Chapter 36 Humbert Humbert Three

"I loved you. I was a pentapod monster, but I loved you." - Lolita

The stone benches scattered around a lotus pond that had dried up long ago. Amid
the mud and the withered leaves stood a copper statue, an abstract piece of art that
no one could tell what it was. However, one side of the statue had been polished into
a smooth and shiny surface, reflecting distorted images of the surrounding.
Just now, when Fei Du unthinkingly looked in that direction, he caught the reflections
of something that resembled a pair of eyes.
After all, the statue was not a mirror. The reflection was very blurry and he couldn't
tell whether the prying eyes belonged to a man or a woman. For some reason, his
heart twitched and the vanilla puff got stuck in the throat. He looked away calmly and
tried to search for the whereabouts of that looming shadow ––
This old residential area had no fences to separate it from the public streets. A couple
apartment buildings clustered here and there. Because of poor civil planning in the
early days, a nearby bus stop brought in an overflow of traffic both of vehicles and of
pedestrians. People come and go, some stay to wait for their buses. Some street
vendors took advantage of the hustle and bustle. It was close to lunch time, and lines
were already forming in front of their food trucks.
Consequently, the population here was quite mixed. Some were residents nearby
strolling in their pajamas; some were passerby-s passing by; some parked their car in
the vicinity and used the park as a shortcut. Those who stayed longer were either
eating lunch or waiting for their lunch. Delivery boys shuttled back and forth to take
lunch, and other goodies, to their destination.
The eyes' owner was very vigilant. He or she had quickly dissolved into the sea of
people and was nowhere to be found.
Fei Du immediately stood up, and said to Chenchen: "Come. It's time to go home."
Chenchen felt none of the peculiarity in the air. A bit disappointed at the shortened
break from the "grown-ups", she looked at the line of shops longingly. While licking
her fingers clean, she came up with an idea: "I still have some pocket money. Since
you bought me a cream puff let me buy you something too! Hmm...I feel like a
macha flavored one."
"Another day maybe." Fei Du said softly yet firmly. He gave her a gentle push on the
back of the head, "It's time for lunch."
Chenchen got on her feet too: "But I don't like having lunch. There are a lot of dishes
that I don't like."
"Hmm...actually, same here." Fei Du very frankly admitted to his "Prince disease" in
front of the little girl. Then the convo took an unexpected turn: "But it's Okay. Once
you grow up you can be as picky as you want. No one will judge any more."
Astonished at how thick-skinned adults can be, Chenchen threw him a wordless stare.
That was when she realized Fei Du's unusual facial expression.
Children at her age were already half teenagers. They started to see the world in their
own ways, and could mostly pick up on adults' expressions and undertone. Chenchen
originally thought that Fei Du was only kidding. But now she realized that his slightly
frowning face looked too serious for the topic.
As soon as she felt the tension she became nervous too. She held on to the side of his
shirt tightly: "Gege, what's wrong?"
As they spoke, Fei Du and Chenchen walked past an apartment building. The window
of the first floor hall way was opened to an angle. Fei Du calmly and collectedly
chaperoned the little girl and pretended to be occupied with their conversation. As
they passed by the window, he suddenly looked up.
From the clear glass window he caught the reflections of those shadowing eyes again!
The man wore sunglasses and a mask. His whole face was tightly covered. Fei Du
grabbed Chenchen by the shoulder and turned around abruptly. At the same time,
around 600 feet behind them, someone plunged into the bushes and disappeared
again. Fei Du could only saw his gnarled torso and grey hair.

An old man?
Chenchen had no idea what was going on. On tenterhooks, she looked up at him.
Through those cold glasses resting on his nose bridge, Fei Du casted an icy look at
the crowd not far away. He asked: "Is there someone to escort you to and from
school everyday?"
"Y...Yes." Chenchen murmured, "When my parents were home they would escort me.
If they were away, my cousin would. And if she was at work too, I would stay at
school for a while to wait for them. Our school has teachers in charge of the after-
school activities."
Pondering, Fei Du nodded, then asked: "Have you seen any strange old man around
here lately?"
Chenchen tried hard to recall, then waved her head with apprehension.
The two quickly walked into their apartment building. The old gray building blocked
away those prying stares from the shadows. Long after they were gone, a hunched-
backed old man slowly walked out from behind the bus stop placard.
His face was covered, his eyes behind a pair of giant dark glasses. He held a walking
stick. As if a blind person, his cane kept sliding left and right and knocking on the
floor.
People around him were mostly occupied with their phones. No one paid attention to
his stumbling steps.
The shaded glasses were his perfect shields: Lights couldn't penetrate them, but his
greedy look could.
The look traveled through space and time, and landed at where the girl stood a while
ago.
Her floral dress was flickering like the starlight. Her crystal hair pin highlighted that
bright and pretty face. She became the only source of light in his world. As soon as
her young and vibrant figure appeared in front of his eyes, it burnt through the pupils
and left a tantalizing scar on the retina.
However, like most apples, this one was guarded by a horrid snake. He thought of the
looks from the man beside her, and quivered in the shade. Fear and lust swirled into
a unique kind of excitement. He pursed those scorched lips, and leaned back heavily
onto a tree trunk. His chest fluttered like crazy while his mind wandered into a
breathtaking wilderness.
Like a drowning man plagued by drugs.

While the were gone, the elevator has been fixed. Fei Du entered the elevator after
Chenchen and pressed the 12th floor.
Chenchen asked gingerly: "Gege, what was that?"
Fei Du balked, then decided to ditch the rosy cover story: "I saw someone suspicious
–– be careful, especially when you are alone with other adults. Take good care of
yourself."
"I know. I'm going to graduate and enter middle school soon. It's not like I'm a first
grader. " Chenchen used her "adult" voice and counted out loud: "stay away from
strangers; never eat anything from strangers; If a stranger asks for help, politely
point him or her to the police..."
"It's not just the strangers. " Fei Du flipped her forehead, "Be careful with all the
adults, even familiar ones. Do not get on someone's car alone. Do not stay with
another adult alone –– like right now, you are alone with me. What if I were a bad
guy?"
Chenchen covered her forehead and looked at this self-proclaimed "bad-guy" in
disbelief: "Hah?"
"Including your teachers. And including the old grandpas and grandmas, regardless of
how incapacitated they looked. Understood?"
Chenchen felt a chill down her spine. At that time, they arrived at the 12th floor. As
the wrought iron elevator doors slowly opened, she asked softly: "But why? Gege, I
am a little scared."

"It's good to learn to fear. Because beautiful things are like the delicate
chinas." Fei Du blocked the elevator door with his hand, and gestured the girl to get
out first, "To them, the most dangerous thing is not the running cat in the room."

"Then what is it?"

Fei Du looked into the girl's eyes, and replied gently: "Its ignorance about its own
fragility."

Luo Wenzhou was leaning against the wall by the electric box, waiting for them, with
a cigarette in between his lips.

"It takes half a year to buy a fuse?" Luo Wenzhou took out a screw driver and a
flashlight, "If you're still not back, the fish in the fridge would have all prison-broken."

Chenchen dashed into the room, as if running to take cover.

Fei Do took the screwdriver from Luo Wenzhou and adeptly opened the electric box.
After taking out the broken fuse, he twisted the old-fashioned fuse on both sides and
attached it to the circuit. Then he gently tugged on it to ensure it's been secured,
before pushing the gates back.

A "beep ––" sound came from the room behind them. Both the fridge and the AC
came back alive. The whole process took less than a minute - Luo Wenzhou didn't
even get to light his cigarette.

Looking at Fei Du in surprise, Luo Wenzhou suddenly realized that the boy had grown
into a man.

How he sees him is often polarized. When they were involved in a tit-for-tat, Luo
Wenzhou thought Fei Du to be a dangerous scourge: ill-tempered, lawless, and
always ready to explode. As soon as that mouth opened it'd be asking for trouble.

But in rare moments of peace, he'd be reminded of that frail boy huddling in front of
the large and lifeless house. Sometimes he would worry about him. Sometimes his
worry went overboard –– a big-brotherly, pure and simple kind of worrying.
Now - perhaps thanks to Fei Du's line-crossing flirtation in the elevator room just now
- Luo Wenzhou suddenly was able to unite his contradicting views of him. The noise
and bias canceled out and finally neutralized into something resembling objectivity ––
Fei Du was neither a dangerous sociopath, nor a pitiful little boy. He was, first and
foremost, a man, and a very good-looking one at that. He was smart, keen, and
always held a certain unapologeticly-faked prudishness. From head to toe, he smelt of
"welcome to be my bed buddy".

"If only he weren't Fei Du." Luo Wenzhou thought. If he were some stranger that he
crossed on the street or in a bar, perhaps he'd consider him to be the alluring type.

But... why the presumption? Why the "if only"?

It was a rare moment of deep, value-of-life thinking for Luo Wenzhou. So rare that he
was noticeably absent-minded during the meal. Tao Ran's dining room wasn't big
enough and many dishes couldn't fit on the table. They had to bring each one from
the kitchen and divide it up. Luo Wenzhou, while mind-wandering, accidentally placed
a big chunk of "Cane Sugar Pork Shank" onto Fei Du's plate. Then he quickly realized
that the shank was, as Fei Du puts it, "below the knee". The young master would
want none of it.

Luo Wenzhou froze there for a second. Before he found his voice again, he saw Fei Du
poking at the meat with the pointy end of his chopsticks. After twitching his brows
and measuring up the shank, Fei Du reluctantly took it to his own bowl. His face
looked like that of the patriotic Luo Yi-guo when it smelt imported foreign cat food.

Luo Wenzhou: "......"

Obviously, the so-called "no meat from below the knee" or the "respiratory problem"
were nothing but hoops for him to jump through.

Besides the lot from the Bureau, both Fei Du and Chang Ning were talkative
extroverts. They blended in quickly. Lang Qiao played it fancy and brought two
bottles of wine. Except for the under-aged, everyone was poured a glass to celebrate
Vice Captain Tao's initiation to the regimen of "mortgage slave-dogs".

Lang Qiao's sensitive radar picked up on the strong "one-way signal" between Tao
Ran and Chang Ning right a way. In front of Chang Ning, she improvised a full-
fledged "Vice Captain Tao Hymn": Vice Captain Tao, the most hardworking and
devoted police officer in town with a gentle heart and love for small animals, has led
the charge against the "pain-in-the-butt" Captain Luo and protected the weak and the
poor from his unpredictable fury...In the end, under Luo Wenzhou's tight-lipped glare,
Lang Qiao abruptly changed the approach from work to personal life and created an
army of gorgeous pursuers out of thin air for Tao Ran, who could only fold hands and
bow to this eager patroness to beg for his unsullied reputation back.

"Brother Tao is really patient." Fei Du joined the conversation, trying to ease the
awkwardness in the air, "When he becomes a dad I'm sure he will be a role model for
all the dads out there. I remember causing him lots of trouble when I was younger."

Tao Ran waved his hand repeatedly, blushing from ear to ear.

Chang Ning looked at him curiously.

Fei Du continued after a sip of the wine: "I lost my mom at a young age. Brother Tao
was the officer on my mom's case. Back then my father was too busy to take care of
me, so Tao Ran took me in for quite some time. actually I was already in my teens
then: I could have survived on my own. But he showed me what it's like to "make
each day count". Chang Ning, you probably won't believe it, but this scruffy Tao Ran
is actually super thoughtful and considerate when it comes to taking care of others."

Chang Ning listened to the colleagues' exaggerated yet sincere applauses. One thing
was for sure: everyone that he works with likes him. She turned to him and dropped
a sweet smile.

Tao Ran couldn't handle much liquor. After half a glass, he was already tipsy. Now
that the girl of his dream was looking right into his eyes and smiling, he suddenly
completely lost the capacity to think. Flustered, he started rambling: "No no
no...actually...I wasn't the only one taking care of little Fei Du back then. Everyone
was concerned about you and wanted to help. Even my mentor, who heard about the
case later, often asked about you...And that one...Wenzhou...Don't be fooled by his
appearance --- he secretly went to check on you many times. He even bought the
PSP for you and asked me to..."

As soon as Luo Wenzhou sensed that the conversation was going haywire, he kicked
Tao Ran underneath the table. But it was too late.

What was left of Tao Ran's sense of balance now completely vanished. His whole body
fell to the side and knocked over a cardboard box that was waiting to be unpacked.

Books, folders, and notebooks all fell out and flooded the floor.
Fei Du and Luo Wenzhou both froze at their corners of the table.

Lang Qiao heartlessly elbowed Luo Weizhou and commented: "Seriously boss? You
did that? That's embarrassing."

Luo Wenzhou: "......"

Then stop saying it out loud!

He could almost feel the weight of Fei Du's stares. After a lame dry-cough, he got on
his feet to help with the box.

"What a loser. You are too chatty when you're drunk." Luo Wenzhou stiffly changed
the subject. He picked up a yellowing notebook and shook off the dirt: "Wait, isn't this
the old man's notes?"

Before he finished, a pencil sketch fell out from the notebook. It was the face of a
man. The man had common features and looked educated and refined. However,
those eyes extended beyond the paper and carried a weird sense of suppressed
gloom.

A date was marked on top of the portrait. It was over 20 years ago. There were some
notes on the corner too:

"Wu Guangchuan ––– the bodies of the six missing girls have not been found."