Rest at the Inn and the Night of Quiet Change (Part 2)

Seine-Saint-Denis.

The pitch-black early morning when no normal woman would ever travel alone,

the girl in the red cartoon jacket glanced around the street corner, then dragged her legs, so exhausted they were nearly numb, and rushed into a small hotel with every ounce of strength she had left.

Then, completely out of breath, she collapsed onto the front desk under the astonished gaze of the Black girl on night duty.

She slapped her passport and credit card down in front of her, raised her head, and spoke in halting French between uneven breaths:

"Excuse me, I'd like to check in."

It was hard to believe that a foreign girl would rush in alone to stay at a hotel at this hour. She quickly completed the check-in procedures, and as she handed over the room card along with the other documents,

knowing what kind of place this was, she still couldn't help asking,

"Did you run into some danger? Do you need me to call the police for you?"

"Huh? No, no. Th-thank you."

Seeing that the girl seemed faintly uneasy and that her already less-than-fluent French had become even more stilted,

the Black girl finally watched her clutch the room card and hug her backpack as she hurried up the stairs.

Quickly finding her room number, Tang Bing, suspicious and jumpy as a frightened bird, looked around to make sure no one was following her to kidnap, rob, or XX her before darting into the room with a whoosh and locking the door behind her.

Then she looked at the hotel room before her: a bed, a sofa, a TV stand, a small tea table, and a single-person bathroom.

Remembering the unbelievable journey she had taken over the course of that night—from Swindon to Bath, then to Paris, fleeing