Chapter Twenty-Five: Stakeout

“Why is it taking so long?” Yan Xue found it a little odd. After all, he had only gone to inform the other side that they had found a possible place where Lin Zhen might be staying. Even if Kang Ge had asked a few other things along the way, it still didn’t seem as if it should have taken this long.

“Lin Zhen’s parents heard that we’d more or less narrowed down where she is and insisted on coming along to pick her up. It took me quite a while to persuade them not to go with us. After all, making an extra trip would only waste time and mean nothing at all.” Kang Ge shrugged, sounding somewhat helpless. “I can understand how anxious parents feel, so I had to talk them down slowly. I couldn’t be too forceful, and I also couldn’t make the situation sound too serious, otherwise they’d get even more uneasy and insist on coming along all the more.”

“Ah, I can understand that feeling, but following us would really have served no purpose at all! If Lin Zhen felt safe enough around her parents, she wouldn’t have gone to the lengths of drugging them into sleep just so she could run away.” Yan Xue understood why Kang Ge had tried to stop Lin Zhen’s parents. “In fact, I even think there’s another possibility: maybe Lin Zhen felt that staying with her parents wouldn’t protect her at all, and might even end up dragging her father and mother into danger with her.”

“That’s not impossible. If all it was was a little harassment, she wouldn’t have needed to go to so much trouble running all over the place to book hotel rooms and set up such a costly decoy.” Kang Ge glanced at the time. “Come on, let’s head out. I want to know what exactly made Lin Zhen afraid to this extent. Tomorrow morning, we’ll speak to her directly.”

“Okay. Then you should go put on something warmer first, or you’ll be miserable once it gets deep into the night,” Yan Xue reminded him.

Because of the nature of their work, nearly everyone on the team had several sets of clothes of different thicknesses in their lockers for emergencies. Kang Ge quickly changed into a down jacket as well, and the two of them drove toward Z City.

Yan Xue noticed that when Kang Ge went to Z City, he relied much more on the navigation system along the way. On the one hand, the roads at night looked rather different from how they did in daylight; on the other hand, it was obvious that he simply wasn’t familiar enough with the area.

She recalled that during the day, Lu Xiaodong had mentioned a man named He Pei, saying that he had brought Kang Ge and Kang Ge’s mother some local snacks from Y City. Kang Ge’s reaction then had seemed rather indifferent.

And when she thought back to the time they had driven to Y City to find Lin Zhen, Kang Ge had not only driven all the way from W City in a way that suggested he knew the route well, but even after entering the city proper, he had found the hotel without needing navigation.

Yan Xue had always considered herself fairly good with directions, but because she had hardly ever been to Y City, she had been a little disoriented there as well. At the time, her mind had been entirely on finding Lin Zhen as quickly as possible and confirming whether the deceased was really her. She had not had the leisure to think about anything else. She had only felt that there was always someone better than yourself, and Kang Ge’s ability to find his way was almost frighteningly good.

Now, watching Kang Ge drive toward Z City according to the navigation prompts, Yan Xue suddenly realized that he and Y City must have some sort of connection. Judging from his attitude toward the local snacks brought back by that acquaintance named He Pei, that connection might not be a very pleasant one. In that case, she decided to see through it without saying so, and neither mention nor ask.

It was said that those involved in a matter often could not see it clearly, while outsiders could. As a result, many outsiders became eager to point the way for the people inside the situation, offering all kinds of advice about what one “should” do and what one “should not” do, and even prided themselves on being calm and objective.

Perhaps there was nothing wrong with their advice itself. It might even truly have been correct and wise. But they overlooked the most important thing of all: the situation and feelings of the person actually living through it.

Ill-timed guidance could, at times, wound the person concerned a second time.

The drive from W City to Z City took a little over an hour. The two of them arrived in Z City after nine o’clock and, following the route Yan Xue had planned in advance, began checking hotel after hotel.

“I see you left the farthest one for last?” Kang Ge asked after the first two turned out to be dead ends. He looked over the address, then casually noticed the order in which Yan Xue had arranged the search.

“Yes. I think Lin Zhen is just someone who has been poorly disciplined and given too much freedom, maybe a little willful and reckless, but not especially foolish. You can tell from the fact that when she ran into someone who looked very much like her, she immediately thought, in the very first moment she realized she was at the center of danger, of seducing that person into switching identities with her.

“Take the way she used the excuse of insomnia to get her parents to take her to see a doctor after she was found in Y City, just so she could leave her parents’ side. And then she used the medicine she got from that visit to doctor, waiting until her parents weren’t on guard before putting it into their coffee. Just that one move alone already showed a bit of scheming. Coffee is bitter, and when bitter medicine powder is mixed into bitter coffee, it’s less likely to be noticed when drunk.

“She’s the sort of person with plenty of little tricks, so when she was playing this ‘a crafty hare has three burrows’ game, after booking one hotel far from the city center in a rather remote area, she also booked several more in quick succession in the busy districts near the center. She must have worried that whoever posed a threat to her safety might find out where she was staying and come looking for her, so she used this method to mislead them and make them think she would stay at the remote one.

“But in fact, if you think about it carefully, it’s not hard to see that the remote one wasn’t large enough. I looked into that hotel’s information, and it doesn’t have an underground parking garage. If she parked the car there, it would be too conspicuous and easy to notice.

“If Lin Zhen were a little craftier and parked her father’s car somewhere else, away from her actual place of stay, then at a time like this, when the night is so quiet, or even early in the morning, the remote hotel would make it difficult to hail a taxi and run.

“By contrast, the city center has heavy traffic and a denser crowd, which makes finding someone much harder. Even if someone really did chase after her, never mind escaping by car or taxi, even going to a local police station would be far easier than from the hotel farther out.”

“So you put the hotel in the city center, the one with the police station right across the street behind the courtyard, first on the list?”

“Yes, but it looks like I overestimated Lin Zhen a little. She really is fairly quick-witted, but she wasn’t quite that thorough.” Yan Xue gave a sigh that was half laughter, half exasperation.

The two of them arrived at the third hotel. This time, they finally didn’t make the trip in vain. Of all the hotels, this one had the nicest decor and was in a more bustling area as well, with shopping malls, restaurants, cafes, everything one could want. After all the picking and choosing, Lin Zhen still ended up selecting the most comfortable place to stay. She really was the kind of person who would never willingly let herself suffer.

Kang Ge confirmed Lin Zhen’s check-in information and also verified through the surveillance footage in the hotel lobby, the elevators, and the hallway on her floor that she was indeed staying there. After checking in, she had gone out once, then returned from outside a little over an hour later, and had not left her room again since.

With that definite information in hand, Kang Ge could finally relax. He looked further into the hotel’s setup. This hotel likewise had no underground parking garage, only an open-air lot in the courtyard in front of the building. There was no back door either; the hotel’s front entrance was the only way in and out. There was no other hidden route by which someone could slip away.

So Kang Ge parked the car in a spot near the courtyard gate. The view from there was good: both the hotel entrance and the gate were fully in sight. If Lin Zhen came out, there would be no way for her to slip away unnoticed.

After parking, Kang Ge turned off the engine. The two of them sat in the dark car. They were here to keep watch, not to go camping. They could not leave the heater running the whole time just for warmth. After all, a car parked in one place too long, engine rumbling away without ever driving off, was bound to attract attention. That was a serious taboo.

So both of them were wrapped in down jackets, with heat patches already stuck inside them beforehand.

Actually, for Yan Xue, keeping watch in a place like this was already very comfortable. Sitting inside a car was far better than having cold wind blow at you nonstop outside, and besides, being stationed in front of a large hotel made handling urgent bodily needs much easier. Compared with keeping watch on the edge of town, out in the wild, or inside someone else’s residential compound, it was far, far better.

After parking, Kang Ge went out again. On the way over, he had noticed that there was a cafe nearby that was still open, so once everything was settled he ran over there. When he returned a short while later, he was carrying two bags. One contained two paper cups filled with hot coffee, and the other held a thermos flask that was clearly newly bought.

“Can you believe it? That cafe actually sold this kind of thermos too! It was just the right size for two big cups, so I bought one, had them rinse it and warm it up, filled it with two cups, and then bought two more for us to drink now. This should probably carry us through the night. We’ll keep watch like this through the first half, and in the second half we’ll take turns resting.”

Yan Xue took the things and set them down, only to see Kang Ge rummage again through the large paper bag that held the thermos. Like magic, he pulled out another box. When he opened it, there were actually two slices of cake inside.

“My heavens, first coffee and now cake. This kind of comfortable stakeout is making me feel almost guilty,” Yan Xue joked.

“No need to feel guilty. As long as we’re doing our jobs properly, who says we have to make ourselves suffer? We’re police officers, not ascetics. Our duty is to fight crime and protect the people, not to torture ourselves.”

Kang Ge smiled and waved a hand. “There are some hardships we have to endure, and for those we can’t be afraid of taking on the heavier burden. But anything beyond that, choosing to suffer for no reason at all is just self-abuse. If we were out in the middle of nowhere and you still insisted on drinking coffee and eating cake, that would be making a fuss for no reason.

“Now, though, we have a ready-made convenience. The cafe is only a five-minute walk away. That’s what you call making full use of what’s available.

“A person only gets a few easy moments in life. So besides obeying the law and dedicating ourselves to our work, we should also treat ourselves well.”

Yan Xue was amused by the deliberately solemn air Kang Ge put on when he spoke. He always sounded as if he were joking, teasing, or speaking carelessly, yet the more she thought about it, the more she felt that there was a certain clarity in him.

Since Kang Ge had made a fair point and the cake was already bought, there was no reason to let it go to waste. Their dinner had been rather perfunctory, and by now they were indeed a little hungry. Yan Xue didn’t fuss and happily started eating.

“Luckily you managed to talk Lin Zhen’s parents out of coming, or they really would have made things messy,” Yan Xue said, checking the time. If Lin Zhen’s parents had insisted on coming, they probably still wouldn’t have made it here by now.

“Yes. More importantly, if whatever was bottled up inside Lin Zhen could be said in front of her parents, then she might have spoken up the last time already. She wouldn’t have had to go back with them and then think up another way to run off again.” Kang Ge sounded helpless. “Making one extra trip this time is no big deal, but this time we absolutely can’t come away empty-handed again. We have to make Lin Zhen explain everything clearly, no matter what. Otherwise, if we go through this trouble again, wasting our time and energy would still be the least of it. I’m just afraid something else will go wrong in the meantime.”

“Even though Lin Zhen is a bit unreliable and doesn’t seem like someone who makes people feel at ease, if you think about it, she’s been holding everything in by herself these past few days, carrying all her worry and fear alone. That can’t have been easy.” Yan Xue sighed.

After that, as an only child, she suddenly became curious about the dynamic between Kang Ge and Lu Xiaodong. “Do you and your younger sister have any distance between you? For example, things you’re too scared or too embarrassed to tell your parents about, would you tell each other and keep it secret, like allies on the same front?”

“Well… things she’s afraid to tell our parents, she really does come to me for ideas. If it’s nothing that crosses a line, I’ll help keep it from Mom. But if I think it’s not a small matter and carries some seriousness, I’ll still give my mother a subtle heads-up. Still, there’s an understanding between my mom and me: if I sell out my little sister, my mom won’t sell me out. So for Xiaodong, I really am her ally.”

Kang Ge finished and laughed. “As for my affairs… with that silly sister of mine, she’d probably be the kind who gets sold and still helps count the money. If it were you, would you choose her as your ally and let her help you make plans and answer your questions?”

“Well… if it were me, I really wouldn’t choose to do that,” Yan Xue answered honestly.

Though this was her first time meeting Lu Xiaodong and she had only had a little preliminary contact with her, Lu Xiaodong still struck her as an innocent, lively girl. She was certainly likable, but not quite the kind of person one could rely on.

“But your relationship with your sister really is so good. Unlike the brothers and sisters among my classmates and friends back then, who basically fought from childhood to adulthood and were like natural enemies.” Yan Xue sighed.

“I’m indeed pretty good to Xiaodong,” Kang Ge said with a smile. After a pause, he went on, “Anyway, since we’re just sitting in the car tonight doing nothing, why don’t I tell you a bit about myself?

“Today, I even made a grand declaration in front of my little sister that I’m working hard, so it’s only right that I give you a little more basic understanding of me, isn’t it?”