The factory building was packed with machines of all sizes. This appeared to be a processing workshop for the final few stages of turning pulp into finished paper, and scraps of pulp dried into hard clumps lay everywhere.
The processing machines were enormous, some nearly three or four meters tall, with all kinds of pipes and production lines connected to them.
As a result, the interior was quite a maze, with hiding places everywhere. Nick and Wu could watch the others' every move from a distance through the gaps between the pipes.
But by the same token, when the crisp click of high heels against the floor suddenly rang out, they failed to spot where the newcomer had emerged from.
The two sides were some distance apart, and the three people were deliberately keeping their voices low. Nick and Wu heard only a faint rustle of activity, unable to make out a single word.
And because the woman who had just appeared kept her back to them the entire time, they could not see her face either.
"Let's move somewhere closer and take a look." Nick had waited ages without seeing her turn around. He was quietly motioning for Wu to follow him around to the other side when a bee suddenly landed on the railing in front of them, raised its large abdomen, and exposed the dangerous barbed stinger at its tip.
Before they could react, a scalp-prickling buzz rose, like the roar of some low-pitched engine. Then countless bees, seemingly guided by something, gathered into a small dark cloud and swept through the gaps between the machines and pipes toward them.
At the same time, the three suspects whispering together on the other side seemed to receive some sort of signal. They instantly scattered, fleeing in different directions.