Chapter 7

"I... I don't know," Sun Yuan said, his gaze wandering. "The scene they found couldn't have been fabricated within an hour, nor could it have evaded subsequent technical inspection."

"Does that mean they were just incredibly lucky?" Li Chi suggested.

"Captain Li, this isn't a matter to be taken lightly," Sun Yuan said, his expression troubled. "I honestly don't know what to think anymore."

"I'm not jesting," Li Chi said slowly. "Unless, by some supernatural means, Zhou Tao or someone else anticipated that you would mention that apartment number at that moment and set up an entire crime scene there. Otherwise, I think it's more likely the A'country simply stumbled upon a stroke of luck."

"What should we do now, Captain?" Sun Yuan asked weakly.

"You've already said it yourself. We need to visit Building 9. If miracles happen once, they can happen again," Li Chi said, patting Sun Yuan on the shoulder.

"Is that so?"

"Young Sun, after years of police work, I've seen all manner of strange occurrences. There are patterns at work in the areas you aren't aware of. My mentor once told me: if a miracle happens once, it will happen a second time."

Arriving once more at the entrance of the old residential complex, it was already evening. As the sun set, the temperature began to drop, and Li Chi tightened his coat. This time, they spoke no further and headed straight for Building 9. It was the end of the workday, and many people were coming and going in the neighborhood. The two men followed the crowd into the building and squeezed into the elevator.

"2002," Sun Yuan reminded Li Chi. Li Chi pressed the button for the 20th floor. The elevator was crowded with people, mostly white-collar workers returning from work, along with elderly individuals and children just out of school. Everyone was silent, except for the children chatting with their grandparents, asking a flurry of questions.

As the elevator ascended, the number of occupants dwindled. By the time they reached the 20th floor, only Li Chi and Sun Yuan remained. Apartment 2002 was on the right-hand side of the elevator; they walked to the end of the corridor.

The door to 2002 was slightly ajar. Li Chi instructed Sun Yuan to stand back, drew his handgun from his bag, and carefully pushed the door open before swiftly entering.

As with the morning's visit to Apartment 1307 in Building 1, the place was empty. Clearly, this was a rental unit recently vacated by a tenant, with some furniture left behind: a bed frame, several wooden cabinets, and an old elliptical machine in the living room that looked long out of service. The apartment was in disarray with some trash scattered around, suggesting a hurried move-out. Shoe prints and traces of a hand truck were visible on the floor. All the windows were open, casting a layer of dust over the entire apartment—though Li Chi knew that in the "Imperial Capital's" climate, it wouldn't take long for the dust to settle. There were shards of broken dishes piled in the kitchen. The place looked like nothing more than an ordinary vacant rental unit.

"Well, there are no clues here either," Sun Yuan said, sounding somewhat relieved.

"Wait, Captain Li, come take a look," Sun Yuan called out.

Li Chi walked to the bedroom where Sun Yuan was, finding a simple desk by the window with a cup on it, covered by a piece of paper. This scene was eerily familiar to Li Chi.

He pulled out the paper. It had a line of writing:

"Three days later, 1650, the market. Do not let the A'country know."

Li Chi and Sun Yuan exchanged glances.

"I think... this is a message left for us by Zhou Tao?" Sun Yuan said cautiously.

Li Chi remained silent. If the note had only the first half, he would not be certain of its connection to Zhou Tao's case; however, the mention of A'country seemed to be directed specifically at them.

Sun Yuan picked up the cup and examined it. "The note and the cup were both placed recently. Probably sometime today," he concluded. The cup and note were clean, with the dust accumulation on the cup consistent with the rest of the desk, indicating the cup had only recently been placed there. It was likely that Zhou Tao had come here and left this message while they were collecting evidence in Building 4. They might have even crossed paths. Li Chi found himself lost in thought.

"Captain Li, where is this 'market'? There are so many markets in the city," Sun Yuan asked, reading the note.

"If it was just 'the market,' there is indeed such a place," Li Chi said, moving to the window. "Not far from here."

'Captain, I've actually been thinking about something for the past two days.' Sun Yuan followed Li Chi's side as he walked towards a shopping mall in the autumn breeze of Beijing. He was a bit excited: this was the first time Captain Li had brought him to such a place, and perhaps today's experience would make him a real cyber cop. 

This shopping mall they had now come to was indeed not far from the neighbourhood they had been in before, and on the way they drove past the gates of the neighbourhood. In front of the mall was Beijing's most famous antique distribution centre, but after the antique market was extremely tightened due to the economic crisis, the whole commercial area was turned into a place selling all kinds of electronic parts and equipment. 

After parking the car, Li Chi led Sun Yuan into a shopping mall next to the intersection in a familiar way. The mall was not crowded in the evening, with only a few customers coming in and out. Various neon signs with brand logos were flashing on the counters, and the bored tellers were sitting in the counters playing with their mobile phones. The counters and shelves were full of electronic spare parts and 3C products in plastic packaging. Sun Yuan had never been here before, but was familiar with the atmosphere. All the electronic markets in all of China were like this. Li Chi walked past these counters at his own pace, through a door, and seven turns into a staff corridor with a lift at the end.

'Why are you so sure that Zhou Tao's appointment was today? We don't know when he put up that note, and we don't know if the three days later he said was three days in between, or two days in between, maybe his appointment was yesterday, or tomorrow?' Sun Yuan asked from the side. The lift started and he stared at the lift's LCD screen, the numbers on it didn't move for a long time.

'I actually don't know.' Li Chi shoved his hands into his pockets as if to make sure something was still on him.

'Well ... then Captain how do you know which part of the market he's pointing at? There are so many counters here.' Sun Yuan sighed somewhat hopelessly and then asked. 'Just follow me.' Li Chi continued on.

For the past three days, they had spent almost all of the time at the station, working with the two A'country and the people from the technical squadron to study the evidence they had collected in the neighbourhood. Deng Tong was pretty sure that in that room, a small high-powered chiller had indeed been installed before, the model would have been either a Philips BlueSeal-1.5T or a General Electric Freelium-L20, which was originally used to cool the superconducting magnets on the MRI machine, and had undergone some modifications in order to cool the quantum processor. Next the A'country sent letters to Philips and General Electric asking them to track down all the cooling equipment sold for these two models and determine where they ended up. The result was that they were overwhelmed by an extremely long and unimaginable list - a list that, if printed out, would be over a man high. These two types of refrigeration machines were old models, sold in very large quantities around the world, and the second-hand market was very active, with many hospitals in small third-world countries using goods that had been phased out in the developed world, which made it even more difficult to track the flow of equipment and devices. Li Chi found a reason to quit a long time ago, and Sun Yuan soon gave up as well, leaving things entirely to the A'country. The two from A'country were still diligently filtering the data on the flow of materials, wondering when they would be able to find clues.

As for the other traces, including the memory card that was picked up, none of them gave much useful information. The memory card was blank, and the identification of fingerprints and traces in the room was a mess, and the fingerprints that were barely recovered were confirmed to belong to the previous tenants of this room, and had nothing to do with this case. The technical section was still trying to identify and trace them, but Sun Yuan had a feeling that they wouldn't come to fruition. That room, though, was just some sort of interference item - what sort of force could happen to place a whole set of equipment in exactly the location he'd blurted out, he couldn't even begin to imagine.

Although the floor panel in the lift indicated that there were only two floors underground, it was a long time before the doors reopened. What appeared before them was a dank corridor, with bleak fluorescent lights flickering on that had obviously not been changed in a long time. The two walked around a corner, and in front of them was a heavy iron door, beside which stood two young men, who at a glance were known to be thug boys.

The gazes of the two men swept over with a hint of hostility if anything. Sun Yuan was a bit nervous, but Li Chi did not react and continued to walk to the two men. One of them obviously recognised Li Chi, and his hostile gaze instantly turned into a pleasing one.

'Aiyo, Captain Li, what wind blew you over today?' There was a hint of flattery in this hanyou's voice as he spoke. He felt towards his trouser pocket, and with this action, Sun Yuan became even more nervous, but this hanyou just felt out a cigarette case. 'Captain Li, have one? What are you waiting around for, this is Captain Li from the bureau! Quickly call Captain Li hello!' He bumped the young man next to him, and the young man hurriedly bowed and called 'Captain Li Hello'.

'No need, I've recently quit.' Li Chi waved his hand and excused himself, but he still took the cigarette over when he arrived, 'Nothing much going on today, came to look for a friend. Is your General Manager Peng in? I want to ask him something.'

'In, in, in! I'll talk to General Manager Peng right away.' Han took out his walkie-talkie, 'Do you want me to send you to see General Manager Peng?'

'Don't bother, we'll go to him ourselves. Just open the door and let us in.' Li Chi ignored the fire handed over by the young man next to him and pointed at the door with his cigarette roll.

'No problem! But this friend is ...' Han asked tentatively.

'Also from the bureau, my partner.' Li Chi said as Sun Yuan nodded to the two men in greeting.

'Pleased to meet you. I won't waste Captain Li's time here then.' The hanyou nodded and entered a few numbers on the keypad of the iron door, and the door clicked open. Without saying much, Li Chi nodded in satisfaction and entered the door, with Sun Yuan following closely behind.