The other passport he almost dropped out of his hands - it had his picture on it! It was his fake passport!
There weren't many patrons, and Meili went out into the hall to wipe down the tables. Suddenly, a bottle of burning rags flew into the hall through a broken window. Meili shrieked, and barely had time to turn away before four more of the same projectiles came flying in.
Meili shouted to the people to run to the kitchen and escape through the back door, and she herself rushed to put out the fire. But what could a weak woman do? Thank God her sons had already gone home. The first bottle turned into a sea of fire, followed by all the others.
The restaurant burst into flames in a matter of seconds, and Meili inhaled a lot of carbon monoxide and lost consciousness, barely making it outside. The woman fell to the ground and thankfully didn't see anything else. People called for rescuers, but the beautiful plum orchard also began to burn following the restaurant.
The tree hissed, squeaked, and crackled, and puffs of smoke rose to the sky. Soon, the whole section was in flames when they found out that Mei Yuan's restaurant was on fire. It shocked people so much that no one could find the words. Rescue workers fought the fire all night.
The sons were the first to come to Shi Meili's rescue. They immediately ran to the back door and carried her away from the fire. They treated her and left her in the hospital until morning. The brothers tried to call Lin, but he was off the grid. His life was also in danger, just as Jiang Wei had warned.
Another hour passed and Lin decided to get out. He carefully groped the wall and found no buttons, levers, or knobs. Then he probed the floor and, as expected, found an inconspicuous pedal. The door clicked open, and light struck his eyes. As soon as he stepped out, he was grabbed and dragged.
It was dark outside and he couldn't see anything but the van where they had thrown him in and shut him in. Without hesitation, Lin fumbled for a piece of paper with a number on it and, turning on the phone, dialed the number. On the other end he was listened to and told to wait.
He feared he would be taken away or tortured, but the car didn't move. Twenty minutes later there was a noise, the door of the van opened, and the young man was dragged again to another car.
This time he was placed in the back seat next to someone with an ugly scar behind his ear. The man looked blankly at Lin, and then picked his nail in his teeth.
"Are you Lin?" the man asked without enthusiasm.
"Yes," replied the young man.
"How do you prove that you are Jiang Wei's man?
Lin was confused. Showing messages is impossible, lying" could unravel; all that was left was to find a reasonable and logical way. Suddenly Lin raised his hand, which had Jiang Wei's watch on it.
"He left me his watch!" blurted out the young man.
The man looked closely at the watch and after a few infinitely long moments nodded affirmatively. He opened the door and said good-bye:
"If you're in danger again or need any other help, call."
The man slammed the car door and left. Lin was left alone. At that very moment, his brother called him. Lin rushed home like a madman, forgetting everything. At dawn, he returned to his hometown.
He couldn't see his mother until reception time, so he drove to the restaurant. Beneath the frowning dawn sky were the blackened remains of burnt-out tree trunks, and behind them stood the ruined restaurant building. The roof was completely collapsed and burned, as were some of the walls.
There was essentially nothing left of the restaurant. Lin leaned against a black tree trunk and cried. "Mom, I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" whispered Lin over and over again. "How can we deal with all this?" tormented the young man.
The smell of burning was unbearable. Suddenly it began to rain. Lin remained motionless, and when completely soaked and cold, he finally forced himself to leave.
Warming himself at home with warm tea, he drove to the hospital. Mother lay pale and aged. It seemed that this tragedy had taken twenty years off her life.
Lin could hardly take a few steps to approach her. After standing by her bedside for a few minutes, Lin ran out in tears and faced his brothers.
"Where have you been," they pounced on him, "we've been calling you all night and all night!
"I... I was kidnapped," Shi Lin honestly confessed to his brothers.
"I'm afraid the restaurant fire was also the work of my kidnappers," Lin concluded.
"But how did you get out?" the brothers began examining Lin for signs of torture or rope.
"Someone came to my rescue, and as soon as I was free, I rushed to you..."
The brothers embraced and comforted each other. Two hours later, Shi Meili came to her senses. She looked from one son to another and sighed in relief to see that everyone was alive and well. Then she would forget about it, and it would happen all over again. The doctor said that memory loss was normal and that it would pass in a few days.
On the third day, a lawyer came to the hospital and served Shi Meili with a subpoena. Patrons at the restaurant that unfortunate evening had sued the hostess for criminal negligence in causing the fire, putting their lives in mortal danger. They all demanded a huge amount of compensation from Shi Maley, and Shi Lin clutched his head.
Suddenly a message arrived from Jiang Wei. Its contents were even stranger than the first one. This time, the boss wrote with only consonantal letters, deliberately making it difficult to understand the text.
The young man took the sheet and took some time to pick up the key and decipher the message:
[Night vision device. Cabinet. Treasure Island. 231109777. Take the money. Send server archive].
He burned the sheet and wrote down the code elsewhere. While his brothers slept, Lin had already packed up and, leaving them a note that he had left on urgent business, headed for town. He could drive down this road with his eyes closed.
This time he was thinking of two things. The first was how to hand over the huge archive to Jiang Wei. The second, where the common man could get a night-vision device.
The first thing he did was to follow the technology store again, but it looked abandoned. Then Lin made up his mind and called the number he had saved. After simply asking if he could be provided with such a device, he didn't expect much, but within five minutes a man walked into the cafe and beckoned the young man to follow him.
They got into a car and drove for almost thirty minutes. It didn't look like a kidnapping, and Lin was calm. The car stopped on the bridge. Something was thrown at them from the window of a passing car.
The driver caught the object, handed it to Lin, and immediately drove off. The whole thing took no more than ten seconds. Lin was stunned to the point of cold sweat on his forehead.
He was dropped off outside the café without a word. He even felt like he was in a silent movie. In his hands he held, apparently, exactly what he had asked the Claw's men for.
Lin decided to proceed in two stages. First he went to Wei's house and found the very book in the library. He pretended to study the contents of the shelves, but took an entirely different book.
When night came, he shut the window tightly, plunging the room into darkness. Knowing there was a camera in the study, he hoped it would be useless in the dark. In order for him to see his surroundings, he had a device.
Armed with his glasses, he found the right book. At first Lin pressed the spine but nothing happened, then he tried pulling the book out" no effect. His knowledge of safes ended there.
He tried again to swipe the spine from top to bottom and vice versa, but nothing happened. Lin thought hard. After a few minutes, he went to the spine of the book again and tried to touch all the consonant letters in the title.
Surprisingly, he heard a click, and something opened in the opposite corner of the study. It was somewhere under the boss's desk, in a completely blind area for cameras.
This was the first time Lin had seen the floor safe, but when he got closer and examined it, he was even more dumbfounded. A small hatch led down somewhere. Lin could see by the light glow of the steps and fearlessly began to walk down them.
After spending hours in the secret damp room in the store, it was clearly better here. At least there was no dampness or stench. To his surprise, Lin found a full-fledged shelter. Jiang Wei had built an entire floor under his house.
As soon as the young man descended, something quietly buzzed and made it easier to breathe. "Ventilation," thought Lin. The light turned on automatically, and the young man took off his glasses. When he looked around, he realized that the hatch at the top of the stairs had also closed.
There were three bedrooms, an office, a bathroom, and a kitchen on this floor. Separately, Lin found a storage room for supplies. One could live here long and safely. "I wonder why Wei brought him here. It's just fortunate that the servants don't visit the house. So maybe it's planned?" thought after thought Lin comprehended his boss's plan.
He went into the study and started looking for the safe. The simplest solution turned out to be the right one. The safe was behind a painting on the wall. As he typed in the code, Lin heard a click, and the door opened. Inside were weapons, memory cards, documents, and money.
Lin took a passport from the shelf and opened it. It was a fake document with Jiang Wei's picture on it. The other passport he almost dropped out of his hands - it had his picture on it! It was his fake passport!
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