Chapter Eighty-Seven: Retreat and Pursuit

People are never truly ready. The world changes too fast, and fate is too hard a road. A loved one can be taken in an instant; a career crisis can strike in middle age; the weather can turn without warning. Nothing gives you time to prepare.

One wrong move, and the whole board is lost. Life is like a game of chess: every step must be taken with utmost caution. Make a single misstep, and all you can do is sigh in bitter regret. No one is granted the luxury of taking back a move.

So most players are careful to the point of hesitation, thinking long before they place a piece. After all, what they hold in their hands is not only the fate of the piece, but their own as well. That was true of Zhang Xiaoman, and it was true of the people behind the man in sunglasses.

"Wait."

Just as the man in sunglasses and the burly man on the bench were both about to make their move, an urgent order crackled through both of their Bluetooth earpieces at once.

The burly man swallowed hard, stilled his slightly leaning body, pressed his rear firmly back against the bench, stretched lazily, and then lifted his phone as though utterly absorbed in a game.

The man in sunglasses bit his lip, withdrew the arm he had raised, let out a dull breath, closed his eyes, held his breath to steady himself, and after a moment gave the man in the black uniform beside him a look before slowly retreating back into the shadow of the trees.

Neither the burly man nor the man in sunglasses asked why. The burly man did not need to; he trusted the voice in his earpiece without question. The man in sunglasses did not dare; the person issuing orders through the earpiece inspired fear deep in his bones.

Some people can wait. Others do not want to.

Han Yuan also said, "Wait," but Zhang Yunxi and Sun Tiantian paid him no mind. Without hesitation, they went straight to the front of the group of elderly women and began chatting earnestly with the woman carrying ribbons. Han Yuan cast a glance into the depths of the grove and gave a soft sigh. The warning he had offered was his final gesture of goodwill; since Zhang Yunxi refused to take it, he had no choice but to let the matter rest.

Crouching down, Han Yuan took the strand of Sun Tiantian's hair from his pocket and quickly slipped it into a seam on the electronic shackle. With both hands steady, he pinched the two ends of the hair and moved his fingers with astonishing speed, as deft as a magician's.

Forty-three seconds later, the electronic shackle clicked open on its own. With a faint, contemptuous smile at the corner of his mouth, Han Yuan tossed it casually into the nearby trash bin, took out his phone, and waved to Zhang Yunxi to indicate that he was stepping aside to take a call.

At that moment, Zhang Yunxi had no mind to spare for Han Yuan. Still laughing and talking with the woman carrying ribbons, she pointed toward Han Yuan's departing figure and told Sun Tiantian to follow him and keep him under surveillance.

Sun Tiantian nodded unwillingly, puffing out her cheeks as she trailed after Han Yuan, glancing back every few steps.

People who keep looking back never get far. Before long, Sun Tiantian returned with a dark expression and said softly, "That guy's already disappeared without a trace..."

At that moment, the ribbon-carrying woman beside them took an old-fashioned camera from her bag and said with a smile, "Are you looking for this camera? I happened to have it with me today. I was planning to take it out later and snap a group photo with everyone after the dance. You really do get what you pay for. My husband bought this one for several thousand yuan back then, and it's been used for over ten years without a single problem."

Zhang Yunxi looked at the camera in the woman's hands and thought for a moment. Then she replied softly to Sun Tiantian, "Forget it. He has an electronic shackle on his ankle anyway; he won't get far." Turning back with a broad smile, she took the camera and said warmly, "That's the one. Auntie, I have another favor to ask—would you let me see the photos you've taken here with it? I want to gather more material on how this park has changed over the years..."

"That should be fine," the woman said a little awkwardly. "The photos from the past two years are still on the camera's memory card. The older ones are at home. I'll need to look for them properly..."

Zhang Yunxi had only been probing casually, never expecting the woman to have actually kept the old photos. Her heart leapt with joy. She suddenly thought of a poem she had memorized in school: when you stand on the bridge looking at the scenery, the person enjoying the scenery is looking at you from upstairs. The person who had secretly photographed the short-haired girl and the thin boy could never have imagined that, at that very moment, another camera had captured him as well.

Sun Tiantian and Zhang Yunxi exchanged a look, each taking one of the woman's arms, and answered in unison, "It's all right. We can wait slowly. We're not in a hurry..."

"How can you not be in a hurry? Big brother, what exactly are we waiting for?" one of the men in black uniforms in the shadows asked anxiously. "If we don't move now, those two women are going to get away!"

The man in sunglasses shot him a gloomy, uncertain glare. "How the hell am I supposed to know what we're waiting for? Calm down. If they told us to wait, then we wait. Even if those two women really get away, it won't be on us brothers." He glanced toward the rooftop of a building across the park. "The real chess players are someone else. We're nothing but pieces. Less talking, more doing."

Just then, a man's dark voice came through the Bluetooth earpiece. "Withdraw."

The man in sunglasses frowned and, for the first time, questioned the order-giver. "Withdraw? Can you tell me why? I know I shouldn't ask, but you should think of it from my side too. We've gone to all this trouble, and now you suddenly want us to pull back. You owe my men an explanation."

On the rooftop of the building across the park, a shadow held up a pair of binoculars in his left hand, watching the situation in the park. With his right hand he took out a refined pocket watch, pressed the timer button, and said coldly, "You have sixty seconds to leave. Once I finish explaining, you won't need to withdraw anymore. Then you can explain everything at the police station at your leisure."

The man in sunglasses froze, then asked with an unwilling look, "What about the job? If we don't get the thing back, neither you nor I will have it easy when we answer to that person."

"I have my own arrangements for that," the shadow said in a cold, serpentine tone. "You're just a dog raised by someone else. If your master tells you to run, you run. You don't need so many of your own ideas. You have forty-nine seconds left..."

Grinding his teeth, the man in sunglasses did not argue. He took a deep breath, waved to the men behind him in black uniforms, and ordered with a face as still as water, "Everyone withdraw to the cars at once. Leave here now!"

As the man in sunglasses led all the black-uniformed men slowly back the way they had come, the shadow shifted the binoculars toward the white van opposite the park gate and watched He Wei hurry across the pedestrian crossing. He gave a soft laugh. "The police from Clearvine City have come all the way to Green Vine City to handle a case. Their reach is long indeed..." Then he glanced again at the man in sunglasses, who kept looking over here, and snapped in anger, "Idiot! Hesitation in a moment of decision leads to chaos!"

"No chaos, they retreated. What do we do now?" Burly Mountain and River stuffed his phone back into his pocket, stood rooted in place with his hands and feet at a loss, and spoke softly into his Bluetooth earpiece with one finger pressed against it.

Zhang Xiaoman half-narrowed his eyes and tapped lightly on the chessboard. "Burly Mountain and River, fall back to position nine and hold there. White Wolf, circle around once more and be sure to bite onto the tail of those vehicles. See Everything and Know Everything, keep a close watch on the high points around the park. The beekeeper is probably somewhere among them..."

Suddenly realizing that the turning point had begun when He Wei got out of the car, Zhang Xiaoman pushed open the door and stepped out. He glanced toward where He Wei had gone, then turned back toward the building behind him and said in unison with See Everything and Know Everything, "Found the beekeeper! On the rooftop of the building across the park!"

In an instant, everyone, including He Wei, looked up toward the rooftop.

From the binoculars, the shadow saw He Wei turn and look back at him. He immediately shifted the focus, searched around He Wei, and finally fixed his gaze on a white van below the building.

Zhang Xiaoman noticed that the reflection from the binoculars on the rooftop was aimed straight at him. With a cold smile, he raised his right hand, extended his index finger and thumb into the shape of a pistol, pointed the imaginary barrel directly at the binoculars, and mouthed, "Bang!"

The shadow at once put away the binoculars, his expression turning icy. "Showing your edge, are you? Damn you."

He quickly packed up his things, sprinted across the rooftop, and, in one swift leap from the left edge of the tower, landed securely on the roof of a residential building several floors lower beside it.

Zhang Xiaoman kept his eyes fixed on the shadow, then turned back to the white van and gave Li Jun a look. "Drive after him." His fingers moved over the chessboard. "Like a shadow and a wolf are to follow Little Bee back to the hive. Shooting Star Chase the Moon, leave from position two and follow along the left side of the building. That shadow seems to know a bit of parkour too. You've got an opponent this time."

"An opponent?" Shooting Star Chase the Moon turned and entered the building elevator, pressed the button for the top floor, took off his suit, and pulled a pair of sneakers from his briefcase to change into. The moment the elevator doors opened, he dashed quickly into the emergency stairwell, leaped onto the rooftop, and flew among the buildings like the wind. "What if I give him eight hundred meters?"

"Don't be careless..." Zhang Xiaoman moved a few more pieces. "The pancake vendor and the fruit vendor, shift your stalls a bit and follow Zhang Yunxi and the others. Don't let them draw the tiger away from the mountain." He touched his nose and went on, "Police Dog, circle around to the alley behind the building and take the flanking route. We'll shut the gate and release the dogs on him."

"Yes..." He Wei's face twitched as he hurried toward the alley behind the building. "This codename sounds damn awkward. Uncle Man, you could just call me by my name..."

Zhang Xiaoman coughed lightly, studied the board for a moment in thought, then looked at Nie Yi, who had remained silent the whole time, and tilted his head. "Nie Yi, if it were you, which way would you escape?"

Nie Yi closed his eyes and constructed a three-dimensional model of all the nearby buildings in his mind. Taking the rooftop of the building across the park as the starting point and the traffic light where the crowds were densest as the end point, he said, "To get away completely, you'd have to mix the black ball in with a pile of white ones, shed another layer of skin, and slip out pretending to be a white ball rolling out of the box..." He suddenly opened his eyes and pointed to a shabby six-story office building. "The northwest corner of that building. Slide down the pipes. That's the fastest escape route."

Zhang Xiaoman clapped his hands and nodded approvingly. "Good, very good. Smarter than some chatterboxes. This is why too much talk leads to loss: the more you speak, the less brain you have. The ancients were right after all..." He tapped lightly on his Bluetooth earpiece. "Burly Mountain and River, have you reached the pipe beside position nine yet?"

Burly Mountain and River clenched his fist and stared hard at the pipe on the wall in front of him, then grinned. "Just arrived. I'm waiting for that bastard to deliver himself."

"Everyone listen..." Zhang Xiaoman's left eyelid twitched a few times. He coughed heavily and said with a grave expression, "This time we don't need to go head-to-head with that guy. We only need to see whether he's human or a ghost. The almanac says there's an inauspicious omen in the northwest today. Superstition won't do, of course, but it never hurts to be careful."