107 Exposed

 

It was not as hard as you might think to bend two sturdy iron bars. You only needed a wet cloth and a piece of wood. First you bound the wet cloth across the two bars and tied a knot. You then placed the wood inside the knot and started to turn it like you would a valve. That was exactly what Gu Chen did. Soon, the iron bars bent towards the centre of force and exposed a gap large enough for Gu Chen to squeeze through. The camera ball inside the garage caught nothing, at least there was no one in sight. Gu Chen led with his leg and then the rest of his body.

He was careful lest he made any noise. At that moment, the camera which was left on the roof of the bedroom building saw the masked man and scar face walk out. They appeared like they were heading towards the garage. If Gu Chen moved too slowly, he would be spotted. Currently Gu Chen had half of his body inside the garage and the other half outside. He wouldn’t be able to fight like this. “Gu Chen, you need to hurry in. People are coming.” Captain Zhao warned calmly.

Hearing that, Gu Chen picked up his speed. As he landed, he slashed the cloth he stole from the kitchen. He grabbed the shredded cloth but the wood slipped through his fingers and knocked against the window ledge, causing a sound. By then, it was already too late for Gu Chen to reach out and pick up the wooden stick. All Gu Chen could do was to hide by the wall and remained motionless.

The camera lost sight of the 2 men. Gu Chen didn’t place any camera outside the window, so we had no idea where the 2 men were. We could only pray that the men didn’t hear the fall and see the twisted iron bars. Minutes ticked by and our hearts were to our throat. However, there was no other commotion. Gu Chen remained unmoved for 10 minutes. Gu Chen poked his head out to look and there was no one outside. We all sighed in relief but just as Gu Chen turned around, a gun was pushed against his head. Everything happened so fast that we only saw a blur on the camera.

But the next minute, the camera on Gu Chen’s chest was plucked off. At that same time, a mask appeared on screen. It was the masked man. The man aimed the camera lens at himself. With one hand holding the gun at Gu Chen’s head, his other hand fixed his hair. Then the man tossed the camera to the people beside him while he yanked off Gu Chen’s ear mic. Everyone was silent, no one spoke. The masked man took out a camera ball from his pocket and Mary gasped, “That was the camera that dropped by the wall inside the bedroom earlier. How come I didn’t realize it had been moved?” The masked man put the ear mic on his ear and began gleefully, “Hello, hello, my police friends, can you hear me?”

Without the order from Captain Zhao, no one spoke. The mask man called twice and then he shrugged. “Can no one hear me? Then I’ll have to shoot. In count of 3!” With a wave of his hand, he signaled the people beside him to give us a tour of the scene around him. “3!” At that moment, we finally saw the full view of the garage. A group of people had materialized on the second floor. Liu Fei’er and Liu Yinyan were tied to two chairs. Their mouths were stuffed and they struggled weakly. We saw that Liu Yinyan was missing 2 fingers on one of his hands but it had been bandaged. It was not bleeding. Liu Fei’er looked like she had gone through hell and one of her fingers was missing.

“2!” The mask man continued. At that moment, Captain Zhao finally spoke, “What do you want?”

The mask man chuckled happily. “Captain Zhao, you’re finally willing to speak to me?” Then a few people rushed down from the second floor to detain Gu Chen. Even though Gu Chen was a good fighter, out of concern for the hostages’ safety, he didn’t resist. After Gu Chen was tied to the staircase banister, the mask man continued, “You’ll eventually understand what I want. This is just a small prelude. As they say, the day is still young. I’m sure you’ve gotten to know our members, do you spot some familiar faces?”

“What is it that you want?” Captain Zhao repeated. This time the masked man didn’t walk us in circles verbally but said, “Fine, since you’ve asked with such sincerity, I’ll give you something to do.” The masked man glanced at the time and continued, “In a moment, someone will arrive with a bag of cash, that is the deal between me and Liu Yinyan. So I need you to send in a police officer to bring the bag of cash to me.”

The expression on Captain Zhao’s face relaxed. This was a good development. The kidnappers were giving us a chance to gain contact with them and with that came the opportunity to rescue the hostages. “Okay! We will agree to all of your demands.” Captain Zhao said calmly, “As long as you do not injure the hostages, we’ll do anything you ask.” Mary pointed behind us and whispered to Captain Zhao, “The special agents are here.” Captain Zhao switched off the communicator. “Okay, I need you to go and brief them about the situation inside the factory, and have them take their places. But without my order, do not make any sudden moves. We saw quite a number of people among the kidnappers, but what about those we haven’t seen?”

There were 6 people who appeared on camera so far, the masked man who had been communicating with us; scar face, a man who invoked fear; Ol’ Zhang, the blood drink; Jessie, the gentlemanly fake PI; Vivian, the explosive Russian lady. We didn’t see Mariko, the reticent Japanese lady. Also we didn’t see Lai San. Ol’ Zhang and Lai San were on the same network, so if Ol’ Zhang was here, where was Lai San?

Soon, the butler appeared in our view. Then I realized we were told Liu Yinyan left with his butler but only Liu Yinyan was seen inside the garage. The butler must be the man sent out to fetch the money. The butler had followed Liu Yinyan for decades already. If Liu Yinyan told him not to call the police when he was off to withdraw the money, he would listen to Liu Yinyan’s order. If all of these were planned by the masked man, then this was a very scary person.

The butler was clearly shocked to see us there.

“How, how did you guys find this place?” The butler guarded the bag and he said anxiously, “How is Elder Liu doing? The kidnappers told me to go get 10,000,000 RMB in cash. They only want that specific amount. 10,000,000 RMB is nothing for Elder Liu. Please don’t do anything to harm him please.” Captain Zhao looked at the butler. Without any explanation, he said, “Give me the money, that’s the kidnappers’ request. Don’t worry, we will protect Liu Yinyan and his daughter’s safety. So who among us wishes to go?”

We didn’t have time to waste, a decision had to be made soon. Xiao Liu and I said at the same time, “I’ll go!” We shared a look. Before I could say anything, Xiao Liu grabbed the bag. “I should do this. I’m older and more experienced than you.” Everyone knew that once you went through that door, your life was up in the air. Actually I did consider whether it would be worth it to die on the job. I never was able to come up with an answer. There were too many people in this world who were not afraid of death but I was not one of them. I had a natural fear of death but sometimes, death was not the scariest thing. As I grew older, I slowly realized, there were more things in life more important than personal safety.

As Mencious said, ‘I adore life but there are principles I adore more than life, so I shall not give up my principles for life; I abhor death but there are evils I abhor more than death, so I shall not surrender to said evils due to my fear of death.’

Therefore, before Xiao Liu reacted, I snatched away the bag and spoke to the communicator. “I am Wu Meng, Jessie knows me, I’m heading in now.”

“Wu Meng, Wu Meng.” The mask man repeated my name twice as if savoring it. “Okay, come in.” The iron door opened a gap. A finger reached out to signal for me.

“Be careful.” Captain Zhao patted my shoulders and then leaned in to whisper, “Gu Chen and your safety come first. Let the kidnappers go if necessary, we’ve caught them on camera. Even if it takes decades, we’ll eventually catch up but life cannot be gained after it is lost. Understood?” Captain Zhao straightened himself and regarded me seriously. I nodded.

Xiao Liu said worriedly. “You need to be careful and have to return safely.”

“Don’t worry.” I joked. “You’ll win the lottery before anything can happen to me.” Xiao Liu chuckled sadly, “Then you’ll be fine. I’ve been buying tickets for 4 years and I’ve not won a single cent.”

“Kid, don’t die in there.” Mary suddenly uttered coldly, “It’ll be too quiet without you.” Guan Zhenglin added, “Yes, a pervert like you is dying out. To preserve the diversity of the human gene pool, you better take care of yourself…” That was what they said, but I could see the concern in their eyes. For some reason, my heart warmed.

That orphan who was shunned by everyone now had so many people around him.