Chapter Fifty-Five: An Unlawful Request

“I’ve had it!” Cai Kun slammed his fist against the steering wheel in fury.

“Don’t panic. Get out and take a look.” Lin Xun remained remarkably calm. She pushed open the door first, and icy rain instantly lashed down over her.

Le Dong and Cai Kun hurried out after her. In an instant, all three were drenched.

Outside, the rain was pouring with the violence of a heavenly river bursting its banks. The dense sheets of water struck so hard that it was nearly impossible to keep one’s eyes open.

Cai Kun had no time to worry about anything else. Cursing under his breath, he rushed to the front of the car and heaved open the steaming hood.

A stronger wave of scorched odor mixed with blistering steam rushed into his face, making him instinctively turn away.

“Damn it!”

Cai Kun wiped the rain from his face and leaned in for a look. His voice suddenly rose. “What the hell? The engine’s burned through all the oil! My car’s never done this before! I checked it right before we left!”

Lin Xun came over as well. Rain streamed from her neat short hair as she narrowed her eyes and examined the engine.

“Could the cylinder have seized?”

“Impossible!” Cai Kun nearly leaped into the air. Rainwater poured into his mouth, but he did not even bother spitting it out. “This old fellow’s been running for years and has never pulled anything like this! It’s built like a tank!”

Le Dong leaned closer too. He did not know much about cars, but the engine compartment was a complete mess. Oil mixed with rainwater and gave off a nauseating stench. However he looked at it, this clearly was not a minor problem.

He took out his phone, but the screen was instantly covered in rain. The signal indicator pitifully showed only two bars, flickering in and out.

“Old Cai, Officer Lin, there’s no point arguing about that now. The important thing is this rain, and this place…” As he spoke, he looked around.

Beyond the shoulder of the highway lay desolate fields. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but the curtain of rain—no village, no other vehicles, only endless gray desolation.

“We’re stranded in the middle of nowhere, and the phone signal’s terrible. We can’t really be stuck here, can we?”

The moment he said it, a sense of helplessness settled over them all.

Just then, Lin Xun’s wary voice pierced through the rain.

“Someone’s coming!”

Le Dong and Cai Kun looked up at the same time, following the direction she indicated.

Through the heavy curtain of water, a blurred figure came jogging toward them from the direction they had come from, stumbling through the mud.

From where he had appeared and the direction he was coming from, he was clearly the same person Cai Kun had nearly hit when he swerved in an emergency earlier.

“Damn it! It’s him!”

Once Cai Kun recognized the approaching figure, his anger flared up again. Pointing at the man, who was drawing closer by the second, he shouted, “If he hadn’t suddenly appeared out of the rain and scared the hell out of me, maybe the car wouldn’t have broken down! You walking disaster!”

Accompanied by Cai Kun’s furious abuse, the figure soon reached them and stopped a few paces away.

The downpour severely obstructed their vision. Even so, Le Dong could make out a young man of around twenty, dark-skinned and lean, his features blurred behind the mist and water.

The young man came to a halt, panting heavily. His first words were, “Big brother, is your car… broken down?”

Cai Kun was already seething. Hearing that, he became even more irritable.

“Of course not! We just got out to take a shower!”

The sarcasm was obvious. The young man rubbed his hands together awkwardly, looking embarrassed and at a loss.

Lin Xun stepped forward. A police officer’s instincts made her study him carefully as she asked in a guarded tone, “Why are you wandering around alone in the wilderness in weather like this?”

The young man seemed intimidated by her presence. He drew in his neck before answering sheepishly, “I… I’m looking for my master. He… he’s gone missing. I haven’t seen him for three or four days.”

“Looking for your master?” Lin Xun frowned.

“Yes, my master, Li Gang!” The young man seemed to have finally found someone willing to listen, and his voice rose slightly. “He runs the repair shop up ahead. See? It’s right there!”

He lifted a hand and pointed toward a small grove not far from the highway.

Le Dong followed his finger and strained to see. Under the pounding rain, the vague outline of a low brick building could indeed be seen at the edge of the grove. Without careful attention, it was almost indistinguishable from the trees.

“A repair shop?” Cai Kun’s eyes lit up briefly, but suspicion soon replaced the excitement. He looked the young man up and down, his voice full of distrust.

“You little bastard. So this is why you happened to show up so conveniently, is it? You came to drum up business for your master? You even picked a day like this to stroll along the highway? I nearly ran you over just now. Was that deliberate? Trying to scam me, or what?”

The more he spoke, the more convinced he became, and his temper rose again.

The young man grew flustered under the rapid-fire questioning and waved his hands frantically.

“Big brother, you’ve misunderstood! I’m really not! I… I really am looking for my master! I…”

He was so anxious that he could barely form a coherent sentence. His voice was full of grievance and panic.

At that moment, Ma Wenwen, who had been sitting quietly in the car, poked his head out. He seemed to sense something. His brows drew tightly together as he tilted his head, listening for sounds beyond the rain.

Le Dong noticed his strange expression and leaned toward the window.

“What’s wrong? Something doesn’t feel right?”

Ma Wenwen gave a slight shake of his head. His face beneath the bandages looked grave, and his voice was very low.

“Ever since my eyes were injured, this sense of mine has weakened considerably. With the rain coming down like this, there’s too much interference. But I do feel… a little uneasy. Something’s bothering me.”

He paused, as if trying to sense more, but eventually sighed.

“Then again, maybe the weather’s simply awful, and I’ve been worrying about my master. It’s probably nothing. Even if my senses are duller than usual, Lord Zhong Kui is still guarding the car. Evil spirits wouldn’t dare come near.”

He sounded as though he were reassuring Le Dong—and himself.

Le Dong felt somewhat reassured and nodded. He turned around, caught hold of Cai Kun, who was still arguing with the young man about the supposed scam, and said to the youth, “Enough. Whether you’re telling the truth or not, we can go to your master’s repair shop and find out. It’s better than standing here in the rain. We also need to figure out how to get the car over there.”

The young man immediately nodded so vigorously that his head bobbed.

“Of course, of course! It’s just that…” He scratched his head, looking embarrassed. “My master isn’t there, so I’ll have to try handling it myself. But my skills… aren’t very good. My master always says I’m clumsy.”

The spark of anger Cai Kun had just managed to suppress flared up again.

“Your skills aren’t very good? Then you’d better give me a discount on the repair bill!”

The young man did not answer immediately. He guiltily avoided Cai Kun’s gaze and merely muttered, “Yes.”

Lin Xun assessed the situation and, acting on professional instinct, began issuing instructions.

“Here’s what we’ll do. Ma Wenwen isn’t very mobile, so he and I will stay here and keep watch over the car.”

She glanced at Le Dong and Cai Kun, then gestured toward the young man.

“You two go with him and find something we can use to tow the car over.”

The young man hurriedly agreed. Le Dong and Cai Kun then followed the man who claimed to be Li Gang’s apprentice. They slogged through the mud, leaving the highway and entering the small grove beside it, making their way toward the blurred outline of the repair shop.

Rain roared through the trees.

The unending downpour had turned the path into a quagmire, and every step required an effort to pull free. All the way there, Cai Kun continued grumbling.

“I’m telling you, when it comes to the repairs, you’d better itemize the parts and labor. And give me a proper discount…”

The young man trudged ahead in silence. Perhaps he had grown tired of listening, because he suddenly turned around. His voice was urgent, almost pleading.

“Big brother… if… if you could help me look for my master later… if we find him… then I… I won’t charge you for repairing the car! Not a single cent!”

Cai Kun let out a derisive laugh, as if he had just heard the funniest joke in the world.

“Bullshit! We’re not police officers. Why would we search for someone in the middle of nowhere? We’re in a hurry! Your master’s a grown man. How could he just get lost? Maybe he went somewhere to drink!”

He did not take the request seriously at all.

The young man opened his mouth as if he wanted to say more, but after seeing the impatience on Cai Kun’s face, he swallowed the words. His eyes dimmed, and he silently turned around to lead the way.

Le Dong listened from the side, an odd feeling passing through his heart.

There was something stubborn—and perhaps fearful—in the young man’s request. It was as though he firmly believed that his master’s disappearance was not a simple matter of being unable to find him.

A few minutes later, the three finally emerged from the grove and arrived in front of the repair shop.

It was a very old brick-and-tile bungalow. The plaster had flaked away in patches, exposing the red bricks beneath. The windowpanes were filthy, and some were cracked or missing altogether. Above the entrance hung a rusted, crooked metal sign. The faded characters on it read: Li Gang Auto Repair.

“We’re here!” the young man announced, pointing toward the large green-painted metal gate.

“You didn’t have to tell me. I can see it. Open the door,” Cai Kun said, his voice still edged with hostility.

But the young man made no move for quite some time. Just as Cai Kun was about to urge him again, he turned around with a bleak expression.

“My master changed the lock. I can’t open it…”

“What the hell? Are you playing us?” Cai Kun’s anger erupted once more. He pointed at the young man’s nose. “We can’t even get inside? Then why did you say you could repair the car? How were you going to get the tools? So we came all this way for nothing?”

The young man stamped his feet in panic.

“Don’t get angry! I have an idea!”

His eyes darted around before he pointed at a comparatively low wall nearby.

“The wall isn’t very high. One of you… one of you who’s good at climbing can get over it and open the gate from inside.”

Climb over the wall? Break in and open the gate?

Le Dong and Cai Kun exchanged a glance. Both saw intense wariness and absurdity in the other’s eyes.

The request was far too sudden and far too unreasonable.

A man claiming to be someone’s apprentice was asking two complete strangers to climb over the wall into his master’s locked repair shop. What kind of situation was this?

Le Dong’s heart leaped into his throat. He stared into the young man’s eyes, trying to find a flaw, and his voice turned cold.

“Climb over? Listen, that doesn’t seem appropriate. This is your master’s shop. If we climb over the wall, how are we supposed to explain ourselves? What if something inside is missing? And why don’t you climb over yourself?”

Cai Kun began shouting outright.

“I knew there was something wrong with you! What are you, a thief trying to lure us inside to take the blame for you? Or are you planning to steal something from your master’s shop?”

The more he thought about it, the more suspicious the situation seemed. In this remote wilderness, with rain pouring from the sky, an apprentice had suddenly appeared claiming to be searching for his master—and was now urging them to climb over the wall.

The young man went pale under their questioning and backed away, waving his hands repeatedly.

“No, no! I’m not a thief! I really am not! I… I…”

Too frantic to speak coherently, he finally begged in a trembling, tearful voice.

“Big brother, please! Please just climb over and open the gate! Maybe… maybe my master isn’t missing after all. Maybe he’s inside!”

The fear in his voice seemed utterly genuine, almost enough to make them believe him.

But after being tricked by Steward Ma, Le Dong had developed a deep aversion to anything that smelled like a trap.

Cai Kun did not believe a word of it. He spat on the ground.

“Forget it! First he’s missing, then he’s supposedly inside. Dong, let’s go! We’re not getting mixed up with this lunatic. We’ll go back and find another way. Once we get a signal, we’ll call a tow truck. It’ll cost more, but so be it!”

Le Dong also felt that they should not stay there any longer. Everything about the young man—the way he acted and what he was asking them to do—seemed deeply sinister.

He nodded and ignored the young man’s continued pleas. Grabbing the furious Cai Kun, he turned and hurried back along the path into the curtain of rain.

The dark, gaunt figure was left standing helplessly before the tightly shut gate of the repair shop, alone beneath the pounding storm.