Puzzle Madness

Chapter 60 Street Crossing
By the time Doudou finished speaking, the small private room was completely silent—the clamor outside the [Da Lu Hall] had faded. By this point, most of the drinkers had already completed their daily task of [getting drunk].

After pulling up the mathematician who had collapsed on the ground, Doudou took the wet towel that had been bitten by Richard and wiped the blood from the gaps between the floor tiles.

Richard reached into the inside pocket of his casual suit with one hand and pulled out his wallet. He held the wallet against his stomach, pulled out two bills, and placed them under the empty bottle of Red Sun Liquor.

"Doctor, can you drive? Other means of transportation are too slow."

He raised his left hand—now, he looked like Captain Hook, who had no money to hire a blacksmith and had to make do with plastic bags:

"If I drive like this, I'll have problems on the road. Besides, the effects of the stimulant will affect my judgment of distance. It's safer for you to drive. You can't walk."

Doudou looked around the relatively clean little box and nodded with satisfaction:
"Agent Li is right! Although, I'd rather drive it myself and see--"

He paused for a moment to observe the fascinating and complex expressions on the other two people's faces; then he suddenly chuckled:
"But I've only played Wangan Racing in arcades. If you accidentally bump into something, you two will probably get hurt."
-
Crunch, crunch.

In the gloom of Mong Cai, a car moved along the asphalt road. Its slow, jerky movements were irritating on this hot Southeast Asian night.

The mathematician's driving skills were not very good - he drove Richard's Mazda like a flat caterpillar: he stopped every five meters, and his braking was more violent than a roller coaster; he also stalled several times.

Fortunately, even the last bus in Mong Cai had already finished running, and theirs was the only lone Mazda on the main road; it could even lie in the middle of the intersection.

Whether it was the severe pain or motion sickness, even Richard couldn't help but open the window to vomit; Doudou felt nothing at all, and almost fell asleep as he swayed, his eyelids twisting and twitching.

Richard's car was originally parked in the alley behind the police station, not far from the food stalls and video hall. There was a screwdriver stuck in the key hole of the car and several wires hanging under the steering wheel. It seemed that it was not bought honestly from the store.

Like other supporting facilities, the underground parking lot of Shouzhu 151 Building has not yet been completed; some shops in the streets around Shouzhu 151 are waiting to be demolished, and those that have not been demolished have closed down late at night.

The street lights flickered, and some were even out; the air in Mong Cai was a little chilly at this time of the day, and the hustle and bustle of the food stalls in the distance slipped into the night. The original noise seemed like an illusion caused by a fever, with only faint echoes left.

After Shouzhu 151 was roughly completed, Mong Cai became a thumbtack, with Shouzhu 151 being the sharpest and longest needle: the original old commercial district had only seven floors at its highest, and compared with this 151-story building, it was simply a group of mushrooms growing in the concrete grass.

But at this moment, the building looked more like a dark tower rising into the clouds, with its upper part almost submerged in the dark and dark.
-
A few blocks from their destination, they abandoned their car and walked to Shouzhu 151. It wasn't because driving was more dangerous than walking, but because the mathematician finally crashed the Mazda into a utility pole.

Doudou stopped talking so much and skipped along ahead; Richard seized the opportunity to continue sharing possible intelligence. Ever since his palm and five fingers were crushed, he'd become more talkative—perhaps to alleviate his motion sickness:

"The Special Package Handling Division is an operational unit and does not rely on hardware or premises."

“If Asia-Europe Post has set up a relay point in Mong Cai, then there’s only one possibility:” Richard took large strides, but his upper body remained balanced and his midline remained stable. He grabbed the mathematician under the armpit, lifting the thin academic to keep up with Dou Dou’s pace—as if the mathematician were the injured one among them.

Richard didn't know whether he was speaking to Doudou, the mathematician, or if he was simply trying to give himself some courage through analysis:

"They should set up a branch in Mong Cai for a long time."

The mathematician could barely touch the ground, swaying:

"Huh? What's the point of setting up a branch? To deal with Doudou?"

Doudou turned his head and raised his hand to cover his mouth. His eyes widened, and he looked very surprised.

"Huh? What's the point of setting up a branch? To deal with me?"

Richard ignored this farce and continued to walk quickly:
"Impossible. Mong Cai is sandwiched between two logistics and postal systems. Our Asia-Europe Postal Intelligence Network doesn't even cover this area. Even if there were direct agents operating there, the feedback wouldn't be this fast."

"Plus, construction on [Shouzhu 151] began eighteen months ago, and if the project was approved—it would have been even earlier. Maybe there's something big going on in Mong Cai. Mong Cai might have some secrets or special features that I haven't discovered."

Doudou slowed down his pace. Once he left the noisy food stalls, barbecue stalls and restaurants, Mong Cai was almost deserted after dark, like a desolate graveyard.
"Oh, a big move? But Mong Cai is such a shabby place, what can we do?"

The muscle under Richard's left eye twitched. He stopped suddenly, shaking the mathematician; Richard covered his eyes with his elbow:
"I don't know. I don't understand. There's so little information. Hey, my eyelid keeps twitching: which eye twitching is a disaster?"

"After working in this industry for a long time, I get nervous no matter what I do. Sometimes my eyelids twitch all the time."

Doudou waved his hands and spoke skillfully in a flattering way:
"Oh! Don't worry. If your left eye twitches, you'll get rich. It doesn't matter which eye you twitch."

The night grew silent, save for the hum of cicadas. I passed through a narrow, slippery alley covered in moss, and crossed several pedestrian crossings in the middle of the night when traffic lights were out. Shouzhu 151 appeared before me.

The three of them stood at the street corner, looking at the Shouzhu 151 Building across the street: Adjectives like "out of place" and "standing out from the crowd" were not enough to describe it.
The building was more like a natural landscape, like mountains, thrust abruptly into this crude man-made landscape. Outside the building was a newly paved plaza; the fountains hadn't been turned on yet, the greenery hadn't been put in place yet, and the color was almost pure gray.

Through the glass exterior, you can see that the building is pitch black, with no light leaking out.

The mathematician squatted down, loosened and tightened his shoelaces:
"I thought this so-called [long-term branch] would be located in a more secluded location. I have a feeling this place will be packed with people during the day. It would be nice to take a stroll here in the evening to enjoy the cool air."

(End of this chapter)