Chapter 281 - Mr. Huang (2/2)
“So, have you noticed anything, Shiyan?” Zheng Shuang looked as if he had been waiting for the whole morning to ask me this. I could only nod, although I did not disclose anything. We walked out of the elevator when we reached the ground floor to find the security guard mooning over his lunchbox. He greeted us warmly when we came out and I teased him, saying, “Wow, that looks mightily good!” “Of course,” he returned and said as he whisked us towards the exit, “Our company treats its employees well!”
Once stepping out of the gates, Zheng Shuang pestered again, saying, “So what did you find?” I scowled at him and said, “No. Not here. Let’s go somewhere else.” Zheng Shuang, finally understanding me, nodded and went to his car where he followed behind ours away from the compound.
We left the place and went first back to Unit 105. After all, Zheng Shuang, in his police uniform and his wheezing around in a police patrol car, would undoubtedly attract much obnoxious attention and make everyone uneasy.
Zheng Shuang left his patrol car parked outside Unit 105 and got himself a change of clothes before he rode in our car. We found a nice restaurant and placed our order, and only then, I gave a nod to Zheng Shuang, indicating it was finally time to let the secret out in the open.
“This Mr. Huang is putting up a very good show. But whether he’s speaking the truth or not, something is terribly wrong with him,” I said as I took a long breath off my cigarette. Chongxi attested with a nod, saying, “Indeed. This Mr. Huang looks terribly tired. Not because he’s lacking rest, but I feel it’s because he’s been using some sort of black magic.” “Not only that,” I added, “According to Mr. Huang, he’s very close to Huang Li. But his daughter’s been painting an altogether different picture of him that we can see from her diary. She was afraid of him. Terribly afraid, so to speak. Therefore, I believe we’ve encountered only one of the many faces of Mr. Huang, the infernal and diabolical father of Huang Li. Yet there is one thing I’m puzzled with. I shook his hands just now and I felt nothing. Is he not a member of Tribe Nine Li, I wonder…” And my voice ended to the shaking heads of everyone around me.
As the servers filed in one by one, buzzing like a hive of busy bees as they scurried about to set our table, I reached for some food and said, “We’ll have to go again tonight. We need to know more about this Mr. Huang. I say we sneak in quietly.” Zheng Shuang mumbled a “How?” through his full mouth and I shook my head. “You’ll be staying outside. Keep watch outside that office building we went to just now. The six of us can go in. You can back us up if we get into trouble.” He beamed broadly, looking visibly relieved, saying, “Gods, I thought you want me to come with you! Honestly, Shiyan, I nearly shat myself the last time we fought against that bat demon of that Creed of the Eight Trigrams!” Chongxi butted in, “Look at you. If only you had more courage as you did in your previous life!” Just then, three voices quipped from his waist, squealing, “Indeed!” “Indeed!” “Indeed!”
That startled Zheng Shuang. For a moment, he thought he was hearing things. He did not know where did the three female voices come from, only that they seemed to have originated from somewhere near Chongxi’s lower body. Their eyes met and for several awkward moments, none of them could say anything.
But Big Sister crashed into the conversation with the abruptness of an avalanche, splitting the embarrassing moment as she screamed, “All right, all right! It’s no good prattling about useless piffle! Let’s get straight into making our plans for tonight!” Her voice was thick with the accent commonly found on people of north-eastern parts, even though she was but only a fox demon from the north-eastern parts.
I shrugged and said with a smile, “The same as how we settled the case at Unit 104. We go at night. Just be careful not to alert anyone, especially that security guard…”
Fast forward to an hour before midnight, the Hour of the Rat. We stood just outside the premise compound of Huang Li’s father company, with the gentle winds of the night howling and rustling by our ears. The pitch-black darkness around us looked ominous and menacing as if hidden terrors were lurking about, waiting to pounce on us and the only single glimmer of light from a settlement not far away did little to provide us with any comfort.
Quietly as we could, we slunk towards the office block. Then something green and luminous flitted by the edge of our visions, its ghostly shimmer in the field of blackness only made it too obvious for anyone to miss and all of our heads twisted in unison to look.
The emerald-green fire flickered gently along a wall not far away, bobbing and hovering lazily in the dark with all of us following closely the moments of what we realized was a will-o’-the-wisp.