The Son In-law They Mocked Found The Lost Vault

CHAPTER 11: SUNRISE

Ding.

The little bell rang once more, softly, and then the shop below went quiet.

Nobody in the room moved. Helen was still holding the edge of the table. Old Lu was frozen on the bed with his hands on his knees. Adrian stood in the middle of the floor with the fallen chair behind him, and he could hear only one thing in the whole world.

A footstep. Downstairs. Slow and careful, like someone trying not to be heard.

Then another.

Old Lu reached over and turned the oil lamp all the way down. The room went dark. Only a thin line of moonlight came in around the edge of the blanket on the window.

"Did you lock the door?" Adrian whispered.

"Yes," Old Lu whispered back. "I always lock it."

"Then who has a key?"

The old man did not answer. That was the answer.

Adrian looked around the dark room. There was nothing to fight with. No pole, no bucket, nothing like the garden at the Feng house. Then his eyes found something on the small table by the door. A bookbinder's needle. Long and thick, made of steel, with a wooden handle. Old Lu used it to push holes through leather.

He picked it up. It felt foolish in his hand. But it was better than nothing.

"Stay here," he said to Helen.

"No."

"Helen."

"I said no." Her voice was low and fierce in the dark. "Every time you say stay here, something bad happens to you. I am coming."

There was no time to argue. Adrian went to the top of the stairs. Helen came behind him, one hand holding the back of his jacket the way she had in the tunnel. The old wooden steps creaked under their feet, and every creak sounded like a gunshot.

Halfway down, Adrian stopped.

There was someone standing in the middle of the shop. A small shape, between the tall shelves. Too small to be one of Victor's men. It was holding something round in both hands, something that let out a thin line of steam.

"Uncle Lu?" a small voice said. "Uncle Lu, are you up there?"

Adrian let out his breath. It was a boy. Maybe eleven or twelve years old, thin, with big ears and a dirty apron tied around his waist. He was holding a bowl of noodles.

"Bao," Old Lu called from the top of the stairs. He sounded tired and very relieved. "What are you doing here at this hour, you foolish boy?"

"I saw your light, Uncle. I brought you noodles. You never eat." The boy stared at Adrian and the steel needle in his hand. His eyes went wide. "Who is he?"

"A friend," Old Lu said, coming down the stairs. "Put that thing away, Adrian, before you frighten him to death. This is Bao. His mother owns the noodle stall next door. He has a copy of my key because I am an old man and I lose mine."

Adrian lowered the needle. His hand was shaking now that the danger was gone. Helen leaned her forehead against his back for one second, and he felt her breathe out.

But the boy did not smile. He put the bowl down on the counter and looked at Old Lu with a serious face.

"Uncle, there are men in the main street," he said. "Three black cars. They stopped at the fish market and the tea shop. They are waking people up and asking questions."

The room went cold again.

"What questions?" Old Lu asked.

"They asked if anyone saw an old man with a scar on his chin." The boy touched his own chin. "And a tall young man who looks hurt. And a pretty lady with no shoes."

All three adults looked at each other.

"What did people tell them?" Helen asked.

"Nobody said anything. Everyone in this lane likes Uncle Lu. He fixed my school books for free." The boy lifted his chin proudly. "But the men said they will pay a lot of money. And Mr. Wu at the end of the lane loves money more than his own mother."

Old Lu closed his eyes for a moment. Then he put his hand on the boy's head.

"Go home, Bao. Lock your door. If anyone asks, you did not come here tonight. You did not see anything. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Uncle."

"And Bao." The old man's voice was gentle. "Thank you."

The boy ran out. The little bell rang behind him. Old Lu locked the door, then pushed a heavy shelf of books in front of it.

They went back upstairs in silence. Nobody turned the lamp on. They sat in the dark, three people who barely knew each other, listening to the night.

Far away, a car engine moved slowly through the streets. It came closer. Then farther. Then closer again. Like a hungry animal walking around a house, smelling for food.

Adrian sat on the floor with his back against the wall of photos. He could feel the edges of the old pictures touching his shoulders. Pictures of a lonely boy. He did not want to look at them anymore.

He thought about Chen.

He tried to see the man in his mind. Chen, with his hard face and his gray hair cut short like a soldier's. Chen, who stood at the gate of the Feng house every morning for two years and never once said good morning to Adrian. Chen, who looked at him the way you look at a stain on a wall.

And Chen tonight, on the pier. Standing in front of the car with his gun raised. His voice like iron. Let go of Mr. West, or I will shoot the first man who takes another step.

A killer does not save the grandson of the man he killed.

Does he?

Unless he needs that grandson alive. Unless someone paid him to keep Adrian breathing until the jade was found.

The thought made Adrian feel sick. Because it made sense. Too much sense. Every piece of this night had been a trap inside a trap inside a trap. Kevin's junk jade. Marcus's phone call. Victor's kind smile. Why should Chen be any different?

He looked across the dark room at Helen. She was sitting on the edge of the bed with her arms around her knees. Her face was turned to the window, and the thin moonlight lay across her cheek.

"I have known Chen my whole life," she said suddenly, very quietly. She was not talking to anyone. She was talking to the window. "When I was five, I fell from the big tree in our garden and broke my arm. Chen carried me all the way to the hospital in his arms. He did not wait for the car. He ran. My mother was at a party. My father was in another city. Chen sat beside my bed all night. When I woke up, he was still there. He had not even taken off his shoes."

Nobody said anything.

"He taught me how to ride a bicycle," she went on. "He used to buy me sweets and tell me not to tell my mother. He is the only person in that house who ever asked me if I was happy." Her voice cracked. "How can a man like that push an old man down the stairs?"

"People are not one thing, Miss Feng," Old Lu said softly. "A man can carry a child to the hospital on Monday and do something terrible on Tuesday. That is the saddest thing I have learned in my long life."

Helen pressed her face against her knees.

Then her phone rang.

It was so loud in the quiet room that all three of them jumped. The screen lit up her face in blue. She looked at the name, and Adrian saw her whole body go tight.

"It is him," she said.

"Do not answer," Old Lu said.

"He has my father."

She pressed the button and put the phone on speaker.

"Helen." Victor's voice filled the room. It was soft and warm again, like honey. The angry child from the study was gone. "Thank God. I was so worried about you. Running around in the dark with no shoes. You could catch a cold."

"Where is my father?"

"Your father is fine. Well. Almost fine." Victor sighed, like a doctor with bad news. "The excitement was too much for him tonight. His heart, you know. He fell down right after you left. Do not worry. I took him to our family clinic on Hill Road myself. He has the best doctors in the city. For now."

Helen's knuckles were white around the phone. "If you hurt him..."

"Me? Hurt him? Helen, I am the one saving his life." He laughed softly. "But medicine is expensive. Doctors are expensive. And my family is getting a little tired of paying the Feng family's bills."

"What do you want?"

"You know what I want. I have the mountains. I have the tiger seal. Your mother was very helpful with that, by the way. She is crying beautifully right now, sitting in my car. All I am missing is one small piece of green stone with a river on it." His voice dropped. "Bring it to the clinic on Hill Road at sunrise. Come alone, Helen. Not with him. Not with the old man. Just you. Give it to me with your own hands, and your father comes home in an ambulance, warm and safe."

"And if I do not come?"

"Then his heart may get worse," Victor said gently. "Hearts are such weak things. Sunrise, Helen. Not one minute after."

The line went dead.

The room was silent. Helen sat looking at the black screen of her phone. Then, very slowly, she stood up and began to put on her shoes.

"Helen," Adrian said.

"I am going."

"It is a trap. You know it is a trap."

"Of course I know." She did not look at him. She was tying the thin strap of her shoe, and her fingers were shaking so much that it took three tries. "But he is my father, Adrian. He sent me away to save me. I will not sit here in the dark while they let his heart stop."

Adrian stood up. He took the river half of the jade out of his pocket and looked at it in the moonlight. Two years of his life. His grandfather's whole life. The only piece of the puzzle still in his hands.

It weighed almost nothing. And it weighed more than anything he had ever held.

"Then we go together," he said.

"He said alone."

"He says many things." Adrian closed his hand around the stone. "I am not letting you walk into that place by yourself. If you go, I go. That is the end of it."

Helen finally looked at him. There was something in her eyes he had never seen before. It was not love. Not yet. But it was close to trust. And for a man who had been alone for twelve years, that was almost the same thing.

Outside the window, the sky was starting to turn gray. Sunrise was less than an hour away.

Then someone knocked on the shop door downstairs.

Not the soft knock of a boy. Three hard knocks, heavy and slow. The shelf Old Lu had pushed against the door shook with each one.

Old Lu went to the window and lifted the corner of the blanket. He looked down into the lane, and Adrian saw his face turn the color of ash.

"Who is it?" Adrian whispered.

The old man did not need to answer. The voice came up from the lane, rough and deep. A voice they all knew.

"Miss Feng," Chen called. "I know you are in there. Open the door."

He paused, and they heard him take a slow, painful breath.

"Please. We do not have much time."

Adrian moved to the window and looked down. In the gray light of the coming dawn, Chen stood alone in the lane. His left arm hung loose at his side, and the whole sleeve of his dark coat was wet and shining.

It was blood.

And in his right hand, pointed at the ground, was his gun.