r18novel Chapter 118 The people of Old Factory Street are all pretending to be deaf.
Chapter 118 The people of Old Factory Street are all pretending to be deaf.
The sound of the key being pressed into the lock, its rusty surface drowned out by the sound of rain.
Chen Yan rotated his wrist.
The latch pops open.
The cold air seeping out from the crack in the door brushed against my fingertips, carrying the dampness of a place that had been deprived of sunlight for years.
There were two rows of metal cabinets in the morgue.
The door of cabinet number four was slightly open and not locked.
Chen Yan opened the metal drawer; it was empty.
A folded sketch was pressed on the bottom liner, with a circle drawn in the center of the drawing by a ballpoint pen, next to which was marked No. 14, Laochang Street, HQ District.
Wu Gang stepped inside, the iron rod in his hand leaving a shallow mark on the tiled floor.
"The blueprints are new; someone was waiting for us here."
Chen Yan put away the blueprints and left.
"Let's go to Laochang Street."
The van bounced through the puddles, its tires crushing broken utility poles.
The car headlights flashed past the bungalows on both sides, the paint peeling off the walls, and the black and red "demolition" characters were not very clear because of the rain.
Wu Gang stopped the car.
"We can't go any further; it's all construction debris."
Chen Yan pushed open the car door, his feet sinking into the mud half an inch deep.
The narrow alleyway smelled of rotting vegetable leaves.
Several storefronts along the road were locked, and the windows were dark behind them.
An old woman opened the window and splashed a basin of water out.
Wu Gang walked over and blocked the falling water.
"Aunt Han."
The plastic basin in the old woman's hand fell to the ground with a dull thud.
She looked at Wu Gang's legs, her fingers gripping the windowsill.
"Wu's second son? Didn't you die out there?"
Wu Gang straightened up.
"Lu Haiming is dead, I've come back to collect the debts."
Aunt Han bent down to pick up the basin and quickly closed the window.
"There are no accounts here; everyone's left."
Chen Yan stepped over and braced his hand against the windowpane that was about to close.
Who paid the compensation for the clock tower project back then?
Aunt Han's voice, high-pitched and soft, came from behind the glass: "I don't know, go ask Old Ma."
"Old Ma from the union?"
"He's not called Lao Ma anymore; he opened a teahouse at the street corner and is now called Boss Ma."
The windows were closed tightly, and the curtains were drawn immediately.
The teahouse at the street corner has faded red lanterns hanging on its walls, and the sign above the door reads "Changxing Teahouse".
The room was lit by a dim yellow light bulb, and several figures sat around a mahjong table.
The sliding door was pulled open, and a cold draft rushed into the room.
The sound of mahjong tiles clattering stopped.
Behind the counter, a man in a silk jacket looked up, clutching a string of walnuts in his hand, his fingers grime thick with grease.
"We're closed for the day. Please come back tomorrow for tea."
Chen Yan walked straight to the counter and slammed the drawing he had brought from the morgue onto the table.
"Boss Ma, let's talk about Clock Tower No. 14."
Boss Ma's fingers, which were fiddling with the walnuts, paused, and his eyelids twitched.
He looked at the several burly men with shaved heads next to him.
"My surname isn't Ma; you've got the wrong person."
Wu Gang pulled out a long bench, sat down at the entrance, and placed the iron rod across his knees.
"Old Ma, you only managed to get away with Lu Haiming's debts after you signed the document back then."
"How much of the money you have for running this teahouse goes towards funeral expenses?"
Boss Ma propped himself up from the chair, his face twitching slightly.
"Stop spewing nonsense! That's been verified by the union; all the paperwork is in order."
Chen Yan took a portable projector out of his bag, placed it on the counter, and turned it on.
The beam of light shone on the yellowed wall.
The scene shows the Lumière Hall in Cannes, where Lin Qingqiu is walking on the red carpet in a black dress.
The camera pans down and focuses on the scar on her right leg.
Then came a scene from the movie Thunder, where a towering crane collapsed on screen, burying workers beneath it with rubble, and hoarse screams echoed from the mud.
Boss Ma stared at the image on the wall, the walnuts in his hand rolling to the ground.
"What is this...?"
Chen Yan adjusted the focus so that a close-up of Lin Qingqiu filled the entire wall.
"These are the people who survived from twenty years ago."
"She won the Best Actress award, and the whole world saw this scar."
"Lu Haiming died in the detention center, who will be next?"
Boss Ma slumped into his chair, breathing heavily.
He stared blankly at the image of Lin Qingqiu crawling through the ruins.
"I was just... just helping to collect the money."
"Lu Haiming said that if they don't sign, those families won't get a single penny."
"I did it in an emergency, to keep the living alive!"
Chen Yan interrupted him: "Was the fingerprint on the letter of understanding yours, or was it a family member's?"
Boss Ma lowered his head and ran his hands through his hair, pulling at it a couple of times.
"The ones I signed... were all fake family members; the real ones have already been taken away."
He pulled open the drawer under the counter and took out a charred hardcover booklet.
"This is the original draft from back then. Lu Haiming didn't take it with him, and I didn't dare to throw it away either."
Chen Yan took the manual.
The paper was yellowed and brittle, and had a musty smell.
There were seven names on the list, each marked with a red cross.
Below the seventh name, a line was crossed out with black ink, so much so that the ink seeped through the paper.
Who is the eighth person?
Boss Ma shook his head, his voice trembling and out of tune: "It's hard to say. That person wasn't dead, but he wasn't alive either. He was still breathing when he was taken away. Lu Haiming found the car himself; he didn't use the hospital's ambulance route."
Wu Gang stepped forward, his shadow pressing against the counter.
"Explain clearly, where did that person go?"
Boss Ma closed his eyes, revealing several deep lines at the corners of his eyes.
"He's not completely dead. Lu Haiming said we can't leave behind a half-dead menace..."
A screeching sound came from outside the door.
A black Passat was parked across the entrance of the teahouse.
Four men in black suits got out of the car in unison and entered.
The leader extended his hand; there were no tattoos on the back of his hand, and his knuckles were large.
"Ma Zhiyuan, hand over the goods."
Boss Ma's face turned pale, and he shrank behind the counter.
"I...I didn't take anything, they robbed me!"
The man in black looked at Chen Yan, his gaze lingering on the list in Chen Yan's hand.
"Director Chen, this is in China, not Cannes, and it's not your film set."
He took a step forward, gathering strength in his right arm.
Leave your belongings behind, and leave.
Wu Gang stood up from the bench.
He lifted the bench with his toes and swept it across the man's chest.
The man in black turned to the side, pressed his left hand down on the stool, and pulled a retractable baton from his waist with his right hand.
The staff pops out, sending out a sharp gust of wind.
The other three men in black dispersed; two rushed towards Chen Yan, while the other guarded the exit.
Their positions formed a triangular encirclement, and their hand and footwork showed signs of military training.
Chen Yan took two steps back, pressing his back against the counter.
A man in black was already in front of them, feinting with his right hand and sweeping his left foot low.
Instead of responding, Chen Yan grabbed the projector from the counter and smashed it at the man's face.
The projector casing was broken, and the man's forehead was ripped open by a sharp edge.
On the same beat, Wu Gang abandoned the bench, slid along the ground, and struck the outside of the knee of the man directly in front of him with the iron rod.
The bones made a dull thud.
The man in black groaned and knelt down, but without pausing, he slashed horizontally with his right hand, aiming straight for Wu Gang's neck.
Wu Gang ducked to avoid it, then twisted his wrist, pinning the tip of the iron rod to the other man's armpit.
On the other side, Boss Ma took advantage of the chaos and rushed out through the back door.
"Don't run!"
Chen Yan shouted.
But the last man in black had blocked the path to the back door.
Wu Gang was entangled in a fight with two men, who were willing to get injured in order to lock down his movements.
Chen Yan climbed over the counter.
The man in black guarding the exit grabbed his shoulder.
Chen Yan grabbed a large thermos from the counter, unscrewed the stopper, and threw it out.
Boiling water and shards of glass were splashed in my face.
The man in black turned his head to avoid it.
Just this one meal.
Chen Yan grabbed the list and climbed out through the back window.
In the back alley, Boss Ma, limping, staggered in the rain.
Chen Yan chased after him to the alley entrance.
Boss Ma leaned against a crumbling wall, panting heavily.
He turned to look at Chen Yan, his facial muscles twitching, his eyes filled with despair.
"Chen Yan, you can't beat them. They're not Lu Haiming's men."
Chen Yan stood in the rain.
Who is the eighth person on the list?
Boss Ma coughed and spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva.
He looked at the flashing police lights in the distance, then at the darkness at the end of the alley.
"Liang Qinian's sister...was not killed by the clock tower."
Boss Ma spoke very softly, almost inaudibly amidst the thunder.
"She was taken away from St. Mary's Hospital."
"That night on the operating table, someone gave her a blood transfusion and removed her liver."
A bolt of lightning ripped through the night sky.
Boss Ma turned around and disappeared into a deeper dead-end alley.
In the distance, Zhou Man's Santana appeared at the alley entrance, and the sound of camera shutters clicking echoed through the rain.
Chen Yan looked down at the list in his hand. The line of words that had been erased by ink, soaked by the rain, revealed a broken character "Liang".
He looked up and gazed in the direction of St. Mary's Hospital.
Rain dripped down his eyelashes.
The words Mr. Ma said before he left still echoed in my ears: "When that child left, his eyes were wide open."