The coup reminded Wenjie of something. It evoke an uneasy feeling, just like when he had planned the theft of Luoshen with Xu Zhengqing. For a tiny moment, a paradoxical emotion had caught him, between duty and adventure. When Captain Luo had appeared, it had caused a conflict of conscience. Something inside him had judged his appearance as a danger. 

Wenjie shook it off, the growing excitement, the thrill. This was nothing more than a simulation anyway. Those down there posed no threat to them. The real threat was breathing down their necks, watching their every move. Would they make mistake or obey his will? 

Crow set up a black box in the shadow of the fireplace. Ding Wei kept an eye on the surroundings. The spotlight's rays of light kept grazing the edges of the roof. Xiao Dao stood right on the threshold, between darkness and light. Wenjie grabbed his arm and pulled him in the darkness. 

Together they unpacked the glass cutter. Crow did the rest. When the glass was removed from the window, he nodded to them. They were allowed to rope down into the attic room. Dust rose up Wenjie's nose. He suppressed a sneeze. No one had been in this room for a long time. Cobwebs at the back of the ceiling. Boxes were stacked criss-cross. Old blankets hung over some of them. 

Xiao Dao lifted one of the blankets and wiped the dust off the crates. He lifted one of the lids and looked inside. The corners of his mouth twisted into a disgusted grimace. 

Wenjie let his gaze wander around the room, until he spotted a metal ring between the boxes. He gave Xiao Dao a signal. His friend helped him clear the area and open the trapdoor. There was a corridor underneath. 

“Have you gotten the video surveillance under control yet?” Wenjie asked Xu Zhengqing via the smartwatch's wireless connection. 

“You can go in,” announced Mr. Xu.

Xiao Dao attached a rope to the crates, lashed it tight and lowered himself down. Shortly afterwards, Wenjie also had ground under his feet. The corridor led past several doors to the stairwell. It was lit up at regular intervals by spotlights passing by the windows. 

Crouching down, the young men crept down the stairs to the floor where the bridge to the main building was located. Paintings by contemporary painters hung on the walls in the corridors, but nothing of any particular value. There were decorative vases with potted plants in the corners. Wenjie spotted small cameras on the ceiling. 

He watched as Xiao Dao moved from one blind spot in the camera's field of view to the next. Without further ado, he did the same. This way, they finally reached the bridge. The door was locked. But not for long. 

Xiao Dao used the lock picks and the tensioner he had brought with him. The door opened with a soft click.

Wenjie looked thoughtfully at the bridge. It consisted only of a stone floor and glass walls. This made it almost impossible to get to the other side without being caught by the spotlight. Xiao Dao remained in place. He had must have recognized the problem too. 

Wenjie pulled him back into the corridor, before he approached the bridge and took a look down. There were security guards patrolling below. None of them were looking up. Their focus was on the garden, the doors and the walls. 

A thin network of red lines stretched across the bridge. Motion detectors. They made it difficult to cross quickly. And woe betide anyone, who set off an alarm. The men down there would certainly look up then. His gaze slid to the roof dome of the bridge. It was made of stone, like the floor. 

Hm. Wenjie looked at his gloves. There were no motion detectors on the ceiling. He returned to the hallway and pressed the talk button on his smartwatch. “Can you create a distraction scenario? Something to draw the attention of the guards in the center to the front gate?” he whispered. 

“That is possible. Are you at the bridge?”

“Yes. We took the precaution of moving around the blind spots.”

“Well done. Get into position. In the main building, you can also use the air shafts to bypass the motion detectors.”

Wenjie maintained the connection as he took up position again. He nodded to Xiao Dao, who joined him. Together they waited until the men moved away. They then climbed up the side walls and along the underside of the ceiling to the other side. 

Arriving at the opposite door, Xiao Dao picked the lock again. He hung upside down from the ceiling for a moment. Then he grabbed the wooden frame above the door, pushed himself off the ceiling and landed light-footedly under the door frame between the bridge and the corridor behind the open door. The fine red lines of the motion detector could be seen there too. 

“Crap,” Xiao Dao cursed. “Can you see the grid? It fills the whole corridor.”

Wenjie pointed upwards. There was a metal plate diagonally above them. “Make me a ladder.”

Xiao Dao looked up. He didn't seem particularly convinced by his friend's plan. 

“That'll work.”

Hesitantly, Xiao Dao made him a robber's ladder. Wenjie pressed against the metal plate and pushed it aside. As he pulled himself upwards, he slipped just a few millimetres past one of the red lines. From below, he heard a deep exhalation. 

With a grin on his lips, he peered down at Xiao Dao and offered him his hand. “You just have to watch out for the laser near the door. The others are far enough away.”

“Saw it.” Xiao Dao crouched slightly and then leapt upwards. He grabbed Wenjie with one hand and the edge of the opening with the other. He nimbly pulled himself up, narrowly missing the red line. 

Wenjie breathed a sigh of relief as they both sat in the darkness of the air shaft. A network of shafts unfolded in front of them, starting from an intersection. It was right in front of them. 

He slowly crawled past Xiao Dao to the junction. He stopped him halfway. “Wait,” he whispered. “Do you hear that too?”

Wenjie shook his head. But then he heard it too. It sounded like the soft rubbing of metal disks against each other. 

to be continued ...