Chapter 164: Haozai’s Discovery

The little girl’s question was very simple.

So simple that Cheng Qianfan did not know how to answer it.

“Yun’er, don’t be naughty.”

“Mom, Yun’er misses Daddy.”

The sound of footsteps moving away came from the inner room.

Cheng Qianfan let out a long sigh.

“Wanyi and Yun’er will leave Shanghai tonight. They will never return to Shanghai,” Song Fuguo said quietly with his hands clasped behind his back.

Cheng Qianfan understood what Song Fuguo meant.

There was no need to worry that today’s conversation might create a hidden danger of exposing his identity.

“Where are they going?”

“Chongqing. Wanyi’s family is in Chongqing. They wrote and invited them to come.”

“Why not go to Nanjing?” Cheng Qianfan asked in surprise. Nanjing was the capital of the National Government and also the location of the Special Service Office headquarters. Living conditions there were better, and it would be easier for them to receive care and support.

“Xiao Tao graduated from the Army Officer Academy. He and Wanyi met in Nanjing.” Song Fuguo shook his head.

Cheng Qianfan understood.

For Sister-in-law, Nanjing was filled with happy memories of Xiao Tao.

The happier those memories had once been, the more painful they had now become.

When he left Avenue Pétain, the rain had already stopped.

Water still stood on the streets, and Cheng Qianfan pushed his bicycle through it.

Some mischievous children had secretly slipped out of their homes and were sitting in wooden washbasins pretending to sail boats. Soon the sounds of adults shouting and scolding them could be heard.

Some husbands returning from the night shift were drenched like drowned rats. Seeing the light shining from their homes and the graceful silhouette of their wives projected onto the window by the lamplight, waving hand fans to drive mosquitoes away from the children, smiles appeared on their exhausted faces.

Cheng Qianfan made up his mind.

Once he finished dealing with the next two days’ work, he would visit the orphanage.

Xiaobao was there.

Ruolan was there.

Without him, it was not a complete home.

Avenue Joffre.

Cheng Qianfan glanced at a clothesline pole hanging outside the house.

A strip of rag was tied to it.

After being soaked by the rain, it had wrapped itself around the pole.

After cautiously checking his surroundings, Cheng Qianfan knocked lightly on the door.

“Who is it?”

“It’s me, your Brother Wu.”

“Brother Wu?”

“Wu, as in the Wu from Heaven’s Mouth Wu.”

The password matched.

It was a very simple password and sounded entirely ordinary.

Haozai quietly opened the door.

Cheng Qianfan slipped inside.

As Haozai was about to close the door, Cheng Qianfan pointed outside.

“Bring the bicycle in. Leaving it outside is too conspicuous.”

Haozai wheeled the bicycle through the doorway and looked at the rear tire.

“No air left?”

“Probably punctured by a shard of glass,” Cheng Qianfan said casually. “I’ll find someone to patch it tomorrow.”

“I can patch tires. Leave it to me, Team Leader.”

“You know how to patch bicycle tires?” Cheng Qianfan asked in surprise.

“Of course I do,” Haozai said. “During operations before, I was often assigned to disguise myself as a tire repairman.”

Cheng Qianfan nodded.

It was good that Haozai knew how to repair tires.

An extra skill was always useful.

“What’s the situation?” Cheng Qianfan asked.

The cloth strip tied to the bamboo pole outside meant there was something to report.

“Team Leader, regarding the owner of the British Tea and Coffee House, I now have a suspect.”

“Let’s hear it.” Cheng Qianfan’s spirits immediately lifted.

Through a covert investigation by the police station, he had previously learned that the registered owner of the café was a Frenchman named Raymond.

This Raymond was a well-known broker in the French Concession.

Many people who opened businesses registered them under Raymond’s name, paying a fee in exchange for the protection of the powerful French Republic.

“There’s a fake foreign woman who goes to the shop every morning and afternoon. The employees are all very polite to her,” Haozai said. “I suspect she’s the real owner.”

“Any other reasons?” Cheng Qianfan asked after some thought.

“No.”

Haozai thought for a moment before speaking, but then showed a hesitant expression.

“Say whatever comes to mind.” Cheng Qianfan glanced at him. “As the observer, your impressions are the most direct.”

“After thinking carefully, I feel the employees aren’t merely polite to her. They also seem somewhat afraid of her.”

Afraid?

Cheng Qianfan fell into thought.

“I followed the fake foreign woman all the way to Lafayette Road.”

“What number on Lafayette Road?” Cheng Qianfan immediately asked as something occurred to him.

“Number Fifteen Lafayette Road,” Haozai replied.

It was actually her!

Cheng Qianfan was astonished.

The fake foreign woman at Lafayette Road whom the police station disliked so much, Miss Ruth!

He paced back and forth, thinking.

Subconsciously, he reached into his pocket, only to find that his cigarette pack had been soaked by the rain.

Haozai quickly took out his own cigarettes and handed one over, then struck a match and lit it for him.

Cheng Qianfan remembered the incident in which Miss Ruth’s dog, Jack, had been beaten to death.

At the time, he had discovered several strands of silk thread caught between the dog’s teeth.

The threads closely resembled those from Miss Ruth’s silk scarf.

Yet Miss Ruth had behaved as though she had never had close physical contact with the dog.

The matter had attracted Cheng Qianfan’s attention and aroused his suspicions.

However, he had not pursued the investigation.

After all, it was only a dead dog.

Although there were suspicious aspects, even the dog’s owner had not continued pressing for the capture of the killer.

Naturally, the police station was happy to avoid the trouble.

This old public-order case resurfaced in Cheng Qianfan’s memory.

Because the dog’s owner, Miss Ruth, now appeared to have some connection with the British Tea and Coffee House, what had originally seemed like a very ordinary dog-killing incident now contained many more questions and points worthy of reflection.

“Team Leader, these are the movements of the fake foreign woman that I’ve recorded.”

Haozai handed Cheng Qianfan a tattered notebook.

Opening it, Cheng Qianfan found Haozai’s handwriting looked like a dog’s scrawl, crooked and twisted.

Whenever he did not know how to write a character, he drew little grass plants, trees, houses, and other symbols instead.

“What’s this?” Cheng Qianfan pointed at one location name.

“McKee Road.”

Haozai glanced at it.

Cheng Qianfan could not help laughing.

The boy had drawn a little chicken with a blade of grass stuck into it, then crookedly written the character for road behind it.

“Chicken-Selling Road,” for McKee Road.

Behind the words McKee Road, a dog was drawn.

“And what’s this?” Cheng Qianfan asked.

“A clinic,” Haozai replied. “I asked around. It’s a clinic that treats cats and dogs. Team Leader, there must be something wrong with that. Someone actually opened a clinic for cats and dogs. Who would waste money on that?”

Cheng Qianfan did not bother explaining.

After Haozai spent some time in Greater Shanghai, he would understand that the lives of many wealthy people were beyond anything he had previously imagined.

Greater Shanghai had prosperity and pleasure.

It had extravagance and decadence.

It had the most beautiful streets in all of China.

And it also had the vast shantytowns lining the banks of Suzhou Creek.

Miss Ruth liked keeping dogs.

Taking a pet dog to a veterinary clinic on McKee Road was perfectly understandable.

Nevertheless, Cheng Qianfan quietly made note of it.

He planned to investigate the veterinary clinic personally.

After all, Haozai knew absolutely nothing about veterinary clinics, so his observations and judgments could easily be distorted.

“And this?” Cheng Qianfan pointed at another place name in the notebook.

Haozai had drawn a small bird with its wings spread, along with some grass.

“The...” Haozai was very familiar with his own writing. “Hundred Herbs Medicine Shop on Avenue Joffre.”