When it came to gathering information or tracking someone down, the best in the business probably weren't the police, but the local underworld figures.
It wasn't that the police couldn't find things out. They simply couldn't match people who made their living locally when time was short... They worked in different fields, that was all.
Zhou Yusheng led the team with complete confidence, but finding one or more unlicensed taxi drivers from several months ago in just half a day was no easy task.
The persistent drizzle naturally made the search that much harder.
Even finding food around here was inconvenient. These places where drivers picked up private fares were nothing like the areas outside major stations. There were only a few scattered shacks and vendors doing business from tricycles, with few places to shelter from the rain.
Looking rather bedraggled, Zhou Yusheng ran back to his car. The rain had begun to grow heavier, and the drivers had all disappeared from sight.
Chen Mingming followed, getting into the passenger seat through the other door. Zhou Yusheng pulled out a few tissues and handed them over. "Here, dry yourself off."
As Chen Mingming took the tissues, he felt a little touched.
He might never have paid much attention to these tiny gestures of care from his parents before... Zhou Yusheng might simply have acted without thinking, out of instinct, while Chen Mingming had instinctively accepted them, a perfectly logical response. It was such a simple scene.
But why had he never noticed the affection contained in that small exchange before?
"What... are you doing?" Chen Mingming collected himself, only to notice Zhou Yusheng fiddling with the meat buns in a paper bag.
They had bought the buns from a tricycle stall nearby, and wisps of steam still rose from them.