I answered Boss Lin's call.
But before I could speak, his anxious voice came through the phone.
"Xiao Chen, is Assistant He with you?"
"Assistant He?"
I played dumb. "No. What's wrong, Boss Lin?"
"I can't get hold of him," he said hurriedly. "This has never happened before. He never turns his phone off. Didn't you go investigate the Luo Residence together yesterday? When did you last see him?"
Of course, I couldn't tell him the truth, but I couldn't lie about everything either. I had already thought up an excuse. "We went to Xu Family Village with Assistant He yesterday, then stayed overnight at a villager's house. But when I got up this morning, I didn't see him. I thought he'd gone back ahead of us. I even called him, but he didn't answer."
Boss Lin sounded nervous again. "Impossible, impossible. Assistant He joined my company right after graduation, and he's been my assistant for two years. I know his attitude toward work. He would never just leave you there and go off on his own without a word."
"Has something happened to He? Did anything happen while you were in Xu Family Village? Anything unusual?"
I could tell Boss Lin was genuinely worried. I almost wanted to tell him that his assistant was a spy.
But I wasn't that naive. If something really had happened to Assistant He, and we were the last people to see him, we would never be able to explain ourselves.
Sometimes, you really did have to be a little more careful.
"We were only asking around in Xu Family Village. Nothing unusual happened. I wonder if something happened at Assistant He's home and he rushed back."
"Why don't you call his family and ask?" I said reassuringly. "He's a grown man. Surely he