Chapter 44: Do you like Groot?

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“We’d never planned on traveling Vietnam together, before,” Zhou Luoyang said to Du Jing with sudden realization.

Du Jing was buying juice in front of the Temple of Mazu. While he was at it, he bought Zhou Luoyang a pack of local cigarettes. Zhou Luoyang hadn’t smoked in a long time. He opened the pack and gave one a try. He didn’t like it.

“That candy looks good,” Zhou Luoyang said. “These cigarettes taste bad.”

Du Jing threw the cigarettes away and bought him a bag of coffee-flavored candy.

“There’s not much to do in Ho Chi Minh,” Du Jing said absently. “Most tourists visit Nha Trang.”

Zhou Luoyang had changed his clothes upon their arrival in Vietnam. He and Du Jing both wore touristy patterned shirts with white shorts and sneakers. After a period of fruitless waiting, they began to wander around aimlessly. The tour groups typically only planned a one-day itinerary in Ho Chi Minh; on day two, the groups left for Nha Trang and other popular locations.

Today they planned on paying a visit to Ho Chi Minh’s Association for the Preservation of Cultural Relics. Zhou Luoyang loved it here, even if he was just strolling down the streets and taking in the buildings and Chinese parasol trees planted during the French colonial period.

“But I really like it,” Zhou Luoyang said, “because it has another name: Saigon.” 

“I know you and I’ll always remember you. You were still young then,” Du Jing quoted, lost in thought.

“You remember!” Zhou Luoyang exclaimed.

“Of course,” Du Jing said. “The Lover¹ was the first book I ever borrowed from you.” 

They walked side by side. Suddenly, Du Jing jumped up, plucking a flower from the canopy overhead, and gave it to Zhou Luoyang. Zhou Luoyang took it and slipped it between the slats of the fence along the road.

The Association for the Preservation of Cultural Relics was a government organization that relied on funding from the Vietnamese government. Its office was small, a modest two-storey building. After a previous break-in, there was now a temporary increase in posted sentries outside the building, but it was really just for appearances.

Zhou Luoyang entered and greeted the chairman. They exchanged pleasantries. The chairman had already been informed of their arrival by Chen Biaojin. His English was heavily accented, and after some back and forth, really all he had to say concerned the preservation of artifacts. Chen Biaojin was still in Hong Kong and had yet to return.

As Zhou Luoyang left, he scanned the displays in the first floor hall. 

“Are these worth any money?” Du Jing asked.

“They’re priceless,” Zhou Luoyang answered. “But they’re covered in dust, so callously locked up in the office hall. It’s no wonder they were switched out. We should ask Huang Ting to come investigate.”

Du Jing snapped a picture with his phone. No staff were around to stop them. But just when they’d left and were walking down a sunlit alley, Zhou Luoyang suddenly nudged Du Jing, hinting at him to look.

Du Jing turned almost imperceptibly. Immediately, he gathered Zhou Luoyang in his arms and pressed him to the wall, caging him in with one hand propped against the brick wall and the other stuffed in his pocket. 

Behind him was a dingy van. Its driver stood next to the vehicle, smoking a cigarette. He glanced casually down the alley, but all he saw was Du Jing’s figure obscuring Zhou Luoyang from sight.

To the observer, they looked like any other couple one might spot around Saigon.

The driver’s gaze slid away, unsuspecting. As if spurred by an intuitive sense of danger, he spat out the rest of his cigarette and drove away. 

Du Jing took out his phone and, without looking, stuck it out of the alley and snapped a picture. When he withdrew it, he studied the license plate in the photo. 

“How come I feel like I’ve seen that van before?” Zhou Luoyang asked.

Perhaps it had been at the Temple of Mazu or Mariamman Temple, but all the local unregistered cabs looked about the same: dingy and dirty and covered in motley ads.

“Good eye.” Du Jing calmly met his gaze. “We have seen it before.”

“You remember?”

“More or less.” Du Jing called Zhuang Li’s number while simultaneously texting him the picture. “Check where this van is heading.”

Zhou Luoyang had noticed the van purely due to chance, yet he’d discovered this crucial clue. It was odd for the van to be parked outside the Association for the Preservation of Cultural Relics, unconcerned with picking up passengers. There were no tourist attractions nearby, so why had it been there?

Zhuang Li identified its tracker. “License plate S3A201. No passengers today. Headed for Thao Dien after departing from your current location.”

“Keep tracking its movements,” Du Jing instructed before hanging up. He and Zhou Luoyang ducked into a cafe, where he ordered an ipoh white coffee and took lunch.

“The view is great here,” Zhou Luoyang observed. “It didn’t even rain today.”

“Is it really that great?” Du Jing asked.

Gnawing on a spring roll, Zhou Luoyang slid his gaze to Du Jing’s face and watched him eat.

“Why are you staring at me?” Du Jing asked.

“Where else should I look?” Zhou Luoyang retorted. “The ceiling? Aren’t you always staring at me?”

Since he’d disembarked from the plane, Zhou Luoyang’s mind had lingered on the conversation with Huang Ting. He couldn’t stop thinking about his and Du Jing’s relationship and how much it might progress.

When they were together, they rarely used their phones unless it was absolutely necessary; they would either chat or take in the scenery. Zhou Luoyang marveled at the way his phone addiction would be cured and his surroundings would go quiet whenever he was with Du Jing.

“I need to use your phone for a minute,” Du Jing said.

“Please do, boss.”

Du Jing took Zhou Luoyang’s phone. After a pause, he tapped several numbers and unlocked it.

“Password’s still the same,” he commented.

“I’m used to it now,” Zhou Luoyang replied. “I’m just too lazy to change it. What are you doing?”

“Checking Mister Lu’s Moments.”

“Lu who?”

“Lu Zhongyu,” Du Jing said. “Your admirer.”

Zhou Luoyang didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Don’t joke around.”

If Du Jing hadn’t reminded him, Zhou Luoyang would have forgotten he existed. “Didn’t you add him as well?”

“He blocked me,” Du Jing replied casually. He pulled up Zhou Luoyang and Lu Zhongyu’s chat history and saw their most recent messages.

Do you like Groot?

Yes, I like him.

It doesn’t seem that way to me. You were pretty aloof with him in the escape room. It didn’t seem like an act.

We aren’t together, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like him. To be honest, I like him, but he doesn’t like me back.

Why do I feel it’s the other way around?

Believe what you want.

Du Jing looked up from the screen to scrutinize Zhou Luoyang, something complicated in his gaze.

Zhou Luoyang was bathed in the light that poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The dappled sunlight that seeped through the lush foliage of the parasol trees danced in the breeze, like an orbiting cluster of stars. His hair, his eyelashes, his bright eyes, his dashing yet melancholy figure were swathed in velvety light.

Zhou Luoyang looked back at him curiously.

“Have I tormented you into a bit of a depression?” Du Jing suddenly asked.

Zhou Luoyang eyed at him strangely. “No, why?”

He sipped his coffee, that melancholy look morphing into confusion. Then he laughed.

“You rarely wore that expression in the past.” Du Jing gripped the phone. His lips barely moved; he seemed to be trying to hide something. He began to talk faster. “Do I always overwhelm you?”

“No, I swear. I just…I just…”

“Just what?” Du Jing’s brow furrowed ever so slightly. The hand grasping the phone shook.

“What’s wrong?” Zhou Luoyang picked up on Du Jing’s unusual behavior. “Are you feeling unwell?”

“No.” Du Jing came back to himself and stiffly demanded, “Just what? Tell me!”

“Hey,” Zhou Luoyang said, “boss? Are you okay?”

He gently kicked Du Jing’s foot under the table. Du Jing’s face smoothed out, and he shook his head as if trying to force a thought out of his mind.

With a swipe and a press of his thumb, he deleted the chat between Zhou Luoyang and Lu Zhongyu.

Zhou Luoyang blinked, confused.

Next Du Jing pulled up Lu Zhongyu’s Moments. Zhou Luoyang suspected Du Jing would have another episode soon.

But he didn’t say anything in case it became a psychological suggestion for Du Jing. He craned his neck, peering at Lu Zhongyu’s state of affairs.

“He’s here too!” Zhou Luoyang exclaimed, shocked.

Lu Zhongyu’s Moments displayed Ho Chi Minh’s scenery. At the bottom was his location.

Du Jing suppressed his agitation. “He’s very efficient.”

Zhou Luoyang was disbelieving. “He brought the little priest? I don’t have the victim’s WeChat. If I’d known sooner…”

“What?” Du Jing didn’t understand. “Victim?”

Zhou Luoyang met Du Jing’s eyes. Du Jing explained, “He is the victim.”

Zhou Luoyang gaped.

He finally realized that he had it backwards all along!

“Then…who’s the one that kidnapped him?” Zhou Luoyang asked. “Doesn’t that kid do esports? Why…”

“He has Vietnamese heritage. His mother’s Vietnamese; his father’s Chinese,” Du Jing said. “Didn’t you read the files Zhuang Li set out? They were right on the table.”

“I…” Indeed, he had not. After all, he didn’t want to stick his nose too much in Du Jing’s business, especially not in front of Zhuang Li, in case it put them in a difficult position.

Finally, it all made sense—the real target was Lu Zhongyu, while the kid that pretended to be a priest was the trafficker sent from Vietnam to lure him here!

“He’ll be resting in his hotel all afternoon,” Du Jing said. “Tomorrow he’ll explore the city and then be abducted. There’s still time.”

Just then, Zhuang Li called. “Jing-ge, the van is driving toward Thao Dien. Its destination doesn’t have a concrete Google Maps location. It’s an abandoned rubber processing plant.”

Du Jing put in his earbuds. Without waiting for a command, Zhuang Li said, “I found something else, Jing-ge. There are three vehicles in total, located at the Temple of Mazu , Triangle Province, and Mariamman Temple, respectively, that have been to that plant before. It’s twenty-two kilometers from the driver’s residence, and it’s not a car repair yard. I suspect this is their transfer point.”

“Even a blind person would be able to see that,” Du Jing said mildly. “Send me the address. Bring the car here.”

He removed his earbuds and glanced at Zhou Luoyang.

Zhou Luoyang asked, “Are you going to investigate? I’ll go with you. Let’s go.”

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Zhuang Li parked the car outside the cafe, and the two of them climbed in. Zhuang Li attentively watched the screen of the laptop placed in the passenger seat, which displayed the locations of the tagged vehicles. The van stopped there for only three minutes before departing.

I’m going to have an episode, Du Jing typed into his phone, and showed Zhou Luoyang.

God, what do we do now? Zhou Luoyang thought.

Mania? He wrote back.

Yes.

Zhou Luoyang held Du Jing’s hand with his own. Du Jing curled his fingers. Their palms brushed, and then their ten fingers intertwined. Du Jing’s grip was tight enough to hurt.

He knew Du Jing was enduring. He must have wanted to scream and shout right then, or destroy something to vent, but he endured and held back in Zhuang Li’s presence.

The off-road vehicle stopped outside a small village, and Zhuang Li got out to buy water and scout the area. Du Jing stalked up the hill behind the village and looked out. He held up a pair of binoculars.

“There are no buildings,” Du Jing reported. “It’s hard to see into the forest.”

“Don’t go there,” Zhou Luoyang said. “I’m worried there are cameras.”

A ring of wire fencing loomed about 500 meters away. In its center lay a pile of discarded tires, and to the side, there was a pond. The area was entirely surrounded by vegetation. Du Jing lept from the hill, and Zhou Luoyang shouted, “Wait, Du Jing!” 

Du Jing pointed back at the hill, wanting Zhou Luoyang to wait there. Zhou Luoyang followed on his heels, worried that Du Jing would run into the criminals.

The untamed land was marked with several tire tracks leading into the forest. Du Jing looked at them. Zhou Luoyang peered through the binoculars into the distance, and anxiously called, “Du Jing, come back!”

But Du Jing didn’t hear. He crept closer to the forest and was about to jump over a ditch when Zhou Luoyang darted up to the wire fence and nimbly caught up to him, pushing him down into the cement ditch.

Du Jing struggled briefly, but Zhou Luoyang anxiously hissed, “There are people in the woods. You didn’t see them!”

Du Jing went still. Both of them heard, at the same time, the sound of voices and a gun loading. Du Jing’s expression changed. He flipped over so that he was on top of Zhou Luoyang, his back facing outward and his hand pressed over his mouth.

Zhou Luoyang’s heart hammered in his chest. Du Jing slid his other hand in his pocket and slipped on his brass knuckles. Zhou Luoyang placed his own hand over his Eye of Forseti. Just as he was preparing to twist, they heard the sound of footsteps fading.

Zhou Luoyang released a breath. 

Du Jing didn’t speak. He stuck his head out. Two locals carrying submachine guns boarded a vehicle and drove off.

“This is their transfer point,” Du Jing said.

“If they’d shot at this ditch, we would have died. It wouldn’t have made a difference if you shielded us with your back.”

The wall of wire was just beyond the cement ditch. Even if Du Jing had suddenly jumped up, he would have been blocked by the wire fence. But the wire fence would not block bullets. Just a couple of shots fired would have left them dead in the ditch. 

“Yes,” Du Jing agreed. “I’m not sure if the Eye of Forseti would work if we died.”

Zhou Luoyang thought of their ultimate weapon, the turning back of time. In previous instances when time turned back, the dead would come back to life and everything was as it had been 24 hours prior. But, ultimately, there would still be deaths. What would happen if the very ones who triggered the rewind—the two of them—died?

He didn’t want to test it out.

Du Jing pulled Zhou Luoyang out of the trench, and they slowly retreated to the hill. At the same time, a figure ran towards them from east of the hillside.

“Who is that?” Zhou Luoyang asked distrustfully. 

“Huang Ting,” Du Jing answered, checking the binoculars.

“Why are you guys here?” Huang Ting quickly ascended the hill, carrying a long object. By the time they were all hidden behind a copse of trees, the vehicle inside the wire-fenced ring was long gone.

Instead of answering, Du Jing retrieved a small black box from the trunk of their off-road vehicle.

Zhou Luoyang looked at Huang Ting inquisitively. Huang Ting explained, “The informants at Interpol gave me a list of goods. They’re transporting products to Pingxiang, Guangxi on a regular schedule. I scouted the loading point this morning and noticed a car with no license plate, so I followed it, but lost it twice. What did they do here?”

“This is a transfer point,” Zhou Luoyang replied. “But both parties involved in the exchange left.”

From that, Huang Ting got the gist of the situation. “We’ll need to keep a close watch over this place. Do you have any others with you? Or we could install a camera over there. I’ll think of a way to borrow a drone…”

Du Jing opened the black box and pulled out a bird the size of a palm. Then he pulled up some software on his phone.

He shook the bird. Zhou Luoyang and Huang Ting studied it and saw that its bones were made of a lightweight metal and its body was covered in thick feathers. When Du Jing tapped the start button on his phone, the bird flapped its wings and took flight.

“Having money is great. You can get whatever lifelike equipment your heart desires,” Huang Ting said, resigned.

Du Jing ignored him, tossing his phone to Zhou Luoyang. Zhou Luoyang protested, “I don’t know how to operate it…I don’t want to smash it.”

“If it gets smashed, it gets smashed,” Du Jing said lowly. He walked away and dialed Zhuang Li’s phone.

Zhou Luoyang tested out the controls. The bird flew quite steadily, flapping away into the trees. “How much did this equipment cost?”

“I don’t know!” Du Jing snapped angrily. “Stop asking me everything!”

“Land it on a tree,” Huang Ting suggested tactfully.

It took several tries before he was finally able to get it to land steadily. He tapped at the controls, turning its head in the direction of a clearing in the forest.

Now Huang Ting and Zhou Luoyang could see the entirety of the clearing.

“Du Jing,” Zhou Luoyang called, voice shaking. “Come look.”

There were people in the clearing. Zhuang Li was bound and gagged, and the barrel of a gun was pressed against his forehead.

Du Jing turned a ring on the watch, plucked it off, and tossed it to Zhou Luoyang.

“Get in the car, drive to the road, and wait for me.”

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Footnotes:

1. The Lover by Marguerite Duras takes place in colonial Vietnam, in Saigon. It tells the story of a romance between a French girl and an older Chinese-Vietnamese man. [Back]

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Translated by beansprout. Edited by opal.

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