Chapter 196: Is He Not Coming, or Has He Not Arrived Yet?

Chapter 196: Is He Not Coming, or Has He Not Arrived Yet?

The blue Lamborghini tore along Binjiang Road.

“Old Dao is—” Wu Chen paused, then smiled. “Not certain, actually.”

“Not certain?” Li Ruobing could not tell whether he genuinely did not know or was stringing her along on purpose. He was always mysterious, never fond of laying anything out plainly.

“I haven’t laid eyes on him yet. How could I be certain?” Wu Chen answered, still faintly amused.

“Fine.” She did not press. She could hear the wind roar faintly on his end — not open windows, but sheer speed, loud enough to carry down the line. “Just focus on driving. We’ll leave it there.”

“Sure,” Wu Chen said.

Off the call, he put his foot down again.

The car pulled harder.

He was already speeding. Not much of a problem. Wang Zhuangyuan handled all his violations; Wu Chen could drive as he pleased so long as he did not crash.

Green light ahead.

The Lamborghini swung through the intersection in a drift.

He was, in fact, taking the long way around.

It was not yet three in the afternoon, so this was not rush hour. But Donghai was a rich, sprawling city; rush hour or not, the roads were never empty. At peak times there would be jams, and even off-peak, real speed was hard to come by.

To hold his pace, Wu Chen had to detour, choosing roads with fewer cars.

He knew Donghai far too well.

Which meant the longer route would actually get him there sooner.

Thirty-odd minutes later.

Shuangqiao, West District.

Shuangqiao was an unofficial place-name. Originally it referred to two river bridges standing not far apart, both put up in the seventies or eighties — old bridges now. Over the years the name had drifted outward until it covered an entire stretch of West District.

Even the bus stop was called Shuangqiao Station.

By present-day Donghai standards Shuangqiao counted as an old neighborhood. Earlier still it had not been part of the main urban area at all; only when urbanization picked up with the new century and the city core swelled outward had it been absorbed and assigned to West District.

A remote sort of place, a long way from the center.

Shuangqiao.

Xinmin Second Street, Bao’an Alley.

Wu Chen pulled the blue Lamborghini up at the curb by the mouth of the alley. He shrugged off his suit jacket and tossed it onto the passenger seat, straightened his white shirt, then got out and walked in.

The alley was not narrow. A car could get through easily enough, but it wound rather than ran straight, and few drivers chose it. Small shops crowded both sides: little restaurants, clothing stores, hardware shops, street stalls, a place selling duck necks, all manner of trades. Where there were that many shops there were that many people, and cars found the going slow and clogged.

It was a lively place. Walking deeper into Bao’an Alley felt like stepping into the busy snack street of some smaller city. In truth it was not quite so dramatic, and it did not sell only food — it sold a little of everything. There were simply an unusual number of rental units here, which drew a larger migrant population, and over time that had produced a “prosperity” of its own.

Almost every city had a place like this: far from downtown, and humming.

Wu Chen walked farther in.

There were plenty of people out at this hour, though nowhere near a crush.

Passing a small shop papered with signs reading “CLOSING-DOWN SALE — EVERYTHING 90% OFF,” Wu Chen turned his head, glanced inside, and stepped in. It was a clothing shop, all cheap goods — a hundred yuan for two pairs of trousers, plus shoes in whatever odd sizes were left, supposedly export overstock.

As far as Wu Chen knew, this shop had been “closing down” since the day it opened. It was nothing but a hook.

He was inside for two minutes before he came back out.

He had bought a white baseball cap.

A baseball cap sat poorly with a suit, but Wu Chen no longer had the jacket on. In just the white shirt and the cap, the whole impression of him changed.

He looked young, sunny.

He kept going.

Wu Chen walked the length of the alley, from its easternmost end to its westernmost, until he could nearly see the main road at the far side. Xinmin Third Street.

He turned left.

Bao’an Alley had many side passages, and deeper in stood old seven-story blocks, more than half the units rented out.

This was the last passage.

Wu Chen walked into it.

He could easily have entered Bao’an Alley from Xinmin Third Street and come in at the western mouth — far closer to this passage, no need to cross the whole alley. But Wu Chen had deliberately taken the long way.

His concern was that if the car sat outside the western mouth, Old Dao might see it from a rear window upstairs.

Old Dao knew the blue Lamborghini Wu Chen drove.

And coming from that private hospital to here, Old Dao ought logically to have entered from the western end. There was no reason for him to loop around.

A short way into the passage, Wu Chen stopped in front of the entrance of an old block.

He hooked a hand over the brim of his cap and looked up at the building.

This was it.

According to what Wu Chen had turned up across his thousand years in the loop, Ding Ruilong had prepared a number of apartments in Donghai for his people to use while fleeing.

Something like “safe houses.”

The difference was that these safe houses were not safe. Commit something serious, and with surveillance as dense as it was now, the police would find the place sooner or later. So these safe-house-like apartments served only as a temporary stop, stocked with certain things a man on the run would need.

There were several of them in Donghai.

Some were held under the strictest secrecy.

Others were less secret — places Ding Ruilong’s people in Donghai could simply provide.

Several possible locations, then. Many possibilities.

Yet Wu Chen still felt Old Dao might come straight here.

Because this was the only “safe house” that had been prepared in advance and never used. The other sites had never been discovered either, but every one of them had been used at some point over the past four years.

Only this one had never been touched. Which made it the safest, the most secret.

Jiang Chuan had brought Old Dao in for this job, and Old Dao’s identity was highly unusual — he could practically be counted a top-tier assassin brought in from outside the mainland. If something happened to him, the fallout would be serious. So activating this place — given how cautious Jiang Chuan was — was entirely plausible.

And in all of Donghai right now, apart from Jiang Chuan, who had already left, Old Dao should be the only person who knew of it.

The men who had worked the job with him were small fry. If things went wrong they would scatter separately rather than come here; the consequences of their capture were far smaller.

All of it was Wu Chen’s inference.

It still needed verifying.

Wu Chen went in through the entrance and up the stairs.

The stairwell was dim and grimy, walls plastered with little advertising stickers, cigarette butts on the floor. His footsteps were very light, almost soundless. Soon he reached the fifth floor and stopped in front of Apartment 501.

This was the one. The registered owner was a Donghai local, but the man behind it was Ding Ruilong. Ding Ruilong had instructed Jiang Chuan, and Jiang Chuan had arranged for someone to buy it, three years ago.

Wu Chen paused and turned to look at the electrical meter box on the wall.

He reached into the gap between the box and the wall.

His brow furrowed at once.

Because—

The key was still there.

The key to Apartment 501.

If anyone had come here, the key would not still be there.

Old Dao had not come?

Wu Chen frowned, thinking, and immediately arrived at another possibility.

Not that he was not coming.

That he had not arrived yet. That he was still on the way. Badly wounded, in a hospital gown, he would have to find some way to change clothes en route, and dodge the men Li Ruotai had sent after him. So he might come quickly.

Or he might not.

Wu Chen drew out the key.

Whether Old Dao was not coming or simply had not arrived, all Wu Chen had to do was get inside to confirm it. Whether supplies had been laid in ahead of time would tell him.

He raised the key to the lock.

And just then—

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Heavy footsteps came from below, ragged with them, as though the man could not keep his balance yet was climbing in great haste.

Someone was coming up.