Zhang Xiangyi sucked in a sharp breath and slapped Xiao Xingzhi hard.
There was no time to set her down, Xiao Xingzhi simply scooped Zhang Xiangyi up and ran, all the way to the elevator, where she reached out and pressed the up button. Their coordination was seamless.
Back on basement level one, they ducked into a restroom to hide, both silently grateful they’d scouted the layout at the very start.
Xiao Xingzhi peered out.
Zhang Xiangyi slapped him a few more times before he finally came to his senses and set her down, looking utterly incredulous. “Did I see that wrong?”
The 4-2 girl and Zou Yue looked exactly alike!
And yet they seemed like two different people.
He thought back to the first time he’d seen the 4-2 girl: black hair bobbed to her ears, an innocent, pure face, a blue plaid Peter Pan-collar blouse with white pants. Very introverted and shy, barely a word out of her, and rather timid, exactly like the kind of bashful, well-behaved little thing you’d meet in real life.
But just now?
Swagger leaking from every pore, red leather coat, blood-red sky-high heels, blazing scarlet lips, all but tattooing the color red into her bones.
Two completely opposite styles.
“I’m wondering whether the 4-2 girl we saw and Zou Yue are the same person. And don’t forget, the jumper looked a lot like Fugui too.” Zhang Xiangyi frowned, just as shaken, though she was mostly busy reconsidering whether their original plan needed to change.
There was no telling how far along Zhong Ziqian and Xi Zirui were by now.
“There’s no way to confirm any of this right now. We’ve got too little to go on.” Xiao Xingzhi shook his head. “The one thing we can be sure of is that this place really is tied to drugs. The second basement is where they research new drugs, the first basement where they manufacture…”
“And that production volume, one night’s output alone is terrifying.” Xiao Xingzhi pursed his lips and shook his head. In real life even a tiny amount was a serious offense, here they were churning it out in bulk, enough for a death sentence on the charges alone. “When we first got to basement one, wasn’t heat poison the biggest production line?”
The two of them analyzed it in fits and starts.
Finally Zhang Xiangyi said wearily, “We wait until 7:00 a.m. When they clock off, we blend into the crowd and slip out with them.”
“Works for me.” Xiao Xingzhi had no objection, getting out right now really would be difficult.
After a stretch of quiet, Xiao Xingzhi, a little bored, asked, “That blue-uniform one we ran into at the start, you remember? From the look of it, there really are people in here who got in through connections. So that’s… how it is everywhere, huh?”
Zhang Xiangyi didn’t answer.
“Hey, if I had connections like that in real life, would I be this broke? Out of twenty-four hours a day, getting five hours of sleep is a stroke of luck. The funniest part is those alumni saying I’m like a divine dragon, you glimpse its head but never its tail [1] a saying for someone elusive who’s rarely seen in full jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2691979_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2691979_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, that I’m just putting on airs! Calling me a poser, and then asking how come so many people still like me. Was that my idea? And is it abnormal for people to like me? They get all bent out of shape [2] 破防, internet slang: someone’s emotional guard is “broken,” i.e. they’re hit in a sore spot and lose their cool jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2691979_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2691979_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, and jealous on top of it.”
“If I were rich, would I be out there working—”
“You can shut up now.” Zhang Xiangyi pressed her brow. She suspected that if she didn’t call a stop, he could go on forever.
How could a person’s mouth run this much?
6:50—
Outside came a wave of noise, completely unlike the earlier silence where you could hear a footstep drop. Xiao Xingzhi, who’d been watching over the sleeping Zhang Xiangyi, instantly perked up, any longer in here and he’d have a nervous breakdown.
Sleeping on his feet hadn’t gone well, and Zhang Xiangyi wouldn’t even let him talk…
“Go, go, go.” Xiao Xingzhi dragged Zhang Xiangyi out, more excited than anyone, yet nothing stood out about him in the crowd.
After all, it was the end of a shift… everyone’s face was wreathed in smiles.
At the changing room, Zhang Xiangyi shrank into a corner to minimize her presence, slowly pretending to undress, ears pricked.
“Did you hear?”
“Hear what?”
“That woman! Sister Yue had her made into a test subject!”
“Her, huh… serves her right. Think how good Sister Yue was to her before. Wasn’t she just some broke worker like the rest of us? She only got lucky, not only docked three months’ pay for being late, but she got to meet Sister Yue on top of it. If she didn’t have the same face as Sister Yue’s little sister, you think she’d have survived? She’d have ended up a test subject in the end anyway. Sigh… well, we all become test subjects sooner or later, so I guess it’s fine.”
“After pulling something that big, ending up as just a test subject, Sister Yue is too kind, still sparing her a thought.”
“That’s not sparing her a thought, it’s that face of hers!”
“Hurry up, will you, I still have to take my son to school.”
“Coming.”
……
A little sister who looked like Zou Yue?
But the two of them didn’t look alike at all?
Comparing the two faces in her mind, she honestly couldn’t find a single point of resemblance.
Seeing the people in the changing room leave one after another, Zhang Xiangyi finally retrieved her backpack from behind the cabinet and hurried out to meet Xiao Xingzhi.
For once she didn’t hear him talking, so Zhang Xiangyi gave him an odd once-over, which left him bewildered. “Is something wrong with me?”
Seeing him instinctively touch his own face, Zhang Xiangyi shook her head, it was the real Xiao Xingzhi, all right.
They tagged along at the very back until they saw the workers leave the apartment, and only then did they head back.
They got home quickly, neither of them speaking, one went to the kitchen, the other to boil water.
The moment it hit 7:00, day broke.
Eating instant noodles to take the edge off their hunger, Xiao Xingzhi noticed Zhang Xiangyi’s brow was still furrowed and sighed. “When you eat, just eat, don’t overthink it. But then again, our building really doesn’t have a single person who works down there? Isn’t that a bit too abnormal?”
The workplace was right under the building, with so many rooms for rent above it, yet not one worker rented here?
“Dream on,” Zhang Xiangyi said, setting down her plastic fork. “Who lives right on top of their own workplace? Where’s a deal that good?”
“The boss would!”
The two of them froze, and the overlooked piece finally clicked into place. Zhang Xiangyi said decisively, “Right, the boss could. Don’t forget, the landlord lives on the first floor, and the first floor has never once been rented out.”
“Most important of all, the final destination of renting in this building is to become a test subject, or to put it more precisely, this is how they find their test subjects, screening for the people they want right out in the open.” Xiao Xingzhi thought of the report Xi Zirui had put together and shuddered. “The second unit on every floor is where the top brass live. If the 4-2 girl really is Zou Yue, that would explain it.”
For a moment, neither spoke.
Xiao Xingzhi cleared away their empty noodle cups, then saw Zhang Xiangyi standing on the balcony and wandered over to look without thinking. “Whoa! The fire brigade! Was there a fire?”
“I made a report call yesterday.”
At that, Xiao Xingzhi blinked, then exclaimed, “So it actually works! Then should we report to the police too? Wonder what the cops in here are like. If they’re anything like the fire department…”
“Can’t report it.” Zhang Xiangyi cut off his muttering. Pocketing her phone and grabbing the door key off the coffee table, she got ready to head out. “And they’re all dragging their feet anyway. Without finding some loophole to threaten them with, they won’t lift a finger.”
If everything got handled for them, what would be the point of the instance existing?
Xiao Xingzhi figured she had a point, grabbed his coat, and headed downstairs with her.
“It’s true! I swear my building’s fire safety is solid! Didn’t it just pass inspection last time?” A man who looked exactly like the jumper stood at the front of the inspection team, panting as he tried his best to hold them off. “Didn’t the Inspection Bureau even call us the best apartment last time? And, I and you all—”
“We received a public report. Please understand, Mr. Wang.” The inspector finished in a flat, by-the-book tone, his eyes flicking side to side before he leaned in slightly to murmur in Wang Fugui’s ear.
Zhang Xiangyi stood with her arms crossed beside Xiao Xingzhi, who, the instant they’d come down, had been seized by that old man to resume his duel with the tank-top old man.
Naturally she couldn’t hear what was being said, but the huge matchmaker’s mole at the corner of his mouth, that she could see plainly.
Wang Fugui… had finally shown himself.
At the very back of the inspection team, two young men clenched their fists, glaring at the leader talking to Wang Fugui, their resentment all but written on their faces. Zhang Xiangyi raised an eyebrow at the sight.
They were obviously new, just look at the numbness on the faces ahead of them, the dead eyes, not a flicker of feeling about any of this.
A beginner instance, surely they wouldn’t tell her this was a scam too?
Wang Fugui smilingly led the team into Apartment 44. Zhang Xiangyi tapped Xiao Xingzhi’s shoulder lightly, and without a word walked toward the young men at the back, picking out the better-looking of the two.
“Brother…”
Trotting over, Zhang Xiangyi bowed her head shyly and, in the most kittenish voice she’d produced in her entire life, said, “Could I… could I ask if you have a girlfriend?”
She finished looking very flustered, cheeks flushed, quickly waving her hands. “I… I don’t mean it like that, I just…”
Every gesture captured a young girl meeting her crush to perfection. “I just want to make a friend…”
The man beside him egged it on, giving him a shove and grinning. “What are you standing there for? Give her your contact info, hurry up!”
The man scratched his head, took out his phone, tapped a few times, and held the screen out in front of Zhang Xiangyi.
……
Xiao Xingzhi played chess while keeping watch, the jealousy in his chest nearly bubbling over.
The old man dragged a stool right over and sat down beside him, gloating. “Hey, you still haven’t smoothed things over with your wife?”
Xiao Xingzhi glanced at the board and absent-mindedly moved a piece. “I smoothed it over already…”
The old man turned again to make sure his eyes weren’t deceiving him, then scoffed. “Smoothed it over? Then why’s your wife over there asking another guy for his contact info? That young fellow looks pretty handsome to me, and honest too. Your wife’s got good taste.”
“I’m not handsome?!”
Xiao Xingzhi was wounded. He straightened up. “Plenty of people chased me at school too! My wife was the one who chased me! You have no idea, back when she was after me, she brought me breakfast, sat through classes with me, even worked part-time jobs alongside me. If she hadn’t, I’d never have said yes! My wife loves me to death, her asking for that guy’s contact… it’s got… it’s got to be for something else!”
Of course it was for something else. As if Xiao Xingzhi didn’t know that perfectly well.
He was just feeling sour about it.
That maddening state of knowing the rational truth and still being unable to sit with it, so annoying!
The old man sneered. “Heh! Carry on like this and your wife’ll run off sooner or later!”
“Are you two playing or not?” The tank-top old man slapped the table and glared furiously at them both, finally settling on the first old man. “Look who’s talking, if you’d treated Xiaohua better back then, she wouldn’t have been so heartbroken. And now here you are lecturing other people. If you ask me, you’re nothing but a bad influence [3] 误人子弟, literally “ruining other people’s children,” i.e. a poor teacher who leads the young astray jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2691979_1_3').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2691979_1_3', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });!”
“Hey! How did I treat Xiaohua badly? Wasn’t it you who poached her right out from under me [4] 撬墙角, “prying loose the corner of a wall,” i.e. stealing away someone else’s partner jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2691979_1_4').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2691979_1_4', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });? If you hadn’t gone fawning over Xiaohua, would she ever have dumped me?”
“That’s because you treated Xiaohua badly!”
“You poached her!”
“You treated her badly!”
“Poached her!”
Xiao Xingzhi: “……”
He quietly slipped away and walked, aggrieved, over to Zhang Xiangyi. Sneaking a peek at her phone screen and seeing one “Brother” after another in the chat, he held in a breath. “Let’s go see if that 4-2 girl is in, so we can confirm once and for all whether she’s Zou Yue!”
With that, he dragged Zhang Xiangyi straight upstairs.
References[+]