Wenjie looked at Mister Xu thoughtfully. They had promised each other to be honest, but the more he thought about the current events, the more suspicious it seemed that Mister Xu was hiding something from him that could bring more clarity to the chaos in his mind. 

"Maybe Captain Luo has similar assumptions as we do," he finally said. "And sent someone to follow you secretly?"

Mister Xu gave a soft "Mmm..." and nodded. "But then, wouldn't he have made sure someone is keeping an eye on you too?"

Wenjie shrugged. "He probably doesn't have many people available." However, that was not what he believed. If Captain Luo had Mister Xu followed, it could mean that he distrusted him. Wenjie looked out of the window again.

"Don't worry about it. I'm sure we'll know more soon."

Wenjie said nothing in response and instead went back to his thoughts. Instinctively, he looked in the outside mirror. There was hardly any traffic behind them. Wenjie did not notice a potential pursuer. 

The area of his parents' house did not have camera surveillance yet. Wenjie speculated that if the pursuer was an enemy, he would have taken the opportunity to confront Mister Xu there directly. If it was an investigator, he was either very skilled at following them secretly, or he had lost their trail when Mister Xu had used the back exit to fetch another car.

Something was not right, not at all. Wenjie reached into his jacket pocket with his right hand and clutched his smartphone. "Have you been watching me from afar all these years?"

Xu Zhengqing gave him a quick sideways glance. "No. I was just checking to see if you were doing well and rented your parents' house to do something for you and your family." A soft smile played around his lips. "Why do you ask?"

"I was just wondering about something."

Again, there was silence between them. On their way to the police station, they had to go through a tunnel. No camera surveillance existed there. 

"You can always talk to me about anything," Mister Xu encouraged him to share his thoughts. 

Wenjie knew that, and yet he hesitated. When had he begun to doubt the man? Or should the question rather be, why had he trusted him blindly for quite some time? What was Mister Xu's agenda? What was his profit? He said he wanted to do something for his family because he had always been a coward. But Wenjie wasn't sure if that was true anymore. 

"How did you know that I was being held captive in that warehouse by Madame Hong?" 

Mister Xu laughed, and the temperature in the car seemed to drop. "I was wondering when you would ask that question." 

Wenjie felt the tension growing in his muscles. Something about Mister Xu's laugh didn't feel right. And the entrance to the tunnel suddenly reminded him of a black maw just waiting to swallow them. He tightened his grip on his phone immediately. 

"I had seen you a few days earlier when you were in my store. By the time I noticed you, you had already left the store and were on the phone," Mister Xu said. "I was curious and wanted to know what you were doing at my place. I was going to see you that day, but I was too late."

They entered the tunnel, which did not turn into the jaws of a giant fish, but evoked associations in Wenjie of his encounter with Madame Hong's men. The tunnel bifurcated after four meters. A truck was parked on the median strip right before the wall that separated that divided the road.

Wenjie frowned and listened with only half an ear as the truck caught his attention. 

Xu Zhengqing pressed the turn signal and proceeded to change lanes. At the same moment, Wenjie saw someone coming out of the back of the truck to lower the ramp. Wenjie's gaze wandered to Mister Xu, who instead of moving to the other lane, drove directly towards the ramp.

Once again Wenjie froze. "What are you doing?" His voice trembled slightly, when the realization hit him that Xu Zhengqing was not the friend he had pretended to be.

"What I should have done right after I realized that you would take after your father and betray me." Xu Zhengqing smiled. However, his smile had lost its friendliness. 

The car rolled up the ramp which closed behind them. Unlike the tunnel, the lighting conditions inside the truck were comparable to that of a dark cave. 

Wenjie was paralyzed for a moment. The big question mark that had been causing him headaches dissolved all at once. Suddenly, it all made sense, the contradictions in Mister Xu's statements and behavior, the man's knowledge of the past, and Wenjie's sense of having missed something. It all fit together, if Xu Zhengqing himself was behind everything.

He took a deep breath to calm himself. Then he turned to the side and grabbed the door handle. Before he pulled it, he already knew that he wouldn't be able to get out, especially since he had nowhere to go anyway after the ramp was closed. He was trapped. 

But he could do something to alert the police. While turning his back on Mister Xu, he carefully pulled his smartphone out of his pocket and let it disappear into the gap between the seat and the door. As he did so, he caught a glimpse of the display. This enabled him to get to the phone directory and Captain Luo's number. Nimbly, he pressed the number before the smartphone disappeared into the crack.

With a resigned look, he leaned against the back of his seat and stared out the front window at the inside wall of the truck. 

"I understand," he said quietly. "You set all this up. That's how you knew where I was when the smugglers kidnapped me. You probably told the smugglers that I had taken the Iris. That's how they became aware of me. And me taking the Iris, you had it also arranged. But Ding Shenghuo almost thwarted your plans when he tried to kill me."

Xu Zhengqing didn’t reply. He just eyed him with an indefinable sideways glance. 

Wenjie met his gaze. It caused goosebumps. But Wenjie had to keep talking, keep the conversation going. "You deliberately led me down a wrong path. Monsieur was just to distract me." He hoped that Mister Xu would respond so that Captain Luo could get a useful clue.

to be continued...