Mo Du (默读) - Silent Reading

Humbert Humbert XVI

The days of my youth, whenever I look back on them, seems like white snowflakes in a morning snow storm, blown away from me in a flurry. —Lolita [15]

[15] Original quote: The days of my youth, as I look back on them, seem to fly away from me in a flurry of pale repetitive scraps like those morning snow storms of used tissue paper that a train passenger sees whirling in the wake of the observation car.

“You’re going to have to put in some work, comrades. I’ll reimburse you for midnight snacks and the ladies’ facial masks. The ones who have wives and children, I’ll send home letters of repentance in your place.—Even if we have to work all night, even if we have to dig all the way down in the old Su home, we must get to the bottom of this. I want to see that little girl Qu Tong, alive or dead.” Having finished speaking into the walkie-talkie, Luo Wenzhou turned to Fei Du, who was watching him, full of interest. “Youngster, I feel you may be the reincarnation of a bearer of ill fortune. This birthday of yours has truly been happy and blessed. I can’t take you all the way home. Should I call you a cab, or let you down at some hotel on the way to make do?”

Fei Du didn’t answer. Apropos of nothing, he said instead, “What do you guys normally eat for a midnight snack when you’re on duty?”

“Normally we eat luxurious set meals of illegally recycled cooking oil.” Luo Wenzhou’s expression was a little bitter. “An unreasonable person may sometimes eat something of a slightly higher grade, for example McDonald’s.”

Fei Du: “…”

“Nonsense.” Luo Wenzhou turned the steering wheel in the direction of the City Bureau. Irritably, he said, “If they were all as hard to please as you, could I afford to reimburse them? There’s a hotel up ahead, half a month’s wages for one night. Should I stop?”

“I won’t stay at that one,” Fei Du said unhurriedly towards the bitterly oppressed public servant who had fried chicken to fill his hunger and illegally recycled cooking oil to assuage his thirst. “The incense in their lobby is too strong, and the bathrooms don’t have tubs.” Next, disregarding the surges of enmity he’d attracted, he directed, “Just drive on. There’s a six-star service hotel near your bureau that I can make do with. I can stroll over there myself.”

Luo Wenzhou: “…”

He resisted for an age but in the end couldn’t hold back. “President Fei, from morning to night, all you do is play around and raise hell. You don’t do any proper business. Is your family money enough to squander all your life? What’ll you do when you’ve wasted the whole fortune? No one will even blow wind for you to drink. And you’re all grown up now. After today… yesterday, if you go to the civil administration bureau, you can legally apply for a marriage certificate. Can’t you be a little less high-maintenance?”

The elbow of Fei Du’s uninjured arm rested against the car door; he didn’t answer, only smiled with his chin in his hand.

Luo Wenzhou didn’t know what there was to smile about; he got anxious at the sight of him. If he hadn’t taken pity on his walking wounded status today, he would have nearly thrown this person out of the car.

After a while, Fei Du asked, “Are you sure you don’t need me to keep helping?”

“Do you have a rank? Do you get paid?” In the end, Luo Wenzhou didn’t make him walk. Still criticizing, he turned off onto an opposite side-road as he approached the City Bureau, driving towards a hotel building that could be called a local landmark. “What does this have to do with you?”

“I heard that the so-called ‘accomplice’ you arrested was accused by that savage little girl, and aside from that you have no other evidence, right?”