffer. It sounds like...the 'bait' has gone out
of control."
Su Xiaolan twenty years ago, and Su Luozhan today.
Why can't I have what everyone else has? Parents, family, everything else that I
don't have, I shall destroy.
The call that Guo Heng received was from a telephone booth next to a deserted
landfill. The only road to that landfill had a toll. The police had questioned the toll
workers many times and were certain that the caller did not go through it. So instead,
after they detoured from the interstate, abductors would have to stop the car on the
side of the road, and drag Guo Fei - the victim - all the way up a large slope to make
that call.
It sounded very irrational. All of it was just Guo Heng's unsupported, if not forced
hypothesis, so the police officers on this case back then did not adopt it.

In the call, the girl didn't say a word, only screamed. The sound of a jingle bell inside
a metal pencil case lead Guo Fei's parents to believe that it was Guo Fei screaming on
the other end. However...what if the screaming girl wasn't Guo Fei?
Perhaps Guo Fei had already been murdered at the time, and the murderer was
driving with his little culprit to look for a good place to hide the body. Somewhere
during the process, the little girl suddenly snapped and jumped out of the car.
Luo Wenzhou closed his eyes to try to imagine what the little culprit felt...terror?
disgust? shock? Or a mixture of jealousy and hate?
He found himself clueless.
Like the summer child who cannot imagine winter, those that grew up in peace
cannot imagine what they'd do during war. What most people could think of would be
the 'man v.s. Wild' type questions, like "what to pack for the road", "how to stay
together with family", or "how to secure basic life needs".

As a normal human-being, no matter how many times he had chased after and tried
to understand the motives behind the crimes, Luo Wenzhou could still only picture the
girl's state of mind with the pale vocabulary that floated on paper.

Why had there not been any similar case for twenty years?
What kind of a liaison existed between Su Xiaolan and Su Luozhan, the miserable
mother from years ago and the crooked daughter today?

Fei Du asked: "Could you sneak me in to talk to her?"

He almost burst out a 'No'. However, when he raised his head he saw Fei Du leaning
against the opposite side of the hallway, eyes quietly fixated on him. He had never
paid much attention to Fei Du's eyes. Because two grown men don't usually look into
each other's eyes, unless they either want to start a fight or a relationship. In his
mind, the ways Fei Du looked at him were mostly mocking, cold, or harsh...If he did
look closer he was pretty sure that each and every one of the man's dancing eye-
lashes would be yelling "I do not see eye to eye with you".
Those eyes had never been quite as soft and harmless. The way he asked the
question also made Luo Wenzhou wonder whether there was a hint of pleading in
those words. Luo's whole body froze for a split second. He could no longer yell out the
"Cut the crap".

Haha. Men.
Luo Wenzhou ridiculed himself silently. However, he still replied with his gentler
voice: "I'm afraid not. There are rules."
"But last time I sat in on the interrogation..."
"That was under a special consent signed by our Chief."
"Then let him sign another one. After all, I have directly negotiated with Su Luozhan
once." Fei Du put on his usual half-hearted smile again, "Besides, I have written a
small piece on victim studies before, and it was cited by the most recent edition of a
criminal psychology textbook. Oh, and I should mention that I was admitted to the
Applied Psychology program at the Yancheng Police Academy this April. So, starting
this Fall, I will be more of less part of the team --- Captain Luo, how about you make
a call to the Chief who was flexible at handling these exceptions?"
Luo Wenzhou: "......"
When the HELL did all of these happen?!