There was silence between them until Wenjie raised his voice again. "He's threatening my friends. He gave me a collar with poison needles and he's holding you captive. I have no choice but to do as he asks. And unlike you, I won't let the people I care about get hurt."

Zhuang Yaobai ignored the accusation. "Remember when I taught you to hold your breath for several minutes?"

Of course. It had already saved his life once. But Wenjie didn't understand why his father was bringing it up now. "Are you avoiding me right now?"

Zhuang Yaobai did not respond. Instead, he remained calm as if they were not in a hopeless situation. "You have the stamina necessary to wait for the appropriate moment. When he thinks he has reached his destination, he will make a mistake."

"Haven't you been listening to me?" Wenjie snapped at him. "The thing around my neck contains poison needles. He won't take it off me until he achieves his goal. He has thought through every eventuality. He wants to destroy my hope. He will not make mistakes until he has succeeded. He has the longer breath. We can't do anything. And the only cop who believed in me is dead." Upset, he paced up and down in front of the door.

"Wenjie, we can't lose our nerve."

"We? It hasn't been we for a long time." Since he had abandoned his mother and him. On a rational level, his father's explanations were understandable. But that didn't change how he felt. 

He turned to the door and pounded his fists against it. "Uncle Xu?"

It wasn't long before Xu Zhengqing opened the door. "You still have time."

"I'm done here." Wenjie's hands shook violently. There was no point to any of this. He didn't know what he had hoped to gain from talking to his father. It only increased the pressure on his psyche.

"Zhengqing," he heard his father speak from the background. "What did he do to you to make you torture him like this. Let him go. He still has his life ahead of him."

As if Monsieur could be convinced by that. Wenjie pushed past Xu Zhengqing out into the hallway. He didn't want to hear any more of what his father had to say. 

"Yaobai, the days of bargaining are long gone. Your son is mine. And he is not as unreasonable as you. He knows when he has lost." With that, he closed the door and left Zhuang Yaobai to himself again. 

Wenjie had already gone down the hall. Inside, he felt empty. His father had wanted to give him hope. But uncle Xu simply had the upper hand. He had made that abundantly clear. 

At the boxes, Wenjie remained standing until Xu Zhengqing had arrived at his side. Together they pushed them back outside the door after Monsieur had locked it. 

"I would have expected that after all these years, you would want to spend more time with him," the watchmaker commented. 

"We didn't have much to say to each other." Wenjie felt no increased desire to talk to uncle Xu about his father. He was glad that his father was alive, but at the same time disappointed and hurt because he felt abandoned by him. In the past years, he had never once contacted him or given him any indication that he was alive and looking after him, but had been led to believe that he was dead. 

Back at the car, Wenjie got in without another word about his father. He was glad when Uncle Xu also left it at that and did not bring up the subject again. Instead, he waited until Wenjie had made himself comfortable in the back seat and put on the blindfold before they headed back together.

To distract himself from depressing thoughts about his father, Wenjie again tried to memorize the way. This time there was no radio playing, which made it easier for him to concentrate. Something had stuck, from his father's words and the memory they had evoked. A last spark of hope that he clung to in despair. But it was only a matter of time before Xu Zhengqing finally extinguished that too. At the latest, when Xiao Dao surrendered. 

Back in their new quarters, Monsieur granted Wenjie the space the student needed after meeting his father. Wenjie didn't know what uncle Xu was up to, nor did he care, as long as he had some time to himself. However, he didn't want to think about his father either. It only frustrated him. 

But if Xu Zhengqing was going to leave him alone, he might as well take the opportunity to record the route to his father's prison on paper. Perhaps it could still come in handy at some point, when he had made the decision whether to put all his eggs in one basket, or to submit to his fate. For the moment, he had actually regained some courage.

He nimbly unpacked his painting materials and sat down on the chair in front of the easel. Stroke by stroke, lines, paths and flowers were created. At the points where there were branches, he drew a small bee or butterfly on the flower. A little variation shouldn't hurt. 

In the first painting, he made sure that his strokes went from the upper left, to the lower right. He expanded the paths and lines so that they filled the entire sheet to disguise the secret message. 

The second painting also contained paths that were created by placing flowers and grasses on a blue background. The strokes in this painting went from the lower left, to the upper right. Frogs and dragonflies served as markers for forks.

That left a third painting, which was meant to distract from the other two. In contrast to the first two paintings, he chose a stroke that led outward from the center of the painting like the blossoms of a water lily. 

If in the first painting he had still stumbled and had difficulties to fully engage in the drawing, it was no longer a problem in the third painting. With an ease that he had almost thought lost, he guided the brush over the paper. There was only him and the colors, until at some point the evening sun enveloped the room in gray twilight and there was a knock at the door. Wenjie put the brush aside and stood up. 

Then the door opened and uncle Xu glanced in. "Now I had to see if everything was all right." 

At that moment, he no longer seemed like the evil mastermind who had kidnapped him, but almost fatherly and loving. There was a gentle expression to his smile that inevitably made Wenjie think of how they had investigated Monsieur together. "I drew."

Xu Zhengqing stepped in and glanced at the pictures. "You're a natural, you know that?"

Wenjie laughed. "It's just a hobby."

"One would think you do it professionally."

Captain Luo had said the same thing once. Wenjie shrugged his shoulders. "When do you want me to draw the first duplicate for you?" he deflected. 

"Take your time," Uncle Xu countered. He patted him on the shoulder and gestured for him to go downstairs with him. "You haven't eaten all day. I thought you'd come down if you wanted something. But I guess I should keep an eye on you eating regularly again in the future."

"Must be used to fasting by now." 

Xu Zhengqing nodded and paid no further attention to the pictures. Relieved at this, Wenjie followed the man down to the dining room. 

to be continued...