He Yunqin looked her up and down and smiled. “Miss Yu is too polite.”

This man looked even better smiling than not. Hongdou remembered baring her teeth at him like this at the tea gathering herself, and mulling it over, felt his smile carried a hint of teasing and a touch of retaliation, so she reined in her own smile slightly and turned to walk on ahead.

They hadn’t been close to begin with, and neither had any intention of pretending otherwise—for the rest of the way, the two of them simply walked, each on their own, without exchanging another word.

The lane wasn’t long; coming out of it opened onto a different scene entirely. The residence Wang Bide rented was quite respectable—a two-story Western-style house facing the street, cream-colored walls, windows painted a dark red, several panes of glass polished bright as new, and a small patch of green lawn in front of the door.

Nearby were a Western general store and a barbershop, everything very convenient.

At the door, He Yunqin parked his bike, and with great care locked up that old bicycle before reaching up to ring the bell.

The doorman was a swarthy Bruneian man, who seemed to know He Yunqin well; as soon as he entered, the man’s bulging fish-eyes lit up with a smile. “Mistah He, good afternoon.”

“Good afternoon, Loudai.” He Yunqin casually put the key back in his trouser pocket.

Hongdou showed the doorman named Loudai her card. “Hello, I’m here to see Detective Wang Bide.”

Seeming to have been briefed beforehand by Wang Bide, Loudai took the card, glanced at Yu Hongdou only twice, then led her toward the stairwell. “You must be Miss Yu—please, follow me.”

Just as they were about to head up, He Yunqin stopped him. “Loudai, go on about your business, I’ll take her up myself.”

Hongdou, knowing He Yunqin and Wang Bide were close, followed behind him upon hearing this, looking around as she walked. “Is Detective Wang’s office on the second floor?”

He Yunqin gave a soft “mm,” and seeing Hongdou showed no intention of walking ahead, went up the stairs first.

He was tall, one of his strides equal to three of Hongdou’s, and reached the second floor in just a few steps.

Hongdou climbed the stairs with her head down for a while, and looking up again, saw only He Yunqin’s back.

Fortunately, the man retained some gentlemanly manners, and didn’t go in on his own—he waited until she’d also reached the second floor before reaching out to push the door open.

It was a suite—a small parlor out front, and a study within.

When they entered, Wang Bide was reclining in a chair by the window, legs propped up, pouring himself a drink. On the round table beside him sat a Western glass bottle containing an amber liquid.

Seeing the two of them enter one after the other, he looked visibly surprised, hiccuping from the drink. “Did you two arrange to come together?”

“Ran into each other on the way.” He Yunqin sat down on the sofa, asking Wang Bide for some water. “Thirsty—got any water?”

Wang Bide set down his newspaper and rose from the chair, coming over. “What would Miss Yu like to drink? I’ve met plenty of young women like you who love orange juice—want a glass?”

Hongdou, who since entering had been absorbed in studying the room’s bookshelves, stacked like mountain walls, laughed upon hearing this. “Thank you, Detective Wang, no need—just water, same as Mr. He, will be fine.”

Wang Bide then rang the bell to have someone bring two glasses of water.

The tray soon arrived. He Yunqin waited for Hongdou to take her glass first before picking up the other to drink.

Hongdou thought to herself that although He Yunqin always carried that air of looking down on everything, his upbringing was actually quite refined.

Wang Bide sat down in the flannel chair across from them, watching Hongdou with considerable interest. “Miss Yu, I didn’t expect you’d come find me so soon.”

Hongdou furrowed her brow. “I’ve run into a great deal of trouble, and I’d like to ask Detective Wang for help.”

“Oh? What kind of trouble?”

Hongdou lowered her eyes, thinking it over. Wang Bide had long held a grudge against the police department—if she stated the ins and outs of these disappearance cases outright, he’d surely refuse to help. After some consideration, she decided not to mention Chen Baidie or Wang Meiping, and said only, “Detective Wang, I’d like to ask you to help find someone.”

Wang Bide exchanged a glance with He Yunqin, surprised. “Who is it Miss Yu is looking for?”

Hongdou, mindful of her cousin’s reputation, hadn’t originally intended to speak of her cousin’s matter in front of He Yunqin, but seeing He Yunqin showed no intention of stepping out from beginning to end, and Wang Bide seemed already used to He Yunqin’s presence, and thinking again that this was a matter of life and death, and that He Yunqin likely wasn’t the type to gossip maliciously, she steadied herself and said, “My cousin, Pan Yuqi.”

Hearing this name, He Yunqin’s hand paused mid-drink; he glanced at Hongdou without any change of expression.

“You’re saying your cousin is missing?” Wang Bide, who had been reclining, sat up slightly straighter. “That’s truly unfortunate—no wonder you came to me so quickly. Hmm, Miss Yu, could you tell me the specifics?”

“Last Saturday, my cousin left home to attend a tea gathering at Xinya Teahouse. Since I’d joined a certain fellowship at school, I was also among those invited. That afternoon, when I arrived at the teahouse with my classmates, it was about ten to three—when we came in, I did see my cousin, but she was talking with a gentleman at the time, and the two of us didn’t get a chance to speak. Later, by the time you began your lecture, my cousin was gone. I looked for her again afterward but still couldn’t find her in the hall—at the time I assumed she’d left early, but it wasn’t until today at noon that I learned my cousin had actually gone missing since Saturday, and still hasn’t returned home.”

Wang Bide tapped his temple. “So you’re saying your cousin has been missing for two days.”

“Yes.”

Wang Bide fell silent for a few seconds, studying Hongdou’s expression carefully through his drunken eyes. “Miss Yu, you read the papers often, so you should know there’ve been quite a few swindler gangs causing trouble in Shanghai lately—there’s rarely a month without one or two kidnapping cases. According to the usual pattern of these gangs, after abducting someone, they’ll typically contact the victim’s family within a week on their own initiative. Since your cousin has only been missing for two days, you need only continue searching for her whereabouts while quietly waiting for the kidnappers’ call—”

Hongdou’s heart sank with a thud.

He Yunqin set down his glass, leaning back against the sofa, watching Hongdou with penetrating clarity.

Wang Bide continued, “You should know these swindler gangs, though they cause trouble often, are only after money, not intent on harming anyone. Once they receive the ransom, they’ll release the person unharmed. As far as I know, nearly every kidnapping case in the past year has gone this way, with very few exceptions.”

Hongdou responded calmly, “It’s because I’m worried the kidnappers might harm my cousin.”

She glanced at He Yunqin. “Mr. He works at the same university as my cousin—if you’ve seen her before, you’d know my cousin is very beautiful. If the kidnappers were tempted by her looks, they could do her tremendous harm, so I want to find her as soon as possible.”

Wang Bide’s eyelids drooped; he brushed a bit of lint from his trousers. “Is that all?”

Hongdou nodded firmly. “That’s all.”

Wang Bide tapped his fingers on the armrest of his chair, his expression turning slightly cold, clearly having lost interest in the conversation.

Hongdou frowned inwardly—just as she’d feared, Wang Bide was shrewd and not easy to deal with at all; after only a sentence or two, he’d already sensed something off in her emotional state. And clearly, lying wasn’t going to work.

She straightened her back. “I recall Detective Wang once said, when giving me this card, that as long as my request didn’t involve any large sum of money or violate any existing law, you’d grant it without question. Yet now that the time has come to make good on that promise, Detective Wang seems to have sprouted all sorts of additional conditions.”

Wang Bide, not expecting Hongdou to turn the tables on him like this, was momentarily stunned.

He Yunqin seemed to smile slightly, then stood up and walked over to the bookshelf nearby, hands in his trouser pockets, staring at the row of disorderly standing files.

Wang Bide quickly counterattacked. “If I don’t hear the truth from you, how can I judge whether it involves a large sum of money, or whether it violates any existing law? Miss Yu, the premise of cooperation is sincerity. This isn’t just a matter of mutual understanding—it’s a universal principle. Before I decide whether to help you, I have the right to hear the truth from you.”

Hongdou’s brow tightened. The Chen Baidie case had stirred up quite a storm—once it was solved, whichever police officer cracked it would surely bask in the spotlight. Given Wang Bide’s relationship with the police department, he’d have no interest in doing the work for the police to take credit. No matter what, she absolutely couldn’t let him find out her brother was investigating the Chen Baidie case.

She could only blame herself for being too hasty earlier, underestimating the man’s perceptiveness. She didn’t even know what exactly Wang Bide had fallen out with the current police commissioner over back then, or whether there was any room for reconciliation. Now, having ridden the tiger this far, she had no choice but to find another way in. After much thought, she decided to use Wang Meiping’s death to pique Wang Bide’s curiosity.

She cleared her throat and said, “Three months ago, a young woman named Wang Meiping came to Shanghai to seek refuge with my uncle. Her situation was similar to my cousin’s—she too disappeared without a trace. At the time, the police suspected she’d been kidnapped by a swindler gang and handled it as an ordinary kidnapping case. But for three whole months, her family never received a single call from any kidnapper. Then, just last Saturday, they finally confirmed she was dead.”

This time, not only was Wang Bide taken aback, but even He Yunqin turned to look at Hongdou in mild surprise, his tone serious. “Miss Yu, that’s a detail only the police would know. How did you find out?”

“Well—” She hesitated over whether to claim she was Wang Meiping’s neighbor or relative, but before she could decide, Wang Bide gave her a warning smile and said, “Miss Yu.”

She sighed. Even if she could hide it now, she certainly couldn’t hide it past tomorrow, so she abandoned the idea of lying, and looking Wang Bide straight in the eye, said, “My brother is the sergeant of the Public Concession police handling this case. I too found out only by chance that several recent kidnapping cases aren’t as simple as they seem. It’s precisely because of what happened to Wang Meiping that I’m so worried about my cousin’s safety.”

Wang Bide nodded very slowly. “So, going round and round, it still comes back to that bunch of good-for-nothings at the police department.”

He rose abruptly. “Miss Yu, this conversation ends here. Rather than help that bunch of useless fools at the police build up credentials for promotion, I’d rather drink a few more glasses of brandy. I have absolutely no interest in what you’ve told me—I’m afraid I cannot grant your request.”

Hongdou’s face flushed. “Detective Wang, my request isn’t unreasonable at all. This is a matter of life and death—I’m only asking you to help find my cousin. It won’t cost you any money, nor will it violate any existing law—”

“Law?” Wang Bide’s voice suddenly rose sharply. “Not dealing with anyone from the police department is my very first law!”

His gaze turned icy, his manner unyielding. Hongdou narrowed her eyes, still struggling futilely. “Detective Wang, at the tea gathering that day, I heard you say with your own mouth that our school’s motto, ‘Light and Truth,’ was your life’s pursuit. Now, at least three young women have been caught up in mysterious kidnapping cases, one of whom has already lost her life because of it. With Detective Wang’s abilities, if you were to get involved in these cases, you might quickly find the other victims too, thereby truly embarking on your journey toward ‘Light and Truth.’ Yet Detective Wang, knowing full well this would be a righteous act, clings instead to old personal grudges—how dare you claim to pursue ‘Light and Truth’? Compared to the incompetent police you speak of, how much greater are you, really?”

Wang Bide, enraged to the point of laughing, cut her off sharply. “What a sharp tongue on this Miss Yu—truly a fine student St. John’s has produced. Let me make this clear: even if you talk until the sky falls, I will absolutely not get involved in this matter! Loudai! Loudai! There’s a Miss Yu here causing trouble—come see her out!”

Hongdou stood frozen in shock, and seeing Wang Bide truly ring the bell to summon Loudai, said abruptly, “No need to see me out. I’ll show myself out!”

As she left, she remembered that He Yunqin had said almost nothing from beginning to end, clearly intending to stay out of it entirely. Thinking again that her cousin was, after all, his colleague, she thought how cold-hearted this man must be.

So she came to resent He Yunqin along with Wang Bide, and standing before the sofa, glared furiously at He Yunqin once, then walked briskly to the door and pulled it open, leaving.

In an instant, the sound of footsteps thumping down the stairs could be heard.

He Yunqin, struck by her baseless glare, was momentarily taken aback, but wasn’t angry either—only stared with some amusement at the now-empty doorway for a moment, then sat down on the sofa, flipping through the newspaper, and said to Wang Bide, “Your conversational skills are still as terrible as ever. You finally found this ‘lucky and intelligent’ assistant of yours, and you blew it just like that? Weren’t you full of high hopes for her just now?”

Wang Bide gave a cold chuckle in his throat. “Worst case, next time there’s a student gathering in Shanghai, I’ll just play the bridge card game in public again.”

“But what she said, though spoken in anger, wasn’t without reason. Bureaucrats may be detestable, but human lives are innocent. If these kidnapping cases really do involve lives at stake, given the police department’s efficiency, by the time they find these people, it’ll already be too late.”

Wang Bide propped both feet up on the coffee table. “Didn’t you hear her say her brother’s a sergeant in the Public Concession police? So I’m supposed to help her brother crack the case, hand him a promotion, and get another Commissioner Bai out of it? Don’t even think about it!”

He Yunqin tossed the newspaper back down, his tone leisurely. “So you’re absolutely not going to help?”

“Absolutely not!”

He Yunqin stood and walked toward the door.

Wang Bide fixed his triangular eyes on his retreating back. “Leaving already? Wait—don’t tell me you’re going to get involved in this yourself.”

Thinking of how Yu Hongdou had just left not long ago, he grew even more certain. “You’re going after that Yu Hongdou?”