Mo Du (默读) - Silent Reading

Verhovensky XVIII

Fei Du gently let go of the door handle, standing silently behind the thin door. He heard deathly silence in the corridor after the name “Gu Zhao”, as if the people outside had left.

After a long time, the silent dumbshow was finally interrupted. In a cold, hard voice, Xiao Haiyang repeated, one word at a time, “What—about—it?”

From the other side of the door you could hear his teeth grinding.

Before Luo Wenzhou could speak, Xiao Haiyang aggressively launched a continuous attack towards him. “So the City Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Team doesn’t only screen you and your relatives, it even has to dig down into your next-door neighbors? Captain Luo, during the Great Qing Dynasty, when the emperor handed out punishment indiscriminately, I think it still didn’t reach this point?”

Luo Wenzhou listened, not getting angry at him. His voice sounded smooth, and Fei Du guessed that his expression also hadn’t moved a hair.

“Xiao Haiyang,” he said, drawing his voice out, “I’ve provoked you and made you angry. Let’s judge matters where they stand. Can we talk sensibly?”

Fei Du oddly rather wanted to smile, the corners of his lips turning up slightly.

Then he heard Luo Wenzhou continue, “I don’t care very much about the personalities of the people around me, and I don’t require everyone to play a happy family every day. You can get along well, and you can be eccentric and unsociable. It’s for the best if you’re willing to integrate with everyone, but if you’re unwilling to have close relations with comparative strangers, then you can do as you like. Never mind you, our President Fei’s bad habits are bigger than he is, and I don’t say anything about it to him.”

Fei Du: “…”

Hearing this, he knew the fact that he was eavesdropping had been discovered. Fei Du didn’t feel like keeping up the cover-up, so he simply opened the door and walked out.

Xiao Haiyang wasn’t very canny; taking one look at the suddenly appearing living human, he couldn’t hide his shock. He backed up a step on the spot.

But Luo Wenzhou’s expression as he looked at Xiao Haiyang became stern. “But I need you to remember where this is. Xiao Haiyang, I need you to concentrate completely, to be able to work for the benefit of all at least during working hours, to handle the cases you’re working responsibly, to set aside some of your selfish motives—I don’t care what your reasons are, and I don’t care what private difficulties you have. The cases that come here are all matters of life and death, with blood and tears behind them. Are you telling me that only your private difficulties are worth money, while the injustices and sufferings of others can be casually brushed aside?”

Luo Wenzhou was too skilled at flapping his lips. Xiao Haiyang was left gasping by his speech, his expression unsteady.

“Political Commissar Luo, I must interrupt your ideological work for a moment,” Fei Du said, leaning against the wall. “Officer Xiao, to whom did you just reveal the information that Lu Guosheng was the killer?”

Luo Wenzhou hadn’t heard the phone call Xiao Haiyang had made in the bathroom. Hearing this, his expression altered. “Xiao Haiyang!”

Since Luo Wenzhou had said the name “Gu Zhao”, Xiao Haiyang had been like a string, constantly drawn taught by each sentence Luo Wenzhou spoke. When Fei Du revealed his maneuver, the string finally snapped. He looked up at once, the vacillating expression left by Luo Wenzhou’s words turning cold and hard.

“Is your head full of water?” Luo Wenzhou stepped forward and grabbed his collar. “A whole world of criminals are sharpening their brains trying to hunt down information about the course of police investigations, trying to know the enemy in order to know themselves. Are you their man on the inside? Do you know that randomly releasing information before the details of a case have been clarified will spread false rumors among the public, even produce panic? What do you do if new circumstances turn up in the follow-up investigation? Correct your statement? Even the weather report doesn’t dare to talk so confidently now. What are you going to do with the City Bureau’s credibility?”