108 Let the Game Begin

 

I pulled on the bag and believed it weighed around 40 kg. Liu Yinyan once told me one RMB was about 1.15 g, so 10,000,000 RMB would be 115 kg, but 40 kg and 115 kg was a huge difference. In drama, you’d see people tossing a briefcase out and claimed plainly, “Here’s 10,000,000 RMB, where’s my stock?” Clearly that wouldn’t have happened in real life. A bag weighing 115 kg wouldn’t arc so beautifully through the air… As I walked forward, I pulled back the zipper and took a peek. I saw green. They were American Dollars. No wonder the butler only managed to get the money almost 3 hours after Liu Yinyan was kidnapped. For Liu Yinyan, withdrawing 10,000,000 RMB was a non-issue but changing them to US Dollars would take time. But why would the kidnappers request the currency change? For easier transport? But if they asked for RMB, they would have left this place a long time ago. But a thought struck me. They were purposely buying time, they were waiting for the police to come.

These people could not be understood normally. When they kidnapped Liu Fei’er, they’d kill their own people because they didn’t want their trace to be exposed; but now they personally sent us Lin Dafa to play this crazy game. What were they really up to? These thoughts crowded my mind when I arrived at the gate. As I walked in, the gate closed behind me. Then I realized it was scar face who opened the gate for me. When he saw me, his expression didn’t change. He pointed at me and then at the garage, giving me the direction.

To my surprise, scar face didn’t search my body, perhaps they were confident that we wouldn’t dare to do anything. After all, they still had the hostages. That meant that I still had a weapon with me, even though I literally only had one shot.

I strode towards the garage. The shutter door was rolled up a gap. Scar face and myself entered the garage. I looked around. Liu Fei’er and Liu Yinyan were tied on the second floor facing the shutter door; Gu Chen was tied to the iron banister of the stairs that headed upwards. As I entered, I felt a kick to the back of my knee. My leg weakened and I knelt to the ground on one knee. Then a hand pulled out the gun from the back of my waist.

The man who held the camera, and wore the hat took the cash bag away from me. He weighed it and then opened the bag. He tossed the camera to the side and reached his hand in to check the money. “They are all US dollars, and they aren’t serial notes. Looks like the man didn’t play any tricks on us.”

Scar face removed the magazine clip and chuckled, “His gun is unloaded, it’s just a prop.”

The masked man took his time to walk towards me. He used the gun to prop my head up to study me closer. I was studying him as well even though most of his face was covered up by the mask. That was strange because no one in this team was wearing a disguise, it was like it didn’t matter that the police saw them. But this masked man was the sole exception, and from the looks of things, he was this team’s leader. Could this masked man be Lai San? That couldn’t be. Lai San was over 30 but this man sounded around 20 to 25.

“Wu Meng.” The masked man lobbed another kick on my knee, causing me to kneel fully to the ground. He continued, “Actually, I know you.”

“You know me?” I frowned. “How?” I would remember someone wearing such a unique mask. Was it a former inmate in my father’s prison? He blocked his face because I’d recognize him? I was only getting more confused.

“Do you remember the case from a year and a half ago?” The mask man chuckled, “It was me who got you admitted into the mental asylum!”

Instantly the fire burned through me. I wanted to stand up but scar face pressed me firmly in place. He was much stronger than I was. During that case, with the killer carefully plotting every detail of the case, I eventually sunk too deep and came out suffering from paranoia. I didn’t expect the culprit to be standing before me now! “You!” I growled angrily, “It was you who was behind that case?”

“Yes, I was me. Surprise~” The man laughed. “I’m sure you still remember that poor woman. You’re very talented, you can put yourself into people’s minds. Tell me, what am I thinking now?”

I stared at him wordlessly. I really wanted to read his mind but it was to no avail. I could only see his dark pupils. I didn’t even know what his face looked like.

“Remember my name, it’s Wu Zui.” He put away the gun. My heart skipped when I heard that name. No wonder he repeated my name twice, we shared the same surname. Then again, China was such a big country, this could be just a coincidence. Noting my silence, the mask man continued, “Remember my name because you’ll hear it more often in the future. When I first met you, I sent you into a mental hospital. This is the second time we meet, Wu Meng, good name. But I’m sure we’ll meet again a lot more times in the future. There are still so many games we can play.”

“What is it that you want?” I stared at him and hissed out word by word. Wu Zui settled on a chair and literally looked down on me. Then Jessie walked down from the stairs and leaned in to whisper into Wu Zui’s ear. Wu Zui nodded and whispered something back. Then Jessie returned upstairs.

Wu Zui looked at me and then at Gu Chen. He suddenly asked, “How about this? Entertain me, brief me about the police’s investigation of this case. Why do you think I’m doing this? See Liu Fei’er and Liu Yinyan upstairs? Why do you think we’ve kidnapped Liu Fei’er?” My thoughts were pulled back to the start of the case. Liu Yinyan called the police to report the disappearance of his daughter, he suspected she had been kidnapped. Due to his influence, the city instantly sent us to verify Liu Yinyan’s claim. Our initial investigation confirmed his suspicion. Someone sneaked into Liu Fei’er room the night before and then abducted her. The kidnappers also bought out the security guard and then murdered him to silence him.

Then from the lipstick, we found Chen Lin, the genderqueer ex-circus performer. From her, we found the underground parking lot and eventually Lin Dafa. That became our only clue, the clue that wasn’t truncated. Then the kidnappers called. I shared my thoughts and Wu Zui nodded. “That sounds like standard protocol but I notice one thing’s missing, and that’s criminal profiling. Is it because you’re afraid you might go crazy again? Ha ha.” Criminal profiling or offender profiling refers to the process in which the nature of a crime is used to make inferences about the personality and other characteristics of the likely offender. But in China, this system wasn’t that mature and there wasn’t a specific criminal profiler affiliated with the police. However, I was born with this natural talent. I could bring myself into the headspace of the criminals through the evidence and crime scenes as well as their past and background. However, this came with a great side effect, the major one being my mental illness.

Therefore, when I was released from the hospital, I never used it that much, because one careless slip and it’d be a quick return back to the loony bin.

This was a professional term, a common person wouldn’t know about it, but Wu Zui was familiar with it. Did he like to read psychology-related literature too? In this young man who refused to show his face, I felt a combination of iciness and passion. He was like both fire and ice, incredibly hard to read.

“But we still found you.” I said.

Wu Zui shook his head. “You could find us because I called you and we sent Lin Dafa as a present to you. And that was one of the tests I wanted to give you. If you can’t even do this, then you do not deserve to be my rival.”

“Rival?” I asked.

“Yes, a rival, like Joker and Batman!” Wu Zui nodded.

I asked another question. “But I have a question that I wish you could answer me.”

“What is it?” Wu Zui caressed his mask.

“You killed 2 people earlier to cover your tracks but now you’re openly interacting with us? Why the flip in attitude? Do you suffer from schizophrenia?”

Wu Zui didn’t sound offended. He shook his finger at me. “You’re the one who is mentally insane, not me. But you did ask an interesting question and I will answer you. Why am I doing this? You’re very talented but if you do not utilize it, you’ll end up a common man. Think about that.”

I sighed. Actually after I was released, I had been trying my best to suppress my talent, but now I was told to live up to my full potential by a criminal. The whole situation was quite laughable.

Then again, his words did leave an effect on my mind. Was there something I missed in Liu Fei’er’s kidnapping?

“It’s about time.” Vivian called from the 2nd floor.

“Okay.” Wu Zui stood up and headed to the second floor. Scar face lifted me up like laundry and hauled me upstairs as well. From the corner of my eye, I saw the young man with the hat take out a laptop from his backpack. Soon a low humming was heard, it was hard on my ears.

“Done.” The young man said.

Wu Zui nodded. He stood before Liu Yinyan and Liu Fei’er. He opened his arms like they were wings. He closed his eyes and tilted his head slightly upwards.

“Now, let the game begin.”